tristanvmiles

There is no deeper exploration of human nature than what we already saw in season one. The characters, the plot, and the games themselves, are just variations on a theme.

It's entertaining, but it's not the same world class psychological horror mixed with political satire that originally broke new ground. The sell of the unexplored island, the VIPs, the history of the games was why people came back, but that's clearly been saved for yet another spin off.

The ending was going to be cliche whether he won and survived or martyred himself for his message. The realism went out the window when he went back into the games, so everything since was always going to be contrived.

These last two series are just an excuse to get him playing the games again so Netflix can make bank. It's weak characters, filler, more time seeing players vote than play games. Whatever plot there can be is only third priority after that.

The message that there is no justice in this world, and it will take your life to try and fight that, is realistic and makes the ending fine. The season was entertaining enough, so again fine. Not time wasted, but not the level we hoped for.

The dialogue is a big enough turn off for me to discontinue. Rather than opting for brevity it attempts to go for a poetic artistic flair which instead becomes an amateurish cliche. The above example is said by 20 year old, in the 21st century. The fish metaphor was another drag. The middle age women coffee to wine scene gives doubt that the writers can authentically introduce characters and move along a plot etc.

The accents supplement this. With bizarre writing and quite a mediocre, inconsistent set of characters and performances, it all feels very hard to immerse yourself into. It doesn't fit a 21st century setting, but neither anything before. It lacks grounding and makes you uneasy.

Production value is good and I'm sure there's potential for an okay story here, but the 8.4 rating? Nope. It's closer to a 6 part ITV crime drama made for middle aged people that use the TV as background noise.

As of writing this in 2025 this is as topical as ever. The chief freedom fighter was excellently portrayed and the standout of the episode. All of his actions and the development of the plot felt consistent and reasonable to his character.

Prior to now we have always seen the federation be neutral, reasonable and questioning of potential immoralities in civilisations they encounter.

Here, it felt that compared to their usual selves 'our heroes' were too quick to side with the ruling powers, they were not skeptical enough of the ruling powers nor seemed to consider the rebel cause for a moment. Finn getting his request raised to Troi fulfilled would have felt like the happy ending.

However, that wasn't the ending we got, and the position the federation took throughout makes you understand why the Klingons, Ferengi and Romulans view them in the way that they do, making this a great episode.

The negatives, I'm still not convinced by Doctor Crusher as a character. More romantic hints at Picard, more mother scenes with Wesley, illogically disobeying orders with no subsequent discipline. I'd much rather Pulaski back.