Narcos [Netflix] ***Spoilers ****

redlead

Watched six episodes of this now and it's absolutely fantastic. Probably their best series yet.

conorhal

Well I'm up to episode 5.

It's slick and entertaining, but I can't help feel as if they've crammed three seasons into the first five episodes and relied a bit too heavily on narration to fill in the gaps in the plot, all of which give the series an air of 'the most expensive crimewatch re-enactment ever made', or one of those hybrid docu-dramas that the BBC are fond of.
In the shows eagerness to cram so much plot into each episode it feels as though the makers have broken the cinematic golden rule, show it don't tell it.

ShaunDuffy92

I'm about 5 episodes into the first season, and have to say it's a great show. :-)

alwayswright

conorhal wrote: »

Well I'm up to episode 5.

It's slick and entertaining, but I can't help feel as if they've crammed three seasons into the first five episodes and relied a bit too heavily on narration to fill in the gaps in the plot, all of which give the series an air of 'the most expensive crimewatch re-enactment ever made', or one of those hybrid docu-dramas that the BBC are fond of.
In the shows eagerness to cram so much plot into each episode it feels as though the makers have broken the cinematic golden rule, show it don't tell it.

Five episodes in myself and I can't help but agree with this. Far too much narration so far. Thoroughly enjoyable though.

The Black Oil

conorhal wrote: »

Well I'm up to episode 5.

It's slick and entertaining, but I can't help feel as if they've crammed three seasons into the first five episodes and relied a bit too heavily on narration to fill in the gaps in the plot, all of which give the series an air of 'the most expensive crimewatch re-enactment ever made', or one of those hybrid docu-dramas that the BBC are fond of.

There's a good few time stamps and they sort of burn through the decade/years depicted. Agreed that the narration is overused.

czechpeter

Is this wall to wall subtitles? I think that wear thin fast with me.

The Black Oil

Yep, largely subtitles. Most of the spoken English is with the DEA guys (domestic situations included), in the embassy and some occasional political stuff.

DoYouEvenLift

Lol @ subtitles possibly being a reason to not watch great shows and movies. Enjoy missing out on all the gold produced in foreign markets.

FloatingVoter

About 50-60% Spanish with English subs. Given that its set in Columbia its to be expected. I'm no fan of Scandi cop shows that are just Midsomer Murders with subtitles in.....this however is several notches above that.
Just like Hitler speaking German in Downfall, Pablo Escobar and co. spoke Spanish. Better that than have RADA trained actors doing Spanglish accents and winding up sounding like Manuel out of Fawlty Towers.
The voiceover segments worked for me. And as the show progresses I was glad to see the sinister megalomaniac side of Escobar shown alongside the heroism of the Colombians who did stand up to him.

Unearthly

This is by far the best show Netflix have produced. Excellent show.

I'm disgusted I need to go to bed as I want to watch all 10 eps in one sitting

adox

Finished it tonight and loved it.

Didn't realise it would continue on to another season so was expecting a finale in e10!

vepyewwo

I'll probably be in the minority, but I was a bit underwhelmed by this. I liked it but it didn't blow me away. It felt more like a docu-drama than a straight out drama and I think this is what let it down. The near constant voice over from Murphy really became annoying after a while and it actually sucked a lot of the drama and tension out of things, IMO. I realise a certain amount of back story and exposition were needed, but as someone up thread said, there was too much telling and not enough showing.

Also apart from Escobar, there was pretty much no character development for anyone. Almost all of the supporting characters were wafer thin and even Murphy and Pena were underdeveloped. We learned next to nothing about either of them or their partnership. I felt they could have explored these two a lot more. As it was, it was hard to really care about them.

Murphy got kidnapped in the last episode and I barely even noticed. I only remembered it had happened when he suddenly turned back up 20 minutes later.

The actor playing Escobar was the stand out. I felt myself rooting for him most of the time, despite the fact he was slaughtering half of Colombia!

Overall it was decent, but it's an amazing story and I think they could have done a lot more with it.

czechpeter

Just watched the first episode and thought it was very good. I was expecting the subtitles to be heavier but thankfully they weren't.

It's early days yet but already looking forward to episode two.

conorhal

vepyewwo wrote: »

I'll probably be in the minority, but I was a bit underwhelmed by this. I liked it but it didn't blow me away. It felt more like a docu-drama than a straight out drama and I think this is what let it down. The near constant voice over from Murphy really became annoying after a while and it actually sucked a lot of the drama and tension out of things, IMO. I realise a certain amount of back story and exposition were needed, but as someone up thread said, there was too much telling and not enough showing.

Also apart from Escobar, there was pretty much no character development for anyone. Almost all of the supporting characters were wafer thin and even Murphy and Pena were underdeveloped. We learned next to nothing about either of them or their partnership. I felt they could have explored these two a lot more. As it was, it was hard to really care about them.

Murphy got kidnapped in the last episode and I barely even noticed. I only remembered it had happened when he suddenly turned back up 20 minutes later.

The actor playing Escobar was the stand out. I felt myself rooting for him most of the time, despite the fact he was slaughtering half of Colombia!

Overall it was decent, but it's an amazing story and I think they could have done a lot more with it.

That's a pretty good summary of my issues with the series, which I have to say I've enjoyed so far.
Characterisation is indeed thin, wafer thin and almost wholly provided through narration, unfortunatety so is the plot.

