I had alread red the Tales Of the City books at least the first 5 or so, and lived in the Bay Area in the early 80s when the books were being published to my then delight. So these remarks are from an oldie.
The Netflix 2019-extensions of the Tales Of the city saga is ten hours of
uneven yet satisfying setup for perhaps another future generation of tales.
It's presented in the form of a whodunnit (whoisdoingit) plot with a some wrapping up of previous loose ends with new characters to carry it forward.
Seems each episode has a different writer so the intensity
varies between episodes. Superficially it's just the same old nonsense as the
previous series, but this time with a slower pace and with current obsessions and topics. Mr Maupin makes a cameo as usual.
Nice that the Gene Compton's cafeteria event gets attention, no doubt will bring that to international attention.
My initial reaction was distaste at episodes-1 and 2.
I wanted to dislike this effort out of imaginary respect for the old characters.
I did not immediately like the new younger characters until later in the series.
Despite the dodgy timeline (Michael Tolliver is portrayed as 54 when 64 might be more consistent with the books ) and the initial difficulty of accepting the new younger characters, it won me over.
Some scenes dragged however. Episode-3 dinner scene was intense, as was a young character rifling though an older character's 80s address book with most names crossed out, a familiar agony for my generation.
Nice musical background too.
In short schmatltzy magical soap for millennials and nostalgic oldies.
