Reviews

It was bound to happen. Somebody took the architecture of Sense8 and used the template for this. No central gay or trans characters, though. Not initially horrible. People on a flight from Montego Bay to New York experience some extreme turbulence, which settles down after some scary moments, and the flight carries on to its destination. On approach, ATC freaks out and redirects the flight to another airport. On landing, the passengers and crew learn that more than FIVE years have passed since their departure.

What initially intrigued with Manifest was its basically structured like Sense8, but with central gay/trans characters, and all generic procedural puzzle-solving, no implausible action scenes or relationship challenges that fall outside of vanilla cis-het tropes.

Stepping away from the icky-sticky rainbow wokeness, and the church-going audience will lap it up. Like Buffy got rebooted as Veronica Mars to remove the demons. No main gay characters; on the periphery, as long as they die or disappear, then that representation box gets checked.

It does make me wonder if this is what so many people settle for? Things end up feeling so vanilla, regardless of it's quality, that I get depressed for them.

Stealing characters, relationships, bad guy and motivations. Just NEVER get too weird. The relationship challenges involve cis-het couples with the Return of Martin Guerre syndrome, and poly is the most obvious answer.

I'm talking about the structure and architecture. Not the universe rules or specifics of character or relationships. Cop who hears things? Check. Partner who doesn't understand, but has faith in the partner. Geeky person good with math and computers and research. Medical research person who also happens to be an attractive Indian woman. Evil corporation experimenting on the people who have this power. I'm still in season 1 but that's what I have noticed, so far. The half-decade time-shift thing makes a good McGuffin.

This season has not had the same feeling of coherence to vision that the first season delivered. Could this be the panicked slog of a creative team that hadn't thought this far ahead, and is too tired and distracted to really build enough in that world to persuade an audience. These things are subtle, and that lack of subtlety shows in this episode. The writers couldn't sketch a strong enough character arc for Jennifer Anniston to really make the audience believe she is this person. The entitlement, the impatience, the inability to get what she wanted in extremely childlike outbursts, seemed to play more to a sitcom than to a serious drama about one of the most challenging aspects our culture is addressing. It's subtle, but it's bothersome to anyone comparing the almost effortless performance of Paola, and Steve Carrell's Mitch, a bit less. A worthy story arc for Mitch, if all too predictable. At least he wasn't in mid-speech at his scene exit, pursued by a stare.

They really went there. Foreshadowing the whole superhero/villain origin story. Specifically, the frequent Buffy allusions, and the need for alter-egos, and a code. We even have mentors; Joe's being Moody, the Soviet prison guard, and architect of that inanimate regular cast member, The Vault. Love's mentor must be her mother, though it's primacy is greyer than with Joe. That's how this might appear to anyone familiar enough with the relatively nuanced curation from the artisanal trope farm. It's well-managed, if sometimes a bit hard going. Whether that's crudely assembled classic elements, or successfully engaging the audience is a matter of opinion, possibly correlated to the viewer's mood while watching. Personally speaking, this isn't as easy to binge as many other shows. Adding the library set is genius. Delivering more than abundant subtext by curating the titles in the library? What's not to enjoy?

I'm not hating it, and trope use is impossible to avoid, so when it's done well, we love it, if it's not too obvious. The literary dribs and drabs are quite interesting, especially contrasting to the LA movie as the ultimate art form. The sleuthery and techno-weeny gear is entertaining, as is the on-the-fly anthropology that Joe employs to craft a best-for-all scenario.

I'm glad that I haven't re-read the source books, so I wasn't trying too hard to see how the original themes get mapped by the newest interpreters. Visually, I can see references to everything that has been popular over the last 50 years. Including the appropriately patriotic outgunned desert fire fight, where someone close to a main character sacrifices themselves for the greater good, and the cusp development piece so the main character can get to the next level. I've got nothing against tropes. Well-used, and melded into harmonious tales that show some sensitivity to the limitations of short-hand. It's not bad, but I don't really recognize it from the memories of my initial reading experience.

Jason Sudeikis's work in Ted Lasso and before that, Colossal shows that he has both the chops and the drive to do a wide range of roles and stories beyond his natural comic roots. This film is definitely an outlier, perhaps pushing the limits of credibility and inviting a bit of scenery-chewing. Funny what happens when the limits are determined by impending mortality and a system that gives desperate people very little but abuse and contempt.

The premise for the series has suffered by the multiple logic faults in the plots. How many ridiculous logistical hurdles would just happen? Fuel up an airliner in 15 minutes, take off and stay ahead of the sunrise at elevation? Almost any ensemble end of the world show has these problems, always being overshadowed by the inevitable stupidity of the group dynamics, especially when the military is involved.

But in Old Norse, without the narrow emotional binary mess. They don't even start trying to figure out what's going on until the 7th episode. And all the women have amazing faces and natural brows, and wear climbing clothes and casual sportswear without giving damn about anything other than the utility. Christianity is shown as a limiting belief, which is sort of crudely done, but still. Its power is crudely thought out and applied. The old tales of the Dark Elves, and Changelings, but roughly explained by science. The character arcs are all fascinating, and there are elements of murder mystery and secrets, refreshingly handled. Iceland isn't America, and that by itself means different stories.