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Reviews
Fargo (2014)
A (really) good and entertaing first season...
Season 1
Good to really good. Good acting. Pulp fiction in a series less good but still near enough. The story and characters make mostly sense and are engaging. There are the one or other plot holes but that could also be because they sometimes don't tell the motivation of side character whose action influence the (re)action of a main character. But that's complaining on a high level.
Season 2
Well the story is still entertaining but compared to 1 season there is a lot of plot conveniences and the characters intelligence level vary depending on if the story needs it at that moment or not. The acting is still good.
Season 3
Well, it is still entertaining if you roll with the plot conveniences which are less than in season 2. Also the characters behave less dumb than in season 2 but still more than in 1. The police beside one or two are also mostly dumb like in both prior seasons. Acting is still good. As a whole a bit better than season 2. Certainly better than most contemporary series.
Season 4
Is a dip in script quality and you realize that we are now in the production years of 19/20. The show already suffers from modern (2023/24) writing. Less concise story telling, more tell don't show, weakly drawn characters and modern identity politics. It also misses a morally good point of view, or at least has a really weak one. It also lost it satiric edge. The pacing is also not that great. While the first 3 season could bind me to the screen here I caught myself sometimes browsing the web. I think the problem of loosing interest are the weak characters and the less captivating story of this season. The story is a more classical gang war. Not the sometimes weird but funny stuff from the other seasons. It feels more cringe than weird now. I am a history buff and this season plays in the 50s. The world building is good. I don't have the feeling, like in so many current "historical" shows, that the people are just cross-dressing. That hold my interest and I wanted to finish what I started despite being somewhat boring in between. I would summarize this season as it looks like Fargo but doesn't feel like Fargo.
Season 5
Most (modern) cliche characters ever in Fargo. There is the bady white hardcore conservative rich farmer/sheriff patriarch, the toxic rich business woman boss matriarch and mother-in-law, the wife turned atomic blond and the dumb beta male husband. And her sweet little daughter. There is also a weird mystic (magic??) man who fills up some of the episodes. Probably just to have one. And a lot of dumb goons who let the Kevin Alone At Home bad guys look like Einsteins. Ah yes, there are also the black (not so bright when the story needs it, you will see in the first and other episode why) state trooper and an American native police woman (with a really dumb useless white husband) as moral anchor. Also added to the mix Scully and Mulder. Like most MCs in current productions she is not that likable. She makes some morally bad decisions. I wouldn't mind that if the writers didn't want us to sympathies with her. But on the good side she is no Mary Sue, but she has a little plot armor.
The story is a dumbed down mix of The Long Kiss Goodnight and Kevin Alone At Home with a (al bight small) bit of Yellowstone meets Dallas. They could have removed at least 2 characters and given the black trooper the moral anchor. The pay back later on would have been a lot better That would also have given the series more room for it's important characters. Otherwise it could have been 2 episodes less. And the end is cheesy, cringe, preachy and draaaags.
Can you have fun with this? I think it depends on how strongly the story and especially the characters rub you the wrong way. You certainly can laugh at the season 5.
The whole series get a 7 because of the first 2 seasons. The first was the best. The second was good and the third was still entertaining. Season 4 was the worst because the story was not that interesting. Season 5 was a bit better but could have been so much more. But the too simple characters and the missing emotional pay back at the end made it mediocre at best and irrelevant at the end.
Tokyo Vice: Like a New Man (2024)
What happend to this show
Where is the show with interesting background to the Yakuza, the live of a gaijin reporter in Japan and the hopeless feeling fight against the Yakuza and corruption?
This feels now like a slow moving boring soap opera where old and new support characters get stories we are not interested in and have (mostly) nothing to do with the main plot. I am not even sure we have a main plot.
They also added cliche characters with cliche story lines. (you know what I mean when you see them) Please. Stop. Putting. Token. Characters. Into. A. show to check a box. Just boring.
Also the main characters seem to behave unexplainably differently to the first season. And also some things just happen to move the plot along or create some action/tension without real build up or even logic.
I am not sure if I gona watch this to the end.
Seven Kings Must Die (2023)
Good end to the story
Is it a great movie? No it's not. But a good end to the story of Uhtred son of Uhtred.
As a lot of critics her say the movie would have been better as a 6 season. In times you have the feeling that you missed something. But it is not that bad that you can't follow. It's a coherent story where you just have to fill in some (small) details from you imagination.
The movie is still faithful to it's main character Uhtred as he was in the series except a bit older. Which makes sense, he lived through 3 kings. This is more shown through his less capable fighting than his gray hair. So don't expect duels or something.
You will feel right at home with him and his friends but will miss some of the other characters from the series.
The story mostly centers around the relationship between Uhtred and Aethelstan and if Uhtred will swear fealty to Aethelstan or not. It is interesting but fast paced.
At the end we will get a battle which looks believable but in my opinion has a little to many fast cuts. But still has high tension and conveys the madness of a shield wall fight well. It reminds me also (as other reviewer mentioned) a bit of the Battle of the Bastards in Game of Thrones but with a less dumb leader and realistic tactics.
The end is heartwarming and concludes the story of Uhtred just fine.
Would I have preferred a full season? Yes. But still for fans it is a must.
"One path looks like another." "The future is fate, it won't change."
Locke & Key: Five Minutes Past (2022)
Lazy writing
Why are writers this lazy. The mom-is-not-allowed-a-new-partner-after-death-of-my-dad cliché, Boy-makes-dumb-decision (can't learn) cliché and the let-us-lie-and-let-our-brother- feel-excluded-and-lied-to cliché.
Miss Scarlet & the Duke (2020)
Boring
No chemistry between the Duke and Miss Scarlet. Not a lot of the period is shown. The Duke is a bigger part of the title than the show. And the cases are boring. There is also no tension in the situations which she overcomes with ease.