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Reviews
The Fall (2013)
STOP WHISPERING
Gillian Anderson is just simply in over her head here. She undertook this series as a sort of vanity project and is the show's executive producer. But she doesn't come across as a lead detective of a tense case involving a serial killer, it's like she miscast herself. In the first place, as other reviewers have observed, she's a sl*t, sleeping with several of her colleagues and possessing a deeply uncomfortable infatuation with the serial killer himself. I dunno, that's about as unprofessional as it gets for a police detective, no? Annoyingly, she keeps speaking in literal whispers throughout. And not just in a single scene where it's appropriate, but I mean throughout all three parts of the series, in every single scene. Is Anderson attempting to convey a sense of gravity, or profundity? It's irritating, and very much unlike what I imagine how a lead detective should communicate. And then there's her long-windedness (which of course is spoken in whispers) about wildly off-topic matters unrelated to the case. During one scene while interrogating the main suspect while he's in custody she engages in a rambling, aimless conversation with him about his first victim, his feelings, and why he engaged in certain behaviors many years ago. It was a mess of juvenile pop psychology, entirely laughable and of exactly ZERO VALUE in finding his latest victim who he had kidnapped and secreted away before he was fortuitously arrested. Finally, in a couple of scenes she blabbers nonsense about the "patriarchy," as if it's 1963 or something, and as if she herself has no agency or authority... as the *lead detective*. Most of the other main characters as well as the secondary ones were excellent, especially the serial killer, his teen "girlfriend," and a couple of the minor Northern Ireland police roles - they deserved lots more screen time. Anderson should've reduced her own role to perhaps... a whisper?
The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping (2024)
Mostly unwatchable
Just to reiterate the completely correct 1- and 2-star reviews: this isn't a professionally produced documentary and the narrator is unwatchable. Other reviewers have mentioned the annoying and self-indulgent swearing by the narrator and interviewees, which is not only understated by other reviewers (it's worse than annoying), but it also makes the narrator appear as a grossly immature 30-something and therefore *not a reliable storyteller*. I'd like to emphasize a related point: the narrator is obviously soft-pedaling her actions that got her sent to Ivy Ridge. She loudly complains about completely normal (and to be perfectly honest, commendable) discipline such as boys required to wear ties, girls having hair pulled back, and no jabbering with others without permission. But what got her into this "strict" alternative school? She breezily mentions she was smoking and drinking. But no specifics -- had she been drinking & driving? Using other drugs? Selling drugs? She doesn't discuss any of this at all. I would've liked to have heard whether the misbehavior that got the kids sent there was criminal, or possibly a threat to their own lives and the lives of others, and ultimately: what made the parents of these children so desperate that they would send their kids there?
Ghosted (2023)
Beyond awful AVOID
The 10/10 reviews are obvious shills. Just read the 1/10 and the 2/10 reviews, they all pretty much hit the nail on the head: awful writing, shallow characters, terrible and disorienting editing, improbable scenarios and a total inability to suspend disbelief, and the laughable impossibility of a 5'0, 98 pound girl duking it out with linebackers. There is also the problem of extensive lifting from John Wick, right down to plagiarizing the iconic scene of the cells of bounty-hunters ringing all around Wick as he goes on the run at the end of John Wick 2. Either Apple tricked all of the big name stars in this to agree to "net" profits, or else the losses must be catastrophic.
The Secrets She Keeps (2020)
Ridiculous but oddly compelling
So, the reviews seem to be love or hate, but I think there's a little of each. The story is definitely ridiculous, with waaay too much suspension of disbelief necessary throughout. For example, at one point the baby snatcher shoves her ex-husband off a train platform into an oncoming train to keep him from revealing too much about her. But she gets away scot-free -- plenty of witnesses, security cams certainly both on the train and in the station, bumbling police not doing anything that we all know the police would be doing, it's laughably unbelievable. There's lots of scenes like this. But on the other hand the baby snatcher character is totally infuriating, you hope *she* gets shoved into an oncoming train. Ah, so you realize that the writers and the actress are actually doing a really good job emotionally drawing you into the story. Finally I'd also like to reinforce, without giving too much away, what a couple of other viewers have noted -- the series is undoubtedly more than a bit unfair to the Jehovah Witness religion and by implication religious people generally. It's mean-spirited, it's wholly unnecessary to the plot, and it's a transparent effort to try to evoke sympathy for the baby snatcher.
Deadline (2022)
Terrible, just terrible
Just to follow-on what others have said -- the series was horrible, full of plot holes, unlikable characters, shoddy writing, and a ridiculous & telegraphed ending. I also wanted to reinforce another observation, that doesn't give too much away: for the plot to work the series has to create the DUMBEST detectives imaginable, and to not allow for any forensic examination of phones, emails, laptops or any physical evidence whatsoever. Finally, I get the irritating sense that the writers want us to sympathize with the the sociopathic murderer, who in the end hectors us with this embarrassingly triumphant speech about how "nobody listened to me, now it's my time to speak." Eye-rolling, immature and completely self-absorbed writing.
Sanditon (2019)
Ignore the 10/10 bots
Yeah, the harsh reviews are correct, this isn't Jane Austen. As these harsh but accurate reviews correctly relay, there are wildly inappropriate scenes, plot devices, and dialogue that have no place in a series that supposedly derives from a Jane Austen work. The ridiculous forced Diversity™ that highlights so much modern-day entertainment dreck is present. In Austen's unfinished work the Georgiana Lambe character is minor, and there are no other non-White characters at all. Same for the forced social justice nonsense like the patriarchy, slavery, and colonialism dialogue scattered about, it's almost like watching a modern university Sociology department discussion group. It's all annoying and makes the setting opaque -- Sanditon is a period-piece set in the early 19th century in a small south of England coastal town, which by definition shouldn't conform to our modern world. It would be like producing a series set in shogunate Japan with White samurai who sit around talking about climate change. You'd end up inadvertently making a Monty Python skit. Zero stars.
Clifton Hill (2019)
Never could get past the disbelief
Lead actress is completely unsympathetic. Smug, superior, frustrated at all the dummies around her (especially, of course, all the males), and no sense of self-awareness. But the main problem is the whole thing just isn't believable, so it doesn't draw you in and it doesn't create any tension. Just one example without giving really anything away: the lead character as a little girl witnesses what she credibly thinks is a kidnapping. She tells her mother what she saw. Then for some reason she forgets this incident for the next 25 years until something jogs her memory and she starts investigating it. Whaaat?? If anyone clearly sees/experiences an incident like this as a child you would unquestionably remember it. Unless she's sort of crazy, which would then call into question what she saw in the first place. So, it just leaves you shaking your head.
Den som dræber - Fanget af mørket (2019)
Ugh
Hoo boy, don't think I've ever seen a tv series that literally blamed others for the actions of a serial killer. The lead killer (there are actually two working in cahoots) is a woman, Stine, who tortures, mutilates and murders young girls allegedly to... get even for her supposed abuse by her brother when they were teens. Setting aside the fact that serial killers torture & kill almost entirely for sexual gratification based on gore/death (for example, Ted Bundy went back to the kill sites to perform sex acts on the remains of his victims), the internal logic of the series is all off. If Stine wants to "get even" why doesn't she kill her brother & family early in her adulthood, why wait ~20 years? And why kill innocents at all, how does that help her "get even?" The soundtrack is well-done and the acting is steady, but yeesh, what an awful subtext to sit through.