1-1-1-KsMIRT: April twice around

K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month (or twice each month?!?) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format.  These are shows I finished (or was finished with) in the past two-ish weeks. 

This Month (part 2):
Shogun - Disney+/FX/Hulu
Fallout Season 1 - AmazonPrime
3 Body Problem Season 1 - Netflix 
Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent - CityTV 

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Shogun (10 of 10 episodes watched)

The What 100: In 1600 Japan, the Taiko is dead, and his heir is too young to yet rule. Five regents rule in his stead. But Lord Toranaga sees the machinations of the other regents, the power they lust for, and the Catholic religion starting to hold sway over decisions being made for the county. He is targeted, impeached and marked for death. He retreats to his lands, but with sophisticated cunning. At the same time arrives Protestant English sailor John Blackthorne, with a warning of the ill dealings of the Portuguese Catholics. He too makes immediate enemies but finds an ally in Tornaga. Catholic Mariko, hailing from a disgraced family and married to an abusive but revered samurai, is assigned as his translator by her Lord, Toranaga, and the two find connection. Things get complicated. Very, very complicated. For everyone.

(1 Great) One great thing about this show is...this show. It is thoroughly great from start to finish. Every aspect of it works, and works well. I cannot think of a wrong step it makes. Visually it is pure allure, just a feast for the eyes. The costuming, the sets, the landscapes all are so evocative and apparently the dedication to accuracy is there in recreating Japan on the British Columbia coastline. It is an epic story but managed tightly and efficiently. It features a sprawling cast of characters, all who are managed so, so well. Even among the dozen or two seemingly minor players, they still get their own arcs.  We see who they are to start with and where they wind up, and how they've changed is evident. Each character gets enough moments to have an impact (with the exception of our sailor pal played by Nestor Carbonell who sets asea in the second episode). 

(1 Good) It cannot be understated how brilliantly this American show manages to divorce itself from western standards. That it has a white character who is important to the story, but cannot be called the lead character, and who appropriately disappears into the background, or off-screen altogether for long stretches while the other performers deliver long sequences of subtitled Japanese dialogue, it's pretty unreal. But it feels more natural than had they tried to force Blackthorne into being The Protagonist.  Equally good is the way the show throws the audience into the deep end of Japanese politics and culture, largely without turning Blackthorne into a expository gravity well.

(1 Bad) If I need to nitpick, it's that I wanted more Nestor Carbonell. But the show in no way needed more Nestor Carbonell. As well, I didn't think a lot of the fighting sequences (and there weren't many) were exceptionally well choreographed...but then most of the fights that happen were about the story impact and not making an impressive-looking fight sequence.  The CGI was decent (used largely for boat scenes or rendering 1600's Osaka, but still was very CGI. One can't expect too much out of the CGI on a TV show of this sprawling scale, so it really didn't bother me

META: I have not read James Clavell's novel, nor have I seen the 1980 TV mini-series adaptation, so I don't have those as frames of reference. What I do have is the recent experience of watching 30+ Japanese Godzilla films and some history with samurai movies.  As such, I wasn't really prepared for this, in terms of the culture and traditions being so foreign to me.  However, like Blackthorne, I quickly came to respect it if not always understand or embrace it.  Blackthorne is unkindly called "barbarian" throughout the show, but himself sees aspects of Japanese culture as particularly barbaric. But eventually he see the culture of honour and tradition as something admirable and sophisticated, as does the audience (and it's not all through his eyes).  And will I see a more likeable character on screen than Kashigi Yabushige, even when he's being utterly terrible. I don't think so. I hope we get more Tadanobu Asano all the time, everywhere.

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Fallout Season 1 (8 of 8 episodes watched)

The What 100: It's over 250 years in the future of an alternate reality where the asthetics of the 1950's never abated. The world got nuked and a small number of people went underground in corporate-built-and-sold "Vaults" where society has persevered with one mission in mind...outlast the radiation then return to the surface to restore order to a wild land. Of course, the surface has other plans, an irradiated wild west show full of mutants, the chemically undead, and a lot of desperation. The surface invades Vault 33 and take Lucy's dad (Kyle McLachlan), the beloved Vault administrator. Lucy (Ella Purnell) ventures to the surface, against everyone's wishes, and finds tenuous allies in The Ghoul (Walton Goggins), a centuries old bounty hunter, and Maximus, a squire in the Brotherhood of Steel, all equally seeking a severed head Maguffin that might be the key to saving the world.

(1 Bad) I have to say I wasn't certain how I felt about the show after watching the first two episodes.  Show creator/director Jonathan Nolan (Person of Interest, Westworld) in the first 10 minutes delivers a flashback sequence that ends with nuclear bombs going off in Los Angeles, and then about another 10 minutes later, now in the far-flung future of the late 24th Century, delivers a massacre within a very pop art-styled "Vault". These two scenes are not played for laughs and there's a sort of stone-seriousness to them that, when the show tries to pivot in to archness, it clashes. For both of Nolan's opening episodes the tonal shifts are abrupt and hard to reconcile. It's not until the third episode, in which the characters from different worlds start to really crash into each other, as well as take on some delightful side quests, that the show finds its rhythm (with Nolan still at the help). It's kind of crackling fire from there.

(1 Good) Like Westworld there's a lot of mystery to be untraveled over the past and present timelines, and in the different territories. They are tantalizing mysteries.  Lucy's brother Norm, seen early on as a wimp and coward becomes the bravest person in Vault 33 as he starts asking questions (and finding answers) about the connected Vaults 32 and 31. On the surface, there's so much mystery around how this reality and civilization functions, and it seems like there are competing controlling factions. But Michael Emerson's head contains the salvation of society and everyone wants it. Why?  We find out. It's not an endless puzzle box of mysteries. It seems pretty evident that the show is confident in its abilities to answer the big questions but also give you more to think about.  There's so much to explore.

