Details: Three episodes that are each about an hour and a half long. Stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Mark Gatiss. Aired on the BBC.
I’ve read mixed reviews of this season of Sherlock. Some were good, some were very bad. I didn’t think this season was the best of the four, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
The season picks up where that last left off. The seemingly deceased Moriarty has broadcast a video of himself across Britain and Sherlock and the gang must prepare for whatever is to come.
Moriarty actually makes few appearances this season. I looked forward to seeing more of Andrew Scott and his character, but I guess the show runners decided to back away from that unfortunately. The season instead focuses on Watson and his family and Sherlock and his family. The most refreshingly classical episode was episode two, where we actually get to see a crime solved that is unrelated to Sherlock or Watson and we get to see Sherlock be a smart ass. For the detractors of this season, I think more of what we see in episode two is what they would have wanted. Instead, we get family drama.
Overall, I enjoyed this season as I’ve enjoyed all the seasons of Sherlock. I suppose it’s mostly because I don’t watch too many shows in this setting and with this tone. If this is not the final season of Sherlock, I would like to see more of the classic Sherlock formula of solving complex crimes and outsmarting bad guys. Either way, I think this season is worth a watch.
Details: Each episode is about an hour long. Planned to be an eight episode series for this season. Airs on FX.
If you’ve studied film history, you’d be well aware that there was a precise point in time when the works of Sigmund Freud not only invaded popular culture, but into the movies. Instead of explaining every little detail in order to convey motivations to the audience, movies started making assumptions about characters’ mental states and the audience started understanding those assumptions. Similar to books and perhaps to a greater extent, movies and television shows allow the understanding of a state of mind and the psychology of a character. This first episode of Legion is a good example of that.
Legion is a new, eight episode television series that is airing on Fox. It’s based upon an X-Men comic book character named Legion who is one of the most powerful beings on the planet with powers that pretty much allow him to do anything. The only downside is that Legion is crazy; Legion has multiple personality disorder and not only can he not control these other personalities, in the comic book, each personality controls a different power. When one of these personalities surfaces, it’s a guessing game as to whether it’s good, benign, or evil. It’s anyone’s guess how this character will be approached by the television series, but the first episode seems to embrace that craziness.
I really enjoyed this first episode and love that it’s an eight episode miniseries versus something lower budget and twenty something episodes long. I enjoy this trend in programming. Since Netflix and the prevalence of binge watching an entire television series, there has been a perceived evolution towards shorter length television seasons with higher length individual episodes and much better quality per episode. I think this is directly because of the increasing popularity of streaming services. TV shows traditionally made money based on how many people watched them and their associated advertisements. Accordingly, it used to make sense to have lots of little episodes to fill time slots that made purchasing and pricing air time easier and for programming to be more digestible to viewers. Since the advent of paid subscriptions for content, there’s no more need to appease advertisers as much. People can watch shows whenever or wherever they want through the internet. The goal has changed to simply provide better content in order to make the subscription service appealing as a whole versus trying to get eyeballs on a certain show at a certain time. That means making better programming, which seems to mean more high budget miniseries and less fluff shows.
Legion certainly seems to be one of these higher quality miniseries. The quality and likely higher budget of this first episode reminds me of something I’d see on Netflix or HBO, and that’s a good thing. There are a lot of special effects used and the story, the shots used and the editing are much more thoughtful than Arrow or Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
I don’t want to get too much into the story for fear of spoilers, but the main character is crazy and the story is trippy. It’s different from any other show I can think of right now, which is nice. That this story is connected to the X-Men is largely tangential in this first episode, but there are clear indicators they are related. It’s unclear as of yet whether this show shares the same universe as the cinematic X-Men or Marvel universe.
The acting was great. The only face I could recognize was Aubrey Plaza. She was good.
Overall, a good first episode that has hooked me for the rest of the season. I hope to see more shows like this.
Details: Released on Netflix in 2016. Eight episodes in total with each episode about an hour-long. Stars a bunch of kids. The most recognizable adult actor is Winona Ryder.
After the overwhelming barrage of positive reactions to the Stranger Things show, I finally decided to give it a watch. It was okay.
The premise is this: a kid disappears in a small town in 1980’s America. The kid’s friends and family try to find him and discover a supernatural horror is responsible.
This is a horror story, through and through. I enjoyed the interplay between the kids and it really reminded me of Spielberg’s use of nostalgia in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The majority of the series did not go in that direction though. I should confess that I am biased against the majority of horror movies and shows. Jump scares are cheap cinematic devices and show a lack of creativity in my opinion. Furthermore, when I see characters making obviously stupid decisions, the fourth wall just falls apart for me and I get yanked out of the experience. I deal with enough meaningless stupid in real life. Watching this kind of stupid in a work of fiction just makes me want to turn off the television, or in this case, my computer.
The performances were all pretty good. The kids were great. However, it’s hard for me to enjoy the performances of children because it always reminds me of the innumerable number of children whose lives were messed up by Hollywood. Show business often times fucks kids up. The kids still did a great job. Maybe they’ll grow up all right.
Of the adult actors, Winona Ryder stands out, not because she was particularly good, but because her performance was memorably hysterical. She reminded me of Claire Danes in Homeland in her portrayal of constant, hysterical craziness. Actually, she reminded me even more of Anne Hathaway’s portrayal of Claire Danes in Homeland when Hathaway was on Saturday Night Live. What I’m trying to say is Ryder was unconvincingly crazy to an almost comedic degree.
Overall, it was just okay. The show attempts a lot of things that mostly fell flat for me. I’m unsure if my reaction to this show is my own bias against horror or the show’s own failings. Either way, my reaction to the show is mostly one of indifference.
Muse Bank 