The show's propensity to have Murphy introduce a character, tell you who they are and why they're important tends leave you pretty under-invested in the fate of the character.
You also get a lot of news footage of 'big and serious stuff happening' but it's background chatter that again operates largely as another device to explain the plot to you.
I can't believe for example that the M-19's action at the courts or some of the major bombing, things that would warrent a full episode in any other series, are effectively relegated to narrated background colour, plot points to be ticked off as information dumps rather then major dramatic moments in a story.

jester77

Really loving this. As someone mentioned it is a very similar style to Underbelly with the voice over, which really adds to it. Can't believe people are moaning about subtitles :eek: Most foreign productions have subtitles, not that hard to read unless you want some crappy dubbed nonsense. You are missing out the best of what the world has to offer by ignoring non English productions.

Was reading up on Wagner Moura playing Escobar. He had to learn Spanish and gain 40lbs for the role, that is seriously impressive and he pulls the role off fantastically.

If you enjoy this, you should also check out the Carlos mini-series. Not as good as this, but definitely worth a look.

Luckycharms_74

Gonna start watching tonight. It looks excellent from the trailers

TerrorFirmer

Just finished it, excellent stuff. Didn't expect it to be remotely as good as it was. Netflix hits another home run.

McGrath5

Finished this show earlier on today.

A fantastic show from Netflix, a bit disappointed that the Escobar story was not told within the 1 season, but still looking forward to season 2.

lertsnim

Finished it just now and it really is a terrific series. Watching it some of what was going on looked incredibly far fetched but it is crazy to think most of it happened.

allybhoy

One episode left and absolutely loving it, its an excellent story, shot well with decent acting. If I had one minor minor criticism it is that they are really flying through the story and not leaving much left for future seasons and hopefully it well get at least 3 or 4 seasons.

By the way, not sure if anyone is as dumb as me, but it took me about 6 episodes before I realised Javier Pena was Oberyn Martell from GOT,

redlead

allybhoy wrote: »

One episode left and absolutely loving it, its an excellent story, shot well with decent acting. If I had one minor minor criticism it is that they are really flying through the story and not leaving much left for future seasons and hopefully it well get at least 3 or 4 seasons.

By the way, not sure if anyone is as dumb as me, but it took me about 6 episodes before I realised Javier Pena was Oberyn Martell from GOT,

haha it was bugging me the whole way through who he was, I knew that I knew him from something!

They have basically gone through 90% of the story in season one so don't see how they can get 3/4 seasons out of it. I actually found this rather refreshing as not evertything needs to be milked for multiple seasons. One more season should do it.

FloatingVoter

redlead wrote: »

haha it was bugging me the whole way through who he was, I knew that I knew him from something!

They have basically gone through 90% of the story in season one so don't see how they can get 3/4 seasons out of it. I actually found this rather refreshing as not evertything needs to be milked for multiple seasons. One more season should do it.

They can slow the pace and get another season out of Pablo. It is called Narcos after all so they can continue into the late 90s tracking the Cali cartel. And they can continue into this year if they follow the action north to Mexico where El Chapo discovered a strange tunnel in his shower and strolled out of jail.
Hopefully, they won't drag the arse out of it though and will quit while they're ahead.

jester77

FloatingVoter wrote: »

They can slow the pace and get another season out of Pablo. It is called Narcos after all so they can continue into the late 90s tracking the Cali cartel. And they can continue into this year if they follow the action north to Mexico where El Chapo discovered a strange tunnel in his shower and strolled out of jail.
Hopefully, they won't drag the arse out of it though and will quit while they're ahead.

I would imagine that is the way they go, there is very little left in the Pablo story and not enough for a whole season given the way they are telling the story. They could have gotten a lot more out of this season. They narrated a lot of stuff that would easily have been worth an episode on its own, which is a pity imo.

allybhoy

jester77 wrote: »

I would imagine that is the way they go, there is very little left in the Pablo story and not enough for a whole season given the way they are telling the story. They could have gotten a lot more out of this season. They narrated a lot of stuff that would easily have been worth an episode on its own, which is a pity imo.

Yeh exactly, he basically went from a lowball cigarette smuggler to the most notorious coke dealer the world has ever seen in half an episode and they probably could paced that a bit better. But then again, like others have said, it is a refreshing change to have so much story progression.

DoYouEvenLift

allybhoy wrote: »

Yeh exactly, he basically went from a lowball cigarette smuggler to the most notorious coke dealer the world has ever seen in half an episode and they probably could paced that a bit better. But then again, like others have said, it is a refreshing change to have so much story progression.

I thought about this during the last episode, how ridiculously fast he went from a seemingly small time trafficker to a fuking king in just the first episode. I kinda wish they paced that a bit more but then the opening episode wouldn't have been as explosive and gripping

What are those?

Just finished the series last night, found it very enjoyable but wish they draged it out a bit more,seems like they crammed a lot into 10 episodes when they could nearly have made 3 series from all the content shown imo really good though
Also hope they bring it back more toward the production and sale of cocaine in the next series as theyve gone away from that a good bit, not that im not enjoying the altercations with the Govt. and the cali cartel . overall enjoying it and would reccommend it highly

Stone Deaf 4evr

I suppose its a good complaint when the main gripe people have is that they want more of it. :-)

DoYouEvenLift

Surprised this is only rated 9.2 on imdb as well, easily a 9.5 show

FloatingVoter

A few things weren't explained.....contrary to the myth he peddled about rising from the gutter - daddy Escobar was a farmer, mommy Escobar was a schoolteacher. No silver spoon but a middle class lad gone wild. He started life (according to himself) robbing gravestones and sanding down for resale, then did progress to bodyguarding before making it as a kidnapper for ransom. That provides his original cash to start moving things about.

...and as seen in the opener selling party powder in Miami is considerably more profitable than providing TVs to Medellin.

Agent Coulson

Renewed for season 2.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/3/9256235/narcos-netflix-series-renewal