jordanbperez

Only 6 episodes out so far, but so far so good! It very much feels like a spiritual successor to the tried and true workplace mockumentary shows like the office and parks and rec while still feeling original in its jokes and characters. The characters here are likable, distinct, and well developed. The humor rides a nice line of not always playing it safe while not going overboard to be intentionally offense. Great shows like the aforementioned office and parks and rec had relatively rough starts. St Denis seems to have hit the ground at least "jogging" if not totally running, and I think it's lead up to a very promising start to the type of sitcom many people (including me) love. I'm looking forward to more!

I really wanted to love this show, but sadly it let me down nearly on all fronts. The first three episodes are actually pretty great, but after that all storylines hit the brakes hard. Bafflingly little story is told over the rest of the season. The producers clearly wanted a second season, and it shows in how absurdly long scenes and episodes drag out while making no significant headway with either plot or character development. When there finally is action, it's full of predictable tropes and/or gratuitous violence.

There are good characters and great actors here, but the corresponding writing is surprisingly lack-luster. Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren are excellent together but take a back seat in the second half of the season. The other two main characters, Spencer and Alex, are not unenjoyable to watch, but their storyline trudges on endlessly while making no progress. There is also an extremely violent and dark storyline based around a Native American teenager in a re-education school that has no clear tie-in to the rest of the plot at all. You could skip every scene in that storyline and it would not effect the rest of the plot one bit.

The season ends with uninspiring cliff hangers. One was mildly interesting (though not exactly typical season final worthy drama - it mostly involves property tax law), and one that was caused by such ridiculous circumstances and stupid, out of character actions by one of the protagonists it had me rolling my eyes and wishing the episode would just end. This show had a promising start but leaves a mountain to be desired. Maybe rewatch 1883 instead.

I've already accepted that this show would not be as impactful, expertly told, and well written as 1883, but this one was truthfully pretty bad. All plot lines really had a bad stretch here. The main Duttons continue to wait around in their house for the third episode in a row. The Native American storyline explodes into gratuitous violence against cartoonish bad guys while still failing to make any connection to the rest of the show. Spencer and Alex to make almost no headway and have no new development. And there are two completely unnecessary and very graphic sex scene.

This show should have and certainly could have been one season. The past three episodes have been dragging along and to see so little progress in this one coupled with pointless and highly uncomfortable violence and sex is highly disappointing. I will watch the last episode but I've already given up on the show.