Drew Neal

I really want to watch it. The talent is there. My expectations were very high. I know we’re saturated with streaming at this point, so originality may be setting the bar too high, but here we are. Too many shows are just borrowing elements from their more successful predecessors. This seems to be one of those shows. I’m only two episodes in, so I may have to edit (or recant) this opinion. I hope that’s the case. As a restaurant theme, there’s the unfortunate feeling of being a ripoff of The Bear. As a crime drama, there are elements of The Sopranos. As a dysfunctional family, there are notes of Animal Kingdom. Overall, there’s nothing new or original or interesting (at this point). Even the costuming seems borrowed. I haven’t completely given up, but I’m definitely not finding it binge worthy. I don’t see myself using a personal day to ditch work and find out what happens next. I’m always looking for a show that pulls me in. So far, this one has not. Edited: I watched Episode 3. I came back to demote my rating from 2 stars to 1. I wish I could go lower. There is nothing original in this series. Nothing. It’s a monumental waste of talent.

Lazy, unimaginative, and “borrowed” plot lines from other series. I started watching; I stopped watching; I gave it some time and then went back to it. I finally managed to make it through the first season. I’m done. I know this series brings a ton of star power with the cast, but it was just tedious beyond words. I’m typically up for anything that involves politics, government, or any of the sausage-making that we’re not privy to in our daily lives. Unfortunately, this was such a flatliner when it comes to originality, that it felt like watching every day office politics play out at my job. No thanks. Hint: Make at least one character very likable.

I feel like this does very little justice to Tom Wolfe’s novel. It started out as a “like” for me and then rapidly went downhill. As far as the quality of the acting, I have always enjoyed Jeff Bridges. I don’t think this was “his” role. It feels like a money grab. I’m sure he was well compensated. I feel like this was a low rent version of the Billions series. It became more difficult to watch with each episode. It quickly turned into a daytime soap opera. The most disappointing aspect was that I could never actually find anyone in the entire series to pull for.

No spoilers ahead. This is literally a stellar cast and it is dragged down by a terrible script that tries too hard to be clever. I tried to give it a pass on being quirky or dark, but it is just kitschy and dull. Netflix succeeds once again again in its new and most successful genre: The perfect background noise for cleaning the house. You can literally walk away from this, run errands, and not miss anything important. I appreciate the insomnia cure. It worked better than Ambien, and I didn’t eat a rotisserie chicken in the middle of the night.

Tedious. While it could be a very accurate portrayal of the legend herself, the plodding storyline achieves one thing: It was a very effective remedy for my insomnia.

I have no one to blame but myself. I watched a movie with Owen Wilson in it. The Glenn Close angle gave me hope, but I should have known. I blame the faulty algorithm of Netflix for robbing me of 16 minutes, 29 seconds of my life. Owen Wilson = Unwatchable. Every time.

Absolutely unwatchable. This is where out of work soap opera actors go to torture the viewing public. I’m not a fan of Hallmark by any measure, but I feel like this is what happens when a project doesn’t have a Hallmark-level budget. Terrible acting. Really. All of it. Just dreadful. LiLo was more entertaining when she was the lead story on TMZ every day.

The acting and the script are … atrocious. It’s full of stereotypes and most of the dialogue is totally unnecessary. The entire thing could have been wrapped up in less than 90 minutes.

I really wanted to like it. I couldn’t find much depth or development here. The characters, the writing, even the costuming all seem to be tropes I’ve seen before. Kudos to Netflix for seeing it through.

It’s a very important series about a company (and an individual) that literally ravaged and killed countless people. I feel that the message is extremely critical. Unfortunately, some of the acting is close to unwatchable. Matthew Broderick, Taylor Kitsch, and Uzo Aduba deliver the strong performances that we’ve come to expect. Watching Duchovny, I have to wonder if the casting director was on Oxy when they made that call.