Sunny

I'm only through 5 episodes but am pleasantly surprised. I tuned in because of Rashida Jones but have stayed for its delicate moments. For a sci-fi thriller this show takes a softer hand and is more creative than I expected. The plot is nicely decorated with philosophy and culture, of which none is overtly stated. The plot develops nicely and preserves its mysteries but it's the scenes in between that are memorable. My favorite so far comes at 23 minutes into Ep 5 and prompted me to write this review. No spoilers from me so if you can handle its loose grip then you may be as pleasantly rewarded as I've been for staying tuned.

I love Sci fi and I love Rashida Jones but I can't figure this show out. I'm not sure what it's about after 3 episodes. The fact that 70% of it is in Japanese makes it even harder. Rashida Jones' job seems to be to stand there half slumped and speak in English to people speaking to her in Japanese. She doesn't have any drive or maybe it's the way she portrays it I get no sense of urgency or even fear or trepidation from her as she's trying to figure out what happened to her husband and son. The writing is really uneven. This makes me sad. I wanted to like it, it's just too obscure for me I guess.

I guess Apple's strategy of releasing multiple episodes at the start of the season is a good one since it was the first couple of episodes that got me hooked. In the first 2-3 episodes, the tone was darkly funny, the mystery engaging, and the development of the relationship between Rashida Jones's character and the robot was interesting. After that, though, the show pretty much fell off of a cliff, devolving into inane subplots involving the Yakuza and spinning its wheels for several episodes with the plot going nowhere, the relationships taking a backseat, and the central mystery suddenly being ignored. It's too bad because there was a good show in here somewhere, but it seems to have gotten lost in effort to stretch things out over 10 episodes.

First of all I would like the creators of this show to acknowledge their love of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, because they named a character Boss Tanaka and he's even the same actor as Boss Tanaka in Kill Bill 1. THEN they name another character Boss Matsumoto. Oh, c'mon! And there are no mentions of this obvious influence in any interviews, but it's so obvious.

That said, I've really been enjoying the show. The writing is fairly clever with enough witty lines to balance out Rashida's dry and unlikeable character. The robot is really impressive to look at but also grows more human all the time. Actually I see a lot of my parrot in the robot, which is sometimes creepy but shows you that everything has emotions. Except robots right now, but we're probably headed there. The story isn't really as gripping as I'd like and it's definitely a slow series, but still very entertaining. I love subtitles so to me the languages blend seamlessly, but I can see how that might bother some whiny Americans. I like that it's set in Japan and seems true to other Japanese made movies and shows with how it's made, the acting, and how over the top the Japanese actors are. It gets better with each episode and I'm glad they made something different that isn't superhero related. It's refreshing that it's at least somewhat original, and definitely weird.

I thought the first 3 episodes were great, lots of mystique, interesting plot line and a broad spectre of characters. It was attention grabbing. But at some point it just took a turn in to a surreal japanese game show-esq story with no clear plot. It tries to explore moral questions but it quickly becomes flat and uninteresting. It fails to keep your attention, and although it has an interesting problem : can a robot (AI) have free will, an intriguing and relevant philosophical question, it fails to connect on an intelectual level. At a point I just stop caring about the protagonists or the problem in hand. Loads of potential but it just seems like the writers had no idea how to explore the plot in an interesting way. It's as if the Matrix turned in to a Disney cartoon midway...