steffern's reviews

Another decent series weighed down by terrible female characters trying to be larger than life bossy queens with zero reasoning skills and emotional regulation. Certainly not period correct, but most of all annoying to endure and only serve as distractions and hindrances from the progression of the plot.

It's the age old drama plot of a strong man who sacrifices his life for the women in his life, and through grit and adaptability he manages to greatly improve the lives of these women. While the women, on the other hand, dedicate their lives to make his life as difficult and miserable as possible through their childish whims, emotional immaturity, bitterness, and general manipulative behaviour. This causes all the drama, chaos and challenges that lead to the fluctuations and hardships of the story, at the expense of the man, as per usual.

In short, it's a perfectly adequate drama series for the bored and emotionally unfulfilled housewife, but I, for one, would have preferred to cut out the romance, as well as all the female characters.

The plot is ok and the story decent, with a setting and costumes that go a long way in setting up the atmosphere and authenticity of the given premise. The characters, however, are not reminiscent of anything from the universe of Sherlock Holmes, which is made infinitely worse by the poor acting. Or, should I say, lack thereof, because the acting is so mundane that it's as if they are just reading the script out loud at a first rehearsal. It's reminiscent of a sitcom pilot where the dynamic and chemistry between the actors is not yet in place to bring out the best in each other, which then emerges over the course of the following few episodes. Here, however, it does not, and it seems like the casting is just all wrong across the board, with the exception of a few side characters.

I started watching season 17 in case the first seasons had bad acting and a low budget, and the great rating had come from the later seasons.

How this tripe is rated so highly, however, is completely beyond me. The costumes is the only thing good about this show, and so the budget therefore comes across as to be sufficient. But, and it's a glaring but, I've seen better acting in stag films. And that's absolutely the most generous I could possibly be about this utter waste of screen time.

In fact, I believe that this series could become the most accurate diagnostic tool for autism, because anyone who thinks this is a decent watch or is even able to look past the through and through horrible acting, is completely void of the ability to read social queues. I would genuinely recommend seeking out a professional in order to be properly diagnosed.

The story is quite captivating and characters generally interesting, which led me to watch all of both seasons.

However, it is far from faultless and at times not particularly enjoyable to watch, so I don't sympathise with the unbridled praise of many reviewers.

As a Norwegian I find the mashup between historical events and characters with fairytales and Asian culture very weird, as if comprised by a teenager.

The humour is very goofy, as well as the exaggerated outbursts of the characters, not really suited to the genre or setting, and comes off very out of place. The dialogue is often times very awkward, which is not helped by the subtitles not corresponding with the audio, even in the same language.

The cinematic music, as well as the intro and outro music, is equally out of place and makes it painfully hard to endure.

Also, the animation radically changes between scenes in style and detail, and did I mention how cringeworthy the dialogue and the character's reactions often are? So much unnecessary dialogue and emotions spelled out, as well as overly dramatically expressed.

All in all, the story was interesting, but so many mismatches between the plot and execution made it very faulty, and I'm glad I'm done with it.

Looking past the random deaths to stretch out the plot line, this is quite the captivating series with many layers and generally decent acting. Especially the male lead does a good job and the main actresses are well versed too. But although these actresses do a decent job, the female lead characters are at times insufferable. First and foremost this is with regards to the the ex wives acting manipulative and emotionally immature, often times out of the blue, as if the writer or producer tried to cram a whole psychology curriculum into these two characters. Most of the time they act more immaturely and are more emotionally volatile than the teenage daughter. And this is the downfall of the series, because it takes away so much from the storyline and is so tedious to watch that it undoes the momentum of the series and turns it into a bore. A shame really, but this is apparently what Netflix thinks spices up a storyline. I honestly don't understand why it's so difficult for them to write good female characters that have a handle on their emotions and serve as focal points in the storyline without being overreacting liabilities.

This series was quite good until Omega was introduced, which made it an asinine dragged out compilation of logical breaches that is an offence even to the intelligence of children.

Omega has no purpose being scripted into every episode and mission as if this child is an equal asset to a hyper qualified special task force, but the plots twist and turn, not only to include her, but even revolve around her, completely ruining any immersion as the child dictates the adult soldiers with her whims and wills, not only making them jump through hoops and endangering missions and lives for her immature wishes, but likewise making the script illogical and dumbed down in effort to make her character relevant and her immature behaviour without dire consequences.

