Reviews

It's also the highest rated episode until this point in the series and it deserves to be. Impressive feat considering that one of the main central characters doesn't die and/or something potentially tragic or unexpected happens in one of the central storylines. I always wonder how a TV series with rotating directors decides which director gets the lucky break of getting a lead character death episode (maybe it's random, maybe they earn it, etc), I digress. Only point being is this episode pulls it off without having to utilize any of the usual tropes.

I've also watched the series multiple times around, but I've never focused on this show on a per episode basis, but this episode was so excellent I took note and I may try from this point forward. For first time viewers, I recommend the opposite, because truly good shows like this one don't feel episodic as far as the central characters go. The different schmo deaths on an episodic basis is a really cool touch and is obviously episodic, but the central characters journey feels continuous/smooth, which only the best shows pull off. Not easy with multiple writers and directors, it requires a lot of collaboration.

Spoilers Below

And possibly the best moment of the episode is the bike gifted to Nate, which the writers/directors pulled off. I'm curious to know how everything came together. At face value gifting a funeral director a bike doesn't work, so did they have one idea before the other and did they figure out a way to make it fit or did a good idea simply fall into place? It just so happens (or does it) to fall on Christmas Eve where a biker group has lost a loved one and will spend whatever it takes to honor and celebrate their friend. Maybe the person/people paying for it have money to spare or maybe they live each day as it comes and aren't planning for their retirement fund. And once again what funeral home is going to be open on Christmas Eve into Christmas day and the Fishers are no exception, but we'll pay whatever takes makes it happen, which fits in with everything. Nate ends up staying with the group through the night and at one point has a really nice conversation with the widow. So the next day there's an envelope left from the widow with the keys to her deceased husbands bike and it's believable. (earlier in the episode we found out that Nate had a bike for a day but he rolled it and sold it)... so Nate rides off into the sunset... actually not the sunset, perhaps that would have been a little too heavy handed or simply not accurate since Nate is perhaps beginning a new perspective with still a journey ahead.

This is a very big episode. It's essentially the one year anniversary for our introduction to the characters in the show, which makes it Brenda's and Nates anniversary or is it the other way around, which makes it Nathanial Fishers death anniversary.. Brenda finds out about Nate's condition. It could just as easily be the first or last episode of a season. And there are parallels to the first episode of the show... we get to know the father a little better in flashbacks, who we further see his lackadaisical whatever attitude (at the very least in his later years did). I would go so far as to say that he didn't care enough to live each day as though it were his last, because that would require too much planning. He seems to have had similar characteristics to Lester Burnham from American Beauty after Lester has a self realization (to the Laymen Alan Ball wrote that as well). Nathanial Fisher seems like a great guy, but not a great father, especially to Claire (similar to Lester and his daughter Jane), who we find out barely knew her... In a flashback with Nate and Claire. His only acknowledgment towards Claire was, thanks "kid"... very non affectionate and distancing. And it just so happens we see Claire continue and or revert back to seeking a potential relationship with Billy... a bad boy type who needs saving (perhaps it's daddy issues). Poor Claire... with a stranger for a father and a mother like Ruth and her closet brother Nate moving away before moving back (Nate is flawed but for Claire he's probably her best source of guidance). There are certainly worse hands to be dealt, but far from ideal. The show overall maintains what seems like a genuine true to life psychology in it's characters journey's and their storylines, which is certainly apparent in this episode.

This standup makes Brendan Schaubs The Gringo Papi look like a masterpiece.

The whole act is painfully boring and the entire act is loaded with the most cliche observations that were beaten to death 20+ years ago.. Woman shop a lot get it... women pack a lot... get it. Remember back in the day when phones had cords on them. This is horrifically unfunny. I don't know how it's possible for someone to put out something this bad.

It's not a matter of taste, no one found this act funny those people who ranked this act over a 1 have an insane degree of bias in favor of a comedian they like as opposed to a funny comedy act they liked. Even many open micers have some essence of funny even if they're nervous and fumbling the delivery... this is the worst written material of all time. Foxworthy must be mentally ill to be this out of touch with comedy.

