Ugh. What a disappointing show. There's no point investing into a big budget, complex story and a genuinely interesting idea if the characters are boring as hell. They are literally cardboard cutouts that I do not care about whatsoever, and that's not helped by the flat acting. The only thing James Norton seems to be able to do is flash that annoying smile. Point is, if I don't care about the characters, why should I care about the plot?
McMafia also feels like it tries to make the plot seem as complex as possible when it really doesn't need to. A complex plot is well and good, but McMafia gets so buried in the mundane complexities that it forgets to tell an actual human story. It should learn storytelling from American shows like Breaking Bad, because it's not enough when making a show about real issues to simply show those issues. It matters HOW you show them, the presentation style. Breaking Bad, for example, added humour to otherwise mundane tasks like cooking meth in a number of ways, including interesting camera angles and adding an ironically cheery song. McMafia should learn how to make boring things interesting.
McMafia also feels like it tries to make the plot seem as complex as possible when it really doesn't need to. A complex plot is well and good, but McMafia gets so buried in the mundane complexities that it forgets to tell an actual human story. It should learn storytelling from American shows like Breaking Bad, because it's not enough when making a show about real issues to simply show those issues. It matters HOW you show them, the presentation style. Breaking Bad, for example, added humour to otherwise mundane tasks like cooking meth in a number of ways, including interesting camera angles and adding an ironically cheery song. McMafia should learn how to make boring things interesting.