The Peripheral

I've read the novel and really enjoyed it. The sequel was a bit weaker. Hope they do a good job with this one, but don't have Prime so I'll probably miss out.
 
KurtF said:
I've read the novel and really enjoyed it. The sequel was a bit weaker. Hope they do a good job with this one, but don't have Prime so I'll probably miss out.
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Well, you could wait til they've released all the episodes and then binge it with a 30-day trial or get a subscription for a month.

So far, I think it's really well made. I haven't read the book. My only critique is that some aspects feel a bit childish. As in, I would have been completely invested in some of the action sequences or the villainy of the bad guy when I was 12. Now, it seems a bit silly at times. Fun, and excellent popcorn-munching material, but unrealistic. In contrast, i find many aspects of the societal and technological developments quite compelling
 
I read the novel (read almost every novel Gibson has published) and I am watching.

I am enjoying it but they have modified the story to be easier to understand (the novel was so confusing at the beginning that I wondered if there was something wrong with my ebook) and have more stress on the action. It is not that the action scenes do not exist (as far as I remember) but that small scenes that take very space in the book become quite big set pieces in the TV show.

I am a bit baffled by the look of the show. It has this yellow cast that I am not loving. It reminded me of Paper Girls which had a pink cast. I looked into it and it does not look like there's a connection and the people working in colour both series have done other stuff before that I thought looked much better. It is strange to me how similarly the images seem to have been treated in both shows.

And to conclude my TED talk, I am really liking Amazon's sci-fi series. They may not always be good, but they always feel quite idiosyncratic. They are taking swings and I like them for it.
 
FWIW, both were shot on the Sony Venice.

Not sure what's going on with PG - but that yellow/brown cast you mentioned is Sony's famous look for that camera and about as Sony as you could get.

Maverick, Bad Boys, etc...all have it.
 
I have seen Maverick and I kind of see what you mean, but I'd say it is much stronger in The Peripheral. I remember hearing some colourist talking about trends and saying that teal/orange was migrating to teal/yellow so I wonder if there's some of that. Also, [SPOILER]some of the "worlds" depicted in The Peripheral are known to be simulations, so I wonder if that's a conscious choice inspired by The Matrix's green cast, but that does not explain Paper Girl's weird pink cast.[/SPOILER]
 
I looked at the trailer again (I have seen it a few times before because the show is heavily promoted on TNF) and I think the skintones contribute a lot to the overall yellow vibe.
 
the cold open of episode 3 was straight out of breaking bad. the look wasn't exactly the same as some yellow cast scenes in BB, and this was a flashback so it had a stronger cast than the rest of the show. but the plot and scenework. everything. could have been a cold open to an episode of Breaking Bad.

generally I like the look. and I like that the future scenes don't look totally antiseptic like the aesthetics of Apple which are frequently used in movies set in the future.

btw how good is the actor who plays Burton? there's a lot of good acting on this show
 
watching episode 5. man, it's crazy how much better the dialogue is on this show than on any American show. it's very interesting and fast-paced, but it also endows the characters with a lot of intelligence and a large vocabulary. I'm simply not used to hearing people speak so eloquently on American shows (or in real life in the US)
 
I have to say, as European and not a native speaker of English, that neither acting nor dialogue stand out to me as good, however, I did notice that the series is really respectful of its characters (and hence agree with your observations about the dialogue even though that does not mean to me that it is good (what's good, though???)).

Lynne, her mum and other people in town are depicted in a way that reads "hillbilly" like many characters in Justified (to name a show that had characters from a similar background) but they are still presented as intelligent (not cunning, which is a fine difference to make, but worth it because I feel "hillbillies" are often presented as cunning).

The show is not going "look, these future brits are smart while the "current" Americans are dumb", which I am really appreciating.
 
aram said:
I have seen Maverick and I kind of see what you mean, but I'd say it is much stronger in The Peripheral. I remember hearing some colourist talking about trends and saying that teal/orange was migrating to teal/yellow so I wonder if there's some of that. Also, [SPOILER]some of the "worlds" depicted in The Peripheral are known to be simulations, so I wonder if that's a conscious choice inspired by The Matrix's green cast, but that does not explain Paper Girl's weird pink cast.[/SPOILER]
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Dramatic TV series often have a more extreme look with the color than you would see in movies. I think it is how they try keep the look consistent across multiple episodes being shot by different directors / DPs.
 
agcohn said:
Dramatic TV series often have a more extreme look with the color than you would see in movies. I think it is how they try keep the look consistent across multiple episodes being shot by different directors / DPs.
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I had not thought about that, but it makes total sense. Slap a super stylized look on top of anything, it all ends up looking the same and hence consistent as you point out!
 
aram said:
I have to say, as European and not a native speaker of English, that neither acting nor dialogue stand out to me as good, however, I did notice that the series is really respectful of its characters (and hence agree with your observations about the dialogue even though that does not mean to me that it is good (what's good, though???)).

Lynne, her mum and other people in town are depicted in a way that reads "hillbilly" like many characters in Justified (to name a show that had characters from a similar background) but they are still presented as intelligent (not cunning, which is a fine difference to make, but worth it because I feel "hillbillies" are often presented as cunning).

The show is not going "look, these future brits are smart while the "current" Americans are dumb", which I am really appreciating.
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I basically agree with what you said here. But it's the British dialogue that I really enjoy because Americans don't speak with as much flourish or as large a vocabulary.

In the pilot, she asks her handler if she needs a weapon, and the answer is "only the rapier of your wit, if you possess such a thing." I can't imagine an American saying that.

In ep 5, someone says that she had kids since getting married. "Was it a stipulation?" her ex-lover asks. Later, one refers to the other as "a lower echelon type."

The British are just far more concerned with wordplay than Americans. I've filmed over 250 weddings and probably 98% were American couples with Americans giving the toasts. But without a doubt, the two best toasts I ever heard were by an Irishman (a brutal roast) and an Englishman (elegant charm), at two separate weddings.
 
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