Andor, Season 2
The huge hype, earning this second season even better reviews than the first season, led me into thinking this new and last season would be a total delight.
The first three episodes, however, were testing my patience. Yes, everything looks great, the dialogue is very good, and the intention to show the workings of fascism and the failure of unorganized resistance (as the imperial strategist says so poignantly: „Propaganda will only get us so far, we need insurgents we can count on to do the wrong thing“) is needed right now.
But as so many streaming shows this, too, drags out its story to fill time. What could have been told in a few minutes now is stretched into 120.
There is nothing here that really engages me, it just goes on and on without making me care.
I hope the pacing picks up considerably, but so far I see this season as a beautifully crafted sculpture which you like to look at for a while and then regift it without missing it.
Bosch Legacy - Season 3
And in contrast to „Andor“, this show continues to draw me in, from episode one onwards. This is storytelling with urgency, while taking its time to build up four parallel storylines.
This is how it should be done, folks.
There’s a chance this might be the end of the current Doctor Who run…
I used to like the original show for its bizarre shoestring appeal but never got warm with the reboot. Perhaps the premise - an alien and their human companion can travel to any place and any time - clashed in my view with the show being so decidedly British and centred in the here and now?
The world building of the reboot with its long history, spinoffs and multitude of present and past companions called for an investment I simply couldn’t bring myself to afford, so I got stuck in Tennant’s run and never got beyond it, the recent Tennant/Gatwa handover and first episode aside.
My impression was the Disney+ deal had been cooked up to make the show independent from fickle BBC beancounters? Apparently, the bigger budget is still no substitute for audience support. And that might be missing amongst so many different competitors for attention.
I tired of it after Capaldi, simply because it at least felt as if the show repeated itself ad nauseam. Haven’t even felt the urge to watch its current run, despite liking the new actor.
Maybe absence is once more good for this show.
That too was an issue for me; it often felt as if I had seen some episode before already - and I’ve really only seen a fraction of the entire show. I doubt the n-th return of the Dalek would have entertained me. I’m simply not fan enough to get excited over a limited repertory of adventures that feel like service for die-hard devotees.
I’m still enjoying Doctor Who. As a series, it’s always been a bit hit and miss, so I prefer to focus on the good episodes. This year, we’ve already had a living cartoon character, which was a lot of fun, and some creepy horror, and I’m looking forward to what comes next.
I do like Ncuti Gatwa in the role, although I doubt he’ll ever be my favourite. It might seem minor, but I’m not a fan of his refusal to adopt a signature outfit. Also, in the last series, he flirted way too much. When I was growing up, the Doctor was asexual, and that’s how I liked them, really not a fan of putting the character in romantic situations.
I don’t particularly enjoy analysing viewing figures; I watch for stories and characters, not statistics. However, I do wonder if things are leaning a bit too heavily on the past at the moment, and that’s what’s alienating viewers. Bringing back an obscure, one-off villain like the Toymaker was a cool thing to do for the anniversary special, but after that, they need to move forward and not continue plundering the back catalogue. Also, I think they set up too much (ie the Pantheon) in those specials when Gatwa’s first series should have been the entry point for new viewers.
Still, I hope things can turn around and we’ll still have Doctor Who for years to come.
Doctor Who has a core fanbase that’s always been there, people for whom the show just works and who kept it alive when it was absent from the telly. During the show’s ‘Gardner years’ it had a vibrant scene of fan-fiction, as well as a considerable number of ‘official’ (meaning carrying the BBC moniker) continuations.
One might say between 1989 and 2005 the series became bigger than it had been before, maybe also due to nostalgia of those who grew up with it and had fond memories of afternoons spent peering from behind the sofa. In a way, the show had its own Trek curve when it finally came back after a long absence and was a hit with old and new fans. And a strong BBC export brand for many years.
However, that may have misled those in charge about the actual appeal and potential of what is, in effect, a very solid, quality sf-themed kids show for a British afternoon programming. This is fun for die-hard and casual fans alike - but there’s no universal appeal that would make it a must-see show with a much broader viewership. It’s still a niche programme that just won’t reach far beyond its initial target audience.
I was puzzled what the suits at Disney+ saw that would have justified going beyond a very limited co-production/distribution role. But perhaps they’ve got still other plans, who knows. As is, there’s a considerable chance there’s going to be at least a gap year, perhaps even a longer pause.
It should have happened a long time ago. Doctor Who went completely off the rails for me and I haven’t had any desire to watch it since around Capaldi’s first season. Giving the show a much longer rest after a regeneration episode would have been beneficial in the long term, rather than continuing on like an obligation year after year and running it into the ground. I feel like Eccleston, Tennant and Smith was a special moment in time for the relaunch and that generation of fans in particular. I’m thinking that possibly won’t be reached again, or for a good long while.
