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Reviews
House of the Dragon: The Queen Who Ever Was (2024)
Game of Over
GoT Wannabe Dragon falls, breaks both legs.
Dreadful dullness, blatant exposition, characters pretending to do stuff for the sake of exposition and to "buy time"..
Veered off Source Material where ever it can for the sake of Westeros 2024..
Utterly wrong concept for creating a season of TV, accepted as "the way to go", in order to stretch the story and justify investment..
For else, well, said it all after episode 1 opened season 2, it was obvious how it was set-up, and where it was going, mentioned that again, in several reviews for following episodes, more extensively for those occasions..
House of the Dragon: The Red Sowing (2024)
King's Landing Amateur Spy Agency
The characters:
Well guys, it is already episode seven, we made it. Now we can start doing some things we should've done several episodes ago, instead of spinning in multiple circles, as all was set-up already in season 1. Yeah, said like that, sounds kinda obvious, but we had to, no choice, cause: season 3 goddammit. That aside, don't get carried away, this episode is long, so make sure to pretend doing something for the most part, cause you know, still gotta push through to the finale, where we'll do something to show "stuff happening", and it is not at all, as if nothing is going on. Except You! You Daemon You will continue pretending, cause if do something now will mess up what "they" have set for us in our scripts, so for now just make sure to exposition your "plans and intentions"..
And with that.., OFF WE GO. See ya in season 3, Westeros 2026.
House of the Dragon: Smallfolk (2024)
Kiss and Tell Westerosi Travesty
What to say? Soap Opera continues. Civil War Saga of Dullness continues.
Nothing changed, nor even happened this episode, similar to previous ones.
Alicent still misses Ser Cole's Strong Hand, Ser Cole in Kyiv's Landing still complaining about not having enough armies and weapons, about to go off screen to pretend doing something. Deamon is still just a punk, Dragonstone remains dumb as a rock, Aemond is, on the other hand, going through character regression on his way to House of the EyePatchedBrute..
Invisible ships, Euron's Fleet Effect, or the Green Council "kinda forgot", and maybe the Black Council likes Euron's "big cock". "A finger in the bum?"
Only "good" part of the episode was in form of flashback, that at this point can't effect, influence, nor change anything current, thus pointless by nature, while also failed to be used for, at least traces of any development - WASTED.
Shogun (2024)
If I could use words like scattering flowers and falling leaves
Is it historically accurate? No. Neither the source material (novel) is. Is the show fully novel-accurate? No. Some things were changed, in order to tell the story for this show, and it works mostly??
There is some "modern" injected, although not too much, just it would seem that "we" can never separate fully from the time we exist in, thus our time's "bits and pieces", follow us on all our "time travels".., also as authentic it looks, still it only looks..
Have to admit that for quite some time, I haven't liked a TV show character as much as have Mariko, or Fuji, etc, while aware of figures from history, sad and happy at the same time, that the show stayed, more or LESS, true to it overall, "underwhelming" finale included..
Premise describes events leading to creation of (most powerful) longest lasting Shogunate, where "Sacrifice of the Few" was prioritized and made for "The good of Japan", thus, no large battles as well as attempting to avoid those same, is also more or less, true to it all..
As I'm writing my review, more than couple months after I saw the show, my question, or complaint is: "seasons two and three"?? This was obviously supposed to be a Limited Series that deals with this part, thus additional seasons will follow the events post creation particular Shogunate? An era of "Japan's closed borders" and "expelling of" the Catholics"? Is Shogun going to become Anthology Series??? What are we going to watch exactly part of additional seasons??
It would seem the show got "renewed" for additional seasons only to have an entrance into "Drama Series" promptly. Let's just hope that "business models" don't leave a bad mark on this well made, and obviously Limited Series, down the line..
Fallout: The Head (2024)
We Have Plenty of Squires
Fun episode. The Ghoul, even though using Lucy as "asset", still seemingly avoiding to get her killed, and that already back in Filly, for reasons that bits and pieces of, starting to emerge already by the episode's end.
Two Brotherhood "grunts", opposite personalities.
Maximus "will bend" the rules (or completely ignore them) in order to either help himself, or "do the right thing", acts on "hope strategy", often oblivious to the state of things, extent to getting surprised by standard "Check-Ins" between the base and soldiers on the field. "Smash the radio solution". Also failed to realize that new Squire, after air dropped, immediately went for coordinates, then made "his Squire" to "Clean This", imitating Titus for the sake of it, and personal amusement for which "apple tree", "show me the illustration" (already saw a metal limb in Filly) are more of examples. Still hasn't realized why Titus did it to him.
