SFReader Discussion Forums : Television

Television : Netflix true crime series Narcos spurs huge demand

Sat, 29 Sep 2018 00:39:27 +0000

Author: Mckame05
Subject: Netflix true crime series Narcos spurs huge demand
Posted: Sep-29-2018 at 12:39am

Absolutely! There is no doubt about it. I used to watch that show when my kids would go to sleep. Sometimes, I’d be very tired because in the evening I watch shows by Andy Yeatman with my kids and by night I had to see “Narcos”. All the shows on Netflix are addictive. I got to know about amazing shows at http://www.animationmagazine.net/setflixs-yeatman-discusses-kids-strategy-at-mip-jr/

Edited by Mckame05 - Sep-29-2018 at 12:43am

Television : Netflix true crime series Narcos spurs huge demand

Mon, 17 Oct 2016 20:00:16 +0000

Author: 1stworldview16
Subject: Netflix true crime series Narcos spurs huge demand
Posted: Oct-17-2016 at 8:00pm

Produced by Netflix, the show "Narcos" takes on the infamous Medellin drug cartel which follows the rise and fall of Colombian kingpin Pablo Escobar and the Drug Enforcement Agency agents hunting him. The story is told largely from the points of view of Escobar (Brazilian actor Wagner Moura) and U.S. DEA Agent Steve Murphy (Boyd Holbrook), on opposite sides of what would become an all-out war.

Many critics of true crime dramas have always complained they are promoting crime and violence by glorification, an unintended consequence of American entertainment industries. These shows can have other interesting consequences. The Foreign Bride industry has seen a huge spike in demand for Colombian women. This can be viewed as positive or negative, depending on social perspective.

Foreign Brides, sometimes referred to as "mail order brides", a term the industry completely rejects, have become a billion dollar a year business. According to industry leaders, Colombia represented only about 3% of the market three years ago. Since the popularity of Narcos, many companies have seen near tenfold increases in men seeking Colombian wives.

A Foreign Affair (AFA), a company that helps men find women through international tours, says tours to Colombia are now selling out. AFA arranges group tours where 10 to 20 men travel together to Medellin, Cartagena or Barranquilla. During the tour, they attend arranged Social events where the men meet hundreds of beautiful Colombian women looking for marriage. Women can also place their profiles on the AFA web site, in the hopes of finding a husband.

Kenneth Agee, the marketing director for AFA says, "Because of the show we are doubling our tours to Medellin for next year. Narcos has brought a lot of attention to the intense beauty of Colombian women. Although the show is often very violent, the women of Colombia come across as very family oriented and loyal. These values seem harder and harder to find in this world. I would have to agree, because of the interest in Narcos, we even added an excursion to where Pablo's self-built prison was located, in the hills overlooking Medellin.

The crowning of 2015 Miss Universe Paulina Vega put Barranquilla, Colombia on the map. Barranquilla now has recognition for being home to some of the most beautiful and talented women in the world. Not only is Miss Universe from here, Grammy Award winning pop singer Shakira, and actress Sofia Vergara also call Barranquilla home. Vergara stars on the ABC series Modern Family as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett. She's been nominated for 4 Golden Globe Awards, 4 Prime time Emmy Awards, and 7 Screen Actors Guild Awards, all stemming from this role. In 2014, she was ranked as the 32nd Most Powerful Woman in the world by Forbes.

David from Mesa AZ says he met more qualified women in one week than he has during the last 10 years. In 2010, Lisa Ling and the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) filmed a one hour show on the AFA tour called "Online Brides - Our America with Lisa Ling." Even Lisa Ling was surprised by the beauty and sincerity of the women from Barranquilla.

Janet Davis, head of a women's rights group says "AFA is just taking advantage of women from these third world countries. This is no different than Pablo trafficking in narcotics, but these companies traffic women." Proponents refer to a Report (INTERNATIONAL MATCHMAKING ORGANIZATIONS: A REPORT TO CONGRESS) that these marriages have much lower divorce rates and abuse rates compared to traditional domestic marriages. This data makes international dating similar to a woman in the US joining eHarmony to look for a husband.

23-year-old Viviana, from Cartagena, says "I come to these events because I know the men attending are serious about marriage, they are faithful and are good to family. For Colombian women, it is the most important thing, good husband and good family.

Kenneth says, "It has not been all rosy. Narcos has brought us some problems. In Cartagena, we have several Penthouses we rent out. One was originally owned by "Don Diego" head of the Norte Del Velle Drug Cartel, the other by Pablo's people. Over the past year, the properties have been tracked down by individuals thinking they will find large qualities of cash hidden, thus we sometimes find holes all over the walls after a tenant leaves.

