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Snowpiercer (2020)
A worthy successor
I am a big fan of Bong Joon-ho's (2013) film Snowpiercer and, full disclosure, I wasn't impressed by the first few episode of this series. Initially the show felt like it would just be a retool of the themes and characters of the film without the distinctive art direction/visual flare and energy.
However as I reached episode 4, I unexpectedly felt myself captivated by the story and really invested in the characters. And, luckily, I had put this show off long enough, I was able to marathon the rest of the season in about a day. That's how much better the series got as it moved on.
I think part of my ambivalance toward the first few episodes might have been a personal bias. I really loved the film and I didn't think the TV show could live up to what came before (speaking about the film only, as I've never read the graphic novel).
While the show largely explores the same themes of class inequity and the moral ambuiguity in the balance between order and freedom, it does so with a far more complex narrative than the movie (which is kind of unfair because the medium of a tv show affords much more opportunities for world building and character development than a 2 hour film). There is more backstory and the characters are more 3 dimensional, each with their own motivations and shifting allegiences.
The show does not drag with long winded exposition or convenient detours. Like most great shows, it has narrative momentum, always pushing the story forward. Character motivations and actions make sense and there are no 180 turns for shock value. The audience's intelligence is respected here.
The performances are solid throughout. Daveed Diggs has received a fair amount of criticism but I think people are expecting the same tortured performance given by Chris Evans, in the film, whereas Daveed's "Layton" hasn't been as morally compromised and is a more personable lead. However the performance that carries the show is Jennifer Connelly's Melanie Caville. Connelly brings a duality to every single scene she's in and creates one of the more complex TV characters in recent memory. You're never really sure how far she'll go.
If I had to compare this to a popular show, it would be Battlestar Galatica (2004). I just hope Snowpiecer doesn't go off the rails in season 3.
Songland (2019)
This Is What Reality Television Should Be
I used to watch all the singing competitions on TV (American Idol, The Voice, even the short lived US X-Factor) but after a while those shows started getting stale because it was always the same songs sung by similar sounding voices resulting in generic sounding critiques. There's also not much variety in the types of songs that are performed as the voters tend to gravitate toward contestants who sing ballads, because it's a better showcase for their vocal abilities. I love a good ballad but it quickly gets redundant and doesn't really reflect the contemporary music industry; which is probably why so few of the winners actually ever achieve any post-show fame.
The great thing about Songland is that it celebrates original music written by (supposedly*) up-and-coming song writers that are trying to make a name for themselves. But it also retains that competitive aspect of other "singing competitions" as the featured Artist-of-the-Week must choose 1 of the 4 songs to cut. Thankfully, it doesn't drag out the results for weeks, rather a winner is, satisfyingly, crowned each episode and the winning song is ready to be enjoyed on your favorite music streaming platform the next day. In our instant-gratification culture, this is just another part of the show's appeal.
Finally, I've read a lot of critiques on here about the quality of the music and I just want to say that art is subjective, just because you don't like a particular genre of music or the way music has evolved doesn't invalidate it for the people who do enjoy that music. With that said, this is a pop music show. The artists who feature are all mainstream artists who sing pop music (pop-R&B, pop-country, etc). I'm not expecting Bob Dylan to show up any time soon and if you're offended by pop music than this isn't the show for you. But if you can come in with an open mind, I think you'll find some real originality in this karaoke world.
*Supposedly because some of these songs are so polished and all of the song-writers are good to great singers.
ZeroZeroZero (2019)
The New Narcos (x Gomorrah)
Before I watched the series I read a number of reviews on here (both positive and negative) that labeled this show had a slow pace. I'm here to tell you that I think those people all mistook tension for lethargy.
The greatest praise I can give Zerozerozero is that it is never boring and always has narrative momentum. This show is actually action packed, much more so than Narcos or Gomorrah. It truly feels like the successor to the original 3 season of Narcos (Colombia), not in the sense that it follows the same Narcos docu-drama narrative style, more so in the sense that it's an American made crime drama about the cocaine trade.
After Narcos Mexico turned into a telenovela, I'm so glad I found another series to take up the mantle of the Narco drama. Yet this show is so much more than a story about the cocaine trade in Latin America as it shows the involvement of the Americans (brokers) and the Italians (buyers).
With 3 interweaving narratives, the writers have done a fantastic job keeping all 3 stories interesting and expertly pacing each episode, always leaving you wanting more. A lot of times with multiple narratives there's always 1 that lags or involves characters you don't care about. This show does not have that problem, quite the feat considering most of the characters in this story are pretty despicable, on the surface.
What really carries the show is its beautiful, yet hauntingly sparse cinematography which adds to the atmosphere of dread and general helplessness the characters all face on this show.
If you're at all a fan of crime thrillers/organized crime dramas, this show is not to be missed.