by 1923
I enjoyed the first season a lot, have been looking forward to season 2 very much and finally it’s here! I haven’t seen Yellowstone, but I enjoyed the prequel series 1883 very much. Then I heard there’s going to be another prequel series, starring Helen Mirren, Harrison Ford and Timothy Dalton so as a Helen Mirren fan, I of course had to see 1923 too! She’s always fabulous and turns in an interesting performance. The show is well-written, well acted and shot very nicely.
The storylines are pretty typical, but I find the setting and time frame it’s taking place interesting! Early 1920s, after the the first World War but that is strongly haunting everyone at the background still. And the first inklings of modern tech such as cars and telephones, but Wild West lifestyle still dominates. And the place where Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford’s house is located – there’s just nature around them for miles and miles, no other people in sight at all! Huge land with room for everyone, and still everyone is fighting each other over it. The landscapes are breathtaking. Towns are growing, but nature and animals (winter and wolves as an examples) are still a threat to anyone outside towns. It’s sort of like seeing the border between history and modern living.
Oh, but I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the titles of the upcoming S2 episodes, such as The Killing Time, The Rapist Is Winter, Wrap Thee in Terror, Only Gunshots to Guide Us and The Mountain Teeth of Monsters, having 1883 still fresh in my memory. I’ve heard that 1923 was planned to be a two season limited series and I couldn’t find any mention of changed plans despite record breaking streaming viewer numbers, so keeping 1883 in mind, and the cheerful, uplifting episode names… I’m preparing for everyone to die.
But I guess even if that happens, I’m going to be enjoying it all just like with 1883.
V-Wars
So I was all excited to start V Wars – viruses, vampires, scientists, friends! I had a vague memory of watching a movie with a similar premise that I remember liking and thinking it was kind of original though I didn’t remember anything else about it – not name, actors, anything but that I saw if maybe a decade ago.
Ian Somerhalder comes on screen giving a presentation of ancient viruses that the melting of ice caps will unearth and that he believes that’s the real threat to can end the humanity and I sit there going… Ian Somerhalder giving a presentation about viruses? In a thing about vampires and viruses and friendship? Why is this kinda sorta familiar??
So now i’m half way through 1×01 and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t actually a movie I saw with a similar premise but this tv series. I just can’t say why the name V Wars didn’t and doesn’t ring any bells or any of the actors either in a real memory kind of way? I just kind of remember the plot and the outcome, and I still feel like it was a 2-hour movie what I saw, not a 10-hour tv series. This is so weird. I had a quick look and it doesn’t look like there’s a movie version out with the same premise and Ian Somerhalder.
… Now I’ve finished the series and the ending is entirely different from what I thought/remembered it would be! I think I must be conflating two different properties with similar premises, one of which I now again think was a movie!
A lot of the wider situation was unclear to me – how far exactly had the vampire contagion spread? Was just one city? Or entire US? The world? How wasn’t it already considered a pandemic, instead the government was worried only worried it would turn into one?? Talking about the various facilities – how was there only one (1) scientist (the just so happens to be the main character) and one (1) junior scientist working on the problem and they have no lab staff whatsoever?? How is there only one facility working on the virus?? How much time did pass over the season? A few weeks or months or several months?
The questions the show asked were interesting even if the questions didn’t get as much exploration as they should have – what if you wake up one day and literally are the thing you hated yesterday? What then? Can Humans and Vampires survive and live along each other as societies? How do we get there? And whatabout a vampires who don’t want to kill or hurt humans just to survive, how do they deal with the issue?
There were a lot of unintentionally stupid or silly things, or story threads just were just filler and random – such as the (lack of) security of damn facility and the (lack of) competence in every security/military/police officer was ridiculously bad. The biker story thread ended so funny but the whole thread was entirely random and superfluous.
The series was mostly entertaining but teetered on the edge of average and bad. I liked Ian Somerhalder, Adrian Holmes and Laura Vandervoort’s performances the best, and I think their characters also had the most interesting and best considered stories and character arcs. I would have liked to have seen a lot more of Laura Vandervoort’s story though, she was just a side character even though her dilemma was perhaps the most interesting. I liked Ian Somerhalder a lot in this – I feel like he’s matured as an actor since his LOST and even TVD days. I read somewhere that he’s retired from acting (and IMDB is showing V Wars as his last work) and I think that’s a shame!
Territory
I wanted to see this because Anna Torv plays one of the main characters, and so does Robert Taylor who was good as the title character in Longmire tv series. I’ve been missing Anna Torv lately, and was happy when I saw she was going to be a main character an Australian tv series about an Australian cattle ranch! To my delight, also the guy who played Gordo on For All Mankind plays one of the main characters, namely Anna Torv’s character’s husband! All in all, there are a lot of familiar faces in this show even though I don’t watch nearly as many Australian shows/movies as US/UK ones so I didn’t expect that at all.
A thing that stood out me is that I really like all of the actors! Somehow they are all very likable to me and I like watching all of them! But interestingly, all the characters are either unlikable for most of the season and one is outright horrible. There’s only one character who’s neutral to me, and her romantic relationship plot is boring but she has interesting ideas and motivation re: the cattle ranch. I like that side of her character.
I like seeing the Outback, it’s interesting trying to wrap my mind around what it’s like to live in a place so dangerous, vast and remote. Imagine hopping in a helicopter to visit your neighbor like it’s nothing! This is not scenery I’m used to seeing, so the locations are interesting and fun!
The series also reminds me very much of Dallas – which is kind of ridiculous because Dallas is nowhere as rugged as this show, but I can’t help it. Makes me want to re-watch Dallas now too! I saw some of it when it was originally aired here in Finland in 1980s, and then once re-watched it maybe 20 years ago. Maybe it’s now out in HD??
