Reviews

I watched the first season and on the whole it was entertaining so no regrets, but I don't think I'll watch anything past season one. Why not? The ending was really poor for a few reasons:

1. Donald Cooperman (William Hurt), the most evil man in the world, brilliant lawyer, and he takes the stand and gets completely shook up by a single line of questioning to the point where he can't speak and has a stroke?? I don't like plot points that rely on out-of-character happenstance.

2. During the trial each side got their shots in but the final 'twist' of Brittany flipping to the defense made no real sense. She said she betrayed her own team because Cooperman was going to help her with some "legal issues". What legal issues? Yes she was a prostitute but we hadn't heard she was in any real trouble to that point. And isn't her best friend Billy A LAWYER?! On top of that her acting was so over the top in the courtroom scene. She comes in wearing flats, no bag and looking like a lost puppy, it's ridiculous.

2. So we have a case that could go either way and it's time for the final speeches to the jury. Callie delivers a masterpiece for Cooperman and Billy gets up, doesn't address any facts or evidence or any reasons to actually convict, just some lame BS about how the little guy can make a difference. It was like a coach's locker room speech to a bunch of kids in a bad sports movie. It was not convincing nor inspirational at all. But this is TV so guess what, Billy wins anyway! The jury convicts on his poor man's David vs Goliath speech.

I gave this a 7 for the sake of Billy Bob Thornton who really is an entertaining actor, and Molly Parker does a fine job as well for the antagonists. Just too deflating at the end and that combined with reading the reviews that seem to agree it's downhill from S1 anyway, I won't spend any more time on it.

Up until this episode the 3 Body Problem had a consistent level of suspension of disbelief, which is crucial to the immersion of the viewer in any show. Then suddenly in this episode, a scene went way beyond that level by presenting a scenario that seemed ridiculous and well, nigh impossible even for this show.

Mike Evans is talking to his 'Lord' (presumably the alien) via the microphone, telling a fairy tale story when the alien voice starts questioning why things are happening, revealing that up until this point in 2024 this alien with supposedly vastly superior intelligence that has been talking to human beings for (checks notes) 58 years(!) has just now come to realize that humans sometimes lie. And that upon this realization, the alien no longer wants to be involved with this person and organization that has been helping them for decades. Say what??

Sorry but this particular plot point makes no sense. I hope this gets clarified or modified somehow from here because it was like this was the first time any human had ever spoken to the alien. Like they were having a get-to-know meet and greet after supposedly decades of communication! And it was a fairy tale story that did it?? Come on.

My Benioff and Weiss GOT season 8 radar is pinging loudly at this point. I hope I'm wrong because the rest of the show has been very good.

I love Monk as a show but did they not even think about this plot for one minute? It makes no sense at all. The killer admits from the start that he knew the victim. He tells Captain Stottlemeyer that, "we had a fight and she left" meaning she was in his home. Later, the case seems to hinge on them finding DNA in the garage. Why wouldn't the killer just say, "yeah so? I've already said she was here. She's been in the garage getting out of my car. If you find DNA it means nothing other than she was here which I've already admitted to." Maybe if they found blood they could say violence had occurred but Monk actually says even a strand of hair would do it, which makes no sense.

Later they link the commissioner's toupe to the victim. Again, so what? It proves she sold her hair to a wig maker, that's it. They still haven't found her DNA in the garage and even if they did, that still proves nothing!

I get that this show is largely a comedy but typically they at least get the plot basics right. It seems odd that nobody thought about this one long enough to realize how little sense it makes.

Also that the Captain's wife is filming an all-access documentary without the Commissioner's knowledge, and then even once he finds out he doesn't stop it but rather is openly berating everyone in front of the camera? Again I understand it's a vehicle for the jokes but they really kind of jumped the shark on this one.

I'm sure it's hard to make something new out of time travel with all the stories that have already been done around it. Even Bodies has its roots in Dark with the family tree of time travel to different periods in relatively recent history, but it's also quite different in many ways and the setup with 4 different detectives trying to figure it out across time periods and ultimately teaming up to do so was a very satisfying end to the story. Also really excellent acting by all the participants in this show but especially Amaka Okafor and Jacob Lloyd-Fortune who brought such emotional depth to their characters.

