Reviews

They must have lost the writers and producers that make Cunk on Earth a success. The jokes are all flat, and the timing that made all the jokes worth is nowhere to be found. Philomena seems like she's trying to force all the words out in rapid fire, not giving anything room to breathe. It's also turned from a fake documentary into a self aware comedy, which makes it a bit unbearable.

It gives off the vibe that someone wanted to pump out material after the recent success of Cunk on Earth, but didn't want to put in the prerequesite work to make it good again.

A pity, Diane deserves so much better. She's gone so far and has so much further to go.

Benioff and Weiss fail the world again, with their characters sleepwalking through a world that doesn't care to build on itself.

Bafflingly flat performances throughout, one can only assume the fault lies at the feet of the director. There is little reason given at any point to feel invested in any of these people.

Most scenes centered around character development are approached with the care of a drunken autistic child.

The sound production also is baffling, there's little emotional crescendo built and they might as well have not hired anyone at all.

At some point this is on us for thinking this duo has any talent at all and haven't just ridden on the works of others to get a name for themselves.

The bad reviews for this are almost exclusively people angry it wasn't an action packed epic. That was never what this was meant to be. Please, don't let them dissuade you.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a 7 to 7.3 and it's rated 6.2... not far off... but it's the difference between watchable and not.

This is a story of people who HAPPEN TO LIVE IN the world at the time of an alien invasion. It's keeping in the spirit of Arrival. It's not as good as Arrival, but it does a better job of handling the multicultural/global aspect of the response.

It relies on the viewer to appreciate finer points, it absolutely does not hold your hand. Modern viewers seem to hate this. And yes, it's very slow to build. Season one was never meant to be a show about the aliens themselves.

Visually it's absolutely stunning and the soundtrack by Max Richter is soaring and moving. Thematically it's depressing, but this is in keeping with what losing civilization would feel like.

Season two is more "fun" but basically feels like Apple stepped in and told them to make Stranger Things happen. Season two has some light handed exposition with a few moments of forced comic relief that feel entirely out of place. The writing quality drops a bit and they lose faith in the viewer. It's really a pity, but I understand Apple execs have to do their part to keep these things on the air.