markfranh

I suspect we aren't the only ones who watch programmes like Ivalo/Arctic Circle in order to get away from the usual American offerings. Scandi Noir is what we are after and that's why we look for offering likes Ivalo.

Unfortunately, the writers of Ivalo have partially turned their backs on Finland even though series 3 is still set in Ivalo. They've gone full-on American this time.

Theme of this series seems to be related to an American car company (think Tesla) has set up a facility near Ivalo and, of course, in the opening scenes there are a number of deaths related to their new test vehicle. By "a number of deaths" I mean a lot of deaths depicted in the usual American way.

Americans abound in this episode and if that wasn't bad enough the American actors are hardly top of the line actors. None particularly convincing.

Just really disappointing that the writers decided that in order to attract a wider audience they seem to have decided that it was necessary to turn this into a poorly done American shoot-em-up with lots of bodies everywhere type of show. This write down to the point of graphically depicting one of the dead being dipped into an acid bath to be disposed of. Just totally unnecessary.

Not sure at this point if we will be watching episode 2 but just wanted to record how disappointed we were on the direction that is being taken.

We watched the first episode three nights ago. Just baffled by the whole thing but decided it could only get better. MIstake..

A word of advice for those who are tempted to persist with this. Do what I did: use an AI to lookup something like "Summary of events in Episode 2 of The Assassin". Read it, and then repeat for episodes 3, 4, 5, and 6. By doing so, you can save yourself the misery of being hooked in by episode 1 and then feeling you have to binge watch the remaining episodes in order to find out what happens. I'm glad I did after we watched episode 2 (which was no better than episode 1 by the way) as I managed to get the remaining plot details without having to endure a further 4 hours of pain watching the remaining 4 episodes. Based on the summaries, we didn't miss much by giving up on this series.

Worth pointing out that even the AI I used implied strongly that it was confused about what the program was about!

Is it supposed to be a comedy or is it supposed to be a serious action drama? We couldn't tell.

I hadn't read reviews here on IMDB before watching and have only just read through the first 16 that are currently posted and was relieved to see that there are as many confused about it as we were.

Some seem to genuinely think it's supposed to be a comedy and that those not used to British humour just aren't getting it. We've watched loads of British tongue-in-cheek type series and The Assassin is't like anything we've seen out of the UK before. I'm not convinced.

Others think it is so bad that it is just coming across as being intended as a comedy. Again, not too sure.

We just think it's just not working.

If it's supposed to be a comedy, then the comedy is missing even as a "black comedy". If it's supposed to be a serious action type drama, then it's hilarious beause it misses the mark entirely.

What struck me after watching is that it SHOULD have been done as an obvious comedy but wasn't and it is so bizarre that it is coming across as a failed comedy.

I love Keeley Hawes and I have to say this isn't her fault. Maybe she didn't know how to play it. Did anybody tell her it was a comedy if that was the intention? I think ot.

It occurred to me that it needed someone with a Bruce Willis type sense of wry humour to play the role (keeping it as a female obviously). Maybe a John McClane type of character who finds himself in a serious situation but is wisecracking his (or her in this case) way through it. That might have worked. But not Keeley playing it absolutely straight and us wondering what it is supposed to be.

Can I add, too, that the scene with the sniper in episode 1 was just so ridiculous that it came across as almost funny. Funny without being funny or intended to be funny. A sniper tries to take out Keeley Hawes character. They can't of course, because otherwise there wouldn't be a series. Shot after shot misses the mark and I think with all the reloading we are talking maybe 30 bullets in all but just guessing. But the thing is this: bullets that miss Keeley don't just bounce off the ground or other obstacles vaguely in her vicinity. This professional snipers manages to hit bystanders square in the heart and killing all of them even if they are nowhere near where Keeley is hiding. His assignment was to take out Keeley; why is hitting everybody except Keeley? How can you not laugh at this sort of nonsense? How can writers expect audience to believe this is serious when this is the way something is written and so ludicrouse.

Confused? Well we certainly were. So we gave up after episode 2 proved to be no better.

My wife jokingly said to me after we watched this something along the lines of "if you make me watch the third episode of this rubbish, we're getting a divorce.

I agreed. Not with the divorce bit. About it being rubbish.

One of the worst things I've seen out of British television in a long time.

We watched the first episode and were not impressed but that's often what happens with the first episode in a series. It takes time to establish characters and perhaps that's why the first episode was so poor; a lot of time was wasted establishing character. I sensed there was more to it than that but I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Surely it could only improve.

Big mistake. It didn't improve.

It was just awful. Worse than the first. The plot all over the place and hard to follow with so many twists and turns and coincidences it was just stupid at times.

I read a lot of professional reviews of programmes and base whether or not to watch a series based to some extent on what the pros think of something. I thought I'd seen a review of episode 1 a few weeks ago that indicated it might be "promissing". It wasn't particularly positive in its wording but I thing "promissing" was a fair summation.

After watching episode 2 last night, I by chance received a review from a regular reviewer in my inbox this morning which was only about episode 2. Let me just copy and paste in one key bit here from a review that was far from complimentary:

"And yet despite the familiarity, there are tonal problems here - the cast ham it up and sometimes play it for laughs, and the next moment swear their heads off and are confronted with some darkness. It doesn't all quite fit together."

100% agree. Tonal problems? Doesn't fit together? Absolutely to both. This is a series that doesn't know what it wants to be. If they'd played it for straight laughs all the way and wrote it that way, it would have worked. If they'd tried to play it serious throughout, it MIGHT have worked (but not convinced of that really). But what they did? It does NOT WORK.

The reviewer gave it 2.5 stars out of 5 which is the lowest I've ever seen him give anything and I even thought that was generous.

Summing it up when discussing it with my wife when the threat of divorce was put aside, we agreed on the main problem. Phyllis Logan as Cora Felton.

We thought her performanc and character just felt all wrong. I love Phillis in roles I've previously seen her in. She was great in Guilt. All the way back to Lovejoy in the 80s, just thought her perfect in that.

But here? Just not convincing and I think that due as much to the material and her not knowing what to do with it as her own performance being "off".

If an actor doesn't believe in the words she is uttering or the story (and she wasn't the only one here), how is the audience supposed to go along with it?

Absolutely beyond me how another reviewer here gave this an 8. I think my 2 just about right.

IN a word:

Dreadful.