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bucykalman
Reviews
Wolf Pack (2023)
Entertaining, but not really a good show
The show is definitely entertaining, but, objectively speaking, I wouldn't say it is "good". The production quality is low and the actors seem to have been chosen more for their looks (or bodies) than for their acting skills really. The script is also not terrible, but rather dull and sometimes incoherent. But that has been a tendency in many shows aimed at a teen audience recently.
Personally I find it very unidimensional, focusing only on the stereotypical teen horror movie genre unlike Buffy, Teen Wolf, Vampire Diaries, and other similar shows that had broader range. There are some attempts to go deeper into the family drama route, mainly with Everett's, Blake's and Harlan's backstories, but the actors and the script fail to carry it to be honest. The morality of the characters (or lack thereof), as in where they stand in the moral compass, is also confusing, but maybe that will become clearer in Season 2, if there is one.
The Diplomat (2023)
Absurd plot with an overt partisan political bias
I can't even begin to describe how absurd this series is and, to do so, I am afraid I will have to include spoilers. So, if you haven't seen the series yet, I suggest you don't read this review.
For starters, there is an overt partisan political bias in the series. Brexit is described as the greatest "self-inflicted wound" in history; "Global Britain" is ridiculed; Scotland and Norhern Ireland are presented as being in the imminence of breaking up from the United Kingdom; and Tory politicians are generally implied to be sleazy. The series also reinforces the themes of British "decline" and similar anti-British stereotypes that have become prevalent in the United States recently.
Second, the plot is often nonsensical. Why would a by-election defeat in Scotland force the UK Prime Minister to agree to a second Scottish independence referendum? Also, the American characters keep calling the Prime Minister the "Head of State" when he is just the head of government in the UK and the Head of State is obviously HM The King. The creator of the series apparently knows little about British politics and the UK constitution while believing to be an expert on the topic. And I would not even get into the absurdity of a British Prime Minister hiring Russian mercenaries to torpedo the Royal Navy's flagship (and indeed one of only 2 aircraft carriers in service in the Royal Navy today), and expect that he could not only get away with it, but also that engineering a conflict with Iran would help him in a hypothetical Scottish independence referendum. Unless there is some plot twist in Season 2, the concept is so preposterous and nonsensical that it doesn't even merit discussion. Not to mention also that, from a military point of view, aircraft carriers are escorted by battle group ships and submarines, which should be able to detect and intercept a speedboat before it could strike the carrier.
The worst part, however, is just the behavior of the lead characters. The US ambassador to the Court of St. James talks with His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs repeatedly using the F-word and other forms of profanity. She also seems to drop in on the Foreign Secretary whenever she wants. The CIA's Station Chief in London implies that she wants to recruit the UK Foreign Secretary as an asset and the Foreign Secretary schedules a secret meeting with the Iranian ambassador arranged by the CIA and without going over this matter with the Prime Minister, the Civil Service, and/or the Cabinet. The President of the United States, clearly modeled after Joe Biden, is depicted as senile and in need of babysitting by the WH Chief of Staff. And it is implied that the Prime Minister can authorize extra-judicial killings in the territory of another sovereign country.
Above all, in addition to their absurdity, most characters are over-the-top or just plainly annoying: the Ambassador, the Ambassador's husband, the CIA's Station Chief, the Deputy Chief of Mission, I can't really decide which one is more insufferable. The Ambasador in particular is completely reckless bordering on total irresponsibility, has horrible "person skills", and, yet, is presented as someone who is being considered as the possible next Vice-President of the United States and, by implication with a senile President, possibly a next President herself.
Overall, this series seems to reflect what has unfortunately become the mainstream perspective of the American left today, but presented as factual by Netflix.
The Night Agent (2023)
An entertaining, but generic and formulaic spy thriller
TV spy thrillers are often silly and formulaic, but The Night Agent reaches a new low in that respect. The plot is implausible and incoherent, bordering on nonsensical. The acting is also wooden and uninspiring. Honestly 10 episodes seem too many to tell a story that could be told in fewer installments, especially considering that, unlike in the best spy thrillers, there are no significant plot twists. The "villains" so to speak are disclosed pretty soon (approximately half-way in Season 1) and the attempted plot twist at the end turns out to be highly predictable. Still, it is an entertaining flick despite being generic and forgettable. For better products in the same genre, I suggest looking at British spy series.
The Broken Chain (1993)
A movie that reminds us of important overlooked facts
A fact that is frequently overlooked in the US, although it is flat out mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, is that one of the motivations for the American Revolution was precisely the British Crown's refusal to sanction the American colonists' expansion into the West at the expense of Indian rights. It is not surprising then that many native Indians sided with the British in the revolutionary war as the United States, as they correctly feared, proved to be a far more hostile power to them than the Crown.
It is also important to remember that the American Revolution was actually a tale of not one, but actually two new countries: on one hand, the United States, which went its own way, and, on the other hand, Canada, which remained loyal to the Crown, even though Canada as a separate national polity within the British Empire would not emerge until much later in the 19th century.
