hajim

Like so many good shows, by the time they hit the fourth season the showrunners and producers are focused on new projects and are just phoning in their notes.

For All Mankind is terribly banal now.

Every action is predictable as basic physics, the science is shoddy with a lack of the aforementioned physics, plot holes you can fly a Saturn V through, meaningless montages or ones that bang you over the head with some idea that was already in the plot, and on and on.

At the beginning of this series, there was something real beneath it all. It seemed grounded in a vast, plausible history, but now?

It's as small and cheesy as Ilya's speakeasy with its four customers.

If it had better writers, this show could be amazing. The premise is good, but the characters have little motivation for their actions and, worse, their reactions. Weird things happen and it's barely a blip. They try to exposition the irrational story points away. I'd be fired from a writers' room for half of these gaffs. And then, the constant flashbacks. Ugh. The tone is all over the place too. Pass.

Animation in the US has been sadly limited by the gatekeepers. When I created Strange Frame, the gatekeepers said that no one would watch an animated sci-fi adventure for adults, even with a half million views then still are a broken record. The gatekeepers say that adult animation has to be comedy or it won't work. Well, To Your Last Death proves for horror that isn't true. This movie has a style similar to Archer if that show had a bigger budget, but that's where the comparison ends. TYLD drips with the blood of a thriller with plenty of gore. The voice work is amazeballs and the soundtrack is a fantastically ominous heartbeat the keeps the pressure on. The characters have just the right amount of depth and the film touches upon current themes of the environment, capitalism, psychology, and social norms without being at all preachy.

The Gamemaster of TYLD has reset the rules for animation.

If you're a horror fan, this is a not to miss film.