Thaddeus, on the other hand, even as strictly following orders, "by the book" soldier, who possesses more situational and overall awareness, still will "idolize" his Knight, to extent of "turning failures into achievements", as was with an idea to "track the Ghoul", which even if possible, he wasn't properly trained for, thus turns out, never tracked the Ghoul down..
Again entertaining, but doesn't hold hand. Visual storytelling. Details like the Gulper failing to digest the head as quickly as did the fawn, because was wrapped in "heavy duty field blanket", and quite other..
House of the Dragon: Regent (2024)
House of The Spinning Circle
This episode, everyone was doing what everyone already was doing, and has done several times over in all previous episodes: NOTHING, attempting to set-up future SOMETHING out of past NOTHING.., didn't know Westeros relies on Perpetuum Mobile, that is new, an addition to the Flying Saucer Material..
Ser Cole Zelensk(i)y, always complaining about not having enough armies and weapons, goes pretending gathering some OFF SCREEN, after dumping EXPOSITION on THE GREEN SCREEN for the audience.., and will be doing it again, better believe that..
"Filler" as we know, can be interesting and more captivating than any action or battle (GoT season 3 is one of examples) and can be used for character progression too, only not in case when writers just can't write, dropping blatant exposition, or pointless, generic, low tier dialogue. Also, Theatrical "Tragicomedy Wannabe" over-acting has NO much place in Westeros, and what is with their accents? Do not sound Westerosi (Northmen early this season one of examples)..
Daemon? Well Daemon is just a punk. Westeros Trainspotting, and TRUE to the DishWasher Sauce Material, same as GoodyTwoShoes Targaryen Dragonstone "Queen" is (trust me bro, I read the book)..
Fallout (2024)
Fallout
Show doesn't spoon feed, avoids blatant exposition, largely (quite part) is "show don't tell", pieces of story from flashbacks, plot, interactions between characters, or visually presented, create a set of clues pointing to (quite) some things being far from adding up with, or not exactly what they seem to be, including what some characters want us to believe, seemingly due to own bias, agenda, goals, or simply lacking information. "Unreliable Narrators".
Characters also express intentions for doing something "impossible" or "unlikely" which immediately, or down the line, turns out to be (usually shown by progression of the plot) exactly that (failure), and in some cases in character, in other for purpose of character development.
Events that "lack" or happen earlier (before) seemingly with "no explanations" or might seem "implausible" have explanations and plausibility, usually in shape of clues, brief dialogue, plot or visually, pre-added to them, as shown or revealed later (after)..
TV show "forces" perceptiveness, similar to how Fallout games do, but still works for the case of moderate lack of it, as "easy-going", entertaining and well made, while in the case of former, one can, instead getting distracted by what is made to both "tell" and distract from "told", ask quite a number of questions, for which answers are guidelines. One of examples is "Why Indiana hid in the fridge?", instead of getting carried away by particular call-back, with purpose to also, make a little bit fun of "main character survivability".
Fallout season 1 is very good, with some just good, and some excellent. Hopefully we will see equally good, and improved season 2, and in that case, regarding mentioned previously, expect "reveals and disclosures", especially seen as such by those who didn't pick up on often storytelling clues and hints..
Fallout: The Beginning (2024)
An Object of Profound Potential
Characters' behavior, as well as interactions between characters, things characters do and say, in most cases, are not exposition for audience, and instead are what they would do or say, fitting their place in the world, scale of knowledge, skill, situational awareness, as well as ideologies, agendas, goals, motivations, ideals, and plans..
With characters written genuine such as this, it is naive to believe everything they say, let alone accept the same as certain confirmations for past events, or clear signs of events to come, or yet to be revealed, for which cases clues, hints, and pieces of plot were provided, revealing things not what things may seem to be..
Overall continuation of exceptional visual storytelling, and a great finale for the season.
