I don't know if it's kosher to start a thread about a series where I've only watched the first two episodes, but here goes. Don't read if you don't want spoilers, though I don't think I'm doing much in the way of mentioning specific content, it's more general ruminations.
I'm a pretty big fan of ST season 1, so I was looking forward to season 2 with great hopes. I've only watched the first two episodes, and I honestly don't know if I can stomach watching more. It's just a giant disappointment. Almost nothing works for me here. Again - I'm talking about only the first two episodes. It seems extremely scattered and disconnected. It's as if the creators here just wanted to cram everything in, start as many subplots and plot lines as possible, but it has an extremely alienating effect, where you feel no continuity and as a result don't really care. Plus, when you have so many things introduced, it's often with super little depth. Tons of scenes and all shallow - not good. There seems insufficient throughlines, so that the scenes all feel disconneted, it's as if you could take all the scenes, mix them up and re-assemble at random - same effect. It absolutely promotes no engagement. And the scenes themselves are uninvolving.
The thing that was charming in the first season, here has been hamfistedly destroyed. Season one had a nostalgic feel of the 80's kids in movies Spielbergian aspect. Here the guys went way, way, way overboard, jamming in as many 80's references as they could - music, arcades and video games, movie references, but all super shallow. It's oppressive. And they attempt to hang drama arcs on these feeble uninvolving markers. Example: a whole bunch of time and effort is devoted to getting quarters together. Super keyed up fake urgency from the kids, robbing the sister's piggy bank and radio/w-t communicating between themselves, one-upmanship blah, blah, blah. You'd think it was all toward some substantial plot point. Nope, it was all to show how devoted they are to arcade games. Pffft... lame, lame, lame. The drama of the quarters in uninvolving in service of an uninvolving end. Waste of time and viewer patience.
Meanwhile the in your face cramming of 80's pop effluvia is at a certain point actually offensive. The whole Ghostbusters overlay - wow, I'd actually be embarrassed. This isn't some homage, or riff or reference - it's straight up appropriation, where they not only rip off the movie prop and character references, but - and now it crosses over into straight up appropriation, the MUSIC insistent soundtrack. This is OFFENSIVE, basically you're stealing the juice from the movie to prop up your lame-a$$ series. Because if the Ghostbusters theme music could be at least heard by the characters - diegetic - you'd have some excuse for featuring that music. But it's used extensively as simply the soundtrack, non-diegetically... and that's straight up theft, trying to prop up your lamo garbage with the music from a film. So, so lame.
And so on and on. Whole stretches that are just straight up boring. A sad contrast to the first season, where they would let characters sit in silence and do things things through implication and everything had some weight. Here there is tons of frenetic activity, nobody can sit still, and it all amounts to empty fireworks. We. Don't. Care.
And somehow, even the acting by the kids got worse - probably through no fault of their own, but the lines and the writing is so bad, that they can't make those lines sound plausible, so it just sounds fake and written and the impression is of bad insincere acting and lame lines. Winona Ryder was fantastic in season 1, here she is saddled with a relationship that we don't believe she'd go for, and it destroys her character. Just tragic all around. Plus, I think they overestimate how much people remember of the first season. F.ex. while I remembered what happened to the Barb character, my wife did not - as a result, when the two teenagers have dinner with the parents of Barb, my wife couldn't understand who they were, and why did those two go over there, for what purpose. As a matter of fact, even I who remembered the Barb subplot didn't see what the motivation for the dinner was.
Everything is hamfisted and clumsy. I expressed how disappointed I was in the first two episodes, and a friend who binge watched the whole thing said it gets much better later on. I guess I may have to do my grim duty and continue watching. My wife bailed. What's your take?
I'm a pretty big fan of ST season 1, so I was looking forward to season 2 with great hopes. I've only watched the first two episodes, and I honestly don't know if I can stomach watching more. It's just a giant disappointment. Almost nothing works for me here. Again - I'm talking about only the first two episodes. It seems extremely scattered and disconnected. It's as if the creators here just wanted to cram everything in, start as many subplots and plot lines as possible, but it has an extremely alienating effect, where you feel no continuity and as a result don't really care. Plus, when you have so many things introduced, it's often with super little depth. Tons of scenes and all shallow - not good. There seems insufficient throughlines, so that the scenes all feel disconneted, it's as if you could take all the scenes, mix them up and re-assemble at random - same effect. It absolutely promotes no engagement. And the scenes themselves are uninvolving.
The thing that was charming in the first season, here has been hamfistedly destroyed. Season one had a nostalgic feel of the 80's kids in movies Spielbergian aspect. Here the guys went way, way, way overboard, jamming in as many 80's references as they could - music, arcades and video games, movie references, but all super shallow. It's oppressive. And they attempt to hang drama arcs on these feeble uninvolving markers. Example: a whole bunch of time and effort is devoted to getting quarters together. Super keyed up fake urgency from the kids, robbing the sister's piggy bank and radio/w-t communicating between themselves, one-upmanship blah, blah, blah. You'd think it was all toward some substantial plot point. Nope, it was all to show how devoted they are to arcade games. Pffft... lame, lame, lame. The drama of the quarters in uninvolving in service of an uninvolving end. Waste of time and viewer patience.
Meanwhile the in your face cramming of 80's pop effluvia is at a certain point actually offensive. The whole Ghostbusters overlay - wow, I'd actually be embarrassed. This isn't some homage, or riff or reference - it's straight up appropriation, where they not only rip off the movie prop and character references, but - and now it crosses over into straight up appropriation, the MUSIC insistent soundtrack. This is OFFENSIVE, basically you're stealing the juice from the movie to prop up your lame-a$$ series. Because if the Ghostbusters theme music could be at least heard by the characters - diegetic - you'd have some excuse for featuring that music. But it's used extensively as simply the soundtrack, non-diegetically... and that's straight up theft, trying to prop up your lamo garbage with the music from a film. So, so lame.
And so on and on. Whole stretches that are just straight up boring. A sad contrast to the first season, where they would let characters sit in silence and do things things through implication and everything had some weight. Here there is tons of frenetic activity, nobody can sit still, and it all amounts to empty fireworks. We. Don't. Care.
And somehow, even the acting by the kids got worse - probably through no fault of their own, but the lines and the writing is so bad, that they can't make those lines sound plausible, so it just sounds fake and written and the impression is of bad insincere acting and lame lines. Winona Ryder was fantastic in season 1, here she is saddled with a relationship that we don't believe she'd go for, and it destroys her character. Just tragic all around. Plus, I think they overestimate how much people remember of the first season. F.ex. while I remembered what happened to the Barb character, my wife did not - as a result, when the two teenagers have dinner with the parents of Barb, my wife couldn't understand who they were, and why did those two go over there, for what purpose. As a matter of fact, even I who remembered the Barb subplot didn't see what the motivation for the dinner was.
Everything is hamfisted and clumsy. I expressed how disappointed I was in the first two episodes, and a friend who binge watched the whole thing said it gets much better later on. I guess I may have to do my grim duty and continue watching. My wife bailed. What's your take?
