The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (Disney+) Premiere TV Show Review & Comments

Yeah that's fair enough. I really like how they've developed Bucky and Sam as a team, much deeper than your usual 'buddy' action duo, and the supporting characters are none too shabby either. Winter Soldier/ Civil War vibes in plentiful supply.

I'm quite happy to entertain politics in fictional TV in things like The Wire. I see no need for it in anything like this though or any other Marvel productions. That's not what their remit is.

However I realise there's been loose references before - Winter Soldier being a perfect example - but that's as far as it needs to go. Any specific pursuit though is likely not to get my seal of approval.
 
However I realise there's been loose references before - Winter Soldier being a perfect example - but that's as far as it needs to go. Any specific pursuit though is likely not to get my seal of approval.
Civil War was probably as political as Winter Soldier. Then if you consider Black Panther, its hard to separate a lot of storytelling from politics. But the best stories just tell the story, and let the audience work out their allegiances. A lot of the modern output from Hollywood does away with any nuance or balance and just shoves it in your face. It's the latter I object to.
 
Civil War was probably as political as Winter Soldier. Then if you consider Black Panther, its hard to separate a lot of storytelling from politics. But the best stories just tell the story, and let the audience work out their allegiances. A lot of the modern output from Hollywood does away with any nuance or balance and just shoves it in your face. It's the latter I object to.

Fair shout on Civil War, although I disagree somewhat about Black Panther. A film that gets too much bad press from fans around it's politics, when in reality for me it just tells a bloody good story on the backdrop of some black African culture.

Either way though if I'm thinking or talking about politics in respect to Marvel and a bunch of superheroes, then I'm definitely doing it wrong. Give me good guys and bad guys then point me in the direction of some crash, bang and wallop. The politics we can leave to McNulty and Bunk.
 
I've enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts here as the show has progressed.
Ultimately, tomorrow will be the decider and I'll be updating the review in the evening.

Sneak peak though, I've been a bit nonplussed about the handling of some of the themes. I've seen a few people discuss on here how particularly the parallels between Karli and Sam have worked and how subtle the handling of race is on the show. I am very much not seeing that, though Sam finally having the episode he deserved last week was a move in the right direction. But all the stuff about the dispossessed seems a bit underwritten.

Edit: Also Battlestar is the poster child for Black Dude Dies First which sort of undermines some of the show's cred for this stuff.

What I am seeing is a really interesting character study of imposter syndrome (as others have mentioned) particularly in relation to the American ideal. Sam, Bucky and John all have it to different degrees and handle it in different ways. Karli is a great counterpoint to it and Erin Kellyman's light touch performance has been the perfect tonic to all the oversized comicbook acting in the show.

It's been up and down but we're nearly there. Fingers crossed for an adequate conclusion.
 
I've enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts here as the show has progressed.
Ultimately, tomorrow will be the decider and I'll be updating the review in the evening.

Sneak peak though, I've been a bit nonplussed about the handling of some of the themes. I've seen a few people discuss on here how particularly the parallels between Karli and Sam have worked and how subtle the handling of race is on the show. I am very much not seeing that, though Sam finally having the episode he deserved last week was a move in the right direction. But all the stuff about the dispossessed seems a bit underwritten.

Edit: Also Battlestar is the poster child for Black Dude Dies First which sort of undermines some of the show's cred for this stuff.

What I am seeing is a really interesting character study of imposter syndrome (as others have mentioned) particularly in relation to the American ideal. Sam, Bucky and John all have it to different degrees and handle it in different ways. Karli is a great counterpoint to it and Erin Kellyman's light touch performance has been the perfect tonic to all the oversized comicbook acting in the show.

It's been up and down but we're nearly there. Fingers crossed for an adequate conclusion.
The way I see it, is the creatives decided they would try for an elevated action/adventure series, given the canvas and 6 episodes to take their time exploring the themes and characters. In the first 3 episodes it came across a bit more forced and clumsy, whereas 4&5 seemed to do better with a subtly and maturity, that made me think a lot more on what I was seeing unfolding.

Hopefully a game of two halves, where the last episode hits full peak. Unlike Wandavision that kind of hit a peak at 6&7 then descended in 8&9.
 
Well I really enjoyed this show, You can see where the marvel universe is going next after this.
 
Watched ep 6. I thought it ended in the same uneven fashion as it began - fun and nicely diverting, but some of its core storylines seemed underworked to me. The stories which I found the strongest throughout had some effective payoffs which made me wish the show had honed in on those areas more.

Sam's speech to the politicians was a bit much. The ending with Bradley was much stronger though - I thought the resolution to that storyline was genuinely emotional.

I liked seeing JW get a little redemption. Along with Bradley, he remains one of the show's high points for me.

I thought Karli's ending fell flat. A shame, because I thought the character had potential and was played really well. The writing just wasn't strong enough to convince me she was anything other than a fairly run-of-the-mill terrorist with an understandable cause. Yet the show seemed to think it had justified portraying her as otherwise and it made for an incongruous death scene.

Oh, and a pretty minor gripe but did anyone else think the tired French quips from Sam to Batroc were really jarring? Maybe I'm being a bit sensitive but those lines seemed simultaneously lazy, made Sam look a touch xenophobic and are surely a glaring blind spot as Marvel really pushes for diversity/inclusion. Not exactly ruinous, but just unnecessarily derivative.
 
Just finished the last episode and am pretty sure I've forgotten most of what happened already.

I think the 6/10 rating was fair for the show overall. All a bit Captain A-meh-rica And The Winter Soldier for me.
 
Definitely the worst episode for me,
anything without Bucky was meh. Absolutely not convinced by Falcon as Cap and that suit, thanks but no thanks. Looks great in comics but not so much here, unlike the Scarlett Witch suit which looked great.

