Reviews

I was looking forward to this, but there's nothing really new here. By the second episode, it should be easy to figure out what's going on with the characters and their relationships to each other. We've seen it dozens of times before. That shouldn't be the central focus, but so far, it is. Almost buried is what should be the heart of the story, what happened to the space station, and why? How much did the experiment have to do with it? Is there a route back to "normal"?

I'm three episodes in and I'll give it at least one more chance. But unless it picks up the science fiction plot lines and scales back the family dramas - which feel like soap opera filler - I'm done after that.

Came across this at random on Amazon Prime. I was unfamiliar with the source book, so the characters and situations were new to me. Based on the fundamental premise, this could have been a great movie, but it was so-so. It's not bad, but it was easy to see how it could have been improved with better plot and character development. After a promising open - Paul's bad morning gone horribly wrong - it took too long to establish that unnatural things were going on at the very weird Wells Company. Despite the early hints, it took too long to establish that Paul's presence there was more than a coincidence. The development of the partnership and relationship between Paul and Sophie was disjointed and awkward. If she was under the company's control, why was she allowed to become Paul's ally and partner in crime? That's just one example of how things dragged and then suddenly went from Point A to Point B without clearly establishing how they got there. A tighter script and direction could have elevated this to something special.

The post-credits ending was obviously a set-up for a sequel. If they do make one, I'll probably watch it, but I won't be broken hearted if they don't. I'm torn about whether they've earned it.

I have read the books, where there are many mysteries that are slowly being revealed. This penultimate Season 1 episode gives important clues to the big questions of the Silo. Why are Bernard and Simms so desperate to find the hard drive and prevent anyone from discovering what's on it? What's at the bottom of the Silo that George risked his life to find it? Can Juliette find it, and what happens when/if she does? What really happens when you're sent outside to clean?

Prediction: the season finale next week will end with a cliffhanger that gives a huge clue to the biggest secret of all. As usual for cliffhangers, it'll raise questions not only about the fate of the main character - Juliette - but of all the Silo dwellers' future.

From start to finish, Babylon is a hyperbolic ode to Hollywood from the last days of the silents through the transition to talking pictures. Orgiastic parties, sex, drugs, casual violence and cruelty permeate from the first scene to nearly the last.

Margo Robbie bravely plays an intensely ambitious up and coming starlet whose self-destructive bipolar personality skyrockets her to the heights of stardom, only to fall rapidly from grace when talkies expose her lack of sophistication and vocal skills. Brad Pitt is a huge silent star who also can't navigate the transition to movies that demand a range of acting skill and subtlety. Needless to say, neither's arc will end well. The heart of the film is Diego Calva, who rises from a gofer to a powerful studio executive - only to be brought down as he tries to salvage his beloved Nellie LaRoy's (Robbie) career and life. All three actors try to rise above the material; Calva succeeds; Robbie and Pitt are hobbled by the demands of the script and direction to go over the top with intermittent success.

While Babylon shares some themes with writer-director Damien Chazelle's previous LaLaLand, the tone is much darker. If you ever saw Showgirls, you'll feel a familiar sense of wretched excess - albeit it with a less campy script and competent acting. Leave taste at the door.

Top Gun: Maverick is the perfect popcorn movie. Suspend your disbelief, don't expect any deep meaning and just have a good time.

Virtually nothing in this movie would happen in the real world. Maverick couldn't wreck an experimental plane and walk away from it. A critical, secret mission wouldn't be thrown together in three weeks, nor put in the hands of an unpredictable rogue pilot (no matter who his protecting Admiral is). He'd never get away with stealing a jet fighter (twice). He wouldn't survive a crash in enemy territory, much less defeat far advanced fighters to make it home. And so on, and so on. But who cares? It's fun.

Production and acting are about what you'd expect. Brilliant visuals and effects. Lots of call-backs to the original (and a Star Wars homage). Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise, with all his ramped up charm and bravado.

