Community Reviews

The women of the caliphate

Rating: 95/100

I saw this TV show a long time ago I dont remember when I saw it but I remembered the series, the way you remember something that had a big impact on you, you do not remember all the details , but remember the way it made you feel, The show had a lot of action and tension, It was about a soldier who did secret work that nobody officially knew about.. I had completely forgotten the name of the show. For a time I could not figure out what it was. Then last night I suddenly remembered the name and this is called Strike Back and so I went back to the season ome and watched it again.

The story is about John Porter, a soldier who quit the SAS after a rescue mission in Iraq went terribly wrong, Two of his soldiers colleagues were killed and that had a big effect on the rest of the story. John Porter is not a hero, he is carrying around a lot of guilt and pain from the start, you can see it in the way he moves and talks, What makes it even worse is that his colleague, Collinson lied about what happened on that mission. Collinson blamed a boy that John Porter had actually saved, So John Porter quit the SAS not because of the loss but because he knew that the truth was not being told, That kind of injustice makes the action in the show feel more real and serious.

Years later John Porter is pulled back into the service, he is sent on a mission to rescue a kidnapped journalist named Katie Dartmouth and that is where the first season of Strike Back really gets started, John Porter did not ask to come to work, he was not just sitting around waiting for a call, He was needed for the job, and he was the only right person for it, there is something about that setup that works, John Porter is not doing this for fame or glory, He is doing it because it is who he is.

The show was filmed on location in South Africa, and you can tell It does not look like a set trying to look like a dangerous place, the locations feel real, the tension feels real, the action scenes do not feel cheap, For a TV show the production is really impressive.

Richard Armitage plays Porter and he carries the whole season on his back He is not flashy about it, he plays Porter like a man who has already been through the worst and is just quietly getting on with it, and then there's Collinson, played by Andrew Lincoln, who you might know from The Walking Dead, Watching him here is interesting because his character is doing the opposite of what you'd expect ,polished on the outside, hiding something dark underneath, the tension between those two, the history they share and the truth that was buried, runs through the whole season.

What I really liked going back to it is how the story doesn't rush, It builds, each episode adds another layer, another complication, and by the time you get to the end of the season you realize how carefully everything was connected from the beginning.

Strike Back is not a show that is trying to be flashy or cool for the sake of it, It is telling a story about loyalty, betrayal and what it costs to do secret jobs that never makes the news, the first season of Strike Back is solid from start, to finish, If you forgot about it like I did it is definitely worth going back to watch again.

_{Images Gotten from My Movie Box Player}

Aikay👾

Rating: 79/100

Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.

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Finally finally, things start to blow and get really dangerous enough that nobody can hide behind speeches about freedom or survival, there are no excuses, there are no politics or words that can fix the mess that is happening and I love that kind of chaos, but that same danger makes the SDM Council rough to support without real concerns to be honest. I get why Miles and the rest agree with Lee that the Kuznetsov docking platform has to go, the M6 force is only three days out, Happy Valley barely has food left and the Council is betting President Korzhenko is close enough to being removed that a new Soviet government could make a deal with Mars if they buy some time. There is not much room to go here so it obvious their choices are terrible because the situation is terrible but that does not make a fertilizer bomb a smart move. Blowing up the platform might slow the M6 down, but it fixes nothing, not the food, not the soldiers, not Earth ever accepting an independent Mars, it could just hand the M6 an excuse to treat Happy Valley like terrorists, it could prove their theory without having to explain it and give them real motives to stop the chaos. That is why I liked the Mars drama we got on this episode even when I was not fully on board with the Council. Miles can call the plan necessary and Boyd can warn the soldiers seconds before it goes off but Ruiz still dies, and good intentions do not erase that the people fighting for Mars just caused a death while trying to protect their home.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7772588/
• Platform: PRIME VIDEO

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Miles feels like more of a real leader here because he listens, pushes Irina on what she is not telling him and makes the call when waiting is just not an option anymore, but I am not fully sold on the political plan underneath it. Irina and Polivanov argue the embargo has put the American and Soviet economies in free fall and President Korzhenko is close to losing power, and a new Soviet government might cut a deal that weakens or ends the M6 response, that gives Miles a reason to hold out and gives Polivanov a personal reason since his own future and family are tied to the government changing. The problem is Happy Valley cannot wait on Earth politics, the colony is short on food, the soldiers are close and the Council is trusting people who worked against them not long ago. I get why Miles is right about having to question Irina, but its just obvious and almost look like he is force to proceed with his plan without having much control over, cant even call it a plan, so it was expected that blowing up the platform could easily make things worse before any new Soviet leader ever shows up. Here Miles got more control without having to pretend to be this seasoned expert politician and it still makes clear that being decisive is not the same as being right, as his growing reputation worries a bit, because Gerardo still treats him like the same guy who protected everyone back in 2003 and Miles still has not told anyone the truth about giving up Ghost Ops under interrogation, which Palmer knows, and that alone could wreck the trust he needs right now to keep on going.

