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Wallander: Prästen (2009)
Rating has nothing to do with the story...
...but, rather, with the subtitles on the Viaplay on Roku app. For this episode, the subtitled dialogue was literally minutes behind the spoken Swedish dialogue. Thinking it was just a problem with episode 6, we fired up the next one, only to discover that the subtitles for it had absolutely nothing to do with the action...and were actually from the preceding episode! At that point, we just gave up, so we don't know whether the problem went beyond episodes 6 and 7. Zero quality control, and nobody to report the problem to, which pretty much sums up the 21st-century, end-stage capitalism consumer experience.
Sense8 (2015)
$200M+ of vacuous eye candy...
This series is a poster child for the evils of an unlimited budget and total creative control. It is visually gorgeous, but the narrative is a hot mess: unfocused, meandering, and indulgent.
October Faction (2020)
Pee-yew!
The first few episodes were interesting enough, I suppose. But, the story ultimately collapsed under the weight of its own banality. The final few episodes were a non-stop rodeo of shark-jumping, with the plot lurching from point to point in implausible and inexplicable ways. When the credits rolled on a final episode clearly designed to set up a second season, my wife and I really wished we had thrown in the towel a lot earlier. Eight hours was far too much time to devote to this story and these characters.
Babel (2006)
Interesting, entertaining film, but...
...did anybody read the script? The two scenes involving Brad Pitt's call to Amelia are completely contradictory. Early in the film, when we're seeing the call from Amelia's end, Pitt was telling her she had to stay and watch the children, even if it meant missing her son's wedding. Near the end of the movie, though, when we see the call from Pitt's end, he tells Amelia that "Rachel" is coming to watch the kids and it's OK for Amelia to go to the wedding.
Huh?!
This is not a minor point, since there would have been no reason for Amelia to take the kids to Mexico if someone else was watching them. How could that slip by the director, writer, and actors involved in the scene?
Another Life (2019)
Hideously bad.
MST3K fodder. A trifecta of writing, direction, and acting so bad it made "Manos: The Hands of Fate" look like Shakespeare. One excruciating episode was plenty.
The Fall (2013)
Almost perfect...
Well-written, well-acted psychological thriller. The layered and nuanced storyline was excellent. Anderson hasn't really been on my radar since her days as Scully, and she turned in an incredible performance. Her interrogation scenes with Spector were almost Shakesperean. Well worth the investment of time.
Sorjonen (2016)
How do you say "jumping the shark" in Finnish?
Anxiously anticipated the second season, but, alas, it was a mere shadow of the first. The overdubbed English dialogue was poorly done, to a point where it was both annoying and distracting. The portrayal of Sorjonen was gratuitously affected and over the top, turning the lead character into a caricature. And, as the second season progressed, the plots became thinner and more contrived. The final two episodes had plot holes big enough to drive a truck through.