Month: October 2023

An entire generation of readers grew up to laud Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series of space opera extravaganzas. All kudos then to the team that tackled this icon for an opening season of ten episodes a couple of years ago. Although highly impressive, Season 1 seemed slightly overwhelmed by Asimov’s complex plot (see my review), and Season 2 of Foundation reinforces that picture. Let me stress the many positives: the acting, only occasionally overly portentous, remains first-rate (I won’t list the many fine performances, see the review link above); the space-opera filmics are sublime, even awe-inspiring; some new plot threads are introduced in fine fashion; episode direction is steady-handed. On the negative side, the music remains appalling, but that could be dealt with. It’s the plot, specifically the underlying story of Hari Seldon, his magic cube, the time and space wizardry, and a propensity for weird new super-science to pop up (did Asimov really use those devices?), that often left me shaking my head with bewilderment. I noted at the end of Season 1 that the follow-up might bed down the overall narrative, instead the confusion, whilst not crippling, has deepened. I shall, of course, continue with the journey

I recall Hugh Howey’s Wool, which came out of nowhere as a sci-fi dystopian novel of striking originality, but fortunately the intricately unfolding plot was forgotten by me, for now “Silo” boldly attempts a ten-part TV show rendition. Great trepidation accompanied my viewing: how could they possibly convey the eerie nature of the underworld home for 10,000 people, its origins lost in time? I need not have worried. Showrunner Graham Yost has clearly spent unlimited funds on creating an evocative world, cast in dark hues and shrouded in mystery. The plot involves a series of characters, all played impeccably (but with specific mention of Rebecca Ferguson, striking as rebel Juliette), slowly starting to unravel the truth underlying the silo world. Attesting as much to Hugh Howey’s original wonderful plot as to the scriptwriters and directors, each episode is a standalone marvel, compelling, surprising, and inspiring. I commenced the series slowly but towards the end had to binge to satisfy an insatiable urge to discover the next layer of truth. The end-of-season cliffhanger is stunning. Is Silo the best streamer show of the year? Quite possibly.

The first season of “The Lincoln Lawyer” felt very different to both the splendid Michael Connelly novel from which it sprang and the Matthew-McConaughey-starring 2011 movie, but it proved to be a sparkling example of the legal thriller genre (see my review). Second seasons often slump but from the opening, sprightly scenes, Season 2 is terrific fun. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo again revels in a great role and he is utterly captivating, buoyed by a fine supporting cast. The various stories, short-term and longer-term, enmeshing Mickey Haller, the self-styled best defense lawyer in LA, all work well. The cinematography portrays the city as a character, the dialogue sizzles, the script is taut, and the direction is tight. All up, Season 2 is a jaunty, involving crime series. We all hope for a third season.

A pitch-black yet comedic revenge tale for women would not normally even come up on my radar but my wife was entranced by Bad Sisters, persuaded me, and rewatched it with me. Co-written by wonderful Irish actor Sharon Horgan, it dramatises the efforts of five close sisters to get rid of one of their husbands. The narrative switches between their bumbling killing attempts and a later investigation by two insurance adjusters (wonderfully played by Bryan Gleeson and Daryl McCormack). The script zings and the direction of the ten episodes is perfectly controlled and paced, with atmospheric cinematography in the Irish seaside country. Horgan herself is stellar as the sister elder, but the other four sisters are brilliantly portrayed by Eve Hewson, Sarah Greene, Anne-Marie Duff, and Eva Birthistle. Dark and hilarious and super-smart, Bad Sisters is a wonderful hybrid thriller.

How to Blow up a Pipeline is not for everyone but it was written for me, given that I had read, absorbed, and partially appreciated Andreas Malm’s 2021 theoretical eco-terrorist debate book, How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire. Malm’s book is supremely academic; he argues that climate change is so globally existential, and so dependent upon immorality on the part of, notably, fossil fuel companies, that property destruction might be morally defensible or even necessary, if only to rally a more reasonable activist polity. Now, in this film, director and co-writer Daniel Goldhaber has created an old-fashioned heist caper in which a dozen or so direct-action activists, barely known to each other, plot to explode a hefty Texan pipe. The plot is surprisingly clever, cinching up the tension while shuffling through the combatants’ back-stories, and reserving a couple of minor plot twists to the end. The intricacies of assembling and deploying an amateur explosive are lovingly caressed by the camera, and the disparate characters are well cast and played and unfolded. How to Blow up a Pipeline is not for those with utter disdain for the central premise, but if you can entertain flexibility concerning the good guys and the bad guys, it is a tense, intriguing hour and a half.