Fans of Television Series

Started it some months back, but stopped after a few episodes. Re-started and watched 3 episodes just today and here is your review. 10 episodes of S01 done so far, Definitely watchable.
"Fauda" is much better anyday than any series made on Mossad, fast paced and gripping. "Mindhunter" fantastic series on serial killers, yesterday just finished watching "Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan" if you like to know the history of a brutal warrior class from Japan, very well researched and narrated.
 
Mossad 101 (Netflix)(originally named Hamidrasha) - A watchable fare with 2 seasons for all those who like Israeli serials. I feel second season was better than the first. Its about Mossad training their new recruits in their spy academy. The cast include the very handsome Yehuda Levi as Yona and Liron Vaisman as Abigail. Its the ususal ups and downs they face as trainers and how the politics, corruption and selfish motives can cause problems for them. Good cast with some great actors.
Season 2 of Mossad 101 is definitely better. Finished it almost on a binge!
Now on Good doctor starting from Season 1. David Shore the creator of my all time favourite House MD is behind this one. The lead Freddy Highmore (Shaun Murphy is the character) is an autistic savant and is very good in patches. No match for Dr Gregory House (played by Hugh Laurie). Reminds me that I should watch House again!
 
"Fauda" is much better anyday than any series made on Mossad, fast paced and gripping. "Mindhunter" fantastic series on serial killers, yesterday just finished watching "Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan" if you like to know the history of a brutal warrior class from Japan, very well researched and narrated.
Had downloaded mindhunter sometime back - will watch that. Not much a fan of history / period drama - reason I skipped GOT!
 
Had downloaded mindhunter sometime back - will watch that. Not much a fan of history / period drama - reason I skipped GOT!
Here is my initial review of Mindhunter way back when it was first released in 2017. I found it a bit slow. But the second season is way better than the first IMO
 
Spring Tide (Voot): A gem out there on Voot. Its a Swedish Drama about a Police Trainee's investigation into a 25 year old murder. She is more interested in the case as her father had initially investigated it, died, and the case was still unsolved. Its a horrifying way to kill a pregnant woman, buried in the sand on the sea shore and then letting the Spring Tide come in and kill her by drowning. This case took a toll on the investigators, one died, the other homeless now. What follows is an investigation with new perspective, tools, and evidences. The suspense is well concealed and surprises you at the end. The climax is a poetic justice. You'll see what I mean. I was pleasantly surprised to see a second season and have just started it. Spring Tide a good watch considering Kjell Bergqvist (Tom Stilton) won the "Best male actor in a television series" award. Julia Ragnarsson looks pretty and performs her role with ease. She looks much more mature and solid in the second season yet. A few characters have been carried over to the second season even when it seems their characters have nothing left. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out to be. I think in this season the focus is on Abbas El Fassi (Dar Salim) introduced very late in the first season. Will post a review once I finish. An enjoyable watch.
 
Spring Tide (Voot): A gem out there on Voot. Its a Swedish Drama about a Police Trainee's investigation into a 25 year old murder. She is more interested in the case as her father had initially investigated it, died, and the case was still unsolved. Its a horrifying way to kill a pregnant woman, buried in the sand on the sea shore and then letting the Spring Tide come in and kill her by drowning. This case took a toll on the investigators, one died, the other homeless now. What follows is an investigation with new perspective, tools, and evidences. The suspense is well concealed and surprises you at the end. The climax is a poetic justice. You'll see what I mean. I was pleasantly surprised to see a second season and have just started it. Spring Tide a good watch considering Kjell Bergqvist (Tom Stilton) won the "Best male actor in a television series" award. Julia Ragnarsson looks pretty and performs her role with ease. She looks much more mature and solid in the second season yet. A few characters have been carried over to the second season even when it seems their characters have nothing left. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out to be. I think in this season the focus is on Abbas El Fassi (Dar Salim) introduced very late in the first season. Will post a review once I finish. An enjoyable watch.
Finished Season 2. Liked it. Again, the suspense is well concealed. It begins with the discovery by a daughter of her father's suicide on a dark rainy night. She passes by 3 people on her way to her home. Also, in Marseille, a dismembered body of a woman is found. She happens to be Abbas'(Dar Salim) blind girlfriend. He wants to avenge her. Oscillating between France and Sweden, the investigation continues. Add the regular dose of office politics, some twists and turns and you have a watchable season. I liked it :)
 
Just finished the first season of Perception (2012-2015) - crime, drama, mystery series where an eccentric neuroscientist / psychiatrist (?) uses his outlook to solve crimes - mixed feeling - many episodes were engaging, but a few were just dull - probably the leading lady, Rachel Leigh cook seems to be in it only for her looks.
Every episode starts with Eric McCormick (as Daniel Pierce) delivering a lecture about human mind that has some connection with the plot of the episode. Watch a few episodes to see if this is your kind of thing!

