Do watch The Morning Show. There's a reason this is a Golden Globe award-winning show. WOW! Then 10 episodes were brilliant.
Everybody watch this
Are you a voter?
Then please watch David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet on Netflix, and from now on only vote for politicians who promises to follow some of the advice Mr. Attenborough gives at the end of this documentary.
Not for natures sake. For humanity’s survival.
The Great Hack
Netflix, documentary
You need to know this
We pride ourselves that our elections are not rigged. It is one of the things that set real democracies apart, in a good way, from dictatorships and corrupt governments.
However, we are wrong.
(At least if the contents of the Netflix documentary, The Great Hack, are truthful.)
You probably heard about the scandal surrounding the British company Cambridge Analytica who were caught abusing Facebook data to influence the election where Donald Trump became the president.
It is much bigger though.
Did you know that many other elections around the globe was rigged in a similar manner by the same company? In subtle ways they used stolen data, social media influence and other things to target specific voters. They changed enough people’s minds to win the election for whomever payed them.
Did you know that the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, SCL, used to train personal from both the UK and USA in information warfare? Or claimed they did.
And according to this documentary that is just the top of the iceberg.
You can start by protecting yourself a bit by watching The Great Hack. In truth, it is not all that great a documentary, but you should watch it anyway, and all the way through. It reveals quite a lot of interesting stuff we all need to know about.
Yes, we have made good systems which protect the voter, so they can vote in peace and quite.
Yes, we protect the votes from tampering afterwards, so the counting is done fairly.
Does this matter?
No, it is no longer enough. By sifting through the data, we all leave behind on social media, systems have been created which can figure out which voters are most likely to change their opinion in a an election or who are most likely to refrain from voting.
By influencing some to vote that would not or the opposite, or simply change people’s mind through a bombardment of adds you can sway most elections in the desired way.
But is this not fair enough? Those who have the money or time can influence people. Is that not have it has always been?
Times have changed, so it is not quite the same no.
Before this sort of thing had to be done in public places, in order to influence many people’s votes at the same time. Rally’s and posters. TV, radio and newspapers. What one side did was visible to the other.
The scandal around Cambridge Analytica showed how Facebook’s lack of user data protection and focus on earnings actively helped Cambridge Analytica influence the American elections, and get Donald Trump voted into office.
These days you use Facebook adds targeted specifically at only the people in the places where it matters the most, like an undecided voter in a swing state, and only those specific people see it.
How do you defend against hate (or compassion or whatever) spread in a not visible way to people you do not know who are? Is it fair that since at least currently doing this costs a lot of money the opposition will in many places not have the cash to fight those in power?
Another difference is that we at some point in the west decided it was a bad idea to send out soldiers or police to beat up or imprison opposition leaders and the like. We decided that this level of interference in an election was not fair.
Can we trust The Great Hack documentary?
While I do believe elections are being rigged in the subtle ways described, the creators are not very good at making documentaries. It is shoddy workmanship laden with fear-based rhetoric.
For instance, while the documentary raises many good points, they focus endlessly on the less important stuff. So many interviews with the former executive of Cambridge Analytica, Brittany Kaiser, but they never ask her any hard questions.
She claims to be a former activist who went to the “dark side,” and is now reformed.
Is she really though? Here is what I dug up:
Seems like Brittany Kaiser is a through-and-through con artist (or perhaps spy?) What do you think?
Unfortunately, the documentary missed a good opportunity to ask the questions above.
However military information warfare software and knowhow is now freely being used by private contractors like Cambridge Analytica on behalf of politicians to basically wage an information war on the citizens of our countries, and the most sad part of it is, that the politicians with the least restraint, weakest morals and the biggest wallets are the ones benefitting the most from this. Just like the ones who send out soldiers or police to beat up the opposition.
Who is doing it?
Everybody knows that China are censuring the internet big time. Did you know they have internment camps for Muslims too? How are they targeting their population in China digitally, making everyone do what the rulers want them to?
Russia has a troll army (excuse me, I meant “dedicate and clever IT professionals with a patriotic mindset working for Putin”). How are they targeting the Russian voters? Making them happy or afraid enough to keep voting for the rulers?
Obama did it, Trump did it. Brexit did it.
How many other countries or the opposition in those countries are doing digital voter warfare big time? Yours? Mine? France, Italy, and Germany perhaps?
