DMZ (Zona desmilitarizada)

There has been a second American Civil War and Manhattan is declared a demilitarized zone. Alma Ortego (Rosario Dawson) is a medic desperately searching for her missing son. She gets into the crosshairs of warlord Parco Delgado (Benjamin Bratt).

The pilot holds some intrigue as it reveals this world. I was hoping for more but it still promises certain things. When she escapes into the DMZ, the pursuing soldiers claim that she wouldn't survive long. It suggests a scary dystopian world of unimaginable horrors. What it turns out to be is a mix of The Warriors and Gotham without Batman. Episode three ends with the comic book charge by two sides in a melee. It's all very poor comic book and it does not surprise me to find that this is based on a comic book series. This is no Escape from New York. This show has a promising start and then it evaporates. I can't even finish the fourth episode.

The characters are so cringeworthy with their decisions and choices and just general demeanor. The story crawls at a snails pace and is filled with SO MUCH melodrama. Most of it isn't earned or built up to begin with to leave any impact. The editing and direction makes me want to vomit, there are so many cuts in a scene...cut to face, cut to other face, cut to handshake, cut to face again, cut to other face in like 10 seconds...It's extremely annoying. There is one big action scene in the 3rd episode that could have actually been cool, all the elements were there to make it cool, but you definitely could tell the person never shot action before and it was LAME. I'm being generous with a 5 because the actors all do fine work and are really giving it a 100% effort, the set pieces and world building were pretty cool as well. Disappointing.

After seeing 25% of the series I realized there's better shows on the many watch lists of the multiple streaming services that I use. If I keep adding to those lists I'll probably never be able to get through half the content! I found nothing about episode 1 to make me want to watch episodes 2, 3 or 4. And because of that fans of this show are likely to label me, or anyone else for that matter, who rated DMZ below a 6 as a hater. I don't hate the series, it's just not worth my time. Just goes to show you how feeble minded telivision can make the masses.

Future dystopia, action, Rosario Dawson - what is not to like? A broken post-war place where everybody is cheery, clean, well dressed and well fed. The camera work is sunny and bright, wardrobe colourful. No broken people. The action involves sitting around talking, moves on to some discussion and finishes with some dialogue. Dawson is given a hopeless script and does as well as anyone could.

I barely made it through the first episode.

My opinion is that it's not gritty enough for the setting that it proposes and story isn't very compelling. I had higher hopes for an HBO production. They should have put the money for this into more seasons of Raised by Wolves. :P.