(1 Great) The greatest enemy in the world of Fallout is not gigantic fleshy mutated beasts, or desperate bandits, but rather the inescapable crutch of capitalism. In flashbacks that double as both the origin of Fallout's post-apocalyptic reality and The Ghoul's, we learn how corporate interests were clearly the motivating factor for the annihilation that happened, and how the very same corporate interests continue to drive, motivate, and collide even in a toxified wasteland.  I should have known Nolan wasn't going to just be delivering an oddball romp for oddball romp's sake.  Not only is it anti-capitalist, but it's anti-establishment and even cocking a eye towards blind faith religion.

META: I've never played a Fallout so I cannot attest in any way, shape or form how well it adapts the video games, nor can I say how fan-service-y it is. I assume it's very fan-service-y. Even I know, through osmosis, the image of Vault Boy, with his gleeful wink and wildly gesticulating thumbs-up gesture, and I delighted in the origin story of this image, as I did with so much of the show. I really want to see the deep dive from a black culture critic looking at the world of Fallout examining the shape of blackness in the wake of the very white-centric culture of the 1950s being the dominant template for life for the next 340 years.  I noticed how the black characters in this spoke in a very over-enunciated, proper midwestern tone, and I really wonder how much the show's creators put thought into it.

[We Agree]

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3 Body Problem Season 1 (8 of 8 episodes watched)

The What 100: Amid Mao Zedong's cultural revolution of China, fervent pro-communist youth beat an prominent astrophysicist to death before a fervent crowd, only his daughter, his greatest protege, protesting. She finds herself at first interned into a work camp, then conscripted into working on a deep space communications program. When she gets a response from an alien civilization, she receives a counter-message not to answer it. Angry at the world, she answers it anyway. Half a century later, this is what happens as a quintet of science nerds in their 30s all find their way into the inner circle of the defence against this alien force. 

(1 Great) There are a lot of Big Ideas in 3 Body Problem and I was really engaged with how liberally the Big Ideas were just tossed out and thrown around the show. What could have easily sustained a 20+ episode season makes for a pretty breakneck 8 episodes of television that, while neither powerful nor perhaps even all that memorable, proved quite entertaining.  

(1 Good) If the show ultimately proves unmemorable, what will no doubt linger is The Boat Scene. If you've seen the show, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't yet, well, you'll know it when you come to it. Speaking of The Boat, it's clearly an analog for Scientology and the Sea Org, right?

(1 Bad) I could lay out a laundry list of things that the show could have done better with.  It's not that they were all bad, just perhaps needed more time to breathe and explore concepts and characters more than they had time to do in 8 episodes. What did start to get to me was the lack of orientation in time. With the exception of the flashbacks, which were very clearly flashbacks, from scene to scene we never really knew where we were in relation to the prior scene. Is it hours since the last scene? Days, weeks or months? The show moves for rapidly through its timeline without truly signifying that it's doing so. Where Shogun was a show that approached its audience as intelligent adults capable of keeping up, 3 Body Problem seems to think its crowd is a gaggle of dumdums who would only get more confused in some numbers popped up on the screen.

META: 3 Body Problem is the first scripted product from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss in their reportedly massive deal with Netflix. Having experienced HBO's Game of Thrones I was both optimistic and wary of what the end product would be. These two guys proved that under their guidance they could create a hell of a series when following the template and story of a book, but equally proved that when the source material runs dry, they are about as focused as a deflating balloon zig-zagging around a room. I think 3 Body Problem works but it's almost in spite of itself. If it weren't for the novel laying out the template who knows how great a mess this would be. As it is, I don't have any great emotional attachment or affection for most of the characters, except those played by Benedict Wong and Liam Cunningham who are just unique and charismatic performers.  That said, there weren't any characters or performers I disliked so that's also a feat on its own. 

I hadn't read Liu Cixin's 3 Body Problem novel (because we know I don't read) but I has heard of its successes and, for some reason, equated it to more speculative fiction (eg. extrapolating present scientific or tech breakthroughs into how they might shape a future reality) than wild science fiction about aliens, unbreakable microfibers and weird virtual reality shit (that seems so important, until it's not, which is the show in a nutshell). 

I liked it, reservedly.

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Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent (7 of ? episodes watched)

The What 100: It's Law & Order, but in Toronto. No, not that Law & Order, but rather the Criminal Intent flavour from the Baskin Robbins of Dick Wolf's hyper-extended franchise. 

(1 Great) Lady Kent and I just get a kick out of watching the show navigate Toronto, and we try to fact check it for its locales and timelines getting from point A to B.

(1 Good) Aden Young as Detective Sgt. Henry Gaff is the quintessential erudite police detective. The guy just knows everything about everything. He'd be the guy doing a three-week undefeated run on Jeopardy until he got bored and let someone else win. He has no perceived life outside of police detecting (in true L&O fashion) and yet he seems so cultured that he must constantly be traveling the globe visiting art galleries and reading every biography ever written about anyone ever.  He's a ridiculous person but that's what makes him fun to watch, and Young, with his thick, vague Canadian accent really makes a meal of every scene.  It's all to the detriment of, well, every other cast member who seem like they don't really need to be there, because Det. Sgt. Gaff has it all under control.

(1 Bad) Let's face it, Law & Order is straight copaganda through and through, overvaluing and sensationalizing the capabilities of the police, solving crimes and getting confessions within days, mainly by outsmarting the perpetrators.  It's bullshit that perpetuates itself.  

META: I wanted Law & Order Toronto to be the Law & Order structure, not whatever this Criminal Intent business is. It's a novelty, but I don't know that it will sustain as regular viewing. There's no meat on them bones.