Reviews

The pacing is good, though it probably won't have you rooted to your seat. Yet I found that I cared about the story - the story much more than the characters; you'd have to be a sociopath to get emotionally involved with many of these. They are gleefully and tragically far too self-involved to welcome the distraction of admirers. They like themselves very much - though certainly not each other. One thing this longish tale does quite extraordinarily well is explore the link between excess wealth and narcissism without moralizing. Or even paying attention to it. You notice it in almost every scene where a member of this fabulously wealthy family meets someone not their fiscal equal. They will always mention that, but seldom acknowledge the existence of the other for long enough rub it in. Though occasionally.... In short it is a good tale that lives up to its billing, yet provides worthwhile surprises.

By the time I finished season one, I finally realized what this show reminded me of: The Queen's Gambit. Certainly not from the subject matter, but from the solidity of the presentation. Not only was it essentially error-free (casting, acting, directing, editing, plotting, and dialogue), but it was substantially far better than the previews would have led you to believe. As a spy series, it introduces new or under-used concepts, especially a kind of 'snow blindness' - a refusal to believe that a procedures manual doesn't cover everything significant, added to an acknowledgement by all that personal ambition is to be praised even when it jeopardizes lives. While this show is often amusing, it's a mistake to think of it as a comedy.

There are no real 'good guys' in this movie, but by the end all the worst people are dead, and many of the 'gray' people are still alive. It's triumphant, exciting, often funny as hell (by being unexpected), and amusingly caricatured through stellar performances and directing. Most of the truly great movies teach you about humanity and yourself, by forcing you to stretch your powers of empathy to include unlikely others. Admittedly, this is certainly not that. Nor does it have huge character development. But movies can also be great fun - especially if they respect their audience, respect their story, and respect their players. This is a very fine job...so much so that I awarded it one or two stars more than it deserved (I had avoided watching it for fear of disappointment.

Do you know how people say that fiction can have one (but only one) concept that surpasses belief - every else much logically follow? There was a colossal belief that one had to accept here; Oh, not that a final effort to fix global warming goes awry, no that requires no staggering leap. But that a show about the entire world condensed into a train could be interesting, enjoyable even. In fact, sometimes it's riveting. The cast consists of an academy award winner, and a mix of newcomers and unfamiliar faces. In season two, a very familiar face joins the cast. Very well acted, it's an ensemble production - individual 'feats' don't stand out, but there's never a discordant, jarring note that takes you out of the story. Very, very well done.

Let me concentrate on what I most enjoyed: The tongue-in-cheek self mockery is sometimes subtle, sometimes garish, yet always welcome. At its best, Umbrella acad manages to mock how we feel about violence, how we feel about music, and how we feel about musical accompaniment for violence.

The show pokes fun at the internal radar we all use for determining whether a character will live past the episode, and insists on killing its walking dead the instant you decide they'll make it (in one case by the insertion of 25 or so. knives into the characters body.

Of course time travel is involved, and that gets poked too (though it could stand a bit more prodding.

Oh, and rest assured: If a character has no redeeming characteristics, he'll be killed very soon...no time to savor your pique.

There is an awful lot of untranslated Russian dialogue this season. I strongly oppose the show's refusal to use subtitles.

First please let me admit that i haven't seen the whole series; i couldn't finish the second episode.

This series seemed to think that you could throw mythology and history (...and geography) out the window, inventing a story out of whole cloth, still use the historical and mythological names, and create something new, exciting, and interesting.

It does not (and probably can not) work. If this series was populated by new characters, new places, and had no historical burden, i believe i could have watched it. As it is, it was simply impossible to get beyond the burden of suspending disbelief. The plot seemed to be inconsistent, and the dialogue appeared to be flawed...but i cannot say this for certain.

This was a new tale, and it should have been told without borrowing and mis-using characters from history and mythology. One doesn't keep writing on a full blackboard; one erases the board to make room.

Why it took HBO to deliver an historically mindful, yet Shakespearean version of the immediate and fatal transition from Roman Republic to Empire, I know not.

As one views the sacred "I, Claudius", one presumes this cinematic tale; Indeed, "Rome" could have been written by Graves...it has more-than-adequate Gravitas (please do not groan).

Were this epic done for dramatic purposes only, the finale would have been a battle between the 2 invented protagonists...however, this was enacted with a view to both history and Shakespeare...and it must be commended.

Enjoyable, informative, HONEST*...this is a treasure.

