flowirin Reviews

Civil War (2024)

unexpectedly good

[8/10 · 25 May 2024]

There have been a whole lot of negative reviews of this movie, from both sides of the political fence. Mostly these negative reviews focussed ont he lack of 'political' side taking by the movie, as if we need to have modern politics injected into it to make it worthwhile.

This was surprising, since Alex Garland rarely disappoints, but I went into this with low expectations.. I wouldn't have bothered watching ti at all, unless a friend hadn't recommended it. I'm glad he did.

This is a powerful movie, and it pulls no punches in its story telling. We get to watch the coming of age of a war photographer, as the baton is passed to her by an ageing and jaded professional.

It is not a kind portrayal, and speaks loudly about both the moral and ethical problems of that role, and of the partisan nature of journalism itself.

Well, that was my take anyway. I found it interesting. If you like Alex's movies, this is definitely another worthy one.

Dune: Part Two (2024)

An absolute Masterpiece

[10/10 · 14 April 2024]

I'd enjoyed Dune. It was alright. The sound was a bit off, and the fixation on Chani's face was a little tiresome. I knew the story and found the whole thing just 'ok'

So went into this one with no real expectations, just wanted to see how it went

Well. Something stepped up a gear. This is, in my opinion, one of the best movies I've ever seen. I can't think of a better one at the moment, but don't want to accidentally besmirch something.

For me, this movie had a couple of interweaving threads that caught my attention and challenged me to think.

The first was the concept of scale. Backed by stunning sound effects, the various vehicles and troops kept moving from grand scale constructions landing on a planet, to insects and microbes invading a body. The Fremen and Paul from wild and hard people to a functioning immune system responding to an infection. I can't help but think it was deliberate with the visual and sonic choices.

The second aspect was the human level interpersonal communication going on between a painfully 'western' mode of thinking and the 'collective or die' austerity of the Fremen. The way the language bounced back and forth, the microgestures, just a brilliant expression of the director's own ability to observe human interactions. It felt very real, and the alien mindset of the Fremen felt comprehensible, a real trick of storytelling.

The action was spot on. Not overdrawn, not ridiculous, but engaging and terrifying and spectacular in a gritty way, another feat of direction.

I think the film managed to elevate the book, which , given we were all wondering how the quite hard to read tale would make the transition to the screen, is quite the achievement.

I am looking forward to The director's treatment of the later works. Especially the God Emperor book, which is a stultifying read, but contains bones that would be incredible if translated with this level of skill.

An absolutely compelling masterpiece.

Damsel (2024)

its a good job dragons play with their food

[7/10 · 2 April 2024]

This is a neat little story. Yes, it is silly. There's a later shot of Millie walking with the world burning behind her... an absolutely classic shot and she pulls it off with such a silly look on her face I couldn't help but laugh.

The story is not deep, and it is not overlong. Its shot reasonably tightly, and we are spared the excesses of girlboss power fantasy nonsense. As the title says, its a good job dragons play with their food, or the movie would have had a very different and much shorter ending. That small contrivance aside, the overcoming of the enemy was clever and within the bounds of possibility. We get another meme shot, this time of the A-team/McGuyver preparation.

Bad guys get their just deserts. Really bad gal doesn't really, but we kinda feel for them. Fun movie.

PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (2023)

Paw patrol skin over something very different

[4/10 · 3 November 2023]

This movie simply isn't paw patrol. Sure, it has the characters, the vehicles etc. That's not enough, when the very soul of the movie is wrong.

Paw patrol is a fun, light hearted kid's series, with short, quickly resolved disasters, and a good vibe. Sure, there are bad guys, but they are not bad bad guys.

But this movie? It centers around a bitter, nasty, POC villain, who wants to lecture at all times, and has a horrible tone of voice. She puts people down, complains about the world and generally brings adult issues into what was a kids space. The nasty cynicism and unpleasant sarcasm is totally out of place in this movie.

My kids wanted to end it half way through, so we did.

This is a BAD MOVIE and pollutes the paw patrol brand.

Ahsoka: Part Eight: The Jedi, the Witch and the Warlord (2023) Season 1, Episode 8

Whatever it is, it isn't star wars

[3/10 · 4 October 2023]

I feel like I've walked into an episode of Dark Crystal, or maybe Krull.

Star wars had the force. It seemed magical, but had clear limits.

