Why So Blu?

Nips like bullets!

Breakfast with Girls

I haven't liked him in anything he's done since, but I thought he did a great job with that role. Oh well.

I finished this tonight. It was OK. Without getting into spoilers, I thought the villains were all paper thin with the flimsiest of motivations. The ending wasn't exactly predictable, but also wasn't particularly compelling. So I dunno.

Good to see that Warren from Buffy is still getting work.

Why So Blu?

Finished it tonight. I enjoyed it a lot. It's a much more expansive world than Blade Runner for sure. I had a real good time with the show.

I'll have to read the novels now.

mphtrilogy

This review will probably make me try to push through over the next few months... I didn't care for the first ep much...

lopper

Made it through an episode and a half, and I'm bailing. The story, characters/actors, and writing are all of your typical made for TV sci-fi quality. There's some swears and some nudity, but nothing else differentiating it from anything you'd see on SyFy.

I think the majority of Netflix original series have ranged from average to terrible. In fact, I'm struggling to think of one, aside from Daredevil, that I actually enjoy.

I'm hoping Mute bucks this trend of sub-par originals, but I don't have high hopes at this point.

fumanstan

Huh, not to get too off topic but I would say Netflix Originals are typically average/good if not better, with very little that's outright terrible.

lopper

Narcos and Mindhunter were fucking terrific, and Stranger Things S1 (S2 was pretty weak) is good, too. I guess there is more than one that I really like.

But it feels like they miss more than they hit, with me anyway.

RichC2

I usually like their smaller shows (GLOW, Atypical, American Vandal, The OA) better than their big budget ones (The Get Down, Sense8, Marco Polo) which generally seem like they try too hard without trying hard enough.

Not sure what cost profile Stranger Things, House of Cards, Bojack Horseman and Orange is the New Black fall under anymore.

tasha99

I just finished this show and thought it was really good. Not perfect (I was so thrilled to see Angelica from Hamilton in it, but turned out she sucked as Quell. Plus, I thought some of the narration, esp at the end, was sappy).

But . . . I really liked the world it was set in. Loved the hotel as a character. I like mysteries, scifi, and film noir, and this was an engaging mix of all those.

(Btw, I considered bailing after the first episode because I was on the fence about whether it would deliver a good mystery, or made for tv nightime television. I stuck with it when I realized it was based on an actual book (more likely to be plotted to a conclusion) and had a good review from Forbes.)

Finisher

Just finished this thing up. Thought the first 5-6 episodes were reasonably strong but things just went off the rails. The plot is literal nonsense. The acting/characters were mostly grating. Really wound up being a waste of a fantastic world.

MikahC

The whole obsessive, "I'm only evil and crazy because I love you so much," thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I watched a recent episode of a show where an obsessive woman cut up a man and put him back together with super glue to remake him (which, let's agree, is pretty far on the obsessive/crazy scale) and it rang more true.

Still, there was much to like about the show and I'd like to see another season. It looks like the show was renewed for a S2 already.

From another article ( Fansided -- Altered Carbon )

Finisher

Exactly. Once the show became about the sister's insane love in the last few episodes, it lost me. And think about how stupid the plotting becomes once we get the sister reveal: if he meant so much to her why the hell wouldn't she have just spelled everything out to him personally right when they took him off ice/sleeved him/whatever they did when they revived him. "I've built an empire and we can have unlimited wealth/power/all the 10/10s you can bang and we're pretty much immortal thanks to re-sleeving/cloning. Sound good?" Instead she goes through these elaborate machinations using henchmen and comes across as a crazy Bond villain that he now needs to kill.

Cellar Door

^I agree. The crazy sister plot made me start to lose interest, mainly because a lot of her backstory isn't shown to us because it happened before Kovacs was revived. So her obsession felt contrived. And the resolution felt a little rushed to me.

Things got ridiculous in the last episode. The samurai sword fight in the floating brothel felt like pandering to the audience. Having Lizzie revived into a synth body that can somehow completely alter its appearance to look exactly like her original body seemed more like magic than science, and then Lizzie being a killing machine to help team Kovacs and Ortega defeat Rei's goons seemed like a bit much.

And through it all, Kinnaman somehow maintained a complete lack of emotion on his face. I wanted to like him more, but he was too wooden. Just nothing there to pull you into Kovac's perspective so you can empathize with him more. He had no chemistry with Ortega, so I didn't really buy their 'love' for each other in the end. I liked the actor more that played Kovacs in his original sleeve in the flashback scenes with Quell.

That said, I liked most of the other actors. I thought the setting was cool and the production value was very good. The overall story and mystery was interesting--especially the exploration of the social implications of the technology. I'll give season 2 a look when it comes out.

Speaking of season 2, I would be willing to bet that Rei is not dead dead. There's probably a backup of her stack and a clone sleeve somewhere. And a backup of Quell is somewhere, too, if Rei is to believed. I would think the ultimate goal of the series will be to fulfill Quell's mission to end immortality. I have not read the books, so I have no idea how things play out in them.

I also wonder if we'll find out more about the Elders in future seasons, or if they will remain just a background explanation for how humans got advanced technology.

Finisher

And how about Lizzie showing up at the Bancroft estate to let him/his family know that his whore mistress is knocked up and she's keeping the baby. The hell kind of idiocy is that. Honestly the entire Lizzie/her parents subplot got on my nerves.

lopper

He was my favorite part of The Killing. I thought he was really good in that. But I don't think I've liked him in anything ever since. And this clean shaven beefcake iteration of him is my least favorite version so far.

melasnus

I got halfway thru Ep.5 and gave up.
Did I give up too soon?

Cellar Door

Nah, if you didn't like it by then, you probably wouldn't change your mind after watching the rest.

melasnus

It was just too sloooooooow.
It has a simple premise and doesn't really advance it far.
In spite of the pretty pictures and BR vibe, there was nothing to hang onto.
IOW, nothing and no one to really care about.

Tom Banjo

I’m in the same boat. I’ve seen 3 episodes but haven’t really felt an urge to see the next one. Been about a week since I last watched.

jpcamb

I really enjoyed the show. I felt the endgame was a little weak with the sister plotline, but that didn't kill the show for me. That said if you havent gotten into it by the 3rd or 4th episode I doubt you will get hooked. I see the show is running around a 8.5 on IMDB at the moment so I'm a little surprised to see how many folks here are not fans...

nmr1723

This is the type of show that should be right up my alley. For this reason, I forced myself to finish it. In the end I didn't enjoy it at all. The acting was bland and the story was boring. The world building was great and I did enjoy the hotel AI, but everything else just didn't work.

I also watched Godless and while it may have been a bit too tidy at the end, it's exponentially better than this.

melasnus

One thing is for sure...it looks terrific in 4K HDR.
The colors are just amazing.

Being a Sci-fi geek, I REALLY wanted to like this show, but the writing was just not up to snuff IMO.

spainlinx0

I'm surprised at all the negativity here. I thought it was a very fun show, but I'm always a sucker for a great sci-fi world, and I loved the concept of stacks, and the implications of immortality.

I thought Ortega was the weakest acting wise. I actually didn't mind the main character seeming so "detached" for lack of a better word. I'm in for season 2, and I might pick up the books.

jpcamb

My thinking was that he was supposed to be more or less detached due to his training and repeated stating of indifference to people in this time. He eventually seemed to fall for Ortega and began to care for her and started acting a bit more human....

melasnus

I did too.

Agreed...I have no idea how she got the part.