Interesting idea, but that's about the only positive thing I can say about this show. Cardboard cutout characters and horrible acting pretty much across the board. There's an overwhelming sense that we're watching a 90's soap opera with some Oprah style quasi spiritual dressing that got now repackaged as a mystery. By episode 3 it finally dawned upon me that I'm being string along on a never ending trip. I couldn't care less about the characters, or the supposed mystery. I should have heeded the warning signs that were there from the beginning in shape of general cheapness of production. Plain awful.
Reviews
4 Reviews
Powrót
(2022– )
A wasted opportunity
25 February 2024
Interesting premise and some very solid performances let down by a lack of cohesion in the script. Admittedly, I have only seen one episode, but I am just not all that interested to keep on.
The protagonist is painted as a loving father, clearly aware that his daughter cares for him too. And yet, on his mysterious "resurrection" he choses to stay in hiding, unnecessarily prolonging the girl's grief. Would a loving parent do such a thing? The authors tried to solve this paradox by making his friend ask him the very question, only for him to dismiss it with a wave of hand.
The wife's indifference to the death of her partner of 17 years is badly exaggerated. The mother's insouciance is equally too dialled up. It is not exactly the problem of hamming it, though. It feels like it was written into the script (ordering that pizza over still warm body) either for the (failed) comedic effect or to hammer every point tirelessly. If the show runners have so little confidence in their audience, it makes one wonder who is their intended audience?
Seeing this middle aged, burned out, husk of a man waking up in bed along couple of attractive women, about half his age, made me look up the creators of the show. Unsurprisingly they turned up to be such middle aged men themselves. Someone should tip off The Alliance of Women Film Journalists about such worthy contender for their Most Egregious Age Difference between Leading Man and Love Interest Award.
It's not all bad, though. As mentioned earlier, the central performances are very competent, especially Bartlomiej Topa, Magdalena Walach and the bright young thing, Zuzanna Mikolajczyk. The last two, despite not being given tons of screen time in this first episode, were able to sketch a convincing pair of opposites. If it wasn't for an unconvincing plot I would be keen to see what these three were up to next.
The protagonist is painted as a loving father, clearly aware that his daughter cares for him too. And yet, on his mysterious "resurrection" he choses to stay in hiding, unnecessarily prolonging the girl's grief. Would a loving parent do such a thing? The authors tried to solve this paradox by making his friend ask him the very question, only for him to dismiss it with a wave of hand.
The wife's indifference to the death of her partner of 17 years is badly exaggerated. The mother's insouciance is equally too dialled up. It is not exactly the problem of hamming it, though. It feels like it was written into the script (ordering that pizza over still warm body) either for the (failed) comedic effect or to hammer every point tirelessly. If the show runners have so little confidence in their audience, it makes one wonder who is their intended audience?
Seeing this middle aged, burned out, husk of a man waking up in bed along couple of attractive women, about half his age, made me look up the creators of the show. Unsurprisingly they turned up to be such middle aged men themselves. Someone should tip off The Alliance of Women Film Journalists about such worthy contender for their Most Egregious Age Difference between Leading Man and Love Interest Award.
It's not all bad, though. As mentioned earlier, the central performances are very competent, especially Bartlomiej Topa, Magdalena Walach and the bright young thing, Zuzanna Mikolajczyk. The last two, despite not being given tons of screen time in this first episode, were able to sketch a convincing pair of opposites. If it wasn't for an unconvincing plot I would be keen to see what these three were up to next.
Constellation
(2024)
Lost in the fog.
24 February 2024
I am half way through second episode and don't know if I can take any more. First episode was promising a descent, if unexceptional, sci-fi flick. True, Naomi was already hamming it and some scenes were a tad grating (making so much fuss abound her sacrificial decision to stay, then overtly sentimental good-byes, complete with Naomi's trembling lip and misplaced religious farewell from the Russian), but they seemed to be kept in check. There was an odd jump scare too (a dead Russian cosmonaut inexplicably propelling herself from under the tarpaulin), but these were few and far between. Overall people behaved reasonably (which in the context of your average series is an achievement in itself) and my mind was satisfyingly busy trying to solve the puzzle put in front of it. Namely, connect the two timeframes. Unfortunately the good bits are completely absent from the second episode. Instead, the melodrama has completely taken over. Naomi is shedding heroic tears, sighing achingly, recording tearful messages for posterity, and chasing floating severed limbs. All the while we and she can see the clock counting down the time left to complete her task before she suffocates. A real human being, endowed with survival instinct, would not have been distracted by anything, but not our heroine. At the faintest sound she is pricking her ears ready to throw herself into another rabbit hole and waste yet more of that precious sound. Now, that is too stupid behaviour to accept from an highly trained astronaut. Hell, that is too stupid for anyone and so comes across as unbelievable, increasing the overall sense of artifice looming over this episode. The situation on Earth is not any better. We spend too much time with the timid husband and the precocious daughter. This duo, while not particularly terrible, has nothing going for them, so witnessing them eating pancakes, riding bikes, being driven in a van, then flying on a private jet feels like a filler. But the worst excess arrives in in guise of veteran actor Barbara Sukowa, speaking in the stock Hollywood mock-Russian accent. Some beads are dramatically scattered and poor Sukowa is made to recite a self-indulgent, quasi religious twaddle of an elegy. It was pure bathos! Unintentionally, but still, funny. I laughed a bit, but then the laughter changed into howling and my girlfriend thought it best to turn it off for the sake of my mental health. Now I will never know if Naomi's character was dealing with the multiverse or was only experiencing a psychotic breakdown caused by all the drama.
Paranormal: The Girl, the Ghost & the Gravestone
(2023–2024)
Funky Forest Wales
23 August 2023
Well, you should expect a degree of wackiness, when you decide to see a Welsh ghost story, but this one is on a whole different level. It starts off like your usual Beeb documentary, but soon it becomes a parody of one. We meet a gallery of oddball characters spouting nonsense, admitting that they are superstitious, but claiming that they are very sceptical. Flower petals are switched with dead insects to some very dramatic music, words appear on walls. People have impression that other people are around. People with Down syndrome are called very intelligent. It all feels like a 6th grader homework for Halloween. But it's just the worst spent money in the history of BBC. The original series Ghosts was such fun - original, well scripted, funny dialogs, good acting. Here, apart from the pleasantly sounding lilt of the presenter's voice, there're no redeeming features.
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