Reading/Watching Log #65

The last week of May 2021, will go down as a famous one in my family history: it was the week my sister had her first child, and I bought my first house.

Yes, two of the most stressful things that can happen in a person’s lifetime happened to my family in the space of a single week, though I think my parents got the worst of it since: a. I wasn’t told about some of the complications during the birth until after they had happened, and b. my sister had no idea I was trying to buy a house until it was all confirmed.

In any case, I’m now auntie to a little boy called Finn, and I’m now at the start of the acquisition process of owning my first house – which is very small, and definitely a fixer-upper... but it's MINE.

So there isn’t a lot of reading material under the cut: whenever I’ve had a spare few minutes I’ve only ever had the energy to blob on the couch, though the theme for this month was Victoriana horror... more or less. What a week.

Also, you won’t find the first season of Shadow and Bone under the cut – my thoughts got so long that I’m going to put it in its own post.

How To Talk to Girls at Parties by Neil Gaiman, Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba

A slim graphic novel in which two young men end up at a party where the mostly female guests are obviously not from the neighbourhood, or even the solar system. As one disappears upstairs, the other wanders around, getting into increasingly strange conversations with various women. One describes herself as a clone, another as the incarnation of a poem...

Apparently this was originally one of Gaiman’s short stories, though here Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon’s ink-and-watercolour illustrations are a big part of what makes the narrative pop: they’re vivid and spooky and unexpected. The house itself doesn’t seem quite real – shadows exist where they shouldn’t and wall angles don’t look quite right. This extends to the girls themselves, who have several odd features if you look closely enough.

It’s a quick read, but a memorable one, and it’s made me curious about the recent film. There would have to be a lot of expansion on this source material to make a feature length film.

Aster and the Mixed-Up Magic by Thom Pico and Karensac

Heavily inspired by Luke Pearson’s Hilda in regards to its protagonist, tone and setting, the second volume in the Aster series is once again divided into several short stories, based on the premise that after Aster and her family relocate to the countryside (a direct but deliberate inversion to the Hilda books), she gets caught up in the conflict that exists between the four personifications of the seasons, specifically the trouble when the transition from one to the other doesn’t go smoothly.  

The first story is fairly funny, involving an uprising of sheep, while the second provides a small interlude involving the Chestnut Knights, an effective but diminutive team of warriors. The third story is the longest and most serious, which not only brings the rest of Aster’s family into the loop of what she’s been up to, but brings back a trickster figure from the first book who can alter reality in surprisingly terrifying ways.

There’s some great stuff here, including Aster trying to navigate a strange maze, and once again using her wits to beat her opponent.

So far the series pales in comparison to Hilda, which has an X-factor that can’t be properly defined – but hey, perhaps in a few years Aster will get similar treatment in an animated Netflix original. It’s inspiration is obvious, but there’s enough innovation present to help it stand on its own feet.

A Tale of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones

This children’s book is too clever for me. Diana Wynne Jones was never one to lead a reader by the hand, which is a good thing, but oof – I really wish she’d spoon-fed me just a little on this one. I’m pretty sure I tried reading A Tale of Time City some years ago, and I’m equally sure I never finished it because I was just too confused by what was going on.

Vivian is one of many children evacuated from London during World War Two, and she’s on the lookout for the distant cousin that’s meant to meet her at the station when two boys grab hold of her and yank her out of history itself. Their explanation doesn’t make much sense to her, and she assumes it’s a case of mistaken identity – until they show her evidence that she’s been – or will be – in Time City, the hub from which the world’s chronology is monitored.

Then... stuff happens. And it’s frustrating, because I KNOW it must make sense on some level, but I just couldn’t quite fathom it. Diana, you’re just too smart for me! Vivian reminded me of Sophie Hatter, in that she’s sarcastic and self-deprecating but also very perspective and quick-thinking, and Jonathan and Sam make for good support.

Wynne Jones clearly had fun flinging these characters back and forth across time, and there are some fascinating bits of world-building: like how Jonathan is terrified of being caught out “in time” because has no “horizon”, unlike the carefully contained Time City. In many ways it was the little details, like the delicious-sounding butter pies or the hilarious family dinners that caught my attention more than the universe-saving shenanigans.