First of all I just want to give a shout out to Apple TV since they are responsible for Severance, which is already one of the greatest shows ever and I appreciate their flexibility with the show to make sure the second season is done right. Many other networks would metal and force out an imperfect product, so props. And these two shows should never be used in the same sentence in any other way other than they are both on Apple TV. And with that Silo is not their fault. They gave a nod to a show that seemed as though it may be worth while and from there the creators/directors take over and as a result we get Silo which very much feels like a rookie project.

Where to begin. The first episode was ok and had me intrigued, but from there the show morphs into an entirely different type of show, one btw that is painfully boring. By the final episode the show comes back around to where it began and we as the viewers could have and should have eliminated the middle man (the middle man being episodes 3-9, which are not an enjoyable experience). But it wouldn't matter anyways, because the show isn't written well, it isn't acted well, it isn't casted well and man is it heavy handed. As a result the show comes across painfully corny!

The first complaint is a somewhat minor one and that's the lead actress who plays Julliete is fighting off an accent something fierce. It sounds like multiple accents are fighting and they're all getting there arses kicked. I just wish one would prevail. Then there's the character Martha Walker, which is one of the phoniest most artificial worst acted characters I've ever come across. She sounds like she's voice acting for a cartoon (the actress was great in Succession to be fair, but this is a fail, which the writing makes it challenging for anyone to act well). Then there's the Robert Simmons character, which is acted by the rapper Common who struggles with acting (you could tell he's putting everything into it though but it's bad) and he looks as though he just wandered off the set of the Matrix. Tim Robbins/Andy Dufriane the head of IT feels like yet another forced character and doesn't work (and fills the cliché of getting some veteran actor to play the tyrant of some dystopian society).

This is possibly a very minor spoiler if you could even call it that, since it's introduced in the first episode and is ultimately the central premise of the show, but just to be safe I'll call it a spoiler. For dramatic effect they call being exiled outside into the toxic world ... cleaning, which is pretty hilarious because they merely wipe the lens. This entire process makes absolutely no logical sense at all in reference to anything one way or the other. Do they or don't they wipe the lens. I'm not saying it would matter one way or the other, but those exiled outside, they and their mouths are in full HD, if need be they could communicate whatever they wanted to the camera and those inside, but for dramatic effect they pretend as though they are mutes who could only communicate via lens wiping, but I digress. It's just funny because wiping the lens (cleaning) becomes this morse code for something, which is soooo silly. And if all those who were exiled before all did the same thing and things ended badly for them, why would anyone duplicate the process. Anyways, this is the perfect metaphor for what's to come in reference to just how insanely bad the writing and the show is. If the ending of the season leaves one intrigued, just remember, the show will continue with the same horrendous writers, characters, etc, so just know that it will almost certainly go horribly.

The only thing this show is missing is a laugh track. It's that same corny formula that lacks any sense of realism... in reference to the writing, the characters, their dialogue etc. It's that insanely unrealistic style of show that should have died in the 80's.

It's unfortuante because this show has an awesome premise/idea and I would desperately like to see someone create a real show using this premise. A show can be a comedy and still maintain some sense of realism. I would even go so far as to say that, that's the only way for genuinely funny material to exist. This show is way too silly to be funny and goes for these constant slap stick jokes in which 95+% aren't even slightly funny for all people in all places and times.. The characters are so painfully silly as well. None of the characters have any qualities that are even fractionally on the level of the way an actual human being acts.

I wonder if shows intend to be this painfully stupid or do they initially try to be a genuine show creating good content, but as a result of lacking the writing talent etc. They turn out like this?

Once again this is an excellent premise. It's unfortunate how such a fun/entertaining/interesting premise could be sent to such a bad place.

At this point I feel as though I've gone down the rabbit hole of all the decent/good TV shows and I've been at the end of my rope for a while just trying to find any new show where I can squeeze even an ounce of enjoyment out of and it's a test in futility because there doesn't seem to be much left and then I came across this show and I was pleasantly surprised. I'm pretty picky in what I like and a common complaining theme of mine is I detest movies/snows that lack any sense of realism... a connection that is relatable to the reality we live in, regardless of the premise. It could be a fantasy with dragons, but does it feel reel. And this show succeeds very much so in this sense.

This show I put on the back burner because I was a tad skeptical after watching the trailer. I thought it may be slap sticky and/or go too far into that silly realm that I was talking about. The premise didn't seem like it was enough to carry an entire series. So are these two just going to be going back and forth one upping each other to the point of idiocrasy or what?... But as it turns out no there's actually a really nice over arching story going on that stays within the lines of reason. Sure things get pretty crazy down the stretch, but I'm still buying it... there's enough character realism going on to the point where I'm buying it.