This has objects manifesting out of thin air and literal magic. It has left star wars far behind, and turned into a fantasy show, and not a very good one. Character actions are based on pure convenience, plot armour is so thick that I'd not be surprised to see someone get their head cut off and bounce back.

There is no sense of urgency anywhere, and the paper thin veneer of space wizards with light swords falls off the hokey Japanese samurai inspiration. If only Filoni had leaned harder into it, and saved us the terrible dialogue, too. That Thrawn actually called Ahsoka a 'Ronin' was a bit close to the bone.

I am truly tired of the constant nostalgia calls. The thing cannot stand on its own, strip away the 'franchise' trappings, and the story can barely crawl, let alone walk.

And the sound design is starting to really irk. David Tenant's droid voice has an awful variable pitch shifted bass line to it that echoes about awfully, and makes my ears hurt. There is no reason for it. And then the coven of witches have the same godawful sonic effect, pitched up.

Thrawn is a failure. His voice maybe that of the cartoon, but his appearance does not fit that of the books, who considered physical fitness vital to good mind function. He is a prime example of a writer being unable to write characters more intelligent than themselves. In this episode, he forgets that he was just waiting to finish the loading job he's put off for years, and decides to start a ground assault instead of using his heavy weapons.

The show seems unable to pick a target audience. Is it aiming for 7 year olds, (it humour), or for teens (its shaky plot) or adults (its pretentious pacing, music, and characters staring significantly)

Finally, the Ahsoka actress is simply unsuited to the role. She cannot run, she cannot move with any fluidity, and her practice forms performance last episode was terrible. Why they coudln't use AI to put her face on an actual athlete, I don't know. When fighting the stormtroopers underneath the star destroyer, she looked like a frumpy middleaged housewife badly twirling sticks instead of a competent warrior.

But at least we got to see the cast of the witches raise a bunch of zombie stormtroopers so we could watch more bad lightsaber action. If only Thrawn had thought to close any of the many doors on the way up to the star destroyer instead of leaving them all for the rebels to shut...

It is the terminal stupidity of the plot and characters in this episode, and series as a whole, that made it such a disappointment to watch. Which is a shame, as it often looked amazing.

Ahsoka: Part Five: Shadow Warrior (2023) Season 1, Episode 5

At Last! a decent lightsaber fight

[6/10 · 13 September 2023]

This episode contains the best lightsaber fight yet. As in, the only decent lightsaber fight so far. Ashoka is dynamic, gutsy, agile and smart, and the battle is swift and fun.

They cheated, though. We get the battle during a ridiculous mystical interlude, where badly de-aged annakin walks Ashoka through some unexplained past life regression, and a young actress plays young ashoka, really well. When we finally revert to the original actress, she seems almost disabled in comparison, like there is something wrong with her upper body / shoulders that restricts her movement and makes her unable to actually use her weapons properly.

It was a very LONG mystical dream / near death interlude, relying heavily on nostalgia to carry it, and of course we get glimpses of Darth Vader to keep the fans happy.

You have to wonder. What was the point? It appears to serve no purpose, other than to play on nostalgia and add a large dose of mystical weirdness to the show. Maybe its meant to let the viewers inject their own meaning, as the show lacks much of its own.

Ashoka is magically rescued, devoid of any injuries from being smacked with a lightsaber, (apparently plot armour is invulnerable) and a mystical vision tells her where Sabine is.

And then we eventually get back to bad politics after a 10 minutes of atmospheric music, long gazes and generally nothing happening.

The show would be pretty much over, except a gigantic pod of space whale / squid creatures decides at that very moment to migrate and our heroes get to tag along after a brief tête-à-tête. With unecessary arm waving, of course. How... convenient.

Oh, and the rest of the republic puts its effort into stopping the heroes for no really good reason.

I do struggle to understand why space whalesquids need Baleen.

Ahsoka: Part Three: Time to Fly (2023) Season 1, Episode 3

wake me up when you get there,

[4/10 · 30 August 2023]

Ahsoka jumps the shark in episode 3. In space. What is it with disney star wars and gravity in space? A slow motion flip over space lasers, neatly landing back on the spaceship. Kinda amusing.

I wonder what would have happened if the speedy space baddies had slowed down and taken their time to saturate fire on a defenseless enemy, instead of badly coordinated strafing runs?

Shortly before this we get a luke training scene. That took twice as long as the original Ben Kenobi training, and taught us nothing we don't already know, and an awkward 'political' scene, where badly acting politicians telegraph their secret agendas and our cheeky general gets to act with zero gravitas or inate authority once more.

