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Reviews
Life on Our Planet: Age of Ice and Fire (2023)
Good series, with some serious factual errors in this episode
This episode was about earth in the age of humans. For the most part, it's accurate. Species have died off.
Some of the claims are things you hear in the media, but are also simply not true.
They say temperatures are rising at the fastest rate in the last 500 million years. Temps were rising much faster coming out of glacial periods than in the last 100 years.
They say that oceans are acidifying. Go to any ocean and take the PH. It's basic. There's way too much calcium carbonate for them to turn acidic. CO2 is higher than it's been in a few million years, but still far below the average for the last 500m.
They claim that climate change is causing forest fires. Total acres burned are actually lower than it was a century ago.
The Killer (2023)
I nearly quit watching
The movie couldn't keep my attention. The description tells you that it's about a hit gone wrong, which is the first part.
I got the feeling that the movie was written as 6 20 minute episodes which were crammed together into a movie. There's not much continuity between these episodes. Each one is in a different place with a different character. He gets the information to go on to the next place, then travels there. There's not much suspense, because you know he's not going to get captured or killed halfway through the movie.
For many of them, the way they act when the Killer comes doesn't seem very realistic. That's another reason it's hard to get into the movie.
Designated Survivor: Party Lines (2017)
The episode where I stopped watching
The first 12 episodes were great. After that, barely any time is spent on uncovering the conspiracy to destroy the government and install a President they could control.
Do we really need an entire episode preaching about gun control? Besides that, there's not even an attempt to present the Republican position. All Republicans are evil and want more gun deaths, except for Hookstraten, who is basically left wing Democrat with an R next to her name. I skipped through the scenes on this plot line for the rest of the episode because I already knew everything that was going to happen. It was unwatchable.
The episode ends with the 2 FBI agents arriving at their destination. Oddly, it's completely unguarded. They make an important discovery.
The Terminal List (2022)
Great adaptation of the book!
Stand alone, it's a great season. Chris Pratt and the other actors were really believable in the roles and let the emotion show.
When I found out about the series, I read the book first. It's mostly true to what's there, but with some major changes. Some of the killings are different where the method used in the series was used on a different person in the book. He doesn't travel the country nearly as much, probably to save money. The FBI agents don't exist in the book. His headaches are much worse and come on sooner.
A minor but necessary change was to broaden the appeal. The book is written to appeal to conservatives at the expense of liberals, while the show is politically neutral. There's more of a focus on the family. I felt like they were trying to move halfway from "Without Remorse" to "A Beautiful Mind", possibly because Amazon did the former last year and it wasn't received as well.
The final scene will make more sense to someone who's at least 15% through the second book. I don't know how many seasons they can get someone as famous as Chris Pratt to do, but I really hope the series continues.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)
How much can be stuffed into a movie?
There are better reviews which go through all of the plot points which I won't repeat here.
I felt like there was some meeting at Disney where a bunch of people came up with ideas of things to put in the movie from the MCU, other movies, and Disney+ shows. Some poor screenwriter had the job of stuffing all of that into 2 hours while introducing a new character who acts more like a MacGuffin than an actual person.
The result is a mess. Who's the villain? Who's the hero? How can the viewer feel anything for the characters when you know that there won't be any real consequences for their actions?
NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service: Driven (2006)
Fun episode, inaccurate about CO
Tony's side mission was great. I'm curious what all of these things are building up to.
Making fun of the sexual harassment training was funny too.
I know it's fiction, but the episode was very inaccurate about carbon monoxide (CO). Cars mostly produce carbon dioxide (CO2). CO is produced when fuel is burned with insufficient oxygen. Any new car has a computer to make sure the combustion is at the right mixture. I suppose the killer could have altered the fuel mix, but why would an SUV have the option to vent exhaust fumes into the interior?
CO doesn't kill you in 3 minutes. You can survive without oxygen for longer.
I was able to pick out the bad guy in the first 10 minutes like usual. The early obvious suspect(s) are rarely guilty. The killer is the other person with screen time and no apparent motive yet.
NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service: Dead Man Talking (2004)
Above average for the season
This has one of the better plots from the season. I didn't expect the twist that Amanda was Voss, probably because she was played by an attractive woman.
As for the episode being transphobic, DiNozzo reacts exactly as you'd expect a guy like him to react. It's kind of interesting to watch TV this old where Bush was President, computers have CRT monitors, smartphones don't exist, and a trans female character is referred to by male pronouns.
Yelling "Stop Him!" was odd to me mostly because nobody else in the restaurant would have thought she was a he.
NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service: My Other Left Foot (2004)
Unanswered questions about the crime
I realize it's fiction and the teleplay is written for entertainment, not realism. Still, I with there was more of an explanation about why things happened this way.
They faked a Marine's death. Did he hide for 2 years in the house? Why did they just now kill him?
They're sophisticated enough to pull off an insurance scam, but terrible at getting rid of a body. They didn't even put the body parts in a bag? There's plenty of space in rural West Virginia. It would take less time to go to one spot in the woods and bury the body than cut it up and put pieces in dumpsters in 6 different cities.
The first time they visited Melissa's house, the toilet seat was up. What man was there? The only other person we saw was her mother.
They claimed that the body was cremated. Why didn't Gibbs ask about the metal in the foot? That wouldn't have burned and it would have trapped the doctor early once they got records from the crematorium.