First: I did like Parts 1 & 2 and most of Season 3 very much. It’s utter fantasy — but I like some kinds of fantasies. The plot is fun with much suspense. Some of the characters are almost like caricatures from a comic book, but that makes it fun.
If you like superhero-type series (e.g. Jessica Jones, led by the actress who also played Jesse Pinkman’s girlfriend Jane) then you should love Money Heist!
I’ll place the reason I’m Pitting it inside Spoiler box. You may not want to read this until you finish Season 3.
[SPOILER]
I do NOT read the Wikipedia summaries before I watch a TV series. I don’t want to get spoiled.
But in this case it would have saved me some pain. Seasons 1 & 2 were a single heist spread out over two seasons. And now I learn that Seasons 3 & 4 are the same — a single big Heist. I must wait months before finishing this two-season heist and thereby requiting myself.
Had I known this, I’d have waited until Season 4 was available before starting Season 3, and watched it all in one giant binge. Curses![/SPOILER]
I wanted to like this show. I’m a sucker for police or legal procedurals, especially set in unfamiliar countries where the differences in process are in themselves fascinating.
But I’m finding the writing sloppy and bloated. I got a couple of episodes into season two and then my interest just petered out. I did like it at first, the style is good and some of the characters are interesting.
The problem is that it isn’t really fantasy. I mean, it’s implausible in the same way fantasy is. But it’s pretending to be grounded in reality too, and it isn’t. That makes it come across as silly rather than a deliberate style choice.
And I can’t quite figure out the tone. On the one hand they seem to be portraying the professor as this guy with almost superhuman intelligence and as being 10 steps ahead of everyone else in terms of having everything planned out. But that starts to become dull, because you can’t relate to them and it sucks out a lot of the suspense if you start to feel that they’re invincible. And it requires writers who actually are 10 steps ahead of the audience, but these writers ain’t that. On the other hand, he seems to make really dumb mistakes and ends up caught up in all sorts of implausible sticky situations. And a lot of the escapes seem to be just blind luck. That’s amusing once. It’s ridiculous and is asking for a ludicrous amount of suspension of disbelief six times in.
The series/seasons have gone steadily downhill. I’m up to date and I’ll watch the next season, but I’m done after they wrap up the caper. The only good thing in the later seasons was decreasing Tokyo as being the center of attention- she’s the only character remaining who still is two dimensional. Berlin is by far the most interesting character- and his time being decreased makes the show suffer tremendously! But your pitting of season 3 is nothing compared to your upcomign pitting of season 4 as Cayuga noted above.
Ouch! No, I didn’t know Season 4 was available and now I’m wondering if I should forego it altogether.
My alternative to Money Heist Season 4 is Ozark Season 2. :smack: Maybe I should just stick with very old b/w movies, or rewatching neo-classics like Bound.