For Narcos fans, those who love the gangster genre, or just those who just like seeing beautiful Latin women, there's good news; Netflix's has confirmed Season 3 and 4.

Television : The Expanse, Season 1, Episode 1

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 10:15:44 +0000

Author: SFReader
Subject: The Expanse, Season 1, Episode 1
Posted: Jan-12-2016 at 10:15am

Review of SyFy's The Expanse, Season 1, Episode 1: “Dulcinea”

By Nicholas Ponticello, Author of Do Not Resuscitate

The Expanse starts out exactly as title suggests, expansively, with a sweeping overview of multiple confused story lines that the viewer hopes disentangle by the episode's end. Alas, the episode never fully resolves into something tangible and is likely to lose would-be fans within the first twenty minutes of the series premiere.

The first episode was such a garbled mess that I can barely synopsize what I saw (or think I saw). There was some kind of officer who gets promoted to a top job of some sort on a spaceship (an ice freighter, maybe?). Definitely, there are space miners (living on Ceres in the Asteroid Belt). There is an ambassador of some sort whose appearance in the episode is brief and pointless (why not let her enter in Episode 2?). There is a detective on Ceres that is investigating the disappearance of a young woman (A student? A socialite? A politician's daughter?). Except for the captain of the ice freighter, all the men look identical—plucked out of the nearest 24 Hour Fitness. And then there is some kind of distress signal from a deserted ship, which the captain insists must be ignored, but which some ne'er-do-well insists on tracking down. Which ne'er-do-well is it? I think it's the one that got the big promotion at beginning of the episode. But who can tell when they all look like Ken dolls.

A nice touch to the premiere—the subtle tension between the people raised on Earth and the people raised in the Asteroid Belt. The Belters are tall and brittle due to their physical development within a low gravity environment. Belters appear to suffer from myriad health problems that mirror many of the environmental health issues of today's socioeconomic divide right here on Earth. These Belters are doing the work no one wants to do, and they are paying for it with their limbs (seriously, one guy loses an arm in a mining accident) and their lives. The subtle interplay between Earthers and Belters is intriguing—there are tangible differences in your quality of life if you're born on Earth or if your born in the Belt, and those differences promise to lead to some real upheaval down the road.

The first episode of The Expanse takes on too much. It wants to address socioeconomic inequality and discrimination, political corruption, and you-name-it, which is all good and well. But why not give us viewers some time to adjust to this new world (200 years into the future) before throwing every possible conspiracy our way? One storyline would have been enough for one episode. There are hints of Battlestar Galactica and Blade Runner aesthetics woven throughout the episode, but they don't make up for the gross lack of originality in character development. There is no one to fall in love with. No one to hate. No one worth remembering. I seriously almost cut and run halfway through the episode. My recommendation is that you save yourself the time and revisit Battlestar Galactica if you're looking for a real space opera to sink your teeth into.

Nicholas Ponticello resides in Los Angeles with art historian, Nico Machida, and their six freshwater fish. Mr. Ponticello received degrees in Mathematics and Astrophysics from UC Berkeley, and has studied under Kim Krizan (Before Sunrise, Zombie Tales 2061) and Bruce Miller (Eureka, Medium, ER). His debut novel, Do Not Resuscitate, received honorable mention at the 2015 Green Book Festival, which spotlights "books that contribute to greater understanding, respect for and positive action on the changing worldwide environment," and was a semi-finalist in the 2015 Kindle Book Awards for Literary Fiction.

Television : Sense8

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 13:26:16 +0000

Author: SFReader
Subject: Sense8
Posted: Aug-24-2015 at 1:26pm

First episode date: June 5, 2015

Program creator: J. Michael Straczynski

Writers: J. Michael Straczynski, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

I just finished watching the Netflix series Sense8. Overall, I enjoyed it, though I felt it would have benefited from some explanation, especially in regards to whole the whole sharing senses thing worked. I suppose for a first season, it did it's job in that it presented more questions than it answered, leaving (for me anyway) an intent to watch the second season to see if they are answered. Season one is more like and origin story, setting everything up for the heroes to tackle in the next installment.

I'm not going to offer an episode by episode breakdown. Suffice to say that some episodes pulled me along better than others, and that it seemed to me that the episodes got better as the season progressed. That might be because of the number of characters. Early on, I didn't have much connection to them, and as a consequence, not much investment. But as the screen time for each of them built up, and they became more individually indistinguishable and their stories more defined, I became more interested.

Don't look for a lot of sense here though (heh). Logic and explanation is a scare commodity in the Sense8 world. The characters have no idea what's really going on and neither will you, other than they are:

1. Different

2. Being hunted

The different we know - they are able to connect and share completely with each other through a gift that's like ESP on steroids. But how they got that gift, why they have it, why they are seen as a threat and why they are hunted are never answered.

