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jamie-house09
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Reviews
Altered Carbon (2018)
S1 10/10 - S2 6/10
I loved the first season of Altered Carbon, it managed to create a fully realised world right from the word go. The cast were phenomenal, the story was excellent, a basic enough premise, but kept you on the edge of your seat and everything that happens has a purpose eventually leading to the explosive finale!
Excellent characterisation, beautiful visual world.
Season 1 was always going to be a hard act to follow, The second season was always going to be like the difficult second album.
Sadly it did turn out that way. The characters weren't really there in season 2. I think Mackie did a respectable job as Kovacs, it was nice to have Poe back, but because of the damage his program had sustained he wasn't the character everyone fell in love with in S1! The rest of the Ensemble cast I didn't feel held up very well either. I thought Trepp was quite a dull character, I don't think the story would've been hurt by not having her in the show tbh. Dig 301 I think could've been a more interesting addition, but again, was kinda neither here nor there.
The antagonists, Carrera and Danica Harlan were ok I suppose but also felt wasted. I think season 2 focused too much on Quell and what was going on with her. A deeper delve into the cartel war would've been more interesting. It was mentioned a lot, but it seemed so unimportant.
I've not read the third book, so I don't know what they pulled from it, I know it's set on Harlans world. There were, mainly names pulled from the second book. Carrera for example which was made into another sleeve of Yeagers in this. Joshua Kemp who was leader of the Kempists who the Wedge were at war with in the second book was now the leader of the Quellists.
I don't think the plot direction was good for this season. The whole Elder taking revenge was kind of interesting but it was dragged out for too long. The actual plot of season 2 could've been told in about 3 episodes. There seemed to be a specific A, B and C plot this time, whereas in season one, everything was connected in some way. Season two felt quite disjointed. I hope they learn from their mistakes and if we get a season three they fall back on what worked in season 1 and have a more interesting plot. Richard Morgan has considered revisiting the character so maybe he'll write a new novel with an interesting plot to draw from, or take inspiration from some of his other novels. We will see, but season 2 was a little disappointing.
Star Trek: Discovery: The Vulcan Hello (2017)
Pretty poor opening two episodes
OK, I'll try not to give any spoilers away, although tbh, I don't see how I could possibly ruin it, basically what you've seen in the trailers is what happens. you've kind of got the story there already.
From a Fan perspective, I wasn't impressed. From a critic pov I was even less impressed! I thought the writing was poor, I didn't like having to read subtitles for half the episode. It was slow, un-gripping. The Klingon scenes were far too long, made worse by having to read what they're saying all the time. For a stellar cast, I thought the acting was pretty poor as well. Some lines really came off as badly delivered. The special effects were OK, the space battle was again, pretty poor though, too fast paced to enjoy the visuals, was a bit of a blur. It has a lot of flaws and I think peoples skepticism was justified.
The Orville: Command Performance (2017)
Good second episode
A solid enough episode, slightly less comedy this week and more focus on drama which helped I think. I thought something would happen obviously when they went to help the cargo ship, I didn't expect what actually happened though which was nice. Came across as very Star Trek in nature which I also liked, reminiscent of the very first pilot "The Cage" Not really getting why the show has taken such a beating. It's a bit of fun and generally enjoyable to watch.