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Reviews
The Mandalorian: Chapter 5: The Gunslinger (2019)
This episode showed me Disney really doesn't know what it's doing
The episode starts out with something that could have been interesting, but the space dogfight felt clunky, unpolished and really out of place in this series.
I audibly sighed when I heard Mando was going to Tatooine. The fact that they need to stoop to this level of fan service shows me that Disney did not nearly have enough faith in this series to not litter it with callbacks.
All new actors besides since e4 seem laughably bad. Even Pedro Pascal sounds less convincing with some of his lines, so I'm assuming it's a problem with direction.
The humor interjected into the show also doesn't fit at all. I was happy as can be with the 3 first episodes, they felt dark, serious and real, with really cool worldbuilding, but since ep. 4 we've barely seen anything new, and the Mandalorian just seemed to fall back on older established lore and fanservice.
The side story itself was bland and uninspired, boring even. It was also riddled with cliche's, like last weeks episode. This show quickly turned from a show I couldn't wait to see more off to a show I'm apathetic to. next episode will be a make it or break it for me.
The practical stuff all still looked great and Pascal was at least decent. The music was good.
Thus a 4 / 10. Let's hope
Gotham: Legend of the Dark Knight: Year Zero (2019)
Good.... not great, good
Gotham's 5th season has been a long time coming, but I can safely say that this first episode justifies that wait and promises a bright future for the coming 11 episodes.
This is probably the best 1st episode Gotham has seen yet, with an interesting storyline, interesting cinematography and even a charachter death, which raises the stakes for the rest of the season. That opening scene was amazing, although we now already kinda know who's gonna survive the season, at least until a certain point.
I also really loved the acting of the main cast, Mazouz was solid, McKenzie was great and even though he was barely in it, Pertwee can do no wrong in my eyes.
On top of that, Gotham introduces something we haven't seen in quite a while: Mystery. There is an air of mystery surrounding (mostly the new) characters and story. This is partially because of the raised stakes
Despite all this, there were also quite a few flaws with this episode, mostly that 2 of the 3 main action scenes were shot kinda bad. I'm referring to the first two action scenes, mostly the scarecrow one. While the quick cuts might've enhanced the tension somewhat, it made the fight itself kinda hard to follow and uninteresting, and I would've much preferred some longer takes or at least less close-ups and quick cuts. The second fight had a cool concept, but the execution was less amazing. My biggest problem with this scene is that because of the way it was shot having quite a few restrictions, Bruce seemed a bit slower and weaker than usual. On a positive note: I have zero complaints about the big action scene, that was exceptionally done.
My other complaint is that while the main cast is amazing, the secondary characters' acting was pretty bad, for example the woman talking about 'the witch' felt like she missed a couple of lessons at acting school. There were a few other duds, but overall solid performances and a solid episode.
Gotham: A Dark Knight: One of My Three Soups (2018)
Gotham is BACK (well, technically it has been for a while but still)
This is, hands down, in my top 5 favorite Gotham episodes, and It's no coincedence that one of my other favorite episodes is also directed by Ben Mckenzie.
I've had a love-hate (mostly love) relationship with this show. I really liked S1, I loved the 2nd half of S2, S3 is in my opinion (except for maybe the first arc) one of the best things to ever happen to tv. It had some really powerful moments (which I won't spoil here), but season 4 kind of lacked that gotham feeling for me. It wasn't like S1, but also not like S3, it was somewhere in between, and it didn't really connect to me. I didn't really like the Sofia or emo bruce arc (and both of them for waaay too long) and Ivy had/has (depending on what the showrunners are going to do with her arc for the rest of the season) really not interested yet. Then last episode finally finished off Sophia.
Then this episode comes along and is way better than it deserves to be. It has everything, an interesting setup with the prison break, Jerome's plan and I even think I might be able to like Barbara again, because this episode sets up the LEAGUE OF SHADOWS, kinda like S3, but with less court of owls. It also had a great emotional moment between Jim and Harvey, which was greatly amplified by the score, Oh My God the music in this episode (and the whole series actually) is absolutely amazing. I could literally watch Gotham for the score alone. It does bug me a little that everything is moving so fast, but that is because itisn't sure if Gotham will be renewed for a 5th season, so that's completely understandable. I'm also kind of disappointed we didn't get to see Penguin or Riddler this episode.
Overall an amazing episode with some really strong acting and directing