This series is defined by lots and lots of pauses. It all adds up, timewise. 5s here, 5s there, and suddenly 10 minutes has been spent with the camera sitting on inanimate objects. Or dorways. Occasionally on someone gazing contemplatively, as music swells.

The slow pace became super evident here, a deliberate stylistic choice, but one that is wearying, and highlights the thinness of the script that underlies it all.

A whole episode to learn for sure what we all guessed at the end of the last episode. Yeah, a hyperdrive ring with massive engines goes a long way. Wow. Thank goodness for our sleepy heroes that it was badly defended, no one can shoot, turbolasers have been hit with the same nerf bat that turned lightsabres into mere inconveniences, and there appear to be only about 30 people involved in this great conspiracy to recover Thrawn, and none of them show any urgency.

This show is bad. Unforunately.

Ahsoka (2023– )

looks great, but about as stupid as it gets

[3/10 · 24 August 2023]

Text: Maybe I'm missing a lot as I haven't watched any of the cartoons, or mandalorian. Just the main movies (except the last one) and Andor (which I thought was very good).

The opening scene is great. Very star wars, looked clean and real. Like a new spaceship, recently commissioned, with shiny new droids and a very prequel feel.

But then meeting the star, Ahsoka, was a total let down. She's on some random mcGuffin mission, that I had no background for, so didn't care about. Full of memberberries for the nostalgia fans, lots of hints. For some thing that contains information that absolutely would not be in an ancient temple decorated by what looked like whills. We later learn they are some ancient witches? Whatever. But the thing is thousands of years old, anyway, and has no right to be housing the coordinates to a recently vanished Grand Admiral Thrawn. (I've read the EU books about him, and faced him in the x-wing/tie fighter PC games, but apparently he's in rebels, so I may be very confused as to what is what with this one, as his arc is very different)

Its only in the next scene, where a purported "General" (who acts like a maverick flyboy); asks the questions we all want answered, that we learn what it is for (the basic core of the series) and the sheer stupidity of the last scene is made apparent. Could they not have written the bit we are told about that led to the quest, so we got to see it? Would have added stakes and interest. Like knowing WHY Ahsoka was there, and what she was looking for would have rendered the scene very different to view. I could have been involved in it, instead of just looking at it and, not knowing the why of anything, finding all the holes in the presentation.

Anyhow. Next scene and we are into male humiliation girlboss nonsense and the series has made itself very clear. Sabine. Maybe. Is the star of the show. A punky, rebellious, sullen mid twenties actress portraying a teen who is amazing at everything and generals go to her for answers. Seriously. They made her look a lot like 5 from Dark Matter (Emily Kolburn), a far better character and actress, but the call back to fond memories wore off pretty fast. Looks like it will be her show, and the target audience is hormonal teenage girls.

It might explain the awful physical performance of Ahsoka herself. I thought she was going for a contained Ronin-like zen, but my friend (a keen fan) lambasted me for not watching Rebels (apparently it makes everything make sense) so I watched a bit. Ahsoka there is a athlete, bouncing about. So this version look like a disinterred copse in comparison.

The bad guys are fun. Scowly blond girl is a riot. (i'm kidding), and the main sith dude is reminiscent of Dooku. Shame he spends so much time gazing meaningfully at nothing.

If only scowly had pulled that lightsaber up, or sideways, instead of cleanly out, when she poked Punky through the liver with it, and we could drop the largest, and least interesting, part of the show.

Someone else mentioned that the 2 episode runtime is equivalent to a New Hope. In that time, we've not got past Luke finding Leia's message, story-wise.

Well, expectations were not existent, so now have a clear low dialled in. Let's see how the rest of it turns out.

No Hard Feelings (2023)

What could have been painful was really carried by a good actress

[8/10 · 10 August 2023]

I wasn't a fan of Lawrence's blockbuster roles. I found her boring, or maybe it was just the direction that left her as this tedious screen prescence.

Here, though, she gets a chance to truly shine. Basically playing a hooker, she brings a down to earth reality to the situation that had me laughing out loud, almost in tears for much of the first half. And not, as i've read other places, in a simple reprise of "pretty woman", Julia Roberts style. Jennifer plays a far more relatable character

I don't want to spoil the movie, so I won't. But, given the opening premise, there were not a lot of ways for this movie to have gone. In the end it picked quite a careful path through a minefield, while gently taking the mickey out of every strata of society that it depicted.

