Reviews

I have started to devour this series. I am mad I can't watch the 8th episode of season one because I RUDELY have to work.

But this episode is the weakest of the series - only because they cram SO MUCH into it. They gloss over the character's backstory and rush into the premise.

I think they thought people might not care? I don't know. But it's a weak beginning.

Stick it out. By episode 3, I was all-in.

The premise is pretty simple: Woman surgeon wants to escape humiliation and endless media after a scandal with her husband and accepts the lead role in the Flying Doctor service, where medical teams fly to emergent medical scenarios in rural Aussie Outback. (I don't know if it's actually the Outback but it's flat, drought-stricken, and vast.)

I'm pretty lucky to be captioning this for broadcast on Canadian television. I probably would never have tuned into it otherwise.

But the further I get into it, the more engrossed I am in this fascinating story about post-war Singapore.

For those who are as ignorant as I am, Singapore was a British colony soon occupied by Japan during the WWII. There were legendary clashes, all kinds of oppressive violence.

The Chinese, Malays, Tamil, and British all made Singapore an amazing place, but this is fraught with post-occupation anger against the Japanese, and two of our key protagonists are lawyers employed by a law firm tasked with giving a defense to a Japanese officer on trial for war crimes, with death hanging in the balance as the consequence of losing the trial.

The series begins with the assigning of the law case, and it develops around that and so much more.

The cast is not of all British actors but instead people who are actually from the places they're supposed to be from - China, India, Singapore, Malaysia, and the UK.

It's a heady swirl of cultures and clashes and colonialism and war crimes, plus the fight between the modern way of a younger generation against the traditions of old.

It's something different from your usual fare on war history re WWII, and there's a lot to like here. I highly recommend it.

I rated this seven, first then changed to 8, because it's still a pretty captivating series.

Someone complained that the transformations aren't very radical. They're not, that's true. But I think that Brazil is ultimately more conservative culturally and I think that's just how it goes.

The transformations are more personal and in the heart, I think, than flashy outward changes.

If I had to rank the (Netflix) series, I'd go the original Netflix Fab 5, then Germany, then Brazil.

I still think this is a really watchable series and I love it too. The health guy talks food but also fitness, mental health, etc, and he's a (hottie!) real doctor and former physiotherapist, so I enjoy his perspective. It's a bit different than the others.

But I do NOT like the stylist very much. Some of his choices are so bad. But maybe that's just Brazil being a different style vibe. Still... dubious on him.

My feelings on this show have changed over time - I saw it for the first time around 2016 or so, and I've actually gone and watched nearly every season I can.

From season 16 on, with Andi Oliver as presenter, I absolutely love it. Nisha, Ed, and Tom are great judges and the humour is fab.

But season 15 was weird and all the prior ones are stodgy and stuff because the judges were very snobby people. Nice, but snobby and very white British.

But I'm Canadian and I watch on iPlayer. Like any British show aired in Canada, if you saw a broadcast version, they'd cut out way too much to take from 58 minutes in the UK to 42 minutes here.

The gist of the series is this: the UK is divvied into 8 regions, and in each, four chefs - previously just 3 - compete over 4 courses (and, since 2015/2016, two not judged tasters, a canapé & pre dessert, which are used for tie-breaking).

The show used to be 5x30 minutes a week, and now it is 3x58:00 instead. It's the same format weekly for 8 weeks - canapé, starter and fish on night one, main and pre-dessert and dessert on night two, and all 6 courses cooked for the judges by the top two chefs of that heat on night 3.

The first two shows each week have a mentor chef judge who will score all the courses after the day's cooking. The top 3 on night one continue on, with the 4th getting the axe. The top 2 go through after desserts on night 2. And on night three, the top chef then gets put through to the finals week.

In finals week, all 8 chefs compete to try to get one or more courses through to the "great British banquet." First night is starters, second is fish, etc. Fifth night, it's the big banquet and you see how it all plays out.

This year, the theme is British animation & illustration, and prior years have been things like great British science contributions, technology, rock n roll, TV, etc. I love watching the creative ways chefs meet the brief, which has vastly improved since season 1.

I also love how the show is never nasty or mean spirited. Chefs help each other and have lots of camaraderie. But that was not true in the early seasons, which I didn't enjoy. I think it changed by year 5 or so, under new directors who decided to make it competitive but friendly.