Her trademark sly humour is in place, as is her twists and reveals... I just wish I had the mental capacity to appreciate it more. One day I’ll return in a less distracted state of mind, and no doubt find it ingenious.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

I broke my New Year’s Resolution of only reading books that belonged to me by checking out the first of Leigh Bardugo’s original Grishaverse trilogy in order to re-read it concurrently with the first season of the Netflix adaptation. I read and reviewed the trilogy long enough ago that my memory of it was rather hazy, though I did retain a deep appreciation for the AETHESTIC.

By that I mean Bardugo writes genuinely well, with great descriptions and evocative prose that really brings the world of Ravka and its surrounding countries to life in a way that other standard YA fare doesn’t. Based on Tsarist Russia, she’s gotten a lot of flak for the rather haphazard way in which she’s cherry-picked certain words and concepts from the real world (I’m sure you’ve seen the Tumblr post that points out the Grisha are essentially translated from “Gregs”) but honestly – it doesn’t bother me that much.

There’s a strand of genuine darkness in her stories that are uncompromising in their portrayal of cause-and-effect consequences, and so even in the midst of the standard YA trappings, the world-building was enough to keep me engaged. Sarah J. Maas is an easy target, but it’s clear that Bardugo isn’t writing fluffy wish-fulfilment in a fantasy setting: her characters are forced to make difficult choices in a morally ambiguous world, and that’s clear even in this, her first (and weakest) novel.

Basically, the prose and content tapped into my deep love of dark fairy tales, and the entire trilogy vibes incredibly well with other favourite authors of mine, from Patricia McKillip to Meredith Anne Pierce. And though Shadow and Bone was reasonably popular at the time of its publication, there were a few voices of dissent that I didn’t really disagree with.

It follows the stringent YA formula: the ugly duckling protagonist gets a makeover and realizes she was Beautiful All Along, ends up in a love triangle between those two staples of romance fiction, the loyal childhood friend and dangerous older man (both super-hot) and bestowed with secret powers that make her the most Important Person (and Saviour) of the World.

A lot has also been borrowed from other properties: the Grisha are essentially air/earth/fire benders of another name (with a few extra categories), the Little Palace is Hogwarts, and the final resolution to the trilogy (no spoilers) is lifted directly from the final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And yet... Bardugo manages to put her own stamp on the proceedings. I mean, there’s a reason it got as far as a Netflix adaptation – there’s good material here!

My thoughts on said adaptation are forthcoming, as they make some fascinating choices that highlight just how much Bardugo has improved as an author between her debut trilogy and the much more complex and interesting duology that follows... but I’ll get to that in good time.

The Wolfman (2010)

SPOILERS

This is such a strange movie to talk about. It’s not good by any means, and yet you get the feeling that it’s not actually trying to be good. Certainly the three leads, Benicio del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt seem to be in competition as to who can deliver the most disinterested performance.

Lawrence Talbot is called back to his family estate by Gwen, his brother’s fiancée, with distressing news: Ben Talbot is missing. By the time he reaches home and is reunited with his ornery father, Ben’s body has been found and there’s talk in the village of a wolf attack. Half of Lawrence wants to get the hell out of dodge, but the other feels compelled to investigate Ben’s death – with the lovely Gwen being no small incentive to staying.

But it’s only a matter of time before he sustains a werewolf bite, and the curse passes on to him. There’s not much more to say – there are bloody rampages, angry mobs, family secrets and an ancestral home that inevitably catches fire by the final act. Usually these types of projects are elevated by the performances, but like I said: everyone here is on autopilot and we’re never really given a reason to care about any of them.

The film also plays its cards far too quickly. The possibility of a werewolf’s existence should have been teased out until the second act, with the first committed to an investigation into Ben’s death and the loss Lawrence feels. Instead, it’s all laid out on the table too quickly and clearly.

Characters like Hugo Weaving’s Inspector Aberline and Art Malik’s Singh are completely wasted (the latter in particular, a Sikh warrior whose loyalty to Lawrence’s father goes unexplained and who is unceremoniously killed off-screen). Stuff just sort of happens, with little rhyme or reason, and despite introducing concepts like the wolfbane flower and silver bullets, none of it comes into play in any satisfying way.

But something caught my attention that surprised me: I watched carefully and not a single woman gets killed onscreen despite the bloody rampages of various werewolves – in fact, the only dead woman is the Lawrence’s long-dead mother, whose portrait is smiling to herself when her killer finally gets taken out.

