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[Vultural]

Shadow Lines: S02 - 2021 - 7/10
AKA - Nyrkki: S02



Season 02 picks up soon following events of S01.
Team Fist remains, and early on, a lethal adversary is eliminated.
Not so much a different series, but the tone is changed.
The “look” (fashions, sets, music) is diminished, and the narrative delves deeper into espionage.
1950’s Finland is still trying keep out of the Russian bear’s paw.
(At one point, Khrushchev even invites them to become a satellite.)
Much of the narrative circles into the Night Frost era, although this is highly dramatized.
Terrific series.  I suspect this concludes it.

[Vultural]

Emma - 2016 - 6/10



What was this?  A busted pilot?
Well done, two-part French cop show.
Veteran officer Vitulo is assigned a new partner, Emma, with the runway model looks.
Knowledgeable, quick, yet utterly ignorant in many aspects.
Why?  Because she is a test.  A prototype android officer.
This concept has been done too many times to reference.
Emma, however is surprisingly, endearingly funny.
Completely clueless about the nuances of law and order.
“Stop!  There is a lawbreaker, jaywalking.”  Or  “Doctor cannot disclose patient information, even dead ones.  Criminal.”
Writing is deft and ingenious.  Too bad there were only two episodes, or perhaps that is for the best.

[Vultural]

How To Survive The End Of The World - 2013 - 6/10
AKA - Evacuate Earth



Multi-episode documentary mixes science with speculation.
What if …  the planet were struck with a global pandemic (this was 2013).
Or flood waters covered the earth, or the orbit shifted, moving us away from the sun.
Or weather turns wilder, deadlier.
Experts describe scenarios and possible solutions.
The add-on episode, encounter with a neutron star, lives up to the alternate “Evacuate Earth” title.
It was also wise enough to know who, in any rescue attempt, will push themselves to the front of the line.
The wealthy, who may lack necessary skill-sets.  And politicians, who excel at provoking conflict.
Curiously, what is not delineated is irreversible, runaway global warming.  Oh, the irony.

[Vultural]

Theatreland - 2009 - 7/10



Behind the scenes series examines upcoming performances at Theatre Royal Haymarket.
Even before opening, the first play is sold out,  “Waiting For Godot” with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart.
Backstage means observing the grips, ushers, managers, designers.
From repairs to excited brushes with the famous.
Alert!  The complete “Waiting For Godot” is NOT included.
Overlong by two episodes, the final episodes show the hectic mounting of the next production, “Breakfast At Tiffany’s.”
One gets the sense the latter has a rocky future.

[Vultural]

Deadly Tropics - 2019 - 6/10
AKA - Tropiques Criminels



After a career disgrace, Sainte-Rose and her two teenage children relocate to Martinique.
She is the new police commander, assigned the usual TV stereotyped colleagues.
Crime series, the stories are one-offs, so no soap opera arc to follow.
Murders aplenty, though the settings are postcard beautiful.
Series could be an advertisement from the tourist board, especially for viewers freezing in January.
Clean sidewalks, sunny waters, lush, green leaves.
What really caught my eye is how THIN everyone is.
There is a S02.

[pixxxie]

On 8/3/2022 at 7:14 AM, Vultural said:

Deadly Tropics - 2019 - 6/10
AKA - Tropiques Criminels

So a bit like Death in Paradise, but thinner.

[Vultural]

You are correct, though I only watched one season of Death In Paradise.

[Vultural]

To The Lake - 2019 - 6/10
AKA - Epidemiya // Эпидемия



Apocalypse fans!
A lethal virus blazes through Moscow.  Fleeing citizens spread the plague across Russia.
Where’d this come from?  Is the spread planetwide?
The opening episodes are furious, and a template on how to render chaos and violence.
Deadlier than the virus are military and paramilitary suppressor units.
Only then the story settles into following two families as they drive into rural oblivion for lake property.
Along the way, this becomes an adventure each week.  Threats, obstacles, enduring each other.
Personality clashes border on melodrama.
In later episodes pace is definitely steadier and the conclusion is somewhat hazy.
Second season is out there, of which I am indifferent.  If the story concludes, then maybe.

