Ian Thomas Malone

Reviews Archive

Thursday

21

February 2019

0

COMMENTS

A Discovery of Witches Is a First-Rate Drama Full of Magic & Romance

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The worldwide phenomenon that the Twilight series sparked created an impression that vampire-themed entertainment was a fad, destined to fade over time. This notion forgets the longevity of bloodsucker-themed fiction, a genre that’s endured for more than two hundred years. Works like Sky One/Sundance Now’s A Discovery of Witches remind us how much the genre has to offer with top-notch talent crafting the material.

Based off of the critically acclaimed All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches follows Diana Bishop, an academic of magical ancestry as she finds a manuscript that holds the secrets to the broader mythical world that includes demons, vampires, and witches. With help from the handsome vampire Matthew Clairmont, Bishop tries to make sense of her findings while avoiding the influences of the powerful Congregation, an Oxford-based group tasked with maintaining order between the various magical factions.

With stellar production values and first-rate performances, A Discovery of Witches is the rare show that nails just about every aspect of a compelling first season. The chemistry of lead actors Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode radiates through the screen, selling their romance alongside all the other world building required to set the stage. Too many first seasons string the audience along with promises of greater things to come later. A Discovery of Witches is extremely well-paced, introducing its cast of characters while always keeping the plot moving.

Though the show is set in contemporary times, the extensive use of estate houses and old libraries makes the show feel at times like a period drama. The supporting cast is fairly intimate, including veteran TV actors such as Owen Teale, Alex Kingston, and Louise Brealey. While most of the drama focuses on Bishop and Clairmont, the show wisely keeps the number of supporting characters to a minimum, allowing the actors to shine with limited screen time.

What really stood out in A Discovery of Witches’ first season was the way it explained its world of magic without ever diving into length exposition dumps. Plenty of shows take an episode or two to go in back in time and explain how all the circumstances came to be. Witches gives its audience what it needs to know without resorting to information dumps. There are questions left to be answered, of course, but that’s true of any narrative. The confidence in its storytelling is quite palpable.

Already renewed for two more seasons, A Discovery of Witches managed to stuff its first outing with plenty of plot and character development while leaving plenty for future stories. They took a concept that many thought was completely worn out and methodically breathed new life into the vampire genre. A lot of shows are guilty of holding back in their freshman efforts, understandably leaving some gas in the tank to keep the audience engaged. It’s relatively rare to see a show unafraid to go into its narrative full-throttle. The result is an immensely satisfying first-rate drama that should be a must-watch for fans of mythical storytelling.

 

 

 

Tuesday

15

January 2019

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COMMENTS

Mahershala Ali Brings True Detective Back to Form

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The TV landscape has changed quite a bit in the half-decade since True Detective’s debut in 2015. The novelty of seeing big Hollywood names on the small screen has diminished in the wake of new series featuring A-list talent such as Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, and Michael Douglas. “Peak TV” exists as much as a cliché as a universal truth in this current era. There are more good shows on right now than anyone, even critics, has actual time to watch.

True Detective has always embraced the slow burn, a concept increasingly harder to sell in this bloated environment. After squandering much of its cultural capital on a forgettable second season, the show finds itself needing to balance suspense with the notion that its audience doesn’t necessarily need to accept that anymore. Mystique is an increasingly tougher sell, especially for week-to-week series.

Casting Mahershala Ali in the lead role was perhaps the best decision the show could have made. Ali has the power to mine intrigue from the mundane, an expressive actor capable of playing the same role across three time periods in a way that makes each feel fresh and unique. We don’t learn all that much about his character, Wayne Hays in the early episodes, but he plays the minimalism to his advantage. His ability to captivate in each scene makes the episodes fly by in a way that was sorely missing from season two.

The time jumps also provide some interesting commentary on the nature of America’s current cultural obsession with true crime series. Unsolved crimes, particularly ones involving children, remain alive years after their cases have gone cold through podcasts and Internet message boards. The unsettling nature of these heinous acts exists in a puzzling contrast with their status as entertainment symbols, something that essentially applies on a broader scale to fictional series like True Detective that deal with brutal murders.

Season three marks a return to form for True Detective, even if though it fails to reach the highs of its freshman effort. America seems less enthralled by anthology series in recent years than it has in the past, perhaps an inevitable development for a medium pushing its saturation point. A strong performance from Mahershala Ali keeps things interesting enough to wash the stink of season two away, even if the series isn’t likely to capture the country’s attention in quite the same way again.

