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I finished watching season one on AMC satellite. I enjoyed it more than
I expected to.

Krysten Ritter (Lucy) and Amanda Fix (Jules) gave strong performances.
Keeley Hawes (Kira) was a weak point, which is unfortunate as Kira was
the catalyst for the events of the show.

Unlike Orphan Black, in which one actress played all of the series most important main characters and supporting characters, we get three
actresses portraying clones of a deceased character (Eleanor) made from
medical scans at different ages.

The main problem was Kira. The catalyst for the events was, in the
backstory, Kira's wife Eleanor, a neuroscientist, died of a congenital
brain defect that left her severely demented at the end of her life. Her mother, still alive, also has it. She was working on a dementia cure but
it wasn't for the disease she and her mother had.

Kira just happens to be an expert in a variation of the technology that
had created her mother Sarah Manning from the original series. But
cloning is illegal, so she prints out organs and tissue.

Kira was in mourning and did something evil: She printed out a clone of
Eleanor from a medical scan a few years before the disease's worst
symptoms manifested, and also printed out Lucy from around the age
Eleanor was when they met.

Evil billionaire Paul Darros (James Hiroyuki Liao) sees potential for
world domination in Kira's technology. He's been funding her research
and orders her to print out an entire human being. She pretends to
refuse, but evil herself, gives in to her emotions. Why should she have
to mourn the death of her wife when she can just replace her with a copy?

But it's not Eleanor. She has memories (I forgot why Lucy and Jules have
none of Eleanor's memories except for the strong memory of witnessing
Eleanor's father's suicide). They have a bad relationship; Kira's guilt
has driven printed Eleanor into another relationship.

Darros, of course, is damn well aware that she perfected the technology,
and, unbeknownst to Kira, prints out Jules from a scan of Eleanor at age
16.

The problems with Kira are many fold. We don't see her grieving enough
to be so obsessed with recreating her wife. Instead her grief comes out laconically when it needs to be driving her mad.

Another critical point in the back story is that the audience must
suspend disbelief that their son Lucas (Jaeden Noel) has been convinced
that Eleanor didn't die but for no particular reason he cannot see her.
This goes on for two years. And printed Eleanor just accepts the
passage of time, now years. None of this worked.

The worst aspect of Kira's story is that Kira doesn't get punished for
her crime. Printout Eleanor, who doesn't love her, simply decides to try
to rebuild their life. I don't think the audience can accept that Kira
gets as close to a happy ending as possible.

Jules gets kidnapped by Darros several times. She's brought to his
security compound where the printer has been re-assembled (even though
Kira tried to destroy it). Darros just expects her to fall into his
program and learn to be an even bigger genius than Eleanor had been, if
she's nurtured as a teenage. Except Darros ain't nuturing. Kira learns
that she's been printed out at age 16 too.

Yeah, we get Darros has a billionaire's ego but that can't handwave
away that Darros simply lacks a plan to force Jules' potential intellect
to develop.

In the final episode, we get something like Future World and In Like
Flint, except world leaders in scientific endeavors and other fields
haven't been replaced. Darros recreates them at age 16, again hoping to
force their intellect to develop.

Darros blames Lucy for corrupting Jules, and not that he utterly lacked
a viable plan. He murders Jules, but reveals that he had another
printout of Eleanor at age 16 (also Jules) but who was never placed with
the phoney foster family.

I will note that, despite major story line problems, the new series
avoids the utterly lazy plotting of the original series, in which no
story line had been thought out, and the backstories got retconned
repeatedly. In this series, we got explanations within a few episodes
and we knew who the villains were.

For those reasons, and some strong performances, the good outweighed the
bad and I'm glad I watched.

Felix (Jordan Gavaris) returned for two episodes, but the character was
wasted. Delphine (Evelyne Brochu) returned for an episode and
contributed to a plot resolution.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 8/25/24 10:16 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

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I finished watching season one on AMC satellite. I enjoyed it more than
I expected to.