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Boyd and the new Happy Valley Corps make the Council decision feel even more uncomfortable because the show is basically giving us what Mars wants to become while its leaders sign off on more violence. Boyd tells the new officers straight up that they are there to protect people, not abuse their authority and I like her in that role because she is not just throwing the word independence around, she is actually trying to build a police force that runs different from the one that used to control Happy Valley. The other factor in place here is that Alex jumps in as a medic given how uncomfortable he seems around violence, even though Boyd still makes him go through weapons training anyway. That matters because Mars wants to be kinder now, but everybody knows a fight is coming and kindness alone will not stop it. Lily is helping in a different way after Gulsora dies, recording the people of Mars so Earth sees them as workers and families instead of one group of insurgents, but it feels small next to everything happening around her, a documentary and a song will not undo how easy the explosion at Kuznetsov could be for the M6 to use against them. The show is building a kind of shared identity for Mars and then the Council hands its enemies exactly the kind of event that could wipe out all the work Lily and Boyd have done in one news report, and I believe that is not a flaw on the script, mostly sounds totally intentional to show off how it is the whole reason their cause feels more serious now.

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Everything going on at Titan is pretty clear although its a bit complex to care about, mainly because Walt is tearing himself up over the failed return burn because he thinks it was his mistake, while Kelly knows she is the one who changed the programming and still will not tell him. I get why she stays quiet admitting it could get her in trouble and split a crew already stranded far from where they planned to land, but watching Walt blame himself makes Kelly look worse the longer she waits. He ends up temporarily handing command to her because he no longer trusts his own judgment which should be a massive shift for the crew, but the episode moves on quick to a possible life site outside their safe travel range, with Walt still needed since he actually knows Titan. Kelly taking control makes sense based on the recent events and makes her the acting commander, even when she might feel guilty on the inside, but it does not feel settled, she has command because Walt believes he failed, not because the crew knows the truth and chose her. The episode loses force giving this scenes less room to expand and let it sink in or potentially giving her enough time to screw up, while Mars deals with an actual attack, this could have been moments with way more weight to uncover Kelly but fine, probably they saving it for latter. The search for life is a big deal too and Kelly gets a nice speech that gives Happy Valley a rare moment of pride but the Titan conflict feels paused instead of developed. Walt handing over command is not a solution, it just puts Kelly in a stronger spot while in reality things are just getting worst.

#forallmankind, #bravenewworld, #mars, #titan, #independence, #resistance, #council, #miles, #avery, #ruiz, #kelly, #walt, #boyd, #irina, #polivanov, #aleida, #happyvalley, #kuznetsov, #m6, #helios, #explosion, #freedom, #conflict, #television, #recap

Rating: 75/100

Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.

Today, I finally decided to watch Squid Game Season 1 again, I do this often whenever I forget about the story. If it's a good one then I prefer to watch it again and again, just to keep it in my memory. The moment this movie was released, it was a huge hit around the world. I never expected a korean series to reach sky rocket audience. It's a survival series with action and suspense but I didn't expect it to make me think so much about people and society. This series will show you the reality of our real world. There are still kind people on the world but the amount of cruelty is more than that.

The plot of the story is about a man Seong Gi-hun, he is in debt and struggling to fix his life, he has a daughter who lives with his ex-wife. One day, he was with his friend discussing about his problems but the loan sharks found him, he tried to escape as he had no money, later they caught him and threatened him, he was devasted waiting at the station.

There he saw a man in suit who wanted to play a game with Gi-hun, at first he wasn't interested but the moment he was offered money for winning, he was ready for it. But there was a twist, whoever loses they will be slapped. Gi-hun kept losing because the man in suit was paying like a professional. After getting slapped so many times the man in suit gave him an invitation card to join a secret competition where he could earn money. Later he went there because he was in debt and wanted to do something for his daughter.

