Reviews

I didn't know what to expect. I am not a fan of reality shows. They had three young American women come to Paris and spend ten days in a nice hotel. They giggled like high school girls and were hopefully to find romance. It turns out they were given a script each day to follow. From the start they met three men who were apparently pre-selected for "meet cute" situations. None of the men were listed by name in the credits.

Nothing happens much except for a few kisses, dancing and meals. I don't see any of these pairings turning into a serious relationship. There were a few conversations between the couples on what they wanted. One woman was 4 months out from a thirteen-year relationship and wanted another long-term commitment,

Abot the best that can be said is that the six people had a nice expense paid time. The budget was listed as an estimated $100,000 which is really barebones,

In the past year I have seen several dramas where scenes are almost pitch black. Even when I turn up the monitor as high as it will go. Then I read a lot of people also noticed this trend.

They said one director decided it was more dramatic to make scenes dark to cast a somber mood, well, monkey, monkey do.

Episode three is almost pitch black. I realize all they had in that period was gaslights and candles. But this is ridiculous.

The acting is excellent and the scripts true to the period as well as I can tell. They haven't tried to prettify life nor make it politically correct or woke. This getting to be a real problem.

This series is available on You Tube. However, it is posted in two parts running over three hours each and called Conclusion. It was created by a company called Epic Media which has other high-quality movies and is in Russian with English subtitles. I noticed they have made some shows available in other language subtitles as well.

The plot concerns a married woman surgeon who writes prescriptions for a few patients who are both poor and in great pain. One of them becomes homeless and is a murder victim. This leads to her being arrested and convicted of violating drug laws although she did not profit from her actions.

This leads to her daughter and husband leaving her. She then accepts a deal from the police to work as a coroner in a work release program while wearing an ankle monitor. She takes part in several suspicious death cases while being overseen by a homicide detective. Things do not go well between them and there is no romance.

This show has almost no ratings. Most rated it as a 7 but 4 people gave it a one dragging it down. Perhaps they did not like some aspects as to how Russian life is portrayed. It is shot in real locations and not a studio. There are scenes of how badly foreign immigrants have to live in slums and exploited, political corruption, blocks of vandalized and empty buildings as well as expensive homes and cars of the elites.

Another series on You Tube is called Professor and set in turn of the century Russia and called Professor. It has decent plots and what are lavish costumes and settings. It is based on a sort of Sherlock Holmes amateur detective. It is obvious a great deal of money was spent on it.

I saw a Belgian miniseries called Hotel Beau Sejour a few years ago. The plot is from the first season of that show. In the first episode all the original characters are there including the drunk father and the motorcycle racing boyfriend.

The only people who could see her were people she talked to on the last day of her death. None of them try to help her. They spend their time scurrying around destroying evidence of their own involvement in drug dealing and other crimes. The Belgian Police have a notorious reputation for corruption and ineptness.

It will be interesting if the plot begins to deviate.

Other reviewers have pointed out the cultural and historical mistakes rightfully. But I would like to point out the modern ones. The main character stays in a spacious lodge for one. She leaves, including for a trip of a week, without turning off the lights, locking the door, or even putting out the unneeded fire in the fireplace.

She and the park ranger never wear a hat for protection against the sun. They have no canteens of water or are seen staying hydrated. If I were going out in the wilderness for a week, I would charge up my cellphone, spotty reception or not. She did use it to take pictures with.

She also told the ranger she was taking only a few power bars for food. It also might have seemed more authentic to have at least a few Native American cast members as extras.

The inside of the grandmother's house looked like a modern suburban house. Many Native Americans living in rural isolation have a jerry-built home or an old trailer house. These are just a few thoughts off the top of my head. The scenery was the bet part.

I stuck it out to the end but wasted my time. You see better acting and plots on many Hallmark Channel tv movies. I don't blame the actors so much as whoever wrote this thing.

The man playing the director had a fake accent so bad that it was impossible to tell what country he was supposed to be from. He also played it for laughs and not a person in control of an expensive and complicated project,

The young teenage daughter of the B&B owners was so hyper that she practically bounced off the walls. Then in the second half seemed to fade mostly from view and was more subdued.

In the end the only thing enjoyable was the scenery.

