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lucygsc
Reviews
StartUp (2016)
It's horrible
Tje best thing going for this series is the premise. But every scene is filmed with a hand-held that is never steady, and all scenes with characters are super close-ups. It's full of gratuitous sex and violence that do nothing to advance the story.
The characters' decisions and actions are ridiculously over the top and unbelievable. I don't care about them at all. The sets are unrealistic. I wanted to watch just to see Martin Freeman's talent, but I couldn't get through the fifth episode of the first season. The constant camera movement made me nauseous to watch.
I need few redeeming qualities to keep my interest in most crime dramas, but Martin Freeman's and Edi Gathegi's acting can't compensate for an otherwise jumbled mess of production.
This Is Us (2016)
It's irritating
Yes, this show incorporates innovative storytelling and interesting characters to depict family relations. But the "background" music track is non-stop, frequently drowning out the dialog. It's immensely distracting and irritating. The music frequently stands in for actual dialog as well. It's like a musical soap opera without any lyrics. I plodded through season 1, but I'm passing on season 2.
Oh, and why does Milo Ventimiglia's character always have greasy, unkempt hair? Yuck.
Sirens (2014)
It makes me laugh
I enjoy the Leary-Sellitti collaborations. Sirens is more light-hearted than Rescue Me. It's like watching just the comedy portions of Rescue Me. It isn't high art, but it's quick, witty, engaging, and written for an intelligent audience. Yet it's easy to watch. I get at LEAST a couple of belly laughs out of every episode, often more. Some days I laugh so loud I scare my dog! That's reason enough to keep me coming back.
Also like Rescue Me, the characters are weird but personable, so they still seem normal. The characters are more than caricatures. I can relate each one's quirkiness to someone I know in real life. As a whole, the characters also represents a good cross-section of the population in terms of age, race, gender, creed, religion- you name it. Even the one-episode characters meet that criteria. I look forward to spending a half hour with this show.