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susannah-55380
Reviews
Fisk (2021)
Australian Humour at It's Best
I loved this show so much I've watched it twice in a couple months. That's rare for me, especially with comedy. Everyone I've recommended it to has loved it as well. It's the perfect blend of dark humour and a sarcastic bite that I associate with Australian culture, with some silliness and warm-hearted moments woven in to keep you human.
Fisk is the ultimate anti-hero, with her blunt and often clueless social awkwardness. In the first episode I didn't like her much, but she quickly grows on you til you're rooting for her against all those weirdo clients, uptight office manager, and cafe proprietors that try to bring her down! The actress/comedian playing her is stellar. The support characters are all stars in their own right - you'll recognise people you know in many of them, but there are also hilarious, unexpected quirks to many of them that had me laughing out loud both times I watched. Do yourself a favour and watch "Fisk" in these troubled times - it will give you back a little bit of hope in humanity.
The Fall of the House of Usher (2023)
Classic Horror Updated for 2023
Another reviewer already used the sentence that popped into my mind during the seies: "a love letter to Edgar Allen Poe." I grew up scaring myself and my younger cousins reading his gothic short stories, and memorised Anabel Lee to recite for my parents. So it was fun to recognise all the references to Poe's work throughout, although on a few occasions I felt it was a tiny bit overdone with characters reciting longer passages (the writers seemed to anticipate this criticism, as jokes about that followed!). The acting was brilliant, especially Carla Gugino in a role that must have been great fun to play, the characters over the top in a way that suits gothic horror as well as some of the "leaders" of the current era (some of whom are mentioned by name or referred to in the story). The Ushers are clearly here meant to portray the Sackler family, being served a kind of justice perhaps only available these days in fiction. My only real complaint is I hate it when there's gratuitous violence towards animals shown or implied. It's never necessary.
Fred and Rose West: Reopened (2021)
Disappointing
I went in with high expectations of a thorough, reliable documentary, honestly purely based on the fact Trevor Mcdonald was involved. I was very disappointed.
The other low-star reviews outlined the failures quite accurately - it was at most 30 minutes of material drawn out into 2 longer episodes, in that gimmicky way that true crime shows tend to do. It's insulting, really - most of all for the victims and their families, who deserve more respect than to have their names used as a kind of click bait. Much more respectable would have been to make a short documentary briefly recapping the sick history of the crimes, then showing the highlights of the unfortunately unsuccessful attempts at excavation of potential burial sites. Without all the dramatic sets and lightning. The raw material is dramatic enough, you don't need those bells and whistles. It's over the top and disrespectful. It makes one perhaps better understand the unwillingness of the current owners of the farm (potential burial site of up to 20 victims) to allow access to the film crew.
Sunshine Slayings (2020)
Low Budget True Crime Knock Off
The true crime stories fearured in this series, all revolving around a crime scene of a "dream" beach vacation somewhere in the world, are tragic and horrifying enough to compete with any other similar series.
Unfortunately, it's the low production values that let this show down. The main narration sounds almost as if it's computer-generated, or at the very least like it's being read off by the guy who delivered lunch to the set that day, having no real knowledge or interest in the cases he's talking about. Two of the three (former) experts that occasionally weigh in on important facts about the case are pretty good, in that they seem to care what they are saying and you get the idea that they might even be speaking their own words. The true crime author, however, who works as the second narrator to the aforementioned disembodied male voice, often comes off as flat, like she's reading off cue cards.
While it's fairly common to have reenactments of story to illustrate the narration, again the production is fairly low budget, think student film. The gold standard for me are the original Unsolved Mysteries, which carefully chose actors who resembled the victim, perpetrator, and other key persons - or even used the actual victim's family members and law enforcement officers from the crime. While obviously that's too much to ask for the dozens of true crime shows produced every year, most shows I feel do a decent job with reenactments. "Sunshine Slayings" falls short here as well, using hoky "dramatic" scenes played by actors who mostly have their faces blurred. I also really miss not only hearing from someone who actually knew the victim, but seeing a photo of them at least. Those key elements, that help the viewer to really sympathize and feel they know the victim a little, are sorely missing from these episodes.
The three stars I'm giving are for the original stories, since these days the same crimes seem to be appearing on various shows, and for the former medical examiner, who was credible in her explanations.