john-m-madsen Reviews

Spitting Image (2020–2021)

Not even a shadow of it's former self.

[3/10 · 3 November 2020]

The original Spitting Image was far and away the best satirical program on TV in the eighties, as evidenced by it's near world-wide popularity and the plethora of international adaptations.

This thing, not so much. It seems the writers has taken little to no inspiration from the biting political satire which made the original such a hit. Instead they have substituted it with largely toothless and bland humor and apparently rely on the (admittedly excellent) puppets to provide the laughs. Add in the shoddy, sometimes awful, impressions and you end up with a real dog's dinner of a show.

In general it seems that proper satire, political or not, is now a dead or dying art amongst today's writers. Or maybe the fault lies with the executives and their lack of spine. Who knows.

Anyway, I suppose there's still a glimmer of hope. The first season of the original series also fell flat and it wasn't until Rob Grant and Doug Naylor were brought in that it took off and became the jewel we all know and love. Fingers crossed then that the writers and voice actors are booted out post hase and some decent ones located.

The Witcher (2019– )

Rarely have I been this disappointed

[3/10 · 21 December 2019]

While the production values are suitably high, that's undoubtedly the best thing one can say about The Witcher. One would have thought that after 8 seasons of Game of Thrones Netflix would have collected some pointers about what's needed to build a realistic and believable world, but apparently they forgot to take notes or just never watched it.

While the production is of a suitably high quality, the whole thing reads as a historically illiterate American's uninspired take on Eastern European Late Medieval period. The sets are nice, but they don't look lived in. Rather they look like what they are: movie sets. The costumes are nice too, but again they all too often look like costumes. They may be dirty at times, but they too don't look "lived in".

The dialogue is awful, just awful. Exactly no effort whatsoever appears to have been put into crafting believable colloquy. Full of modern colloquialisms it is about as immersion-breaking as can be. Likewise, Jaskier's songs lack any sense of coming from the repertoire of a medieval troubadour, sounding instead like those of a comedic american singer-songwriter suffering from a case of severe mediocrity.

Nor does 2-day stubble, fancy contacts and long, grey hair transform Henry Cavill into a believable Geralt; he ends up rather like a less meek Clark Kent. While a sumptuous collection of scars have been plastered on his body, his overly chiselled features leaves no impression of a life full of constant hardship and tribulations.

Without a doubt the two best and most compelling characters of this first season are Freya Allan as Ciri and Anya Chalotra as Yennefer of Vengerberg. Both charcters are interesting and well acted, but they are far from able to save the season by themselves. Various side shows also do a good job: Jodhi May can always be relied upon and makes a good Queen Calanthe, while Shaun Dooley's King Foltest is just right.

Overall though, as someone who enjoyed the books and games a lot I found The Witcher a huge let-down.

Another Life (2019–2021)

Big Brother in Space - and Katee Sackhoff.

[2/10 · 31 July 2019]

I regret having to kind of plagiarise user tracymoped's review, but "Big Brother in Space" was my very first thought on seeing the crew of the Salvare. A bunch of dimwits, egomaniacs and misfits who should never in a million years be allowed near, never mind allowed to operate, a space ship. Graphics are very decent, but who cares when the rest is so awful.

The the production quality is high, Katee Sackhoff is very watchable in everything she does and the story could have been interesting to follow, so it's a real shame it turned out to be a real dog's dinner.

The American West (2016)

Neither entertaining, nor accurate.

[2/10 · 4 July 2018]

To be fair, I only watched half an episode of the first episode and bits of pieces of a few others. That was more than sufficient to ascertain that this drivel was never meant to be a serious show, or to teach anybody anything at all. Rather it appears to be designed as light entertainment and to perpetuate inaccuracies and tired old myths of the Old West.

Shoddy, clumsy, lightweight and not even a great deal of entertainment value to speak of. Two stars is ample reward.

Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024)

Pretty good, but hoping for better as time goes on.

[6/10 · 28 October 2017]

That's the first 5 episodes out of the way, so what do I think...

