Umbrella Academy on Netflix - Spoilers

I hope you keep watching to get your take on things, but the music will probably stay about the same. I liked it, as it tends to be pop hits I recognize. The show plays fairly bubbly pop songs during some serious shoot outs. To lighten the mood, to show it is a comic, or as a style thing.

The music was great at time and at others it seemed like it was trying too hard. I enjoyed the show but that ending pissed me off.

I finished the season today. Overall I liked it, but it was a bit odd with a Wes Anderson feel to the whole thing. Being a Torontonian, it’s always cool to see your own city on TV. We just came back from an outdoor light show Toronto Light Festival | Home at the Distillery District. In the episode where Hargreaves gets off the boat and goes to the umbrella factory, it was shot here.

So. ultimately-

For real. Spoiler. [spoiler] Was Reginald to blame for the apocalypse? His death brought them all back to the academy, his absence emboldened Klaus to steal the journal and then led to Harold being tipped off about 7, and also led to her being stressed and then off her meds. He, of course, was the source of the violin, and so if he had any farseeing ability that would allow him to see the coming End of Days, he should have seen the part the violin would play. He was obviously long lived and we KNOW he chose the time of his death. Did he do it on purpose? Had he lived, would she have ever rediscovered world ending ability?

[/spoiler]

I’d say he was to blame because his method for raising kids was basically a super villain origin story how-to manual, everything else is secondary.

It could just be a bootstrap paradox, couldn’t it? Unless there is a malevolent force that manipulated the Prof into his actions. I’m curious where his warning of the impending apocalypse came from. But yeah, it does seem to be his fault, whether through coincidence or enemy action – doesn’t it? (I don’t think he intended to destroy the world, based on his character so far, but who knows.)PS: I generally dug the musical choices – fun and inappropriate, which fit with the overall tone.
PPS: I did not approve of the choice to have 7 play the violin, because I know what a person playing the violin looks like, and she didn’t look remotely like that.This is a common problem, though.

Talking about the season finale

[spoiler] Was the character played by Ellen Page in a Trance that she could not control since murdering her “boyfriend”. Everything she did after the murder was not in her character. She seemed calm after murdering someone for calling her names and showed no remorse for that.

When she shot the moon with an energy bolt, I was thinking it got to the moon too fast. Then I googled and see the moon is only 1.3 light seconds or so away. So it was about right.

But the chunks that got blown out of the moon coming back were not moving at light speed. The came back in minutes when it should have been more like days. And what were the odds of all or any of the chunks actually hitting the earth, a pea-like target in a vast ocean of emptiness? Earth seemed to have no atmosphere when the chunks hit.
Will still watch next season though :slight_smile:

[/spoiler]

If you really want to science the finale, it fails on many, many levels, as does EVERY show based on comic books, plus the vast majority of action movies.

The biggest problem wouldn’t be a large moon chunk striking the earth, but the effects of losing the moon’s gravitational pull on the earth.

I kept waiting for the other 36 to enter the story, but it never happened. After the first episode they’re never mentioned again. Something squirreled away for future plotlines maybe? Although if the other 36 all survived and had powers, wouldn’t we have heard of them already?
.

I’m 5 or 6 episodes in and there are things I really like and things I really hate.
I like the overall premise. It’s not stated outright but we are clearly in some kind of alternate universe because cell phone and even computer technology is not what it is in this universe. The superhero family dynamic is well done and unique enough.
What I hate is the cheesy montage stuff. Seems every episode dedicates at least a few minutes to pure cheeseball characters-dancing-for-no-real reason type of shenanigans. It was tolerable if not kinda funny once. But there’s too much of it and I hate that part of it.

The show did grow on me eventually. It seemed like the whole series was just the back story for one character, however, and that felt too long.

If they followed the comic (I don’t know, having not seen this yet), then it is strongly implied that the 7 were the only ones that survived - the rest being abandoned to die or killed by their mothers/mobs/others.

You don’t need any more once you already have a savior of the broken, the beaten, and the damned.

Well keep in mind the seven spent their lives under intense training. Even if the others had super powers maybe they did not manifest so early, or are nowhere near as powerful because they did not have an asshole dad driving them. Probably though they are being saved for later seasons.

I really rate it. Nothing not done ad naseum by X Men, but an interesting twist on it (basically a bit more realistic take on what mutants being raised by eccentric professor would actually be like, I mean really that’s a pretty messed up scenario IRL).

[spoiler] we had that little pre-opening piece of Hargreaves talking to his dying wife(?) before travelling back in time to what I took to be the early 1900’s. In the background were numerous rockets launching, which I took to be ICBMs launching.

This is perhaps where the commission comes particularly into play, where the apocalypse was originally a nuclear exchange, but Hargreaves actions prevented that (perhaps his actions influenced technological advancement, so no mobile phones, no PCs, no internet) so the Commission meddled and rejigged so the apocalypse is now caused by Vanya. Although why they wouldn’t kill Hargreaves before he stunted technology I don’t know.[/spoiler]

I couldn’t disagree more with Bo on the music. I loved the choices and it’s use. Wonderfully offbeat.

I thought the cast did a great job in highlighting how broken the characters became as a result of their upbringing.

[quote=“GreedySmurf, post:36, topic:829781”]

[spoiler] we had that little pre-opening piece of Hargreaves talking to his dying wife(?) before travelling back in time to what I took to be the early 1900’s. In the background were numerous rockets launching, which I took to be ICBMs launching.

[/spoiler]
I’m not gonna spoiler. That was a neat scene of Hargreaves. He was caring there, what turned him into such a prick? We find out where the umbrella symbol comes from. I took that scene as being on an alien planet, but being in the future also makes sense. I also thought those were ICBMs launching at first, but watched the scene again and thought it was people escaping the planet. Like there was a plague or something. What was the light thing in a glass?

Regarding the music, I liked most of the choices a lot. I thought the pop songs were effective, the moody moments beautiful and melancholy, and the epic moments suitably epic.

But what I really disliked were the lighthearted moments, where they repeatedly went straight for the wacky pizzicato strings. It felt too silly, not right for this show. Like a nature documentary when you get a cute animal doing something quirky: the little bird does his funny mating dance and the pizzicato strings go doot doot doot . . . doot doot doot doot.

Also, this show is way into the orange and teal look. (Warning: if you read the linked article, you will start seeing it everywhere!)

Finished it last night; very much enjoyed it. I still think quite a bit of the maudlin parts are way over done, particularly too much time is spent on them. Pick up the pacing a bit, please.

OTOH, I liked that it was a TV series endnote a movie, because they did have time to go into more detail about each character and each situation. I like that they are still keeping lots of stuff only partially revealed (or just hinted at), but the “dramatic” scenes often drag on for too long after I get the point.

Aye; the acting is top notch. Ellen Page does a particularly good job at subtly altering her character’s demeanor as she progresses thru her relationships with Leonard and her siblings.

I was surprised as fuck by the encounter between Vanya and Allison. Somewhat surprised by what happened next, and a little disappointed, although I recognize that the story is better off this way, of course.

I’ll have more thoughts, I’m sure, when I rewatch the whole thing, but for now I’ll rate it 7.5/10 with a high interest in seeing future events. That’s about how I rate The Tick (8/10) and the first season of The Expanse (9/10) and higher than I rated Rick and Morty (7/10).

ETA: The pop music continued to be really bad. It’s like they have a pool of songs they can get licensing for and they just use them randomly, without regard to the tone, pace or lyrical content of the music; perhaps they have a list and they simply use them in order of the list.