It's actually a very difficult show to do a trailer for and it would have been a brutal show to pitch to the studios. I can't begin to imagine how this show got the green light, but I'm glad it did. All of my favorite shows tend to fall into that realm where, it requires the movie studios to take a leap of faith. This may seem out of left field, but I even got some Breaking Bad vibes and I would have to go back through to see/understand exactly why I got those vibes. I really like how the episodes didn't feel like individual episodes with a bow tied at the end of each one letting us know we just watched an episode... it felt very much like a continuation. The music choices though were awesome which put a nice touch capping off each episode, with the penultimate episode being the best with The Smashing Pumpkins Mayonnaise. The music was just a nice touch to an already well written show.

If I had Uncle Rico's time machine and could go back to the early to mid 90's with 25 movies from the future to show my high school friends, Napoleon Dynamite would be one of my selections. It's insanely original... there's never been a movie made like it before or since. And they made it for only $400,000. It truly is a classic that holds the test of time. There aren't too many original/classic gems over the years in the comedy category (or just in general), but this is certainly one of them. Every 5 years or so I revisit this movie and it still works.

It's weird when they call it a cult classic, because I've never known anyone who hasn't seen it. Napoleon Dynamite became a part of our pop culture. I still regularly hear and use quotes from it. It's a classic!

I'm a gargantuan fan of the Joe Schmo Show 1 & 2 (both follow this format where everyone's an actor except for the schmo), both of which are astronomically funnier than this one and I agree that sometimes less is more, but this was simply less is less. The writing/planning for this wasn't very good. Most joke ideas fell pretty flat. Some of the stuff was so stupid it was difficult to watch. The Noah character was extremely stupid so was every storyline pertaining to him (and horrendously acted, it was cringe worthy to watch). In the end it's weird that they play out and make a big deal about some of Ronalds decisions in the end whereas pretty much every decision was made for him... there wasn't that much for our mark to do.

If you enjoyed this and haven't watched the Joe schmo show I highly recommend that, because part 1 & 2 of that show are sooo much better and two of may favorite shows of all time. I will give this show props in that... at least it was authentic. The only thing that would have made this worse is if it was disingenuous and 90% of these shows are fake including the person who isn't supposed to be in on it.

Another decent show in this category is My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancee. There are a handful of other ones, but all the other ones that I'm familiar with are fake.

This is a show I could never recommend to most people because a good percentage of viewers aren't going to like it and it's challenging to know what type of person will like it. In theory I should love this show (I like weird atypical themes/premises), but in reality this show isn't as deep as it pretends to be. It relies heavily on a nice dramatic score that constantly plays in the background to artificially build it's dramatic moments, which you could play that music to someone picking their nose and it's going to come across like a profound heart felt moment. It's a technique that works amazingly well and I don't flaw a show for utilizing this technique... Awesome scores do so much for building drama and adding emotion to shows, but this show over utilizes it and uses it as crutch. In one scene the dramatic music is going to some chick in a store shopping... in another a chick is digging a lighter out of a drain. These were barely dramatic moments if at all, but when you add the Leftovers score.

The show is acted and shot amazingly... however the show parades around and acts as though it's building a super meaningful thought provoking show, but it's a fugazi under false pretense. It's not the deep show that it pretends to be.

I watched this show around the time it aired and I just decided to go back through and rewatch it, because it was a show that I couldn't really say if I liked or disliked and figured perhaps on a rewatch I may find that I really enjoy it, however I'm exactly the same after a rewatch as I was after the first time. It's odd in that it likes to skip over character development, especially as it pertains to two people interacting with one another.

This part is kind of spoiler, so don't read further if you don't want a spoiler... the overarching purpose/meaning of the show is, which we don't find out until the final episode... it's about the relationship between Kevin and Nora (it barely even seemed like a relationship it was so background and anything meaningful associated with it was glossed over), which is extremely weird given that they time jumped the foundation of the relationship and made the importance of the relationship seem so secondary yet in the end it apparently was everything, but they sure didn't act like it was as it was forming.. It almost seems as though the show didn't know how to end it so on a whim they made it about Nora and Kevin's relationship.