Well, the cast is excellent: some truly excellent actors and many who are very competent. Jason Isaacs never dips below "very good" in anything he does and frequently ventures into "outstanding" territory. What I've seen so far gives me no reason to expect otherwise here. Doug Jones is great as Saru, Anthony Rapp makes a very decent eccentric engineer and as for the remainder, it's really too early to tell how they'll do. Martin-Green is perhaps the one let-down, as she seems a bit strained and wooden so far. Still, it's early days still and plenty of time for things to improve.

The one thing that's sure, and which has already been well established, is that this isn't Star Trek for the Trekkies. As for me, I've never been one of those. The lore and canon holds little to no interest for me, so the flood of niggles based on Klingon foreheads and such are of no consequence.

The "feel" of the show is a slightly different matter. Having watched and loved TNG, DS9, Enterprise and Voyager (and some of the original series, but that's just too dated for me to enjoy), Discovery has a very different feel to it. It really does feel like a hybrid of Star Trek and Star Wars, having lost the slightly gritty, low budget feel that's always been there before. Nothing inherently wrong with that as far as I'm concerned; the fact that the budget is is less constrained is a good thing, as is the fact that computer technology and with it special effects technology has moved on tremendously.

However, for me at least Star Trek has always been about going boldly where no man has gone before. In other words: discovery of new races, new phenomena, new regions of space, new dilemmas and new whateveryoucanthinkof. Being a Sci-Fi show Discovery does retain some of that, of course, but the focus appears to have shifted markedly towards action and war. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Too early to say I think, although for many it's obviously distinctly bad, but there's no doubt that this isn't Star Trek as we knew it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see/hope, and if we presume that once again some 5, 6, 7 series is the aim then there's certainly scope for some traditional Star Trek exploration and discovery down the line.

Anyway, for now I'll give it a six. It's enjoyable as is, I'm sure it'll improve as the cast grows into the roles and each other and it's too early to judge the story, plot line(s) and what it'll end up feeling like.

Fingers crossed.

Iron Fist (2017–2018)

Could have been SO much better.

[5/10 · 30 July 2017]

Good production values and good actors, but there it stops.

Here's this guy who's been trained for fifteen years by mystical monks in another dimension. Trained in martial arts, mental control and self-discipline. For fifteen years. By mystical, other-dimensional monks.

So far it's all good.

The problem is that once this hero of the ages returns to the real world, he is revealed to be a dunce and a dimwit with the mental and impulse control of a teenager with severe ADHD.

Which almost completely ruins what could so easily have been a very decent show. It's hard to properly fathom what could have caused such an incredibly stupid design decision, but perhaps the bosses believe that US viewers prefer a protagonist as ignorant and lacking as themselves.

Expedition Unknown (2015– )

Pointless "clickbait" and a waste of time

[2/10 · 11 February 2017]

Apart from the slight educational aspect, this show is frankly a total waste of time. An intriguing mystery is presented, a long and sometimes disjointed hunt ensues and the end result is.... absolutely nothing at all.

I certainly haven't seen every episode and I won't see any more, but the six or seven I have sat through all ended up with a fat lot of nothing. Nothing exciting found, nothing new found and no new knowledge gained.

I suppose that if you knew nothing about the subject matter to begin with, you'd at least be a tiny bit wiser by the end of the programme, but watching a traditional documentary would have taught you a whole lot more in the same time.

Planet Earth II (2016)

Yet another masterpiece from BBC Nature & David Attenborough

[10/10 · 6 November 2016]

What to say about Planet Earth II which has not already been said about so many other fantastic productions from BBC Nature?

I've no idea.

However: the production values are as always the very best in the business, the photography is likewise unmatched and it's all tied together with masterful insight and authority by David Attenborough, the man who through more than four decades has taught the planet more about the natural world than any ten others put together.

Simply superb.

The actual content? That you need to see for yourself.

London Has Fallen (2016)

So stupid I wouldn't have thought it possible.

[1/10 · 28 May 2016]

How the **** can a piece of utter crap like this garner sufficient support to get six stars?? Are people out of their tiny minds?? Olympus Has Fallen was a passable film, because plot was just barely within the realms of reason and possibility, but this thing is just utter stupidity from one end to the other. Umphteen terrorists passing for UK police, taking down a bridge with a couple of vans, blasting Westminster Cathedral and more, all at once? Hey, I like a good action/disaster movie as much as the next guy, but this is brain death on the screen and IMDb needs to include a score of zero stars before another piece of crap like this appears.