A greatly enjoyable lightweight comedy..

Miracle Workers (2019–2023)

dumb

[4/10 · 9 August 2023]

I suppose it is meant to be funny.

Daniel Radcliffe has a certain charm, but it is not enough to carry what amounts to pointless fart jokes and unfunny grades school humour.

I'm not sure who it is aimed at. Certainly no one that I hang out with. It feels petty, taking swipes at easy targets and being generally offensive towards people who don't screech and try and cancel you.

Production values are low, the stories are weak, the caricatures are simple, the jokes are barely recognizable as jokes,"hashtag wagonlife". "So not that right now", "y'know, like what are you doing with your life." I certainly wonder what I did with mine, watching this rubbish.

Foundation: In Seldon's Shadow (2023) Season 2, Episode 1

just awful

[3/10 · 20 July 2023]

Do you remember when you were young, and went out to watch experimental stage shows, that had a stage set in black, with a single spotlight, and some overwrought shakesperian wannabe over acting terribly?

Well, if you never did that, the opening 2 weeks (subjective time) of this episode will quickly fill you in on the joys you missed. There is nothing quite like a thespian in full ham mode, and foundation nails it.

Intersperse this cringeworthy explosion with tedious reminders of the rest of the cast who either can't act, or have the most tedious twaddle to work with, and all the sins of the awful season one come back in full force, with none of the relief that the good bits at the time had to offset.

TV for masochists only.

The Final Programme (1973)

a little bit of prescience

[6/10 · 4 March 2023]

This was released the year I was born, and it seems to track the slow destruction of the world, that has been my lived experience.

Its a little spooky, to be quite honest.

Production wise, its a bit, well, $hit. Cheap sets, horrid noises, flashing lights, but its well within the 60's 'trippy' vibe, so i'll forgive that.

Story wise, its lunacy, and only my familiarity with the eternal champion grounds it in any kind of sense at all. But it is fun lunacy, and I'd have loved this at my late night TV sessions at uni. In the 90s.

The ending though. That's the whoah. Bit.

The future? Its today, with a weird ape dude/girl in makeup thats supposed to be able to give birth, give a smile and a wink as it walks out into the world it now inherits.

Make of it what you will. Maybe next time circuit things will turn out a little prettier?

The Rig (2023– )

pretty, but everyone is just stupid

[5/10 · 21 January 2023]

We need to have a rethink about how we vet writers and scripts.

Too many films and shows have great premise, interesting stories, all let down by utterly moronic actions.

This show is no different. Every single episode, abject stupidity is the primary driver of the plot. I'm on the last episode, and, to no surprise whatsoever, the big bad is left alone to do big bad tings, just like every other episode where some big bad has been allowed to do their dumb things.

Plot need to progress without the need for idiocy to drive it. It demeans the audience and I hate it

This story could have been interesting.

Troll (2022)

stupid upon stupid makes this barely watchable

[3/10 · 25 December 2022]

Watching a movie, a certain amount of suspension of disbelief is required. Too much, and we are pulled out of the story.

This movie had some elements that worked. The cgi was good, the pathos around the troll's motivation was moving enough.

But dear god, the humans were stupid beyond belief.

There's a giant troll trashing the place. Its obviously a troll, yet 3/4 of the way through the movie and we are still having discussions between people about if the troll is really a troll, in the most awfully written dialogue.

Then we have contrivance after contrivance to progress the plot. Moronic military, "get closer", in order to put people into danger. Leaders making nonsense choices to put the protagonist scientist into a lead role,

people about to be squashed, saved by a horn, and the troll, for no reason, not squashing them.

And the ending, military just standing about while the emotional lunatic disables their only viable weapon, only for the sun to finish the job, just in time to deliver an undeserved emotional hit.

There's many more examples but i'm too worn out to list them all.

This movie is the height of sloppy storytelling, of the requirements of plot driving all choices, and of paper thin personalization. Kids' cartoons have better writing.

The contrast with the excellent "trollhunter" (2010) makes this only worse.

Avoid this one.

The Peripheral (2022)

disappointing casting choices mar an ok story

[5/10 · 20 November 2022]

The first couple of episodes were encouraging. The plot deviated quickly from the book, which is a distant memory, but the cast carried the changed story so well that it didn't matter, and the bones of a good sci fi show were laid.