Furthermore, it’s Emily Blunt who gets the honour of killing the werewolf once and for all. She researches the problem, gets professional advice from another woman, and eventually pulls the trigger on the beast. (That said, there’s something funny about her running to Talbot Manor to find Lawrence, seeing him in his wolf-form, and then immediately turning tail and running in the opposite direction).

But in a world where male authors are obsessed with the tired old trope of a man being forced to kill a woman he supposedly loves – either to save the world, or for her own good – this movie completely gender-flips the script. I can’t think of another example of a woman killing the man she loves beyond Wanda/Vision and Buffy/Angel, and in both those cases it was only a matter of time before he got resurrected and rewarded with his own spin-off.

So I can’t totally discount this film. It’s beautiful to look at, with all the eerie moors and dilapidated estates you could wish for, and it’s certainly never boring. In a way, it’s unapologetic about how “meh” it is. You came for the werewolf rampage, so here are some werewolf rampages, dammit!

Stonehearst Asylum (2014)

Loosely based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, Stonehearst Asylum opens with a demonstration of female hysteria at Oxford University: the subject is Eliza Graves, though her beauty and coherency clearly make the students uneasy – luckily Old White Patriarchal Doctor is there to mansplain the situation: that all mental patients claim to be sane.

It then jumps to young doctor Edward Newgate making his way to the isolated Stonehearst Asylum in the middle of winter. He’s invited in and meets the facility’s superintendent, Doctor Silas Lamb, who has some progressive ideas about how mental patients should be treated. But as Edward is shown around the facility and introduced to some of the inmates, it’s obvious that something is amiss.

Still, he’s immediately captivated by Eliza Graves, who enjoys her life at Stonehearst, if not simply because her presence there means she’s protected from her abusive husband.

Should I give away the midpoint twist? Nah. Most of the movies I watched this month were pretty awful, but this one at least was entertaining, and it even managed to surprise me a couple of times. There’s a surprising amount of talent here: Michael Cain and Ben Kingsley are the obvious contenders, but also Kate Beckinsale, Jim Sturgess, David Thewlis, Brendan Gleeson and Sinéad Cusack. Wow, how’d they get that line-up?

There is a fairly awful subtext that posits love is a cure for mental illness, but it’s not too in-your-face, and the film at least knows when and how to drop its clues and provide its payoff. There is the needless fridging of one young woman, but I like where they went with Sinéad Cusack’s character.

Victor Frankenstein (2015)

Oof, this one was rough.

Have you ever wanted to watch a take on Frankenstein by people who have seemingly never read the book? This is a prequel (apparently) that hinges on the relationship between the infamous inventor and his manservant Igor – who was never actually a part of the book, any more than the lightning storm or the neck-bolts or the “it’s aliiiiiiive!” line was, and – weirdly enough – isn’t really in this story either.

Frankenstein rescues an abused fool from the circus, only to call him Igor after his former assistant, and then heal the abscess that was forcing him to live his life with a hunch. So Igor isn’t even the only two things that the 1930s films established about him. Daniel Radcliffe’s Igor gets caught up in James McAvoy’s experimentations, driven by abject gratitude for the second lease on life he’s been granted – only to have second thoughts when Victor’s methods begin to cross ethical lines.

It eventually ties in with the events of Frankenstein, though the famous monster is resurrected and killed off again within the same scene. It’s a movie that has no idea what it wants to be or what it’s trying to say. A dark comedy? An origin story? A treatise about the dangers of playing God? A story about what grief can drive a man to do? Yes, but mostly no.

There are also at least three Sherlock actors here: Andrew Scott, Louise Brealey and Mark Gatiss (in a blink-and-you’ll-miss it moment – I can only assume his scenes got cut), and what is possibly the most insultingly bland love interest of the entire set of films I watched this month. Jessica Brown Findlay is as beautiful as ever, but she is given literally nothing to do.

Usually in these sorts of films the female character/love interest can be called upon to do at least something of use, from the small (Kate Beckinsale being proactive throughout Stonehearst Asylum) to the surprisingly intrinsic (Emily Blunt killing the wolf in The Wolfman) but here they don’t even try to give her something interesting to work with.

Her only contribution is to create a small distraction so that Igor can sneak into Frankenstein’s castle, which (considering they’re in a dense forest) feels fairly pointless. She rocked that red dress though. This entire movie should have been about that red dress.

