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Apple TV+ recommendations?

I quite enjoyed hijack as it was so far from any kind of reality that it wasn't annoying, just pure fantasy. A bit like the Diplomat or the Bodyguard.


Stuff that is realistic is good, although often boring, stuff that is pure fantasy can be entertaining. Stuff that purports to be realistic whilst being slightly bollocks is annoying.
 
Four episodes into Invasion on Apple TV now. It's very slow burn. Anyone else got a view?
 
A380 said:
I quite enjoyed hijack as it was so far from any kind of reality that it wasn't annoying, just pure fantasy. A bit like the Diplomat or the Bodyguard.


Stuff that is realistic is good, although often boring, stuff that is pure fantasy can be entertaining. Stuff that purports to be realistic whilst being slightly bollocks is annoying.
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There was another minor bugbear for me. I found Idris Elba’s character a bit of a putdown. I’m not talking about Elba’s performance, but the actual character’s presence and charisma.

I’m not disappointed at all because he didn’t turn out to be a John McClane-style action hero. But I still felt he didn’t carry the weight he should have as the main lead. I feel the intended angle of his character’s strength was being a master negotiator rather than a macho hero, or a McGyver type causing clever havoc behind the scenes. And that would have been fine if well developed and written. But here I just found his character too much of a self-serving, slightly cowardly, and miserly spoilsport against what we as the audience wanted to happen next.
 
T & P said:
There was another minor bugbear for me. I found Idris Elba’s character a bit of a putdown. I’m not talking about Elba’s performance, but the actual character’s presence and charisma.

I’m not disappointed at all because he didn’t turn out to be a John McClane-style action hero. But I still felt he didn’t carry the weight he should have as the main lead. I feel the intended angle of his character’s strength was being a master negotiator rather than a macho hero, or a McGyver type causing clever havoc behind the scenes. And that would have been fine if well developed and written. But here I just found his character too much of a self-serving, slightly cowardly, and miserly spoilsport against what we as the audience wanted to happen next.
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having thought about it. the hijackers and that bald guy released from prison all seemed to have an Eastenders vibe to them. None of them would be out of place in Albert Square.
 
donkyboy said:
As mentioned in the wrong thread a few days ago: Hijack:

-Why the fuck does he not say in his text message there is a hijack rather than a serious incident?

-a gun loaded with blanks is still lethal. The scene where one passenger shot at Sam as they tried to get into the cockpit was hilarious. Gun went off, what 50 cm from his face and he just stood there like it was a toy cap gun. 🤣

-agree about the crap drone footage. God help us if that is the best our secret service can do.

-non of the villains were impressive. They just don't have the hijacker/bad guy look that we are so used to seeing. Poor choice of actors
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They just don't have the hijacker/bad guy look that we are so used to seeing.

Hmmm...

What do you mean by that? Do you mean they weren't lazily and racist-ly stereotyping Muslims as terrorists?

The whole point, though, was that the hijackers/bad guys weren't (stereo)typical terrorists, they were otherwise 'ordinary' innocent people or small time criminals, who'd been coerced into doing it because their families were under threat.

Re Poor choice of actors. Yeah, some weren't great. And I would've liked...

... more info/back story about Idris Elba's character's professional career as a negotiator in the corporate world. As it was, it all seemed a wee bit pop psychology and manipulation, and also him picking up on minor details, but there weren't any 'wow, that was really clever, he's a genius' type moments.

I liked Neil Maskell in Utopia though, and he had a bit of the same kind of unassuming, quiet, something brewing beneath the surface menace in that.
 
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A few people recommended Silo. The first episode offered a lot of promise but after that it slowed its pace down somewhat. Still, seem to leave me with a few unanswered questions.
 
RedRedRose said:
A few people recommended Silo. The first episode offered a lot of promise but after that it slowed its pace down somewhat. Still, seem to leave me with a few unanswered questions.
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It's alright, once you take away the "novel concept" bit. As a reader of the books, it was never going to have the novel factor and I can see it's a bit slow and disjointed at times. Sometimes the CGI doesn't actually match what's in the story, in the interests of the Rule of Cool. But then it's not a story that's meant to be analysed literally anyhow. The whole thing falls apart if you do.
 
RedRedRose said:
A few people recommended Silo. The first episode offered a lot of promise but after that it slowed its pace down somewhat. Still, seem to leave me with a few unanswered questions.
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I felt really cheated. It felt that they didn’t answer any of the questions asked or tie up any story lines. It felt like an arbitrary chopping up of a longer series into shorter seasons.

Has anyone read the ‘Wool’ series it’s based on? If so how do they compare and are the books worth reading? ETA, just read your post Chz
 
Just watched the first two episodes of S4 of Westworld. It’s good so far.
 
