Interesting 1st episode, loved Michael Sheen he's an amazing actor, and Lou Diamond Phillips is awesome too, not sold yet on the chemistry between Malcolm and his mother that scene felt fake and out of place, other than that solid pilot can't wait to see what they come up with
Ok this show is good, really good...it has now all my attention...
This wasn't bad. I am intrigued by the main character (though the sleeping restraints and pills are a bit much) and Michael Sheen is perfectly on point as the charming killer. Any way they let him out so I can see them work crime scenes together? Totally unrealistic but worth it.
Kinda interesting, feels like I've watched shows with this exact plot a million times before. Episode itself was fast paced, and had a lot of "jump cuts" throughout (watched the early pilot on Youtube, so can't 100% say it will be like that when aired, but a ton of scenes seem to just "jump forward" in terms of the timeline of places/people/events). It almost feels like they took the first three episodes of a show and shoved them all in 1, while deleting a few of the slower parts. Not bad, but not good either (in terms of the fast pace).
Actors are pretty good. I'll definitely add this to my currently watching shows.
I want to start this by saying that I do not think the show is bad. But. And here comes the rant bit. As someone who adores and loves the show "Hannibal" (NBC) to bits. This is a blatant rip off, one I wish they had the courtesy of acknowledging it in it's credits. This lack of acknowledgement is almost 'rude' :).
Comparisons to hannibal makes the show laughable at Lots of points.
Overall It's a nice enough show, albeit predictable at times, but I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes.
Spoiler
( My favorite moment, which I guess makes me sound deranged, was when Malcolm chopped off that person's hand )
People have all sorts of thoughts on what it means that so many protagonists are white guys who are serial killers, drug dealers and thieves but such as it is I do enjoy the occasional serial killer show. As long as it's more thriller than horror of course. It's part of why I couldn't stomach Hannibal. I think I made it two seasons of that torture porn television and I just didn't want to go back for the final season. Anyway my point is there's a lot that I could enjoy about Prodigal Son. The premise of the son of a serial killer worried he might be a psychopath and using his father as.. well as a Hannibal to solve crimes is compelling. It's why I watched the show in the first place. I'm already in a positive place and that makes me willing to overlook things I don't even notice until I read negative reviews.
But there's something odd about the plot that no one in the show is pointing out. This is a live action television show set in a contemporary era. If there is some part of the premise that doesn't make sense you're supposed to highlight it or explain it. Instead the show ignores it. Bright is the son of The Surgeon. Now Bright's mother I'm pretty sure was Bright's mother on Everwood but that's not cogent to my point. My point is that The Surgeon was arrested and locked up in a 3 sided jail. That's when they put you in a cage attached to a wall. It's a ridiculous thing that I'm pretty sure never happens in real life but on TV and Movies happens all the time. This way you can enter the room and see that inside the room they're in another cage. The Surgeon is very clearly under guard in his cage when Bright is a little boy. But in the present we learn he performs surgery on the black market. Which doesn't make sense. Either he's locked up or he's performing black market surgery. How is he using black market money to improve his cell when that's not a thing that would be allowed. It's not even presented in the show as something we're going to learn. It's presented as just another thing. It's ridiculous.
The rest of the show is tolerable. The main lead is a weird looking white guy with light eyes and the ugliest haircut you can imagine. The father is a more handsome and compelling character. Lou Diamond Phillips is great as always and we have a guy and girl cop to fill out the "work" cast. She's gonna be the Jekyl and he's going to be the Hyde. It's expected, it's forumlaic, it's what I'm here for. Honestly there's not a lot to go on in this first episode to judge the path of the series. But that weird gap in logic really stands out. Still you need three episodes to judge and a pilot is often workshopped so much it's rare to be able to use it to judge.
I can see a lot of similarities with "Hannibal". And that is not a bad thing...
Bellamy Young who you may be used to seeing as the First Lady in Scandal. So far feels miscast as the ex wife of a serial killer.
Other than that Tom Payne (The Walking Dead) and Michael Sheen (Tron Legacy) are excellent. The story is pretty good so far as well.
While I won't go so far as to say the first ep was Payneful to watch, it just seemed like a lesser copycat of better shows. I'll give it more time to breath but don't have high hopes. It's hard to believe Jesus died for this (puns intended)
This is a solid premiere. As far as series premieres go, it wasn't exemplary or anything like that, but it was definitely a decent start. The copycat getting caught in the premiere instead of being the prime focus of the entire season sort of came out of the blue, and I can understand why some people may not like that too much, but personally, I'm kind of glad it was more of an initiation to what you can expect from the show moving forward. Having a copycat be the focus of an entire season seems and would've been a bit cliché, and on top of that, bland after a while. I think this is the first show on FOX that I'm watching/watched, so I wouldn't know if this is normal and somewhat regular, but it seemed decently high-quality for a show on FOX. It still had the type of feel you'd expect from shows on FOX, NBC, ABC, etc., but it was less noticeable because of the quality.
Tom Payne was one of my favorite actors during his run on "The Walking Dead", so I was really excited for this. Pretty basic pilot episode, seems to be setting up for a good show. I'll tune in next week.
Shout by AllysonVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-09-24T02:09:51Z
As far as pilots go, this feels like it concluded a little suddenly and easily. From the trailer, I assumed the copycat killer was going to be the main plot of the season that forced Malcolm and his father together, but I guess this provides the variety of a typical procedural.
So far though, the show feels a bit self-indulgent at times - especially Malcolm's character. The way he presents his conclusions with this weird and unbelievable certainty reminds me too much of Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock. Especially when he's explaining how he's read someone's micro-expressions and knows if they're lying or what they're thinking. He doesn't quite feel like a real person yet. Maybe with more exploration of the trauma and instances where he isn't always proven correct will humanize him more.
His climactic confrontation with the killer was also a bit much, like the writers were using that scene only for the purpose of getting Malcolm to admit these things simply for Plot and Character purposes.
I started watching this for Michael Sheen and I'll likely continue mostly for him.