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snowdonkarl
Reviews
The Blacklist: Hannah Hayes (No. 125) (2019)
Laughably Awful
This episode was about as steeped in reality as the film 'The Human Centipede' except The Blacklist isn't supposed to be a weird, horror, B-movie. A terrible plot and comical scenarios. By far and away the worst episode of The Blacklist. Put it this way, I've went out of my way to review this because it's so bad.
Vikings: Death and the Serpent (2020)
Contrived Nonsense
The series 6 plot makes no sense. In previous series Lagertha's love of Kattegat was made clear as it was her home and she would die to defend to it. Then suddenly she does a u-turn and wants to retire in a hut far away and farm cattle by herself. About a hundred people then help her set up a few huts. Why when only Lagertha is living here? She then gets visited by a nearby town of women & a couple of old men who want to stay with her. Why not goto Kattegat? Then a band of outlaws want to steal Lagertha's grain. What grain?! Plot of land is tiny. After a cringeworthy fight scene, they beat the outlaws into retreat. Gunnhild turns up but she's Queen of Kattegat and Torvi who isn't Queen gets told by Ubbe she must stay cos she has responsibilities. Errrr doesn't Gunnhild have that responsibility?! Gunnhild arrives in time to help Lagertha beat the outlaws again. Then Lagertha a 70-ish year old woman (who looks half that age) beats a 7 foot tall renowned killer in single combat?! Then Gunnhild says a toe-curling line "If I didn't worship you before, I worship you now Lagertha." Even though both are wounded, Lagertha wants to return to Kattegat to see her son. Eh? She said she wanted to stay in her new hut until she dies. Another u-turn. She tells Gunnhild she's injured & shouldn't go despite Gunnhild being Queen of Kattegat and is wounded the same as Lagertha? Despite having to reach her new home by boat from Kattegat, she rides a horse to Kattegat during the freezing night, in the rain while wounded. Falls off it and crawls along the mud for a while until coincidentally Hvitserk thinks she's a serpent & stabs her. A truly terrible, contrived, nonsensical plot. A great character has been cheated. Given 2 stars because of the build up to the forthcoming Harald-Bjorn feud.
Watchmen (2019)
Waste Of Time
Other than good hologram special effects in the Ances-Tree building, there is absolutely nothing going on that holds my attention. The overall racism plot is intriguing but it's been executed absolutely terribly. No characterisation, no warmth, no charm and no appeal to casual viewer. I don't care about any of the characters so I asked myself why am I watching this? It's just wasting my time.
Who is this show trying to appeal to? Comic book fans? They hate it cos it's nothing like the original. Perhaps it's for casual viewers like me? Well I just find this story has a plodding plot full of pointless waffle set in a weird world with people with no superpowers fighting & beating up people twice their size. Similar to Agent Carter and look what happened to that show.
If you want to watch a good current comic book series then watch Daredevil or Jessica Jones.
The Affair (2014)
Soap Opera
This series started very well with a good concept of how an affair affects all the character's lives, but unfortunately the show has turned into a liberal soap opera.
Series 3&4 were all over the place with flashbacks causing the story to lose all intensity & muddy the plot. New characters were introduced to spin out the series with tiresome events that you'd see in every soap opera.
Series 5 shows an avalanche of utterly pathetic Male characters who drip with nauseating arrogance. There's 1 Male character point of view (Noah) who remains idiotic and 5 female character points of view, who are all portrayed with a struggle to succeed when in fact all of them are so middle-class wealthy, they wouldn't know true poverty if it crawled out of their designer handbags. You hear unrealistic, abnormal dialogue between characters and a ridiculously (five minute) long monologue by a woman about the injustices of the patriarchy to justify her anger towards Noah. The writers of this monologue clearly want to acknowledge the virtues of metoo, but forgot that no amount of hurt feelings or feelings that you have to act in a certain way to be heard (which is basic politeness that everyone should adhere to) can justify slanderous accusations.
Awful end to a once interesting show.
X-Men: No Mutant Is an Island (1996)
Out of sync
This episode should be watched after Phoenix Saga - Child Of Light. IMDB has listed it in the incorrect order because this episode was delayed in production. Therefore when it was broadcast it was out of sync with the overall storyline.
This episode introduces a mutant called Zebediah Kilgrave who is in the Jessica Jones TV series.
X-Men (1992)
Xceptional
While most of the UK were watching Live & Kicking, I watched the x-men animated series in the early 1990's on Sky One's DJ Kat Show on Saturday mornings, which I think had Sylvester McCoy dressed up as a butler. I was hooked on it every week because it followed a story-arc in the first 3 series. Then it got out of sequence thanks to production delays to No Mutant Is An Island which was part of the third series story arc. The reason it's so good is because of the storylines are based on the comics & time is spent on character development so you understand why they do what they do. No cartoon did this before. It is a cartoon with adult themes which kids especially, will find it Gripping, Enjoyable and tinged with sadness. The series ended with a lacklustre final 5 episodes, which were produced differently than previous episodes & voiceovers, but at least they ended it rather than left it hanging. I find the X-Men animated series is actually a better watch than the Fox films made from 2000 to 2019 because of the characterisation it has. If you watch this series then watch X-Men Evolution you'll soon realise just how good this series is. Evolution has no gravitas & is so utterly bland in comparison. This series is one to treasure.