Reviews

What a wasted opportunity. Bring some mature chefs and some reality show type back stabbing idiots to Tuscany and provide them accommodations at a beautiful villa and then have them compete against each other, made up of two teams, and then make the losing team's members vote on who should be removed from the show (aka voted off the island so to speak). What happens is the most mature, clearly qualified chefs, then get back stabbed by the less qualified because its clear the lesser qualified cannot beat them head to head. Its simply stupid as what has happened is the back stabbing two faced woman who runs a food truck in Boston is now in the final. Why has the food network gone to pot? Just bring in the best of the best and let them cook, be judged, and let the chips fall as they may.

I did not read the books but heard from plenty who did and were anticipating this series. They say its nothing like the books. What I expected was something in the vein of True Detective. I'm afraid this is entertaining in the vein of Castle, which is not necessarily a bad thing but the show in no way can be taken seriously when the characters take time to make comedic references in between people being injured or murdered. This simply is something that you would not see on a program presenting itself as a higher standard of television. All that said, it's entertaining so we'll certainly continue to watch. The actors are good.

A great story, with great actors, muddled by stupid, unneeded sex scenes. I detest directors who think I'm so stupid that I don't know how horribly gay's are treated that it needs to be put in a TV show so I'd "get it.". The popularity of the show clearly resulted in a cliffhanger rather than closure. Typical of anything Hollywood. I won't hang in for another season of this.

Ryan Murphy created AHS. Surprise, he created this. Surprise, we've got Sarah Paulson. Question: did she audition for the job? Judy Davis would make a better nurse Ratched. The pilot was plain exploitative stupidity. I was expecting a realistic deep look at the character we knew from 45 years ago. Let me simplify with spoilers; sure I believe she planned to poison a guy who'd pass out right in front of the governor, save him, then convince another guy to commit suicide while the governor was still visiting within the same hour in order to get a job in the asylum where her long lost psycho brother would soon be arriving. The original batman series was more realistic. This is eye candy simplified garbage for the mainstream masses who don't have to nerve to say it sucks.

3 stars for the production value. To be fair we only got thru just over 30 minutes before we realized it was 30 wasted minutes. That 30 minutes breaks down to 1 sex scene every 10 minutes however. Here's a little tip for serious writers, a serious writer of course being one with artistic vision rather than economic vision; if you can't tell the story without gratuitous sex every 10 minutes, you're on the wrong path.

Lets be realistic; hey, I love you but I'm gonna go do my thing, which happens to be get married and have children. If you decide we should pursue our college days romance, at any time, text me. Sure, a women gets a text 15 years later with one word and with that she jumps on a plane, immediately, with no regard for her children? While purchasing the ticket the writer found it funny to have her procrastinate over whether she should sit in the window, middle, or aisle. It says one of two things; the story is crap, or the mother is crap, and that's all. It was even cliche'd near the end. I'm not shocked by the 7 rating however, as crap TV is popular with those who believe they saw something other then what they saw but are afraid to say so.

More evidence that the audience' expectations have bottomed out. I can only assume the audience is the 18-25 year olds. As per other reviews, I don't wish to wait until episode 2 to believe something good is coming regarding my interest in continuing to watch. Episode 1 moves quickly from scene to scene in the first 15 minutes until it starts to provide some story line. The entire thing goes to pot after 40 minutes when we learn how screwed up the son is that he needs to dehumanize a hooker for a reason I suppose we're going to learn should we hang in there for the entire series. Editor, writer, director; we could have figured out that you wanted us to know the son was psychologically/sexually fouled up after advising the hooker how he expected her to behave. The need to hear every detail is only proof that the real exploitation here is the creators giving the voyeurs, aka the audience, what they want. Anyone who truly deems this show as entertainment of any sort probably should have a look at themselves.

J. Pryce and Max Irons also did a great job. This movie was not remotely what I thought it was going to be, that being a slow drug out personal drama of sorts focusing on the wife supporting a husband who neglected her. While that may be part of it, it was still much more and Glenn Close really shined. We could feel the inner turmoil of wanting to do one thing and yet doing the other. Great movie making in a hard to capture location, that being Sweden at night.