Reviews

An Australian movie - great! Set in the north - spectacular scenery - even better.

Opening scenes in Adelaide, where I spent my formative years - an added bonus.

I gave up after around 30 minutes when the couple meet the bride's dad.

Typical characters:

Chief female protagonist - strong, empowered, a woman of colour etc.

Chief male protagonist - nerd, wimpy Chief female protagonist's dad - loser

Gave up at this point.

As is common, this had potential, but it was not developed. Decidedly not funny.

I found the first episode to be vulgar, crude and crass - you would not want to watch this with your parents, children or even your partner.

There are no standards or taboos left on television anymore - here we have the protagonist talking about masturbating to a photo to a semi-stranger. He has a get-to-know meeting with a potential marriage partner (the characters are muslims) and his mates show up swearing and carrying on in a gross manner. At the end of the encounter, they jump in her car and she wants the protagonist to choke her while she fingers herself! This is all from the first episode.

One episode is enough, I am done with this crudity.

I found this series to be vulgar, crude and crass - you would not want to watch this with your parents, children or even your partner. There are no standards or taboos left on television anymore - here we have masturbation, sperm banks and dick jokes - the latter trope was used four times. This starts from the second episode in.

We have the usual double standard - the couple is in bed and we have a view of the man naked from the rear, meanwhile his partner still has her top on! Whereas, a similar act in Paris shows the woman naked from the rear, but shot in blue light and an arm in the way. Do they have to show all this bonking; it detracts from the story.

This show is just not funny and all the characters are unlikeable. I may have chuckled several times, but have not found anything really funny. Fortunately, there was no laugh track. Maybe people in LA are really like that.

The programme had potential - a fish out of water story - top French comedian is in LA, but is completely unknown. However, the consistency is poor. One minute Gad is going on about how big he is in France, the next minute he wants to be an ordinary guy.

The similarities to "Curb Your Enthusiasm" are obvious (Jerry Seinfeld makes a cameo appearance).

As mentioned, all the characters are unlikeable. The chief female protagonist is super pushy (is this typical of the US?) and dominates the male characters. The son is an obnoxious brat. Gad is continuously humiliated, yet he says nothing. What happened to Gallic machismo? He would not put up with this back home.

I was ready to bail after three (mercifully short) episodes, after four, I am definitely gone.

After about 30 - 40 minutes I could not take any more: infantile dialogue, all in the dark, confusing storyline, frenetic action with no purpose, could not tell who was who.

When the story returned to 1984 it was the same old plot and I gave up.

The perennial question with a (successful) TV series - when to quit?

Series one was original, fresh, had interesting characters and story lines, and had some genuinely funny moments.

Series 5 - the rot started to set in, sameness creeping in. I detected a note of meanness.

Series 6 - what was once novel has now become cliched and hackneyed. The two brothers constantly sniping at each other in now unfunny and irritating.

I knew nothing about Gunjan Saxena and went into this film with an open mind, although I did have some niggles that it would be cliche ridden - I was right.

This film could have been ace, but the producers/director completely dropped the ball with this one and the result in the standard Bollywood fare - cliches, tropes, cringeworthy dialogue and poor acting - viz. a cringefest.

No understanding of the military: in the scene where the soldiers are on patrol up the valley, they are bunched up (talking?) and easily get shot up by the enemy hiding in the hillsides. Is the standard tactic not to spread out? So back to the scene - no point man, no rear guard. No-one sent out a helicopter in advance to reconnoiter the area?

I just watched an Indian film (forget its name) set in the countryside. The question of caste came up and leather workers are amongst the lowest ones. Amongst the lowest of the low are tanners. You would not even permit their shadow to touch you. Plus, a tannery stinks.

Next day we watched episode three of "A Suitable Boy". A potential suitor who works in a shoe factory is suggested - presumably management.

He suggests a visit to the factory to mother and daughter - they agree. A part of the visit involves going through the tanning section, which they do in their best clothes, no covering or proper shoes.

