I’m “eh”.
I thought the fight scenes were great.
No characters I cared about.
Thought I was watching NBC’s “Revolution”, “Jericho” and “Maze Runners”.
I loved the fight scenes and liked that they are establishing a mythology already. What’s the “badlands”? Where’s “outside”? What war are they talking about?
I’m not so thrilled that this random kid is going to be the living MacGuffin that everyone’s going to be chasing after. I’m just not too thrilled about having kids featured prominently in an adult ensemble. Chances are he’ll be kidnapped (again), do something stupid to put others in danger or get them killed, crying about some trivial stuff, not listening to perfectly good advice, or people will get killed trying to help him. And they didn’t yet establish a good enough reason why Sonny decides to go rogue on his Baron, or why his own Baron doesn’t seem to trust him. He helped that kid way too fast for someone who just met him that day.
I liked it okay. The fight choreography was pretty entertaining. None of the characters seemed that interesting, though. Perhaps if I give it a few weeks, I will care a bit more…
I haven’t seen this show yet, just the commercials. Is it supposed to be post-apocalyptic, because I didn’t get that from the previews at all?
Yes, the references were very vague. Something bad happened to good ol’ Western Civilization a while back. Now the barons rule the Badlands. Or something like that…
Meh.
Didn’t care for the dead kids in the opening scene.
Some explanation about how we got here would be nice.
Something warrants the building of a huge wall in a society with clearly limited resources.
I get that they like the southern plantation theme combined with medeval fortifications and Nepalese monastery stuff. But logical or realistic it isn’t. It seems little thought has gone into the mechanics of the society.
Also the slaughter of the transport, there is no justification: the attackers are just very bad people, they like to systematically kill people? What was their motive? It seems a society that keeps slaves, those people must be worth something. If the purpose was to hurt the baron maiming them would send a better message. If the goal was to kidnap the boy and kill all witnesses why hang around? If the attackers had some kind of goal and know about the samurai types where are the projectile weapons?
Too many questions to suspend disbelief.
It was silly fun that I will likely watch with my teen son. The violence wrecked by the martial arts were often hilarious - the way bones were broken and arms and legs bent, it was cartoonish at times.
I hated the whole “guns are banned” idiocy.
Look, however you may feel about firearms in the hands of a populace, when it comes to the Games of Thrones (power politics), you can bet your bottom dollar that those who wield power, exert power, wish to increase their power, are going to have and use every tool of power that’s available to them, even if the common rabble is denied that power.
The “Barons” wouldn’t give up a tool of power quite so easily, IMHO.
Better to say that, after the fall and the turbulent years, the the guns have largely broken down, the bullets have all been expended, and the mechanisms/industry for making more are all defunct. And that the small sliver of civilization the Barons control isn’t up to even much in the way of “Black Powder” muzzle loaders.
Any civilization that can build cars can build guns. How do the powers that be prevent a skilled mechanic from doing so?
Not too bad, but it needs some legs to see if it lasts more than one season. Major Characters have been introduced, now all we need to see is the world building.
I’m waiting to see if we at least get crossbows.
Declan
I found it pretty dull. I was hoping (expecting?) something more like “Dune” with all the talk of barons, intrigue and assassins. Sometimes pilot episodes can be weak, so I’ll definitely give it a second shot. Also, there is the chance that the first episode was more of an introduction to the characters. Sadly, none of them seem very compelling. Also, everything with the kids was not so good.
I’ve never found that to be a negative in my action movies/TV shows, but YMMV. I don’t spend much time paying attention to the white noise that occurs between the fight scenes. In fact, IMO there was too much plot, and not enough action.
The fight scenes they did have were okay.
Watched the second episode. It continues to be silly fun. My son and I took bets about the age difference between the actress playing the very hot and young-looking Widow and the one playing her daughter Tilda.
14 years - Emily Beecham is 31 and Alexia Ioannides is 17.
The World According To Donald Trump.
With Kung Fu.
I’m wondering if each of the barons is as equally proficient in the martial arts as the “clippers” that they employ. The term was “clippers”, wasn’t it?
Yes it was, and yes they are. You have to be a Master Clipper before you can become a Baron, and Barons are not elected - they are overthrown and a new one takes power.
I don’t know why it was shoe-horned in between TWD and Talking Dead, what an annoyance! Why can’t AMC put it on during a week night? They could not show one of their crappy endlessly re-run movies one night a week. Some of us would like to see Talking Dead after TWD because we have to get up and go to work in the morning and can’t sit up until the wee hours until this latest chopsocky time killer is over.
Reviving the thread, Season 2 has started
Well, no surprise here…I watched the premiere last night and I loved it. It was so full of action it was hard to keep up, with a huge plot twist at the end.
The seasons for this show are short (last season was only 6 episodes, I think?) so each episode should be full of good stuff.
I agree - Sunday nights are too jammed. I have to DVR individual episodes of this show*, targeting a 5am or whatever repeat so it doesn’t clog up other shows we watch on Sunday night.
*i believe I have to DVR the episodes individually because if I record the series First Run only, I get the 10pm slot. If I am recording a second show, I can’t watch a third show with those two recording. Grr.
Mechanical shenanigans aside, yes, really looking forward to this. Enjoyed last season. Will be interesting to compare to the just-out Iron Fist.