Why would these adult soldiers let themselves be talked into by this child, that they would apparently sacrifice their lives for, to come with them on dangerous missions where she continually compromises their objectives and lives, and being caught in crossfire, as well as being active both in attack and defence? That's neither responsible, helpful or sensible, nor does it add anything positive to the storytelling. What's more is that she is the only one without any armour, and the little girl is the only one among these adult male soldiers who uses a weapon needing any significant degree of muscle strength, namely a bow, as opposed to guns/blasters. Not that the armour that is used 24/7 by every clone trooper and stormtrooper has ever had any benefit in this universe, as any blaster shot goes straight through it, contrary to anything ever used as cover, like tables, chairs or any type of container, which makes me wonder why armour wasn't made out of any of these plentiful materials instead.

The result is a very slow moving and exceptionally predictable storyline, with cringeworthy dialogue just to make the presence of every character in every scene known to the blind viewer, and listening to a child complaining for half an hour every episode.

Omega is in my opinion the worst character in any Star Wars animated series and single-handedly the ruin of this series.

What an absolute horrid rendition of an iconic figure. The acting is terrible to the point of awkwardness and there's such a dissonance between how a scene is acted out and what lines are being said, the emotional expression from moment to moment, and how characters are being portrayed from one scene to the next. Leonardo is in one moment an ingenious savant with immense talent and extensive knowledge, and in the next a gullible airhead that has no inclination of what is up or down. And most characters come off as having similarly distinctive disconnects in their profile, presenting themselves as superficial and unnatural. This is magnified in the interactions between them when the relation they have to each other seems to have no bearing on how they act out, sometimes massively overreacting and other times under reacting, sometimes even in the same scene where a massive emotional outburst is completely defused by a response that bears no weight, or a major injustice or an emotional transgression is done while the response of the recipient seems as though they're suddenly not invested in the plot at all, or at other times when a character is soon to act and actively trying to support someone in rectifying a situation and then only to receive a reaction that cuts all ties because of a minor inconvenience that they had no fault in and tried to avoid. What's worse is that characters often seem to have forgotten not only their own motivations and the general plot, but their incentive to do and be where they are at any given moment. This leads to such an incohesive progression throughout the storyline that it's just absurd to watch. Furthermore, the statements being made are not only often contradictory to what the characters seem to stand for from one moment to the next, but it's as if they demand substance and weight that the storyline is completely void of, making it impossible to take seriously and any emotional impact that it could have had falls utterly flat.

Season 2 is just a mirror of season 1 with different counterparts, which was already excruciatingly predictable. Even the dialogue seems recycled, along with the locations and events. The only thing that is changed is, as mentioned, the counterparts, which only serves to counteract any sense of continuity. This leads to a lack of progression, both in characters and circumstances, and only makes the watching experience increasingly dull the further the series goes on. The sudden disappearance of several of the main characters from season 1 with cheap excuses off screen does a great disservice to the world-building and immersion that could have been much improved if these characters had stayed on. It's as if the writers had a complete writer's block when it was time to write season 2, and just cleared the table in order to go back to the drawing board to rewrite season 1, without improvements, and just called it season 2.

What we are left with is a repetition of a predictable storyline as if it was a novel with the same plot that had been written twice, following the same recipe and coming to the same endpoint.

To end on a positive note though, the acting is generally quite decent all throughout, the costumes are very convincing, beside the odd continuity error in makeup (like forgetting to put scars in some scenes on the characters that were supposed to have them), and the variety in plot lines is good.

All in all though, a shame to see such potential and the precious time out of capable actors and actresses careers go to waste on what could have been a riveting drama if only the writers had been more imaginative than to regurgitate the most cliché dynamics in romantic dramas TWICE without any originality.

It's a descent setting for an interesting storyline, with good costumes and backdrop, and generally well performed acting. Although some episodes are quite captivating, the thread running through the series is a Miss (forgive the pun), for me at least. It's the typical trope of a privileged woman expressing her struggles in a male dominated society in a fashion generally attributed to an adolescent acting out against their parents. Of course, as she complains about how unfair society is towards women and how privileged men are compared to her, she herself acts recklessly and with insolence towards others only rivalled by her own maid, only to be continually bailed out of every tangle by the privileges she attains on the sole merit of being a woman. The line "You want me to act chivalrous or treat you as an equal as it suits you." perfectly captures her naivety and highlights how on the nose the (presumably unintended) irony of how the premise of the whole series unfolds is. It would have been far more interesting to watch how she would deal with the real world solely on the basis of her own competence, cunning and grit rather than unearned privileges simply handed to her because of her gender, which makes it a bit confusing what the series is trying to convey. Every case and relationship she establishes seems to start off with either "I'm going to kill you, but first I'll let you help me because you're a woman" or "I don't like you, but I'll help you because you're a woman", which just becomes weird after a few episodes and completely undermines the profile of her being the competent and knowledgeable person that the series tries to cement from the start, which is further obstructed by the aforementioned issue of her being bailed out by her privileges handed to her every time her ignorance and carelessness lead everything to go south.

