If you're a fan of the books or the movies, don't worry. This series has nothing to do with them. You won't ever find yourself complaining that this isn't like the books (or the movies) because this 39 episode series had 12 directors and 21 writers, and none of them read any of the books. But they sure liked to do 'shrooms!
Like 'Lost' and 'Game of Thrones,' there was a lot to work with. Great story, great cast, cameras that did whatever they were told to do, and the ability to have a musical score if they had wanted one.
Everything starts encouragingly. The dialogue, the acting, the filming, and editing were all crisp and clean. But you know how it is when you have the budget and material and cast to hit it out of the park. You start thinking, "Hey, is that a squirrel over there?" and you wander off and never come back.
That creates a perfect opportunity for anybody who has ever wanted to write a screenplay, and everybody who has ever wanted to direct, to try it out! You don't even have to know the storyline or anything! Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can, as Arthur Ashe said.
That goes for pot, mushrooms, microdot, whatever you're into or have wanted to try. The folks working on the first season were pretty set on making an excellent series, and they did, except for whoever wrote the background score-more about that in a minute.
By season two, they had lost most of the squares and were starting to have some fun. Sure, it's kind of hard to follow, and Gillian Anderson began to use the tone and cadence of a lady at the library reading to the kids that came on the short bus. But if you payed attention and didn't think too hard, it was still a pretty good series.
And then season three rolled in like a barrel of drunken monkeys. Some directors wanted to be Alfred Hitchcock; some wanted to be Clint Eastwood. Some writers we're fans on Stephen King, and some were fans of thick paperback romance novels. Gillian was still reading to the slow kids, and Laurence Fishburn decided he was Brian Dennehy, but that's not so bad. Mads Mikkelson and Mr. Dancy didn't let all the monkeys on the lot, or the odd sprinkling of vanishing characters, throw them off. Remember the 80-pound supermodel, who was an expert sniper? Yeah, me neither. She did do a drive-by, though. (Ha!)
Eventually, the mushrooms and cannabis won, and the folks who weren't invited to the party began to write and direct. Everybody had a good time, and the producers had already brought in some patsies to blame, so the barrel finally rolled off a cliff, and everyone went home.
Except for the background music guy, who was sleeping under the mixer and drinking out of other people's cups. He hung around and recorded everything he could think of until somebody spotted him and ran him out. They played Rochambeau (Rock-Paper-Scissors if you're in Gillian's reading group) to decide what music went with each episode.
Was this fun to watch? Yes. Did it make sense? No. Is it an 8.5 or a 10? Well, I'd did seen the kids voting...
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