VilanAl

This series had potentiality, but was sunk from the onset by incompetent script writers.

I'll start with the positives and slump downwards from there.

Great photography, site location, and direction. If you're a lover of Istanbul, the series is worth watching just for the scenery and sites they feature. It's almost as if its a covert tourist ad.

The action scenes are good and at par with Hollywood blockbusters. The fighting scenes varies - occasionally amateurish. The romantic scenes are mostly boring.

Okay score. They are featuring hip music, but they ought to have included also more traditional music, especially in the historic scenes.

As for those medieval scenes, they are gorgeous and believable. Great costumes.

The acting is mediocre. Some are decent, but there's too much over-acting occurring. It even comes through for viewers who doesn't understand Turkish.

Then there's the plot. It is horrible, lazy, and nonsensical. I will now dissect where everything went wrong.

First off, it's as if they make everything up as they go along. They leave gigantic plot holes open, and never even attempt to cover them. Granted, at the last two seasons there's probably 2 or 3 elements which were planned ahead (and you can see their grand switch and bait coming almost a season ahead), but for the most there's no real arc. Everything arbitrary and tossed in to wrap up a thread and save the day.

The protagonist is a stupid moron. Very unlikable personality. He is immature, arrogant, judgmental, megalomaniac, jealous, pretentious, and never really redeems himself or learns from experience. Like most of the characters, he lacks basic logic and is only acting on present emotions.

The protagonists and antagonists could have finished each other off many, many times during the series. They could also have defended themselves better. And followed better plans if they hired school children to concoct them. But alas, the actors had to follow a script written by a toddler.

In this series, being immortal is very trivial and gains you no wisdom. Coming from another dimension apparently doesn't change you from any other rando in the street. And finding someone attractive is apparently a stronger incentive than saving the world, or saving your loved ones, or even saving your own life.

The only believable and decent love relationship is between two of the immortals. You really believe and feel the pining of the main antagonist.

They also mix a million styles and genres, which doesn't have to be bad in itself. But here it is done poorly and for no legitimate reason. In the span of a few episodes they can jump between horror, historic drama, time travel, sci-fi, zombies, thriller, action, romance, soap, vampires, superheroes, heist, and even yet others.

Also, the writers are clearly gambling on the viewers having grown up in remote Mongolia without having seen any other shows before, as they are shamelessly lifting from other movies and series, and mixing it into their own retarded spin. The result is some kind of Turkish version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It doesn't pull you in and never manages to be taken remotely seriously. And this is one of the reasons surfing genres fails. It just becomes a helpless parody.

The most serious sin on the script side is that they are violating the laws of nature within their own reality. You can portray the most outlandish elements in fiction and it is totally okay - IF it keeps an internal consistency. However, once you break the coherent reality presented, on its own premises, and for no good reason and without a slight attempt of justification - you have failed script-writing lesson 101 and need to start over from scratch.

The producers are ultimately to blame for this fiasco because they didn't bother to find decent writers, which are not lacking. All the money went into superficial style and image.

All in all, would I recommend the series? After all, I myself suffered through every episode (albeit sometimes on 1.25 speed). So yeah, I guess it is watchable, at occasion even slightly entertaining - if you have nothing better to watch, and if you are into Turkish productions or at least enjoy the landscape and culture (especially the urban scenery), and if you otherwise are bored.

But skipping this will save you much time and nothing is lost. If you want to see an intelligent and beautiful take on time-travel Turkish style, you'll be better off watching "Midnight at the Pera Palace".

This baby was strangled in the crib by incompetent writers and lazy producers.

In fact, this is Season 3 of Into the Night (so you ought to watch that first). Only slightly better than the first 2 seasons.

First off: If you did not like Into the Night you will probably not like this. The negative reviews here are complaining about the exact same issues that Into the Night has. In other words, you cannot judge this series on that, seeing as you cannot make a third season without adopting the same premises.

Yes, there are some plot holes. Yes, there are some scientific inaccuriacies. Yes, some characters behave unrealistically.

But... this is not exactly rare, especially for Netflix productions. You have to buy into the premises of the universe, otherwise watch a documentary and don't bother with fiction.

As far as apocalyptic movies concerns this is far better than the bulk of Hollywood productions.

The international aspect of 'Yakamoz' and 'Into the Night' are excellent. Most of the actors are above average. Effects and production seem tight and professional. It has a tolerable pace and not too many filler scenes.

I especially enjoy how it paralells Into the Night. This is innovative and I suspect will become more common in the future. We get different angles of the same story.

In Yakamoz the characters are more mature. In Into the Night few seem to understand that life is precious and cooperation is primary to survive. This was my biggest beef with Into the Night, that they behave petty and isolationistic to a degree that none in their shoes would do considering the circumstances.

The psychology is somehwat cleaned up in Yakamoz - so the deaths that occur are more circumstantially legitimate from the context of the plot, rather than killing each other one by one like in Season 1 and 2.