Something must be done. Unfortunately, the people who make the laws are the ones using information warfare, so perhaps the “best” we can hope for is that all political parties and movements start to use information warfare and that we voters become better at spotting the stuff they do. If not, we will end up with a Donald in each country at the very top.
Or do we already have that?
“Hello Boris Johnson, how did you get voted into Downing Street no. 10?”
/Rune S. Nielsen
Designated Survivor
Netflix, Season 3
So good it hurts (himself)
Best season to date.
The pretense for the series Designated Survivor is that an explosion claims the lives of the president, the entire succession, and most other important American politicians. The one exception is the almost unknown Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Thomas “Tom” Kirkman who steps in as president because he is the only one left standing.
Kirkman is not very politically savvy but an expert with a heart of gold. He never made it far in politics for these very reasons. He is so much a good guy that he is far too honest and unselfish to be taken seriously. So, what if someone like him became president?
It is a great idea for a series, and the cast is good too.
The latest season
Season three is the best so far. Being in power and campaigning to stay in the office slowly corrupts even goody-good Kirkman and the people around him, or does it? I liked his new campaign boss-lady (played by Julie White). Is she a traitor working for his opponent, his best friend, or what? A scary bio-threat might kill a lot of people. Could someone develop this for real? Use of documentary video sequences showing real Americans commenting on what they think needs to be changed in society is good at making the plots feel important and meaningful. Like the subplot around combatting the opioid addictions brought on by taking proscribed medications. This blending of documentary video, real issues, and fictitious events gives the series a nice kick. I hope they use it in the next season as well.
Throughout all the seasons the writers have spent many minutes on action "spy-plots" while being clearly more interested in the political questions and development of the characters. In this manner, the various plots revolving around the FBI and CIA played second fiddle to the political stories, and the “administrative” stories such as how to rebuild the administration, and the personal like Kirkman coming to terms with being thrust into the president’s chair.
The series is worth your time, but I suggest you watch it the fast way: Binge down the first few episodes then skips to season three. It’s only ten episodes long.
If you want to know what is wrong with the rest read on.
Why I did not review the first two seasons
As you may know, I only review stuff I really like, and while the first seasons were decent, there were several things bugging me too much to bother endorsing it.
I guess the writers are doing their best to make a "perfect president". In many ways, Kirkman is as good a guy as they come, but this often becomes boring. It would be nice if they made more things that translated towards the reality of who governs the US currently.
Give the man some flaws and make the public respect and adore him more for his obvious qualities instead of continually questioning if he is what he really is.
Then make them dislike him for other reasons. Political or emotional reasons for instance. Enough to make it a race to stay in power.
Kirkman has so many weak points you can exploit, most of them revolving around him being naive or such a good guy. He loves everyone and thinks everyone deserves a chance or respect or whatever. Even if many people say they do exactly that, they continue to vote for people who clearly don’t so surprise! Voters don’t either. Most of us hu-mans are selfish or care about some cause close to us or some cause we feel has been neglected, or just out of fear or spite. If not, the world would be a better place. Not to say everything is bad or anything, but it could be better.
Writers: Step on his week points one at a time.
The biggest issue I have with the series is however something completely different. It’s the not-so-interesting action scenes and investigations.
Non-action action
The writers treated the pretense of the story far less well than they could have. The series started off extremely well with you questioning everyone who was not dead. Which of them were in on it? What exactly were they in on? I want to know now!
This part of the plot had the potential to be extremely interesting and did make for some interesting FBI manhunts and action sequences.
Were there more bombings coming? Was the public safe? Why did the bombing happen in the first place? A prelude to a military coup, religious coup, or political coup? Was another country behind the attack? Perhaps wanting to invade or destabilize the USA. Was it one or more crooked corporations or perhaps foreign or local extremists?
Did the writers dare change the tone of the show by offering an explanation nobody expected? Just imagine if it was alien zombies from Mars with psionic powers who did it! Perhaps you like the transformers better or a secret society of occultists neo-Nazi from the dark side of the moon?
Not that I thought it was any of those things for a moment (ok, maybe for a moment I did. It could have been so much fun.) What I really wanted was a good plausible explanation though. Did I get it? Nope.
Instead, the president forced Hanna Wells to try and singlehandedly solve the whole thing with almost no help from any part of the government. What a complete disrespect for the hard work of all those US government agencies, police forces, and “hello”, the military. It’s like the biggest case of forever and they put this one agent on it. A cowboy who runs around killing people. That’s mature.
