Denovot
That seems to be the question I'm left with after viewing the first two episodes. The lead female takes over acting to the extreme. Then there's the framing and close ups on said over acting that makes sure you can't miss it. And there's the script, there's only so much even a great actor could make of those lines. The behavior of the 8 year old girl at the center of the drama doesn't help towards garnering much sympathy from the audience. Her character is just not believable and quite irritating to boot. Devon Sawa and the husband Tom do a pretty good job with what has been handed to them but haven't been able to over shadow the glaring shortcomings. The pacing is a problem as well, especially in the first episode. They hit you with one thing after the next, never really establishing much of anything to captivate the audience. Even with the throw it all at the wall method they haven't carved out a unique story. I've only seen 2 episodes and I can pretty much guarantee the writers will have the lead locked up in the looney bin before the series is over. Le sigh.
Film Filmesen
Warning: This show is mediocre in every aspect, from the story to the production, from the script to the acting/directing. The premise is interesting enough. Mother Laura looses her daughter Serena, kills herself in sorrow and wakes up before the murder. How does she prevent it?Sadly, too much is thrown into the mix, like a kid making a cake for the first time. The story is bloated with repetition, random subplots and obstacles. Two times allergy is used a a plot device. Two times Serena befriends a seemingly bad guy. Two times our hero's car is rendered unusable in crucial moments, towed one time and wheel-clamped another. Seriously? Stuff like this is just frustrating to watch and only serves to make a 90 minute plot fill 400 minutes.The story gets unnecessarily intricate and involves, besides Laura and Serena, a cheating husband, an estranged grandmother, a rough investigator/ex cop, his assistant and dead girlfriend, her dead mother, several other dead women, a serial killer teacher, a corrupt cop, a police chief, an innocent man on death row, his mother and daughter, the governor, his wife, son and foster son, the governor's fixer, some thugs, and...a pop star, which happens to be Serena's idol and also connected to the core murder that started it all ten years ago.The bloated, haphazard story makes the script suffer as well. It's tediously packed with information to remind the audience of what's going on, and the actors stumbles in their words because they have to say it all in half a second. Take this remarkably long line, for example: "What would you say if I told you that somebody who might be the man who shot Haskell Debray just brought my husband a photograph that he lied about and then shredded."Even the writers know that this is bad, for the next line is: "I'd say watch the run-on sentences." But going meta has to be smart in order to work. You don't do it just to patch a bad script. And to make the patching even worse: That isn't a run-on sentence, just a lot one packed with relative clauses.Speaking of grammar, in the middle of a fight there's an argument over who/whom. Again: Seriously?Overall, the show tries to be smart, but isn't. It's also ridden with cliches. The most unforgivable one is the use of forensic show style image zoom that got old years ago. But the private investigator explains why this time it HAS to work, for completely irrelevant reasons:"I can hit three buttons right now and tell you what street vendor in Shanghai serves the juiciest sheng jian bao. NASA can tell me what every rock on every moon of Jupiter has for lunch. Somewhere out there, there is software that can pull an image out of that blur and save a little girl's life."Yeah, right. Conveniently, his partner finds a program that can extract image data from an image where there are none to extract. Just like the investigator conveniently knows who tattooed some guys on a photo conveniently placed on the murderer's piano. It's all too convienent all the time.Technically, there are too much overdubbed dialogue, and the camera work is corny. There are many close ups, and they all seem fake and slowed down and breaks the rhythm. The special effects look horribly fake as well. Like, don't write in explosions when you can't afford them. And get this: At one point, two characters say their line simultaneosly, and one of them reacts with looking down while suppressing a smile. Someone decided to keep this in. That's how amateurish this show is.Beside all its shortcomings, the show's main fault is not managing to establish a constant mood. It's a show about desperation, but often gets too feel-goody. That's due to stuff like the who/whom joke, but mostly due to the Serena character. She is written as a comedy character, always saying cheeky one-liners. She's in a way above the story and steals the show. This undermines the story and her mother's struggle to save her.And the other characters? The writers try to bring some life into them e.g. by having Serena being a vegetarian, Serena's father referencing Lord of the Rings and Nico saying all kinds of cool stuff, and that he loves Freddy Mercury. Problem is, all the character traits seem misplaced and forced. Maybe because they're all told, not shown. Or because the acting is not convincing. So yeah. This was a long rant, but hopefully you'll save 400 minutes by not watching a mediocre show. Or you could watch it and learn from its mistakes.
teleriferchnyfain-331-328173
The original Korean drama (God's Gift: 14 Days) amazed me at how well the various plot-lines wove about each other. I worried a bit about how this American version would do. There are differences, only to be expected. The show is shorter (10 episodes instead of 16) and the ending changes (to what ALL of us who watched the KDrama really wanted to happen let me tell you LOL). That change at the end did make me pump my fist & go 'YES', but in fact the original ending had more impact and verisimilitude. However, all in all, this was a good show. It got across the same idea as it's source, the actors engaged my interest, and I found it very watchable despite knowing who, what & how (so no mystery for me). I do recommend this show and give big thumbs up to ABC for doing a good job by not screwing up a great Korean drama! Let's hope that they do even better with The Good Doctor (yep, another KDrama adaptation). For the uninformed whining about how this will get cancelled & never last, oh lord. It's a MINI-series! It ENDS! Hallelujah!!!!
Silentdoe
Spoiler alert! There was a period where I wasn't sure if I would give this a chance but I did to see if it would fail. Truthfully, I found myself coming back for more and eating my bag of chips rather hard as there were some tough scenes where I wasn't sure if the characters would save the girls life in time, I was also waiting for them to make out and the suspense was killing me and I hated the father SO MUCH..anyway, I would watch Season 2 if there was one (there isn't) I like the chemistry and Paula really stressed me out, which is good thing :P so keep up the good work and pump out some more shows for me to watch already!