There is not much humour in the series, but the few instances of it are subtle and intelligent.

Season 1 was better than Season 2, but Yakamoz as Season 3 has raised it back up. So I have high hopes for Season 4. It would not surprise me if we then get the Russian story as another spin-off.

The thriller aspect is not as strong here as in Season 1, but there are some chilling scenes - like the Spanish cannibals (although it's completely unrealistic that people delve to this after a few weeks).

We also get some unanswered questions from the previous seasons here, like who bombed the planes. And some new mysteries: How many other enclaves of survivors? Who's the officials who were communicating in Into the night - like the U. S. base? What's really going on in the Indian Ocean?

All in all a good effort that may become better with further seasons. Usually stuff gets worse with each season, but if they keep fixing the weaknesses of previous seasons and stick to this spin-off angle where the seasons dove-tail with each others stories - I have high hopes.

This series won't write history, but it is not trash either. Rather it is highly binge-worthy and will keep you entertained.

PS! Neither of the seasons should be watched dubbed! For some reason the voices are lower when dubbed - but far worse: some of the voice actors are horrible and detracts from the story. In fact, the dubbed version sinks it a star or 2. I suspect those negative reviews who complain about the acting have actually been intellectually lazy and avoided the original languages.

The idea for the show is actually genius.

It's like a reverse catfish. Just like Catfish seizing upon a contemporary phenomenon that will never go away as long as we have Internet, Trolls also exploits a vacuum addressing a real need out there.

However, whoever was in charge of this TV-series should find something else to do.

First off, they choose poor hosts. Not that they are completely terrible, but it looks like everyone were just lumped together and threwn into it, with no preparation or understanding. If the hosts had a minimum of natural skills or got some decent education and drilling, it could have been salvaged.

Second, it looks like they blindly are following the Catfish main show formula (with the exception of being deceitful towards the trolls in order to get them on), which doesn't work here. They should go about it completely differently. In fact, busting Trolls has the potential to be even more entertaining and educating than Catfish, with even bigger impact. But this show comes of as a half-assed effort.

They should have taken notes from the Swedish TV-series "Troll hunters" and its host Robert Aschberg. That's a successfull formula. Not only do this identical concept manage to keep it relevant, interesting, and engaging, but they also succeed in a double impact: The trolls are personally impacted (some break apart and change) and the risk of exposure manage to strike fear into Swedish trolls. And the victims get genuine vindication.

This show offers no consequence or redemption for the trolls, no real confrontation with their misdeeds, no satisfaction for the victims, no exciting dramaturgy from the start to the finish. It's mostly a big yawn. Whever they get close to any of this, it's accidentally due to the guests.

The hosts have no chemistry between them. Neither of them seem to be able to take respinsibility for carrying the show, like Nev (and Max) do. They don't seem to be really engaged with the subject or care about the victims. They just seem to be "at work".

The third show is the best example of this failure. Case in point:

The troll seemed happy to get promotion, the victim seemed left to her own devices fending for herself. When the gay host said, "don't worry, I'm here of you" or something to that effect (right before the confrontation), it was very unbelievable. If the troll had been an aggressive angry dude, you know he would have run for the hills before the victim would have blinked.

If the idea was that he should be the "people person" comforting the victims, and Charlemagne the "bad cop" barking at the trolls - both failed. The immature reaction of the gay dude (sorry, don't know his name) prior to meeting the troll was detrimental to the victim. If she had been more sensitive and timid, his annoying outbursts of "oooooohs" would have scared her even more from confronting the bully. Luckily for them, she had balls and tried to put her case through.

This is where Charlemagne failed. From being a tough guy all the way through, and alluring the troll to the scene with "bonding", he suddenly shut down and was only physically present. Even the Hardy boys Max & Neve are tougher on the Catfishes. Were the hosts actually afraid of asking tough questions? Charlemagne seemed more into bonding with the troll, "bro'ing" him before and after the confrontation. He should have stepped up and guided the event. But the complete lack of direction, just made the confrontation into an anti-climatic moment, where the poor victim did her best to put out her two cents, and the trolls went into bot mode repeating bullshit defenses. Even a half-wit would have been able to pick apart his excuses. Instead the poor victim was left to try to get through to him.

The hosts lack a minimum of pedagogical understanding, which is key to the failure on their part. They need to be on top of things, understanding all angles, reading the room, feeling the sentiments, taking charge of the developments. They seem totally unprepared with poor comprehension of the phenomenon they are making a show about.

At the end of the day, it is the producers responsibility to find the right people and/or to train them. Or find a director who can do this for them. Everyone in the chain has failed here, except the trolls and their victims.

If MTV ever reboot this show, they should try put up a host with psychological skills combined with one with investigating skills. That could be interesting, and they would be aware enough to prevent all the failures of this show.

The idea is still good, but like most media corporations I doubt the suits have the skills to recognize the potential to success or understanding the formula. Usually it happens accidental or they just buy up an independent exterior project that do know how to create something that works.