Ellis (serial)

Season 1 & 2

British TV drama where DCI Ellis is a London ringer who is sent to outlying districts when the locals are ill equipped to manage a particularly big case. She is brilliant, eccentric, and dogged in her pursuit of truth. She is sent in, and so rarely welcomed, and battles through it all to find the culprit. Her discovered help in the first case (DS Harper) becomes her go-to assistant for the rest of the season and their ongoing interactions, working relationship and discovery of each other is also a slow burn. Fantastic.

4 stars (out of 5)

Patience (serial)

This is the British adaptation of the French series Astrid. The storyline follows protagonist Patience Evans, a young, autistic woman who works in criminal records as an archivist/researcher for the police. Her (now deceased) father was a police detective and she is a puzzle hound. Turns out she is exceptional in connecting disparate clues to put together cases. I really loved the French series, and this is also good, but different. Patience is slightly less severely autistic than Astrid, has a different relationship with her boss (who changes between season 1 and 2), and the boyfriend is definitely more realistic (meaning more clunky with relationship). Somehow the differences between the two seem to be the difference between French and British police procedurals in general. French more austere, where the fact that Raphael is a bit rogue is both counter point to Astrid and a bit of the story itself. The British version, rogue seems to be more the norm, and the fact that Patience is less severe means that there is not nearly as much tension in the relationship/autism angle. Even neurodivergent seems typical. 

4 stars (out of 5)

Blanca (series)

This Italian series (one season - 10 episodes) features Blanca, a 20-something blind woman staring an internship at the Genoa police department. She has to deal with all the dismissiveness and stereotyping you would expect, but she makes herself useful on cases, to the point that her detective supervisor begins to trust her. In parallel, Blanca is drawn into an investigation of her own history and who killed her older sister (an event that caused Blanca's blindness). Is there such a thing as a Rom-Thrill? This is it. 

4 stars (out of 5)

Astrid (serial)

Season 5

In this season, the running theme is centered around a series of Astrid's epileptic seizures. They seem to be triggered by something and so she begins to investigate her own history / memory.  Tetsu loses his funding (and therefore visa), a childhood aquaintance comes back into her life, and Raphaelle is pregnant. All traumatic events that could contribute. This season thread is woven through the individual cases of each episode and we are even treated to young Astrid in flashback. Great storylines and I love the 8-10 episode seasons that is the new norm for seasons. Not so long that I lose interest -- good addictive encouragement, keep them wanting more :)

5 stars (out of 5)

Blacklist (serial)

Season 1-8

Blacklist centers on James Spader (Raymond Reddington), the FBI's most wanted criminal. He is basically an information broker who trades amongst the criminal underworld and always gets his cut. In this series, he becomes a confidential informant for the FBI under the condition that his handler be young agent / profiler Elizabeth Keen. It is this Reddington/Keen relationship that becomes the central tension of the series. Each episode consists of Reddington serving up an FBI wanted criminal and along the way getting something for himself. And each episode purports to reveal a bit more of the "truth" about Keen's past. However [spoiler] in the first 8 seasons, all revealed truths are themselves only partial or are outright lies. Overall, a good FBI/Crime series, but after 8 seasons, I need to take a break. I sense a shark-jump ahead...

3 stars (out of 5)

The Wrath of Becky

A revenge-action thriller that gives Kick-ass and Deadpool vibes, if they were mashups with K-dramas (Kill Boksoon) or Kleo. Becky is a kid who aged out of the foster system and has taken on her own training - with an ultimate goal of seeking revenge on her fathers killer. She works at a local diner and encounters a plot to assassinate a visiting senator. Spoiler Alert -- she wins. 

3 stars (out of 5)

Sherlock & Daughter (serial)

This series plays like late 1990s, BBC spinoff of the Sherlock Holmes genre. And I say that in the best sense with the look and feel appropriately British and early century time frame. In this version, a young woman travels to London from California after her mother is murdered, following a clue that Sherlock Holmes is her father. She becomes entwined in a series of cases with him, effectively replacing the Watson character, honing her investigative skills with a brash, American sensibility. It's new, without feeling like a reboot. Well done. 

4 stars (out of 5)

The Cleaner

A young woman is a window cleaner (the outside the building, high rise kind) who lives on the edge of her means. She takes care of her autistic brother, which is very expensive, and her boss is an ass soshe has no actual job security. On the job this night, she is cleaning windows late only to find that the building has been taken over by eco-terrorists who have crashed the party of a big energy corporation. The terrorists turn violent and she is the only one who can stop them. It's actually a pretty consistent plot, no matter how far fetched. The lines all pull together and the characters have motivation and personality beyond just being in the right place at the right time. Well done. 

4 stars (out of 5)

Canary Black

A spy thriller. Graves is the CIA's best black ops agent. When she is blackmailed into stealing a top secret document, the entire agency comes down on her. She is on her own to actually find the secret document, get out from under the blackmailer, and clear her name. All while shooting thousands of rounds of ammo but never getting hit. Pretty predictable, and yet as an action flick, entertaining. 

3 stars (out of 5)

Black Doves (serial)

Keira Knightly plays the titular Black Dove, a deep cover spy working for a non-governmental agency who deals in information for sale to the highest bidder. Pure capitalism - or at least that is the idea. But information is power, and the political interweaving of this power with corruption and the requisite mistrust that accompanies state actors (China, England and U.S. in this case) means that more is at stake than just money. This series is exactly what serial story telling should be. Coming in at 6 episodes, we have plenty of time to have plot depth, character depth, intrigue and several interweaving storylines. And at 6 episodes, we don't have time for fluff. There isn't even one interstitial scene to just fill time and make another episode. More creators could learn from this editing. Not much gets 5 stars from me these days, but this I loved. 

