Pilot

After just one episode of The Deuce, I can do nothing but say that David Simon seems incapable of creating bad shows. The Deuce is a visually stunning show with great performances from every single actor. The dialogue is fantastic as well. It nails the feeling of 70's New York, or at least what I imagine it would feel like.

As of this moment, I cannot find a single thing in the first episode of The Deuce I don't like. This will probably be my new favorite ongoing show. I hope it will get renewed for as long as David Simon feels he can create good content, and not a single episode longer.

I truly did. It caught me by surprise that HBO decided to release the pilot early. I guess they wanted to use the boom of the GoT season finale to boost one of their new shows. But "The Deuce" is its own thing. We don't need no dragons.

I am not from New York, but you can tell the series team put a lot of effort on creating the right environment and it really pays off. Maggie Gyllenhaal is terrific on this role, I loved her. The storyline is great, too, and I really enjoyed the different people and how they end up interacting with each other. I can't wait to see how they all end up connecting. I am usually quite skeptical when it comes to hour and a half episodes, but this one was phenomenal. It didn't feel long in any moment and the 70s prostitution theme has so much potential it could become literally anything.

The one bad thing about the pilot is that, by releasing it early, now we have to wait three weeks for a new episode. Damn it you HBO.

The streets were too clean, the cars were all the latest models, buffed and polished for a floor show, the costumes were perfectly pressed and fitted (even on the supposedly poor kids) and the sets looked like, well, sets.

The dialogue was all cleaned up without any feel for the street nor any convincing NYC accents (MG's was particularly affected), all politically correct and safe.

For someone like David Simon, whose grittiness and realism are second to none (The Wire especially) this has to rank as a major disappointment.

I didn't believe it was 1971 for a second, I believed it was a bunch of actors dressed up as 1970s characters spouting non-period dialogue on a bunch of sets dressed up with 1970s props and store signs.

In order for this show to work, I have to feel like I have been time- warped...I did, but not to NYC 1971...to Hollywood 2017

P.S. Tug McGraw was a relief pitcher he rarely started a Mets Game. Symbolic of the necessary details this show badly lacks.

At some point while watching this you ask yourself... why am I subjecting myself to this. I made it about 60% the way through before I finally had it.

The whole thing is flat. Just one persistent depressing note droning on and on. I am not sure if the problem is in the script, the direction, acting... maybe everyone had food poisoning. I don't know.

I expected more. This came from the writers of the Wire and Treme. Between them they had writing credits on Homicide, generation kill and Bosch. The director had worked on game of thrones (some good episodes) and breaking bad.

As the pilot relentlessly trudged on... I wondered why I didn't like it. The complete lack of humour perhaps.

Then I realized it didn't matter. It was just not good.

It's not terrible but it's the kind of thing actors seem to do every so often to show they can be "gritty and real" that they then inflict on the poor audiences many of whom will convince themselves they like it because they are supposed to for some reason.

The Deuce is a look at the 1970s in New York city full of all the sleaze.you might expect. Pimp and prostitutes make up the sordid landscape of peep show marquees, beat cops and every day folks. Good attention is made to keep with era appropriate appearances.

In the pilot we meet.some of the main characters, the women who work as prostitutes and their pimps and customers, Franco as a bartender and as his own twin brother who is an unlucky gambler who has garnered the attention of the mafia. Margarita Levieva also appears as a young college student named Abby, despite pushing 40, she has hardly aged a day since her run on the TV show Revenge, and she plays her part well once again.

The opener is mostly concerned with character introduction while only providing for some basic plot points to progress the story further. Estranged families and abusive pimps provide for very little to go on, and overall this opener does not do a very good job of enticing viewers to keep watching. Usually the pilot is not enough by which to judge an entire series, perhaps this will get better later.

First impression is that this is an overly long show featuring plenty of sleaze with very little to offer otherwise. Hopefully there will be some things that get this ball rolling in the next few. 7/10.