*honest in this case, means true to not only the subject matter, but honest in capturing the spirit of the times. ** For more enjoyable information about this tale, please see "legions of Hell", by C.J.Cherryh, and for a more immersive (and wholly enjoyable)texture of the religious beliefs and superstitions of the era, please see Gene Wolfe's "Soldier of the Mist" series.

...suddenly becomes far better than one could imagine? Well you watch it, of course, and be thankful it had a chance.

I have been streaming this show since its availability, and pretty much felt like i was killing time...until i ran into season 4.

Bearing in mind that this series has one of the least plausible post-apocalyptic scenarios, one cannot help but acknowledge that out of the too-often used mire of end-of-the-world scenarios, this show has become something extraordinary.

Consider the first three seasons as a preamble if you must; certainly the cause of the irradiated earth (revealed in season 3 as the work of a delusional AI), the evolution of immunity due to "cosmic radiation", and most of the damage healed by the earth in 100 years (!), one would think that this was doomed to fail.

Instead, it rises from its own ashes, and becomes a compelling drama with realistic cause/effect, outstanding plot casting, quite good dialogue, and acting talent that comes together in the 4/th season to become an exquisite ensemble. I am impressed, and happy that i continued watching!

Don't expect "Breaking Bad", "Mad men", or "the Walking Dead". In fact, if you can curb your expectations, you would probably enjoy this

I do. This is a martial arts "Epic",

This is a martial arts drama, driven by character interaction, and a dystopian sci-fi motif. Like anything touched by AMC it is extraordinarily well done, but...now here's the "kicker"?

This story does not transcend its medium: In other words, unlike RAGING BULL, whose fans love and exhort Scorsese's medium as the "Rem" of all genre-based productions, "into The Badlands" does not seek to transcend its roots; it merely seeks to acknowledge them - with good scripts, good dialogue, good performances, and excellent production values.

In short, if you like martial arts stories, you'll either like or love this epic; if, however, you are indifferent to such joys, you might not enjoy this epic.

With 10 minutes remaining, Archer slugs Silik, and Silik's "uniform" slips - revealing human flesh.

I would like to make believe that this editorial slip is symptomatic of the episode and the show, but i cannot.

This episode, and its prequel are by and large fairly well done, and the time "invasion" thread does stand out. In fact, time travel is handled in this show in a manner consistent with time travel throughout the Star Trek canon ( tho' time travel was never Star Trek's strong suit).

While i enjoy this series, mostly, i find more fault with this one (and the re-booted movies), than I do with earlier ones.

My difficulties: not proceeding into the future, the worsening relations with Vulcan, the theme song, some of the casting (most of the casting), and trivial matters.

My biggest problem is the "revisionist" nature of this and others. Previously, Roddenberry provided the view that we make our own futures, and there is enough good in humanity (and the universe in general), that the future WILL be better than the past. His view forces one to a non-dystopian viewpoint regardless of how the world seems to be doing at any quasi-current period.

In the preceding episode, we have Quark going through a spate of mock tears and horrendous sobbing...but in my mind THIS episode, the Nagus, was the start of using 'the little people' as little more than comic foils. It's not such a big deal now, i'm streaming and can either watch or skip the hijinks, but i remember waiting each week for an episode, sitting there with a couple of friends, and instead of watching an episode developing the upcoming conflict with Odo's lost people...poof! there would be an interregnum, and suddenly those little people were at it again...Deep Space Nine is largely a thoughtful show, replete with action, prophecies, tangled plots, larger-than-life characters, and ending with a dark, twisted denouement. These "throwaway" comic episodes only detract from the show's overall value.

It finally happens: there is a con junction between the Star Trek 'multiverse' and environmental issues. What results? the serious commission of a study.

Please, harken to the adjective 'serious'...it is what differentiates Star Trek from current political advisory panels. In today's world, we would watch as political entities vie to decide whether a multitude of opposing commercial and therefore political forces struggle to be foremost in their assessment (or abnegation) of envirornmental concerns.

In this episode of Star Trek, we see both the best and the worst, of a rational response: Now, here's the key: one must TRUST, and have an overriding reason to trust, the review procedure...there ain't no real alternative: one must believe in the impartionality of the process...which means the process details MUST be transparent!!!

I apologize for my overly "ambitious" rating. The episode doesn't really warrant 10 stars...but it IS the most important single episode of the the Star Trek mythos.