Now, a tannery stinks something awful and a tannery would be away from the factory itself. Since this series is set in the 1950s, there is no way that a middle class woman would go anywhere near a shoe factory let alone atannery - pure fantasy.

I sat through the entire first series as my partner insisted in watching this; mentally I had given up after two episodes - it was a relief to fetch a snack. I will not be watching the further series.

As is the norm these days, the first episode is strong and entices you to continue watching, the second episode is less gripping and then subsequent episodes move at a snail's pace - four episodes dragged out to eight. What is it which all theses scenes in the dark these days?

Hollywood is totally morally bankrupt:

Frequent boring sex scenes that serve no purpose Sister on sister acts The lead detective has emotional problems and is into dominance and submission Frequent drug usage

According to Hollywood, people have sex with their clothes on. For them it is acceptable to show beatings, torture, rape, killing, but show breasts - how awful.

The acting is so-so; Bill Pullman is wooden; the dialogue is poor and any police procedure is non-existent. There are short scenes, many left unresolved, rapid jumps all over the place plus flashbacks to various time periods.

The main protagonist's mother is a religious fanatic and fundamentalist. The takeaway lesson is avoid all religious fanatics, whatever their creed, and feel pity for their poor children.

Same old themes and tropes that we have seen hundreds of times:

India after the partition Family obsessed with marrying off their daughters Hindu-Muslim conflicts Hindu girl falls for Muslim boy Wastrel son falls for Muslim elder woman of ill repute Fat dissipated former raja

Impressive historical constructions in the background,

I enjoyed all the series so far: 1 - 6.

Strong stories, 3-D characters that you can identify with, characters that talk like real people, avoidance of cliches and the usual tropes, no cringeworthy moments. I do not yell at the TV as with other programmes. You need to concentrate to follow the plot development.

The only annoying character is Bosch's daughter - lacks empathy, it's all about me, me, me.

I used to enjoy this programme. OK, it is an Agatha Christie who done it, but it was good entertainment. However, something switched in the latest series (series 9) and now it is irking me; have the writers lost the plot. Let me expand:

The chief constable was always irritating; he treats the detective inspector with disdain, like he is useless or like a boy, even though he is an experienced cop from the UK. Then he expects the same DI to solve the case, but there is scant appreciation.

The chief constable has always had a rod up his backside (is this satire - big fish, small pond). In the latest series, the rod is even bigger.

For a small island, money is no problem Who does the autopsies?

The guest DI is lodged in a dilapidated bungalow on the beach. This never troubled me before - I took it for a plot device. Now it transpires that the chief constable owns it. So - can't he be bothered to give it a coat of paint? So arrogant and lacking respect to presume that this is fitting accommodation for a visiting DI from the UK (racism/ arrogance)?

In series 9, the newest DI has a number of allergies and afflictions. Why send him to the tropics? He gets sunburn and is attacked by mosquitoes. Is this supposed to be funny?

He is forced to stay over on the island and he is unceremoniously dumped at the said bungalow with no food or change of clothes. Where is the hospitality - can the local cops not give him at least a dinner and fresh clothes and put him up in a reasonable hotel for the night? During the night, after a mosquito attack, he moves into a hotel and chooses one of the more expensive ones (granted he is a stranger). Then he comes down with deep vein thrombosis. No compassion from the chief constable and he is unceremoniously dumped, in a wheel chair, back at the bungalow.

Funny - mosquitoes were never a problem before.

Who wrote this? You have succeeded in a couple of episodes in completely ruining the entire series for me.

At the beginning this looked like a serious police procedural/who done it. Quickly, it became apparent that this was a weekday, mid-afternoon soap opera.

Redeeming features: better camera work than your usual soap, spectacular scenery (the calanques SE of Marseille).

The ending was a disappointment - loose ends, no justice, no arrests, no resolution; it just faded away.

You can watch much better shows than this.

The chief protagonist is a lazy indolent (American) opinionated slacker and sponger.

I was deciding when to bail out during the first episode. The tipping point came when the mother, son and daughter were talking about the son wanking.

Are there no standards of taste or decency left on television? Is this the best that "writers" can do in order to generate a "laugh"?

