Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Much Ado About Nothing (PG-13):
I have minimal appreciation for Shakespeare, as anytime it popped up in English class, it just meant that the teacher had run out of lesson plans and wanted to waste a week reading plays out loud. Obviously, I'm not in the target audience for Joss Whedon's remake of this play (in modern times but with the original text), but we put it on a few weekends ago to give it a try. The contrast between the setting and the dialogue is a jarring dissonance that my brain could never quite get over, and it felt more like a drama club's self-indulgence than a real movie. The only impact it had on me was seeing all of the familiar Whedonverse actors and wishing that Dollhouse hadn't been cancelled so quickly. We turned it off after fifteen minutes. Free on Amazon Prime.

Final Grade: Not Graded

Orange is the New Black, Season One:
I originally dismissed this as a Not Graded last Fall, but finally caught up on the entire season so I could potentially watch the second one with Rebecca. However, my original opinion stands. The show is tonally and emotionally inconsistent, failing to mix drama and comedy together with any skill, the main character is consistently unappealing, and most of the flashback sequences are of the "Jack's LOST tattoos" variety. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: C

West Wing, Season Five, Six, and Seven:
I burned through the last three seasons (written after the departure of the show's creator) during recent bouts of coding. Season five is boring and low on continuity. What was set up at the end of season four as a juicy political situation is resolved almost immediately, and John Goodman is wasted. Season six improves somewhat. Season seven focuses heavily on a Presidential campaign. While this gives the show some needed urgency, the final season spends too much time with guest characters (although Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda are both great). The series ends pleasantly and as expected. Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: C-, B-, B

Awake, Season One:
This high-brow show is about a police detective who ends up living in two realities after a car accident -- in one, his wife has survived, and in the other, his son has survived. He sees a psychiatrist in each reality who tries to convince him that the other reality is just a coping mechanism to deal with his grief. Hints and clues from each reality bleed together to help him remember the accident and solve his police work. Each reality is filmed in a red or green tint to help the viewer understand which is in play, a fact that I was oblivious to for several episodes because of colour-blindness. However, after printing out a cheat sheet of which characters appear where, I was thoroughly engrossed.

The show is fairly slow when it uses the two realities as a serendipity device to do procedural cop work, but really spins up to potential in the final four episodes of the thirteen episode run. The final episode goes a little too far off the rails for my taste, but manages to function well as both a season and series finale. (It was cancelled after a single season). Free on Netflix.

Final Grade: B+