Now with the new judges and host, the personality of the show has caught up to the pleasant fun competitiveness.

This is one series where you can start watching at any point in the years it has been aired on, so I highly recommend watching seasons 16-18, if you're new to the show. (For whiplash, after you finish, watch the very toxic season 1.)

Back in 2015, I went nomad for a long time and travelled cheaply, nonstop for a few years.

So, I love travel. But...

Some angry-at-the-world chump below slammed this series as some huge entitlement thing. Whatever. You do you, man.

But here's the thing: Not everyone likes travel. In fact, it's downright terrifying to some folks.

Because if you've got anxiety, travelling is number one with a bullet for triggering that stuff.

And Eugene Levy is a man who's made an entire career out of his anxiety. It's a huge part of his comedy and persona, and it's not a schtick. He doesn't like travelling. He likes to stay home or go to restaurants or play golf.

He's a boring guy because boring works GREAT for anxiety.

This series, however, is one that Apple aggressively pursued him to make. He did so as a realization that he was 75 and staring at ending life with a lot of regrets and questions about whether he could have lived more.

As someone who now sees travel as a part of who I am, I loved seeing this guy starting "getting" what travel is about.

And yes, it's world-class luxury, as a nod to Schitt's Creek, but every time Levy has a potentially lifechanging "aha" travel moment, it's doing stuff that's accessible to every income level - it's meeting the local people without agendas. It's experiencing the simple moments.

If this series shows anyone that there is more to travel than getting off a plane to see the known sites and visit all the popular neighbourhoods, I will be delighted.

As for Levy, he is self-deprecating, charming, droll, open, and even vulnerable as he narrates and hosts the entire show.

I love the series and plan to finish the final three episodes RIGHT NOW.

But if you want a lighthearted, fun, BEAUTIFULLY-shot travel series, despite the posh locales, you won't find any pretensions here. Just curiosity from a guy who's lived an entire life dictated by his fears of everything around him... and, for once, confronting those fears to see what it does for him.

It's a show as much about growth and anxiety as it is about travel, with a lot of good humour along the way.

Anyone who thinks this is "Hallmark" clearly stopped watching in episode two.

This show is one of the best shows I've seen about deep love and the struggles that come later and all the roller coasters that come as a relationship unfolds long-term.

Trying to avoid spoilers.

I will say this - I became so emotionally attached to these characters that when things were clearly going to take a dark turn, I walked away for over a week.

But when I finally watched the last two episodes, I laughed, I cried, I laughed, I cried.

In fact, for the first time in my life, when the final episode ended, I watched the last 40 minutes AGAIN.

Zoe Saldana is AMAZING in the lead. The show even has a great child actor. The extended family casting on both sides - every single character and actor is endearing, commanding, and perfect for the role and the story.

If you like a truly great love story, food, Italy, humour, etc - there is so much to love here. Highly recommend. And stay with it. The ending is what you need it to be.

First off, to the person who complains that there's swearing, like it's a shock to hear form cooks. What's shocking is that swearing is censored so much for other shows because cooks and chefs swear like it's a career requirement.

Second, as a diehard fan of cooking shows, I'm really disappointed in the lack of discussion about what the cooks are doing or how. A guy makes switch from scratch. Are we shown this? No! He just tells them he did it.

I never "not learn" from cooking shows and that's true of this one. I'm only two episodes in so maybe it's all the background storytelling that gets in the way of technique discussion but it's a bit frustrating.

I want to love this but I feel like it was made by a team that don't actually watch a lot of great cooking shows. I'll keep watching because I want to see who wins but they really need to beef up the value for watching this. Give us techniques and tips, show us more of what the actual chefs are cooking.

If you're the kind of Western fan who loves the grittiness, character development, and intelligence of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, then you gotta check out Godless.

Scott Frank directs The Queen's Gambit as well, and both series have the same cinematographer too. Visually, this is a master's class in setting the mood for Westerns.

The acting is terrific. The writing is stellar. The story is told in dialogue but also through exceptional camera work and editing.

What's great too is they tell the story how it needs to be told. Seven episodes of various lengths - fr 40 minutes to 80 minutes long. That tells you that the story comes first, not a formula.

It's dark. It's violent. It's unnerving.

It's not for everyone.

But if you love Unforgiven, this should hit home too.