It's a generally entertaining series though, but could have been so much better if only it had sorted out its identity crisis first instead of letting the main character act out as if she had never taken a look at herself in the mirror before scrutinising others.

The intro monologue was cringe, the inspector behaving as if he had never investigated a crime before, the commissioner acting as if he had not participated in the previous episode, the unwillingness of the Father to cooperate made no sense, the criminal greatly overreacted when revealed to the viewer, the fight scene was not at all believable, and the ending was a facepalm moment taken straight out of a bad soap opera. It's as if this whole episode was written and directed by someone completely unfamiliar to the whole franchise and had absolutely no clue as to the history between the characters, had any experience with or insight into criminal investigation, or how to drive the story forward. A massive nosedive for the whole series, which up until now had been top notch. Genuinely disappointing.

I just binged the first season of GoT again after finishing up the first season of HotD, and I'm tempted to say that they're incomparable, but of course, comparing the two is unavoidable.

GoT season one is from 2011, over a decade old, and leaps and bounds better in every single way. It's astonishing, really. One would think that some experience had been drawn from GoT to make HotD even better, but it's an apparent regression in every area.

GoT is captivating from the very first scene, even after having watched it more than half a dozen times, and from then on the immersion never skips a beat and is kept in place while the rich world with its deep lore and many plot lines keep unfolding. Every episode about an hour long go by so quickly because of being so entertaining.

HotD on the other hand, a whole season has passed and nothing memorable has happened, and only in the last episode did it deliver a scene that was akin to anything as captivating or exciting as scenes delivered throughout every single episode of GoT. All of the episodes of HotD are worse in every way than every episode of GoT, even with season eight being so poorly received.

HotD has episodes almost exclusively revolving around the same handful of family members, having the same dreary conversations over and over, seemingly only interrupted by yet another birthing scene. Yes, it's the story of that one house, but GoT was the story of the throne and we still had plenty of insight into the adventures of several other characters and the world in general.

Somehow HotD managed to feel drawn out and rushed at the same time. What we got from the whole season could have been done in two episodes, but should have probably been two seasons with much more intricacies and a more flushed out world and differing perspectives of the house in question than what we got.

Skipping 10 years in the middle of the season was a big mistake imo. Suddenly relations between characters are very different without any explanation or apparent reason, leaving much to be desired regarding character development. This was certainly not helped by changing out several of the actors, causing much confusion. Additionally, it's apparent that the four actresses playing the central roles of the queen and the princess interpret their characters differently from one another, further clouding the nature of the relationship between the two characters, which is especially unfortunate for the progression of the storyline. And the choice of changing the actresses seems so unnecessarily unfortunate, as well as additionally confusing, because of them being adults when other adult characters look like they haven't aged a day and yet others have been aged with makeup or CGI. It was really a disastrous decision that went a long way in sinking the whole season.

Probably the most surprising thing about HotD so far though is that the CGI is so much worse. The development on that front has been astounding even since the last season of GoT, and then we get this from a top tier production which is based on dragons where CGI needs to be on point but instead looks like a season of Merlin (2008). Such a shame.

I was considering binging the season of HotD since I'm not a fan of weekly episodes to get a more continuous storytelling experience, but it's just not entertaining enough to binge, not captivating, not exciting. Just the same darkly lit backdrop with the same unexpressive faces having unsurprising conversations.

Nobody gets along, so there's plenty of tedious drama, but there's no real intrigue or clever deception. Never did I think "Oh, I didn't see that coming", which is so characteristic of GoT, but rather sighs of fatigue due to having to sit through the dumbed down dialogues of uninteresting characters that are either killed off before we're invested in them or obviously protected by plot armour and quarrel like seniles at an elderly home. Watching my nieces of 5 and 2 arguing over who has the right to play with that one doll is more intriguing and has a more flushed out storyline than who in the house of dragons has the right to the throne.

Some characters look to have aged 20 years, others not a day. At times it's difficult to guess which era the scene is set in because the characters and circumstances are so unfamiliar. This is exacerbated by the case that the latter actors have obviously interpreted the characters they are playing quite differently from the former actors, furthering the schism in the in-cohesive unfolding of the characters. The chemistry between the actors is also very different, which makes relations on-screen play out very unfamiliarly, and therefore makes it hard to grasp any history between the characters who should be tightly knit, but seemingly now suddenly come off as only having ever had a superficial relationship.

This all sets the stage for poor immersion and appears to me as the downfall for the season. Personally I'm looking forward to the next season, but not to the next episode, because I don't think I'll be able to become invested in the storyline again with the current unfolding of the plot due to the differences in actors and their interactions.

Is it a parody, an art project, or maybe a low budget 90s movie riddled with cultural appropriation? I don't know, but it's cringy, predictable, and nonsensical.

