Tales

Oh my God. Who's idea was it to cast Chet Hanks? Was it supposed to be a joke? I cringed at his every line.

The jury is out in my opinion on whether this is a good show or not; the story-line for episode one was interesting and the racial/cultural flip-flop made the story very edgy.I have not seen this perspective on story telling before and the romance aspect seemed unnecessary and did not add to the story. Adding the hip-hop culture (specifically the music) to the plot makes this show intriguing (if you are a hip-hop/rap head). The acting was okay and scene cuts could have been smoother. I will watch episode two and I will definitely know at the end of the episode if this is a good, mediocre or bad show.

This show is stupid! It doesn't even play the song the story is about till the very end!!!

So, after watching the first episode, I won't watch anymore of this series for many reasons.

First, this show is based on one trope and this one only : reverse stereotypes. So you get a city/place where white people are considered to be mostly thugs, low income people and where black people are richer, educated members of society. All the stereotypes you can think of but reversed.

The thing is, it doesn't bring anything to the story but being a trope, it's not used in the storytelling to improve the characters of make them more relatable or more likable. The added "Romeo and Juliet" thrown into the mix doesn't help either as it feels forced and doesn't pay off really well in term of storytelling. It all has the feel of a bad ripoff of "Noughts & Crosses" which I can only advice you read because it's largely superior to this story.

Also, the editing is pretty weird with rough transitions between scenes and aggressive cuts, there's some smoothing to make there.

The music is OK if you like hip-hop but they didn't exploit an obvious trick which would've fit the story, like using Vanilla Ice or Eminem songs for black people scenes and Biggie and Tupac songs for white people scenes ; to name only the most popular rappers in that genre. Maybe they couldn't afford it but that would've been nice and slightly more subtle than the over the top black vs white the story is going with.

Now, when you look at the acting, it's rather unequal, some performances are convincing, others are over the top so it's kind of difficult to actually get into the story.

All in all, not a good TV-show, I won't be watching anymore of it.

Top tier storytelling and the acting was surprisingly solid. I love the effort put into the show and appreciate the idea of a Black-led anthology. It has the appeal of Black Mirror with a Hip-Hip vibe. I STRONGLY recommend that white people watch the first episode, as they do an excellent job of proving perspective regarding the inner-city struggle against police brutality. I would rate the show higher if I could.