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I’ve been watching ‘The White Lotus’

182 words posted by Simon on 15 January 2023

My finger ever on the pulse, as the rest of the world raves about series two of The White Lotus, I’ve been catching up on the first series.

After the first two episodes, Wendy declared it to be “too silly”, but I thought it was marvellous. The series follows an ensemble cast of mostly cartoonish, unlikeable characters spending time at (or working in) a luxury resort in Hawaii. There were six episodes covering a period of a week. It was perfectly paced and uproariously funny, with well-chosen and very current tropes skewered. It was also outstandingly well soundtracked.

This is definitely not a series to judge from its first episode: the premiere has an arc whose pace does not really fit with the gradually increasing tension of the rest of the series. I wonder whether it was a pilot episode that would have benefitted from more reworking when the series was green-lit.

But I’m nitpicking. This was one of the best new comedies I’ve streamed in a long time, and I look forward to diving in to the second series.

This post was filed under: Post-a-day 2023, TV, .

I’ve been watching ‘The Traitors’

253 words posted by Simon on 7 January 2023

I know I’m late to the party, but I very much enjoyed the BBC series The Traitors; far more in the end than I initially thought I would.

For those who haven’t seen it: from a group of players who undertake tasks to earn a large prize fund, a small number are selected as “traitors” who must “murder” the other contestants in secret. The whole group also eliminates contestants based on votes as to whom they believe to be a traitor. At the end of the series, the remaining players share the prize fund, although if any traitors remain, then only they share it.

The obvious gameshow structure from a gameplay perspective would have been to challenge the “traitors” to sabotage the prize fund tasks, in the manner of The Mole. When I read about the format, I thought missing this point was a considerable flaw in the show. However, from a television perspective, having the players work collaboratively while also scheming against each other makes for greatly heightened drama.

It worked beautifully. The series also had a brilliant soundtrack and some stunning cinematography, plus a pitch-perfect host in Claudia Winkleman. It had twists that—at least to me—came as complete surprises.

I don’t think it’s a series that will run and run, if only because the novelty of the format is important to the gameplay. But we shall see.

‘The Traitors’ is available on BBC iPlayer until the end of the year… when maybe, hopefully, there will be a second series.

This post was filed under: Post-a-day 2023, TV, , , , .



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