Laurie Garvey also comes to mind... she makes this drastic life decision to join the Guilty remnant (but all of this happens off camera) and then she makes the drastic decision to leave the Guilty remnant, but all of this essentially happens off camera as well. This drastic change back essentially happens over night or between episodes. But that's just one example, this is the case with virtually every significant character decision/change in this show. And as a result of avoiding these character arcs it's difficult to care about or be concerned with any of the characters and the society as a whole is so foreign that it's difficult to relate to anything. It's a weird show... not because it's dealing with weird material. It's weird because it feigns something much deeper than what is ultimately given to us.

Yet another reality show pretending to be authentic when the show is blatantly scripted and acted out. I'm amazed at just how bad a large percentage of people are at detecting bs in these fake reality shows. As there are plenty of things that I'm less than stellar at as well, analyzing human beings and being able to detect authenticity is second nature to me (lie detection as well) and this is a blatantly fake show I would bet my life on it. It only took less than a minute to easily conclude that this is 100% without a doubt a fake reality show. I still endured the entire first episode, but that's as far as I go.... fake shows are painful to watch when you know they're fake.

This type of thing is a gargantuan peeve of mine. Genuine reality shows are almost impossible to find. There's a spectrum as to how manipulated a reality show is. This is a 100% phony/manipulated reality show, which is unwatchable for me. To those who aren't able to see through the bs, more power to you. Perhaps you could watch this show and get some entertainment value out of it.

One of the most authentic reality shows, ironically is the Joe Schmo Show 1 & 2, which is a scripted show with actors except for the schmo who isn't in on the script. The first 2 seasons of this show are diamonds in the rough. I'm always curious to see if there's anything else out there that's genuine in this realm when I came across this show and decided to check it out and low and behold it's one of the many phony ones. I checked out The Mole as well which turned out to be a phony show as well... to be fair I only checked out one of the later seasons, so it's possible that the show didn't start off this way and transitioned into a fake reality show, but odds are it probably was from the start, but you never know. My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance is another one of the few authentic ones... entertainment wise it turned out decent, but at least it's authentic.

This show is vastly overrated. I'm not sure if it's the constant time jumps or what, but all the characters feel underdeveloped and even after completion of the first season, the development of the characters seem like they've been developed over one episode rather than ten. Are people seriously enjoying this show? There seems to be this weird phenomenon where people want to like this show and I'm just not buying that viewers actually are, at least not as much as they're pretending they are.

Wanting to like a show could maybe work for one season, but it's going to get old come the second season. The CrabFeeder is the perfect metaphor for this show. Just some underdeveloped schmo who twitches and looks like an a**hole.

This isn't what makes this show bad, but it's icing on the cake and by that I mean, things are getting carried away when it comes to manufacturing/forcing "strong female characters" on us. Even in the original Viking series we have to suspend an astronomical amount of disbelief when there's a 100 lb woman (Lagertha), who's essentially the baddest warrior to have ever lived. If you got the 3 best viking warriors ever vs. Lagertha... Lagertha wins, which is ridiculous beyond belief.. This show basically doubles down on this concept this time around, and manufactures race where it historically doesn't exist as well. It baffles me that there's people (a vocal minority perhaps) who want and demand this type of thing and they're cool with being placated like this ... to me it's insulting and condescending when races/sexes are manufactured/forced... women characters can no longer be created anymore and designed as the writing room intends. When depicting so called viking history, women now are on the front lines and are the best combat fighters.

If Oliver Stone made Platoon today he'd have to have Sargent Alias be a female and the commander as well and they would have to be the toughest soldiers, but even that isn't as ridiculous as a 100 lb woman wielding a shield and battle sword being able to take down anyone. Now if you want to add a magical element or create some scenario, such as being possessed by the Gods or something... that works. It's getting difficult to watch shows anymore... It's getting to be pretty brutal to put out a good show anymore, because the industry is so manipulated.

It's a cute simple little show, but it's nothing to go crazy over. I theorize people want to like this show more than they actually do. It's one of the better star wars based shows/movies, which isn't saying a lot, but that's enough to make a certain demographic go crazy. I can't imagine too many people being able to watch this show more than once as it's fairly repetitive.

