Reviews
Its a dark twisted show about a serial killer and a mystery to be solved. There is a lot of violence toward women: gang rape, murder, mutilation, pimps, domestic abuse with rape, and allusions of child prostitution. You know, entertainment.
But at the core its a mystery, with a group of school friends reunited years later as adults and facing questions during the investigation by a police detective trying to find the killer. What happened in the past? Who is the killer? No one? Everyone?
The concepts of making perfume play an important thematic role in the story. It definitely has great visuals and excellent acting. The murder and mutilation are quite original.
My only complaint, beside the egregeous abuse of women, is that there are so many actors that the plot bounces around a lot and the story doesn't focus on the investigation enough, its more a collage of all the F'd Up people involved. Its still very well done.
If you like Hinterland (Y Gwyll), you'll probably like this.
Its filmed in Germany, with German language, but the English dubing is very well done. Although sometimes you can see the lips don't quite sync up, at other times its seamless and you hardly notice it at all.
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Only watched first episode, its mostly a horror story like The Thing, but in space instead of the Arctic.
The people are melodramtic idiots who do not behave the way any normal person would behave.
I would rate it lower, but some of the settings and the Tokyo scenes were fairly well done. Obviously trying to be a Blade Runner rip off.
If you like horror in space, this is the show for you.
Dropped.
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The first season is basically a mystery. Someone has been stealing classified documents and the melodramic managers have to find the traitor. Its the typical mystery scenario, it could be anyone, and the focus moves around focusing on each person and uncovering their motivations and personal secrets.
I think the above sounds boring, and some of the show is boring, there is a lot of procedural involved in the day to day operations of the command center, but the parts that aren't boring are very exciting. The show builds to a finale that had me on the edge of my seat.
Its a fairly unique concept for a show. Its like NORAD in Australia. Loved how they show how easy it is to listen into everyones cell phone. Particularly since the chinese have supposedly been listening to the american idiot's personal cell phone.
They better make a season 2, this show could easily work for 3 or 4 seasons with all the cold war scenarios.
Predictions:
The artwork the jilted wife buys from the art gallery recommended by the chinese guy has a microphone.
The traitor won't be any of the people they made you think it would be.
China will invade Japan and take Guam.
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First episode snapshot: Its a modern retelling of classic fairytales, like Little Red Ridinghood is a teenage sluty girl living in new york. There are 5 or 6 stories being told at once. Every two minutes or so it switches to another story and you have to struggle a bit trying to keep everyone straight, but it starts to lengthen the time with each sub-plot as you get to know the characters and storylines. I'm sure all the storylines are going to come together as the series progresses. Its either going to be a mess or its going to be amazing.
The biggest problem is that the well known fairytales are almost completely unrecognizable. For example, yes, one person is supposed to be Little Red Ridinghood, but she is weirdly The Wolf as well. The first episode goes no where and ends anti-climatically.
Its a so-so show about a woman who discovers she might not be fully gay. The show itself kind of engenders bisexuality by being narratively indescisive. There is a sense of the plot wandering around and taking unexpected turns for no real reason. In other words, the plot is ambiguous, and if that was the intent to narratively portray bisexuality, I would think it was masterful, but I think its mostly bad writing. Hence, 2.5 stars. I think its more a 1-1.5 show, but I don't recall ever watching a show specifically about bisexuals, so I give it credit for that.
And I totally don't think the hot spanish girl would be dating the anal-retentive professor dude. And how does that company make money, no one does any work. And how do these people live in new york city when a studio is 2500 a month?
There are breasts, but of course the guy cant show his junk and there is even a torturous jerk-off scene where they literally prop up blankets so you can't see what she is doing to him.
Bisexuals are apparantly not very good looking. There are a lot of strange looking actors in the show in general.
"Can you spit in my mouth"!! Why do shows keep using this disgusting weird sexual sensationalism instead of hiring talented writers? Its at least the third time I've seen that line used in a show in the last year. No one is begging someone to spit in their mouth. I'm confident its not a widespread phenom.
Dropping it for good. Could have been good if it wasn't soo bad.
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I somewhat recently watched a season or two of the original Charmed. I had to stop watching as the plot and the writing went down hill fast. But the three young women were easy on the eyes and some of the show was fun.
The remake lost me in the first 5 minutes. They seemed to throw the idea of a plot out the window from page one, and I was rolling my eyes by page two.
The press made a big deal about the young woman not being white, but I think they missed the point. They should have mentioned that they were not pretty. I didn't watch long enough for the third woman to arrive. Witches are supposed to be Hot. Did you miss the memo? Are these feminist witches?
No great loss.
Three episodes in and I'm dropping it. The first episode was quite good and I had high hopes but the second and third episode were so disconbubulated that it was hard to tell if there was an actual plot underneath with all the random scenes that go nowhere. Like eating cardboard covered with ketchup.
I would have given this 4 stars, but the melodramaically written and overly emotionly acted female cop is just ridiculous. Same old stereotype that all women are emotional idiots and can't control themselves, while the older man is cool as a cucumber and logically solves the case.
Its a murder mystery. And its fairly well done. There are a lot of suspects, and although you can rule people out easily, even when the female cop still think they are the culpret, it does keep you guessing.
If you like shows like Y Gwyll (Hinterland), you would probably like this. Its dark and sometimes a little scary.
The subtitles are a bit much, but the new version of VLC has a subtitle screen reader now, so I'm set to never have to read subtitles again.
The "fear of flying" lasts a whole 1 second and then he gets on the plane and gets off in Hong Kong. I'm more afraid of flying than this character. Do the people that write the descriptions even watch the shows?
Its far more about an acedemic that likes to label things and put them in a nice tidy boxes having to venture out into the real world and find out that he didn't know what was going on in his own life.
But he does a pretty good job handling the chaos of Hong Kong considering the situation. Not sure I would have handled it that well.
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Think 'Dexter' in a book store in New York with a lot of voice over narrative. Too soon to know if it will get tiring. Good start though.
Second episode already getting stupid. The aspect where he repeatedly walks right past the woman and she doesn't recognize him is just unrelaistic. Taking off stars.
4th episode, it just keeps getting worse. Dropping it. The woman talks to herself in her head for an entire episode. This is not a cinematic show, it is dialog searching for a plot.
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