Reviews

The amazing amount of right notes that this hits is incredible. It strikes a perfect balance of old school 90's era trek updated with much more tastefully placed F-bombs, improved special effects, modern day humour. It's really got it all.

Picard finally and triumphantly gets his time with Jack. It's not hollywood-style water works either and it's bittersweet. It's quite well written.

Shaw has a Sisko-like scene with Picard and that scene is so well acted, scored, sound engineered, and written. It all comes together so well. Shaw's character really comes full circle. Well done writers.

Seven has a triumphant moment catching the changeling.

Riker reaches a life altering realization. It's character consistent and plays well with how his character has changed. It's just feels so... right.

And friggin space jelly fish at the end! This is Star Trek firing on all cylinders!

This is old school sci-fi hardcore Trek, and I can see how this can be polarizing.

It's got less pew-pew-shields-down-to-ten-percent style excitement an action. Instead, it's much more cerebral and intellectually interesting. I can see how others will find this a snooze fest.

But for us hardcore sci-fi geeks: WHAT AN AMAZING TREAT! I just lament that it took 11 episodes of filler to get here. This episode really goes back to the core of what Star Trek is all about: exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations.

This is Arrival on the small screen and it's quite fantastic! It lacks the complexity of the Heptapod language concept, but I can't fault the writers for that. This is a small screen budget and greater time constraints.

The Tarka B-plot is annoying though understandable. Without it there is no tension in the story and nothing to resolve. This too I can overlook.

As with all first seasons, you got to give it time. Damn you Netflix. This could have been a good start.

I can see the purists not liking this because there is quite a departure from the show. However, that isn't what didn't work for me. It was a lot darker than it needed to be and the hook wasn't as hopeful.

Firstly what worked, at least for me.

The Julia reveal. Yes, Julia didn't turn out evil in the anime. Yes, she died. Make it like the show, the purists demand. However, I think this could work as Season 2 needed some sort of continuity. It needed an arc. I can see that working.

Vicious still being a live. This could work too. Lot's could be made from his story line into Season 2.

Valentine coming to the rescue, that works for me.

I didn't like where how our 3 leads got left. And I don't think the resolution, which would have happened in Season 2, would not have been genuine. For a character like Jet, Spike's betrayal is not something that he would have forgiven. The endangering of his daughter is not something that Jet would forgive. Ever. There is no plausible way for the Writers to get out of that one.

I think it was a mistake to add Kimmie into the mix in the finale. Once she's endangered, even with a good outcome, I just can't see a guy like Jet being ok with that. And being ok with that is the only way to keep the story going so it's just not true to the character. For that, a major bomb on the writers.

That being said, the writers were able to capture the essence of the characters, but part of good writing is putting those characters in the right circumstances for a good story. The circumstances here just didn't work towards a good story. The "feel" of this ending is all off, and too broken.

Faye's leaving to find out about her past is true to the anime character. She is inherently selfish. However her wanting to side with Spike ONE EPISODE PRIOR is not. And now she's leaving? That's a bit inconsistent.

Everything Jet does here is true to character. And also kudos to Mustafa Shakir because he nailed this role to the T.

Spike is true to character. Julia is his weakness and it "feels" right that she'd be the one to shoot him.

What didn't feel right was the fracturing of the relationship by having Spike be the one that screws it up. And to screw it up in such a big way that hits Jet right in the heart. That whole ending just didn't feel like Bebop.

Also, I am extremely skeptical that a real life Ed would work. I just can't see that happening. The character is too loud, too zany for the noir feel of the show, and it's also a little creepy in real life. Ed does NOT translate well to live action, and I don't see how the writers could have ever pulled that off in Season 2.

And using Ed as the hook into the next season is not significant enough. It is improbably how that could lead to bridging the gang back together.

The finale of such an experiment should be a bit more triumphant. It needs to leave the audience with a good feeling so that we'd want to come back for a Season 2. The "feel" of this ending is all wrong. This feels more like a Season 2 type of finale. Such a shame because it was doing so well up to the last 5 minutes.

With an adaption, there will always be the purists who will decry every minor alteration and the realists that except that the change in medium (and audience) necessitates some changes.

Firstly the characters. Spike and Jet have the same feel. Spike is the brash cowboy, quick on his heels just like in the anime. He's more martial artsy in this one, but it works. Jet is now black, which some have commented on but I think works.

