Fauda was broadcast here on Netflix, and it’s had 3 seasons. It’s a thriller/action series about the ME conflict, where we follow the brutal cat and mouse games between the intelligence services of Israel and the Palestinian territories.
I have heard about this series for quite some time, with many people praising it. On IMBD, it has a pretty high score of 8.2. Somehow or other I have not seen it before now, but then I watched “Tehran” on Apple TV+ (see thread I started) and was very impressed with that show. I also read that Fauda was a kind of antecedent to Tehran, and that finally pushed me to watch it.
So far, I have watched only Season 1 (all 12 episodes).[UPDATE: see edit below - I have now seen all 3 seasons and amended this post at the bottom with commentary on the remaining seasons]
Let’s get this clear right off the bat: Tehran is *vastly* superior to Fauda. In fact, I think Fauda is pretty disappointing overall (compared to the hype and IMDB rating), with a couple of caveats. A big issue is that unlike Tehran, which attempts to be fairly even handed with both sides of this conflict, Fauda is by comparison straightforward propaganda “Israel good, Israelis complex humans, Palestinians beasts” - I’m not going to get into the politics of it, because even though it’s a politically charged show, I prefer to keep DVXuser politics-free as much as possible. So ‘nough said about that. But the consequence of that is we disengage to a degree from characters that seem cardboard villains and skewed unrealistically; watching it sometimes feels like participating in dehumanization of some groups of people. Not good.
The characters lack some depth, on both sides (as written, but see caveat about acting) despite superficial efforts, and worse, lack consitency and plausibility, instead they feel written, not like actual human beings. And, cliches abound.
Many, many scenes and scenarios and developments also feel “written”, and by the numbers. We are asked to hold both that the people involved are incredibly smart and do completely implausibly stupid things. Plot points strain credulity beyond breaking.
Now for the caveats - and why I watched all 12 episodes of the first season, and will probably - have not completely decided yet - watch the other seasons.
Well, despite the crudity, the series has good narrative drive. Action sequences (primitive though often they are), are well timed and reasonably executed. Cliffhangers are well distributed and the plot holds your attention. This may seem like entertainment 101, but oh, so sorely lacking in most TV & movies out there. People can’t do the effing basics - hold our attention, and have a narrative drive! Geez. So any show that can accomplish at least those basics is an automatic winner. It’s like praising a comedy for being funny - that’s its job! If it ain’t funny, it immediately fails as a comedy. A thriller, suspense or action show like Fauda must have thrills, suspense and action competently done as a minimum - and here it does. Too often nowadays, the basics fail.
But if that was all it had, I’m not sure I’d stick around beyond a few episodes.
There are a couple more enticements. The first is again, fairly basic, but I’ll take it - the enviroments and cultural markers feel very authentic and are fresh enough to be a major positive element (that has as yet not been thoroughly played out).
The other, is the acting... no, not the actors playing Israelis, the majority of whom seem quite surprisingly bad, I say surprisingly, because Israel has so many good actors. But what they are asked to do is play fake characters, and unfortunately it comes through - if a character is written badly enough, it’s extremely hard to give a good performance.
No, the real heroes are the actors who play the Arabic/Palestinian roles, who despite being asked to play one-dimensional beasts, acquit themselves with such humanity that they manage to shine through the crude propaganda they’re saddled with. Truly admirable. They actually make you feel a level of believability that’s way beyond what you’d expect from the text. I am full of admiration for so many of these performances - I can only hope that they can get more work based on this, because they are magnificent, so many - too many to name! A real, real treat, and a redeeming feature of this series, despite itself, something valuable shines through. Bravo!
So, summa summarum, my rating would be 3 stars out of 5, a Qualified Recommend. I think it’s worth watching, I don’t think it’s a waste of time. The well-crafted narrative drive, the magnificent performances from a lot of the actors and the local color - good enough, and better than the majority of the shows out there IMHO. So if you’re looking for something to watch, you could do worse than watch Fauda Season 1 (I am saying nothing about the remaining seasons 2 & 3, as I have not watched them yet!). YMMV and all IMHO.
EDIT: I have now watched all three seasons of “Fauda”. The second season started weaker than the first, but then got stronger - not by having fewer faults than the ones I enumerated, but by having an even stronger narrative drive.
But the third season was pretty disappointing overall. It really turned much more into a soap opera, all the flaws were still there, but worse - the Arabs were even worse beasts the Israelis even more saintly, and the narrative drive started faltering toward the end; in fact the last two episodes were outright weak - so weak, I started fast forwarding through the “slow” parts, of which there were many. The last two episodes were boring - an unforgivable sin, especially for an action thriller; it became mawkish and cliched and focused on the “grief of loss” done in an extremely uninteresting way. The creators forgot the iron law of any work of art, certainly any film or TV show - you cannot fail at the basics. They failed at the basics - you are making an action thriller, if it’s not thrilling and there is little action, YOU HAVE FAILED AT THE BASICS. I am not interested in what the excuses were, how they had to wrap things up and how they had to resolve story lines - YOU FAILED.
The series ended with a clunker. It was very, very weak. If the whole series were like the last two episodes, I would have bailed right in the middle of the first of those weak episodes. I only stuck it out, because that was the end of the whole series. If you cannot end a series well, that’s a very bad sign. They need fresh blood and a serious re-think of the approach and what they want to accomplish. As it is, the show was getting “samey” same old, same old, and the clumsy set ups more glaring. I’m afraid we’re done here - perhaps they have ideas about doing another season, but I’m not sure I’m willing to give them more time without some serious upgrading in the writing. YMMV.
