 I’m still trying to rinse my free trial of Apple TV before it expires. I got to episode 6 of ‘Bad Monkey’ and stopped midway. A storyline that would have been wrapped up in a single episode of Tom Selleck’s ‘Magnum P.I.’ (from the 80’s) had so far been dragged out to six hours!! Why? Because streaming services need to create hours and hours of content for people to scroll their phones to!! So the only story points occur at the start and end of each episode; the filler is for the audience to stare at their phones.
Because I actually devote 100% of my attention to what I’m watching (in my home cinema set-up), I find this type of storytelling infuriating! So I stopped watching and decided to watch the number one rated show on Apple, with a massive 8.7 on IMDB! Unfortunately, Severance also suffered from the same drip-feeding of information that seems to plague every show in the modern era. Before I got to the season finale, I was about to give up, feeling that the show should be called Contrivance, as that’s all this series is. The writing, especially, just seemed lazy. I mean, there’s enough to keep you watching, but it was by no means the masterpiece audience reviews would have you believe. For instance, a character makes a decision: they’re going to destroy a piece of information. Ok, so that means the story takes a different direction? No. They, later in the same episode, retrieve the information they discarded. So what was the point of discarding it? Just to misdirect the audience for twenty minutes. In the next episode, a character chucks a phone in the bin. Later in that episode, he retrieves the phone from the bin. The writers tease the possibility of sending the characters in an interesting direction, and then pull the rug from under you. Another example is when (SPOILER) a character supposedly dies at the end of one episode, which provides a good cliff-hanger, only for them to be completely fine in the next episode. As said earlier, movies, TV shows, even the news, is made for an audience that is only partially paying attention. But just when I lost hope, the final two episodes of Season 1 pulled it out of the bag. They say that the audience will forgive anything for a good ending, and they are right! The season 1 finale was damn good! Will I watch Season 2? Probably not. I expect the writers to simply undo everything that happened and return to the status quo. Also, this show reminds me of ‘Lost’ (a show built on J.J. Abram’s infamous ‘Mystery Box’ style of storytelling); meaning they will continue to convolute and contrive, without actually knowing the answer to the mysteries they’re creating. It can only end in disappointment.
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 I got a free trial for Apple TV, and Slow Horses is one of their highest rated shows, so I gave it a go.
It does enough to keep you engaged, especially because of Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas, but I felt like I was forcing myself to watch it. Being a born 'n bred Londoner, I found the London depicted in the show to be a complete fabrication, as is ALWAYS the case when London is shown on screen. London is the most Asian city in the world (outside of Asia); the general population is South Asian, and the student population is predominantly Chinese. Yet, looking at this (and every other show), you'd think London was made up of a 50/50 population of white people and black people; it's the obvious contrivance that makes the whole thing unconvincing. It's a glossy show, with high production values and poor writing. The bad guys are made to be stupid, doing dumb, illogical things, just to make the good guys look clever. Similarly, every female character is infallible, whereas as every male character is some kind of buffoon that constantly needs to be bailed out by his female counterpart. It's a symptom of the modern era, which just makes the whole show seem fake, and thus unbelievable. In a show about the Secret Service, believability should be the main focus. By the end of the second season, I'd had enough. Been struggling to find anything else on Apple TV worth watching. I tried ‘Silo’ and ‘Shrinking’ and neither did it for me either...  A comedy show about UK Garage Pirate Radio set in my beloved West London? How did I miss this when it originally came out??
I loved the concept and the characters, especially ‘Chabuddy G’ and ‘Steves’, both of whom are amongst the funniest characters to grace British TV. I also liked the fact that it’s not watered down to appeal to a broader audience; if you know about the Garage scene of the late nineties and early 2000s, and grew up in London, then this show is made for you! It is proper jokes! That said, after five series', it does start to wear a bit thin. The characters definitely grow, but the jokes become repetitive. Add a movie in to the mix, and there’s not really much comedy left to mine. The movie, especially, is very much a gimmick, and doesn’t actually feature much in the way of laughs, or choons. That’s the thing about the show; although it pokes fun at a group of men in their thirties, still hosting a pirate radio show and acting like teenagers, the choons (songs) they come out with, are proper! Anyway, definitely worth watching if you’re aware of UK Garage and/or live in London. I was also delighted to see a show set in London, where one of the main characters is Asian! There are more brown people in London than anywhere outside of Asia, and it’s great to not only see a bit of representation, but see it done in a way that’s not just about ticking boxes; ‘Chabuddy G’ was the highlight of the show!  Colin Farrell’s Penguin was easily the best thing about Matt Reeves’s Batman movie; that said, I was sceptical about giving that character his own mini-series…
But it totally worked! Not just because of Collin Farrell’s amazing performance, but also because of Cristin Milioti’s amazing performance! They both gave their villainous characters a sense of believability and empathy; something that definitely elevates the show. It wasn’t perfect; I felt like they dragged out the story for a few episodes more than they should have, but it was still very watchable, and better than expected. Worth a gander for sure.  This is a series I really wanted to love, because I absolutely adore animation and sci-fi, and shows that take risks, and although this ticks all those boxes, it just didn’t do it for me!
Firstly, it was ensemble show, whereas I think it would have benefited from a central protagonist. Secondly, none of those characters were really that likeable, with one of them being downright despicable. To top it all off, the formula of ‘monster of the week’ storytelling got pretty boring pretty fast. Every episode was the same challenge, but in a different guise. Yawn. The artwork was cool though, which is sometimes enough! But not this time. Even if it does get another season, I won’t be watching.  I finished watching Shogun.
It was slow to get good, and massively overrated! I think the high expectations were part of the reason I wasn’t as impressed with it as I may have been, and in terms of Samurai based TV shows, it was no where near as enjoyable as Blue Eyed Samurai (which I loved). It’s definitely a show where perseverance is required. I wouldn’t recommend it to the casual viewer to be honest; I think you need to have an affinity for Samurai movies and the tropes of that genre to fully enjoy the show. As for historical accuracy? I have no idea! As a viewing experience, it was alright though. People seemed to have loved it, which is fine by me. It’s by no means a bad show, but I wasn’t as taken with it as others. |
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A chronicle of films, shows, and theatre I've seen, as well as books I've read, and talks I may have attended. ArchivesCategories |
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