I was really enjoying The Diplomat over a couple of nights until the end of the season finale episode. Explosive cliffhangers may be all the rage, but this one was an over the top cliche that may or may not have anything to do with the two main story arcs - who blew up the aircraft carrier and Ambassador Kate's future (both personal and political). Hopefully, we'll get a chance to find out what that was all about in a year. But the anticipation has nothing to do with whether I will tune in for smother season - if I liked the show (I did.), I'll watch it anyway. If I didn't like it, then I don't care who did it or why, or even who's still around to pick up the pieces. You don't need to waste our time with an unnecessary pyrotechnic tease.

Much has been made of its West Wing lineage. The walk and talk; the political insider intrigue (as improbable as some of it is here); the frequent spotlight on the overachieving staff members who do the grunt work; even the inevitable semi-secret office romances and informal relationships. Maybe season two could step it up a notch and hire Aaron Sorkin to outline the story and write a few episodes.

All that being said, a few things don't ring true. Kate is too smart not to respect that style is half the job, even if she's ambivalent about being there. She can't be constantly looking like a disheveled grad student and flouting convention, especially not in the tradition-bound UK. And Hal? Is he there to provide comic relief? He may be written as a loose cannon, but he's also a skilled and experienced political operative who ought to know that his role isn't to be the star of the show. Is he genuinely interested in helping Kate to succeed and perhaps advance to higher office, or is he using her for his own not insignificant ego-driven ambitions? He can't sit back and not be a player.

The first three episodes of the final season of the marvelous Marvelous Mrs. Maisel foreshadow what may not be the happiest of endings for Midge. It wastes no time in establishing that twenty years later, she's achieved comedy superstar status, has rocky relationships with her now adult (and often neglected, resentful) children and has gone though several failed marriages and tabloid relationships; she's even on the outs with manager Susie who helped get her there. In the brief celebrity interview with the future Midge, there's a hardness to her that we've never seen before. Yet back in the main storyline's 1961 era, she's still willing to impulsively speak her mind as a woman in a man's world, regardless of the potential risk to her career. About the only thing missing from her initiation to a talk show writing staff is that no one asked her to get coffee.

The other main characters - Joel, Abe and Rose Weismann, and the Maisel's are each going through some form of life-altering angst. All of them, except perhaps Joel, too wrapped up in their own crises, real or imagined, to understand, much less fully accept, Midge's drive to break free from the Jewish housewife mold.

I'm looking forward to the final set of episodes (I wish Amazon was releasing them all at once in a massive binge), but if anyone was hoping for a "and they lived happily ever after" finale to Midge Maisel's arc, I fear that you're not going to get it.

Virtually nothing about this spy drama seems plausible. A former field agent is allowed to rise to the #2 job at MI-6, even though there are suspicions (accurately) that he's been unwittingly compromised by the Russians. His boss has a J. Edgar Hoover-esque collection of blackmail files on major political figures, and has his own mechanizations involving the Russians underway; he needs a fall guy (guess who?). His wife, allegedly a former army officer doesn't understand why he can't share "hiw was yiur dead, dear" details about his job - and naively allows herself to be used by the CIA to undercut her husband. His Russian spy former lover suddenly surfaces with a revenge agenda of her own, years in the making. Even his rebellious teen daughter can't follow the basic rules for intelligence agency families. At one point or another, they each blunder their way from one bad move to another.

Didn't anyone bother to talk to a real intelligence veteran to warn them away from all the improbable things in the script? I lost count of the number of times we said, that could never happen. That's especially true of the wife who feels compelled to poke into her husband's work matters that no real spy's wife would expect to know. It's a clumsy plot device to get her involved so that she can be a part of the ultimate resolution of the story.

Most of the cast is good, but Charlie Cox as Adam is badly miscast.. He is far too young to be in the position he's in - no gravitas. He can't sell the character's attempts to navigate a life or death crisis in which everyone is out to use and/or get him. Despite the writers' terrible plotting, Oona Chaplin overcomes her initial plot idiocy to finish strong. Olga Kurylenko competently handles the usual Russian spy with good motives cliches. Ciran Hinds delivers, as you'd expect, the right amount of menace and cynicism as the MI-6 head.

I don't see a second season for this, unless it's one focused on an odd fellows alliance between Maddy and Kara taking their full revenge. If they do, though, at least ditch the kids.

