Quantico

The characters are pretentious, the story lines ridiculously out of touch with reality, and the acting is pretty poor.

First, the lead character, is definitely easy on the eyes, but acting abilities...not so much. The show itself, seems to have zero fact base in what the FBI does and mixes it up with NSA/CIA type operations, and on top of it they would like you to believe that FBI recruits come out of the academy, with super human abilities, super human intelligence, and are immediately given positions above all those serving in the field for many years. Not to mention everyone in the academy is a terrorist, has terrorist ties, is a suspected terrorist, or has some desire to act as a terrorist. Apparently the TV FBI is worse at vetting than a potato.Apparently Quantico is just a college dorm full of annoying but cute children, the only thing missing is STD's. Or maybe the pretty is all that matters...

The show focuses around one agent and it is as though she is the complete center of the world. At first this fits because hey, every show has a star but this show does it in such overblown annoying way that you just scream "WTF!" every 2 mins.

Excessive dialogue is used to cover shoddy acting but that actually makes it worse. The only thing this show has going for it is pretty actors, and a fast pace. Other than those 2 things...it's crap.

Drooling over the female lead, I really wanted to like this, but even the stunning Ms. Chopra can't keep me wasting my time anymore. The problem with this show is that it's a dumb soap opera trying (and failing) to pass itself off as having depth and something to say. Season 3 is even worse about this than ever. Say what you want about the perfectly made-up hot actresses and high school romance plots, but when this show KNOWS it's a silly guilty pleasure romp, it's far better. When it gets above its station and takes itself too seriously with these ridiculous attempts at social commentary, unnatural cliche-ridden "inspirational quote" dialogue and hollow attempts at nuanced family drama, its cringeworthy tripe stops being fun and starts getting dull.

Throw in predictable twists and desperate attempts at "edgy" shock value and you have an unoriginal, unwatchable mess. Having Marlee Matlin join the show could have been more interesting in the hands of more capable writers and that actress deserves much better material. Instead she is reduced to cheesy lines and has to "kick some ass" like every action heroine seems to have to in order to be interpreted as "strong". It's all so very forced.

Quantico wants so transparently to be an "important" and "intense" show and thinks that bludgeoning viewers with heavy-handed obvious emotional ploys is the way to get there. It's basically Baywatch deciding it wants to try and be prestige television, and that goes exactly how well you would expect.

I have probably seen worse acting, but I just can't remember where or when. And the plot, sub-plots, sub-sub-plots, etc., are absolutely ridiculous The Saturday morning cartoons from my youth made more sense! Oh, and the background noise that is called (*ahem*) music is terrible, and sometimes so loud you can't make out the dialogue of the actors. Although that may be intentional, come to think of it.

Some reviewers have suggested that academy scenes are more like co-ed dorms, and the actors/actresses selected for their eye appeal instead of their acting ability. I can agree with that. And many of the reviewers that give it a rating of '1' are offended by how Indians/Hindus are portrayed. But given the political situation when the first season was filmed it was more politically correct than portraying them as Middle Eastern Islamics.

The flashbacks of the academy days at Quantico was interesting. That, and only that, was the only part of the show that made any sense. It took about three episodes to get used to the flashbacks, but they did hold my interest. If that's the way the academy really operates or if it is just more Hollywood conjecture I don't know.

The action scenes can be entertaining, if you don't let the bad acting and ridiculous plots/sub plots get to you.

I guess I've always thought of the flashback as a shortcut in story telling. The continuous back and forth of this show is interfering in my enjoyment of very interesting current story line. It's interesting enough that I'll continue, until I can't. I really think the series could have cut the flashbacks almost in half and told the same story.

To be honest ... that could have been after the first season. Even that could have maybe have had a shorter amount of episodes. But at least season 1 (which I would have rated higher if only that was up for discussion) was quite intriguing. Like many other movies and shows (24/Shooter) before it, it may not have made too much sense, but we were engaged while watching. The suspense was "real" (well fake obviously, but we could feel it).

Having said that, even during season 1, all the red herrings, all the missleading clues and twists and turns could get too much for its own good. Don't even start trying to make sense of most of it ... relationships get build and taken apart. And binging this really brings out the incoherent writing ... well maybe that is too harsh. But it really does not try to hide the fact that it doesn't care about certain things. Like realism ... like previous set up "facts" ... like things it tells us are important in season 2, just to completely ignore them in season 3. And that does not just include the ending of season 2, that should have left it at that.

There is a nice component in season 3, a new member to be more inclusive (good on them) and the last season is way shorter ... which is something I appreciate very much. So good start, not so good middle and finish ... back to training it goes (or obscurity, whichever works best)