The Limehouse Golem (2016)

This was actually the first of the “Victorian horror” films I watched this month, and it set the tone pretty well. A number of murders have spooked the docklands of Limehouse in the early 19th century, and the culprit has been dubbed “the Golem” by the press, after the famous Jewish legend. Inspector John Kildare (Billy Nighy) has been assigned to the case, and believes it’s connected to the current trial of music-hall star Elizabeth Cree, accused of poisoning her husband on the same night as the last Golem murder.

He believes she discovered her husband’s true nature and took steps to protect the world from his violence – only now he has to prove it, since Elizabeth is strangely reluctant to save herself from the gallows. He finds a frightening diary that the killer has left in the reading room of the British Museum’s library, and manages to narrow down his suspects to those who frequently used the facilities: Dan Leno, Karl Marx (yes, THAT Karl Marx), George Gissing and John Cree, Elizabeth’s late husband.

As he attempts to acquires samples of handwriting from each of the suspects, he frequently visits Elizabeth in her cell and hears her sad life story, growing more and more determined to free her in the process.

It’s probably the best of the films I watched this month, not only in its depiction of this specific London community (the docks, the music hall, the law enforcement) but its actual plot. There is a genuinely suspenseful murder mystery here, a mediation on fame and its price, several interesting red herrings, and the usual round-up of British B-listers (Daniel Mays appears in this and Victor Frankenstein).

It was sad to learn that Alan Rickman was originally slated to play Kildare before his declining health forced him to pull out, but it was fun to see Bill Nighy in a non-comedic role for a change (I know he’s done plenty of dramatic work, but I don’t actually think I’ve seen any of it before now). Olivia Cooke is also someone to keep your eye on – she was Becky Sharpe in the most recent Vanity Fair, and will be in the Game of Thrones prequel too... she’s clearly on her way up.

The Lodgers (2017)

Here’s the thing about horror films: all of them are a mystery of some sort. Why is creepy stuff happening? Who’s responsible for it? How do you make it stop? Sometimes there are no answers, because Nothing Is Scarier, but sometimes the answer is... remarkably silly. In which case, your entire story falls apart.

Rachel lives with her twin brother Edward in a dilapidated mansion (there is no other kind) in near-complete isolation. But as soon becomes apparent, they are not entirely alone, and live by a set of strictly enforced rules: to be in their rooms by midnight, to never let a stranger through the front door, and to stay in the house always. Edward seems surly but content enough with these edicts, but Rachel is starting to push against them, especially once she sees handsome war veteran Sean return to the village.

But the Lodgers (as they’re called) are growing increasingly volatile, and reading through the lines in the twins’ conversation, it’s clear that they’re expecting the two of them to do something in the near future – something Edward encourages and something Rachel balks at, especially when faced with the memory of her suicidal parents.

Look, they’re twins and we’re in a Gothic Horror, so it doesn’t take a genius to realize what’s going on. The silliness of the “twist” is that the supposed curse which hangs over everyone’s head isn’t explained or justified in any way, and ultimately comes down to “sometimes twins just want to fornicate in peace, dammit!” Apparently this is the family legacy: that every new generation has a set of twins that are identical to their parents and must Mate Or Die in order to keep the house safe from the creepy ghosts of their descendants. Who the heck came up with that??

Being so inherently silly and random takes away from an otherwise effective ambiance, especially the cool water-related visuals. But don’t worry, it gets worse with...

Cold Skin (2017)

Two men forced into close proximity in a lighthouse on a distant island as they’re threatened by strange amphibian creatures from the sea? No, it’s not Robert Eggers’s The Lighthouse, but since this film predates that one by a couple of years, it’s possible that Cold Skin provided some degree of inspiration.

An unnamed young man (played by David Oakes, and it’s always nice to see him play a non-asshole character) arrives on a desolate island on the brink of WWI in order to take the place of the former meteorologist for the coming year. There he meets Gruner (Ray Stevenson, who is everywhere these days), the lighthouse keeper, and learns that this predecessor is dead – and given the state of the cabin in which he stayed, it wasn’t from an illness.

The two men settle in, though it isn’t long before the young man is attacked by strange creatures at night, which seemingly come from the ocean and look aquatic in nature. He makes a dash for the lighthouse when his cabin accidentally catches fire, and the two men settle into an uneasy alliance, fending off the creatures by night with the not-insignificant cache of weapons that the young man brought with him.

