garycraze

Ted Danson's quirky, funny, intelligent, bumbling, "every man" character is insanely entertaining in this series. The premise of the show isn't overly complicated, yet is both extremely funny and touching at the same time. It may not necessarily resonate with younger audiences, but if you're "of a certain age", then you'll love this show. The supporting actors are solid, and the real, down-to-life, personal interactions the main character has with the cast is both absolutely hilarious and heartwarming. My wife and I both enjoyed this series and are very excited for a second season to come around.

I'll give kudos to the producers who generally kept to the original characters and storyline from George R Stewart's novel. However, as great as the novel was with building the characters and telling a gripping story, this mini-series felt extremely shallow and bland. The actors seemed either empty or over-done, and a lot of things just seemed be contrived and glossed over. Perhaps it's too much to ask for some basic technical accuracy to be used, but too many things were just used as plot devices and the watcher is expected to just think that's how things work. I understand the desire to set the story in modern times with modern technology, events, etc, but even with hours of TV time to burn, the story just falls flat. In 1950, one year after the book was published, the novel was adapted for a one-hour radio program that did more in sixty minutes to capture the spirit of the novel than the hours and hours of the 2024 adaptation.

The first movie was compelling, engrossing to the point where you hardly realize it's mostly all done in one room, with the plot and dialogue speaking for itself. Holocene was a huge disappointment. If the first movie was quality plot, script and acting at an adult level, then the second one was a poorly written teen drama that basically puked all over the concepts of the first movie. They had every opportunity to make a great follow-on, but completely missed the mark. The campy teen drama, making leaps of reality to make them into hip, snarky teen detectives just made the movie nearly unwatchable.