Thursday

6

December 2018

5

COMMENTS

Syfy’s Nightflyers Is a Pitiful Incoherent Injustice to George R.R. Martin’s Good Name

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For some reason, it feels weird when cable networks try to emulate their streaming counterparts and debut shows at a faster pace than the standard week-to-week model. The idea of broadcasting a new show on consecutive nights certainly can present the notion that such an occasion is “event viewing,” but the mind also wanders to the motive behind such a deviation from the typical rules that govern television. For SyFy, airing a show like Nightflyers four times a week over a two-week stretch could be advertised as a special holiday treat for those who detest Santa-themed offerings, but instead mostly comes across as an attempt to be done with this incoherent mess as quickly as possible.

Nightflyers is based off a novella by George R.R. Martin, written a little over ten years before the release of A Game of Thrones, the first volume of his magnum opus. With the wild success of his A Song of Ice and Fire series, it seems inevitable that more networks would want to jump in on adapting his extensive back catalog. The biggest problem for Nightflyers is that the show plays like somebody took that too literally, jumping into a series without taking the usual steps that go into crafting a narrative that anyone watching would actually care about.

The plot of the show is fairly simple. A group of scientists go looking for alien life and bad things happen. It’s the kind of show that spends such little time on character development that describing any of the people onboard the ship seems like I’m doing the show’s work for it. There’s an obligatory pain in the ass brought on the ship who no one likes and an engineer who seems to be doing an impression of an indifferent android. There’s romantic tension among the other characters. The show kind of throws this stuff out there without ever really conveying a sense that these are actually people anyone cares about. As a result, it’s hard to get invested in any of them.

That kind of hollow strategy might work over a ninety-minute horror movie, but falls flat over the course of a ten episode season. The early seasons of Game of Thrones each sought to adapt a thousand-page book. Nightflyers seems completely lost with one-tenth of the material. There’s a fair amount of filler, which is presented in a way that makes it hard to differentiate from the moments where it wants to advance the story. The show has random cutaways at times that feel like a student filmmaker fooling around in the editing room.

Nightflyers is the kind of show that feels like it exists solely because of the fame of the author of its source material, with little to no effort put in to actually create a worthwhile experience. The show has decent production values, even though much of it feels like it was created by a Kubrick fanatic assigned to knock off The Expanse. Nightflyers is a plodding derivative mess that never seems interested in giving its viewers anything to care about. SyFy appears to have dumped this one over a two week period in order to make sure everyone has forgotten about this turkey by the time the holidays are over.

Wednesday

5

December 2018

0

COMMENTS

Titans Sets Itself Apart from Other DC Adaptations in a Strong Debut

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Titans debuts with an additional burden not attached to most new television shows. As the marquee offering of the new DC Universe streaming service, the show is inevitably judged not only by its own merits, but also those of the place it calls home. If that wasn’t enough, there’s also the additional weight of expectation brought upon it as the first live-action Teen Titans adaptation, a franchise that has exponentially grown in popularity this century due to the success of the animated Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go!

None of these burdens are particularly fair. As we saw with Star Trek: Discovery, which similarly serves as the flagship offering of CBS All-Access, television shows take a little bit of time to find their groove even if they’re supposed to carry the weight of an entire streaming service. What impressed me the most about Titans was how little it seemed bothered by the mandate attached to it. It needed no flashy pilot designed to justify its existence. Rather, the show takes a methodical approach to its early episodes, carefully introducing its four lead characters in a way that seems neither rushed nor deliberately slow-walked. By the time the Titans finally come together midway through the season, the viewer has a sense of the stakes at hand for each of the heroes.

Perhaps fitting given the emphasis on teenagers in its source material, the early breakout star of Titans is its youngest member Raven. Played by fourteen-year-old Teagan Croft, the powerful empath anchors the show’s emotional core, delivering a raw performance that conveys the character’s overwhelming sense of abandonment. Another early standout is Anna Diop, who brings a cool confidence to Starfire that exists in stark contrast to the character’s memory loss. Diop dominates nearly every scene she’s in while her character constantly keeps the viewer on their toes, never quite sure what’s coming next. The character’s bright aesthetics are a refreshing contrast to the typically grim color scheme deployed by the show.

Bruce Wayne’s presence looms heavy over Titans despite the lack of an appearance from the caped crusader. Robin’s story is inescapably tangled in Batman’s world, which creates a tricky web to navigate for a show that exists adjacent to the dark knight, a beloved character that most fans would welcome on screen if it weren’t for the fact that this isn’t his show. Titans does a great job presenting Dick Grayson’s story in a way that isn’t purposefully distant from his past while at the same time not creating a situation where the viewer longs for Batman to show up at every corner.