Complicating matters is that Gruner has “tamed” one of the females of the species, answering the question that has haunted mankind for centuries: would you have sex with a fish-person if it was your only option?

Yes, like The Lodgers, things get pretty silly after that. I’m not entirely sure what point the film was trying to make when it came to the two men and their increasingly violent conflict against the sea creatures, and neither of them ever connect two fairly obvious dots: that the female’s keening every night was what drew the others to attack the lighthouse, suggesting their opponents were mounting some sort of rescue mission. So why not... just let her go?

It drags on interminably in the middle, and is never particularly scary either. Though I haven’t seen it, I think it’s safe to say that The Lighthouse is the better “two men with beards drive each other nuts in a lighthouse; also there’s a mermaid” movie.

Earth to Ned (2020 – 2021)

This was actually something I watched the bulk of last month, when the general theme of my viewing material was puppetry. I feel like I’m the only person on Earth who actually knows this show even exists, considering there are barely any GIF-sets on Tumblr and hardly anything added to its TV Tropes page (my two sources of most fandom-related material).

In any case, the premise is that a gregarious alien called Ned has been sent by his war-mongering planet to destroy Earth... only he’s so captivated by the celebrity culture that he finds there, that he instead decides to start a talk-show: kidnapping various guests, beaming them aboard his spaceship, and learning more about human culture.

There are plenty of familiar faces that have featured: Andy Richter, Jenny Slate, Eli Roth, Raven-Symoné, Joel McHale, Gina Carano (bet Disney regrets that one), RuPaul Charles, Ginnifer Goodwin, Alan Tudyk, Yvette Nicole Brown, Penn & Teller, Alyson Hannigan, Molly Ringwald, Margaret Cho, Tig Notaro, Bindi and Robert Irwin – though don’t get too excited if you’re a genuine fan of any of these people, as the conversations almost entirely revolve around Ned.

I’m also not entirely sure how much of it is scripted. Occasionally they would have to let the guest-stars in on what the show is going to involve, though for the most part the conversations feel pretty impromptu. That said, I’m rather disappointed that they didn’t go the whole nine yards and have the various guest stars appear in-character as their most famous roles. How cool would it have been to see Billy Dee Williams as Lando?

Perhaps that would have been a tad too complicated, as the puppetry required for Ned is already remarkably sophisticated (it takes six puppeteers to bring him to life), along with his co-host Cornelius (a survivor from a planet destroyed by Ned’s people, which is pretty dark come to think of it) and a range of CLODs (Cloned Living Organism of Destruction, whose purpose on the ship is... unclear). Then there’s the ship’s artificial intelligence BETI, who could do with some better special effects (she looks worse than Gideon on Legends of Tomorrow, and that’s pretty bad).

It’s all very charming and inventive, and half the fun is watching the guests react to Ned and his spaceship – it really is impressive! And having watched Feud last month, I’m taking it as a sign that I have to watch All About Eve next, as one of the guests namedrops the famous Bette Davis film.

The Irregulars: Season 1 (2021)

I was literally two episodes into this show when they announced it’s cancellation. Typical. The good news is that the season as-is provides a satisfying arc with a fair amount of closure, the bad is that there was clearly a lot of material and characterization left to explore when it came to its untimely end.

Much like Moriarty and Irene Adler, the Baker Street Irregulars are simultaneously an intrinsic and superfluous part of the Sherlock Holmes canon. They feel like an essential part of Arthur Conan Doyle’s body of work, yet they don’t come up much in the actual stories – and just like the aforementioned Moriarty and Irene, they’re ripe for expansion in the imagination of fans.

This take on the material goes for a gang of street urchins that are hired by John Watson to investigate strange happenings throughout London. This is in lieu of Sherlock himself, who has been missing for some time, and the cases that they’re sent are definitely supernatural in origin (this seems to be the main sticking point for most people – it obviously doesn’t mesh with the “everything has a rational explanation” tone of the source material, and yet... eh, it’s fine).

The Irregulars are comprised of Beatrice, her little half-sister Jessie, bruiser Billy and good-hearted Spike, as well as newcomer “Leo”, secretly the youngest son of Queen Victoria, who suffers from haemophilia but longs to escape the gilded cage – especially once he claps eyes on Beatrice.

