I lost interest in Breaking Bad after the first season. I don’t remember why. It’s still on my “maybe some lazy weekend” list.
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul were also created by/largely directed by Vince Gilligan. Part of his style is slow sequences featuring long shots and ordinary machines like floor polishers and vending machines. One whole episode of BB was based on trying to kill a fly. Very comedic actually but also with a deeper purpose ultimately. Not everyone loves his style, but I do.
Couldn’t get through the first episode, I’m afraid. I may try again later, but the wife is a firm “no”.
I’m in, for now. It’s a little slow but since it’s Gilligan, I’ll give it time to spin out. Besides, Apple ordered two seasons from the jump so no worries about an abrupt end after one.
I thought the the drawn out opening scene of episode 2 was brilliant. The exposition dump by the Assistant Sec. of Agriculture at the end of ep. 1 spelled out the premise in significant detail but we really don’t start thinking about the ramifications until we follow a lowly shepherdess(?) flawlessly journey half-way around the world. That opening was a wonderful introduction to the new world and its possibilities. It’s only near the end during the summit of the English-speaking unaffected that we get a clue that the collective really has no idea how this alien experiment is going to play out or how humanity can survive under the new ethos.
Unless you watch it comma it being the first two episodes, you don’t know what the premise is. The trailer does not tell you it tells you something related sort of but really you don’t know what it is. My girlfriend was absolutely convinced that she understood the premise was from the trailer and she was like nope no Interest And then she watched the first two episodes and she called me and she said you were right I had no idea what it was about. No trailer can tell you and these certainly don’t.
If nothing else it is certainly provocative of thought…
Yeah the premise, as reported by the news sites I saw, was “a virus makes everyone happy except the main character”, that was completely uninteresting to me.
After seeing the first two episodes, and discovering the real premise, I’m interested, at least for a couple of episodes more.
This was also a big issue for my wife and me, ChefGuy. I don’t expect every movie or show to have a character I can personally identify with, but I have to actually care what happens to at least one of them. My wife and I have sort of a code we use when we don’t want to continue watching something. “Do we really care what’s going to happen to these people?” If not, we switch to something else. That moment came fairly early for Pluribus. In fact, this is becoming more and more of a problem with recent movies and series.
That was my problem with Succession. I didn’t care about any of those people and just wished the damn thing would end. The wife liked it, so we slogged through it, but generally we agree on what works and what doesn’t.
Indeed. One of the big differences between Pluribus and Gilligan’s other shows is that I actually cared what would happen to people in BB and BCS. An intricate or interesting story doesn’t change that fundamental.
I’m sympathetic to all of the characters in this show. The jury is still out on whether members of the collective still retain any true individuality but the unaffected we have encountered so far have varied yet understandable and very human reactions to the event. None seem to be innate assholes; just damaged.
Yeah, Carol is a fine enough stand in for me as a viewer. Imperfect. Not horrible. Dealing with grief. Anger. Confusion.
What I’ll be looking for is the character’s growth as she deals with the situation. Or at least more revealing of her character? BB’s and BCS’s strength was for me mostly there. I’m not expecting a hero’s journey show here.
I was surprised at the “relatively” low original death toll of 800 million plus, with Carol doing her bit with about 11 million (twice?)
It’s good that there’s no “Science guy” as he or she would be expected to WAG almost anything outside his/her specialty, and even then…
So they were somehow intelligently and logically assimilating many thousands of others then went to plan B when the military figured it out. Yet that - apparently - hasn’t helped. It would seem “The others” first had to see “normal” people and basically leave them be. Carol hadn’t seen any pictures or other signals, except the attempted tongue kiss from the doctor, to try and get her to assimilate.
So the collective of Scientists in the world are all in Chemistry labs trying to figure out what is different (or similar) about this group. All going to Vegas? Best get the AC working which ought not be a problem.
The planes all flying in parallel formation were presumptively dropping aerosolized virus which why so many got infected at about the same time. “They” know these individuals were exposed to doses that infected everyone else.
And they covered the possibility of Nuclear Subs and the Space Station. I reckon they covered deep underground facilities or “bunkers” so it’s safe to say that 12 is the number.
The normal’s one “weapon” is anger. So far all of that emotion has been real and I reckon cannot be feigned by everyone. Besides they (or some of them) want to save the world, not kill every Other. How they can accomplish that -vs- all Scientists is anyone’s guess right now.
If it were a “Bad Star Trek Episode” as Carol put it about her potential next novel, they’d find the central computer and out-logic it or get it to divide by zero like Kirk and save everyone left. Yet there seems to be no centrality to the “hive”.
In fact, that is one “trope” that seems ruled out: The “genius” who knows RNA/DNA of greatly advanced peoples and perhaps another who knows exactly how to distribute it to “The Others” covertly. Hightly unlikely Gilligan (if he even knows now) will deliver a deux ex machina here.
Though it was kind of funny when the undersecretary (only guy with a suit) got a little mixed up over DNA -vs- RNA at least as far as putting into layman’s terms
The Under Secretary said they lost quite a lot of the Executive Branch, but never explained how. It clearly wasn’t a plane crash of Airforce One. Part of me wants to hear a bit more about that.
Me too. Roughly 10% of the global population perished. There must have been another major cause of death besides airplane and car crashes etc.. Come to think of it, most airplanes in flight were probably fine…the ones not taking off and landing, anyway. The zombie period didn’t last terribly long. (And thank God Pluribus isn’t a zombie show. I was worried there for a second.)
IIRC there is more than one plane with the AF1 livery. But it could also have been a road convoy crash with several high officials, or similar.
I thought he only specified the President not making it. He could have just fallen in the shower. Regardless, succession and everything else governmental was a dead letter. The guy talking to Carol on the TV just happened to be the guy near the White House broadcasting facilities with enough gravitas (and a nice suit) to get her attention.