Welcome to Eden

Welcome To Eden: Young adults get invited to a festival to launch of a new drink at a secret island location. But of the 100 who attend, 5 will not leave. A cult runs the island, they worship Mother Nature but aren't above using the latest surveillance technology to enforce strict obedience. A rather dark conspiracy thriller in which layer after layer is gradually revealed. Some rather graphic violent scenes. This is very much an adult series. The idea isn't new but this is an interesting iteration. Created & Written by Joaquín Górriz and Guillermo López Sánchez. Directed by Menna Fité and Daniel Benmayor. Eight episodes on Netflix. 7/10.

Years ago they made a brilliant series called The Prisoner, with obscure but dark forces at work and strange events keeping things interesting.

Welcome to Eden starts out out like that, on a lovely Island and happy people, but it soon degenerates into a meaningless babble of eco-banalities and counseling-type encounters that leave your eyelids drooping.

There is a lot of Botox evident, and some pretty ladies and boys, but the prudish and timid story-lines suggests the producers realised halfway through that their target audience had dropped to around 13-14 years old. Weirdly boring.

Interesting premise, bad development, terrible and lazy writing. Stupid characters, stupid decisions, one after another. Entertaining at some times but not worth your time. Predictable ending. Waste of a season, 8 episodes and you still don't know where the story is going or what's the point of all of it. Full of open questions. Definitely do not recommend.

Well I'll start with the review by saying this series contains Lesbian sex, Gay sex, straight sex and sex between a guy and a Transgender female.

Its less graphic however than say Game of Thrones or other TV shows containing sex and much of it is kissing and implied sex.

I guess they were trying to show the hedonistic side of the island and its inhabitants although there are also emotions at the core.

Now thats out of the way is it any good ??

I can say its beautifully shot at a great location, however the pacing and storytelling falls short and by the end we are no nearer to a resolution, so avoid if this may Irk you.

It feels like they are setting up for a second season but i felt there was too much of very little and not enough depth.

The ideology of manipulation within Cults was well done albeit slow and meandering, however, by the end you could see the holes and cracks in the veneer. This was just careless writing and a weak structure.

The scope for a good show was there but it ultimately falls down. Its a Spanish show and like many spanish shows they do like a good cliffhanger at the end of every episode. It does get tiring...

I think without the fantastic cinematography, landscape and some decent performances from the cast it would be a 4 or 5.

You could easily cut this series in half and still feature the entire story and character plots.

I have a feeling the final 2 episodes were cut so they could lead into a series 2 which is infuriating in my mind.

Ive given it a generous 6.

This title gets a lot of bad reviews but most of the reviews on IMDB come from Americans and I often noticed that they always give bad reviews to what is not an American production, while they give a lot of stars to those stupid, childish, horrible super heros movies like Captain America, a real garbage. American movies have become unwatchable and I'm happy that on Netflix I can watch a lot of cool movies. Most of them from Spain, some from France and a few from other countries. Anyway, let's go back to Eden: Beautiful picture, nice costume, nice cast, not a bad acting at all, intriguing plot. Probably if you are young, a party goer or loving exotic islands or also loving psychedelic, you will enjoy it even more. Keep in mind that I'm 75 and I loved it anyway. If you are a close mind family person, living in some small conservative town, maybe this movie is not for you.