Cassandra

Cassandra has a visually appealing retro setting and is well-executed from a cinematographic perspective. The production design and atmosphere are certainly highlights.

Unfortunately, the series is dragged down by exhausting and unrealistic dialogue. The acting is also quite poor, with the all-too-familiar overacting that many German actors tend to deliver. As a German myself, I found it difficult to watch at times.

The way the story unfolds feels forced and unnatural. The fact that no one believes the mother and instead sympathizes with the house AI to an almost absurd extent is simply unrealistic. The plot, dialogues, and many sequences feel artificial and detached from reality, making it hard to stay engaged.

A missed opportunity, given the strong visual potential.

Overall the plot was fairly interesting and unpredictable, at least as much as this idea of out of control AI house can get. It's basically two sub plots that intersect, and the real plot is the Cassandra's back story.

My main issue was how much I had to suspend disbelief. The 70's vibe is cool but just don't make sense. I'm not sure why this couldn't take place further in the future. I also think the power of the AI was unrealistic in that the humans should have easily been able to overcome it. Basically most of the characters are just really dumb and you need to buy into that for it to work. Technology aside, you know the situation that is unfolding would never happen in real life and that inner voice is telling you that the whole time.

I think it important to push this generation and telling them they did something great here.

Of course not everything in this series is fantastic but after watching it, i though this is something good that opens new doors, rising the bar for quality of plots, depth and passion.

At the beginning i felt that the charakters are just actors trying to act as a family and trying really hard to show intimacy within a family. It came close to the german feeling of fremdscham.

But i did not want to judge too early or bash the german filmmaking because thats no helping anyone and its just too easy.

So i stopped focusing on the slightly negative things and enjoy the good things. First i was afraid it would be film/series about a robot getting out of control. But how the plot turned out was just surprising. At the end i thought that a lot of love and work went into that series. I think the acting could be better but....there are enough of good acting series/movie with bad plots and no soul for the project. The dystopic ideas of black mirror are well intergrated without being too much of a copy-paste. Producing a series that picks up the modern topics such as AI, mix it with a thriller and use the 70's setting created an unusal fun for me. I want to thank the whole crew for putting that much passion and thoughts into this project. I enjoyed watching that.

I'm writing this as a German who wants to support German movies and series without Til Schweiger or Matthias Schweighöfer.

Cassandra is an above average series by international standards and a super good series by German standards which tells two stories: one of Cassandra in the 70s and one of a family moving into a new home after a tragic loss.

The quality of acting is mixed, especially the father of the family and the young girl cannot fully convince; their acting stays bland with no profile. The actresses of the mother and Cassandra however do a very good job. I wanna see more of them in the future please!

The set and the atmosphere were super good, every episode made me want to keep watching but the last 2 episodes in particular had too many moments I couldn't enjoy because it was too far from the logic set up the episodes before or because the characters suddenly started acting stupidly.

If you are okay with that, please give Cassandra a chance. It's also a nice series to learn German because of the clear pronounciation.

The core idea is very intriguing. I don't know how they managed to ruin it so much-well, actually, I do: they inserted too many themes (ranging from social issues to drama) and failed to develop any of them properly. The psychology of the characters and the dialogues are weak and unrealistic; they should have focused on fewer elements and worked on executing them well. Even the main theme of the series feels watered down and underdeveloped. It had the potential to be profound but instead became yet another empty and predictable plot (you can guess exactly how the series will unfold just by watching the first episode).

On the positive side, the audiovisual aspects are well done and immersive (even with the English dubbing). This could have been a great series if not for the unnecessary additions and the shortcomings of the plot.