Your Honor (Sky Atlantic Bryan Cranston thing)

[Blue Jam]

Miniseries with that Heisenberg fella but this time he's a judge rather than a criminal. Or at least he's not a criminal until he learns that his darling son commited a terrible crime and he decides to keep schtum about it. Well, maybe it wasn't such a terrible crime after all, given who the victim was and all the terrible criminal things his family have done and which have kept Judge Cranston very busy. Fuck him, right? Right...?

Watching episode 1 now. Bit slow, took a while to get to the great BC himself but it was fun watching him being all imposing in a big robe. Obviously he's great but I'm not sure he's enough to keep me watching, and so far his character seems to be the only one with any depth- the only reason the viewers would know the victim was

Spoiler alert

the son of a Mafia don

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was because Judge Heisenberg has a very expositiony line telling us this fact. It's got mixed reviews but the main criticism seems to be that this isn't Breaking Bad so I'll give it a chance.

I did enjoy the discussion of how Americans can't pronounce "Edinburgh". Right at the start. That hooked me in, I will admit.

[Blue Jam]

[tag]What do you call a lawyer with an IQ of 60?[/tag]

After the duff reviews I'm pleasantly surprised by this. On episode 2 now and I'm enjoying the way Judge Heisenberg's attempts to construct an alibi for his son and destroy the evidence of his crime keep backfiring and just leading him to come up with increasingly elaborate lies. The Grauniad called it "Breaking Basic" but I'm amusing myself by thinking of it as BrBa but where Walt doesn't have a Saul Goodman to come up with clever ideas or a Mike Ehrmantraut to perfectly execute all the dirty work. Plus the victim's family actually do have a Mike. A Scottish Mike.

I've also come up with an idea for a crime drama/legal procedural where a Client Of The Week commits a crime and needs help covering their tracks and hires a shady criminologist to help them, but all of his ideas are incredibly impractical and convoluted and keen spiraling into even more crazy schemes to keep the ruse going, and that's because that shady criminologist is Nathan Fielder.

[Dex Sawash]

[
I've also come up with an idea for a crime drama/legal procedural where a Client Of The Week commits a crime and needs help covering their tracks and hires a shady criminologist to help them, but all of his ideas are incredibly impractical and convoluted and keen spiraling into even more crazy schemes to keep the ruse going, and that's because that shady criminologist is Nathan Fielder.

Quit your job and make this

[Blue Jam]

Weird how this flits between being very expositiony and "What the fuck's going on now?". Why is the new Walt Jr. taking photos of the crime scene? Vince Gilligan's plotting was never this sloppy.

Still think that "Breaking Basic" description is a bit unfair though. "Breaking Basic" is what Ozark is.

And Cranston is great.

Someone else watch this and tell me what to think please.

[Blue Jam]

Oh yes, and "Judge Michael Desiato". Just try watching this and not mentally adding "Hotblack" every time his name is mentioned. Liking the pangalactic Islington connection.

[Old Thrashbarg]

We're four episodes in and I'm enjoying it. There's quite a lot of suspension of disbelief required, but it's fun seeing Cranston getting stuck into the role. And Arnold Rothstein, or whatever he's called in this, always cuts a menacing figure.

I'm not sure how they're going to fill ten episodes, but things are beginning to escalate, so presumably it will spiral further and further out of Hotblack's control until he's automated-machine-gunning Nazis from the boot of his car.

[ersatz99]

Just finished this and didn't feel it was really worth it. One thing that most irritated me plotwise was

Spoiler alert

even the most basic detective work would have found the car was actually stolen the day after the hit and run

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which was what the whole investigation was based on. Cranston is great but with a performance which seems a bit too familiar.

[Blue Jam]

Episode 4: the existence of a Scottish-Italian-American New Orleans Mafia family still seems like a bit of a stretch but I did like the Don Baxter's bit about the soup. Baxter's Soup. With that and the Edinboro stuff from episode 1 it looks like there's a Scot involved in the writing somewhere. Maybe Scottish Mike Ehrmantraut is acting as Scottishness Consultant or something.

Just watched episode 5:

Spoiler alert

NOOOOOOO! NOT THE DOG YOU BASTARDS... oh, they didn't actually target the dog, and he's alright, phew

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.

It's a bit too close to BrBa in parts- the CCTV footage at the garage, the car chase across town to close a deal, the burner phones etc- but I am liking the whole Butterfly Effect thing. It's a bit like Wayfarer 515 reminding Walter White that actions have consequences, but with him being forced to stand by powerlessly and watch every step leading up to the big disaster. And his dumb horned-up teenage son being an especially determined self-saboteur. Hey, at least he does a bit more than eat breakfast.

I'm also enjoying it as a kind of bizarro BrBa, seeing it as what Walt would do with no Guy Who Knows A Guy, and how being left to their own devices means Hotblack and Hotblack Jr. keep fucking everything up.

It's also very nicely shot. Not up there with BCS of course but the lighting is pretty and the composition is frequently nice to look at.

7/10 for me so far, will probably stay with it until the end.

[lankyguy95]

Ten episodes feels too much of an undergoing if it's just a bit average. I might watch the first one or two and see how I feel.

[Blue Jam]

For all the negative reviews I'm still getting more enjoyment from it than I did from Ozark, Snowpiercer and Maniac. By 7/10 I mean "not great, but still pretty good".

[Blue Jam]

And Arnold Rothstein, or whatever he's called in this, always cuts a menacing figure.

Has Michael Stuhlbarg ever played Richard Nixon? Because he really really should.

[Blue Jam]

Episode 8. Judge Hotblack drawing attention to "WE THE PEOPLE..." on the back wall of the courtroom.

Yes, I realise that's in every courtroom in the US, but still, S'ALL GOOD, MAN!

[Blue Jam]

Just finished this. As someone who has actually done jury service on a trial which ended early after the judge declared a mistrial I did find all the "Let's just pretend that didn't happen, you didn't hear that, right?" stuff an hilarious load of bollocks.

Cransto was bloody good though. Probably far too good for this but what the hell, he made it worth watching.

7/10. I stand by that. I found a lot to enjoy in this. It's bollocks but well-acted, beautifully-shot bollocks. Just like BrBa.

[holyzombiejesus]

Just watched this and didn't understand

Spoiler alert

what the note was that Cranston left on the table for the lawyers to see, and how the fuck did the jury find the son not guilty?

[close]

[jobotic]

Yeah watched this too. Lovely to look at, some good acting but ultimately nothing much. I only really watched the last couple of episodes because I'd watched the first eight and wanted to get it done.

Loved everyone just wandering in and out of the courtroom and having lots of chats in the foyer.