The TV and Streaming thread renewed

[majestic]

20 hours ago, Fionavar said:

Currently awaiting the release of season 5 of The Expanse. Some of the best sci-fi storytelling I have experienced recently via the medium. Other than that, may checkout The Man in the High Castle: anyone else watching it? Thoughts? Reviews?

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(TV_series)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle_(TV_series)

The Man in the High Castle is a special case. The first season is, let's say "mixed", the middle parts really drag on.

It pays off to keep watching. If only to experience the strangeness of rooting for SS Obergruppenführer John Smith (played magnificently by Josh E. Sawyer Rufus Sewell) as he uncovers - and  tries to foil - a conspiracy with the goal of assassinating Hitler.

Makes more sense in context.

edit:

And John Smith's Japanese secret police counterpart Kido (played by Lt. Wang from Space Above and Beyond) is pretty good as well. They're terrible people doing terrible things, yet you can't help hoping they'll succeed. The show's pretty good at painting the alternative as even worse.

Well at least that was my impression. There's also the rebel movement but they're all boring in addition to being terrible people.

Edited October 18, 2020 by majestic

[Fionavar]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

The Man in the High Castle is a special case. The first season is, let's say "mixed", the middle parts really drag on.

It pays off to keep watching. If only to experience the strangeness of rooting for SS Obergruppenführer John Smith (played magnificently by Josh E. Sawyer Rufus Sewell) as he uncovers - and  tries to foil - a conspiracy with the goal of assassinating Hitler.

Makes more sense in context.

edit:

And John Smith's Japanese secret police counterpart Kido (played by Lt. Wang from Space Above and Beyond) is pretty good as well. They're terrible people doing terrible things, yet you can't help hoping they'll succeed. The show's pretty good at painting the alternative as even worse.

Well at least that was my impression. There's also the rebel movement but they're all boring in addition to being terrible people.

Thanks, Majestic. The first two episodes have me hooked enough to want to watch further. The narrative is sound and the storytelling is very 'Canadian.' That's a literary reference from my context, which may connect with your 'drag on.' This is one of the reason I appreciate Prime's TV over Netflix. Both have merit, but often in the Netflix context narrative or substance seems sacrificed for volume of production: if that makes sense?

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Fionavar said:

Thanks, Majestic. The first two episodes have me hooked enough to want to watch further. The narrative is sound and the storytelling is very 'Canadian.' That's a literary reference from my context, which may connect with your 'drag on.' This is one of the reason I appreciate Prime's TV over Netflix. Both have merit, but often in the Netflix context narrative or substance seems sacrificed for volume of production: if that makes sense?

Plus Netflix used to be a lot more inclined to experiment a little in the past, a sign of the times, and massively increased market pressure.

I generally don't mind slower plot pacing, I very much liked e.g. the BSG remake until it became clear the writers had no idea what to do with the show somewhere in the middle of season 3. Not everything needs to have the break neck pace of Dark Matter or Agents of SHIELD.

But the first season of The Man in the High Castle really just... drags on. You'll see soon enough. Once you're done admiring the impressive production values, the aesthetics and the generally good acting you'll probably notice that the first season is simply a few episodes too long. Things happen at a snails pace, sometimes nothing happens at all. There's this whole subplot with Karl Tanner (I'm sure he has a real name but he's just Mr. Drinks From A Skull from GoT ) as  bounty hunter that goes nowhere, for instance - and he shows up in three episodes.

In a way this is the inverse of what happened in Game of Thrones where characters teleported themselves over vast distances because the show didn't have enough episodes to show their travels. Here Juliana needs way, way longer to go to the place she needs to be for the final episode because the showrunners had to get to ten episodes per season. Heh.

Well at least that's my impression.

[Fionavar]

Thanks, @majestic - I will check-in once I am further into the show. I usually only am able to watch a few episodes a week. Once I am through Season 1 - I will share some further thoughts.

[Amentep]

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