I do not watch TV for this sort of tastelessness. I have bailed out, will not return.

What was a semi-watchable programme has now become a soap opera with the usual cringeworthy dialogue and cliches. There are interesting moments interspersed with mind-numbingly boring scenes.

Most of the characters are unlikable. The male characters are mostly spineless simps, while the female characters are harridans. Christopher Eccleston's character is the main point of interest. In the open he is a macho man, but in the presence of his nagging girlfriend, even he becomes jelly.

What to say - bland - a bit like the scenery, not awful so that you yell at the television screen, not super good - all in all a time pass.

Annoying aspect - a scene is developing with some tension, then before it is resolved the story cuts to a totally unrelated scene and the previous one is left hanging.

If you want to see a good film about football and the workings of a club, watch "The Club" (Australia, 1980).

The first episodes of series 2 had some powerful moments - I was impressed.

They they proceeded to erode steadily this good impression:

Swearing (mainly by Kate) - F word, C work, wanker

Peter loses his job - strips off in front of the boss, then we have to endure his fat body as he runs around naked. Frequent shots of the family jewels. Meanwhile, we can not see breasts on TV - why the double standard?

Peter becomes an Uber driver - female starts to give male partner a hand job in/on the back seat.

Are there no standards on TV anymore? What's next? What if you have children/ elderly parents watching?

This series is billed as a comedy/drama. I found scant comedy, maybe the occasional wry chuckle, instead I found it to be irritating, annoying and a sad comment on the current state of the UK.

The occasional laugh does not a comedy make, even dramas have the odd moment of hilarity.

The characters:

Katy - a divorcee - irritating with her arrogant, entitled, my way or the highway attitude. No wonder she is divorced. Is this what passes for a strong independent woman? John (her son) - irritating little so and so John (the live-in partner) - basically a simp and the butt of everything, constantly nagged by Katy and John; constantly reminded that it is not his house (did it come from the ex-husband). One feels for this bloke. Is this how men are portrayed on TV these days? Sami - the only "normal" non-irritating character.

If you looked upon the series as satire or social commentary, you would probably do OK.

I was initially reluctant to see this as I had assumed that it would be full of the usual Hollywood clichés and tear-jerking tropes and it is not my type of preferred film.

However, I was wrong. This film is excellent. The story is strong with no fill, the acting and dialogue are natural and the chief protagonist is likeable.

I was surprised that Peter Farrelly was behind this. It goes to show that Hollywood can produce a fine film if they want to.

I was looking forward to this - steam trains and history - what's not to like? This should have been a winner, but I feel that they missed the opportunity.

Lots of emotive shots of super clean mainly passenger trains on what are clearly present day preserved railways on pleasant sunny days. These offer no context.

The narrators may be historians, but they appear to know little about railways.

The narration is thin - no historical facts/analysis, maps etc. A present-day TV disease is talking on location, in this case the footplate, rather than a voice over. Not only can you not hear due to the noise, you have a cameraperson in an already crowded confined space, along with the driver and fireman.

I watched three episodes and ran out of steam.

I watched one episode and swore never to watch the rest. Then inertia set in and I watched the second one and finally gave up.

What a bleak series - dark, dreary, filmed mostly in the dark or against the outside light, no likeable characters.

Standard cliche - gruesome murder.

Pace - incredibly slow, many filler scenes.

The classic police series of the 1970s were usually single episode stories - you had 50 minutes, so you had to get on with it.

The good - interesting story.

The bad - more PC nonsense.

The hero (Dodds) is an introverted aging bald white guy, while his boss is the ambitious "woman of colour" from London. Her boss looks like a fashion model and acts petulantly like a teenager. Minimal police procedure.

Dodds is treated like a servant or a dog, but is expected to do all the heavy thinking - no credit given though. In episode 2, he is left to catch the bus back to town, while his boss drives off. Talk about being in the doghouse again.

There is no chemistry between McDonald and Dodds, no sense of comradeship or colleagues.

I was threatened with expulsion from the TV room after numerous vociferous criticisms and cries of "what is this?".