But things quickly went off the rails, with the plot progress juddering to a halt. We are treated to the american standard of far too much time spend on boring, drawn out scenes that do nothing but emote at length. A device used to 'draw in' the viewer and build rapport, but sadly missing the mark for those of us who never stop being aware that we are watching people pretend.

And then there are the casting choices. I don't care too much about the 'diverse' actors, as long as they can do their jobs well. But no. We get a painfully overacting failure for the RI, and then, at the point where I write this review, a policeperson. In the book they are trans, but in the TV series, they are also LGBT+, if that makes any sense. I'm trans, but not part of the 'gay' community, and I'd always read the character as like me. Ie. Normal.

Here we get a hard camp edge, and again, woeful overacting. 'Attitude' is cool, I get it, and snide remarks, exaggerated eyebrow movements and drag queen like vocal shifts can establish a kind of social dominance, but.... There's no panache. No hint of human. We are presented with yet another character that seems 100% confident in everything they do, condescending, threatening, dominant.

They've lost me now. The elements of the book that caught me have been sidelined and this is now another cookie cutter american drama.

Yawn.

The Peripheral: Pilot (2022) Season 1, Episode 1

preliminary review after 2 episodes

[9/10 · 23 October 2022]

I loved the book. It was really good. I can't remember the exact details, but the concept, rough plot etc is still there.

So was watching this with half an expectation that it would be terrible, as so many book to tv shows are (rings of power, i'm looking at you).

But, apart from the stainless steel bus not having the foot thick coating of whatever it was (I forget the exact details), the feel of this has so far been spot on. Its definitely not the same as the book, but it is not doing it a disservice. Far more mundane that the book vision, and 'london' is nothing like the world I have in my head, but OK none the less.

The actors involved manage to pull off the roles well, with only a couple of the 'londoners' being a little out of their depth.

Let's hope it keeps on the same trajectory.

Last Light (2022)

the start offered potential but...

[3/10 · 11 September 2022]

When you find yourself skipping all scenes with the mother and child, you know something has gone wrong.

They are also padding out a thin story using slow pacing, music and extended, boring, conversations.

It is not very good. The actors are, bar a couple, meh, unable to deliver lines convincingly. The 'authority' spook lacks any kind of presence for the role. The responses to external events are contrived, with stupid decisions driving the plot, rather than any kind of smart writing.

They finally spell out the core of the plot in episode 4, and it is as thin and dumb as it appeared to be when revealed in a single quick image in the first episode.

Strawberry Mansion (2021)

just a little bit too slow for my tastes

[5/10 · 20 July 2022]

The idea is interesting. With a better director, could be a good movie, but it is just too slow. It just drags

One scene, for example, should be full of tension, a race between life and death for the protagonist, with his real life world presenting a clear and present danger, but we spend such a long time in the dream world, with people exchanging looks. If it had been just that little bit tighter, the concept would have been exquisite, with our own plot driven stress overlaying the dream sequence and bringing an urgency to it that contrasted with the sequence's laziness.

But that's not what happened. I got so bored I lost interest. Nearly twenty minutes before the narration kicks in and describes the centuries spent in the dream space. Well, at least I didn't have to watch it.

Maybe more a judgement of my own lack of focus? Perhaps, but maybe a tighter cut would have be transformative.

The Terminal List (2022– )

whole bunch of stupid done really well

[8/10 · 9 July 2022]

I'm sure everyone will find some blinding example of dumb i this movie, from no quadrature head coil in the MRI scanner, and no magnets either, to the ever stupid "no, don't give me vital information immediately but instead wait and meet and allow for more drama".

It doesn't really matter, though. All tv is stupid, but at least this isn't preachy and stupid, instead it turns out quite gripping.

Very enjoyable.

The Umbrella Academy (2019–2024)

season 3, and another deus ex to save the team

[5/10 · 5 July 2022]

This is mildly entertaining. Could do with dialing back the CW grade interpersonal drama, which drags a little.

I'd heard bad things about season 3, and while it was not as terrible as others have said, it was not 'great'. There's lots of subplots to get entangled with, but the essential story is 'wait'.

Maybe that is all we are doing with this entertainment glut. Waiting to die, and watching mindless nonsense as we do?

There's no philosophy, no challenge, just pap.

On consideration, season 3 was an empty shell, pretty packaging, but with nothing inside.

Blade Runner: Black Lotus (2021–2022)

gets kinda boring, dragging out a relatively dumb story

[6/10 · 5 July 2022]

It was ok, I guess. But the mediocre facial animations don't hold up in a story focused on character.

