I loved the first season. Starting now to watch the second one.
The first episode disappointed me, I must say. Hopefully, that is only due to the task most first episodes of new seasons have, especially after eventful cliffhangers: to reestablish, to explain and to set up new things, and to make new viewers familiar with the dynamic.
It unfortunately takes the whole episode to restart the story, but I don’t envy the writers having to resume after three years of uncertainty.
Still no moving on but going back to explain what happened before episode 1.
It seems to me that the opaqueness (is that a word) of the show was an asset in season one because it piled on the questions and the weirdness.
Now it is used to delay and slow everything down. As if the reveal of the last episode of season one gave too much and now they want to stretch things out because there is not enough story left.
But the atmosphere keeps me coming back. It has that 70‘s uncomfortableness and the nightmarish shadowworld in which truths are lurking like predators and people behave as if replaced by their pod versions.
And that’s enough for me to keep watching. Maybe there is a better plan somewhere and the sleight of hand just made me not see it so far.
Wow. So… little… happening… and… everything… that does… is presented… as… obscure… as possible.
Also, I miss Patricia Arquette who was such a force in season 1 and now is relegated to minuscule scenes if at all. At least Walken finally appears and hopefully will have a bigger role in the following episodes.
But I doubt it. Apparently, the goal for this season was to make it different from season 1. Which is not a winning strategy for my taste.
Will the second half recover? I sure hope so. But I get the feeling that there is just no story here anymore. Everything looks fantastic - but what is the theme in season 2? Where is the hook for the viewer? Just… everything is weird and menacing… and at some point the truth will come out… but not in the near future because we’re trying to make you stay with apple.tv?
… and episode 7 is really brilliant, finally, and everything this season needed to be.
Only episode 8, despite bringing back Patricia Arquette, again falls into that excruciatingly slow and obscure pattern, only to have a conclusion that at least gives new important information.
It´s really strange that some storytellers in tv have convinced themselves that slowing everything down to a crawl equals importance and weight. It doesn’t. It just reveals that you don’t have a lot of story to tell.
I have nothing against a slow progression of scenes, I even welcome it in contrast to the amped up, hectic and impatient storytelling that we also get these days.
But the slow progression of scenes also needs important information, emotional interest. If you don’t have that, you’re just creating atmosphere on a loop. That can look wonderful like it does here. But it frustrates enormously, especially if you are doing a mystery show.
Two more episodes to go, and if they don’t address all the questions raised this season will be just an overindulgent mess.
Okay, 9 and 10, as expected build up to a very busy conclusion of this season, and they do kind of satisfactorily. That is: the ending does work and follows logically what emerged as the theme of this second run.
I don´t know whether it is a theme which has relevance outside of the show, though. Season 1 appeared to have that relevance, so I expected season 2 to make good on that promise. However, to me it felt solipsistic: it has constructed something which has outgrown the metaphoric ideas of season one, and now it just serves the purpose of the artificial world, rather than illuminating our world.
Also, the big answer given is still so vague and nonsensical that one apparently just has to go with it.
Kind of the “LOST”-problem. And most mystery shows. I wonder whether the writers of season 1 actually knew where they wanted to go, instead of just proclaiming: “isn’t that cool, even if nobody knows any reasons for it?”
That way you can keep a show going, sure, but you will have audiences lose interest. The more involving way to go would have been to have a clear outline of various steps you reach, explaining throroughly the mystery of one season and still opening up a bigger mystery, thereby laying out a clear objective for the characters to achieve.
At the end of season 2 of “Severance” I do understand the choice of the lead character. But what he wants to gain is unclear. And if the message is
Summary
we rather want to remain in a dictatorship because we’re in love with someone there, instead of exposing everything and pulling the rug from under the dictator, together with our beloved wife we spend the whole season to find
I loved Scott Turow‘s novel and Pakula‘s movie adaptation with Harrison Ford so much that I could not imagine that an eight-part tv series would work.
After the first two episodes I am absolutely thrilled and entertained. Producer/writer legend David E. Kelley really adapts the novel in a myriad of fresh new ways, and everybody works at top level quality here.
I understand the ending has been changed from the novel and the film, so even that will be a surprise.
So, having finished Presumed Innocent I must say it remains compelling and entertaining throughout.
They do make a few choices which I found a bit hokey, but the final twist is a real great idea and wonderfully hidden in the early episodes. Sure, one may argue whether it is a bit too deliberately disguised in one particular line of dialogue early on, but it all makes sense. Kudos to Kelley and Abrams for making the most of this adaptation.
And the way Rusty‘s instincts kick in at the end is a delicate yet understandable reaction, taking away the illusion of a happy ending.
A male teenager gets accused of brutally stabbing his female classmate to death.
This simple premise is used for a detailed depiction of the investigation and the consequences for the family in four 50 minute episodes. All of them are filmed (or at least digitally spliced together) in uninterrupted takes, taking everybody involved even from one place to another without any cut, giving the viewer the feeling of being there with those characters.
This works very well in the best of these episodes, the first one. However, I quickly thought that it is mostly a gimmick, drawing attention to “how often did they rehearse that, with the camera being so flawlessly moved even through very tight spaces”. While “oners” can add value to storytelling by taking the audience through a location and giving them the impression they are right there, they can also become self-serving. I think this is the case here. It also imposes limits to the storytelling because there can be no compressed time, you stay in real time, and while the tedious details of processing a suspect and waiting for the interrogation are interesting in the first episode, the second episode makes the investigation at the school of the suspect needlessly treading water - and again I mainly thought: oh, yeah, now the camera follows the other characters so the investigators can move to that room until we can meet them up again - you know, organization became the focus.
“Adolescence” is best when it stays with the suspect. When he is evaluated by a female psychologist the real time-idea again works better because one can see how the young guy cracks and shows his incel-mindset while reverting to his fear, being the 13year old child he actually is despite all of his posturing. But then episode 4 jumps ahead in time and concentrates on the family, and again, the uninterrupted take following them from one location to the other feels unnecessarily artificial.
The subject matter is important and interesting. But the formal aspect of this series limits it.
It is especially frustrating since the “oner” currently is rightfully made fun of in the comedy series “The Studio”, which also does these uninterrupted takes, even makes one the topic of episode 2 in which a “oner” has to be filmed (while the whole episode is just one “oner”, too).
Altman made fun of it in “The Player” already, of course.
Still binging through it, now in its sixth season, and I still marvel at the way interesting cases are dealt with while constantly offering more shades to the main characters, with Jonny Lee Miller delivering such a superb performance and Lucy Liu matching him despite having the less showy part.
The Wire (2002-2008), a visual novel. I’ve re-watched all 60 episodes, 4 or 5 times since it ended. Each time there are new, potent considerations.
It is also the biggest, though not the sole, reason why I have zero respect for the Emmy Awards. In 5 seasons of sublime storytelling The Wire never won for its writing and was only nominated twice.
The Peabody Awards did better, awarding it to the series for it’s 2nd season. If ever there was a show that deserved college course study (and it has them), it’s The Wire.
Paramount+ streaming service granted me a wish by adding Le Bureau des légendes (The Bureau) series to their menu. The USA version The Agency finished it’s first season last month and I very much enjoyed it, as I’m a big fan of the portrayal and exposition of the tradecraft element of espionage (John le Carré style). I hoped that I’d be able to see the original work, and now I will, in full. No waiting years (if it gets renewed) for the US version to continue!
First episode lived beyond my expectations. And, though I need subtitles, you can’t beat the facial expressions of fine actors.