Faye Valentine, I can see the purists being up in arms. However, I don't think the Faye from the anime (which was released in 1998 mind you) really works both for an American audience and in 2021. Anime Faye was the stereotypical anime femme fatal. A walking pair of boobs and long legs. Sporting the yellow short shorts, low cut tank top, and red shawl always just on her arm but never covering her breasts. Someone who uses her feminine wiles to her advantage type of anime trope. I really don't think that Faye Valentine would work. Not with a Netflix audience and not in 2021. I wanted a smarter more subversive stereotype.

However, I'm not really sure this angry 90's style Girl-Power Michelle-Rodriguez stereotype Faye works either. So... I don't know. This was really the only miss for me.

Vicious is a little cartoony villainous, but the source material is a little limiting. There is a reason he only popped up sparingly in the anime.

I had some hope Ed would pop up, but that character just doesn't work in live action.

Now for the visuals. They are gorgeous. They are far richer than the anime and many of them is just straight up lifted from the original. Those are a thrill to watch.

The music choices match. The name of the show is cowboy bebop. You can't have bebop in the name and not expect some great jazz, and it delivered.

I appreciate some fan service with some plot points lifted straight from episodes. The red eye couple from live action Ep1 for example is straight up from anime Ep1. Great fan service.

It helps to have seen the anime directly before this version. Thank you Netflix for acquiring the anime and movie. For me the nostalgia from having seen the anime almost 20 years ago had built it up to more than it was. Seeing the anime now really let me see the flaws (i.e. The walking female anime trope stereotype in Faye Valentine) and gave me a different perspective in expectation of this version.

It's a darn shame that Netflix axed it. It could have been a great run.

I watched Season 1 in one sitting. It felt representative of my generation, the quarter-lifers. It felt real, very unSex and the City like. The posters of which pop up in the background reminding us how different this is from SatC. It was a novel and authentic take on the this generation, the angst, the uncertainty, the aimless wandering that we feel.

***SPOILER ALERT***

The scene of the first episode set the tone so perfectly with Hannah getting cut off. It's just such a perfect expression of the sentiment of the times. Our baby boomer parents must be feeling the financial drag and the emotional strain of nursing us from afar. The endless articles have documented this blight ad nauseum, the lost generation. And us children are left to float on, with the full confidence that our upbringing has afforded us, but the lack of focus, determination and put-togetherness to afford us the opportunity to prove our worth.

Most of this is our own fault, and we know it. Episode 2 gives that excellent and cringeworthy interview scene that we've all experienced like watching our own car wreck in slow motion.

All these characters are instantly relatable. There is nary a college weary urbanite that can't identify or have friends and acquaintances who aren't the less obnoxious versions of any characters on this show.

These characters and the absurdly funny Apatow-esque plots drew me in and kept me interested through the first season.

My favourite was Episode 9. It has so many memorable scenes: when Jess has that conversation with Kathryn Hahn's character, we really see her character challenged; similarly with Hannah's reading; and the fight with Marnie.

I couldn't wait to follow these characters into the next season! I couldn't wait to see what this scrappy upstart of Lena Dunham could offer the world and show what our generation can do if only given the opportunity.

And then Season 2 happened, and made me question Lena Dunham's abilities. It almost seems like what happened to Hannah on the show happened in real life to the writers. It felt like after the show gained attention (just as Hannah got her book deal), the pressure of it all got to Ms. Dunham as well. Season 2 hemorrhaged dialogue, plot twists, and detours that was not in the spirit of what Season 1 set this show out to be. WHAT HAPPENED?

Season 2 felt like the boring set of pages Hannah sent in to the editor. In fact, everything that George says about Hannah's writing can be said about this season: "I didn't know who was writing them", "Where's the sexual failure?"

When referring to her having sex with a teenager, George says that it's the stuff we need. Ironically, that episode when Jess goes to see her father, and also the episode previous where Adam and Ray go return the dog... THAT was the show I fell in love with.

The drama with Elijah, the Marnie/Charlie will-they-won't-they bullshit ("You won't get any of this" WTF?! This is so inconsistent with the Charlie we know from season 1), the sudden onset OCD (feels like an unnecessary and desperate attempt to add some drama and depth to Hannah but not too much), the doctor plot detour (a smoking hot 40 year old recently separated doctor... this just sounds like a writer's wet dream, not from an authentic show like Girls), Charlie starting his own company plot twist (seriously? a musician writes and app without any technical help, no co-owners/co-founders?). All of this just wreaks of Sex and the City, which is not why I wanted to watch this show in the first place!

It feels like Season 2 came from a newly successful writer that felt the crushing pressure recreate a best seller. And now we have a work that's just pedestrian.

I really hope season 3 improves or that's when I'll give up on this show.