Author: Andres Kabel

Martha Wells’s eight novellas/novels in the Murderbot Diaries series, published over the past nine years, are already regarded as classic science-fiction. A groundbreaking examination of the emerging sentient life of a security robot who has “hacked its governor module,” it is an emotional, funny, quirky, thrilling series, and one not easily packaged onto a screen. Amazingly then, Season 1 of Murderbot, directed and written by brothers Chris and Paul Weitz, is a resounding triumph. Anchored by a brilliant acting performance from Alexander Skarsgård as the deadly, confused, alien-thinking security robot (called SecUnit by the humans in this tale, named Murderbot by himself/itself), the ten-episode series closely tracks Wells’s Book 1, All Systems Red, but leans much more toward examining the awkward interplays between SecUnit and a bumbling, idealistic spaceship crew that begins to “adopt” him/it. The series especially plays up the hilarious inner dialogue of SecUnit as it continually retreats into watching a terrible human soap opera, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon. The show is paced superbly, supported by wonderful acting (I especially appreciated Noma Dumezweni as the hapless crew’s leader, Akshay Khanna as an especially naive but loving scientist, and David Dastmalchian as a cynical augmented human), enlivened by splendid action scenes, and blessed with terrific world building and cinematography. Imbued with a different vibe than the book, this first season of Murderbot (may there be many more!) nonetheless does just as impressive a job of relating a thrilling tale of robotic sentience with a genuinely moving arc. Brilliant.

Writer/director Scott Frank has alighted upon a winner, a spellbinding series of ten crime fiction novels by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsson, and his first nine-episode season of Dept. Q is clearly wondrous from the very opening scene. Matthew Goode is riveting as Carl Morck, a maverick, obnoxious homicide detective returning to work after being shot. Assigned to a new cold cases department in a musty basement, his first case is the mysterious disappearance four years earlier of a public prosecutor (also portrayed perfectly by Chloe Pirrie). Scott Frank directs and cowrites most of the episodes and you can see his impeccable footprint in every superbly staged scene. The plotline, featuring twist after twist, is one feature of this series that keeps the viewer on tenterhooks for nearly seven hours, but other exemplary aspects are razor-sharp, funny dialogue, and wonderful acting throughout (hats off to Alexej Manvelov and Leah Byrne as Morck’s happenstance sidekicks), scything cinematography. Dept. Q never falters in quality and pace, and will be a 2025 highlight for any sane viewer.

There are those who adore medical movies and shows. Not me. I’m not only squeamish but medical arcana bores. So I came to The Pitt, a fifteen-episode (one episode per hour in a day) show about an emergency department in Pittsburgh, with reluctance. It only took one episode to blast away my concerns, for this is very much medical, medical, medical, but only as an excuse for slice-of-life drama of the highest order. Following a team of trauma doctors, including a handful of first-day student doctors, the show’s mechanics involves, as expected, a constantly shifting camera illuminated a wide variety of medical emergencies, with plenty of close-up views, plus the doctors’ individual stories, plus the high drama of medicine in poorly serviced America. What distinguishes the show is superb storytelling paced perfectly. Solid acting buttresses the show, with the lynchpin being Noah Wyle, excellent as Doctor Robby, head of the shift. Do we really need fifteen hours? Maybe not, but The Pitt entertains and enriches for every one of its fifteen. Recommended.

The slow but shouty and intense restaurant drama of The Bear seems to repel some viewers but this reviewer has been entranced since the opening episode (check out my reviews of Season 1, Season 2, and Season 3). The story of a restaurant named for its chef is the story of Carmy (The Bear), a laconic Chicagoan obsessed with becoming the best of the best in his trade, a man hiding from his tumultuous family (many of whom work at The Bear) and from his own uncertainties. Stunted in his personal development, he returns to Chicago upon the suicide of his blustery brother and converts the family beef joint into a Michelin aspirant. Plenty of creators would tackle this dual chef-restaurant tale over the course of a movie but the show’s creator and core writer/director Christopher Storer lingers in order to spotlight the milieu of high-end cuisine and to hunker down into the lives of his large assemblage of characters. It veers from comedy to tragedy to farce to high art, often within individual episodes, and Storer is never afraid to experiment (Season 3 angered some fans with its strange episodes). The acting is as good as any I’ve seen this year (and the previous three years), with so many superlative performances one cannot do them justice. Needless to say, Jeremy Allen White is magnetic as Carmy. In Season 4, Carmen wrestles with his life as his creation hauls itself out of disaster after a mediocre review, while Carmen’s offsider Syd is tempted by an outside offer. Each of the ten episodes is strong and real, and Storer has again fielded one extra-long tumultuous episode showcasing the Berzatto family in all its chaotic variety. Perhaps signaling an approaching end to the series, some of the plot outcomes are touchingly sappy. Overall, Season 4 is another example of Golden Age perfection.

I hate the Fast & Furious franchise, so why do I find Guillaume Pierret’s Lost Bullet trilogy, similarly just car chase thrillers, mildly compelling? It has to do with the execution and the ambience. Lost Bullet came out in 2020, Lost Bullet 2: Back for More in 2022, now we have Last Bullet. By now the plotlines have become convoluted, and hero Lino, hiding away, is lured back into trying to exact revenge against a murderous ex-colleague and a corrupt senior cop. Double cross follows double cross, car chase and car crash follow car chase and car crash, and it becomes quite clear early on that the characters and their motivations are just props for the action. Stuntman Alban Renoir, who plays Lino, remains a wooden, obdurate hulk, and the other actors are no better. Why then does Last Bullet offer easy watching? The answer, of course, lies in the rubbishy-but-fun car mayhem. Director/writer Pierret lovingly sticks cameras right in the action or at dramatically low or high angles, so that the movie is a shallow, visual confection.

The first season of 2023’sThe Last of Us, fashioned by wonderful auteur Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann (who created the namesake video game a decade earlier), was a revelation (see my review). Who would believe a dystopian video game based on the cliche of zombies threatening to take over the world might work at the character level? Yet it did, proving to be a visceral, nuanced narrative following Joel, a grizzly zombie-war veteran, and Ellie, a fourteen-year-old holding a secret hope for humanity. Now Season 2 of the series is upon us and it is a stunner. It kicks off five years after the dramatic closer of Season 1, with Joel and Ellie embedded in a walled city survivalist community in the snow of Wyoming, guarding against the hordes of zombies outside the walls. Joel is worn down and hesitant in his kind-of-fathering role with Ellie, while Ellie is a troubled near-adult, rebellious as heck. In these two pivotal roles, Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are sublime. Two new main characters enter the fray as action segues between the zombies and human conflicts: Kaitlyn Dever as a vengeful northerner and Isabela Merced as Ellie’s best friend; both portrayals are excellent. As ever, Mazin’s byzantine and stunning plot twists and devious time flits work perfectly,, the action scenes are fearsome, and the cinematography is lush or claustrophobic (where is the zombie?) as needed. Season 2 of The Last of Us, seven episodes long, is a highlight of this reviewer’s 2025 viewing.