5 stars (out of 5)

The Furies (serial)

The Paris world of organized crime is run by 6 godfathers, each with their own domain of crime. They are pretty much restricted to stay in their area of expertise and not start a war with other godfathers because they have a Fury. This person is charged with keeping the peace, and is brutal in her implementation of "peacekeeping" measures. This is the story of the Fury, and her heir who was in hiding, didn't know she was the heir and is really very good at Fury-ing. Very engaging crime thriller and is perfect in terms of timing and pacing. Well done.

4 stars (out of 5)

Astrid (serial)

Season 3

Astrid is well ensconced in the Crime Squad and becomes essential to their every case. The only way she can continue to work with them is to attend the police academy courses for forensic analysis. So that thread wanders the entire season. Otherwise, it is the same genius show that the prior seasons showed. 

5 stars (out of 5)

Reacher (serial)

Season 2

Similar to the books, this installment is completely detached from Season 1 with only small connective threads. This season we get lots of backstory as the plot pulls the old Special Investigators team from the 110th together. This is fun to see Reacher history. I will be curious how future seasons continue to follow the books and whether they are able to capture the solitary nature of Reacher. This season was definitely an ensemble piece (and unusual for it). 

3 stars (out of 5)

The Takeover

This Dutch action-thriller follows a hacker (mostly white hat) who uncovers a nefarious scheme by some nameless Chinese firm to capture facial and identity data on all Dutch citizens. It becomes seriously dangerous. Running for her life, trying not to get others involved, and trying to prevent identity apocalypse. Quite the ride. 

3 stars (out of 5)

Fubar (serial)

A fun little family-spy series that reminds me in tone of The Burn Notice. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a retiring CIA operative working his last mission, when he encounters his daughter undercover, also a CIA operative. And to save the world, they have to work together. In many ways this is cliché, but even in that it is fun to watch, the writing taking itself just seriously enough. 

3 stars (out of 5)

Heart of Stone

Gal Gadot is an operative for a top secret, extra-governmental, global operations organization that pulls all the strings to keep the bad guys from killing everyone. To assist them they have "the heart", a quantum supercomputer that can process data so fast that it seems omniscient. And it gives pretty cool real-time data to heads up display contact lenses over massively remote distances (aka science fiction). Gadot is betrayed, the heart is stolen, and she must recover it. A completely solid action thriller. The only reason I would say it isn't a franchise maker/starter is that I can't remember for the life of me Gadot's character name or the secret organization name (a la Ethan Hunt, Jason Bourne, Jack Reacher, Luke Skywalker, etc.). And this list kind of makes me sad because that list just rolled out of my head and I can't seem to recall a single female character name from a movie/series. It's just a bunch of "that girl from..." or "___'s character in ..." Alas.

3 stars (out of 5)

The Meg

Jason Statham is a deep sea diver who lost a couple friends on a rescue mission. He claims to have encountered a massive something that caused the loss, but no one believed him. So when he is asked to do another rescue mission (this time his ex-wife), he carries all that baggage. But he does it and in the process is exonerated for his crazy as the rescue releases a Megaladon into the pacific ocean. And now that he has done that, he has to kill it to save (literally) everyone. Pretty straight forward plot and action sequences, moves along with a nice pace and has the appropriate mix of convenient coincidence and marginally plausible capabilities (both human and tech). 

3 stars (out of 5)

The Contractor

Chris Pine stars in this movie that we have all seen before. He is a special ops soldier whose injury prevents him from active duty. So he reaches out to a friend to get a high paying, private contractor job. But it goes wrong, and it is unclear who the good guys are. So Pine has to rely on only himself and his personal ethical code to make things right... or at least not wrong. What is interesting about this movie is the pacing. Yes, there are action scenes, but it shies away from 90 minutes of non-stop action that is common. We actually get to endure with Pine as he struggles. In this case, the slow pace is effective.

3 stars (out of 5)

AKA

French action thriller that doesn't really fit any of the trope styles, and yet somehow fits them all. It isn't traditional former black ops soldier a la Bourne Identity, it isn't revenge thriller a la Taken, it isn't white knight a la Equalizer. But mesh them together and you get a sense of the feel. Maybe a French Jack Reacher? Adam is an off the books hired gun for the French government that is called in to clean up (i.e. find and kill) a suspected terrorist. He has to rapidly infiltrate a local crime family to get at the terrorist cell. Everything goes exactly as planned, while not going to plan at all but he still succeeds. I would watch more of the Adam Franco character.

4 stars (out of 5)

The Glory (serial)

Wow. A Korean psychological thriller that really gets into it. The story follows 30 something Dong-eun as she initiates a revenge plan. In flashback we see in detail the years of bullying and abuse that she receives as a high school student at the hand of 5 friends. We see human depravity, entitlement of wealth and class. But this is not a Taken style one-dimensional revenge thriller. We see Dong-eun and her commitment to her plan. This commitment is complex, to the point that she recognizes human and potential friendship in a colleague, only to turn it away in order to maintain her focus. Somehow, as much as she craves relationship, she knows that letting herself feel human will cause her to lose her ability to enact her revenge. And we see her decades of pain slowly surfacing and be held by those who care for her, allowing her to be more whole. Add to this character is the plot, with twists and developments that keep you guessing. Maybe not "I didn't see that coming", but "Did she see that coming? Is she really that far ahead? Or is she just adaptable and reacting really well to a changing situation?" It's really good.

5 stars (out of 5)