If it's possible to write a time travel story without plot holes, I haven't seen it yet. Paradox is nigh impossible to avoid and maybe that's why time travel doesn't yet exist in real life. The toughest three to swallow in this show were:

1. If Elias Mannix was a loop created by himself as his own great grandfather when he time travels back to 1890, then how did it (and he) start? The show never explains this in the way that Dark did with the 'origin point'. This is the biggest plot hole by far and I can't think of a solution like I can for the two below. Maybe they are saving that for season 2?

2. How did Julian Harper (aka Elias Mannix) remember all of the stock market moves when technology or material goods can't be transported across time? That must have been a heck of a lot of memorization.

3. How did they seemingly build an atomic bomb in 1890 to place in the vault, and with a cell phone trigger? I suppose they could have done the bomb later once that technology had been invented, but the cell phone wasn't invented until basically the 1990s (prototypes aside). When they enter the bank the banker seems shocked they are there like nobody has shown up for this vault in his time there. The vault is assigned to Shahara and clearly she hasn't shown up before. Even a sentence from 1941 Harker on this topic like, "now we have to start preparing the device in the vault" would have indicated it was still a work in progress as the technology of the day advanced.

Great show overall and I'm glad they can still find unique and compelling ways to explore time travel because it's such a fun plot device when done well. Good job by all involved!

A very interesting premise of Augustus Pinochet as a 250 year old vampire that wants to die (until he doesn't) is a compelling start and the beautifully shot black and white cinematography and fun side characters held my interest in this movie despite a low budget and 2 hour run time.

Carmencita's unexpected and rather easy flip to the dark side was a bit disappointing to me as she was so self assured for the first 3/4 of the movie as she picked apart the Pinochet family with a verbal rapier. She finally confronts Pinochet and it lasts all of 10 seconds before she wants to be a vampire?? Then I thought maybe that was part of her or the church's plan but she spends the rest of the movie flying a bit and then is beheaded. It really seemed like a wasted effort for her character which was compelling up to that point.

Anyway this movie had 9 potential but it kind of fell apart late on plot, so I couldn't do better than a 7.

Giri/Haji was a 10/10 for me until this episode that just got weird and went too far. The rooftop modern dance sequence was totally out of left field and an unnecessary and unwelcome attempt to, apparently, make the show more artistic than it needed or deserved to be. Norman suddenly showing up to save the day in Japan without any real explanation of how he found the women in distress was also a jump too far.

Why did these far fetched and nonsensical scenes need to be inserted into the show at this late date? It was doing just great without modern dance and Hail Mary plot devices.

All that said, still an overall excellent show and I wish it hadn't been cancelled.

After 8 episodes it's very clear that there was a decision made by showrunners from the start of the season to sideline Geralt and focus far more heavily on Yennefer, Ciri and the all-female Brotherhood. They did this under cover of saying it was a "more direct adaptation of the books" which simply can't be true because Geralt was always the star of the books.

This episode was truly the endgame of sidelining Geralt where all we got were a few quick scenes of him struggling to heal up and a mostly meaningless fight with some level 1 guards, cuckolded by the showrunners who would seem to prefer that he not even exist. Even in his final fight scene we get an interminable voiceover from Yennifer through the entire thing, who says nothing meaningful only platitudes, seemingly just there as a final shot at Henry Cavill to steal his thunder before he (understandably) leaves this sinking show.

I would say that I hope they replace LSH as the showrunner to try to salvage something in season 4, but I don't think I'll be watching anyway so what does it matter. Thanks for the first two seasons and good luck with Johnny Drama as Geralt in S4.

I like Three Pines overall as a show but the episodic mysteries (2-parters) have been better than the season-long indigenous mystery of the missing women (and indigenous men are also missing/dead but they never seem to mention that, guess they don't count). The reveal of Pierre Arnot as one of the dirty cops could not have been telegraphed more obviously over the course of the season, and Ganache acting shocked at the reveal was more a reveal either of his own stupidity or (more accurately) of poor script writing that led to this point.

When Arnot is relentlessly saying, "hey Ganache, back off this investigation, it could get you fired, just relax, let it go" and things of that nature, it's pretty obvious that he's involved, especially when viewed through the prism of TV Land writing. I was almost hoping maybe it was some type of red herring or there was another twist coming but nope, it was just that obvious.

I haven't read the books so I can't speak to how it stacks up but overall I've been entertained especially with the 2-episode mysteries that have kept me guessing, and hope they continue beyond season 1.