It's a show that deals with mental illness (psychosis/schizophrenia), but they completely show their hand in the first episode and make the visual realities so grandiose that it's 100% without any shadow of a doubt a figment of the main characters (David) imagination. In the first episode they even show the visual reality through the video camera that's recording what the room sees vs. What David sees. I only made it through the 5th episode, but it's essentially like watching a hours of a dream sequence (over 20 hours worth) that you know and have been told is a dream sequence. The cinematography is awesome, however it was one of the most boring shows I've ever endured, because I/we know it's all in David's head. I guess it may work on some viewers if they can dupe themselves into believing Davids grandiose reality is what's potentially happening... I tried my hardest to dupe myself into believing it, so I could enjoy the show, but the show doesn't ever give us the option. I thought maybe I could grab onto the super hero element (which isn't my thing, but at least it's something), so it's certainly not really happening in a realistic style reality, but perhaps in a super hero realm/reality these things could be occurring... which apparently it's supposed to be based on (it appears to have been a marketing gimmick, because they certainly don't commit to that reality either). To me that show is the perfect example of what not to do, when dealing with subject matter in this realm.

A show that excels and handles the subject matter of mental illness and the mystery reality of what is and isn't real is Mr. Robot. Skip this show and watch that one instead.

BTW as I first heard about and begin watching the first episode of Legion I thought to myself this is exactly my kind of show that falls right into my wheelhouse. Only point being is, this is my ideal type of show, so my detest for this show isn't about it not being my top of show it's the execution. And the reasons why I rank this as a 1 rather than a 2 - 5 is because it has no entertainment value, because it's a 25+ hour dream sequence that tells you it's a dream sequence. Even a show that sucks has a modicum of entertainment, because it presents itself as being real in whatever reality that show takes place in... this show doesn't even let us pretend it could be happening in the reality that is given to us aside from it happening in the reality of David's head, hence it's like watching a dream... what's fun about that?

What a pretentious episode. Flashbacks can work and sometimes throughout the show they work. In order to work they need to remain tethered to the present day characters. This show at times goes way too far astray from the present day characters and this episode eliminates them completely. This episode doesn't even have a connection to any of the prior episodes and it has zero congruencey where episode 8 leaves off... it exists solely on it's own. I guess they decided to place this episode when they think we're ready for some great big reveal, as if this episode has a great big reveal. By this point the audience already knows this. Of course we didn't previously know the precise details that led to Elliot grabbing the kids and leaving that night and Olivia's ultimate fate, but we've been bombarded with the general idea. You could skip this episode and pretty much lose nothing. If you want to know the precise details, you can skip ahead to the last 15 minutes and even within those 15 minutes there's a bunch of fluff to get through.

As with some shows you have to tough it out for a couple episodes or so before it gets good. Let's hope that's the case with this show. This was a painfully boring episode. They use this episode to establish and build some storyline with the characters, but there really aren't any hooks in this episode to keep us interested. They have a handful of sort a jump scare moments, but we're not really invested in any of them, especially when they're moments from the past. Hope they'll tone down the excessive flashbacks going forward.... I'm assuming they're just using them for the time being to build a foundation for the characters and then they'll mostly focus on the present.

This is easily one of the best pilots of all time. They released the pilot a month before the show actually aired and I was blown away by it.... the anticipation I had for the season to begin was unlike any show I had watched before. Even though the show ended up being very good overall it didn't quite live up to the insanely good pilot.

The lead character (Remi Malek) has a certain charisma or something about him that makes the viewer interested in his story right out of the gate and of course the writing did a great job in the way it introduces him to the audience.

If you're new to the show and looking to get into it (without any spoilers) the show unfortunately got canceled and they had to wrap everything up going into the 4th season (I'm guessing the show would have only been 1-2 seasons longer had it gone the distance) and the ending doesn't come together well, which it may not have anyways... it's very unsatisfying. Important characters get buried and I think the overall intention doesn't come out. I theorize 1 in a 1000 figure out the ending (there's an important component that's deeper than the weak explanation that's given to you in my opinion, but it's debatable because it's as flawed as it is supported), half that amount think they understand the ending (take it all at face value, which is the explanation that most videos give on Youtube) and the rest could care less because they're so disappointed in the ending. The show has some really amazing components to it, but it's sort of under false pretense when all said is done, because it doesn't come together in an earned/satisfying way.

