Brian Wright

There are are many difficulties with this "Searching for" series follow-on after "Searching for Italy". The biggest problem is that this one is set in a very dangerous region of the world, Mexico; enticing people to want to book a visit to Mexico. Stanley Tucci even helped bankroll this mess. Ignoring the fairly perilous nature of the region (which is actually hard to ignore), what this "Searching for" seems to mostly come down to is "Searching for" 5 star restaurants serving random chef-inspired fusion in Mexico, but not genuine Mexican cuisine. Read on to understand why this may be. You don't need to visit Mexico to find a 5 star restaurant serving Mexican cuisine. Worse, my overriding thoughts when watching Eva Longoria host this series follow-on is that this series isn't actually designed to find the most authentic area cuisine, but about finding cuisine located in areas that help keep Eva Longoria safe from harm. Thus, a serious problem when you're actually looking for authentic Mexican cuisine to spotlight and why the cameras mostly land in 5 star chef-run restaurants in touristy areas. I'm also not feeling much sincerity from Ms. Longoria herself when she's savoring much of the "local" foods. The whole thing feels more staged than anything. I'd like to see the series allow Ms. Longoria to be more honest. Not every food tastes great or is what you might expect, which she can share later away from the hosts. The physical safety problem coupled with excessive "beauty shots" of Eva detracts from letting the cuisine speak for itself. Is this series follow-on more about glamour shots of Eva or about the local food? I'm beginning to wonder. It's also probably a bad idea to attempt to entice people to travel into Mexico at this time, which is what this series seems to be doing. It would have been a better idea to host "Searching for Scotland" (with Ewan McGregor) or "Searching for Ireland" (with Liam Neeson or Pierce Brosnan) or even "Searching for Iceland" (with Noomi Rapace) than to send Eva to Mexico at this time of heightened violence against US citizens. It's likewise not a bright idea to run this enticement series at this moment when, after COVID lockdowns, people are incredibly starved (pun intended) for new places to visit.

There were so many things to like about the Manifest pilot. I agree the setup was a bit too much like "Lost". Still, where the show is heading is also very much like "Lost". I won't spoil any endings of the series simply because it hasn't happened yet. However, having the clock ticking down to 2024 is a fair bit of wishful thinking by the producers. I don't personally think that this series is good enough to last 5-6 seasons. If this series manages to get to 5 years, that will only be because the writers pulled a rabbit out of their collective hats and made it far better than it is now. Unlikely. I was actually hoping for a different direction with this series. There were 191 passengers on 828, yet we're focusing on maybe 6 in total? Where are the other 185 passenger's stories? I was hoping that the writers would write it like a set of mini-series, focusing a few passenger's stories in each of those small sets. That way, we get a solid view of each passenger's story. Instead, we're stuck with a handful of dysfunctional characters who are, at times, tedious to watch... particularly Ben Stone and the Michaela and Jared on again, off again thread... and the "Jared goes bad" thread (where did this thread come from?) I'm hoping that the second half of Season 2 improves. Otherwise, we may never know what happens to the passengers on June 2, 2024 because the series will never make it to 5 seasons.