The first season was excellent. It drove me to tears a few times (though not to full-blown bawling), particularly at the end, and the moral drama was really intense and moving, even if the series was too short to develop these themes properly). The second season did away with most of the emotional baggage and went for a more action-packed avenue in a more anthology-like format, ridding the series of much of its emotional depth. Not only that, but along came quite a few Narmy moments, from the overly dramatic music to occasional poor acting, cliché decisions, and way too much screentime for entirely unsympathetic characters who got a very clumsy attempt at a more sympathetic presentation. The one good thing I can say about this series was that Philip’s Character Development was beautifully handled and was very pleasing to watch, until the ending.
This series basically did the opposite of what made Neon Genesis Evangelion so powerful: while NGE started with the action and showing the characters interact, presenting a narrative that warms the viewers to the characters before sliding down the Sliding Scale of Plot Versus Characters for a powerful in-depth character study over a long narrative filled with Character Development (or at least attempts at it) and focusing on a smaller set of characters, this series did the opposite and gave us the character study before turning much more shallow in a counterproductive example of British Brevity with too many characters for the viewers to connect in particular with anyone. Kieren did resemble Shinji in many respects, but series 2 took place after he pretty much made peace with himself, and his dilemma was mostly in terms of political affiliation—not a dilemma relevant in any way to the viewers. Also, the portrayal of the villagers’ prejudices was poorly handled—they had very serious cause for alarm, which could have been used for a serious discussion (among other things, of mental illness), and aside from Kieren and Gary having a (excessively brief) conversation in the second season finale, this potential was mostly left untapped, and, curiously, few villagers seemed to consider that their loved ones are back from the grave.
In short, I’m waiting for an American adaptation to fix this mess.
Series Started amazing and soon fell victim to Seasonal Rot.
The first season was excellent. It drove me to tears a few times (though not to full-blown bawling), particularly at the end, and the moral drama was really intense and moving, even if the series was too short to develop these themes properly). The second season did away with most of the emotional baggage and went for a more action-packed avenue in a more anthology-like format, ridding the series of much of its emotional depth. Not only that, but along came quite a few Narmy moments, from the overly dramatic music to occasional poor acting, cliché decisions, and way too much screentime for entirely unsympathetic characters who got a very clumsy attempt at a more sympathetic presentation. The one good thing I can say about this series was that Philip’s Character Development was beautifully handled and was very pleasing to watch, until the ending.
This series basically did the opposite of what made Neon Genesis Evangelion so powerful: while NGE started with the action and showing the characters interact, presenting a narrative that warms the viewers to the characters before sliding down the Sliding Scale of Plot Versus Characters for a powerful in-depth character study over a long narrative filled with Character Development (or at least attempts at it) and focusing on a smaller set of characters, this series did the opposite and gave us the character study before turning much more shallow in a counterproductive example of British Brevity with too many characters for the viewers to connect in particular with anyone. Kieren did resemble Shinji in many respects, but series 2 took place after he pretty much made peace with himself, and his dilemma was mostly in terms of political affiliation—not a dilemma relevant in any way to the viewers. Also, the portrayal of the villagers’ prejudices was poorly handled—they had very serious cause for alarm, which could have been used for a serious discussion (among other things, of mental illness), and aside from Kieren and Gary having a (excessively brief) conversation in the second season finale, this potential was mostly left untapped, and, curiously, few villagers seemed to consider that their loved ones are back from the grave.
In short, I’m waiting for an American adaptation to fix this mess.