[Vultural]

Fatale Station - 2016 - 6/10

Sarah arrives in Fatale Station, pop 1404, after a botched murder attempt.
The town is small, although this series follows the more colorful citizens.
Butcher, bartender, hooker, nutjobs and protesters from Indian Nation.
Ruling the town is Mrs. O'Gallagher, who senses Sarah brings trouble and wants her evicted.



And, eventually, the blight does find Sarah and approaches.
The secondary characters are the main import here.
We pick up stories midstream, then shuffle away.
Forbidding atmosphere throughout, fine acting, inadequate script.

[Vultural]

The Informant - 2022 - 7/10
AKA - A Besúgó



Of all the luck.
1985.  Geri lands a scholarship to the university in Budapest.
On the train, alas, the secret police interrogate and soon blackmail him.
“You want medicine for your ailing brother?  You will infiltrate and spy on the pro-Democracy student group.”
Getting accepted by a wary group is one obstacle, dealing with a bullying handler is another.
Short Hungarian series mixes politics with mystery, psychological thriller with history.
Of the latter (history), a few Hungarian reviewers have mentioned that facts are a bit finessed.
Skillful blend of character types, most of whom one would encounter in any college.
Likewise student political activity, back then.  Lately, passions and protests have gone to dust.

[Vultural]

Flack - 2019 - 7/10



This boasts one of the best misdirection openings I have ever seen.
Robyn, American transplant in London, works as a PR fixer.
Meaning, when clients screw up, she swings into full damage control.
Media manipulation, falsifying, inventing alternate scenarios, my God, you name it.
Because, yes, the clients, celebrities, footballers, artists are privileged, entitled who have a right to trash everyone.
Stories are bitterly funny, dripping with contempt.
When you clean pig swill all day, you get pretty filthy yourself.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Vultural

[Vultural]

The Middleman - 2020 - 6/10
AKA - L'agent Immobilier



Olivier, incompetent Parisian real estate agent, cannot present, cannot close, cannot retain properties.
Even his own flat, and he takes to squatting inside recently sold addresses.
Fortune smiles after his mother dies, bequeathing him a battered apartment building.
Olivier plans to resell the valuable location to a developer.
Except, there is a viager, an elderly woman tenant with rights to occupy.
Yes, Fate gives and Fate takes away.
He is saddled with the property, creditors hound him, relations with his family are dismal.
Then again, there is a talking goldfish.  And, Olivier can seemingly slipstream into the 1970’s.
Say what?  Yes, peculiar mix of comedy and fantasy, though not enough and of poor quality.
Four part series.  For Francophiles who will watch anything.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Vultural
swan

[Vultural]

Squid Game - 2021 - 6/10
AKA - Ojing-eo Geim  // 오징어 게임



Sat on this over a year before watching.  Chief concern?  Global hype.
And yes, this has been overhyped, primarily by Western viewers who have never seen Asian TV.
Nonetheless, it does make an easy entry into K-dramas (the violent ones), although I doubt most newcomers are reading subtitles (as many declare) but are viewing dubbed episodes.
Watch the subbed if you can, if spite of inferior translators (oppa is NOT “old man”).
Anyway, a huge assortment of financial losers are recruited to compete in a slate of deadly games.
None know how lethal these are until after the carnage of the first match.
Although there are hundreds of competitors (bodies), the series follows about ten.
Ensuing rounds continue gruesome eliminations.
The J-dorama Alice In Borderland aired before this, as did movies Escape Rooom, Running Man, shoot, “Fun And Games” from the old Outer Limits.
Hardly original, Squid Game is lavishly made, though not as fiendishly plotted as the finest K-dramas.
A Netflix series, this does not suffer the usual “Netflix ending”, meaning this has a passing conclusion.

[Vultural]

Iskander: Shadow Of The River - 2018 - 6/10
AKA - Maroni



A grisly murder in French Guiana is assigned to a new arrival and a grizzled veteran.
Slain were a husband wife pair of missionaries.  Do-gooders.
They had journeyed deep into the jungle, going to remote villages, refusing to get permission from chiefs or elders.
The dead couple had a child.  Missing.
In fact, the area suffers a long history of missing or kidnapped children.
From the beginning, you realize this heads straight into voodoo territory.
If you can accept supernatural and superstitious elements you may enjoy this four-parter.

