Episode #1.1

I'm late to finally watching this series and as of this first episode, it doesn't seem so horrible to me. The acting is perfectly good, the characters are engaging, the premise is interesting, the plot zips right along without dead spots, and the special effects are convincing. Just pick anything at random from Netflix and you'll see much worse.

The plotline with the eeeevil Nazi maniacally and sadistically searching for a legendary gem with supposedly magic powers is maybe a bit Indiana Jones-ish, but I assume that's taken from the well-regarded novel on which this series is based, so that can't be the problem.

The first episode did its job, getting me interested in learning more about the two main characters, particularly Werner, and continuing with the series.

This show is all over the place so far. Set design is fantastic and some of the acting is great. However, being adapted from a well loved book, which I haven't read, the dialogue is at some points so ridiculously forced that I can't really get immersed into the show. I get that introducing the characters in the first episode is important, but at some points it's almost literally "I'm (fill in the blank) and this is what I do." One of the key examples is the bakery scene. Marie walks in and sees her uncle for about 15 seconds where he proceeds to explain the whole point of what she's doing instead of letting the story naturally play out. Everything seems so forced and does far too much hand holding in assuming the audience won't be able to pick up on characters without flat out telling them what's going on. Almost every scene in the first half of the episode is some variation of the bakery scene in terms of character introductions. I think I may be being too harsh because other aspects of the show are great and I'll continue watching. But to me these aspects are pretty hard to ignore. However, l love the fact that they actually used visually impaired actors who did their job quite well. 6.5/10.

For now, I have read the first half of Anthony Doerr novel. An exercise exactly for be in theme about Netflix series.

The expectation - not accurate adaptation because the difficulty is obvious and the architecture of novel imposed more a serious series not only four episodes. . But fair translation of its spirit . Magnificent, intense.

The first episode, indeed, with some not very pleasant differences by images offered by book, makes that. But the serious pillars are the actors and photography.

Beautiful performances and amazing scenes. The encouraging first step is just made and this represents a real good point of series. Sure, maybe the chronologic order of events were little more inspired. But, it is only the fair episode. And , not to ignore, a Netflix production.

Episode 1 is beyond disappointing :(

I was so looking forward to this and it's just a letdown.

Generally cheesy acting that feels like a high school drama production. Sets look cheap, and there's no real sense of the time period, and no real sense of the trauma of war.

So far, poor adherence to the book. Uncle Etienne looked/behaved nothing like the source material. Werner has yellow hair. The sequence of Reinhold finding Marie had none of the book's tension or build-up, and was frankly anti-climactic. Did the show's creators even read the book?

Everyone bizarrely speaks in a British accent, although some actors at times randomly adopt a sort of German-sounding twang. Would it have been so hard to hire actual French and German actors? I kept thinking that unless I'd read the book, it would be so clunky to follow what was going on and who these people are.

The only highlight were the scenes featuring child Marie. She was a delight to watch.

I can't continue with this series as I don't want to ruin such a beautiful and treasured book.

This is a brilliant book & I had high hopes for a film adaptation but Netflix have ruined it. The lead German actor is reasonable, if dull. Lars Eidinger is brilliant ( see Babylon Berlin) but the so-called French female lead isn't French and has no acting ability AT ALL. Hard to understand the casting. So at what point did they decide not to take the French language language and acting ability into consideration? There must be hundreds of good French actresses in London /US. Do Netflix take us all for idiots?

It so very sad to see such a brilliant book brought down by awful acting. Kept wondering if it was the script-but no.