One of the challenges with such a large cast of main characters is to make them and all their stories interesting. In Sense8, I definitely found some of the characters more engaging than others. The side effect for me was much less interest in the show when the characters I'd become attached to weren't being followed. Considering there are eight characters with the "gift" and various other satellite characters, I was often left halfheartedly viewing scenes somewhat impatiently waiting for the characters I was interested in to reappear. There are a lot of balls in the air here, and some of them hit the floor.

I'm not sure Sense8 will be for everyone. A few things to consider are the sex and violence (as well as some explicit birth scenes) which peak at R-rated levels and are probably too intense and graphic for anyone younger than around 16 or 17.

It also takes some dedication to get through the first few episodes until the characters get more fleshed out and interesting.

Although billed as science-fiction, the abilities here are more akin to magic. Hard science fiction fans who like science and explanations might be frustrated. It ends up being much more about the people that the "tech".

Nevertheless, it's exciting to see Netflix taking chances with a series like this, a series to graphic and adult for network and cable, but too small to generate the type of profit an HBO or Showtime would want.

Television : Netflix Marvel's Daredevil TV Series

Tue, 26 May 2015 12:42:51 +0000

Author: SFReader
Subject: Netflix Marvel's Daredevil TV Series
Posted: May-26-2015 at 12:42pm

I'm going to wait a while, wait it again. People seem to going ga-ga over this, so I think I owe it another look. I mean, I really liked it, but from what I'm seeing, there's a huge population of people out there who think it's the Best Thing Ever(tm)

Television : Netflix Marvel's Daredevil TV Series

Tue, 26 May 2015 12:03:27 +0000

Author: ghostposts
Subject: Netflix Marvel's Daredevil TV Series
Posted: May-26-2015 at 12:03pm

good review. I like the way you did a breakdown on the rating system.

Television : Netflix Marvel's Daredevil TV Series

Wed, 22 Apr 2015 05:58:29 +0000

Author: SFReader
Subject: Netflix Marvel's Daredevil TV Series
Posted: Apr-22-2015 at 5:58am

Awww yisss....

Netflix announces season 2 of Daredevil

http://marvel.com/news/tv/24478/netflix_orders_a_second_season_of_marvels_daredevil

Television : Netflix Marvel's Daredevil TV Series

Fri, 17 Apr 2015 10:21:41 +0000

Author: SFReader
Subject: Netflix Marvel's Daredevil TV Series
Posted: Apr-17-2015 at 10:21am

I have to admit I was pretty stoked to learn Netflix was going to produce a Daredevil series. Daredevil has always been my favorite superhero, though I'd be hard pressed to say why. Maybe because he doesn't really have super-powers, just a bit of super perception and lots of training. It seemed that he was always the underdog and we all love to root for the underdog.

I read somewhere the DC comics are about superheros trying to be human and Marvel comics are about humans trying to be superheros. I think Daredevil is the embodiment of this approach.

Matt Murdoch was blinded as a child when he knocked an old man out of the way of a speeding truck. In the comic, the truck was carrying radioactive waste; the TV series has reconned it just just be some sort of chemical.

In any case, said chemical/radioactive waste from the wrecked truck gets into Matt's eyes, blinding him, but at the same time heightening all his other senses. He can hear heartbeats from across the room, smell perfume from two blocks away, "read" a book with his fingertips by feeling the impressions of the ink on the page. In the comics, it's also explained that he has heightened body awareness, giving him extraordinary balance, agility and strength.

He also has some sort of "radar sense" where the combination of all his heightened senses allows him to "see" in much the manner of radar. It's less defined in the TV series, simply being described by Matt as though he's "seeing" a world that's on fire. The show touches briefly on meditation and training, but a plain an simple explanation of Matt's abilities isn't offered. This works in the context of the show, as we are able to see what he can do, rather than having it told to us.

The Netflix Daredevil series is an origin tale. We're treated to the genesis of Daredevil. He's the man in the mask, a vigilante fighting crime in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York. His vigilantism is at odds with his career as a lawyer and causes no small amount of personal conflict, as does reconciling his violent actions with his Catholic faith. All good, complex character stuff.

We're also introduced to Daredevil's nemesis, Walter Fisk, AKA Kingpin, a ruthless organized crime boss who wants to rebuild Hell's Kitchen in his own vision. Fisk loves the city, see, and he sees the poverty-stricken and crime-ridden Hell's Kitchen as a blight he intends to cure. If he has to kill a few innocents on the way and bride some officials and police officers to make that happen, well, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, amirite?

Lastly we meet Foggy Nelson, Matt's longtime friend from college and now partner in their law firm Nelson and Murdock. Karen Page has a large role as well as first a victim of Fisk's machinations, and later as secretary for the budding law firm after she is defended by Matt and Foggy.

