The Get Down

Wow! Just finished the first episode of 'The Get Down' and being a massive Hip Hop fan with a healthy appreciation of countless musical genres stretching from Punk to House, it's perhaps inevitable that I've fallen in love with this show. Everything about it seems well thought out, the characters, the sets, the wardrobes, the music, just everything! Yes, it's flamboyant and a bit over the top but very much in keeping with the period.

I'm not gonna go into a detailed review other than to say - get it watched. Hope the rest of the series lives up to first episode - if it does - this will be the best TV show of 2016. Word up.

I watch a lot of TV shows; most of them in fact. This is the one that has me swapping from VLC to Wikipedia to check facts. I have never been so intrigued to learn so much about an oppressed past that happened so recently in my own country. How do we not know about these things? Fortunately. we soon all will.

This show will bring out the Get Down in you. You probably don't even know what that means. I didn't. But you soon will. We all need it, and it is here for your learning.

Get down my friends, and understand what that means.

I am a big fan of Baz Luhrmann's work. I love his creative, colorful and unique styles. I didn't know The Get Down was his work until i finished the show and looked it up and it made total sense that it was his work. I loved this show, by far one of my favorite Netflix series. The young men and women they chose for the cast do an excellent job acting and seemed to come so natural to them.There is also a few actors we have seen before in some of our favorite shows, which was very cool to see. It is very poetic & emotional and connecting with the characters is really easy.The story line is fun, exciting, edgy and easy to follow with a lot of historical fiction included.

I was not there then but I can appreciate it. At times, it feels slightly overplayed (the gang scenes in EP 1 for example), but otherwise it's well done.

Music is exactly what you'd expect and the women are gorgeous. I also like the flashback elements. They were effective and not overly long or preachy, as flashbacks can get.

Story is layered, starts off at several ends and slowly weaves together. I have really enjoyed it so far.

The series also uses documentary to weave real life elements together as a political statement of the ghetto 70's NY. It's hard to imagine just how corrupted NYC was in the 70s. Just crazy

This is a great series. There are little things that they got wrong that you would only know if you grew up then... some songs that were a year or two off but it does a fantastic job of capturing life in N.Y. in the 70s.. I graduated from Taft H.S. in 1973 so I know the flavor.. I recognize some of the places and I love the way they blended historic footage with film footage to create a nice image of The Bronx in the 70s. Some of the stuff .. like some of the gang stuff.. was a little over done.. When I was coming up the gangs I knew about in my area were The Black Pearls, The Young Saigons, Savage Skulls and The Black Spades .. there were many others.. but I was not a gang banger. When I moved to the Belmont Ave Ave area the Ching A Ling Nomads had a clubhouse right around the corner on Arthur Ave.. This series does a good job of capturing the fashions and dialog of the time as well..