This series is full of very smart people doing stupid things that would never happen in real life - making bad choices as the lead character comes to realize. Exhibit One is naive CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks who, two days into the job, finds himself in the middle of a life and death intelligence operation. Everyone around him, including his CIA colleagues, is only out for themselves. They're all willing to help if only there is something in it for them. Otherwise, they're more than willing to thrown him into very deep waters to sink or swim on his own. Somehow he manages to at least tread water (at least, most of the time). It's played as farce, and on that level, it's entertaining and fun. In reality, once the Powers That Be realize how sensitive the whole operation is, Owen would have been replaced by a seasoned professional. A whole lot of suspension of disbelief is necessary.

In the last couple of episodes, things turn darker. Owen is in the middle of a much more dangerous spy drama where the stakes and risks are much higher. After a bloody (and improbable):final episode, the cliffhanger final scene punches home the ongoing theme that nothing in the world of spies is ever what it seems to be. Trust no one.

It's a perfect set-up for an as yet unannounced second season. How does Owen get out of this one? Will the rogue operations team get away with it? What is Hannah going to do? What about Max? Until then, let your imagination run wild.

We just casually tuned in to Severance because we'd heard all the buzz and wanted to see what it was about. We got sucked in, and four evenings later finished binging all nine Season 1 episodes - eagerly anticipating next Season. However, there are a couple of plot holes in the finale that don't quite add up.

Mrs. Cobel is fired because she didn't tell the "Board" about Innie Helly's suicide attempt. But how could the Outie Helly have disappeared while she recovered without she and her family finding out what happened, and why? Did Outie Helly know what she was getting into when she volunteered to get severed? Did Cobel or the other managers know who she was; and if so, why was she treated the same as the other rats in the maze?

If Mrs. Cobel is a full-time Outie who knows the secrets of the Severance floor, why was she allowed to go home after being fired? How could the "Bosrd" or whoever is pulling the strings take the risk that she'll spill the beans about what's really going on down there? And where is Outie Gemma being hidden from Mark?

I hope we'll get the answers in Season 2.

I have mixed feelings about this season-ender. Just about all, of the dangling plot lines got wrapped up - some well, some not so well.

Kelly's pregnancy was always absurd, but it served as a useful plot device and they didn't spend too much melodramatic time on it. The North Korean astronaut was handled surprisingly well. Karen's dominance over Dev was the culmination of her journey as a force to be reckoned with. Contrary to some here, I liked how they handled the gay President arc in the end, though I wished she'd have more forcefully told the bigoted VP where to go. Even Danny finally got what he deserved.

Now for the not so good. The Jimmy/terrorist thing made no sense, especially since it cost us two women characters who both deserved a moment of triumph. Getting Kelly back to orbit should have been the dramatic high point of the entire episode instead of being shown as an almost afterthought. Most of all, Margo and Aleida needed to have that chat before all hell broke loose. Maybe next season.

Someone should have shoved Danny out an airlock without a spacesuit ages ago. Depending on Ed's fate and whatever that end-scene disaster means for the future of the Helios base, he is either going to have to step up and be the hero, or take the whole Helios-Russian venture down with him; what kind of deal will Karen have to make with NASA to save them all? Meanwhile, Margo, mourning her doomed Russian love, can't avoid getting exposed in the leaked engine plans scandal for much longer, not with her protege Aleida still sniffing around like a dog with a bone. Speaking of brewing scandals, how can Ellen's Presidential motorcade just show up outside Pam's house without attracting attention?

Note to the writers: a little less soap opera-ish melodrama, and a lot more space drama. Please!

The final Season Four episode delivered - kind of. It wrapped up most of the dangling plot lines, gave the young folks and even Hopper/Joyce satisfying victories, dragged out everyone's reunification in Hawkins, and they almost all lived happily ever after. Not quite. Having supposedly vanquished Vecna, we suddenly learn that he might still be around, at least enough to give everyone another season in and out of the Upside Down. Eddie's gone, but Max is sure to recover enough to play a critical role.

The much advertised 2 1/2 hour length was unnecessary. They could easily have cut 20-30 minutes.