"How you know I wasn't some Boy Scout looking for his tent?"
"Your teeth glow in the dark."
An extremely well written contemporary western series. Compelling characters, great writing, witty dialog all come together to make for a classic series that does so much right that something that you don't think would work as well as it does works so perfectly
Seasons 1-4 - Excellent
Season 5 - Meh
Season 6 - Great
Season 7 - Meh
Season 8 - Dumpster fire
To be clear, I rate this show a 7 cause season 4 is that bad. If seasons 4 and 5 didn't exist, this would be a 9
Now having watched S1 and S2 twice in preparation of S3 and having been done with S3, I can definitively say, this is easily my top show of all time. Unfortunately it's not perfect but I can attest to the sheer quality in every single aspect of it's production and writing.
This show could have been a 10/10 contender for me and up until S3E7, it was. It was making it's way to be the perfect show but the ending is not as satisfying as I'd hoped because it doesn't live up to the promise the show establishes. Before I discuss the ending, I must assure you that almost every single mystery and question you might have had till S2 is resolved and answered. What follows is a complete spoiler for the ending so DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU WATCH ALL OF S3
Until S3E7, the show establishes that the universe the show takes place in is utterly deterministic and I loved it for that. They even tease a non-deterministic possibility only to turn it on it's head and cement even more that it definitively is. But then S3E8 comes and forces a "fix" to the whole timeline that does actually make a lot of sense with the established world. When the characters were operating on the duality of worlds, it was only obvious that if everything else operated in threes, why not the worlds? But then the resolution and the whole fix and the unnecessary scenes in between to make it a sci-fi ending doesn't pull it off completely. I love sci-fi endings and stuff like Arrival, Annihilation, Interstellar, 2001 and the game Observation are my bread and butter. But this show has established itself too much into a certain way of the universe operating that the ending seemed to fit way too clumsily into a "happy" ending. I wish the authors had established a far more bleak ending of a never ending cycle simply continuing and looping into itself to tie all the characters into their respective dooms for eternity.
That said, a somewhat weak ending doesn't ruin 25 episodes of near perfection. The show deserves a 9.5 but alas a 9 is all I can give
I've only watched 3 seasons and it's going to stay that way. They were entertaining but the hooks of the first season are already gone. While the are many individual character moments that are great, the show overall has significantly lost its charm already and even the opening episodes of the fourth season have me not enthusiastic for the rest of it
First season was entertaining. Then they just make excuses to keep stretching the damn thing out and it kept getting worse and worse. Even by season 3 it's just a shell of how good season 1 was
I'm not sure I agree with all the 10s. Thought I'd find something far more compelling than what I got. It's not bad by any means and I enjoyed the show all the way through. Does it answer all the questions you have? Not really. But some of the answers don't really matter anyway and I didn't really care about them anyhow
But it's still not something I would really care to watch or recommend particularly. It's a love story at its core. Almost everything else is merely set dressing even if it's quite compelling. The mystery pulls you through but ultimately, I don't think I liked some of the characters enough to care about what they wanted or went through. Especially in the first season, almost every character is decidedly unlikeable and even by the final season, some of them remain quite selfish and arrogant. I don't mind the ending but the off-screen resolutions to most of the characters felt throwaway. I wish we'd got more at the end with everyone involved rather than just two of the characters cause even if they're unlikeable, I was still compelled to see their journeys
Not sure I liked this show as much as everyone else did but you don't have to believe me
I'm sorry but I don't understand the hype for this show at all. This was easily one of the worst anime I've ever watched. Horrible plots, a weak, incompetent MC, a deplorable and malignant female "love interest", laughably bad plots and "mysteries", egregious amounts of unnecessary fanservice and an ending that is probably one of the dumbest I've seen. There's very few anime that I can thankfully say are worse cause I've kept myself away from the bad ones but this I sat through cause of the hype and it's ridiculously bad. Literally the only redeeming thing about it has to be the animation cause it's pretty good
I don't understand the ridiculously high ratings. The first season was trash. A hundreds year old old man inside a kid's body groping a princess repeatedly while a giantess looks on jealously who in turn has an admirer in a teenage child's body who also has another admirer and all the whole there's yet another lolicon coupling. This is trash plain and simple and if reports are to be believed, it only gets worse after the first season. Yeah I'm not wasting time on this
First season was excellent
Second season devolved into soap level awful drama and rolled it easy back with the historical science fiction. I'm done. The quality dipped way too much and too many nonsensical plot points were added to make this entertaining anymore.