In the end, I had stopped caring who was responsible all together. The bad guys were that uninteresting, and it all seemed an excuse for Hanna Wells running around waving her gun or hitting someone.
For a while, I speculated that perhaps the real culprits had not been caught. That the ones they caught were just a smokescreen, but no, the plot was that lame. In hindsight, it would have been much better had they wrapped the action plot up early on with a bang or put some thought and/or feeling into it.
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Turn Up Charlie
Netflix, Season 1
DJ Nanny
I liked this first season and quickly went through the eight short episodes.
All is not right in the life of former one-hit-wonder popstar, Charlie Ayo, played by Idris Elba (who plays Heimdall in the Thor movies and Stringer Bell in the HBO-series The Wire). He longs for a comeback but ends up becoming a nanny (or manny) for his famous movie actor friend's problem-kid Gabrielle played by Frankie Hervey.
All the while Charlie is lying to his parents in Africa, claiming to be a successful record label manager while in reality he struggles to make ends meet. Living out of a tiny room in his auntie’s house and working as a part time DJ doing crap gigs, friend's weddings plus odd-jobs around London.
Charlie gets suckered into the Nanny job in the hopes of studio time with his friend’s wife, hit DJ Sara Cane, played really well by Piper Perabo (you might remember her from the 2001 movie Coyote Ugly or from Covert Affairs). He longs to be just as good as her, and his life is complicated by his attraction to her as well as to her manager Astrid (Angela Griffin).
Idris Elba not only stars but is also one of the creators of the series together with producer and director Gary Reich. Mr. Elba does a fine job of portraying the former popstar who dreams of renewed fame. A hopeful loser with a good heart who might just make it back to the top despite his age.
If you want to see something really funny, then pick some other show. Turn Up Charlie’s strength is not the comedy despite the labeling. Sure, there are funny moments in each episode, and some whacky characters, like Auntie Lydia, Del and Hunter, but what makes this series work is the underlaying issues and sadness.
/Rune S. Nielsen
TITANS
Netflix, Season 1
Scary good
Horror and superheroes might sound like a strange combination, but it works like a charm in TITANS, and rarely have a binge watched a first season as fast as this.
If like me you were sad to hear that two of the Marvel super hero series won't be picked up by Netflix for additional seasons, then don't be.
The TITANS are here, and they are honestly way better than their Marvel counterparts, so goodbye Iron Fist and Luke Cage hello TITANS!
The first scene of TITANS starts off rather strange and not very interesting, and then they do the flip. Robin goes on a child molester hunt and you are pushed back into the seat and continue to be so for the reminder of the series.
The two main things in the first series are following Dick Greyson’s struggle with his identity as the violent Robin and Raven, a good person, struggling with and discovering a terrible dark power inside herself.
Those two parts of the plot really work. The plot with Starfire discovering who she is, could have been s bit better. Especially it is confusing that in the beginning of the series she hits a man, so he flies away like a rag doll and she burns a hole in a house, and then for the remainder of the first season it’s like every time she tries something it fails.
If you have a really tough superhero on the team use her powers.
The only part of the series which are weak is the subplot with "Gar the tiger boy" who just happens to meet raven in an arcade and then joins the team, and who lives with hopefully the strangest assortment of medical experiment people in the DC universe. I fear there are anyone odder than them.
That any plot involving demons and horror as a major theme works well with the superhero theme is not an easy thing to accomplish, but the team behind TITANS pull it off to such an extent that I end up binge watching the show. This really pulled it off.
You have to understand that horror and the supernatural series are not really my thing. Yes, I did watch and liked the first seasons of Supernatural and a few other series in this genre, but I'm not someone who is really into scary things, and zombies, ghouls and chainsaws tend to bore me after a while.
What could have been
I follow most superhero series and in my view the Marvel tv-series are typically a bit better than their DC counterparts, but just think if S.H.I.E.L.D season 4 had taken a similar approach to Ghost Rider like TITANS did with Raven. It would have been so much better!
Not that S.H.I.E.L.D season 4 was a bad season. In fact, actor Gabriel Luna did a fine job portraying the Ghost Rider but was let down by writers who did not use the fact much that Ghost Rider, at least in my opinion, is a horror character first and a super hero second (or enhanced individual if you like).
When we portray horror characters like just another alien or dimensional traveler it becomes dull. It is not that I have any problem with gods or devils potentially being aliens or dimensional travelers, but horror is a cool spice you can use to make the viewer question whether the normally invincible heroes are really going to come out of this encounter mentally and physically intact. A way to make them vulnerable.
