DazzlaMF

Welcome to Wrexham (Series 1 to 3) started strongly, offering a unique 'fly in the wall' insight into a community's failing football club gaining some Hollywood stardom (and money). We all developed a soft spot for the club and community as we followed our Hollywood duo's (Reynolds & McElhenney) efforts to revive the club's fortunes and the reinvigorate the local community club too. However, as each series has progressed, the empathy we felt diminishes in proportion to the exceptional levels of investment the owners, the production company and their backers pour into the club. So while Wrexham enjoys success, that success lacks some of the 'jeopardy' that a draw us to a genuine 'underdog' . The insights from fans, which initially felt charming, now feel scripted and over produced. Equally, Rob and Ryan's well intentioned management and commentary, originally engaging and well intentioned, now seems tired and repetitive, as do they in front of camera. So 'Welcome to Wrexham' has past it's sell by date, the format has become predictable, forced and dull. I'm sure the club will continue to thrive and I hope the town does too, but there's only so much interest you can squeeze out of this format I'm afraid.

The BBC's Poldark was relaunched in 2015 and aired on the UK's public service channel, but its 5 seasons have recently arrived on Netflix. Based on a series of books, this period drama is centred around our 'hero', Cornishman Ross Poldark, a former soldier, who returns from years away to his home in Cornwall to find not all is as it was.

Set around the time of the Napoleonic Wars (late 1790 onwards), the BBC did a good job in casting and production, not to mention being a wonderful advert for the Cornish Tourist Board. Over the 5 seasons we experience the usual dramatic tropes, love lost and found, the traditional adversary and nasty henchmen, down-trodden locals and greedy rich aristocrats. And this is where Poldark on Netflix falls down. As a BBC production it was required to appeal to the broadest audience, so each episode leaps from one situation to the next in an effort to ensure everyone from Granny to teenager is catered for. So characters never develop nor display any depth. Storylines are predictable and vanilla, lacking any real sense of jeopardy or creating any empathy. And while the production values do credit to the period, the scripts and historic accuracy decline as each season progresses.

Poldark himself starts out as a principled, if headstrong, hero but slowly becomes naively irritating, ignoring common sense or rational thought simply to keep the story plodding along.

So when seen in isolation it's an OK drama, but when compared with other offerings on Netflix it lacks substance, depth of character and genuine excitement. Episodes are timid and dull and you could skip through much without missing out on anything.

Poldark is the dramatic equivalent of being in a Indian Restaurant and ordering tomato soup from a menu full of spice, heat and substance.

American Primeval is a 6 part 'Netflix' mini-series centred around two main storylines. Set in Utah in the late 1850s the opening episode introduces to us to two storylines, one centred on a young mother determined to take her son to the father at a remote gold claim, the other centred on a newly married Mormon wife, seemingly less than enthusiastic about her arranged marriage. Both of our protagonists find themselves caught up in the consequences of The Mormon War, the armed confrontation between Mormon settlers in Utah Territory and the U. S. Army, as well as the impact on Native American communities at the time.

There's plenty of authenticity in the delivery; dirty, cold, gritty and brutal. But once episode one delivers its set piece and launches the story arcs the plots follow a formulaic path. That's not to say this wasn't engaging but there seems to be a lot of sub-plots that 6 episodes don't allow to flourish. Consequently the characters don't have much depth, lacking the time for us to develop much empathy and so any sense of jeopardy we might feel is limited.

I wouldn't say this was binge-worthily compelling, you could see where this plot was going fairly quickly. But it was a new angle to the genre with enough realism in production to warrant seeing it through, just not in one sitting.