Fallout: The Target (2024)
"CLEAN THAT"
Continuing from the setup earlier, with Wilzig flash back (can be a spin-off with several seasons) showing crucial points like "the chip" with no intention of leaving immediately, reveals planned, mapped and scheduled escape (Filly seemingly a local hub included), while due to unpredicted events moved somewhat before schedule, and on his way to Filly, next to the bear cave, changed from "doctor's coat" to black jacket, the one he wore when spotted a fire at night, approached Lucy who was, without knowing, general direction to Filly, as shown the next day when asked for directions. Also the way she routinely arranged next to the fire, shows that likely, the first night shown outside, wasn't her first, and at that point was wandering the Wasteland for couple or few days already, while Wilzig wearing the black jacket shows that Titus and Maximus got to the bear cave a day, couple or few days after he left..
Titus didn't like Maximus from the start (interrogation), cause different to Quintus, likely believed Maximus did it. That in combination with Maximus asking if Tempered Lining (reinforcement of metal and suit flaws fix) helps with mobility, and Titus being Titus (lost his belief in the Brotherhood cause, or never shared it, possibly recruited "outsider", as they started boosting numbers by adding Regulars to their Elite, as shown), resulted in "Clean that" and "I'm bored, and I wanna shoot something", showing Titus without patience, nor intention of explaining what Squire should already know, as the hunt for live "Target" requires air dropping earlier (few miles before Filly in this case) to avoid announcing (Recon and Sabotage), in addition to searching a section of terrain during approach. Added Maximus' unskilled air drop, Titus likely decided to get rid of incompetent Squire and get a replacement, or in case Maximus "proves" himself, "a restart". In all that Titus made a single mistake when didn't mount his sidearm, while Maximus ultimately failed as a Squire when didn't shoot after Titus won the 1st round boxing match vs irradiated, "ghoul" bear..
Another visual storytelling episode, with almost zero exposition, that doesn't spoon feed nor holds hand, that writes the characters in character, genuine overall and to the world they belong..
House of the Dragon: The Red Dragon and the Gold (2024)
Weaponized Stupidity
This battle was more or less, in a very clumsy way, set up the previous episode, but in this episode it is being "set up little bit" more, because writers seem not to know how to properly push over the edge, so after "little bit" more of "setting up", episode finally "sets it up" by making characters make all the dumbest decisions there are, and using some of those for "plot twists", while hiding behind generic "excuse" that "there wouldn't be a battle if they were smart, in the first place", so the battle can commence. Westeros 2024.
While the battle itself was good (lots money spent), still amateurish (by those involved), dragons occasionally equipped with Romulan Cloaking Devices approaching unnonticed, or depending on convenience noticed, while "the brave" (brave and smart cancel each other) "blindly" charge Vanguard, or suffer other generic behavior, that makes this entire war hilarious, on par with GoT season 7 ep 5 and 6, and almost as competent as GoT season 8 ep 5, and how can we forget "the epicness" of 3..
Alicent is losing it, falling apart, must be that she misses Ser Cole's "strong hand" that makes her such, after he rode out and gathered all those armies after conquering all their castles OFF SCREEN, but not before he made sure that EXPOSITION will TELL, although seeing how expensive this battle was (including characters' intellect and competence), I understand why they decided to IGNORE several preceding, and just EXPOSITION-ED them into audiences noses, so this one can "blow (away) everyone"..
As for FAKE episode title seven days in front, conveniently chosen, creating hype for this episode for entire week, similarly how -know what- is dropped to draw the flies, well.., 10/10 for the marketing and business..
Fallout: The End (2024)
Show Don't Tell
The visual story-telling in this show, encompassing all eight episodes, is exceptional.
One of examples in this episode is introduction to Brotherhood of Steel training base, where we can see a small group of soldiers beating up a fellow soldier, also other soldiers doing daily and regular duties, an officer arriving (stopped the beating), bringing order, and inspecting..
Entire time, we can, other than by the type of daily duties, also by position of the sun, determine approx time of a day, and gain some geographic awareness, and during the class, the sun "tells" us, that the airship arrived from the East (approx)..
Airship's name (The Prydwen) is visible on its fore starboard side from "kids smoking" perspective, which is shown before airship arrival as part of introduction, again for purpose of story-telling. And all that, because in this case, name of the airship and where it came from, is of high, if not crucial importance throughout entire series, not just this episode or season..
So much of this approach to telling the story is "the way of telling the story" throughout entire season, while "The End" points to several of many examples..
All in all, regarding the particular episode, it is very well done..
House of the Dragon: The Burning Mill (2024)
Dull of the Cocks
What a great episode this was, the pace, acting, writing, brothel house, I mean, this must be House of The Dragon 'Show Don't Tell' version of Tyrion's 'Exposition' cock jokes throughout late seasons of Game of Thrones.