It is also incredible derivative. A common theme for these IP extensions, by new producers, is to take apart the originals and generate a set of nostalgia hits, when are then used, out of context, to try and hit that memory of a good product. It cheats, really, masking an inferior product in the haze of feelings of a better time.

This is no different. The story could stand on its own, far weaker, without the 'blade runner' branding. Each episode blatantly reproduces a moment from the seminal original and it is quite jarring. Same goes with the music.

The story itself? Pretty simple, laboured, and would fit into a 90 minute movie easily. Here it is dragged out over more than double that. Could have done with far better dialogue, too. The talking heads seem so thin / cardboard.

With a tighter script, better dialogue and more time spent on the faces, this could have made a good stand alone scifi. Wrapping it in the corpse of a far superior movie hurt it.

Not a series I would have reviewed it it had not been riffing off something that I love.

Halo: Inheritance (2022) Season 1, Episode 7

an entire episode devoted to the most repulsive and pointless character.

[2/10 · 5 May 2022]

Unfortunately, the writers thought that a rude, brash, entitled, angry, petulant and generally vile character wouldf it into this series, instead of just being awful, annoying and irritating.

And they decided to give us an entire episode that is supposed to be some kind of character development arc, but in reality is just said awful and generally repulsive person being awful and repulsive but now with extra plot armour.

This is a godawful series.

Raised by Wolves: King (2022) Season 2, Episode 5

this one made me cry

[9/10 · 27 February 2022]

I seriously hope this story is fully scripted out, and they are not winging it.

Because the progression of the tale is still gripping, still interesting, still fantastic. In this one the question of faith and service, worthiness and blind chance is repeatedly addressed.

Brutal. Unnerving. Poignant and disturbing.

The seeds have definitely been planted.

The Innocents (2021)

intense movie let down by the nonsense of the main 'villan'

[5/10 · 17 January 2022]

1) it is slow. Really slow 2) did i say it was slow? Well, it really is 3) relies on young actors. They do okay 4) the plot requires one of the characters to be utterly vile, with no redemption,. It makes no sense.

Maybe you have to have a certain kind of repressed hatred to have any ability to see the villain of the piece to be anything other than a ridiculous contrivance. He was almost unwatchable in his psychopathy. Imo, the movie was broken by the role, and they could have made a much more relatable and believable horror/philosophical tale by grounding the ethical/'innocence' questions in something more real.

I mean, if you imagined dropping a tree on someone, and it happened, would you calmly up the stakes, or stop and readjust?

It may be worth watching if you have a lot of time to kill and you like to watch blank gazes.

Brave New World (2020)

entertaining

[9/10 · 16 January 2022]

I think a lot of this series is subtle. The slow changes in behavior and environment in response to the injection of an 'outsider' into a regulated, restricted, unchanging and deeply shallow 'social body'.

And that subtle, directed, change in the background of the show helps tell the story in a very well done 'show not tell' mechanism.

Avoiding spoilers, this show is quite faithful to the book, in spirit. It is an investigation of a technocratic, drug fueled society through the adventures of John, the outsider, and the proxy for us.

It departs quite rapidly from the book, though, and that's quite a good thing. The book is positively geriatric, and its incredible vision needed to be examined in the light of our own journey into the world that Huxley foresaw.

One only need to look at the most liberal of cities being burnt by the most shallow, entertained and drugged liberals to see that Huxley underestimated the human attraction for violence and hate.

All in all, a thought provoking, subtle, entertaining series, with an incredible soundtrack. Sonically, music and songs can do a lot to enchance a narrative. It can be done badly, with single lines from songs used to make a single narrative point, or it can be done like it is here, with the songs, the moods, the messages, all supporting and reinforcing the actors. The use of space, distance and immediacy in the pulsating techno moments shows that the composer knew their art and understood the story. Brilliant.

Such a shame it was not renewed. I only watched it because I was bored. I'd read earlier reviews that had slated it, which put me off and maybe that doomed the show. I'm starting to realize that many people get upset with tv shows that deviate from the written word, when those shows instead interpret the themes and concepts of a story to create a new, better product. This is one, the Witcher another. I get it, we all build these gorgeous worlds in our heads when we read, and the visual medium cheapens and limits them, Snape in Harry Potter is a total miscast, for me, but darn it. It is sad when a well written, well directed work of skill and art isn't given a fair chance beccause of purists.