(01-06-2024, 12:55 PM)americus 2.0 Wrote: I finished 1923 last week and I wish I had better things to say about it because the cast deserves better. I don't understand Tyler Sheridan's need to have so much negative drama. It's all gas and no brakes and it's exhausting to watch. There has to be a balance of bad (negative) and good drama along with some lighter moments and even some....dead space, or neutral space, where things are happening but it's more like background noise. Not so overwhelming.

1883 is good because it has that balance, though halfway through the series it went a bit more heavy on the Elsa storyline than I felt was necessary. Sheridan did say the story was really about her and I feel that was a mistake because it's supposed to be a backstory of the Duttons but it turned into a story about a Dutton that doesn't even live to see her 20s. I suppose it sets up how the family moves on from that crisis and how that affects future generations but we don't even get to see how that happens. The next time we see the Dutton family it's 1923 with a completely different set of characters and you're not entirely sure how they're connected to the 1883 Duttons outside of a very brief 'blink and you miss it' explanation of who Harrison Ford's character is, who his nephew and great nephew are, and how they're related to him.

Outside of that there is the Charlie Foxtrot of a character played by Timothy Dalton who is a very nasty piece of work and the point is driven home by multiple unnecessary and drawn out scenes of him involving two prostitutes in BDSM. Completely unrelated to his storyline other than showing how depraved he is and adding nothing to the overall story. I fast forwarded those scenes because they were quite disturbing in their violence. I'm fine with people fighting each other, but this was not fighting, this was....disturbing because the girls weren't voluntarily participating. It's more like they were being mentally raped by him while he's making them physically beat and rape each other. Disgusting filth.

Anyway, I've watched 1883 twice but I will not watch the second season of 1923. It will likely be even more depressing than S1 and I'm not into mentally flogging myself.

That's interesting.  I haven't seen 1923, but I kind of felt the same way about Yellowstone as you apparently did about 1923.  It was fun at first, but the never ending crisis, where they're about to lose their land, or go broke, or get arrested, or get killed, or numerous other things, went on and on to the point of exhaustion.  Meanwhile, there wasn't a single character I cared about.  To the point that I don't care if they finish the series or not.  I'm kind of disgusted with those characters.  There's nothing good about their lives.  You'd think someone with those resources would find a way to have some sort of fun or put some sort of meaning into their life, but all they seemed to care about was hating each other.

---