I have heard about this series for quite some time, with many people praising it. On IMBD, it has a pretty high score of 8.2. Somehow or other I have not seen it before now, but then I watched “Tehran” on Apple TV+ (see thread I started) and was very impressed with that show. I also read that Fauda was a kind of antecedent to Tehran, and that finally pushed me to watch it.
So far, I have watched only Season 1 (all 12 episodes).[UPDATE: see edit below - I have now seen all 3 seasons and amended this post at the bottom with commentary on the remaining seasons]
Let’s get this clear right off the bat: Tehran is *vastly* superior to Fauda. In fact, I think Fauda is pretty disappointing overall (compared to the hype and IMDB rating), with a couple of caveats. A big issue is that unlike Tehran, which attempts to be fairly even handed with both sides of this conflict, Fauda is by comparison straightforward propaganda “Israel good, Israelis complex humans, Palestinians beasts” - I’m not going to get into the politics of it, because even though it’s a politically charged show, I prefer to keep DVXuser politics-free as much as possible. So ‘nough said about that. But the consequence of that is we disengage to a degree from characters that seem cardboard villains and skewed unrealistically; watching it sometimes feels like participating in dehumanization of some groups of people. Not good.
The characters lack some depth, on both sides (as written, but see caveat about acting) despite superficial efforts, and worse, lack consitency and plausibility, instead they feel written, not like actual human beings. And, cliches abound.
Many, many scenes and scenarios and developments also feel “written”, and by the numbers. We are asked to hold both that the people involved are incredibly smart and do completely implausibly stupid things. Plot points strain credulity beyond breaking.
Now for the caveats - and why I watched all 12 episodes of the first season, and will probably - have not completely decided yet - watch the other seasons.
Well, despite the crudity, the series has good narrative drive. Action sequences (primitive though often they are), are well timed and reasonably executed. Cliffhangers are well distributed and the plot holds your attention. This may seem like entertainment 101, but oh, so sorely lacking in most TV & movies out there. People can’t do the effing basics - hold our attention, and have a narrative drive! Geez. So any show that can accomplish at least those basics is an automatic winner. It’s like praising a comedy for being funny - that’s its job! If it ain’t funny, it immediately fails as a comedy. A thriller, suspense or action show like Fauda must have thrills, suspense and action competently done as a minimum - and here it does. Too often nowadays, the basics fail.
But if that was all it had, I’m not sure I’d stick around beyond a few episodes.
There are a couple more enticements. The first is again, fairly basic, but I’ll take it - the enviroments and cultural markers feel very authentic and are fresh enough to be a major positive element (that has as yet not been thoroughly played out).
The other, is the acting... no, not the actors playing Israelis, the majority of whom seem quite surprisingly bad, I say surprisingly, because Israel has so many good actors. But what they are asked to do is play fake characters, and unfortunately it comes through - if a character is written badly enough, it’s extremely hard to give a good performance.
No, the real heroes are the actors who play the Arabic/Palestinian roles, who despite being asked to play one-dimensional beasts, acquit themselves with such humanity that they manage to shine through the crude propaganda they’re saddled with. Truly admirable. They actually make you feel a level of believability that’s way beyond what you’d expect from the text. I am full of admiration for so many of these performances - I can only hope that they can get more work based on this, because they are magnificent, so many - too many to name! A real, real treat, and a redeeming feature of this series, despite itself, something valuable shines through. Bravo!
So, summa summarum, my rating would be 3 stars out of 5, a Qualified Recommend. I think it’s worth watching, I don’t think it’s a waste of time. The well-crafted narrative drive, the magnificent performances from a lot of the actors and the local color - good enough, and better than the majority of the shows out there IMHO. So if you’re looking for something to watch, you could do worse than watch Fauda Season 1 (I am saying nothing about the remaining seasons 2 & 3, as I have not watched them yet!). YMMV and all IMHO.
EDIT: I have now watched all three seasons of “Fauda”. The second season started weaker than the first, but then got stronger - not by having fewer faults than the ones I enumerated, but by having an even stronger narrative drive.
But the third season was pretty disappointing overall. It really turned much more into a soap opera, all the flaws were still there, but worse - the Arabs were even worse beasts the Israelis even more saintly, and the narrative drive started faltering toward the end; in fact the last two episodes were outright weak - so weak, I started fast forwarding through the “slow” parts, of which there were many. The last two episodes were boring - an unforgivable sin, especially for an action thriller; it became mawkish and cliched and focused on the “grief of loss” done in an extremely uninteresting way. The creators forgot the iron law of any work of art, certainly any film or TV show - you cannot fail at the basics. They failed at the basics - you are making an action thriller, if it’s not thrilling and there is little action, YOU HAVE FAILED AT THE BASICS. I am not interested in what the excuses were, how they had to wrap things up and how they had to resolve story lines - YOU FAILED.
The series ended with a clunker. It was very, very weak. If the whole series were like the last two episodes, I would have bailed right in the middle of the first of those weak episodes. I only stuck it out, because that was the end of the whole series. If you cannot end a series well, that’s a very bad sign. They need fresh blood and a serious re-think of the approach and what they want to accomplish. As it is, the show was getting “samey” same old, same old, and the clumsy set ups more glaring. I’m afraid we’re done here - perhaps they have ideas about doing another season, but I’m not sure I’m willing to give them more time without some serious upgrading in the writing. YMMV.
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