I have completely rewritten what was a largely positive review after 3 episodes. I don't think I've ever seen such wild oscillations of quality in a TV show: minute-to-minute swings up and down. It's like watching the shadows on the wall of a fight between a good writer and the terrible one.
The quality is more consistent towards the front of Season 1, and hits a low point in Episode 5 from which the series never really recovers. The faults become glaring when the series stops looking at the 50s era and stares too long at the 21st century period. Until then, the shifts in attention provide a regular refreshment of the atmosphere. You already know it in those earlier, better episodes but when the show stops focussing on Mari Yamamoto it becomes impossible to ignore: her performance carries this project, and the writers only have anything of interest to say about her role in the 50s. When the spotlight moves away from that, the weaknesses of everything else are on full display. The signs at the end of Season 1 are that "Monarch: LOTM" is done with discussing the past and will now be entirely in the present day, and that doesn't bode well for the show's future.
So it's a weird show. I continue to watch because I love giant monsters, and the series provides just enough flashes of quality to keep me engaged but I can pretend they're not testing my patience.
The quality is more consistent towards the front of Season 1, and hits a low point in Episode 5 from which the series never really recovers. The faults become glaring when the series stops looking at the 50s era and stares too long at the 21st century period. Until then, the shifts in attention provide a regular refreshment of the atmosphere. You already know it in those earlier, better episodes but when the show stops focussing on Mari Yamamoto it becomes impossible to ignore: her performance carries this project, and the writers only have anything of interest to say about her role in the 50s. When the spotlight moves away from that, the weaknesses of everything else are on full display. The signs at the end of Season 1 are that "Monarch: LOTM" is done with discussing the past and will now be entirely in the present day, and that doesn't bode well for the show's future.
So it's a weird show. I continue to watch because I love giant monsters, and the series provides just enough flashes of quality to keep me engaged but I can pretend they're not testing my patience.