I was actually pretty excited after the first two episodes, but the show has not come around like I expected it too.

5 episodes in this season has hit on my last nerve. Dexter has been a total buffoon all season long and the show has the bad writing gall to chalk it up to Dexter being rusty... he's bordering on mental retardation. The show wants so very badly for us to like the Molly character, but her character is soooo forced and far fetched that it does the opposite. This season has been loaded to the gills with political agendas... something Dexter avoided in the 8 previous seasons. This season has already had at least a handful of atrociously bad (unrealistic far fetched) writes, which far supersede all of the previous 8 seasons combined and that is not an exaggeration in the slightest.

This is a little nit pick, but exceptionally weird that I'm not sure a show has done before. They carry out something through the first 5 episodes that is so insanely obvious. They even allude and point you in the direction of the obvious, but only mostly reveal it without completely revealing it. So the reverse psychology of something being so insanely obvious that it can't be true works, however tricking your audience because something is too blatantly obvious to be true is not how you want to trick your audience... you may as well just 100% reveal it instead of 95% revealing it.

I've watched the 8 previous Dexter seasons over 10 times around, but so little is happening each episode this season that there's little to be gained from watching an episode twice... yet they're managing to barely build a story or it's characters at the same time... so you try to figure it out. I was happy after the first 2 episodes, but this season has not come around like I thought. They've turned Dexter into an idiot and they're forcing us to suspend our disbelief in order to keep Dexter even likable. You have to constantly suspend your disbelief to a degree that's never been done before on Dexter.

Props to the actors though - the acting is excellent - it's not their fault that the writing is atrociously bad.

I unfortunately know how the season is going to end (approximately) because the show-runner leaked the info on numerous occasions and it's not good... it's very cliche', but it will be hailed as being good, because he's put in the lucky/dream position of everything being better than the Lumberjack ending, so he can do no wrong. However it deserves to be criticized because it's so cliche'.

Hasn't the public or hollywood figured out that prequels are a bad idea that never works. The problem with prequels is the shows ceiling is already known beforehand, which is insanely limiting for writing as well as entertainment. The type of entertainment that a prequel is limited too is coming up with familiarity moments that reference the show that it's prequiling... this may have seemed fun in theory the first time any of us experienced a prequel, but now that we have, it ends up being not only not being fun, but a bit cheesy as well. Why begin a show with a ceiling when you can begin a show with infinite potential. When you make a prequel the highest you can set the bar is about a 7 (on an otherwise scale of 1 to 10) and that's if the show is perfect and does everything right.

The show constantly uses long/slow dramatic shots that aren't earned and rarely go anywhere. Don't ya know that it's a dystopian future under a theocratic dictatorship?... apparently just the premise in of itself makes this a deep show and automatically earns it a never ending stream of long dramatic shots. How many extreme closeups of Elisabeth Moss's face do we need? Seriously? After watching just the first season her face will be seared into your brain for the rest of your life. You will know every dimension of Moss's face... every cut, scrape, scratch, zit that she has ever had on her face you will know inside and out and I am not exaggerating. What were they thinking?

This show should be deeper. It should have a philosophy. Why is the story and it's characters so mundane? The protagonist needs more substance beyond... I am a handmaid and life sucks... durka dur! Serena Joy Waterford is a painfully one dimensional character as well, which is such an injustice to Yvonne Strahovski, because she is an insanely talented actor. Maybe her character will expand after the first season, but after a disappointing first season I see no reason to continue watching this series, even though it does a great deal of damage control in the first season finale', which is by far it's best episode. If you were to eliminate two thirds of the long/slow shots, the entire season could fit into approx 5 episodes and perhaps the extra time could have been used towards more show development... more in depth character creations and the relationships between them.

I was exited after watching the first episode because they were utilizing an internal dialogue with the protagonist, which I'm a huge fan of this style and I'm surprised by how underutilized it is in general. It allows for so much flexibility in story telling.... deeper philosophical discussion, increased drama, humor, etc (Two shows that come to mind that do this well are Mr. Robot, Dexter), but this show mostly shuts off June's internal dialogue, which feels like a wasted opportunity. There should be a more in depth meaningful dialogue going on in Junes head. The contrast works really well when used in conjunction with long dramatic scenes that utilize little to no words... it puts an exclamation mark on those moments and makes them feel earned. This show skips everything and focuses almost solely on long/slow shots... it's the weirdest thing I've ever experienced in watching a show before.