 
When Heros Fly (Netflix): A story about 4 army friends, each living their life after a stint with the Israeli army in Lebanon. They had to lose their captain (Dan Mor as Azoulay) in an ambush. Fast Forward to their current civilian lives. Aviv (Tomer Kapon) is suffering from PTSD and the loss of his girlfriend Yaeli (Ninet Tayeb). While struggling with his life he receives a call from one of his friends Benda (Moshe Ashkenazi) and that call changes everything. The 4 friends then go on investigating the details of that call. Dotan 'Himmler'(Michael Aloni) and Dubi (Nadav Netz) are the other two friends. I watched it off and on. Lost interest midway. Give it a miss if are not that inclined to watch. There is no suspense or investigation. Looks like a low budget movie in 10 parts. Not worth the 450 minutes of our lives.

The Tunnel (Voot): A body is discovered bang in the middle of the Euro Tunnel between England and France. While France wants to investigate the murder and Britain happily letting them do so, Something shocking happens! Its now a collaborative investigation. France represented by Elise (Clémence Poésy) and Britain represented by DCI Karl Roebuck (Stephen Dillane). What follows in this entire season is the uncomfortable alliance between these 2 and the complete "absence of emotion" from Elise, which we come to know, is the way she is! I watched all 3 seasons. The climax at the end of S01 and S02 did not sit well with me. But its the uncomfortable chemistry between DCI Roebuck and Elise made me watch all 3 seasons. These 2 carry this entire series on their shoulders. Its an okay-ish watch if you like such dramas. I loved the way they say "I am going to France" or "I am going to England" as if its Dadar-Virar or Nagpur-Kamptee or Pune-Lonavla:D:D:D Thejourney is through the Euro Tunnel - hence - The Tunnel.
 
This is one of those rare brit serials that I enjoyed. On similar lines to Cold Case, but each case is painstakingly, meticulously investigated and the case solved in 6 episodes. To call it a murder mystery/whodunnit would be doing it gross injustice and oversimplifying the efforts involved in unraveling a case.Each season has one case and runs for 6 episodes. Three full seasons out and the fourth is ongoing.

Nicola Walker as the lead detective (DI) (is aged/ageless depending on the scene) gives a power packed & brilliant performance. Sanjeev Bhaskar seems a bit wooden or is that he is impassive? At the end of one of the gruesome cases which gets to Nicola, he says that he leaves his work behind when he signs off for the day.

Each season starts with introducing a few seemingly normal, real people and slowly builds them up as potential perpetrators in each episode. Though there is a bit of drama / melodrama, nothing distracting enough to take away the momentum. The whole story seems very real and there are no fireworks / flashes of brilliance or anything over the top - just plain painstaking police work! Binge watched 3 seasons in as many days.
Recommended.
Source: Downloaded , seems it is on Netflix (UK)?
 
The Oldenheim 12 (Voot) : A close knit Dutch village community suddenly faces disappearance of people from their village. No one knows why. It seems vague at first, but then we realize there are secrets hidden deep down. The mystery is set up in the first episode and other details are revealed slowly. Let this series take you by the hand and show what it has in store. You might feel a bit bored considering the Dutch language and English subs or the pace may seem slow at times, but just let it pass. You'll have a decent series to watch for it's 12 episode long lifespan. Its produced by Endemol-Shine and it does justice to their reputation. Must watch for all those whodunnit fans and fans of mysteries.
 
Servant S02 (Apple TV+) - What started as a promising story, turned out to be a headache to watch for me. M. Night Shyamalan's movies need no introduction, but in this series, looks like he is confused. Maybe its just a build-up to other seasons that could complete the circle. For now, I am not so sure what story he wants to tell - Leanne (Nell Tiger Free) doesn't know what's her objective. If the S02 climax is what she wanted in the first place, then why wait for so long?? I was not able to understand her character. Probably its just me! I am baffled at the naivety of all who know what actually happened with Sean and Dorothy (Toby Kebbell and Lauren Ambrose) and still continue with the charade for so long that it results in some horrible consequences. There are more questions than answers. May be it's to elevate the mystery element. But not sure it worked - at least for me. The whole idea about righting what Dorothy wronged bugs me. Or even, that Julian (Rupert Grint) does what he does and then is
brought back to life being dead for some minutes
just because
he has sex with Leanne
It's watchable if you watched S01. There is no pace though. Nothing spectacular happens, you'll see.
 