There were 456 people in total, all of them had serious financial problems. In the beginning everything looked normal as they thought it would be hard to earn money but they were asked to play children's games. Everyone thought they could win and it didn't matter if they would lose because then they would be going home. They were offered for an enormous cash prize. As the game began every round comes with deadly consequences. People started to die whoever lost the game they were eliminated forever. The number of players gets smaller, trust becomes harder to find and everyone is forced to choose between kindness and survival.

I'm just glad that the plot is not only about who wins the match. It depicted that how money can slowly change people or show their true self. In the beginning, there were some players who were helping each other because they cares, but as the prize money grew some completely forgot what it meant to be human. The prize money would only grow with the amount of dead people. So, in a while people started to betray their own friends. They began to lie without any guilt. None of them bothered to sacrifice innocent lives just for money. At some point it made me more angry. I actually had to pause an episode because I was so frustrated. I couldn't watch because I thought how could greed erase kindness?

The character that annoyed me the most wasn't Thanos or Jang Deok-su. It was the people who acted like a kind person and when they needed something then threw others away the moment they became useless. Sadly, it's not a fictional thing, this is still happening around us. We all meet people like that in real life. People often behave nicely with you when they need something from you but when money or personal gain is involved, their true face appears. That was one of the most realistic parts of the show.

A few days ago, I saw kids were playing outside with marbles. I couldn't stop thinking about how those same innocent games became symbols of fear in the series. Actually the game is not at fault, it's the people. I believe the games were never the real enemy. Human greed was.

I think Squid Game Season 1 is much more than a survival drama. If you won't watch it you won't know about it. There will be both bad and good reviews but the reality is learned when it's watched personally. Everyone has different taste and choices so you can't decide if a series is good based on others opinion. To know about it, you need to experience it by yourself.

Squid game is more about friendship, betrayal, desperation and the ugly side of greed. I just got to realize money is valuable to people more than another person's life, people who are like that I think they have already lost themselves and the humanity in themselves. That's the message that stayed with me long after the final episode ended. I highly recommend watching with friends and partner but not with children. There are some sexual scenes which I don't think kids should be watching. I don't know why they added that part it was still the best without those scenes. Anyway, still it's a good series which you should be watching in your free time.

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Rating: 100/100

Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.

Rating: 80/100

Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.

Rating: 80/100

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The slow grind keeps going, for me has been Cape Fear and FOMK S05, they both good in their own ways its just that I fall behind with other stuff in real life but dont want to stop half way, but finally this is the episod I felt makes the Mars situation and the Titan mission feel like part of the same story, even though they leave you with two very different feelings. Dev and Kelly both decide they already know what has to happen and both go around everyone else to make it happen, the difference is Dev leaves people dead and hurt while Kelly gets the result she wanted, so one of them looks like a monster and the other a hero and I do not think the show should let that difference settle who was actually right to keep the spice going. Dev clearly crosses a line but Kelly also puts the entire crew at risk once Walt already gave the order to turn back, she just gets away with it because it works out. The landing gives Happy Valley one good moment after months of shortages and people wanting to leave and I like that the episode does not pretend reaching Titan fixes anything or rebuilds the six domes that just got destroyed. The celebration is real but the disaster is still sitting there once the everyone just stops cheering or caring, not sure, but what I want now is for the next episode to judge these two on what they did, not just how it turned out.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7772588/
• Platform: PRIME VIDEO

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Dev is a lot harder to defend now because this was not an accident caused by Palmer losing control in the field, Palmer straight up says the attack followed the plan Dev signed off. The point was to wipe out crops and food storage so the Sons and Daughters of Mars would finally give up and just typing that out says enough about how far Dev has let himself go, he cant cut a supply line because they produce their own so it was basically blow up their crops so they starve, plain and simple, thats fucking terrorism. He already knows Happy Valley is barely holding on, aid is getting cut, food is rationed, equipment keeps failing and spare parts are running out, and instead of treating that as a sign the colony needs a political solution he makes things even harder for everyone living there. Six domes get taken out, one person dies, seven more get hurt and two are critical, and the food supply drops from about two months down to two weeks, that is not pressure meant to force a negotiation, it is an attack on the same people Dev claims he is trying to save from a cause he thinks is doomed. His reaction after does not help either, he asks if Alex was there and Palmer cannot even answer him, all he gets confirmed is a young woman is dead and he still backed the plan to torch the food supply, even with the domes intact those people were looking at starvation. Dev seems upset because it got personal not because he realizes the plan itself was wrong, and that makes his guilt feel late and weak, so much stupidity coming out of someone so smart.

