Lillian

This is my first exposure to Cunk. Something like being exposed to a landfill. If these are jokes, they are the jokes of a 12 year old boy and even one would have been inappropriate. I guess it's "just not my kind of humor." I wasn't expecting humor at all. Anyone speaking about life, as the show's title suggests, should be either all in on the spoof and self-abnegating humor (like Monty Python) or all in on the scope of life from grandeur to mundane to science/religion/medicine/philosophy/etc. These uncomfortable childish and boorish non-sequiturs mixed with delving into meaning and purpose are so embarrassing I couldn't stand to watch more than half an episode. Cunk is Junk. Never again.

I can't comment on the script or the plot or whether the actors were doing a great job. Because the filming of this show is so poorly done I can't see past it to whatever else is on the screen. There is endless fast switching from character to character (worse than a tennis game) and nauseating crime scene floating camera sweeps -- up and down, round and round as if the person holding the camera were on a 3-day drunk. Plus the court scenes consist of up-close-and-personal full-face shots. However, even these don't linger, but we are treated to emo-shots of oily, sweaty faces under the camera lights. I fast-forwarded several times and it was more of the same. So, I ended up switching to another Netflix oldie-but-goodie where the filming was excellent. Don't torture yourself and try to watch Dept. Q. The "Q" stands for "queasy."

One of the best shows I have ever seen. Some of the characters are a bit over-the top, like the groom's father, Andy. And the requisite bad guys in the second season. But totally engaging, all of them. If they are exaggerated, well, what drama characters aren't. It's not as bad as a soap opera. Based on a true story, but juiced up a bit. The pace is perfect. I never got bored. The cast is excellent, from Froggatt to Glenister to Philip Jackson. Some delicious bits, well worth watching. The musical score is one I have added to my streaming music collection -- ethereal and haunting. No dwelling in dowdy interiors, no feeling lost in the past, this is very up to date, and visually engaging.

This show was mildly enjoyable through the first 2 seasons, then it was just more of the same every episode. The idea of Logan, the dad, wanting to hold onto the reins of a mega-corporation as long as possible while the 4 kids were stewing about who would take his place was solid gold. Until it wasn't. I remember someone once counted how many times the f-bomb was dropped in The Sopranos. It was a lot. In Succession it is 10 times that many at least. I can't imagine that any corporate setting would allow the gross sexual remarks that everyone in the Roy family makes constantly. Or that they could keep any female employees around. Or that everyone in a family would turn out to be malignant narcissists. Gradually it turned from a novel over-sexualized grossly obscene comedy to just a steady diet of garbage. All against the backdrop of the lives of billionaires who already had more than whole countries of people have, yet they were all greedy for more. I wondered if it was a comment about some of our current political figures. Could have been. BTW, my last name is Roy and I'm ashamed to admit it after watching this program.

For those who give this movie a 5-star rating, it must be a case of "the emperor's new clothes." I admit, I'm not a film connoisseur. But I am in my mid-60's and have seen many films, many genres, in many settings. When I spend a couple of hours of my life on a movie, I expect entertainment. This one was not even mildly entertaining. I watched a DVR recording of it on my TV and thought I must have recorded the wrong thing. Okay, an "art" movie. It wasn't even that. I fast forwarded 20 minutes. More of the same - boring, incomprehensible, plotless, and nothing I could relate to. I found myself thinking just about anything would be better. The casting didn't even matter, because the script and acting didn't matter. How much talent does it take to stand or sit or lie down while a camera films your inactivity? A couple times I tried fast forwarding a little further. Finally, --The End.-- The best part was seeing this thing come to an end. I thought maybe I was stuck in some space-time continuum between earth and a distant star, or sucked into a black hole about to be crushed by intense gravity. That would have been preferable to watching any more of this movie.

I can do without the dying and traumatized animal stories this morning. What is to be gained by highlighting a pod of Orcas struggling to breathe, but given little chance to make it out alive. The very next story was about a dog found locked in a shipping container for a week. Her puppies had died. The reporter "wanted to know" if the mother dog had perhaps been traumatized during her time in the container. What is it with this kind of gratuitous focus on animal pain. Thanks ET. Now I will go through the rest of my day and perhaps month being traumatized myself, by YOU. Why don't you stick to news instead of sick clickbait?

First of all, I am 65 and was shocked to see Lesley Sharpe doing another cop character who looks older than I do. And nothing wrong with older ladies getting the handsome older man, but I really didn't enjoy seeing them in bed together. There is no "cop-ness" in any of the characters. They parade through their beautiful well-kept houses (def not true for any cop I know) smoking and drinking and bemoaning the quality of their lives. Too much gratuitous blood and gore -- it turned my stomach and I had to tone down the color on my settings long enough to see whether this series was going to be worth finishing. Long periods of nothing happening followed by gut punches and blood. More of the same. The son comes out of 21 months of prison looking like his first year in uni -- fresh-faced, wonderful complexion, lovely clothes, dad offering to set him up. Yeah, like that is realistic. I could do with the setting, and the music was not too intrusive, but where is the story? Is that the mystery? Thirty minutes in and still no clue. This appears to be one of those series that could have been completed in an hour, commercials and all, if they just cut out some of the soap opera dialogue.

Sharon Small saves the show -- it wouldn't be worth watching without Havers drawing her lines in the sand then kicking over them. The character of Lynley leaves a lot to be desired. The first 8 or so episodes I thought the writers did a credible job of making an artistocrat a likable, personable man. But after that, he is insufferably short-tempered, annoying, and as petulant as a child. The characters of Havers and Lynley play off well against each other but Havers gets short shrift by having the series named after him. She is really the star of the show.

What awesome filming -- I especially enjoyed the shot where the dead body of one character is revealed when the bathroom door slowly swings toward the camera and finally the face of the character is revealed. I was not sure what kind of relationship was being depicted between Tom Hanks and his son in the film. Hanks didn't appear to be the loving father OR the psychopathic dad. But he does say his son is like him, so maybe that lack of any kind of significant emotion fits. To me, it seemed like Hanks should have been clearly one or the other. Was he the reluctant assassin? Obviously not, but again who could know from watching.

This is a sad pitting of psychological like vs like, Anderson vs Dornan. Who is going to win? Not the viewer. I put off viewing this for years because Anderson was superb as Scully in X-Files, and everything since has left me cold. Again in this one, she reinacts the same sort of character and look as in her part as du Maurier in Hannibal. Other reviewers of The Fall have lamented the way men are presented, but I am tired of show after show where women are nothing but pieces of meat. There are some sensitive detective dramas out there, that contain strong admirable male and female roles. This is not one. I quit after the first season.