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I have been watching Magnum PI, McGyver, and Private Eyes on a regular basis.

Recently I stumbled upon Hawaii Five-0 and was instantly hooked. Alex O'Loughlin, Scott Caan, Daniel Dae Kim, and Grace Park play their parts are Steve McGarrett, Danny Williams, Shin, and Kono perfectly. Alex, particularly, seems to be made for the role of Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett.

I am just finished season 3 and will hopefully complete all the seasons in the next two months.

I was not surprised to learn that Alex O'Loughlin was screen tested for the role of James Bond multiple times. I do hope he becomes the next James Bond. He will fit the role perfectly.
 
Devils is a financial thriller with an international cast. Thankfully very little melodrama / sentimental stuff and whatever is there is related to the story flow. Binge watched the entire season just over the weekend and enjoyed it much.

It has financial / trading jargon, but you do not need to be an expert to understand the story line. The actors were very convincing in their roles as traders in the share markets and the various plot twists kept the narrative interesting. It was entertaining and intriguing.

A few episodes in the middle seemed to slack the flow a bit. Yes, with just about 7 or 8 episodes, this could have been much tauter. For brilliant traders, they seemed to use only one strategy over and again - shorting! Of course, the intent of this series is not to be a youtube, how to be trader series!

Story line is not entirely fiction. It is part truth based on what actually happened. It is scary to see how some countries can be ruined or controlled by money. Who needs military or nuclear weapons?!

source: downloaded

 
I finally watched "The Queen's Gambit". It's slow, sometime excruciatingly so, Molasses Like! It becomes a bit less slower in second half though. But. I haven't watched a many better slow burners. I liked it may be because I am at Home with slow burners. But One thing is for sure, All the praise given to it isn't misplaced.

It's One Women Show through and through. Ana Taylor-Joy carries it on her shoulders and is a delight to watch.
 
My impressions of ‘A Suitable Boy’, the TV series

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Yesterday I finished watching this BBC miniseries (directed by Mira Nair) - adaptation of an acclaimed and popular novel by Vikram Seth. While the series did please my senses (some talented fresh actors, studied and sensible art direction and soothing, appropriate music), it failed to engage me at a deeper level - the intellect or the soul.

I don’t know whether it was the series or the book (which I haven’t read), but it felt like an overcrowding of characters and their interwoven stories at the cost of deeper exploration of those characters or layered unfolding of those stories. I couldn’t get much psychoanalytic insight into even the main characters due to very little, if any antecedents to their current selves in the narration. Most/all of those overcrowding characters had no आगा-पीछा. Even their inner struggles were customarily dealt with. That made it difficult for me to empathise with them, including the key protagonists - Lata and Maan. The only exception was Haresh Khanna’s character, there was some history and trajectory to it. I expected much more of that from the two central characters with lot of screen time to evolve, but they were largely flat and predictable.

Probably the book goes into these aspects and the series couldn’t do justice to it. I’d be surprised if a highly reviewed book doesn’t. But then Indian English writing (especially the popular kind) is so sparse and still under-developed that I don’t know.

Also, while most would praise Tabu’s work here, I felt she acted like she does in films. The scenes with her felt cinematically out of place with rest of the series. The director couldn’t mould her to act like the others. While some might see it as how she stood tall, to me it felt like she stuck out. Probably they brought her to attract mainstream audiences, but I’d much rather have had an actor who could have integrated with the rest of the ensemble and the project.

All in all, as an OTT series this is one of the better ones out there. But as an adapted novel it left me unfulfilled. I’d still recommend you watch it, but with tempered expectations.
 
I finally watched "The Queen's Gambit". It's slow, sometime excruciatingly so, Molasses Like! It becomes a bit less slower in second half though. But. I haven't watched a many better slow burners. I liked it may be because I am at Home with slow burners. But One thing is for sure, All the praise given to it isn't misplaced.

It's One Women Show through and through. Ana Taylor-Joy carries it on her shoulders and is a delight to watch.
Wasn't interested seeing it at first but it definitely paid off. I only previously saw Anya on Peaky Blinders, where she was meant to be disliked.
 
Guys, I hope you and your loved ones are safe in these testing times. Please take all precautions. Stay indoors if possible with our streaming services. Remember - Masks, Social Distancing and Sanitizers.
 
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