A380 said:
I felt really cheated. It felt that they didn’t answer any of the questions asked or tie up any story lines. It felt like an arbitrary chopping up of a longer series into shorter seasons.

Has anyone read the ‘Wool’ series it’s based on? If so how do they compare and are the books worth reading? ETA, just read your post Chz
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Wool is a fun series, but it's very much for SF fans in that you have to put aside a lot of things that bother you to allow the author to fully flesh out their interesting idea. Pretty common SF trope, but you don't see it as much in other literature. To give you an idea, Wool was originally self-published. And although it's been cleaned up since then, it still sometimes reads like it needs a good editor.

That said, the core concept is strong and if you're interested to see where it goes with that it's not an awful read. (I've read worse stuff that's been through a publisher) The full storyline gets quite wide, covers a lot of new characters and even timeframes. The show is basically only half of book one.
 
technical said:
Is it on Apple TV?
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Yes, finished it last night on Apple.

I liked it but, as with a lot of series the ending wasn’t as good as the journey . Also, in the end the multiple levels of reality and timelines meant that I personally stopped identifying with the characters .

I did enjoy it and especially liked the world building . But glad it’s the last season.

it gets annoying to spend two hours following a character only to have the program go ‘ ha ha, that’s not the real character, this one is’’ again, and again and then again.
 
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I've just finished Hijack and thoroughly enjoyed it. I agree with most peoples gripes about the technical/ATC/plane fuel details. Also found it odd that Idris's character was some sort of supersonic business negotiator and that seemingly meant that he could be the hero. It didn't really make sense IMO. It would have been better if he'd actually been some sort of special forces hard man that did hostage negotiations in his special forces retirment.

Also watched Silo recently which I thought was fantastic. Common is superb in it Although if I never hear Harriet Walters accent again in my life, that will be too soon. She seems to be in every decent TV show at the moment too.
 
Lessons in Chemistry. Series adaptation of the novel of the same name, set in 1950s American Academia, about a talented female scientist fighting the rampant institutional sexism of the era in her line of work.

Very decent first episode. Glossy and well produced.
 
Even though I’m not a believer of the paranormal, I must say the new documentary miniseries The Enfield Poltergeist is very good so far. It’s a strange hybrid beast- a dramatised documentary that includes actual soundtrack recordings of the events that allegedly took place as recorded by the investigators, which are mimicked by actors playing out the parts of the people involved. Mixed up with real interviews and news report
footage at the time, and present day testimony from some of the people present who are still alive.

Somehow it all works quite well. The dramatised recounting of events are very well produced, and the overall package engaging even if like me one does not believe in the supernatural claims.
 
T & P said:
Even though I’m not a believer of the paranormal, I must say the new documentary miniseries The Enfield Poltergeist is very good so far. It’s a strange hybrid beast- a dramatised documentary that includes actual soundtrack recordings of the events that allegedly took place as recorded by the investigators, which are mimicked by actors playing out the parts of the people involved. Mixed up with real interviews and news report
footage at the time, and present day testimony from some of the people present who are still alive.

Somehow it all works quite well. The dramatised recounting of events are very well produced, and the overall package engaging even if like me one does not believe in the supernatural claims.
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Just started this tonight. Saw another few years back which was pretty good too.
 
Kid_Eternity said:
Just started this tonight. Saw another few years back which was pretty good too.
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Really enjoying this. As well as the paranormal aspects of the story, I am astounded by how massively big a story this seemed to become at national level at the time. Not just the national press coverage, but also how many sets of parties, from journalists to paranormal investigators to respectable academics publicly discussing possible psychological explanations for the phenomena, to even the police being present inside the house at times.
 
T & P said:
Really enjoying this. As well as the paranormal aspects of the story, I am astounded by how massively big a story this seemed to become at national level at the time. Not just the national press coverage, but also how many sets of parties, from journalists to paranormal investigators to respectable academics publicly discussing possible psychological explanations for the phenomena, to even the police being present inside the house at times.
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It was huge, I was very young but even a few years later it was still talked about.
 
Finished The Enfield Poltergeist. Very good.

In other news, not a personal recommendation as I haven’t watched it yet, but the new feature-length documentary The Pigeon Tunnel, an in-depth interview of John Le Carre, is said to be excellent. Has anyone seen it yet?

The Pigeon Tunnel review – inside the extraordinary life of John le Carré | Film | The Guardian

Errol Morris’s gentle interview allows the mesmeric writer to hold forth on how his relationship with dodgy dad Ronnie informed his life as a spy and novelist
amp.theguardian.com amp.theguardian.com
 
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