mathewmartin1604 Reviews

The Last of Us: When You're Lost in the Darkness (2023) Season 1, Episode 1

And So it Begins...

[10/10 · 16 January 2023]

As a huge fan of the game, I have been looking forward to this series for what feels like a lifetime. Nearly 10 years ago Joel and Ellie began their journey, and the events of this episode hit me just as hard today as they did back then.

Staying faithful to the source material, whilst not just being a carbon copy of the game's cutscenes was always going to be a hard ask, but this first episode has done it extremely well. The opening scene was a really nice introduction to the Cordyceps parasite that this series is based on, whilst some of the scenes of Joel, Tommy and Sarah trying to drive out of town looked exactly the same as the game and brought back memories of playing the game for the first time.

As a starting chapter, this episode is basically perfect, however I'm not 100% sold on Bella Ramsey as Ellie just yet, and that worries me a little bit. This entire series, and the emotion behind it, relies almost solely on the relationship between Joel and Ellie and I'm just not sure if the chemistry is there. She's shown a bit of the sass and fire that Ellie needs, but hasn't had much screen time yet to convince me yet. I'm sincerely hoping that changes over the next few weeks, but for now the show is a 10/10.

Dark: Geheimnisse (2017) Season 1, Episode 1

Episode 1

[9/10 · 17 October 2022]

A show like Dark doesn't come around very often. I binge watched it a couple of weeks ago and have felt like a part of me was missing since finishing it. I've been drawn back into a 2nd viewing, and this episode is even better with all the extra knowledge that I now have.

A lot of reviews on here are making comparisons to Stranger Things and Twin Peaks, and while I completely agreed with them initially, this show far surpasses them and comes into its own after the first few episodes. There's maybe a little bit too much information and characters thrown into frame for a first episode, in fact I had to find a character tree online (which I highly recommend) in order to learn faces and names, but beyond that the premise and setup are executed amazingly. The opening 5 minutes is one of the most intriguing starts to a show that I've seen in a long time. The credits and song are beautiful too.

This first episode asks a lot of questions, and it presents itself as a show that demands your full attention if you want to find the answers. Don't sit and scroll on your phone, don't get up and make a coffee, just watch and enjoy.

Breaking Bad: Felina (2013) Season 5, Episode 16

Returning After BCS

[10/10 · 12 August 2022]

After watching and getting seriously invested in Better Call Saul, I found myself starting to doubt Breaking Bad and I've come back to apologise.

Better Call Saul is probably one of the best spin-offs of all time and the Cartel storyline gives so much grit and juxtaposes nicely with the 'Slipping Jimmy' parts of the show. Gus and Mike reprise their roles brilliantly, while Nacho and Lalo are incredible new characters that the audience come to love/hate. With all of this amazing storytelling, I started to doubt how Breaking Bad would hold up without those characters and without the Cartel element, but boy was I wrong. Vince Gilligan is an absolute genius and Breaking Bad is the pinnacle of television drama. This final season is easily the best thing that has ever been on TV, and even the master himself is unable to beat it.

Outlander (2014– )

Divided by Gender

[6/10 · 21 October 2021]

It seems that this show is almost entirely fawned upon by women, while men just aren't getting it. And to everyone out there who has enjoyed it, I'm happy for you, and I'm not trying to diminish or tell you you're wrong, but it's definitely something for people to think about before watching.

I'm not sure if it's the love story, or the sex, or just watching 2 people crazy in love going about their life together that's enough for some people to enjoy 5 seasons (so far), but from a storytelling point, it's very flawed.

Season 1 was entertaining enough, with a decent premise and Season 2 was a nice change of location at first being set in France and building up the story of the Jacobite army. Claire and Jaime desperate to somehow change the past so that the highlanders are not all slaughtered in the Battle of Culloden is tense and well paced. After this ultimately fails however and Claire returns (pregnant) to her own time, the show completely falls apart.

20 years later Claire returns to find Jaime (now both in their early 40's and apparently still as strong and healthy) and they end up going from Edinburg to somewhere in the Caribbean on a rescue mission, Claire gets taken by another ship, stranded on an island, reunited eventually and then shipwrecked and stranded in America. Jaime conveniently has an extremely rich relative nearby their shipwreck who they visit before inexplicably deciding to buy 10000 acres of land and start their own colony in Virginia. A few interactions with the Cherokee Indians, their daughter comes to visit the past, the daughters man-friend follows separately who proposed to her but was rejected, but now she's changed her mind, they all end up together eventually and are just hanging out. The daughter is pregnant but not sure if it's to the man-friend or another guy who raped her the same night she lost her virginity to the man-friend. By the end of the 5th season almost every main character has been beaten and/or raped multiple times (even the men) with no real payback afterwards, Claire has been kidnapped or separated from Jaime at least half a dozen times, and it's honestly just started to turn into a daytime soap opera. All logic seems to have gone out the window, there's one episode where the daughter gets charged at by a fully grown Bison, is hit square in the back and launched in the air, gets up and shrugs it off like nothing happened. There was an entire episode devoted to a snakebite where Jaime was about to die before the daughter remembered that she was an engineer and fashioned a makeshift syringe out of the snake's fang and Claire was able to administer Penicillin (which she was able to discover) to save him. And yes I realise that you would usually give an antivenin, but apparently it was an infection that was killing him, not the snake, because man-friend cut his leg open to suck the poison out.

At this point it's been at least 30-35 years since the first episode and yet no one has aged a day expect the children. Every episode seems to come and go and the events completely forgotten and never mentioned again. There were a few times that it felt like an open world video game, and the episodes were random interactions.

Still in the end, my missus absolutely loved the show. I don't know why, I'm not going to take it away from her, but for anyone reading and wondering whether to watch, it seems pretty simple. Girls like it, guys put up with it.

Community: Physical Education (2010) Season 1, Episode 17

This is where Community really kicks off

[10/10 · 12 October 2021]

This is probably my absolute favourite Community episode of all, because this is where the madness really kicks off. Up until this point in the show it seems to just be another quirky sit-com, but the pool table scene at the end, followed by a string of hilarious and ridiculous episodes like Basic Pottery and Modern Warfare is where I fell in love with this show.

This isn't going to be a show about relationship building or character development. This isn't going to be a show that's going to follow any sort of coherent storyline. This is going to be crazy and ridiculous, and if you like this episode you will enjoy the entire series.

Sex Education: Episode 8 (2021) Season 3, Episode 8

An Amazing Season for Character Development, but...

[7/10 · 18 September 2021]

... I'm simply not buying the Otis/Maeve relationship anymore. The 'will they, won't they' worked well for the first 2 seasons, but to end again with them not actually getting together is a real slap in the face. And with her character now moving overseas, there's a real possibility that it won't ever happen.

Meanwhile, the relationship that was shown between Ruby and Otis in the first few episodes was beautiful, and watching the two of them grow off each other was incredibly believable. Having her open up to Otis in a way she never had before, only to be rejected was heartbreaking to watch, and I actually don't understand why it was included. Ruby reverting back to her 'mean-girl' background character status afterwards is even more confusing, I think she had less than 10 lines of dialogue in the 2nd half of the season. Building a character up so much, only to then ignore them is criminal. It's a shame really, there was so much potential.

Six Feet Under: Everyone's Waiting (2005) Season 5, Episode 12

3700 minutes...

[10/10 · 7 May 2020]

That's roughly what leads up to the final 10 minutes of this episode and every minute you spend watching this series will be justified for the ending. I had heard before that Six Feet Under had one of the greatest finales of all time, but that doesn't even do it justice. You won't realise how much you care for this family before it's too late, don't let the same thing happen your own family.