Julie Ratliff

I think it's a bit rushed, but I was pleasantly surprised by most of the first episode--Hahn's riff on WInslet's Mare of Easttown might have been a touch overboard, but when the creepy clues to the spell/curse bit were mixed in, it really worked. It was Dramatic Irony at its best that we the audience knew something the character clearly did not quite suspect. I would have been happy for them to deal with that a bit longer--to really give us a feel for the 'curse' aspect before dropping it for the recruitment drive. The song at the end of episode two was 'magical,' but the whole recruitment drive was sooo fast and forced, it really deserved more time.

I never thought I would actually miss the Lynch adaptation, but as corny and . . . odd . . . as it was, at least it had style and personality and some drop dead gorgeous sets/props/costumes. This one is just . . . beige from most of the sets and costumes to the truly beige acting, and don't get me started on the sheer number of info dumps. Exposition in a book is one thing, endless speeches of exposition in a film slows it down needlessly. Even the Bene Gesserits and the Baron weren't intimidating. How do you make a Dune film where the Baron is . . . boring? Like the Hobbit set a few years ago, they are trying too hard to drag out the story for multiple episodes instead of just looking at the reality that the book series has plenty for multiple episodes just looking at one book at a time.