From the sofa, while on the sofa, might as well check out the old NetFlix account.
Loads of good movies, which, unfortunately I've already seen. And - by NetFlix standards - real dogs, like "No Country for Old Men", "Raiders of the Lost Ark", their reviews, by NetFlix Standards, lousy, 3, 4 stars....really?
Anyways, I know what I'm looking for. "!899", which was some new series with great trailer reviewed on Boing Boing, and I'm going to give this a try.
It's about about a ship, set in "1899", the "Kerberos" that gets sidetracked by a cryptic message from it's sister ship, the "Prometheus", that vanished some 4 months earlier...
5 Stars on Netflix. No, really, 5 stars. This got 5 stars. It's going to be really good, settle in to binge watch them all on a Sunday, because Sunday you can't go to the library and find any piece of mind so you might as well resign yourself.
Now know that I'm going to be merciless and give abundant spoilers and this - with the understanding that you too might be as offended as I was. But you won't have to be because I've gone and saved you the bother.
Mother of fucking god.
How did this get made? A bunch of Germans sitting around smoking pot and one of them says..."Hey, I know a computer guy..." and somebody else said "I heard it's really easy to get grants for TV and Movies" and before you know it the casting call was sent out for bearded men, swart men, steampunk men, and hipsters.
I mean, in ridiculously bad dialogue and acting, every cliché in the book, "Follow me" and "I'm coming with you...", the appalling dialogue, delivery in part to blame on NetFlix dubbing service - but - no, even that can't take all the blame, no actor could make this good.
1 episode in, 7 to go, I'm hooked.
There's the appalling music soundtrack, and accompanying descriptions in Close Captioning: [Ominous Synth Music] [Haunting German Lullaby] [Mournful Dirge] [Low Foreboding Music] [Menacing Creaks and Scratches] [Anxious Panting] [...music playing/continues] [High-Pitched Mysterious Tunes][Uneasy, Dissonant Music][Low Sinister Music].
A cast of nearly a hundred people meant to represent thousands, everyone a stock character out of some Steam-Punk Commedia-Del-Arte, Everyone has a secret, a backstory, a murder or skeleton in their closet, there's the tropes of the "Seriously creepy little boy with a secret" and "Serious Victorian Scientific Lady" "Religious Zealot" and the "Busy Homosexuals" and "Mutinous 2nd Mate" with his perpetually scarred and bleeding face and the "Treacherous First Mate with Hidden Knowledge" and I could go on, boy I could go on...
What's it about? Well, as I said earlier, Ii's about about a ship, set in "1899", the "Kerberos" that gets sidetracked by a cryptic message from it's sister ship, the "Prometheus", that vanished some 4 months earlier...
And it's about maybe a dream life that the passengers can't wake from (AKA "Inception") or maybe they're all living in a Simulation, (AKA "The Matrix"), or it could be about the mental hospital, or the giant pyramid, or the magical green beetles, or it could be about an interdimensional ship portal (or - maybe this is just a gimmick?), the point is that only you, the viewer, are given enough pieces of the puzzle to make sense of it all, only there is no way anyone could make sense of this rubbish.
It's your standard What-When-Where-Why-Who-dunnit(dun what?), complete with double crossing first mates and villains in front of alien pyramids, and televisions and computer banks with flashing lights and slide-puzzle controls and Rubik's pyramids that open portals to...Aliens? Time Travel?
Throughout everything the steampunk aesthetic prevails, missing only the hot air balloons and Zeppelins and telescopes, but probably they're coming...
Confused? Maybe they'll throw in mediocre philosophical references to "Plato's Cave", to "UP" the intelligence level, make you feel like your just not smart enough to grasp the big ideas they're putting out there...
There is a scene in which 2 characters are fighting over a machine, control box, and the (presumably good) guy says: "You don't understand - if I don't turn that thing off - everything will start again!!!" and this - this - as I understood it - is a direct threat to the viewer, the audience, it's a ploy to get everyone onside of our protagonist, do you really want to watch this all again?
20 Minutes into the final episode and I can see they're not going to be wrapping this up anytime soon, finally - finally, the fucking end, the big reveal: Our Heroine "wakes up" to discover she's been in suspended animation the entire time, along with the rest of the cast members in a (camera pulling back) spaceship travelling through SPACE!!!
And probably you should be slapping your knee and going "See, see, I knew it all along" and - no, no no no, this is SOOOO FUCKING LAME.