An excellent season 1 with a great deal of depth and conflict and feel-goodness from the stakes and the interactions with the teams
Which turns into a boring slog of a second season with lots of unnecessary drama, far less mirth and a plodding and glacial pace. Couldn't get past episode 8 and dropped it
Season 1 was fine. They did interesting things with the timelines (which were a tad unnecessarily confusing) and they had some decent political intrigue and fun "short story" episodic plots. It tied up fairly neatly at the end.
Season 2 was pretty great. A lot of dangling threads are introduced in the first 4 episodes in very frustrating ways and most of them are tied up incredibly neatly in the final two. There's a lot more focus on the characters and this is primarily Ciri's story, not Geralt's or Yennefer's though they do have major roles to play. Jaskier comes in the clutch to deliver some much needed levity and pulls it off with some great scenes. Music is as good as always
I hope they end it at a neat and tidy Season 3. I'm not sure if they will considering the popularity but I still want it to be something they round off by the end of the next season in a bow all gift wrapped with a solid conclusion.
This is honestly a really dumb show
But it's elevated a whole lot by an extremely self aware script and a stellar cast that really sell every part of the show. It's just a really shlocky and tropey action flick spread over 8 episodes but it's pretty tight and the action is really well shot, brutal and well executed. You can honestly turn off your brain and simply have a good time with this one cause there's not much fluff and distractions going on. It gets straight to the point with what you want and has a likeable set of characters that you want to see through
Edit: S2 was equally dumb and equally self aware as anything in S1 and therefore, equally entertaining. Frankly, I'm not sure how they've made it this consistent. I would definitely watch at least 2 more seasons of this
The gratuitous fanservice and the lack of any sort of rules for any of the games ruins any hook this show had at all. I expected something more intelligent but this is pretty dull and brainless
There is no way to expect an anime that is this unabashedly violent and gory has everything, absolutely EVERYTHING which includes the animation, music, voice acting, characterizations, all supporting the quiet moments, the calm moments, the moments of the eye surrounded by the storm. The show revels in these moments in a world surrounded by brutality and death. Having read the manga, I wished they'd covered more in the first season. I now see that thinking that way was an utter mistake. The show takes its time, shows us the beauty in life, the things we should be enjoying such as the food, relationships and things we take for granted
Before they're all ripped apart in the high speed blades of a Chainsaw
A heart-warming and fairly well done little show. More entertaining than most CGDCT shows and rises above that trope to do a little something special with all the characters. And yes, the music is actually pretty good
I love it so much. Sure there's parts where it doesn't hold up to the original comic series but for the most part it's a faithful yet gripping adaptation with a lot going for it
This show will probably grace the walls of TV history on the same level as something like Chernobyl. Masterfully written historical fiction with compelling characters, a dense narrative and excellent pacing. As with something this incredible, there's really not much else I have to say. The usual stuff like visuals, music, set design etc are all superbly executed and everything comes together in every single episode. I'm incredibly happy that TV like this is being made today.
S1: The first season was unbelievably dull for so much of it. It's so predictable and it takes 10 episodes to do what they should have done in maybe 6. The ending has me intrigued for what it is to come but the "twist" was so easy to call out in the very first episode. There really is not enough worldbuilding for such a unique situation and they pepper in these insane lines that really should be explored way more than just being throwaway in the middle of everything else. This coming out in a similar time frame to Severance, which has much of the same mystery hooks and yet is so much more captivating than this, did not work in its favour. I'm hoping the next season actually has some substance instead of pointlessly extending the runtime
This show went into the gutter so unbelievably fast. First season was pretty good if fairly campy and dumb. Second season immediately devolved into shlock but was still fairly entertaining. Season 3 was just outright bad and season 4 was even worse. Had a huge dedicated fanbase that it totally squandered
All the people watching this and commenting here have attached themselves to the idea of Mr & Mrs Smith from 2005 with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie when this IP is far older than that and has historically never been as action packed as the 2005 one. This is a similar take on spies and love when forced to be with one another but is far more similar to Donald Glover's other project Atlanta. There's shades of magical realism, bold faced satire into modern life and a lot of dry humour but dialed back on the "magical" a fair bit. The show is not meant to show these hyper-competent super assassins, it's a look into two people navigating a torrid relationship filled with ups and downs. The spying is background noise and mostly pure setup considering how ridiculous it is and how clearly incompetent everyone involved in the org is despite all the cloak and dagger. It's also hilarious.