I quite enjoyed the first season apparently, despite the in-your-face political correctness of the ethnic diversity of the British aristocracy.

The second season, however, makes me regret I even watched the first one. This time around, even the familiar characters seem much less amicable, and the acting skills of their portrayers much deteriorated. Every scene seems to have been completed in one take, as facial expressions and gesticulations seem animated exaggeratedly, and the moral of every character seem to have adopted the notion that the more self serving the sensation of love is, the more deserving one is of it. Notions of romance and vulnerability has been cast to the side by scheming and opportunism. Multiple scenes each episode are dedicated to mutual enabling of toxic behaviour, as well as endless recycling of similar scenarios, not to mention the cringeworthy placement of acoustics of modern day pop songs.

But by far the worst thing about this season is that it is blatantly obvious how it will spell out already after watching the first 10 minutes, and then having to sit through the rest of the episodes witnessing its terrible execution and poor attempts at surprising the viewer and make us root for the obvious ending twist by making all parties involved ever less likeable.

In short, I will certainly not be watching any potential future seasons.

This series keeps getting dumber by the episode, and by the end of it I wish I never wasted my time watching it. Seems like it was written by a middle aged woman with the emotional maturity of an adolescent wishing she could live out her suppressed desires as a naive teenage beauty with no concern for any consequences. The result is a self-centred simplified portrayal of a cliche western romance that repeats the same two steps in every episode, with enough H to fuel the sun. It's mind-numbingly boring, and it certainly doesn't do immersion any service that some of the actors are jacked to the brim with Botox, cosmetic implants and teeth whitened more than the congress of the same period. The only thing you'll get from this series is ageing and a sore forehead from all the facepalms.

An excruciating story told three times with equal torment and little nuance of who was at fault.

The performance of the actors was great, but the story was hardly worth watching once, let alone trice.

I absolutely despise when uncharacteristic and mindless mistakes are so obviously scripted for the sole reason to cheaply add additional drama, and this episode is just chock-full of it. It completely took me out of the immersion of the storyline and I found myself continuously shaking my head, sighing and face-palming. It's without a doubt the least pleasant viewing experience I've had so far in an otherwise engaging series, so I sincerely hope it picks up again.

Looks like I'm going to skip this season. There's just nothing interesting about any aspect of this portrayal, and just has bad vibes all around.

This should be right up my alley, but it's just so unbelievably boring. Besides that, the female protagonist has the exact same naive characteristics as in any old romantic comedy, creating unoriginal and unnecessary drama with gullible affection and misplaced scepticism. In addition, there's not much depth to the conversations and most lines are just righteous statements, the logic within the concept of the world is fractured and frequently broken, especially regarding the magical powers, and the lense is often out of focus while filming dialogue (which is not something I've seen even in lower budget productions).

I found myself usually checking how long was left of the episode about halfway through, because it was so tedious to try to stay engaged. I guess I was hoping it would pick up steam eventually, but now I'm left wishing I had my wasted time back.

I was expecting an easygoing movie with an optimistic and maybe adventurous outlook, perhaps containing a few interesting facts or insights. But instead I found this to be the dreariest movie I've seen in years, with such an unalluring dramaturgy and tedious presentation of the events that it was a complete waste of screen time in my opinion. I can't believe I watched it till the end.

The first season was quite nostalgic and an interesting twist on perspectives. However, it was, perhaps ironically, very predictable - which probably isn't optimal when making an interesting twist on an old story. Nevertheless, I found this season enjoyable and generally well put together.

The second season was not very nostalgic and the twist on perspectives had stagnated. What we were left with was repeating conflicts that were utterly played out and consistent throughout every single relationship in the series, as if it was reoccurrences that parodied itself - which could be summed up by teenagers fighting as if they were adults, and adults fighting as if they were teenagers.

I would give season one 8/10, and season two 4/10, which averages out to be 6/10. However, that does seem a bit too generous and misleading, because what we are left with is a teenage romantic dramaseries, which is not "as advertised" and leaves a lot to be rectified for season three in my opinion.

It's a decent mindless binge series, but if I'll remember anything from this series, it'll probably be the annoyance it left me with due to its cliffhanger, deterring me from jumping into the next season whenever it comes out.

I loved this series up until episode 7, which made me regret ever watching it. Never have I cursed so much at the screen, and never has one episode so devastatingly ruined a series. When it comes to drama-series, there is a line between interesting story-telling and utter misery, and this series made the pleasure from watching it plummet into oblivion in only one episode by thoroughly crossing that line in the least satisfying way possible. I wholeheartedly regret watching such a sadistic display of ruining a great story and letting the witness of it crush my joys and leave my evening shattered.