The series is 13 episodes in length, for a total of about 10 hours or so of Daredevil goodness. Short of giving a review of each episode, there's really no way to cover everything that happens or all facets of the show, but I'll try to hit the high points.

It's a gritty, street level representation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) the world Marvel is working in for its movies and television shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Agent Carter. Daredevil takes place in New York after the events of Avengers 2, amid the massive destruction caused by the alien invasion the Avengers ultimately thwarted. The city is beat up and downtrodden, and that's reflected in the residents and tone of the series.

We (the American public) have been trained by the fast-moving plots of action movies. As a result of this lifetime of exposure, the pacing here will feel slow. But consider - were this a movie, all the characters would have been introduced on the first 15 minutes and then WHAM BAM POW action, resolution and ending. Here we get a much deeper and satisfying dive.

The extended format of the series provides much, much more opportunity for character and relationship development, opportunity I think the series takes good advantage of. Each of the characters is unique, well-developed and possesses his or her own motivations, failings, traits, etc. It's nice to see so many characters so thoroughly explored. Fisk as the Kingpin is exceptionally well done. A villain, yes, but a villain whose motivations we can understand and even make a twisted sort of sense of once we learn where Fisk is coming from and the formative events in his life.

As you can imagine, with ten hours of run time, there's quite a few characters. Here are the main ones:


Charlie Cox	...	Matt Murdock / ... (13 episodes, 2015)
Deborah Ann Woll	...	Karen Page (13 episodes, 2015)
Elden Henson	...	Foggy Nelson (13 episodes, 2015)
Vincent D'Onofrio	...	Wilson Fisk (11 episodes, 2015)
Toby Leonard Moore	...	James Wesley (10 episodes, 2015)
Vondie Curtis-Hall	...	Ben Urich (9 episodes, 2015)
Bob Gunton	...	Leland Owlsley (9 episodes, 2015)
Ayelet Zurer	...	Vanessa Marianna (9 episodes, 2015)

James Wesley is Fisk's personal assistant

Ben Urich is a reporter investigating city corruption

Leland Owlsley is Fisk accountant and money man

And Vanessa Marianna is Fisk's love interest

I though all the actors, particularly D'Onofrio and Zurer did a commendable job. Woll was also as standout. Cox, for the most part, wears the red tights well enough, though some of his emoting felt insincere and forced to me. He needs to work on acting distraught and upset. Or maybe he just has an ugly sad face. Henson, although physically almost the very spitting image of Foggy from the comic, often seemed to me as though he was acting. His performance was the only one that failed to rise to the level the other actors brought it to the show.

The action is good, lots of fights, although I could easily see when the occasional punch hit nothing but air. I also thought the amount of damage Daredevil absorbed time after time, only to win his fights in the end, was a bit over the top. Daredevil is just a human after all, not a superhero akin to Thor or a prime human like Captain America. The make a stab at explaining his extraordinary recuperative powers by talking about some meditation mumbo-jumbo, but that didn't work for me.

In looking back, I see I failed to mention Stick. Stick is a Matt's blind mentor, who showed up after the death of Matt's father and took him through some of the aforementioned mumbo-jumbo ninja meditation training. Scott Glen did a great job here.

So what does all this mean to you?

Well, if you're a Daredevil fan like me, then obviously this is a must-see. It has some bumps, but in the end it was a fine and very enjoyable ride. I plan on watching it again in the not-too-distant future.

If you're a comic book movie hero fan, you might find it slow and ordinary and maybe even a little depressing. The hero(es) are just ordinary people trying to do extraordinary things. No ray guns, flying suits, magic hammers, or big green monsters. It's gritty and dirty and the hero gets his ass kicked repeatedly, unlike in the movies. There's also a fair bit of navel gazing as Matt seeks to reconcile his religious upbringing and lawyer sensibilities with his desire to see justice served at the end of a billy club.

Those of you who enjoy crime drama might find something here to like. In that sense, it's akin to the TV series The Equalizer (recently redone as a movie with Denzel Washington). You know, underdogs seek to bring down uber crime boss sort of thing.

One thing to be aware of it the violence. This is rated TV-MA and not for the boobs. There's quite a bit of violence, some of it a little over the top. It's definitely not on par with the PG-13 MCU movie releases we've all grown so used to and that we take our 12 year-olds to see.

For us Daredevil fans I give it 4 out of 5.

For the super hero aficionado, a 3 out of 5.

For the crime drama Equalizer crowd, a 2.5 out of 5.

I eagerly await the remaining series of shows in Netflix's street-level hero series.

Edited by Dave - Apr-22-2015 at 5:58am