Tales

I get that there is a character limit. I would like to break it now.

Awesome. Me, white guy who grew up in south east Asia. The juxtaposition just nails it irrespective of culture. Good job, remarkably well done. This is a must see, even if it doesn't support your particular polemic.

Seriously, view. It will turn you the head and entertain at the same time.

The first episode did kind of rub me the wrong way. I get what they were trying to do, but the execution was done poorly. I can definitely see how the first episode would turn people off from the show, but all I can say is give it a chance. It only gets better from episode 1 and up. Great, unique stories that can definitely make you want to binge watch, but then you realize you have a life so you have to pause; however, you can't wait to come back and continue your binge.

If you only get one thing from this post, get this: Give the show a chance. The first episode isn't the best, but it only get's better. Trust.

I just learned about this series by accident and was pleasantly surprised! Each story/episode is separate from the other, meaning NONE of the characters, plot, setting, or tone carries over to other episodes. There are some episodes that were corny or I didn't get. Those were mainly the ones with reality stars with bad acting. The ones that are good, ARE REALLY GOOD! Deep Cover from season 2 had nice ending twists that had me saying, "WTF!". But I like those types of shows. Now don't go off and watch Deep Cover because of me and you're looking for the plot twist, then it won't have the same effect and you might not like it. Now, I loved the 1st episode once I watched it all the way through. At first I read the episode summary and skipped around scenes and thought it's wack from my biased black person point-of-view. Then I told myself, "You're bored with nothing else to do, so have an open mind and watch it anyway." As I watched the movie, I appreciated the different perspective. When I removed my personal bias the only message I got was if someone is minding thier business and not hurting anyone or breaking laws, let them be. Don't create a situation.

So, after watching the first episode, I won't watch anymore of this series for many reasons.

First, this show is based on one trope and this one only : reverse stereotypes. So you get a city/place where white people are considered to be mostly thugs, low income people and where black people are richer, educated members of society. All the stereotypes you can think of but reversed.

The thing is, it doesn't bring anything to the story but being a trope, it's not used in the storytelling to improve the characters of make them more relatable or more likable. The added "Romeo and Juliet" thrown into the mix doesn't help either as it feels forced and doesn't pay off really well in term of storytelling. It all has the feel of a bad ripoff of "Noughts & Crosses" which I can only advice you read because it's largely superior to this story.

Also, the editing is pretty weird with rough transitions between scenes and aggressive cuts, there's some smoothing to make there.

The music is OK if you like hip-hop but they didn't exploit an obvious trick which would've fit the story, like using Vanilla Ice or Eminem songs for black people scenes and Biggie and Tupac songs for white people scenes ; to name only the most popular rappers in that genre. Maybe they couldn't afford it but that would've been nice and slightly more subtle than the over the top black vs white the story is going with.

Now, when you look at the acting, it's rather unequal, some performances are convincing, others are over the top so it's kind of difficult to actually get into the story.

All in all, not a good TV-show, I won't be watching anymore of it.

Top tier storytelling and the acting was surprisingly solid. I love the effort put into the show and appreciate the idea of a Black-led anthology. It has the appeal of Black Mirror with a Hip-Hip vibe. I STRONGLY recommend that white people watch the first episode, as they do an excellent job of proving perspective regarding the inner-city struggle against police brutality. I would rate the show higher if I could.