Red Widow

We've seen this a hundred times. The whole suspense is centered on the truth behind the opening event being withheld from the main character. And because of this undisclosed truth, the red widow embarks on an illegal and suspenseful journey. We are left with a few main characters and an idea that we must stay tuned as these characters are painfully developed, all while hoping the red widow will learn the truth! But, we all know she can't learn the truth until she is fully engaged and unable to leave her new life.

Unless: a nuclear bomb goes off like in "24", or a truly exceptionally twisted plot develops along with the characters like in "breaking bad", or an outrageous number of new interesting characters are introduced like in "game of thrones", OR the red widow starts kicking butt after a brain download like in the matrix....this will be a painful soap opera struggling to became a good action/drama. With a boring head bad guy and a lame group surrounding the mediocre red widow, I think it's clear this is likely to be a one season and done flop.

I was glad that one of our public broadcasting networks in my country (the Netherlands) was finally able to produce a darn good drama TV show.

The tone, atmosphere, casting, dialog, pacing and direction were to a very high standard and helped tell the intriguing story. For the first time in history a dutch drama series was able to measure up to the quality of production of the first season of "the Wire"! It's really a shame that this show got in the wrong hands with ABC. It was a really misguided decision to adapt a foreign TV show that has only 1 solid story (first season, effectively an extended mini-series) and no real reason to tell the story after that. HBO is the only US channel I know, that could do a story like this right.

What we end up with is ABC and Melissa Rosenberg? I've read that Melissa Rosenberg, the developer of the US adaptation planned to fill 7 seasons! The production team clearly doesn't understand how to effectively tell this story. Why choose San Fransico as a location for telling a drug smuggling mafia story, most credibility is lost right there. Some roles have been grossly miscast. The tone is too lighthearted and is at times even campy. The pacing is so far off that you're not able to follow the story, let alone connect with the characters...

...It's a shame that the US has been robbed of a good TV show by ABC and Melissa Rosenberg.

...It's a shame that this bland mess is now associated with my country.

Just binge watched this and really enjoyed it.

Superbly wrapped up in the final episode with twist after twist.

Well constructed and executed storyline in the limited episodes.

Forgot Rahda is an Australian actress. Enjoyed her performance. Too bad she didn't get her kit off more often. What a body. Looks like doing yoga and being a vegetarian is very good for you. Inspired! Great emotional performances showing humanity and forgiveness in this diabolical world of crime and greed where misdeeds and betrayal can come from unexpected sources.

Loved the ending. What a family.

Messed up.

Well done team. You should be proud.

Like I said, I enjoyed it.

If this great cast of actors can't make Red Widow work, then they weren't given much to work with. I watched every episode, and aside from the fact that it's just not believable that the intelligent, involved, loving Marta would not know more about the source of her family's income - it's also not believable that she emerged from her horrific childhood as this confident, balanced, ordinary soccer mom...not to mention her sweet sister. The brother was believable as an egomaniac twisted with anger and a need to prove himself to be the top dog, and make his father proud. Schiller's character never did anything bad, but we were supposed to be afraid...very afraid. After the 3rd episode I only watched the show to see how on earth the actors were going to make the plot twists seem believable because the writing was terrible. With the excellent cast, this show had a chance, but even this cast of great actors couldn't sell this limp biscuit.

Marta Walraven (Radha Mitchell) comes from a crime family, and when her husband is gunned down, she finds herself entangled by his underworld business. Crime boss Nicholae Schiller (Goran Visnjic) blames her husband for stealing his drugs, and forces her to work for him. It turns out that her brother Irwin Petrov (Wil Traval) was actually the one who stole the drugs.

All the underworld crime drama isn't anything new. But in order to get involved, there has to be some rooting interest. The fact is there is nobody likable. Every character is problematic, even the kids. The girl is clueless. The boy is annoyingly idiotic. The family is completely dysfunctional. So who cares what happens to these people. Certainly not me.