oconnormaur Reviews

To the Lake (I) (2019–2022)

Love the Russian POV

[9/10 · 4 August 2021]

I wanted to give this a 10, to counter those who dropped after 1 episode. But the dubbed English was so poorly read, it significantly degraded the show.

And the captioning did not match - almost two different dialogs at times. I'm tempted to rewatch in Russian, with English subtitles, to see what they really wanted to say. And could they have found a more annoying voice for the little boy?

Give the show until episode 3 - it bounces around before it figures out where to go.

It starts with cliches: the neighbor is a jerk, teenage rebel daughter, stock "character development" I thought only Hollywood sunk too. But after those bumps, it settles into a good story.

I loved the doctor and his uncle; the woman who lead the villagers on a rebellion, the lady at the karaoke bar. I've been to a gas station in Siberia three hours from the nearest city (and saw someone put a tank of gas inside an ambulance just like Pavel's!) I just wish they resisted sequel-itis. The last 10 seconds should have been moved to Season 2, if it does ever happen.

(And IMDB, there are only EIGHT episodes, the 9th doesn't exist, yet.)

Miami Vice (2006)

A Cuban who grew up in Africa with a Chinese accent?

[3/10 · 11 February 2007]

There was a lot of bad casting.

• supposedly Isabella was born in Cuba, but Gong Li has a noticeable Chinese speech pattern (no "s" at the end of words, did she ever have to roll an R). At least they could have given a believable back story (Mama was a Communist exchange student, or something.)

• Yero was slimy; he should be selling fake life insurance, not suavely running a nightclub and doing hi-tech intel for drug runners.

• the lieutenant - I knew not to expect Edward James Olmos, but would you trust this guy to cover you, much less give orders?

There are plenty of comments about chemistry (lacking tension between just about any pairing, at least Alonzo proved the depth of his love) and plot (major story lines that vanished, like the FBI leak). But the movie really suffered because of these.

Then there was the soundtrack - part of what made the TV show was the edge from the music. Okay, redo the theme song - as good as the original was, it is dated - but don't put us to sleep.

When we rented it, I knew not to expect the original. Within fifteen minutes, I was just hoping for some decent cop drama, gave up on that and just hoped for some action and was still disappointed.