Reviews

This show is seriously fantastic. A kind of rehash of the Jim Carey comedy film The Truman Show, and reimagining of the "reverse" reality show Joe Schmoe (don't worry if you've never heard of this one-it was many years ago now, and not nearly as good as Jury Duty). At any rate - why, WHY, has such great content been relegated to the adpacked hellscape of Freeview?!

I DESPISE FREEVIEW with an intense swirling inferno of burning hate and rage... If I wanted my media interrupted constantly with the most obnoxious and irrelevant advertisements in existence, I would have never cancelled my cable TV and switched to streaming only. Funny how after these streaming platforms all choked out the once entrenched oligarchy of former Cable TV monopolies, their next order business is to rebuild another one, right atop the still the shouldering ashes of the vanquished....

Without revealing spoilers (the ending spoils things quite well enough all on its own), let's just say you'd be much better off reading the 1954 novel "The Caine Mutiny" instead...

This film adaptation attempts to modernize the book's story, which was originally set in WWII era, Pacific Theater, whereas the film is current time, Middle Eastern seas. The modernization itself wasn't really the problem per se, but it definitely didn't help that some of the events differed too much to properly illustrate the characters' mental states and reasonings behind their actions/behaviors.

The main problem with the adaptation arises from the fact that it only covers the court martial trial, cutting out huge chunks of the story both before and after the trial in the book...

This robs the film of the contextual explanations necessary to fully make sense of the ending; which, in the novel, are revealed by the cut story sections, as the reader is led to compare and contrast the different events that occur for the key characters (Queeg, Keefer, Maryk, etc).

Without the rest of the book's story, the conclusions drawn by and the actions of defense attorney Greenwald (in the film's ending) seem way out of line with what appears to have been the truth, as is revealed to viewers during the film version's trial-only storyline.

The result, in my opinion, is an ending that feels confused and disjointed; and ultimately stains an otherwise great courtroom procedural drama...

Why in God's name would anyone, ever, think "hey, my tablet says 19% oxygen in this cave, on a rogue planet, that was previously showing -5° C. Let's open our visors and be the first people to breathe on another planet!"... Be prepared for more of these 'why' moments with this show. Because the science part of this sci-fi show is extremely lacking... Ahhh, Starbuck, how far you've fallen from grace....