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House of the Dragon (2022 - Season 1)

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    Rating: ★★★★    House of the Dragon , a prequel to the worldwide sensation Game of Thrones , revolves around the story of heirdom of House Targaryen about 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen, one half of the two central figures of Game of Thrones .    I was impressed by House of the Dragon right from the first episode as it immediately captured all of the aspects that made Game of Thrones so good for its first four seasons. The storytelling was detailed and efficient, perhaps even more so than the beginning of Game of Thrones , because here not so many characters and houses gets thrown at us from the get-go. This level of storytelling is maintained and heightened up until episode 5, and then after that, *slight spoiler alert* the show takes a huge time jump, and along with that, actor changes for some of the characters, including the two main female characters that will end up fighting for the throne - Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Highto...

Better Call Saul (2015-2022/Season 1-6)

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  Rating: ★★★★★  Easily one of the best television shows of all-time. In no particular order it's up there in elite company with The Sopranos , The Wire , Mad Men and Succession . It's incredibly difficult to constantly produce and put out 5-star quality content from start to finish, season to season, especially the longer a television series goes on, and that's what the above mentioned shows do, and probably to a stronger degree only The Sopranos , Mad Men and Better Call Saul . I was one of the earliest proponents to throw out Better Call Saul >>> Breaking Bad claims, and I'm glad to see it's becoming a more popular belief amongst the general culture. For those of you who might not get this comparison, these two shows are related in the same fictional universe, and showrunner-writers Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould are behind both of them. Don't get me wrong Breaking Bad , despite its overrated awards-darling status, was still a great show, and a l...

The Boys (2019-2022/Season 1-3)

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  Rating: ★★★★  There's a lot to love about The Boys . Awesome, colourful and a wide-range of intriguing characterisations that all revolve around the central figure of Homelander, whose actor, Antony Starr, constantly puts in knockout performance after knockout performance, especially from season 2 onwards. Its anti-superhero spiel is a quite obvious yet still genius masterstroke in this superhero era of movies and TV. In addition, it brings more relevance and emphasis to its satire by incorporating the current state of affairs and spectacle of real-life American politics into its fictional storyworld.  But easily the best trait of this show is its daring trait of pushing the boundaries in terms of violence, gore, visual creativity and conventional storytelling subversion. It is perhaps the best show at doing exactly that since the best days of Game of Thrones . And also, its comedy pulls off a nice balance between sappy/corny and absolutely hilarious - with surprising b...

Station Eleven (2021 - Season 1)

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Rating: ★★½ Station Eleven is an apocalyptic/disaster drama series that centres around an instantaneous outbreak of a very deadly flu-virus. Based on a novel of the same name published in 2014, and from my understanding, which stands under correction, already put into works for the TV series before the actual outbreak of our real-world Covid-19 pandemic. With a similar co-incidental nature, the story of Station Eleven also teases some sci-fi/fantasy elements that seem to hint at a full circle ethereal force that is behind all of the happenings in this story. Fascinating as it may sound, and believe me, it did so too for me as well prior to starting the show; I could only last 3 episodes. The show takes on a high concept mystery approach which did not do enough for me in those 3 episodes to intrigue me or feel anything for it. The show is all over the place with multiple characters and timelines, and just does not offer any centre of gravity emotionally or thematically. Some of the acti...

The Sex Lives of College Girls (2021 - Season 1)

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  Rating: ★★★★  Just get passed the first episode. You might be liable to find it very cringe, and end up thinking this is just another "insert inclusivity" Twitter-lingo Generation-Z show after that first episode. But believe me, just give it one more chance and you will notice how all the intriguing dramatic angles pick up from the second episode onwards. The Sex Lives of College Girls does not do anything special in form or technicality to change the game or challenge the status quo, in fact, it falls pretty neatly into the camp sorority subgenre. But it does so with a lot of heart and realism. The realities of the challenges that freshman college students face are put on display, and even if the main focus is on the lives of the four main girls, the show does well enough to add and explore colourful characters from all spectrums of identity, and lays good enough foundations to promise to do so more in the already-confirmed second season. The main characters are Kimberly (...

Atlanta (2022 - Season 3)

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  Rating: ★★★  FX's Atlanta finally came back for its third season, after - like so many shows - struggling to get shooting and post-production done in order to get a solid release date because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I really enjoyed the first two seasons, especially more so the first one. I appreciated the grounded serial/procedural aspect of the show in season one, which seemed to promise a series that will revolve around the life and struggles of Earn (Donald Glover). That's why it was a bit surprising for me when season 2 shifted away from that in favour of the more absurdist-anthology driven episodes. Nonetheless, being a fan of the absurdist-satirical aspect of the show too, I did enjoy season two for the most part as well. However, this 3rd season - centering around the main group's escapades throughout major European cities - just feels completely lost out on an island untethered from the show's solid foundations laid down in the first two seasons. Creator Do...

Severance (2022 - Season 1)

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  Rating: ★★★★★  Severance is an invigorating story about an ominous company by the name of Lumon that performs a medical brain procedure in which its workers' personal and work life are mentally separated, creating two persons for one individual being. The work life person is called an "innie", while the personal life person, the real person so to say, is called the "outie". The workers, of course, approach the company out of their own will and choice to take on the job, being aware of the procedure. Or at least so we think, because as the series evolves more darker undertones about Lumon is revealed, suggesting that they may have their puppeteer hands soaked deep into the societal and political framework of the town (and perhaps even state or country, the entire scope of the company's reach is not made clear yet). The best part of Severance is that it is a complete breath of fresh air in originality with its low-to-mid budget setting making use of sci-fi ...