Wallfacer

There's isn't the least question in my mind that another series is being produced as we watch. The books are there for source material. This is only the end of the first series. Saul is really a tiresome character. He is sarcastic, self-serving, and relatively stupid. He can't stand any sort of responsibility. As a scientist he has been ineffectual. He whines. His conversation with the young woman at the start shows he only cares about himself and his own being--not the life of everyone else. Even after he is shot, he is back whining some more, making demands, etc. I really liked the comments as the cicadas showed their stuff and how endlessly adaptive the universe is. I hope I get to see the next offering.

I've never read the source material, but I was intrigued when I learned that this adaptation would be Benioff and Weiss' follow up to "Game of Thrones". I enjoyed it, though even in this apparently simplified version, I can see why it hasn't quite caught on quite like "G. O. T" did.

A group of friends, who were training as physicists but have subsequently diversified into different fields are drawn into the response of humanity to an invasion by an alien race, one that is announced, but won't take place for 400 years. The aliens currently have vastly superior technology and are capable of monitoring Earths response, even down to private conversations. There are also a covert group of humans eager to welcome the San-Ti to Earth and are carrying out their instructions in preparation.

I understand that there are many changes made from the source novel, both to change the Chinese characters into more of a worldwide structure and to simplify some of the science and theories that's utilised. It's still got quite a high concept though. Alien invasions are not a new story, but preparing to fight one in four centuries is, and the other ideas, like that the enemy knows anything that's spoken about, making planning almost impossible, are new too. It's not exactly an action-packed series, though there are a few murders and one very memorable set piece around the middle of the story, and I wonder if that might have been a contributing factor to the show not quite becoming a phenomenon. The idea that this one small friend group could be quite so integral to the defence of the world is a bit of a stretch, but also it's another conceit that makes the show accessible, the interactions between the characters provides an emotional centre to what is a show ultimately about rationalism.

It's actually quite a British production at heart. Both in the central characters and in especially in the (slightly odd) guest stars that feature in the video game segments; Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith, Phil Wang, Naoko Mori and the actor Kevin Eldon. As always, Benedict Wong is the MVP and brilliantly steals every scene he's in.

It's a shame that it's not done well enough to allow Benioff and Weiss to make all the seasons they had planned, but a return to conclude the story (if that is indeed what's happening) is welcome news, I'll certainly be back.

Here we have yet another series that comes out of the gate with a bang and delivers a solid 5 episodes before completely falling flat for the remainder. I am not familiar with the books, so I am ignorant as to whether this follows closely to the books at all, but it really doesn't matter because it lost all momentum for these last few episodes

The first 5 would get a 9/10 from me. There was a properly mysterious foe, intriguing characters, and solid plot progression. It all felt like it was building to something big. Then it all fell apart. Plot holes developed all over the place, and the momentum was killed to spend 3 filler episodes on melodrama. It's almost like they ran out of money, but had to turn in 8 episodes, so they just threw something together with very little coherence and entirely inconsistent with what came before. It almost felt like two different shows

People turned on each other all over the place for weird reasons, all the plot build up was stopped in it's tracks, and we were given very little explanation for why any of it was happening. It felt like it was moving too slow and too fast at the same time. Most of the screen time was spent on boring conversations that didn't really add much, and then it would skip ahead in the story glossing over everything in between

I am sadly getting GOT season 8 vibes where things just happen that are out of character with very little build up to explain any of it. I hope they can bounce back for season 2, but if they are already wheel spinning this early I have concerns.

The unfortunate last episode of a series that started with a bang and ended with a whimper. From mega cool video games, dehydrated bodies going back to life with a jump in the pool, and morally ambiguous Chinese scientists to a bunch of lovelorn ethnically correct failures.

The San-Ti are omnipotent and yet they send a pathetic white male sniper to kill Saul. Clearly, the guy was going to fail, because the show established that all white males are disposable, inept, or just plain bad. So why not send infallible Tatiana? She's a girl, she can do anything better. Or use the female Sophone, she is a supergirl and can kill people in various sophisticated ways. But no... they try with a stupid car accident and a sniper, kind of primitive and bound to fail.

The "Let's save Saul" plot took almost the whole episode, compounded by the trite clichè of the "reluctant hero". They give Saul a job he doesn't want and refuses, even if everybody knows he will end up doing it. Mega waste of time.

Will's brain is lost in space (or is it?) causing deep sorrow to Jin, who after having ignored him for all her life was now hoping for a resurrection.

Given that the target audience for this is young males (most SF fans are males, anyway) there is also a useless scene with nano-girl boss Auggie standing on her moral high ground and pouting about giving clean water to the poor in South America. Thumbs up Auggie!

I enjoyed only the final scene, with Clarence my favorite character, but I still wonder why the San-Ti didn't plan a better operation to wipe out everybody from planet Earth. Not that I would help them, but watching a show like this makes me feel hopeless about the future of the human race.

Wow, I haven't seen a show go off the rails and land so badly since, well since game of thrones I guess. I wonder if anyone involved in this show was linked to that. They seem to manage to have condensed the disappointment and feeling of betrayl down from an 8 year arc into a single 8 episode season, so I guess that's some sort of progress.

I'm tempted to read the books now and see if the original material is as directionless as this series ended up being. I had a quick look at the plot synopsis and it looks like the failure for this can be laid directly on the show runners shoulders. They have changed quite a lot of what actually happens in the story.

Such a promising start, and we really do need a smart and thought provoking series to engage us, but this was both mind numbing and thought provoking at the same time, and the ratio between the 2 veered strongly toward the mind numbing as each episode passed and then pretty much gave up on the thought provoking when it got obsessed with nano fibers, and it was all downhill from there.

WTF was going on with the brain in a box attached to some tent ropes which came unfastened as the ship passed only the 3rd acceleration point of hundreds. What was the point of all that??? What was he going to do when he got there?