Teleporter continues working well too, and better and better down the line..
Harrenhal "plot" was solid, or even more than solid, but it does not lead to "all out war in next ep" cause the name of ep4 "says so", instead it sets up one of local battles, one of preceding battles, while war as a whole, is not "an instant event", instead "a process", a sum of events, including number of "local and preceding" battles, either way, things will not just spectacularly blow up all of a sudden, and with that, I already previously mentioned how combination of teleporting between main plot points, only to stretch those same into oblivion, is NOT the way to go, and regarding that, entire Rhaenyra "plot" including talking about and going to King's Landing, as well as realisation that Alicent misinterpreted Viserys' words about "Aegon", at this point is pointless, with no impact, nor importance, and is nothing other than "teleporter enabled runtime grab" that makes a filler epic in comparison..
I liked the short display of GoT style sarcasm and humour, involving "The King" and his guards, during gearing up for "ride to war", and I like Alicent, no matter how undeveloped the character, and how generic can be, still is "the best" of what HotD had to offer so far..
House of the Dragon: Rhaenyra the Cruel (2024)
House of the Draggin'
As mentioned previously, stretching the main plot points, while skipping and rushing through all in between, in order to have more than two and no more than few seasons is NOT the way to go.
This is the "GoT Season 8" model of creating, only in case of GoT they ran out of "Encyclopedia" and made a complete disaster out of attempts to "make their own", while in case of HotD with main events already "plotted" start to end, with skipping most between included, resembles GoT season 7 more, only darker and more gloomy (literally and metaphorically) and with no humour nor wit, making the entire story possible of wrapping up with 16 to 20 eps with no need for additional seasons, or have multiple (five, six, or eight) seasons in case of which would have to create and write all in between, instead of ignoring it.
Problem seems to be the same as before: they just can not write the way G. R. R. Martin can, thus just rush through it, while in all their Delusion of Grandeur, still having wishes of "Epic Achievements".
What we see here in these two eps of season two, and will likely continue to watch for next couple or few eps is NOT "a build up" toward "epic peaks and resolutions", it is just HACKS trying to fill episode and season number, together with runtime, attempting to justify the money invested..
House of the Dragon: A Son for a Son (2024)
Subdued
It would seem, regarding opening episode of season 2, that they went with "the model" of intentionally stretching the story, only so to have "some more story" for season 3, and that because they are eager to have season 3 (already scheduled, if I'm not mistaken), and that after quite some extensive time jumps in season 1 that in a way "sped up" the story, making it possible to "wrap up" with season 2 (10 eps), thus instead, 8 eps for and slowing down crucial plots in combinaton with rushing through (travel teleporting one of examples) most between, in season 2 was deemed necessary (it would seem?) for to have enough (any) story left for season 3.
Let's just hope they won't be adding some extra "story", in order to push the TV show down the additional seasons..
The Acolyte (2024)
"Attack Me With All Your Strength"
The Acolyte TV show is not garbage..
The Acolyte TV show is not trash..
The Acolyte TV show is not dumpster fire..
The Acolyte TV show is beyond that..
The Acolyte TV show is a Radioactive (cesium 137 "dirty") Dirtiest Isotope Mix of Toxic Waste Dump, spilled over and covering the bodies of dead children who were forced to carry the Radioactive Mix of Toxic Waste to The Dump, after they were forced to dig up The Dump using only their bare hands..
After having seen the first two episodes, it already looks like it can not get any worse, but that just The Dark Side of The Force Clouding One's Judgment is..
The Expanse: Babylon's Ashes (2022)
They did "the characters justice"..
..by doing injustice to everything else, and the world, which always was one of most important characters itself, never felt/was smaller, and more unreal than this.
R. I. P. The Expanse.
The Expanse: Why We Fight (2022)
Ceres Fashion Week
How is Elvi who is on Illus (or other FN controled facility in the Outer System) talking to no other than THE ROCINANTE, when FN controls all comms, and as Monica mentioned, comms through the Ring Space too?
Inners took Ceres which docks exploded day after, so they didn't search and secure the station, or "Tadeo's team" planted "invisible" Romulan mines with cloaking technology?
MCRN fleet arrived to the Ring from Ceres (or other farther location, due to steatlh fleet and ships seemingly not being present during arrival to Ceres) before Drummer arrived to Ceres from the Belt, and there's many world building failures, between eps 2 and 3 we had the Inners headed out from Earth and Mars and arrived to Ceres, before the Roci that was already in the Belt got there, while Marco who left Ceres and headed to Medina as we saw, was only few hrs away, instead of days away from the Roci..
