The Madness

Coleman Domingo is becoming my favorite actor. He really can make reading the phone book a compelling story. And that's just about as compelling as The Madness right now. The dialogue is almost embarrassingly bad. They try very hard to be punchy and snappy but it comes across as very predictable and corny.

From the beginning, there's much about the story that just defies the most basic commonsense. I constantly find myself asking 'why why why?!' So much so that after episode 2, I skipped episode 7 just to see what happens at the end. I have little doubt that there's little more than lots of overwrought storytelling and superfluous dialogue in the episodes I skipped.

After watching 4 episodes, the first thought I had was- that could easily have been done in 2! And therein likes the problem. It's not the acting, the actors or the plot. It's just that somebody decided to drag this across 8 episodes.

This means that the plot is needlessly stretched, the story meanders and sometimes you feel like just fast forwarding 10 mins so that they get to the point.

As far the people rating this 3 stars, it's really not that bad. Netflix really needs to start undertaking understanding that people won't get dragged by shows that are stretched just to keep one on the platform. And that's all this is- an effort to keep you on 8 hours!

Just started watching and it's a 6-8 possibly. Just wanted to get on here and direct attention to how weird these reviews are. Either 10s or 5 and below. It feels like people either love it or hate it with no in-between. Personally, I think it's solid so far, but not mind-blowing. Some aspects are really engaging, while others are a bit predictable or drag at times. The acting is decent, and the pacing is alright, though it could use more depth in some areas. Overall, I wouldn't rate it a perfect 10, but it definitely deserves more nuance than what I've been seeing in these reviews. It's a watchable show with potential that might get better as it goes. Hopefully, as it progresses, it finds a better balance.

Started with plenty of promise but the story was unnecessarily dragged out with far too many episodes!! Half of the episodes would have sufficed imo.

The main character pmo. He's supposed to be highly regarded and intelligent but kept making one bad choice after another which (I think) helped undermine his credibility.

I appreciated the concept of the show - exposing corruption and showing how ordinary people can be caught in the crossfire of systemic greed and political schemes. And also highlighting the dangers of unchecked corporate influence!! But the execution was a little disappointing.

There are many elements to this series that are well done. But I just felt it was awkward. There were so many things about the script, the direction and the acting that felt awkward. Embarrassingly so at times.

Some of the dialogue seemed so incomplete and so unpolished that I was left shaking my head. It rendered the relationships in the story incomplete and lacking depth. I feel I should have had warm feelings for many characters, but didn't.

I understand techniques to make the audience uneasy, but this is different. If it was deliberate, it failed in the execution. If this is a new style of film making, I hope it passes.