It very much follows the Buffy the Vampire Slayer template: each episode is comprised of a standalone mystery, while adding something more to the overarching story as it goes. This includes the mystery of Beatrice and Jessie’s missing mother, the latter’s latent physic abilities, the ongoing question of why exactly London is suddenly under threat from supernatural creatures, and how they’re all connected.

Sherlock and Watson (Henry Lloyd-Hughes and Royce Pierreson) are supporting players in this particular drama, though I thought they were well characterized, with some interesting twists on how they’re usually conceived. This is the adaptation that takes the plunge and finally makes Watson gay – though at the same time gives the traditionally asexual Sherlock a female love interest. So... make of that what you will. And yet the most notable thing in the show is that its Victorian London is effortlessly diverse. In the sense that they just make it so, without patting themselves on the back or making a big song and dance about it.

Much like Disney has been constantly introducing “the first LGBTQ character in a Disney movie” for the last five years only for Deadpool to just give Negasonic Teenage Warhead a girlfriend without the slightest bit of fanfare, so too does The Irregulars populate its setting with all sorts of ethnicities and not treat it like a big deal.

It’s always fun to play “spot the British B-lister”, and there are plenty of familiar faces throughout, though the real drawcard though is Thaddea Graham as Beatrice (you might remember her in the deeply mediocre The Letter to the King). She’s indisputably the protagonist, as well as the leader of the Irregulars, and her relationship with her sister the centrepiece of the story. Again, the story does it with less self-conscious attention-seeking than The Nevers or Shadow and Bone – it just is.

So it’s a bummer that it’s gone so soon, especially since those sister-shows will no doubt be around for multiple seasons. Ah well, it’s fun while it lasts.

The Nevers: Season 1 (2021)

I watched this over a single weekend, three episodes per night, and had a surprisingly good time. It was easy enough to put Joss Whedon at the back of my mind (he’s gone now, and apparently there were no dramas on set) and though it’s had mixed critic/audience reactions, there was a lot of material here to stew over.

Of course, it’s impossible not to try and match up the character types featured here with Whedon’s previous work – and there’s a lot of overlap. Amalia True is a Buffy/Mal mash-up. Penance is definitely Willow/Kaylee. Maladie is a more psychotic River. Augustus is definitely Simon. Olivia Williams pops in from Dollhouse. Most of the girls at St. Romaulda's Orphanage are more fleshed-out Potentials.

And the whole thing is very much “Victorian X-Men” with a dash of science-fiction (seeded early, yet somehow still a surprise later on, complete with a gender-flipped Professor X in a wheelchair. On that note, the story itself is about as complex and intricate as any X-Men storyline, with time-travel and superpowers and social prejudice and found families and occasional alien visitations – and of course, loads and loads of characters.

Seriously, it’s incredible how many characters are featured in this. Even when they start picking off a few around three episodes in, it’s not really to whittle down the numbers since they just add more! That said, it’s kind of nice how they throw everything they’ve got at the screen and expect the audience to keep up with what’s going on... it reminded me of how it felt to watch Firefly for the first time back in the day.

The plot is... you know, it’s exactly what you expect it to be. In Victorian London several people (mostly women, but a few men) are mysterious imbued with preternatural gifts that make them objects of fear and hatred to the rest of the population. They gather together in a safe location (in this case, St. Romaulda’s Orphanage) under a designated leader and a remote benefactor and learn to harness their gifts while supporting each other in their struggles.

There is naturally a council of Old White Men who are angry that people other than themselves have power, a team of creepy terrorists that are out to kidnap the Touched (as they call themselves) and a psychotic madwoman who has an agenda of her own. Our main character, Amalie, is a standard Deadpan Snarker and Cute Bruiser (Whedon’s favourite tropes) with a mysterious past that’s gradually revealed as the episodes go.

A lot of the clues as to what’s going on are seeded deeply in the dialogue and other minor details, and I suspect it will benefit hugely from rewatches just to catch everything. As frenetic as the pacing can be at times, the story rests upon a solid bedrock, and it’s obvious that there’s a plan in place as to how things will proceed (well hopefully – there’s no telling what’s going to happen now that Whedon has departed. And it’s not that I mind that his sins finally caught up to him, but dammit, I want this story to be as good as it can be).

It’s a lot of fun, and I highly recommend you watch it as I did: in as short a time as possible. At only six episodes it’s easy to burn though and there’s something intense happening in practically every scene.