Ghost Rider was actually one of the first Marvel series I ever read (I was six or seven years old and had no idea at the time what the Marvel universe was). The occult however was big in the seventies and I saw Ghost Rider strictly as a horror comic book. I remember visions Johnny Blaze had of occult symbols, a devil in the sky talking to him, the four horsemen, embodiments of the zodiac signs, Native American shamans and spirits and so forth. Yes, he fought heroes and villains from the marvel universe also but the setting was definitely horror.
The underdog DC vs. Marvel
I admit that I seldom review superhero series here though, as few are good enough that I feel I need to review then (I tend to only review stuff I like a lot).
I watch DC tv-series like The Flash, Supergirl, Green Arrow and Guardians of Tomorrow, and while they are all right, meaning they go from embarrassingly bad (think some of the episodes of Guardians of Tomorrow) to good they are rarely something I get excited about. Season 4 of The Flash was actually an exception, the writing was surprisingly good, and I would review the series if the prior seasons had been better.
My past impressions of the TITANS
I admit that I have not followed comic books since back in my youth, and the few cartoons I looked at for one minute staring the Titans, were probably meant to be funny but were in fact just bad.
When I bought my first copy of The Incredible Hulk, I think I was eight, I fell in love with the Marvel universe.
I was used to reading DC's superman and batman, I liked them and continued buying them, but I have to admit I ranked titles like Spiderman, x-men, and fantastic four higher.
Marvel at its best was simply better than the best of DC, no DC title could compete with for instance x-men by John Byrne - the dark phoenix saga, wow, beautiful and cool drawings and great storytelling!
Way back when in 1983…
Then one day when I was thirteen I bought a seemingly modest comic book called the New Teen Titans. As this was a DC comic (by Perez og Wolfman), I thought it would be all right but not great. I mean the only team member I knew beforehand was Robin, the lame sidekick of Batman.
Boy was I wrong, it was absolutely fantastic and one of the very best comic books I ever bought as a kid. It could compete with John Byrne's X-men any day.
The new TITANS first season on Netflix is the same.
You think it is not going to be very good, and then it blows you away. I look forward to the second season, and hope you enjoy watching the TITANS.
/Rune S. Nielsen
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
“It makes me feel like a whale falling towards a large big green and blue ball (let’s call it a planet), accompanied only by a small potted plant, and being oddly happy and ok with the situation.”
"What do you mean 42 forever? Hmm...."
Netflix, Season 1-2
A holistic review
This review is holistic, meaning that everything is connected.
I have loved Douglas Adams writing for many years, and if you love his books too, or bizarre comedies, then you will find that Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a really fun series to watch.
Don't worry if you (like me) have been sadly disappointed by the terrible movies versions of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, this series is much better. It makes me feel like a whale falling towards a large big green and blue ball (let’s call it a planet), accompanied only by a small potted plant, and being oddly happy and ok with the situation.
Season 1 and two (2) actually makes me feel like a small boy, the kind of small boy that lives in a man's body and is in a coma and is placed on a steel bed somewhere in a Blackwing facility while he dreams up new realities, things that are a bit off but still kind of really wonderful and perfect.
PS: It was great to see Frodo again. Go "assistant"!
PPPS: Now it’s time for me to watch something else, and for YOU to go watch Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. What are you waiting for? Go!
/Rune S. Nielsen
GLOW
Netflix, Season 1-2
Don’t read this - go watch GLOW instead!
One of my favorite Netflix shows is Glow, but if I tell you what it is about you will likely think it is crap or too strange for your taste.
However, I can only stress that it is a very good show, and worth watching, so what are you reading this for?
Go and watch Glow!
/Rune S. Nielsen
I mean it - go watch Glow, now!
SUITS
Netflix, Season 1-5
A suit that fits
I know, I know, this is an older series, and you probably saw it years ago, but I did not, and after watching Prince Harry marrying his princess Megan Margle, I saw a couple of interviews where it was remarked that she was such a fantastic actress full of potential. Since I had no clue she even existed, I thought I would see one episode. See what the fuss was about, and so I instantly good hooked on this feel-good lawyer show.
Suits has some excellent writing and the actors are great. In season one I admired how each time I took a guess what was going to happen to the main character's in the larger plotlines, I guessed wrong but at the same time did not feel disappointed. I felt good about being wrong. Well done writers!
