I thought this was an alright premiere.
Technically speaking, it got straight into things; the pacing was steady. That's probably because this final season only has six episodes. Yet despite that, it felt slow.
The way it was filmed, the way the show is filmed; it may have had to do with it. Shots of the scenery. Scenes that pretty much only exist for the episode to reach its runtime. Characters doing things with no dialogue spoken: "stuff" happening without dialogue spoken to add a lot of seconds to the runtime, among other things. A need for the dramatic: so to speak.
I believe all of that can make an episode feel slow, which isn't wrong. The only hitch is when the story IS progressing. Those things end up lessening the fact that the story is moving forward. And that's the problem. If the story isn't moving forward and those things are present, that's good in the sense that those things being present aren't interfering with what's important.
In this case, the story was moving forward, so it felt like it wasn't. It felt like the episode was slow, which it was to a degree. But because of those things, it felt much slower than it was. And I don't think that's a good thing. But it has been present in the entire show, and it probably won't change at this point. Its only potential saving grace would be the story progression; for it to be engaging.
But what about Hanna, you ask? Well, I don't like her that much. Same with Jules, at least in the second season. Interestingly enough, she wasn't as dislikable in this premiere, and Sandy was a little dislikable. The opposite of how it was in the second season. If that's a sign of a role reversal for this final season, I guess I'm interested to see how it plays out.
As far as new characters are concerned, this was the premiere; it's too early to tell. At the very least, Abbas is likable so far. Brianna Stapleton will probably be "important." Benson, too, I guess. As the main guy who'll be doing Brianna's bidding. But I doubt I'll care about either of them. It'll probably be as if they're throwaway characters; they'll get killed by the end.
In my head, the end goal of a premiere is to capture your interest. Of course, this is the premiere of the third season, not the show; but a premiere, nonetheless. This premiere didn't exactly do that for me regarding this season, maybe because the writers deemed it unnecessary: as it's the premiere of the third season, and anyone who watches it will think it's great without having their interest captured.
All-in-all, this was an alright premiere. Nothing much exciting happened. The story moved forward, although the episode still felt slow. At least The Meadows is in the past. Presumably. If somehow that's not the case, my head is going to explode. We got more than enough of that in the second season.
I'm not expecting anything super great and enjoyable from this final season, let alone the writing, which is going strong by Marissa showing up out of nowhere at the end and conveniently having a fake body(?) to toss down, preserving Hanna's cover.
How did she know where Hanna was? How did she show up at the right, convenient time? And how did she know it would be a situation where making it seem like Hanna did her assignment would even be possible to pull off, like tossing a fake body down a building? Good writing, that's how.
Channeling my inner Raymond Reddington, this (final season) is gonna be a gas.
Technically speaking, it got straight into things; the pacing was steady. That's probably because this final season only has six episodes. Yet despite that, it felt slow.
The way it was filmed, the way the show is filmed; it may have had to do with it. Shots of the scenery. Scenes that pretty much only exist for the episode to reach its runtime. Characters doing things with no dialogue spoken: "stuff" happening without dialogue spoken to add a lot of seconds to the runtime, among other things. A need for the dramatic: so to speak.
I believe all of that can make an episode feel slow, which isn't wrong. The only hitch is when the story IS progressing. Those things end up lessening the fact that the story is moving forward. And that's the problem. If the story isn't moving forward and those things are present, that's good in the sense that those things being present aren't interfering with what's important.
In this case, the story was moving forward, so it felt like it wasn't. It felt like the episode was slow, which it was to a degree. But because of those things, it felt much slower than it was. And I don't think that's a good thing. But it has been present in the entire show, and it probably won't change at this point. Its only potential saving grace would be the story progression; for it to be engaging.
- I still don't care about most of the characters that are already familiar. None of them are that compelling. As far as liking them, the only ones I like are John Carmichael and Marissa Wiegler. And Sandy to a certain degree. She was likable in the second season.
But what about Hanna, you ask? Well, I don't like her that much. Same with Jules, at least in the second season. Interestingly enough, she wasn't as dislikable in this premiere, and Sandy was a little dislikable. The opposite of how it was in the second season. If that's a sign of a role reversal for this final season, I guess I'm interested to see how it plays out.
As far as new characters are concerned, this was the premiere; it's too early to tell. At the very least, Abbas is likable so far. Brianna Stapleton will probably be "important." Benson, too, I guess. As the main guy who'll be doing Brianna's bidding. But I doubt I'll care about either of them. It'll probably be as if they're throwaway characters; they'll get killed by the end.
- I'm getting the impression that John Carmichael won't survive by the end. His life is on a more fragile thread than Hanna's. And he even seems a little meek, unlike how he was in the second season. I'm not saying it's farfetched. But all I glean from it is a death flag. I hope I'm not right because I like his character.
- Writing of the show aside, one thing that has always stood out, in a good way, was the cinematography. That remains the case, based on this premiere. There were good shots. And the filming locations allowed for that to be the case. It sometimes feels like you're not watching an episode of a TV show because of the filming locations; props to the person(s) responsible for that.
- The soundtrack was pretty nice, too. Usually, it's hit-or-miss with only one song, or no songs, that I like concerning episodes in this show. But most of the songs were pretty good in this premiere. And there seemed to be a little bit of lyric symbolism from two of them: when Hanna and Sandy went in the cars leaving The Meadows; when Abbas and Hanna were riding on his motorcycle.
- The fighting choreography has been one of the weaker aspects of the show, like the writing. But from the little fighting choreography shown in the training montage at The Meadows, I got the impression that it was some of the best we've seen throughout the entire show so far. But will that remain the case? It wasn't necessarily fighting choreography, but Hanna vs. Abbas looked a little slow and awkward. Was that just me? Thankfully, it wasn't a full-on fight sequence, so I don't think it's a sign of future fight sequences.
In my head, the end goal of a premiere is to capture your interest. Of course, this is the premiere of the third season, not the show; but a premiere, nonetheless. This premiere didn't exactly do that for me regarding this season, maybe because the writers deemed it unnecessary: as it's the premiere of the third season, and anyone who watches it will think it's great without having their interest captured.
All-in-all, this was an alright premiere. Nothing much exciting happened. The story moved forward, although the episode still felt slow. At least The Meadows is in the past. Presumably. If somehow that's not the case, my head is going to explode. We got more than enough of that in the second season.
I'm not expecting anything super great and enjoyable from this final season, let alone the writing, which is going strong by Marissa showing up out of nowhere at the end and conveniently having a fake body(?) to toss down, preserving Hanna's cover.
How did she know where Hanna was? How did she show up at the right, convenient time? And how did she know it would be a situation where making it seem like Hanna did her assignment would even be possible to pull off, like tossing a fake body down a building? Good writing, that's how.
Channeling my inner Raymond Reddington, this (final season) is gonna be a gas.