The show regularly jumps back and forth between time lines (which in of itself is not a problem), but the flashbacks don't mesh well. They often times flash back at unusual times, but more notable, when the time line jumps back forward they don't pick up where they left off (I guess they need more time for long dramatic shots that go nowhere) ... for the sake of brevity, I'll just say that it's confusing at times (ironic for such a mundane story) and a bit sloppy.

I'm not familiar with the novels, but I'm guessing to anyone who is, they're more than likely disappointed in the series (if they're not than they must be weak novels). But to be fair I wouldn't wish doing a show/movie based on a novel on my worst enemy. It's an impossible task where everything is damned if you do damned if you don't, but even when taking this into account, this show does not do a good job in telling it's story. The final episode of the first season has the potential to deceive it's viewers into thinking the show was better than it actually was, so it does just enough to trick it's viewers into continuing the series into it's second season. I admit even I am a bit curious, but upon looking over the ratings the second season apparently is considered a step down from the first, which for me is a sign to proceed no further, because the first season was already lacking to say the least.

My critique is a bit harsh, this isn't a horrible show... it's around a 5 or a 6 out of 10, however at that rating there are too many other shows that you could be spending your time on watching that are better.

This may have been the longest hour that I've ever experienced watching a TV show before and all I could figure it's because this episode leaves the viewer in a perpetual state of extreme awkwardness throughout 90% of it. As a result, time moves similarly as if you were to place your hand on a hot stove for 51 minutes

I'm not exaggerating... I'm flabbergasted that the episode is only around 51 minutes, because it felt like 3-4 hours.

Now imagine someone else being sent back in time to the 1700's and you get to be the silent observer... even more sucky and painfully boring.

The show does the best that it possibly can with this painfully boring premise, which isn't saying a lot. As I watched this show I would occasionally punch myself in the face which helped ease some of the boredom.

This documentary covers the surface very accurately. Nothing in here should be controversial.... it's very straight up. There's no agenda or slant. Unlike documentaries like the 13th, which brings up some good information, but then proceeds to turn it into a political campaign for the same groups who have endorsed the war on drugs and the many other corruptions associated with drugs. So the 13th ultimately acts as a gatekeeper for the real truths and it tricks the viewer into supporting the sources/agencies who proceed to increase the war on drugs and the many corruptions that go with it.... this documentary on the other hand is legit. Everything it covers is documented facts. It covers the surface corruptions associated with the CIA, which isn't controversial at all because it's simply a fact... the CIA/Gov corruptions go much deeper on these matters, which if dug deeper one could possibly argue controversial, but this sticks to the easily provable/declassified facts.

Every aspect of this show is flat. The story, the character development... The Martin (Marty) character is the flattest character in the history of cinema. After the first episode I figured it was intentional... a lonely boring guy with no personality in a broken marriage... upon moving to the Ozark and getting more entrenched in a "criminal" life his true self would surface... but apparently that's not what they were going for because it never does. I don't think it's Jason Bateman's fault, I think it's more of a flaw in the writing.

The show isn't bad, but it's not particularly good either. I've never used the word flat to describe a movie/show before... it's the perfect word to describe this show. I really don't care whether or not anyone in the show fails or succeeds. There's nothing to root for... there seems to be no real light at the end of the tunnel for anyone. Breaking Bad for example builds you up and breaks you down. By building you up, the break downs actually mean something and vice versa. Being on pace of laundering 8 million dollars is I guess where any excitement is expected to come from?... where's the fun? As a result the show is pretty drab/boring. Why should we care if the characters live or die?

BTW one of my favorite shows of all time is Rectify which is a slow moving character based show, but it's entertaining because the characters are 3 dimensional, they have purpose and you care about them. I like the Byrd kids, but as I've already said, there's nothing exciting going on for anyone to make it worthwhile to root for. I like the lunatic/sociopath federal agent as one of the antagonists, but when you don't care about the people being antagonized is all in vain.

I'm going to continue onward and watch the second season, but I'm skeptical about it being able to evolve out of the flat line it kept us in during most if not all of the first season. I almost want to review this show worse than it is, because it's soooo overrated. This should not be rated an 8 or above. This is a 7 at best and a 5 at worst.