I saw a couple of these mysteries in the past. But in this one the lead actress was obnoxious running rough shod over everyone else despite warnings and frowns. It was like seeing a dog on a leash that nearly rips your arm off lunging ahead frantically.

Don't rely on anything said by any of the characters, adult or juvenile. They are a group of alcoholic, corrupt, drug dealing losers indulging in pedophilia and murder of teenage girls. This includes incestouous relationships. They scurry around lying about everything and destroy key evidence continually.

Most go undiscovered and unpunished during a hurried ending.

I watched the first season. They must have not hired a police advisor. Seldom have I seen complete ignorance of proper procedure, blatant lying, and criminals allowed to go free because of connections to the prosecutors and police officers. I won't bother with the gaps in continuity. The only two likable characters were the lead's husband that she cheated on and a homeless woman whose attackers went free to protect the guilty.

People always say this about even great movies if its not their cup of tea. But in this case it might be true. Its totally inept and painful to watch. Even on MST3000. What is really depressing is to to see these pretty girls in bikinis knowing that they are now approaching social security age.

I glance through the Daily Mail online and have seen him on tv and that is enough.

This is similar to a Twilight Zone episode from 1960 starring William Shatner and Patricia Breslin. They play a couple stuck in a diner waiting on their car to be repaired. They ask a Fortune Telling Machine a series of questions which turn out to be true. Being longer Twilight Zone has more time to flesh out the plot

I watched three episodes of this show in the US on PBS Masterpiece, They were 60 minutes each. This site describes 6 episodes for 360 total minutes. I am used to English episodes being refigured from say 6 episodes to 5 since PBS does not need time for commercials. But this seems extreme. The 6 episodes seem to cover all the plots described in the three episodes on PBS. I did enjoy what I saw.

There are no longer bulletin boards so will post this as a review. The dialogue is lagging so far behind the scenes that they are sometimes into another scene. Its like watching a poorly dubbed foreign import. I found this on standard definition and high definition channels. It needs to be fixed by HBO

PS I rewatched the on demand 1st episode and the video and dialogue have been fixed. I was surprised to find this was a movie in 2010 and You tube has videos of the actual house with interior shots, Also that are diaries of the actual Anne Lister that have been published.

Some British classics keep being remade like "emma" etc. I guess they like updates with current star power. This movie is alright if you have not seen previous versions. To me Poirot is best done by David Suchet, who starred in the TV series about the detective. I saw Suchet on an episode of "Who Do You Think you are?" He had no clue to his European origins.

PBS also had a special on the actual Orient Express with him as guest and narrator. He was like a delighted kid, even getting to rise in the engine.

Neither this film nor the earlier movie is as good as a plagiarized TV version from 1957. In 1957 Playhouse 90 aired a play called "The Sound of Different Drummers. It starred Sterling Hayden and a top notch cast directed by John Frankenheimer. The next day Ray Bradbury received a deluge of calls from his friends. He was not given credit, paid or asked permission to use his work. It included the big scene of a woman preferring to burn to death surrounded with her book collection. There was nothing about DNA nor an injected bird. John Ireland played Hayden's supervisor in the Fire Department. Diana Lynn played the woman who introduces Hayden to book reading from books seized by the department to be burned, This new version is really bad from every aspect

He was outraged and sued CBS. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and he won and collected damages. I still remember most of the plot. Montag shared an apartment with another fireman and was a bachelor and was not married to Julie Christie living in a house. He walked into the apartment the first time and his roommate was watching the Tokyo Dodgers win the World Series on a flat screen TV in the wall. Montag was under a death sentence at the end and refused to make a deal or agree to a jailbreak by the underground. He had become disillusioned by both sides.

Bradbury wrote a 30 page document on the plagiarism. It was estimated 80% was Bradbury's work with 20% Hollywood jacking around like they do with other people's work.

In 1990 I saw the documentary "Paris is Burning" covering this same scene, Find yourself a cd somewhere pr watch it on You Tube and see the real thing. Madonna went to the balls and incorporated backup dancers voguing to material from these balls. It gave her career another boost,

Many of the young people lead marginal existences living on dreams. One of the most petite fragile people was found beaten to death soon after with no biological family to claim her body. Her house saved her body being dumped in potter's field.

I'll revise my score if this show starts getting more realistic about how it actually was.