Boooo! I wanted you to slam it! ;p

Krysten Ritter (Lucy) and Amanda Fix (Jules)

Ah - she of Tubi's "Lowlifes" (and briefly "Daisy Jones & the Six" which
I guess I never convinced anyone around here to watch)...

gave strong performances.
Keeley Hawes (Kira) was a weak point, which is unfortunate as Kira was
the catalyst for the events of the show.

Unlike Orphan Black, in which one actress played all of the series most important main characters and supporting characters, we get three
actresses portraying clones of a deceased character (Eleanor)

I didn't realize Rya Kihlstedt was also in this.

made from
medical scans at different ages.

The main problem was Kira. The catalyst for the events was, in the
backstory, Kira's wife Eleanor, a neuroscientist, died of a congenital
brain defect that left her severely demented at the end of her life. Her mother, still alive, also has it. She was working on a dementia cure but
it wasn't for the disease she and her mother had.

Kira just happens to be an expert in a variation of the technology that
had created her mother Sarah Manning from the original series. But
cloning is illegal, so she prints out organs and tissue.

Kira was in mourning and did something evil: She printed out a clone of Eleanor from a medical scan a few years before the disease's worst
symptoms manifested, and also printed out Lucy from around the age
Eleanor was when they met.

Evil billionaire Paul Darros (James Hiroyuki Liao) sees potential for
world domination in Kira's technology. He's been funding her research
and orders her to print out an entire human being. She pretends to
refuse, but evil herself, gives in to her emotions. Why should she have
to mourn the death of her wife when she can just replace her with a copy?

But it's not Eleanor. She has memories (I forgot why Lucy and Jules have
none of Eleanor's memories except for the strong memory of witnessing Eleanor's father's suicide). They have a bad relationship; Kira's guilt
has driven printed Eleanor into another relationship.

Darros, of course, is damn well aware that she perfected the technology,
and, unbeknownst to Kira, prints out Jules from a scan of Eleanor at age
16.

The problems with Kira are many fold. We don't see her grieving enough
to be so obsessed with recreating her wife. Instead her grief comes out laconically when it needs to be driving her mad.

Another critical point in the back story is that the audience must
suspend disbelief that their son Lucas (Jaeden Noel) has been convinced
that Eleanor didn't die but for no particular reason he cannot see her.
This goes on for two years. And printed Eleanor just accepts the
passage of time, now years. None of this worked.

The worst aspect of Kira's story is that Kira doesn't get punished for
her crime. Printout Eleanor, who doesn't love her, simply decides to try
to rebuild their life. I don't think the audience can accept that Kira
gets as close to a happy ending as possible.

Jules gets kidnapped by Darros several times. She's brought to his
security compound where the printer has been re-assembled (even though
Kira tried to destroy it). Darros just expects her to fall into his
program and learn to be an even bigger genius than Eleanor had been, if
she's nurtured as a teenage. Except Darros ain't nuturing. Kira learns
that she's been printed out at age 16 too.

Yeah, we get Darros has a billionaire's ego but that can't handwave
away that Darros simply lacks a plan to force Jules' potential intellect
to develop.

In the final episode, we get something like Future World and In Like
Flint, except world leaders in scientific endeavors and other fields
haven't been replaced. Darros recreates them at age 16, again hoping to
force their intellect to develop.

Darros blames Lucy for corrupting Jules, and not that he utterly lacked
a viable plan. He murders Jules, but reveals that he had another
printout of Eleanor at age 16 (also Jules) but who was never placed with
the phoney foster family.

I will note that, despite major story line problems, the new series
avoids the utterly lazy plotting of the original series, in which no
story line had been thought out, and the backstories got retconned repeatedly. In this series, we got explanations within a few episodes
and we knew who the villains were.

For those reasons, and some strong performances, the good outweighed the
bad and I'm glad I watched.

Felix (Jordan Gavaris) returned for two episodes, but the character was wasted. Delphine (Evelyne Brochu) returned for an episode and
contributed to a plot resolution.

As I didn't like the original, you haven't convinced me to watch this,
despite liking Ritter and Fix. YMMV.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)