Reacher wanders into a town and accidentally flames the fires of a turf war between the Albanian and Ukrainian mobs.
What I Liked
The progression from what Reacher sees at the start to the war with the 2 mobs is awesome, and the almost slapstick element the way the mob interprets what’s happening reminded me of the Remo Williams series. Good escalation throughout.
What I Didn’t Like
The secondary characters were a bit, well, odd. Too ready to jump in and kill bad guys, and the waitress can suddenly figure out battle plans. Plus, Reacher is too violent even for him, regardless of the repeated justification of the shoe being on the other foot.
The Bottom Line
Still classic Reacher, albeit more violent than usual.
A Chinese-American woman trained as a ninja and now protects abused women in L.A.
What I Liked
The story works on three levels for me. First, there is a mystery to solve involving multiple bad guys, politics, and a new subway being constructed (the motive is obvious, the details are not). Second, she helps women get away from their abusers, and feels a bit in places like the Jane Whitefield novels by Thomas Perry. Third, she is choosing romantically between a nice guy and a danger guy, similar to the Stephanie Plum novels by Janet Evanovich. I had a small sense of deja vu that I knew this storyline as it progressed.
What I Didn’t Like
As the first story in a series, there is a lot of exposition going on. Explaining Lily’s background, her mixed Norwegian / Chinese heritage, and even some of her relationship with her parents. Her angst with her mother is brought up about six or seven places in the novel, while 1-2 would have been fine. Equally, her father’s colloquialisms show up way too often, “doncha know”. Plus, she explains kunoichi about three times, as if we didn’t see it the first two times. The repetition was a bit heavy-handed.
I have a pretty high tolerance for suspending disbelief in various superhero shows. I don’t expect high quality writing, acting, etc. Sometimes I get that there isn’t even a plot other than villain of the week. Okay, they’re not all home runs. When I read about the new Netflix show called Raising Dion, about a mother with a son who develops powers, I thought it was worth a shot. Man, was I wrong.
Short version is that a family of three has a father who is a storm chaser, and who died chasing one. The details aren’t entirely clear about what happened, other than he drowned. He left behind a kid and mother/wife. The kid still hopes Dad will come back, Mom knows he’s gone, even if they never found the body. The son is trying to learn magic, and starts displaying telekinetic powers. But after he does some basic stuff, cyclones seem to come with it. He has trouble turning off the power. And, overall, Mom is struggling to deal. Then the ghost of Dad appears…whatever.
Here’s the problem. The kid is TERRIBLE. He’s played by Ja’Siah Young, and I’m sure he’ll improve, or okay in short bursts, but he’s in most scenes and he’s unwatchable. His mother, Alisha Wainwright, was okay on Shadowhunters, and basically okay here, but the show isn’t about her. Or the kid’s godfather, played by Jason Ritter.
I finished the first episode, and I was lucky to get that far. Meh.
Author John Green provided the source material for Hulu’s Looking for Alaska, a story about a kid going to boarding school, falling in love and dealing with loss. It’s not clear who will be “lost”, but since it looks more like a mini-series than a series, I didn’t predict renewal or cancellation. It likely will be the narrator who is lost, so mini-series makes sense.
Charlie Plummer plays the main character, Miles aka Pudge, and generally speaking, he’s a wallflower to whom nothing ever happens. His father went to a boarding academy (which seems way more like a summer camp), and he wants to go too to experience SOMETHING (not for nothing, he had no friends at his regular school anyway). Plummer is okay, but the character is mostly a blank slate. I haven’t seeen Plummer before, but wide-eyed innocence is fine. In fact, the whole show feels a lot like Almost Famous, same outsider-looking-in vibe.
Except instead of Penny Lane, we have wild child Alaska Young, played by Kristine Froseth. Alone, no family seems to be in the picture back home, drinking, smoking, has some college-age boyfriend somewhere. But Miles is wowed by her. Yet for all the adoration, I didn’t see it. She seemed kind of average to me. There were no huge Penny Lane / bigger than life moments, and while she’s okay, I didn’t really see the wow factor.
Other citizens of the academy include Denny Love as Miles’ roommate, and Jay Lee as the cool kid who knows all the dirt on everyone. They were okay, but I didn’t care about either one until near the end of the episode.
There’s a sub-story about who ratted out two kids who were going to have sex for the first time, and if it wasn’t Alaska ratting them out, I’d be shocked. Everybody assumes it was the new kid (Miles) or his roommate, but that’s just a plot device to ramp up some tension with some other kids. Yawn.
I care not one whit about the show. I am however tempted to consider picking up the book and giving it a go.
The premise for the Netflix show, Living with Yourself, is a comedy about becoming a better version of yourself through some sort of cloning procedure. Just the weirdness of the premise alone led me to predict cancellation.
The show stars Paul Rudd as generic corporate drone who hates his life. He’s in advertising, hates what he’s doing, unmotivated, depressed at work; at home, his wife wants to have a baby but he needs to go find out about his motility, and he’s not feeling it. A guy at work who transformed his life tells him about an exclusive spa. He goes all in on it, even spending the money they have set aside for getting pregnant. As he’s entering the spa, he sees Tom Brady leaving, so he’s SOLD.
This is where it starts to go weird…the spa takes a DNA sample from his mouth, gives him some gas, and he wakes up buried in the forest in a diaper. He finds his way home, six hours later, to find he’s already home — another version of himself is in the house. Version 1.0 woke up in a grave; Version 2.0 woke up at the spa, went to work, and drove home. The spa never intended for Version 1.0 to wake up after the cloning and synaptic transfer (i.e. giving 2.0 the same memories), but well, they can offer a 20% discount with a referral fee.
So, the show has some things it can explore, sure. Lots of interesting threads to pluck at. But it failed at the most important factor. It’s not really funny. I smiled in mild amusement at the reaction of the spa to their return, but up until then, I hadn’t smiled at all. And I never laughed.
I don’t care if it is Paul Rudd. He’s watchable, sure. But I didn’t laugh once. I’m out. And I’m sticking with my cancellation prediction.
