Karen Hughes

At first blush, I loved this show. But when they brought the desperately overacted, excessively crass brunette detective into it, I checked out. Ridiculous dialogue, WAY too exaggerated in her behaviors and mannerisms. It seemed like she was trying too hard to be an overly stereotypical Australian. I tried to give it a second episode but just couldn't bear her one more minute of her atrocious acting. Bummer!

Toni Collette is too good an actor for this show. It starts strong and kept my attention for the first few episodes. But it lost its way and became a muddled mess. There are so many loose story threads that never seem to quite make sense in the end. The daughter was the weakest character, driving me crazy with her complete cluelessness and unconvincing reactions to everything. The dialogue and writing was so lackluster for the last four episodes, I no longer cared how it ended. The supposed "terrorist" organization was laughable with their juvenile disorganization, and their political cause was a just a vague idea, at best. It's billed as a "thriller" on Netflix, but, at best, it's a not-very-exciting family drama.

Predictable, full of clichés, bad writing. Hard pass.

Let me first say, I heard so much raving about this that I decided to give it a whirl. Unfortunately, the show's description was right on, and I was right to have avoided it. So many overused American crime drama tropes are written into this, I became bored a few minutes in. When you create such a joyless character as Mare, you have to give that character some aspect that will draw the audience in. I kept waiting to at least care about her but ultimately was left feeling annoyed by her. You know that tired formula for cop dramas: broken family home-life; overly cynical, cranky personality; jealousy over ex's new partner; using alcohol and casual sex to drown their sorrows; blah, blah, blah, rinse, repeat. There's not one original idea in this script. I couldn't even make it through the entire first episode. Deleted from my Watchlist.

The premise is intriguing, the science is on point, and the sci-fi effects are great. I like how the writers have maintained the mystery of the debris, revealing its properties in tantalizing bits. But by episode 3, the story is starting to become bogged down by the undercurrent theme of "grief and its universality". I'm concerned that the payoff at season's end is not going to be worth the buildup.