I admit I have always had a soft spot for lawyer shows, since watching LA Law when I was a kid. I also enjoy political series (ever since Yes Minister) as well as cop shows (ever since I saw Hillstreet Blues a "million" years ago). My favorite show during 2017 was Glow on Netflix, in other words its not like I only watch King Arthur all day long.
One other quality of Suits, is that I could watch all the episodes in one long go, and not because of the lovely and talented Megan Margle, but because all of the cast is good, my favorites are Donna and Louis though. If I compare this series to Black Mirror, then that series will take me forever to get through.
/Rune S. Nielsen
BLACK MIRROR
Netflix, Season 1
Better late than never
I admit I should have gotten around to watching this fantastic series earlier, but better late than never. Great scripts, great direction, great moral controversy and great what-if scenarios in a not too distant future.
I have a hard time watching something that is embarrassing, OMG, she did not just do that! So watching this series takes quite a while for me, but I will get there at some point. In short, I liked it, but in small doses.
/Rune S. Nielsen
KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD
Netflix
Too many giant elephants but good take on Arthur
I have loved Guy Ritchie's visual expertise, and unique storytelling talent since I saw Lock, Stock and Barrel in the cinema many years ago. He has outdone himself with this beautiful Fantasy film, which I think could have made a good Netflix fantasy series instead. There is so much plot, both in the movie and in general around King Arthur, that they could easily had filled up several seasons of quality storytelling.
What I like best about the film (and would like to have discovered more in depth in a series) is that King Arthur is not a dedicated "do-gooder" but a rich pimp. Yes, he has a code, possibly a good heart, but mostly he is just trying to get by and have no desire to become a king or challenge the ruler and fight evil.
Why did someone stick a sword into a rock, makes no sense...
If you are an old fart like me, you are likely familiar with roleplaying games and the alignment terminology, then Artur and his friends and associates are very much of Neutral alignment but are caught up in events set in motion by mostly evil aligned characters.
There were also things I did not like, some of the visuals, especially the look of the "demon form" of the evil king looked so much like a computer game (even though they looked good) that it for me was a distraction. The same was Arthur’s journey on a magical plane full of giant sized animals, again this seemed so much like the "leveling up experience" of a computer game, and though fun from a meta plane perspective it distracted me from enjoying it.
But the worst thing for me was the giant elephants in the intro sequence. They were at least to me too much like the ones in Lord of The Rings movie, and for no reason. They could easily have created the same effect by using some other less used "monster" or something else they came up with themselves, and then it would not have ruined that sequence for me. There might be giant elephants in the original King Arthur legends, if so I apologize for this, but I have never seen them before with King Artur and they looked almost cut out of a LotR movie.
It was fun to see David Beckham in a minor role as an "evil knight", and in general the actors did a good job and visually the movie were spectacular. Though (and this is not a critique) Charlie Hunnam who plays Arthur personally reminds me a bit too much of a good guy a used to know. It’s like "hey, that’s not Arthur it Christoffer!" Then again it is not a bad match as Christoffer likes fantasy and sword fighting (and Charlie Hunnam did a decent job of portraying King Arthur, don't get me wrong).
/Rune S. Nielsen
ALTERED CARBON
Netflix, Season 1
Worth watching
Beautifully made and a great Cyberpunk series. I have not read the books they are based on, so I don't know if they live up to or even surpass the original, but the series was definitely worth watching.
You gotta' love the pink rucksack...
Visually there is a lot of Blade Runner inspired milieus, but when it is done as well as here I don't mind that at all.
I also watched the Netflix Movie, Mute, that is set in the same genre, but I liked Altered Carbon better though Mute was more disturbing and realistic in some ways.
/Rune S. Nielsen
JESSICA JONES
Netflix, Season 2
Pretty good season
I both have Netflix, HBO and Amazon Video, but tend to like the stuff on Netflix the best. I know, I know, I should watch less tv and write more...
...but I just had to see how Jessica was doing in season two and some of the stuff I watched I enjoyed enough to write a bit about.
"Hi, I'd like to order a pizza..."
I liked the plot with the Mother and the subplot with her stepsister and stepmother and with the lawyer and her associate.
Only thing that bugged me from a plot perspective, was that there was no link to Defenders at all.
With the issues facing Jessica it seemed unlikely that she would not ask at least one of the other super powered people she knows for a bit of help, at least in a single episode.
/Rune S. Nielsen