The biggest issue is that it is boring.
Not looking forward to a next week so may just get be up.
Just binged season 1 & 2, which despite a few annoyances I liked well enough. Started season 3 not actually realizing it is ongoing. I agree (after two episodes) that It is being held back a bit because the split timeline is fucking with the pacing. So, I think I’m going to employ the anti-plodding strategy of pausing and waiting for the season to finish, then I’ll binge that. I find watching a few episodes back-to-back usually significantly improves pacing issues in otherwise interesting shows.
That’s not a bad strategy, actually. Things that are painfully slow paced can be slightly less painful when binged vs waiting every week. I was very into this show in season 1, my interest started waning in season 2 but I still watched when it released, but this season I haven’t managed to work up the interest to see season 2 yet. I normally like to watch episodes as they come out if for no other reason than that I can participate in the discussion, but it doesn’t seem like there’s been much discussion generated so far this season.
I was glad they revealed at the end of episode 1 that they were feeding her amnesia drugs because if they had dragged that out I might’ve quit the series entirely. Because all throughout the episode I was thinking “an amnesia plotline? that’s what you’ve got to make sure the story doesn’t move forward? that’s the most boring possible way to keep running in place” - at least they explained it but that doesn’t exactly erase the boring part. Maybe it gets better in episode 2, but it doesn’t sound like it does.
If I recall correctly, this show knows it ends after season 4, right? So there’s no reason to keep dragging out the story except, I suppose, if there’s just not enough story or the writers just aren’t good at coming up with anything. Because it feels like a story that’s being milked - moving way slower than the circumstances demand.
I do think things are progressing in the main storyline. Honestly, the past timeline is like an anchor. I really hope they don’t keep dragging it along through to the end of the season.
I got caught up with episode 3 and I guess I’m the anomaly – I’m liking the modern day timeline. The three main characters are good, there’s drama and intrigue, and the parallels to the silo tie it together. I might appreciate it more because I’ve read the books and generally know where the timeline is going (although there are significant differences in the show).
Juliette’s timeline continues to annoy me more, although there is hope that things are progressing now that she seems to be regaining a bit of agency. Camille’s decision to fumigate the mines seems brain-dead stupid: if you’re trying to calm people down, don’t kill a bunch of people as collateral damage in a way where it’s obvious it was done on purpose. Rig a fake gas leak or something.
I also hope they explain the seeming contradiction between whoever/whatever helped Lukas find the tunnels last season, and apparently the same entity now trying to get Camille to kill him. Is it actually the same entity? Is it all part of a bigger master plan? The books maybe provide a hint, but there are enough differences that I don’t trust the showrunners to have it make sense.
My recollection is that rather than helping Lukas find the tunnels, the entity was ensuring that he kept their existence to himself. Attempting to contact another silo is an automatic Safeguard.
Didn’t someone/something open the “gate” to the tunnel? I’ll have to rewatch it.
Anyway, I liked episode 5. The only sign of the “before times” timeline was the “previously on” sequence and one little sliver beyond that, but that’s it. And it continues towards a resolution of the amnesia plot.
One thing that might be unconsciously turning me off to the before times plot (apart from how disjointed it, how it kills the momentum, and about how the technical details of the military side of things are sophomoric at best) is that one of the main characters (the congressman) was also a main character in WGN’s Ma(n)hattan. A show that was likewise ruined by a poor attempt at a running B-plot (as if the Manhattan project and the lives of the people involved wasn’t interesting enough, they also had to invent an asinine cloak and danger idiot plot to go alongside it).
Also, the implication that there is any measure of bipartisanship just seems far fetched. Perhaps the most wildly implausible part of the show.
Today I learned that the Silo set isn’t filmed in a Hollywood studio, or even somewhere in Canada. But in Hertfordshire at Hoddesdon Studios. Which is about 5 miles from where I’m sitting and just across the river Lea from a nice pub I often go to. Looking at Google Maps I think it’s the old ParcelForce depot, which means I have collected parcels a few times from there when they’ve failed to deliver at home. Pretty surreal.