The Topic of Pablo Escobar is one i would consider highly interesting, but the way its executed here just isnt.
Production value is top, sets, effects and so on, they all fit perfectly together, but thats not all a series needs.
The problems I have with this series is, that I have nothing and no one to care about.
The american cop coming to colombia with his wife doesnt really connect with me. There are so many interesting parts that get brushed over, he builds his whole gigantic drug empire practically in one episode and yet they feel hollow. I would like to see how Pablo was before, how his persona changes (because everyone earning that much all of a sudden changes), how the people arround him deal with the changes, his friends his family. When we see them all for the first time, they were already in on it. The same could be said about the DEA agents. We get a few lines of narations how it was before and how it was after Pablo took power and suddenly hes already travelling to colombia.
In my opinion there are two ways to make this more interesting:
make a documentary out of it, the things the narator says, the insane riches and the high number of casualties are both shocking and fascinating, but they get padded with crap I dont care about. By that I mostly mean the DEAs work, I mean theres no mystery, no chase not anything. They´re just tracking down little flies in the opperation and when they get them, they are already dead. Furthermore you already know how the story ends, so the other way this could get me on board would be the polar opposite of a documentary:
Get closer to specific people, weather they are in the DEA, the local police departments or within Pablos operation. People we care about, interesting characters, show their traits, weaknesses hobbies and business. This would be slow and a lot of things would be fictional, but I find the way the series is told right now to be painfully boring and Im really not someone who needs a lot of action.
I know this is a ridiculously high standard, but lets compare this with breaking bad (actually the rating is pretty close to BB). Each episode has a lot less things happening, but because of that, we can focus on them and because we get to love and hate the characters and explore them, just like they explore themselves, we are getting engaged in whats happening to them, everything has more of an impact. We keep asking ourselves, how far will he/she go? In Narcos we get Pablo ordering street shootings in the first few episodes and whats worse for me: you dont even see or hear him doing it (Oh yea, the cop also shoots people in the first few episodes, but after he has 1 minute of sadness coming home from work, its almost like it never happened). You dont see the expression in his face when he has to make these decision, not even see him plotting or anything. For me all of these characters end up feeling hollow and more like plot-devices instead of people. Also, they die within a few episodes anyway, so why should we care?
Judging from the marvellous reviews I dont have much company thinking like that. While I even have a few friends who binge-watched this thing, I had to force myself watching this after the second episode was over, but eventually gave up towrds the end ofseason 1.
make a documentary out of it, the things the narator says, the insane riches and the high number of casualties are both shocking and fascinating, but they get padded with crap I dont care about. By that I mostly mean the DEAs work, I mean theres no mystery, no chase not anything. They´re just tracking down little flies in the opperation and when they get them, they are already dead. Furthermore you already know how the story ends, so the other way this could get me on board would be the polar opposite of a documentary:
Get closer to specific people, weather they are in the DEA, the local police departments or within Pablos operation. People we care about, interesting characters, show their traits, weaknesses hobbies and business. This would be slow and a lot of things would be fictional, but I find the way the series is told right now to be painfully boring and Im really not someone who needs a lot of action.
I know this is a ridiculously high standard, but lets compare this with breaking bad (actually the rating is pretty close to BB). Each episode has a lot less things happening, but because of that, we can focus on them and because we get to love and hate the characters and explore them, just like they explore themselves, we are getting engaged in whats happening to them, everything has more of an impact. We keep asking ourselves, how far will he/she go? In Narcos we get Pablo ordering street shootings in the first few episodes and whats worse for me: you dont even see or hear him doing it (Oh yea, the cop also shoots people in the first few episodes, but after he has 1 minute of sadness coming home from work, its almost like it never happened). You dont see the expression in his face when he has to make these decision, not even see him plotting or anything. For me all of these characters end up feeling hollow and more like plot-devices instead of people. Also, they die within a few episodes anyway, so why should we care?
Judging from the marvellous reviews I dont have much company thinking like that. While I even have a few friends who binge-watched this thing, I had to force myself watching this after the second episode was over, but eventually gave up towrds the end ofseason 1.