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The human cost is what keeps the Mars side from turning into another council room argument, while Alex is celebrating his birthday with Lily and their friends right when the domes get hit and the show turns a normal little party into the clearest proof that Dev has lost touch with the people he is supposedly fighting for. That party is kind of silly on its own but it matters because these are young people trying to have a life while the adults fight over who controls Mars, this seems to be a world where people still go out and have fun, thats what the party is mostly about, but then one of them is dead and others are badly hurt because Dev wanted to break the will of the rebellion. I liked that the episode does not let the politics stay clean at all, the council has to deal with the dead, the injured, the food that is gone and more people saying they want to go back to Earth, truth is that who wants to be there anymore with how tight is food and the danger that it represents with this kind of attacks. Aleida joins that group because the Titan mission is wrapping up and her family is back home, and her decision shows how weak this independence push has gotten after six months, the early unity is gone, the money system is falling apart and the regular workers keep getting told to accept less while the people in charge keep insisting they will never surrender. It seems to be just Miles who still believes giving up would destroy everything they fought for, but the entire situation is choaking him leaving him out of room and having to face a situation that not the best speech can fix, people are dying, Dev did not create every shortage but he turned a bad situation into one that might not be survivable.

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Kelly gets the more exciting half of the episode and I get why the landing feels like such a big win once the Kosmos 1 crew is already dead, their attempt at Titan fails because of a bad calculation that pulls them toward Saturn instead and Sojourner stays on the radio with them until the signal cuts out for good. That gives Walt a real reason to cancel the landing and turn back to Mars and even if he does not like Kelly and made that call fast, but it means choosing not to repeat the same disaster, that does not mean he has become a coward, its just better to recognize failure before its too late. For the most part I think Kelly will not accept it because she keeps thinking about she honestly regret her father after he did not land on the moon when he had the chance and I get why that history matters to her, it follow Ed the entire series and cause more than one accident but none of that gives her the right to change the mission without telling the crew. She overrides the order and forces Sojourner toward Titan anyway, dragging everyone on board into a decision none of them made and the fact that it works out does not make the method okay, it is the same story repeating again, Ed got lucky a few times until he wasnt. If the ship had failed she would be responsible for putting that crew in danger against a direct order, but because they land safely everyone gets to celebrate while the argument about what she did vanished. Not to throw her under the bus but would be nice if the show puts more attention to what she did, Walt needs to find out what she did and Kelly should have to explain why her own fear of regret mattered more than the crew getting a say in risking their lives.

This honestly was such a good episode because it reminds me a lot to Ed, and the landing still works as a moment with tons on impact on the series because Miles understands what Happy Valley needs from it, he pushes Aleida to broadcast the mission audio across the whole base since the ship and the people flying it came out of work done on Mars and that pulls both sides of the conflict into the same moment whether they like it or not. Dev, Palmer, the council, the governor and the regular workers all end up listening because the landing belongs to the colony even while the colony cannot agree on anything else, and I liked that more than a straight celebration on the ship would have been. It gives Mars something good without pretending the political fight is close to be over or forgoten for a minute, after that its all back to regular business, everyone at Happy Valley gets proof their work means something but nobody walks away with more food, spare parts or a real path toward independence. Dev and Kelly both believe they know better than the people around them and one choice ends with someone dead while the other ends with people cheering, but both came from been walking a thin line before becoming wreck less thats for certain. This is one of the stronger episodes of the season for me because it gives these characters a win and a disaster at once and leaves the consequences sitting there waiting from everyone to drop a gear and come back to reality at the final episodes, the landing is worth celebrating, it just cannot make anyone forget who got hurt, who got ignored and who still has to answer for what happened.

#forallmankind, #television, #tvreview, #episodereview, #seasonfive, #mars, #titan, #happyvalley, #kelly, #dev, #palmer, #aleida, #miles, #alex, #lily, #sojourner, #space, #sciencefiction, #scifi, #colony, #independence, #sabotage, #landing, #astronauts, #spaceseries

Rating: 80/100

Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.

So, I eventually got a chance to watch this and boy it was not what I thought it was going to be, but in a positive way.