Also these: "Who are you? I'm Captain America". "Oh so you're the Shadow Broker". "The world will need a US Agent". This is really poor writing, who the hell wrote that stuff?!

I enjoyed the show overall but that was mainly down to Bucky, Walker and Zemo.
That finale didn't work for me though.
 
The review has now been updated to cover the entire series.

Warning - here be spoilers.
Thanks - good update and I agree with a lot of what you said.

I think the episodes ranged from a 6 to an 8 (maybe a 9 for the episode where Walker goes
"bad"
) but the finale wasn't one of the better episodes.

I liked the Smithsonian tribute, but didn't like Sam's speech. I'm just not convinced that Mackie can carry the gravitas of the role. All the time I kept thinking, "he's no Cap".

John Walker I really liked his character arc until the last episode which was a bit WTF? Bucky, I like but felt underused. Zemo was great as his character had a cheeky fun to it.

I know the new Cap suit is similar to the comics, but my 9 year old roared with laughter when he saw it..."what the heck is that" he shouted...I inclined to agree.
 
Just tried to watch this first had problems accessing it direct had to go though Disney>Marvel then after the title it stalled 3 times downloading.
 
Despite myself, I did end up buying into Sam as the new Captain America. I've always liked Mackie as Sam in the movies and I felt a moment where I could see this guy taking a bigger role in the MCU.
I'm very interested to see where they take him now but I can't ignore the fact that everything else I've seen Mackie do has been... Less than great.
 
Despite myself, I did end up buying into Sam as the new Captain America. I've always liked Mackie as Sam in the movies and I felt a moment where I could see this guy taking a bigger role in the MCU.
I'm very interested to see where they take him now but I can't ignore the fact that everything else I've seen Mackie do has been... Less than great.
RIP Altered Carbon.
 
Myself and the missus were just chatting about the finale and neither of us bought into Anthony Mackie as the lead....he's just bland ! Imagine a younger Denzel taking on the role...lots of charisma and gravitas. Mackie is fine in the Marvel films as he's mainly a sidekick, but to me he can't carry the role as a lead.
 
The review has now been updated to cover the entire series.

Warning - here be spoilers.
And I agree with it. This show was all about the quality of the writing, which was variable. It succeeded well in places, but in a lot of areas it was bland and/or blunt. Episodes 4 and 5 were the standouts. Episode 6 was just a really good set-piece of superhero fighting, and deserves a 7 just for that, but aside from the Bradley moment failed to continue the quality of character writing and themes it achieved in the previous two. And I just don’t buy the Sharon Carter storyline, hopefully they are fudgeing with us.

so really a very solid commendable 6.5/10 for me as series overall.
 
Myself and the missus were just chatting about the finale and neither of us bought into Anthony Mackie as the lead....he's just bland ! Imagine a younger Denzel taking on the role...lots of charisma and gravitas. Mackie is fine in the Marvel films as he's mainly a sidekick, but to me he can't carry the role as a lead.
That's the issue for me. I see some similar reactions online but they're immediately met with hot takes about race and how "you just can't stand a black Cap". That has nothing to do with it, I could totally see a Mahershala Ali type of actor completely owning the mantle. It just doesn't work with Mackie.
 
I hate that there are multiple threads for these shows. Anyway, copy and paste it is:

Now that we know Sharon was indeed the Power Broker, why did she bring Sam, Bucky and Zemo to her scientist who was the only one to ever manage to recreate the Super Soldier serum? I can't think of a single good reason for that, even if she couldn't predict his death (couldn't she?) that was a massive risk to take, for what?
 
I hate that there are multiple threads for these shows.
There will often be two - one by an AVF reviewer and one by a member of a more general commenting as it goes nature. Same for soundbars etc. The reviewers can’t review everything and members often see something and post a thread before a review gets up.

We would try to keep the number for one thing to 2 as long as one is the “official” review thread.

it is unreasonable to insist members can only comment in official review threads and we can’t just merge a member’s general comment thread into the “offical” review thread - it would spoil the review thread.

Best we can do I’m afraid - report multiple threads so mods can deal with them necessary. Usually members should try to decide where your post sits best. “Offical” thread (if there is one) or exisiting member’s general comment thread, or new thread for a new show. Copying (cross-posting at the end of the day) isn’t allowed but I can understand sometimes the post fits both threads. Still choose one if you can - posting moves the thread to the top and the search function here is pretty good for checking exisitng threads. :)
 
I think 7/10 is a fair reflection on the show as a whole. Some good moments, some not so.

The show definitely got better as it went on but I feel it could have done with another couple of episodes.
 
I thought episode 6 was ok but nothing amazing. I was cringing at Sam’s speech / discussion with the senator in front of the cameras. As a series, overall 7/10 for me. My biggest gripe was the shoehorning. Taking characters like Zemo and Carter and changing who they were in the movies to fit in with the series was jarring, similarly with the forced Sam/Bucky dynamic in the early episodes. Walker was good, and hope to see more of him in the future, although it’s amazing how, when he has the costume on, with the helmet he the looks like a complete plonker yet looks really cool without it.

Going back to the finale, one thing that kept distracting me was, now that Bucky is more “liberated”, it allows for Sebastian Stan to display a wider range of emotions and facial expressions, all which kept reminding me of Mark Hamill more than ever before.
 
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I am okay with John Walker being who he is now, he was never Captain America. I am actually excited to see where they take his character now.

The episode had too many final scenes though, it was the tv equivalent of Lord of the Rings.

A new Captain America film is welcome but it would have to be like Civil War with a few Avengers to up the stakes. I'm not sure the new Captain America is fully formed yet.
 

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