[Vultural]

Traitor - 2019 - 7/10
AKA - Reetur



Money problems, too many women (wife, mistress, illegitimate daughter), plus he has been dismissed.
Alfred Vint has hit a bad patch.
Life in Estonia had been much easier when it was a Soviet satellite.
Alfred is ripe for turning.  Especially when Russian hard cash comes calling and he enters the Defense Ministry.
Top espionage thriller of a man inching deeper and deeper into the quagmire.
Action is limited.  This series is more cat n mouse, mistakes and coverups.

[Vultural]

Swamp - 2021 - 7/10
AKA - Topi // Топи

A cabin of Muscovites rides the train into the Arkhangelsk district.
Destination, Topi (the Marshes), where stands a monastery with allegedly healing properties.
One of the passengers has cancer, one is running from criminals, another is the ultimate hunter and spreader of human misery … a reporter.
Outside the forlorn rural station, only one notices a billboard laden with missing person flyers.



Two minutes in, their chauffeured car suffers a horrific accident.
While everyone walks away, I wonder if they have just entered Purgatory.
The monastery is deserted, the nearby village is dying, overhead skies are crimson.
Villagers they encounter are taciturn and secretive.
Horror is the backbone of this short series, but there are religious elements and parapsychology.
Not a traditional supernatural foray, there is too much mysticism in this, and it may be “too Russian” for many.

[Vultural]

Crime Diaries: Night Out - 2019 - 6/10
AKA - Historia de un Crimen Colmenares



Luis attends an upscale school, packed with privileged, affluent students.
He is neither, though he is popular, particularly with one girl who recently dumped her rich, possessive boyfriend.
Ask anyone.  Dating drama happens every day.
Except Luis winds up murdered.
Police swiftly zero in on suspects and witnesses.  Who did it, who watched.
Columbian series told from numerous points of view.
Stories contradict, witnesses disagree, experts clash.
Once the lawyers get involved, lies and objections dial to 11.
Based on true events, this is an extremely frustrating view.

[Vultural]

The Collapse - 2019 - 7/10
AKA - L'Effondrement



Apocalypse fans!
The power grid has failed, the supply chain has fizzled.
Gasoline is precious, food stocks dwindling, civilization reverting.
Each episode is a 20” one-off.  The grocers, gas station, farmer’s enclave.
Charting the worsening situation, and the depths to which people will go to survive.
The whole gas-auto-travel concept had me wondering, “Where do folks think they can go?”
Exceptional series, and prescient, airing before events in 2020, and still ongoing consequences.

[Vultural]

Inspector Koo - 2021 - 5/10
AKA - Kookyungyi // 구경이

Ex police officer Koo is unofficially part of an insurance company's risk management.
Our detective is a self confessed "alcoholic who displays antisocial tendencies with anxiety disorder."
This annoyed me - until I began to view Ms Koo as a spoof, a parody, of that endless stream of defective detectives.
Operatives with limited social skills.  Blind lame stutterers.  Ones with Tourette syndrome, Alzheimer's, leprosy.



Aside from Koo's confessed limitations, she also does not bath, her body odor is pungent.
She scratches her scalp frequently, head lice or flea infestation.
Chances are she fails to use the toilet so her clothes are a stench of urine and feces.
Anyhoo, Koo chases a couple of fraudulent claims, sniffs out a string of accidents that prove neither random nor accidental.
Nope.  There is a diabolical serial killer (aren't they all?).
And the prime suspect, a sweet faced drama student, seriously bent, but capable of meticulous staging and execution.



From the inspector to her boss to the big boss to the villain, forceful women rule.
Each have emasculated male sidekicks, neutered and cowardly.
Narrative arc descends from tightly plotted to padded to frivolous.

[Vultural]

Vodník - 2019 - 7/10



The infant cries, and cries, and cries.  Morning, afternoon, night.  It will not shut up.
Family, relatives, neighbors, workmen, everyone has simply endured enough.
After the baby is murdered, grandma keels over with a heart attack, the accused baby’s mother is arrested and she hangs herself in jail that night.  Case closed.
Until, 30 years later, an inspector reopens the case, saying,  “A mother, any woman, would never kill an infant by cutting its head off with a circular saw.  Only a man would do this.”
Three part Czech series delves into petty village squabbles, resentments, adulteries, lies, cover-ups.
Much is shot in a washed out, sultry summer haze.  Handheld camera work adds to disorientation.
Horrid story, not for all tastes, though it will sink its hooks into you.