The White Lotus - Season 3
I loved the first two seasons - and just after two episodes of season 3 I am again absolutely hooked and impressed by the writing, the acting, the cinematography and the set design. And every season manages to offer something different.
Looking forward to the next episodes!
I enjoyed the first series a lot but the second one irritated me because I know that part of the world very well and the geography was all over the place. Took me right out of it. It might have been wrong in the first series too. Accordingly I took a perverse dislike to the second series and as everything is obviously always about me for no readily justifiable reason, I shall approach the third one with some caution
Never had that problem with the Bonds?
Frequently. The boat chase in The World is Not Enough is an especially egregious example, as is the pre-credits of Quantum of Solace. I might be more forgiving there since I expect a Bond to be a bit slipshod in places. “In places” literally.
That said, Moonraker’s depiction of Outer!Space! being Science Fact! means it is absolutely pin-sharp accurate.
My husband is the pre-gap Doctor Who fan. I only started watching after the reboot. Loved the Eccleston, Tennant, Smith and Capaldi eras. I tried during Whittaker’s turn, but felt that she was let down by the writing. It mostly lacked the whimsy and fun of previous iterations (though I found “Eve of the Daleks” to be a notable exception).
I haven’t been able to watch the new seasons since they moved to Disney+, to which I refuse to subscribe. The 60th anniversary special DVDs finally landed at our library earlier this year, so I enjoyed that Tennant/Donna reunion. Not sure what to make of it, though. Why go that direction? The only answer I can come up with is that it was to create a sort of “Old Home Day” for the fan base … which it did, and did a better job of it than I was anticipating. I’m awaiting Gatwa’s first season to arrive at my library.
The Fall of the House of Usher (2023 Netflix)
This is one of Mike Flanagan’s by-now-famous Netflix Gothic Horror projects that cleverly uses themes and names from Edgar Allen Poe’s œuvre as building blocks to spin an original (but heavily inspired by Poe) tale. Eight episodes of ever increasing terror and shocks that nonetheless manage to keep the mystery of the exact nature of the threat right until the finale. Fine performances by the entire cast and a cleverly restrained use of splatter.
And Bruce Greenwood has an eerily resemblance to Sam Neill.
Andor - Season 2
So, it´s finished. And sadly, my impression did not change.
Everything’s done so well, the highest craft, really.
But it all drags on, as if a 1000 page novel had been filmed without nothing being left out.
“Star Wars” worked already without “Rogue One” - but I liked that film and accepted it as a prequel (nice to have, not need to have).
The first season of “Andor” then had the advantage of telling the prequel to the prequel story with adding a narrative which had not been part of the films, so that was interesting.
But this second season always hit the brakes whenever it got interesting because there was really no way to go but to the beginning of “Rogue One”. And stock holders demand product. So everything got just slowed down and told in the most detailed way.
Which seems to be the new method for series and sometimes also for movies.
Nothing is left to the imagination anymore, audiences do not have to figure things out on their own - they get everything served.
I really don’t get why critics swooned over this season 2. You could have easily told the story in a 90 minute movie instead of these 450 minutes.
And really, if the original trilogy had been told this way, no one would have cared or would still care. The fast pace, the elipses, the hints at what came before - all of that was so much more thrilling and fun than this.
We just watched Wolf Hall … in the wrong order. We started with Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light that recently aired on PBS Masterpiece, not realizing that the original Wolf Hall mini-series had preceded it 10 years earlier. So yes, it did feel like something was missing, though we’ve watched enough documentaries about King Henry VIII that I didn’t feel lost. I then borrowed the original Wolf Hall DVDs from our library and got caught up.
The entire cast was superb, but the through line is Mark Rylance’s finely nuanced portrayal of Thomas Cromwell. Of course, he had a beautifully written script, based on Hilary Mantel’s novels, which fleshed out Cromwell’s character well beyond the devious “fixer” I thought I knew him to be.
I know this is fiction, but the motivations that are portrayed by Cromwell and the other characters feel believable, and very human. I was mesmerized throughout both series. Even though I knew what was coming, I didn’t know how it would come about. I felt as blind to it as the characters, which is quite a remarkable achievement for such a well-documented period of history.
Damian Lewis as Henry and Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn are equally mesmerizing. But I don’t think they would have worked nearly as well without Rylance’s shrewd, flawed, vulnerable Cromwell underpinning everything.
Somehow, everything in this trailer screams “just the same as the movie”-prequel as excuse for repeat loop, doesn’t it?
Weird that it’s supposed to fit in with the film(s). As if they meant to remake the whole thing, only this time in the proper period. Which rightfully would undercut their previous film. I wish they’d gone this route from the start and not bothered with the timeframe shift.
As for Doctor Who…