Venkat Iyer – Google

This is not exciting. This is boring, banal and mundane. And yet - that's what makes it more believable. I binge watched it, though kept nodding off - so good enough but not great. The satellite stuff is over dramatised. The crisis is sufficiently realistic - the kind of boring stuff that might be what actually happens on a daily basis. The actor playing the American president is pathetic. Some of the Australian spies were not played by good actors either. All in all its ok and different from the routine thrillers.

Miscast a pretty face as Nimue. Like watching a movie from 50 years ago - beautiful empty headed actress and so much bad acting. A wandering plot that doesn’t evoke enough interest. I’m writing this review as I watch episode 6 - it’s not interesting enough to grip me. Even the decade old Merlin series, despite its childishness, was more interesting. None of the awe of the original Arthurian legend has been captured here. A great chance to recreate the mystique of the Lady of the Lake wasted in silly twaddle. Just another adolescent teenage gay lesbian centric politically correct serial - even the music seems inspired by Star Trek Discovery instead of creating something special like the Witches Aria from Merlin episode 1. Most of the elements are bits and pieces from older movies - Grace Jones from Conan, Excalibur resembling the Ring of Sauron that consumes its owner, an Ungoliath like Spider and so on. It gets a lot better from episode 8 onwards - the Uther Pendragon story improves (pathetic in the early episodes), the music improves, so does the story line. But the misplaced scenery of what looks like Dorset instead of Cornwall continues to grate. Nimue is still adolescent as is Morgana - the two most important roles are badly underperformed. Saddest of all is Arthur - reduced to being a swineherd for the young coming of age Princess - do they have to degrade him this much? You know the writers failed when a nine year old (Squirrel/Percival) is the best character in the show. They also mess up in the history department, with Vikings instead of Saxons. In the Arthurian legends the Saxons were as yet unconverted to Christianity. Celts and Welsh druids as Fey is ok but why dispense with the Saxons completely and bring in Viking invaders from a later time into the story? Is it just taking advantage of present Viking popularity? We have a Danelaw type claimant to throne with an invading army on the March as well as a separate group of long ship raiders. Kitchen sink approach to showmaking. Still worth watching for any fantasy fans though.

Without making Sherlock Holmes and Watson characters in this story, which has nothing to do with them, this would be pure garbage. With them, it's still garbage but faithful fans would want see it just to see how badly the series mangles the characters - as I did. Reflects pure incompetence of the writers in pulling off a Victorian supernatural story without shoving some beloved characters into it. They could have made such a wonderful serial about the real irregulars - a great opportunity wasted.

It started well as a good alternative to the original. But by 13th episode which I'm watching now, it's degenerated into complete random nonsense - a poor quality ghost haunting horror story with all detection by Nancy being just seances with real mediums, trapped in Stephen King type weirdness, cockroaches crawling, blood dripping only to vanish and real ghosts. Horrible. Difficult to watch. Even scoobie doo type Nancy true to original would have been preferable. It's Riverdale with real ghosts (I stopped watching Riverdale after season 2). Failure of imagination and inability to write a real detective story for Nancy to solve. I'll probably stop watching soon, already speeding through the nonsense. Unfortunate. They could have easily made it a period piece or had Castle/Psych type one hour episodes or even four hour 5 episodes storylines for more complex story development. One bad ghost storyline for 20 hours is too much. Acting is so so, characters one dimensional. It's ok for teens (somewhat dull witted teens) who like ghost vampire supernatural storylines with lot of nonsense. Not for adults or people looking for detective fiction/ serials. Or even people who like fantasy but want the magic to have proper rules, not situations where anything can happen. Just like stranger things, it gets worse as the story progresses. If this is what they wanted to do, why call it Nancy Drew ?

It's not like a Perry Mason at all - more like a Hammett story where nobody is good. Excellent film noir and a gripping tale - brings back the thirties very faithfully. But a let down for Perry Mason fans - Della Street is gay??? Hamilton Burger is gay???? Paul Drake is black????? Why bother to call this Perry Mason at all? Would have worked equally well with some other names. The ending had the entry of Eva Griffin from case of the velvet claws - the first Perry Mason book - that was the only satisfactory part of the whole miniseries for those who have read the books. Worst of it is that we know the murderer from the first episode itself - they show who it is. But I still loved the superb period setting and the great acting - well worth watching and can't wait to see the second season.

Cringing at the bad acting by the small child and Vidya Balan 23 minutes into the movie. Having to struggle to watch this. Really bad script and poor quality of acting - we have got used to much better - Vidya Balan is badly out of date in 2020. Will write more only if I can bring myself to continue. Starting life with a circus dad would have been a much better start and also true - they also got the timing wrong by a decade - what for? This is painfully bad