People truly are missing the point by asking for "more action" and one idiot calling it "woke" and other nonsense. It's not for everyone but I'd say give it a chance, especially when it's just 8 fairly short episodes.
Pacing issues and moments of absolutely terrible writing bog down an extremely interesting concept. I don't understand why they thought the side story of the morons from SWORD would make for an interesting plot when it's grievously underdeveloped. Stuff just happens, characters are revealed on a whim because the story demands it, interesting mysteries turn into mundane reveals and everything is underwritten and paced horribly
I had high expectations from the teasers and I loved the first 2 episodes despite them being FAR shorter than I hoped. But the rest of the episodes are frankly terrible and the show as a whole is so terribly mediocre
Some really great episodes and the show gets pretty dark
But it's been fairly over-hyped by people who have watched nothing else do this concept. It's a fairly tried and true plot that doesn't do much that is new. The set design and music was exceptional though, as was most of the acting. I liked the time I spent with it but it's pretty bog standard all things considered
What the hell is wrong with the comments here? Goddamn culture warriors "bravely" fighting against... I really don't know but keep up the great fight on trakt comments you morons
The first season was pretty good. Thankfully the show isn't holding out on all the mysteries for future seasons. Most of the big questions were answered by the finale with some teases for the future. Even if the show wasn't already renewed, I think I'd be mostly satisfied with what we have so far but let's see how the next season shapes up. Pretty good writing, great references to the games, good characters and acting, great sets honestly and decent production values. The power suits are probably the weak link in terms of looks and it's kind of a coin toss whether they look great or kinda shabby. There's enough here to at least look forward to the next season with how much has happened so far.
I have to admit, this did not grip me as well as Dark did initially. It was a lot of the "mystery box" type of overstuffed, underexplained hokey where Dark was relatively straightforward with a solid hook right at the beginning. But that finale... suffice it to say, bonkers and ridiculous as it was, I'm hooked. I hope for the Creator's sake that they land this cause this is quite a ride. Hope it's an enjoyable, smooth one rather than a car crash
I'm not sure this really stuck the landing particularly well but it is a ridiculously entertaining and fun show throughout. A lot of the jokes don't really stick but there's always something to laugh at and a good sense of humor about the stupid things in comic books and I'm always up for some meta humor about how stupid these universes are. Great performances throughout too
S1 was great in most respects. Incredible art and action, beautiful music, great VA, good writing and dialog and a very interesting twist to the standard revenge plot. I'm just not too sure where they're taking this plot from here. S1 ended at a really weird spot with a somewhat underwhelming finale so I'm hoping future seasons stick the landing more with me but I'm still interested in seeing where this goes. Even if it ends badly, S1 is definitely an easy recommend right now
I mean now that it's cancelled, a lot of the mysteries will never be resolved. It had promise but didn't really have a solid hook until the very last episode of the season. If it could have continued, it might have been something very intriguing. As it stands, it's a lot of setup with very little payoff. Very unfortunate that it's been dumped
As with all Mike Flanagan stuff, this is a show about the human spirit, about love, loss, all things held dear and about the humanity in us. Wrapped in a veneer of horror. The finale was a bit drawn out and preachy; the show could have been 6 episodes but I appreciate what it's trying to do and it pulls a lot of it off. If you like Mike Flanagan stuff, don't miss this
For anyone who liked this one, I highly recommend the anime Shiki which does a lot of what this does and very well but takes much longer to get there
I'm pre-emptively giving this a meh cause I'm sure this show is not gonna surprise me. Halfway through we have one filler episode and one of the most uninteresting reveals possible and cliches so expected and boring that I feel I know exactly how this will end
I dunno why I expect anything interesting from these shows. I keep hoping that we'd get Legion again cause Disney owns Fox and Legion was an X-Men property. I don't mean we'd get a reboot or whatever of Legion, just that they'd take the interesting ideas from Legion and make something interesting and zany and truly whacky and avante-garde. Instead, WandaVision was uninteresting and terrible and this takes a genuinely interesting character and flanderizes the shit out of him
I should probably give up on the MCU shows and just watch the movies. At least they're short
Edit: watched the last episode. Yeah I'm not changing my rating. The pacing was awful. The finale was messy and the cliffhanger ending was unearned. The fights were heavily edited poorly choreographed chaos
