Reviews
In essence its a murder mystery. A small town cop has his mettle tested with a big city case. Its set in Iceland, during a snowstorm that isolates the small seaport town from any help from the outside for days. There is also quite a bit of back-story to the characters dating back to a different suspected murder of a young girl. If you like Gwyll(Hinterland) you will likely like this show. Its suspenceful and there are lots of twists and turns so you can't tell who commited the murder. Its mostly in Icelandic, but some of it is in English. There are English subtitles that are fairly easy to read, as its not overly heavy on dialog. You can't talk a lot when you are freezing to Death.
Just finished the series. I highly recommend it. World class. Five Stars.
UPDATE: Season 2 is ok but not nearly as good as the first season. I thought they might have trouble creating the same moody atmosphere and intriging plot. The nazi nationalism is spot on though, very good social commentary. The plot meanders all over the place leaving you wondering wtf is going on. Until the last two episodes when they finally tell you the secret that finally explains the previous 8 episodes. Its just poor writing. The motivation of the killer is sooooooooooo stupid I had to take off 1.5 stars for the series. Not the incest thing, the reason for dumping the barrels. Also, it would be ok with me if every show didn't have a gay subplot.
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I watched the whole season, though at times I had to skip ahead as the show is annoying in certain ways. For one, there are incessant flashbacks... like every 5 minutes they flashback to show you the character's old lives, and while it adds a lot to the backstory, it constantly breaks the flow of the present day show. Secondly, there is a false emotional aspect to the show that is melodramic and at times delves into psuedo religiosity. Thirdly, its a simplistic black versus white plot, I've read a couple of Orson Scott Card's books in the past and this appears to be one of his duller plots. On the bright side, the technical aspects of it are far better than the otherwise low budget production. Looks like they spent all the money on the CGI. If you are a die-hard sci-fi fan I would watch it on 1.5x speed and skip past the boring predictable parts. Otherwise you won't be missing much if you skipped it.
I was hoping this show took off because I loved the old Munster's show, but this episode was pretty bad. There was one great scene with the mother witch, but there was one horrible scene with the father and his mechanical heart. I wasn't surprised it didn't get picked up.
Remember remember the 5th of November
The gunpowder treason and plot
I can't think of a reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot
1st episode was amazingly good. We'll see if they can keep it up. Stan the man.
Unfortunately, 4 shows in and its already getting boring, bogged down in melodrama for no reason except that its cheap to film. I've decided to drop it already.
UPDATE: I dropped the show about half way through the first season, but when the second season started I watched th premier, and it was great. The second season is way better than the first and it was definitely in my top 10 shows of the year.
Unlike most of the super hero shows, the powers that all these X-Men related mutants have are very unique. And I like the war brewing with the human vigilante groups. If you have Marvel-fatgue, give this show a try, you will be regenerated.
I was disappointed by this series. The overall premise is a typical superhero vs villain story. There are moments that are well done, but it degenerates into a parade of fight scenes for no obvious reason. I really liked Jessica Jones and thought this series would have a similar feel, but The Defenders is a rather dumbed down children's comic with near constant gratuitous violence. The Hand idea is just plain stupid.
Not all penguins mate for life as some are serially monogamous much like humans. There has also been recent research into other allegedly life-monogamous claims for other birds and it was found that there are two phenomenon involved, one called Social Monogamy when the birds appear in 'public' as a life-monogamous couple, but there is ample evidence that both the male and female birds still occasionally "step out" and have covert "affairs" with other birds and therefore they are not Sexually Monogamous. I'm not aware that this dual social/sexual nature has been discovered in penguins, but it seems at least possible.
As a person definitely on the spectrum myself, its been somewhat educational watching this show... hey, I do that. Ummm, I do that too. Oh, I totally did that when I was young.
UPDATE: Season 2 was decent enough, if you exclude the ritualistic non-science in an otherwise totally scientific personality. They are definitely trying to extend the scope and make it an all inclusive show instead of just being about the autistic boy. I like the sister turning out to be more atypical than we thought. The mother and father storylines are tiring and I skipped a lot of that. I'm bringing it down half a star as Season 2 wasn't as good as season 1. Typical.
I have to caveat my 4.5 stars by saying that those are *only* for the first season and the movie. The second season looks like a completely different writing team came in and F'd it up royally. Its annoyingly bad after the greatness of the first season.
DO NOT WATCH THE SECOND SEASON. IT WITH RAISE YOUR PSYCHO-PASS TO LATENT CRIMINAL LEVELS. KEEP YOUR COLOR CLEAR.
The first season was so good I didn't know how I missed knowing about this show. It came out in 2012. I'm not wildly into Manga, but I kind of am compared to most people, for example, I had the original Ghost in a Shell on VHS tape. In many ways, Psycho-Pass is like a prequel to GitS; as its made by the same production company, IG.
Though its not like GitS in many other ways, for one thing the animation is much lower quality, its not noir-esque, and they can't seem to resist making all the woman's have eyes the size of baseballs, its just stupid. There are also the usual Japanese misogynistic tendencies as well, like the woman bowing and being polite while the guys do whatever they want. And several times a woman is violently killed by a man that leads you to wonder about the Psycho-Pass of the writer/animators.
Having said that, the main character in the show is a female and it is somewhat a hero's journey for her, if you know the term, as she comes into a police force role as a rookie and must grow into this very weird role. It not like any cop show you have ever seen.
The writing for the first season, and the movie too, is excellent, world-class. The protagonist and antagonist males dueling it out the whole season. The future japanese world view and gadgets are fun, though the whole gun thing gets a bit much as you will definitely find your self waiting for the gun to do its thing so the cop can shoot. "They totally would have been killed by now." But its a minor thing for all the fun to be had.
The music and screen opening and closing credits change a lot compared to western shows, and its good sometimes and annoying other times. They definitely were going for a rat pack kind of thing in the opening and closing credits.
WATCH THE ENDING CREDITS TO THE END, SOMETIMES THERE IS A LITTLE BIT EXTRA FOOTAGE TACKED ON.
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One of the most unique shows this decade. Allison Brie definitely proved she can carry a show, and the early 80s period settings and costumes are well done. Was that Allison Brie's tits? I think that was her tits? I only watched the first 6 episodes and just now decided to drop it as I lost interest. I gets soap opera-y quickly. I hope it is canceled, as I don't think we need female wrestlers rapping in season 2, which is what a lot of the original show actually turned into, as there wasn't much actual wrestling.
I remember when the actual GLOW tv show was on, and it was quite a joke at the time, the way that Taco Bell is a joke compared to real mexican food. But the thing that was GLOW is certainly deserving of a show to pay homage. It was a odd time to be alive and the original show was certainly odd.
The first two seasons are some of the best TV episodes ever produced. I would put them on par with Game of Thrones. Certainly if you like pirate shows, then its a no brainer, you have to watch it. The 3rd season starts going down hill and imo the 4th season is a soap opera. I stopped watching about half way through season 3. I tried again with the open of season 4 but only could make it through one episode.