I'm sure most people have this image in their head of the "nicer" cousin, the sunny Superman of Supergirl. This movie puts that right down on its toes right away. Kara is a mess for Milly Alcock. She's a true mess, literally. She's out partying on planets that cancel out her powers solely to feel normal for five minutes while she tries to avoid literally everyone and run away from what happened to her home planet. It's a broken down version of the character and, um, honestly? I was here for it. Much funnier than another “Learning to be a hero” origin story.

When you break it down, the plot was pretty straightforward: A little kid named Ruthye wants to get rid of a space pirate that killed her whole family, and she basically drags/kidnaps Kara into helping her hunt him down. That's it. There's no stakes that would make the universe end, no huge CGI army in the sky, just revenge, and the little personal kind. I've heard a lot of people say "It's like True Grit" and it really does have that same 'angry kid and reluctant mentor' vibe running through it.

Alcock is really awesome. She plays the character of Kara as though she were older than she appears to be, but not physically (too young!), rather as though she had been through so much. It does a better job of selling the entire “watched her planet die as a teenager” story than just having characters say “I saw her planet die when I was still a teenager.” It's important to note that both Eve Ridley (as Ruthye) and Shawshank are really good against each other, otherwise the rest of the film with the two of them would be pretty boring.

I have one real beef.... the action, It's just... fine? There was nothing particularly brilliant in the big set-pieces but a couple of fight beats felt a bit floppy as if the director wasn't too comfortable with character stuff as he was with big spectacle. I don't think it barks up the wrong tree for a film, but if you're looking for some polished fights like those of "Superman" then temper with that.

I also got to enjoy that it didn't have to be a bit uncomfortable. It has heavier content here, loss and violence and other things that a lot of superhero films would shy away from for a PG-13 audience, and it adds a weight to the entire thing that a lot of superhero films lack.

In essence: if a showy, boisterous sound is what you're looking for, this may not be quite that dramatic. If you are looking for a well acted little revenge tale, a bit sad, a bit scrappy and the superpowers thrown in, this does. I walked out of it loving it more than I anticipated.

The movie is not flashy, but one hell of a lead performance, and lots of heart.

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Rating: 70/100

After the comments I got when sharing my review about Elite Force · GIGN (2026), I decided to write a review of another series, a Nordic noir called Young Wallander that I liked and maybe you can consider adding to your waiting list, if you haven't watched it.

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It is called Young Wallander, as there's another series, called Wallander and I've seen bad reviews, complaining about Young Wallander not being what they had expected as the original series was filmed between 2005 and 2013 and the new series is featuring the times when it was filmed. I'm not sure if there's a connection between the two at all, don't really care either as when you do, you already have expectations that most of the times lead to disappointment. I watched the series as it was and loved it.

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The country of origin is United Kingdom, but the series revolves around the young Kurt Wallander, a young (obviously) police officer in Malmö, Sweden. Most of the actors are Brits, but the lead actor, Adam Pålsson is Swedish and I appreciate that as it gives some kind of authenticity to the series.

So the series starts with Kurt Wallander (Adam Pålsson), a uniform officer witnessing a brutal crime in the neighborhood, where he lives and no one knows he's a police officer. After the crime, as he was an eye witness basically, coordinating the crowd, he's asked to give a hand to the investigating detectives. This would be a dream of every uniform officer, but Kurt being promoted to major crimes means his best friend is dropped from the list. Kurt has no choice but to accept it.

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We have the chance to get a glimpse into the Swedish crime life during two seasons of the series. Life of a detective is never easy, Kurt finds himself in all kinds of situations, is forced to make split second decisions, that have consequences and can be questionable after. You as a viewer, have the chance to think about what you'd have done in Kurt's place.

What I loved about the series is that the writes made sure to give time to the story, didn't rush it and also focused on the moral aspect of the action as well. They kept the story as close to reality as possible, no one wanted to play Rambo and there was no need to count the corpses either. The cases are not something you don't see in real life and this is a good thing here, as well as you see Wallander getting experience and growing as a person.

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The cast is really good, Adam Pålsson is perfect for the role, his Swedish accent is a huge plus, even though so many had a problem with it. There are a couple of names I have to mention, among which Leanne Best, playing Frida Rask, a senior detective partnering with Wallander and Ellise Chappell playing Mona, who's running a charity and not only.

If you're looking for a detective series, that is focusing on the cases, the private life of the characters and it is slow paced as well, give this a try.

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When it comes to Nordic noir, I have two series to recommend to you. This is one and the other one is coming as I need to watch it again first. Not because I forgot what was about, but because it's good and worth watching.

Rating: 90/100

Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.