Disappointed (Off-Topic)

by CyberKN , Oh no, Destiny 2 is bad, Monday, November 28, 2022, 14:58 (513 days ago) @ Kermit

People built this up as the best thing since sliced bread.

It was unusual that I even tried it, because I'd heard nothing good about the last two shows. I started it only because Rogue One is my favorite Disney Star Wars movie. I hadn't heard any hype. After loving the first one I went looking and found a bunch people claiming this wasn't Star Wars, there's no lightsabers, stuff like that. What they didn't like about it was what I liked about it, and that might be the case here.

I love lightsabers as much of the next person, but I went into this not expecting any of the classic star wars tropes, because of what people were saying about it; It's already been shown you can do really good SW stuff without them (and really bad SW stuff with them)

Andor is Season 4 of Star Trek: Enterprise, but less entertaining. They try to do the thing where you have multiple mini-arcs in a season, but the episodes that try to "flesh out characters" and "build tension" are so devoid of anything interesting and repetitive, that I struggle to think how anyone could keep engaged in this show on a week-to-week basis, aside from the performances.

Wow, well, didn't see Star Trek: Enterprise, but otherwise I have to agree to disagree. One of my favorite episodes was episode 5, where Cassian gets to know the heist crew. It's subtle, well-written, and believable. Most importantly, the things we learn about the characters are interesting and have significance that carries forward.

I hate that episode. There's nothing wrong with episodes building up the world or characters, but it can't JUST be that unless there's a satisfying story told within.

I say it's less entertaining than Enterprise S4, because S4 is when the writing on the show really started to kick into high gear, and each part of the two or three episode arcs had enough meat in it to justify being a standalone episode. IMO, that season is some of the best Trek out there, up with the peaks of TNG and DS9.

In contrast, even though I was binge-ing all of Andor last week, I gave an audible "That's it??" when the credits rolled on multiple episodes.

Spoiler-free example: The Buyer gives a rousing speech at the conclusion of episode 2 an an attempt to recruit Cassian. It's very well acted and delivered. He then gives almost that exact same speech at the beginning of 3, to the same person.

The Buyer actually doesn't meet him until the middle of episode 3, but regardless, if you're talking about their first two times they speak, they begin a conversation that is interrupted and picked up again in the next episode. I didn't find it repetitive, except it was the same subject that got fleshed out.

Right, I confused 2/3 with 3/4 here. I still maintain that you could have cut either of these speeches and the impact of the other would have been elevated.

The conclusions of these mini-arcs, when they finally happen, are good, but not enough to excuse all the filler that comes before-hand. Andor would easily be a much better series if it was compressed into 6 episodes instead of 12. This has been a recurring theme with every Disney+ show with the notable exception of the Mandalorian.

Again, this might have come down to what kind of content each of us likes. The conclusions of the mini-arcs were good, but I would have been bored by them without all of the "filler," which I thought was superb, and gave the more kinetic sequences weight. I realize that this isn't a show for everyone--that's cool. Damn if it isn't a show for me.

[/2Cents]

Thanks!

You too. I appreciate you responding and not just calling my opinions wrong :P

Looking forward to Season 2, if they make it.