Semper Fi

Exec prod Sharon Martin's ego spoils an interesting series. Her awful narration is so irritating that it's hard to watch so recommend replacing sound with subtitles. Luckily, Martin left in 2018 but the many series up to then are still aired regularly. She downgraded the series' rating from excellent to good but could do better.

What embarrassingly bad, mind-numbing rubbish. The book and Nic Roeg"s film are both superb - what's the point of this? As for Bowie, the reason he was perfect casting as Newton is because he just played himself, and, at that time in the conventional 70s, he was so avant-garde and unconventional that to cast him in the role of an alien was a brilliant choice by an equally maverick genius, the British director Roeg. It's impossible to remake and ignore the source material, obvs. But it's because this poorly executed version is so second rate by comparison that it is getting slammed. And why on earth (geddit?) was Bill Nighy chosen to play Thomas Newton? He's a dear old boy, much loved and good actor but positively ancient for this role. Don't forgets Newton was an alien who chose that body. Why would an alien choose a clapped out old body over a much younger one? So this series starts with a stupid premise and continues in the same vein. It's as pointless and self-indulgent as the scene by scene remake of Psycho. Here's a suggestion for the production company: why not have an original idea for once, and write/create something new instead?

One hopes that an out lesbian ship's captain, a woman succeeding in a predominantly male industry, and a notoriously sexist one at that, would support the female crew. Not Captain Sandy. Nearly everyone she has sacked has been female and she rarely admonishes the male crew (once), allowing appalling misogynistic crew members like João to behave terribly towards the young female stewards with impunity. Series 6 had the worst guy yet: the creepiest of creeps, an Uncle Fester lookalike pretending to be chef, a proven and admitted liar, Mat Shea. If the whole first day without a chef fiasco wasn't a set up, why did the production company Bravo allow him to blackmail them like that? The charter guests were already on board, he clearly faked his knee injury (and admitted it later), Cap'n Sandy couldn't get anyone else in due to the 5 day Covid quarantine and her Croation female 'friend' from a nearby boat who came in to help was as much use as a chocolate teapot. Chef Fester ignored most of the Cap's texts. He returned with a feeble excuse ("I freaked out so I bailed, that's what I always do"), abandoned the pretence of a fake limp after 5 mins and had the cheek to tell, tell not ask, a meek Captain Sandy that he wouldn't cook the crew meals or the charter guests wedding cake (the whole reason for the charter as the primary guests were getting married, by Cap Sandy). The crew meals and the cake were all ordered in (but he took credit for the cake when the primary praised him for it). I could go on, and on, and on because everything about the guy was off. They've had nervous chefs, rude chefs, temperamental chefs and lothario chefs on before but this man doesn't even act like a chef. He expected a medal for cooking a "multi-course" meal and expected the stews (girls) to wash up and tell him where the plates etc were kept. He had a real go at Lexi for putting a foot next to a very small pile of dirt on the galley floor that he had just swept up. This was after blaming her for his choice to plate up the first course too early. He always blamed someone else for his mistakes. There's something else going on there, something off key with his personality. Look how nasty he got in the restaurant after the charter when the crew ribbed him about his fake knee injury and the chaos that he created then left the rest of his colleagues to deal with. And for the Cap'n to sack Lexi is the greatest injustice and another example of Sandy not supporting her female crew (unless she fancies them, like Malia, of course. Although everyone seems to fancy the manipulative little so-and-so). The way that man/chef/psycho spoke to Lexi was a disgrace & guaranteed that he wouldn't dare speak to a man the same way. Does Bravo think misogynistic liars who blackmail the whole crew and production team is the sort of drama people want? The viewing figures would be higher if that was the case. Seeing how a luxury yacht/boat is crewed and how friendships and relationships begin then progress among the crew is fun and interesting to watch. We can enjoy vicariously the charters through the lucky guests But this alleged chef should not have been on the show. I won't mention the other online rumours about him but, please Bravo, show some duty of care for the young women in the cast next time.