13 Reasons Why (2017)
Season 3
I guess I could come up with a whole laundry list of things that are wrong with Season 3 of 13 Reasons Why, but, for the sake of conciseness, I will stick only with the major issues I have with the choices made by the writers.
1) The message: basically what the screenwriters seem to be conveying to the audience is that being a rapist is bad, but assaulting and killing a rapist is OK as he must pay for his crimes and be prevented from hurting anybody else in the future. If that message were not already bad enough in itself, the killer's friends, who are supposed to be the "good guys" on the show, engage in an elaborate criminal conspiracy, not only to enable the real culprit to get away with murder, but also to actually pin the crime on an innocent boy (Monty). And the local sheriff, who happens to be the killer's dad, becomes an active participant in that criminal conspiracy, destroying evidence and helping to frame the wrong person for the murder. The writers somehow try to mitigate the seriousness of the aforementioned plot by having Monty conveniently killed in jail, which, however, changes nothing: even dead, he will be wrongly remembered on record for a crime he did not committ while the actual killer will face no consequence for his acts. Keep in mind Bryce's assault (by Zach) and subsequent murder (by Alex) and the resulting coverup were not the first time Clay's merry band of friends engaged in felonies to do what they consider "right" (recall Tyler's guns early in the season). It is almost as if the authors, after running out of the original source material, decided to borrow a page from Lord of the Flies and came up with this parallell dystopian teenage society where the protagonists become the law enforcers and decide who is worthy protecting ( Jess, Alex, Tyler) and who deserves punishment (Bryce, Monty), regardless of the consequences to the punished. Sorry, but that is morally unacceptable, especially in a show whose target audience consists of High School kids. It is actually shameful that Paramount or Netflix greenlit a script like that.
2) The bipolar nature of pretty much all the "bromances" in the show: at Bryce's funeral , Zach delivers the eulogy, acknowledges Bryce as his "brother" and apologizes to him even though he had previously assaulted Bryce, broken his two legs, and left him for dead on a cold, deserted pier at night, being therefore an accessory to Bryce's ultimate murder. And also after Zach himself had long broken up his friendship with Bryce over the clubhouse and what Bryce did to Jess, Hannah and, especially, Chloe, with whom Zach is implied to be in a relationship. Not to mention that, before Zach assaulted Bryce, Bryce had broken Zach's knees ending his football career. Ditto for Justin: in earlier seasons, he does not forgive Bryce for raping Jess and having him lie to her about it; he even tells Jess afterwards that he would kill Bryce if she wanted him to, and ultimately he testifies against Bryce leading to Bryce and himself getting a criminal record. Nevertheless, when Bryce dies, Justin, even more so than Zach, reaffirms that Bryce was truly "his brother". By the way, when Justin is busted in Season 3, he turns to Bryce to bail him out (which seems to be something Bryce did frequently, not only to Justin, but also to Monty and others, possibly not out of brotherhood, but to control them somehow). Even Alex, who had not been friends with Bryce "since third grade" like Justin, and who, because of Jess and Hannah, seemingly hated Bryce at the end of S1 and throughout S2, starts hanging out with him again for a while in S3. True, Bryce was Alex's steroid dealer, but that doesn't mean Alex needed to do coke lines, seek prostitutes, or go vandalize somebody else's home with him. I mean, does all that even make any sense?
3) The uneven treatment of actions and consequences: I already mentioned that Zach, Jess and, especially, Alex should be in jail for killing Bryce or assisting in his killing and that Clay, Ani, Justin, Alex's dad and the others should be too for covering it up and framing Monty. But, beyond that, the show suffers from a terrible uneven treatment of the characters. Throughout Seasons 1-3, we see Alex for example (and others) using alcohol, weed, mollies, coke and juice, but no one ever questions that they might also have problems with drugs/ substance abuse. I am not trying or pretending to be prudish, but has drug culture become so trivialized in America that one is said to have a drug problem only when he shoots up heroin or swallow Oxy pills like Justin? Is everything else, including mollies and coke, now just occasional recreational habits ? The show also seems to justify or legitimize Alex's steroid use as a way to reassure himself of his mamhood, which is again the wrong message to be honest.
4) Ani: not only is she a character that comes out of nowhere and is immediately inducted into one of the tighest and most secretive social cliques ever (Clay's circle), but also she becomes this Enola Holmes criminal investigator genius, turned then into a Professor Moriarty's criminal mastermind who comes up with and talks everybody into the plan to frame Monty. I mean, worst new character ever.
To wrap it up, I won't get into Clay's pathological mindset throughout the season because I have already written too much, but, on a positive note, the only thing that actually saved Season 3 for me was the foster family dynamic between Justin, Clay and the Jensens. Too bad that only positive storyline the writers had in store was badly terminated in the laziest possible kind of writing in Season 4, but that is a topic for another review.