World building IS GONE
Drummer is already seen as the Inners' puppet, so I guess, joining forces with them will not hurt her already diminished reputation much.
Other than that, average and most watchable ep of the season so far, but definitely not worth of penultimate ep of the final season and entire series.
The Expanse: Redoubt (2021)
Unbent Unbroken Unbowed
Other than redshirts dying in order to have "casualties", cause main charaters CAN'T DIE even after taking headshots (it would seem) like Diogo, only NO GEL ROUNDS this time, and do I have to mention how entire '"raid team" SMASHED into, instead of landing on target, nothing that can realistically change the balance of power and course of this war happened (for example, supplies that Drummer took are insufficient and obviously can't feed even 1000 people for 5 days) in another ep that belongs to 10-13 eps season, in case of which would be/is solid, but that GoT rip-off kills the attempt of intended strength (Drummer deserves better), and indicates severe creativity loss, while those who couldn't think of something strong of their own, probably "think" it's funny, and will categorize it as "easter egg" right?
The Expanse: Force Projection (2021)
I was really hoping that this ep will be good and to give it 8 or 9
Wow, other than that so called battle, during which the Roci didn't shoot down all the missiles that the Roci got fired upon, during which all the missiles fired by FN were Epst. "blue" drive, while the Roci was shooting down chemical, or older/different type Fusion drive missiles i.e. "yellow drives", and during which the Roci was flipping 360 degrees in less than 0.5 sec and 1 sec at best, multiple times, over and over again, "spinning like a neutron star", and ofc killed everyone on board, except main "protagonists" ofc, who all survived and weren't even injured by those DEADLY HIGH G FORCES, nothing else happened again..
And I know this battle is in the books, but TV show changed ships, classes of ships, etc, and due to that, TV show had to create "TV version", cause "book version" in this TV circumstances can only exist as overdrive "plot armor version" and that's exactly how this battle exists..
Physics gone, production errors, bad editing..
The Expanse: Azure Dragon (2021)
What the hell was this?
Each short ep of this short season is cut even shorter by opening/end credits, recaps and Laconia side story.
Roci can now fly/decelerate backwards, via main drive, which is pulling them backwards, with no need to flip and decelerate, so that slower, falling behind ship, can "catch up" (watch positions of ships, their trajectories, and Roci's approach after EMP had been deployed), other than that what looks like a JOKE, cause what should've been shown as the only physically (im)possible flip during those 2 sec got cut out for some reason, physics of the jump was rather accurate, and very different to dreadful Naomi's false physics of 2nd half of S5, maybe that's why she stopped, cause she realized that there's no much of fake physics here. Although, why would Bobbie jump delivering the EMP via hand, instead of gearing up to shoot the target with the EMP, when she was previously fully briefed on the nature and goal of the mission?
Overall, this ep rushed desperate to possibly make some room for the rest of the season to be even more rushed, cause it can fit 4hrs only if rushed..
Six short eps will just not work, ever.., and so good eps like 6x01 and 6x02 will both end up as wasted screen time, or so it seems.
I hope I'm wrong.
The Expanse: Strange Dogs (2021)
It will be rushed
Overall good ep, but too short, and not good as it must be for the 1ep of LAST season which also got cut short, lots skipped, Bull disappeared, Anderson Dawes killed, cause actor NOT available, and even if was available, NO TIME, cause we "have" to deal with Filip being weak and spoiled at the same time, and additionally, if stick to standards, irredeemable. That plus Drummer apparently towing the Dewalt (which engine cones she destroyed via missile from the Tynan six months ago) for past six months and during that time failed to transfer supplies from the Dewalt to the Tynan and the Mowteng, earns this solid ep low rating..
The Expanse: Leviathan Wakes (2016)
Eros
Looking back at this..no wonder that what happened has happened, but they still wonder..
The Expanse: Salvage (2016)
the Anubis
Earth's politics, and politics overall is very well done, and on a 2nd watch, s1 really makes sense, and it's actually great.
The Expanse: Windmills (2016)
Donkey balls
That spy is actually a very good spy.
-gotta give him that.
The Expanse: Rock Bottom (2016)
Mateo x20K
A man's gotta stand up! A man is going to stand up!..some day things gonna change..