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limey_pete
Reviews
The Orville (2017)
More McFarlane Schtick
I can suspend belief for science fiction/fantasy. Really! I can! As long as everything else - script, acting, characters, premise- is clicking along, I can suspend logic. But Seth McFarlane's inept excursion into the genre of science fiction in "The Orville" is so stunningly bad that I find myself yelling at the screen.
I like Seth McFarlane to a certain extent. Not a big Family Guy fan, but I like the Roger- centric episodes of American Dad. When The Orville was announced, I looked forward to seeing what McFarlane would do with a science fiction show.
The first episode made it clear that what we were going to get was McFarlane shtick, with unending references to 20th-21st century pop culture, poor writing, bad wigs and juvenile, potty mouthed characters. Yeah, some of the crew are supposed to be rag-tag misfits, but that can only take you so far, and anyway, they simply aren't. They're just overgrown children.
The writing is bad, and worse, it's lazy. There is an endless inclusion of references to what in the show is long-dead cultural iconography with zero attempt to make them seem to be current. For example, I am perfectly willing to believe that versions of "Housewives" and "Friends" will exist a few hundred years into the future. In fact, a well-crafted, futuristic rendering of those shows would be immediately recognizable and could be very funny. But all "Orville" can manage to do is to show clips, usually while on the Bridge, of the 20th and 21st century shows. Lazy, uninventive writing, and I see McFarlane all over the scripts.
October 26's episode, "Majority Rules" was a great premise: a social media-dominated society similar to (you guessed it) 21st century Earth, where people receive up or down votes for their behavior, with too many down votes resulting in a brain adjustment. My big problem with this episode came right away. We're told two anthropologists have been planet-side for awhile, sending back reports. Yet somehow, they didn't report on the whole up-down vote brain adjustment thing. You'd think that would have gotten the attention of an anthropologist immediately, and found its way into a report pretty quickly, but no. Lazy writing prevailed, the away team bumbled around uninformed, and, just like every episode to date, quickly got into trouble by acting like children instead of the career Fleet officers they're supposed to be.
The "Majority Rules" episode gave McFarlane a perfect excuse for his pop culture obsession, but he missed the opportunity to do it well, relying instead on a faulty premise to drive the action. This laziness has marked every episode of Orville to date, leaving me to wonder if McFarlane is even a fan of science fiction. If he is, why is he wasting money churning out this puerile material?
All the episodes of Orville had good, basic plots, but you get the feeling that McFarlane isn't taking the show seriously, that he treats it like a toy for him to play with. Funny is one thing. Funny is good. And you can have good writing, a good premise, better character development and better wigs and still be funny. McFarlane doesn't seem to know how to do this.
"The Orville" has led me to believe that McFarlane, as clever as he may be, is incapable of rising above the level of self-indulgent, gratuitous schlock. I thought he might do well. I was wrong.
This show isn't for smart, serious sci-fi fans. Despite the nice sets, you can't get past McFarlane's shtick, which isn't very good to begin with, and you'll never get any serious attempt to bring the audience into the future. Personally, I can't wait until it's canceled.
The Sinner (2017)
The Sinner is going somewhere. Wish it were going a bit faster
I've watched The Sinner from the beginning. Being a Jessica Biel fan, I was curious to see her in a serious dramatic role. But oh, God, it is taking its time. After the 9/6/17 episode, my friend looked at me and said, "This show is dragging us along behind it. Through sticky mud."
He's right. Don't get me wrong; I like the show, despite the fact that Bill Pullman has that Christ-ly beard. And some kinky kinks. But it does drag on.
The good thing is that the viewer needs to see what happens next, and this show does a very good job, between all the gratuitous kink, of doing that. Jessica Biel gives a strong performance as Little Girl Lost. We want her to be set free. We're rooting for her.
This is a good show. Give it a watch. You'll be glad you did.
Van Helsing (2016)
Ven Helsing is not bad
The trick to watching certain genres in film is not to expect too much. You watch Van Damm or Schwarzenegger, you don't expect much. The Mechanic was entertaining, but it wasn't George III, right? It isn't reasonable to expect a TV show to be more than what it is. That's the case with Van Helsing. It is what it is: a SYFY channel original program with probably not the biggest budget in the world. Almost every TV show is rocky in the first season. It takes awhile for everything to shake down. Van Helsing is shaking okay. I watch it weekly, love the characters, and it's always a treat watching Christopher Heyerdahl. So hang in, be patient, give the show a chance. I think Season 2 will be much better. And besides, I'm interested to see the evolution of everything in this particular post-apocalyptic world, including when and how Vanessa becomes aware of who - and what - she is.