The show was smart to make Robin out to be the parent figure of the team rather than its hotshot leader. Unlike the other three, Dick Grayson doesn’t have any actual superpowers, initially relying on a borderline excessive amount of violence to win his battles that’s toned down in later episodes. Brenton Thwaites brings a welcomed reservation to the role even though Dick Grayson possesses the obvious chip on his shoulder by token of his estranged relationship with his foster father.

Ryan Potter’s Beast Boy often feels like the odd man out in the show’s early episodes, as the character is featured far less than the other three. This issue is perhaps exacerbated by the second episode’s focus on Hawk and Dove, two other DC superheroes who are recurring characters on Titans. It’s not really until the introduction of the Doom Patrol, who are set to star in their own spinoff series, that Beast Boy’s place in the narrative starts to make sense.

Titans manages a much better balance in tone than its recent DC film counterparts. Visually, the bleak settings feel right out of a Zack Snyder movie, but the show possesses a keen ability to reign itself in at times, with well-placed humor to lighten the mood when needed. The production values are a big step up from the DC shows on The CW, justifying the “prestige drama” labels that follow many programs airing first-run on streaming services. The CGI for Beast Boy’s Tiger transformations is especially well-done, looking right out of something you’d find in a feature film.

With a third of its first season still remaining, Titans has gotten off to a great start. There’s a bit of a course correction in tone from the earliest episodes, but you get the sense that the show is quickly learning what works, abandoning the initial ultra-violent combat for more nuanced fight scenes. The cast functions well as a unit, giving the sense that the characters actually like each other as they find themselves in a makeshift family. escortnavi Like Robin, Titans has a lot to live up to, but the show never allows itself to buckle under the weight of its enormous expectations. DC Universe’s first original show is a well-constructed take on a beloved franchise.

Wednesday

14

November 2018

0

COMMENTS

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Brings a Feminist Icon into the Modern Era

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The controversy surrounding She-Ra’s updated wardrobe perhaps best illustrates the need for her return in the first place. Too often female representation has been centered on the needs of men, to have something pretty to fawn over. Saving the universe takes a back seat to the notion that one must look sexy while doing so. This modern era has called for something different. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power presents a number of well-developed female characters for young people to look up to and for older fans to appreciate.

The first season utilizes the Netflix model quite well, with many episodes flowing right into the next one without skipping a beat as if it was all one long flowing narrative. The plot moves at a brisk pace, wasting no time in establishing Princess Adora’s confliction between her alliance to Hordak and her newfound friends in the Princess Alliance. Most of the later first season episodes focus on introducing the show’s large cast, giving the viewer a full sense of the characters by the time the season wraps up.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power displays a quiet radicalism in the diversity of its characters’ personalities. These aren’t people with characteristics designed to fit a certain trope or niche to the audience, which makes them all the more relatable to the audience. It’s difficult to describe any of them in a single sentence, which gives them seemingly boundless space to grow in future seasons.

Preview hype broke news that She-Ra would include at least two LGBT characters, a promise that the show has a mildly complicated relationship with. There are plenty of queer nods in the ways that certain female characters interact with each other and a relationship between Princesses Spinerella and Netossa is hinted at, but there aren’t any actual explicitly gay characters. This issue isn’t something that really takes away from the show, but it’s an unforced error of sorts as it has been celebrated for inclusion it doesn’t fully deliver on. Which pregnancy pillow shape is best? The best shape will largely depend on user preference. Keep in mind that many are designed to support your neck as well, so if you use a flatter pillow for neck support, a big fluffy one might be hard to adjust to. Are you looking for best pregnancy pillows? Read https://pregily.com right now! Many women prefer support for their growing bellies and something to go between their legs for hip support. Most models will support this position, though keep the dimensions in mind if you’re taller as you want to make sure the pillow reaches your knees when bent. #pregily

The plots, most of which are fairly predictable, are often the weak point of each episode. The show seems to have figured out its characters extremely well but struggles with what to do with them. The serialized nature of the show puts more of a strain on the plot considerations, amplified by the early episode’s considerable investment in the development of its characters. The first season hits enough strong notes to suggest that future seasons will rectify the story problems, having established the stakes of its universe.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is an easy show to recommend to children, never taking their intelligence for granted while giving older viewers plenty to chew on. Noelle Stevenson did an excellent job in developing a classic for the modern era, an empowering take in a genre that’s still heavily dominated by men. The show doesn’t hit every note in its first season, but gives the viewer plenty to root for as it took the time to find its footing. I look forward to seeing what the future has in store for these characters.