The first part of the question is: probability fails to explain why (virtually) all the aliens have great similarities to each other, and to standard homo sapiens. The second part of the question is trickier, tho':

How can all these humanoid sapients breed interbreed? Without an episode like this this to definitively give the only possible answer, SHARED GENETIC ANCESTRY, it would be impossible. Indeed, even with shared genes, inter-breeding is exceedingly unlikely without assistance. Humans are genetically closer to other terran apes, yet we cannot successfully breed with them (or so i am reliably informed).

This question was vaguely addressed in an episode of the original Star Trek, where a humanoid alien speculates that he may have been our (humanities') ancestor, but until recently, we have ALL agreed that a fact is better than a guess.

In fact, I would place the last 10 minutes of this episode as a preamble to anyone starting to experience Star Trek.

Perhaps the most damning of all Star Trek critiques is the impossibility of sapient races originating on different worlds to mate and produce young. Yet the series opens with a vulcan/human hybrid (the inimitable Mr. Spock).

In this episode, however, the character Sargon states that in his race's antiquity, many, many worlds were "seeded" (not his word) by denizens of his anthropomorphic genotype - similar to that of standard earth humans. This allows the possibility of similar DNA arising from many worlds that could be similar enough to fruitfully mate. It doesn't actually matter whether advanced forms of life survived on these planets, but the mere unavoidability of multi-cellular entities, and even strings of nucleotides being incorporated in the DNA of all creatures' genome at least allows for possibilities.

Yup, i've read the harry potter books, and seen the movies, and if you cannot find similarities, well...let's just say you won't do too well on comparative lit courses.

But is the similarity a bad thing? Why not just define J.K.Rowlings work as creating a sub-genre, and enjoy this video for what it is. To give it a perfect viewer-age reference: Let's view the first 3 harry potter books for ages 10-16, Ms. Clarke's," Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" as 12-80, and this series as somewhere in the middle.

Alright, it comes by its "Mature" rating dishonestly; just some smoking and enough rough language to "allow" the rating, but it's a fun series. Right from the first episode you become aware of a beast and a chosen one, and there's enough interesting coursework (tho' a bit shy for my tastes), to give each episode its own flavor.

Look, just stop expecting another "game of thrones" every time you turn around; that just ain't gonna happen. (at least here, you don't have to worry about how in the seven hells George Martin will write two more books in time).

Well, you get a show with a great looking cast who perform well together, and very good dialogue. You also get a score that attempts to be modern - about 40 years too late.

This really is a good historical drama. It captures the "feel" of the period quite well, by showing the true side of most of the wars of that period, and by carefully delineating the true battle: King versus the nobility. I'm not entirely certain why the dialogue isn't in French with English subtitles, but that does make it easier for some of us - although you can't use any dialogue from Moliere.

A competent and engaging work.

First, don't bother to watch the trailer; that will do no more than confuse you. Next, if you've just watched something that is a more traditional thriller, please take a break...it takes a while to slip into the mood and pacing of this effective and unconventional tale, and a traditional action-suspense story will prevent you from getting involved.

The mood is essential; the pacing is perfect - but only if you can let yourself follow its unusual tempo. It isn't a modality that is currently in use; if you can let yourself flow with it, it will ensnare you.

The story is told in linear fashion with two timelines that never mesh or confuse you.It's oddly, the most coherent tale I've seen lately, with no possibility of confusion - unless the viewer cannot adapt to the unusual pacing, and gets bored.

That's really the key to enjoying this non-episodic tale: if you can match your own tempo to that of film, you will enjoy it immensely; if the pacing makes your mind wander, you won't enjoy it.

The show is enjoyable, the plotting and dialogue competent, most of the acting above par, the characterization of the main character well-realized, and most of the others acceptable, but....

The reason for operating in 2 completely different time-lines is inadequate structurally. Dramatically, it allows for the desired level of tension and suspense, but the device is truly over-used. If you wish to make a story more complex, please simply make it more complex; adding a future (or past) time line requires a very demanding adherence to the integrity of each time line, as well as a strong reason to do so. I don't think it works here.

Various integral plot elements are likewise manipulated - often with realism as the hostage. For example, the dialogue between FBI agents right after the "capture" of the lead, is very odd.the line: "Let her figure it out", prior to the arrest didn't make much sense at the time, and in retrospect, makes even less.

At a more basic level, the amount of duplicity surrounding most of the new agents, as well as the levels of duplicity surrounding the recurring staff members, is quite over the top. The apparent argument between the writers about whether the trainees all have done a mission as an amateur agent, or not leaves me with a bitter taste.

I dunno, I did get captivated by the show, and any show that does that is probably worth seeing and recommending, but the ongoing strain to my credibility "shocks" me out of the fantasy too often.