Detective, comedy. To begin with, I rarely watch serials, and the main reason is that they take a lot of time, and the secondary reason is that the serial needs to try very hard to interest me in order for me to want to watch it, and Londongrad coped with this task. I watched the series with great fits, but several episodes at once, in order to finish with it, and now I am ready to write you my review of this rather interesting detective story with a comedy produced by the good domestic TV channel "STS". In the meantime, here's my brief opinion - The story of how several Russians put the whole of London on their ears. To my great regret, in the series, in addition to the advantages, there are also disadvantages, which I will certainly describe. The preface is over, and let me get to the point!
So, the advantages:
1. London - almost the entire series was filmed in this city, and this was the main reason why this series caught my attention. I have already written many times about my love for this ancient city, about how I want to walk along its streets, look into shops, see Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and take a ride in the London Eye. All these places in the series will be. London aesthetics are full of bright colors, because no one can play London better than London. Let's just say, if you are a fan, or God forbid - a fan, of the British TV series "Sherlock", then you will definitely like this series, both in terms of history and in terms of aesthetics.
2. Stories - all two seasons we watch the life of the Londongrad agency, which was founded by the cunning swindler and brilliant mathematician, an Oxford graduate, Misha Kulikov and the daughter of the oligarch Alisa Zagorskaya, hiding from her beloved daddy. They help Russians in London for a very small fee (just kidding), to solve problems, without which, as usual, there is no. Each new episode is a new business of the agency, and a new story of our compatriot, who is oppressed for any reason. And although some stories are stretched even over several episodes, they are remembered, it is clear that they worked on the script, the soul is visible, so to speak. Personally, I remember three things that touched me to the quick.
3. Humor - here it is completely diverse, ranging from "Russian folk", partly "cranberry", and ending with modern topics about celebrities, bloggers and so on. There are also vulgar jokes, but their percentage is close to the minimum, which pleasantly surprised me. In each episode, I found far more than one moment, from which it burst into a laugh, it was a laugh, and not a simple laugh, the neighbors barely reassured me.
4. Breaking down the "fourth wall" - this is the necessary explanations that are needed for the average viewer, who is familiar with England only superficially, so that he could understand the specifics and, so to speak, the "internal cuisine" of the United Kingdom. I didn't really need these explanations so that many things were already known to me, but a couple of them added some more necessary information to my knowledge base. Moreover, all this is very stylishly designed and the creators did not overdo it with dynamics!
5. Memorable heroes - everything is clear with the main characters, but the heroes of the investigations turned out to be quite interesting, far from formulaic, as is usually the case in TV series. They are all different, there are good and bad, freaks and good hearts, and most of them have real prototypes.
6. Interest - as soon as the episode ended, I was eager to see the next one, after it - the next, and so on, but time, work and other duties did not allow me to roam too much, otherwise I would have watched all twenty-eight episodes in one gulp. Do not think, I'm not crazy, but I'm not lying, everything was so. It may be due to the fact that I rarely watch TV shows.
8. Dramaticism - in the series there are such emotional and touching moments in which your humble servant let down a mean man's tear, and the music, and the actors, and the environment - everything was done right!
So the disadvantages:
1. A pilot episode - it is needed in order to interest the viewer and gather the entire team of the future agency - and it copes with this task. But at what cost? With vulgarity, it is unambiguous, and even in the context of the story being told. To be honest, after one of the vulgar moments I wanted to quit watching, but restrained myself - and was rewarded.
2. Second season - if the first season was a little constrained by the framework of our three employees of the agency, and logically verified, then the second season destroyed some of the script lines of the hotel characters, replacing them with others, even without a logical explanation. Don't think that I didn't like the second season at all. It is more ambitious, new heroes appear in it, the staff of the agency increases, new cases are opened, but the destruction of the threads of the first season spoiled the overall impression a little. Sorry!
3. Average lousy ending - I will someday live up to such a series, the ending of which would make me experience a storm of enthusiastic emotions, and not a fountain of broken hopes, as with "Game of Thrones", or would break all causal relationships and would not break the banal logic? The Game of Thrones example is great here as well. I expected to see if it were not for a powerful ending, then a logical conclusion, and even a sad one (especially since there was a hint, and quite obvious). And in the end - the average "happy ending" - that's all. There will be no continuation, the electricity has run out!
A little about the main characters:
1. Misha Kulikov performed by Nikita Efremov - yes, the son of that same Efremov, let's not judge a son by his father, okay? Fine. Nikita plays here a "problem solver" of the Russian diaspora in London, who is able to pay for his brilliant mathematical mind and cunning language. Founder and senior partner of the agency "Londograd". Nikita perfectly played the role of this sweet and charming swindler, who claims that he does everything for the sake of money, but deep in his heart, he buried his kind heart, which is bursting out.
2. Alisa Zagorskaya, played by Igrid Olerinskaya, is a fugitive daughter of a Russian oligarch, hiding in London from her beloved daddy, "who takes over her care and does not allow her to fully reveal her potential." A cheeky girl who can do almost anything to achieve her goal. Junior partner of the agency "Londograd". Igrid quite successfully managed to embody the typical image of the "golden youth" today. Using his talents and charm, he helps in investigations more than once.
3. Stepan Sysoev performed by Pavel Ilyin - a driver, an illegal, whom Misha meets while performing an important task. Former cop and "real Ryazan". A real treasure trove of humor and just a nice Russian man who will move mountains for you if you ask, although you don't even need to ask. Pavel did an excellent job with this role.
4. Boris Brickman, played by Sergei Rost, is a London lawyer specializing in helping the Russian diaspora. A cunning lawyer and an eerily funny hero who, with his jokes and phrases, made your humble servant laugh at the top of his voice. I always call him "Borenka". The charming and talented artist Sergei Rost played Borenka so amazingly that I am ready to present him with the Tefi and Oscar awards right now! Bravo!
Well, well-known actors, TV presenters, singers, representatives of show business and so on starred in small roles. It makes no sense to enumerate them, since they were before the lantern, I only recognized Gosha Kutsenko and the main character from the series "The Sniffer", and Nikita Panfilov.
As a result, we have a good detective series with humor, adventures of Russians in London, interesting and exciting investigations, British aesthetics, and excellent acting work.
And yes, creators of the series, you convinced me that mathematics is a great science.
