This review may contain spoilers
An interesting premise done terribly
Warning: This show has a LOT of on screen violence against both kids and animals. Yes, it's blurred, but you know what's happened/what something is.
This show was certainly something. It had everything. Eugenics. Serial killers. Vengeance. Police being bad at their jobs. Problems that could have been solved if just one person answered their phone. Amnesia. Brain transplants. Murder. Government conspiracies.
And that is the problem. It had everything, so it wound up being a mess. There were bits and pieces of good ideas in the show, but the way that it came together was...not good. I finished it out of fascination, going 'what the hell' the whole time. And then in the end, the government conspiracy is successful! The bill passes!
I found the editing very confusing, especially in episode one. I was so confused about how each scene related to the others with the 'two years before' 'one year later' 'ten years ago'. It took me until like halfway through the show to actually cobble together what the actual timeline for those events was. I get that part of the point with the editing was that it was supposed to be misleading so that the reveal partway through actually means something, but there's ways to do that without making it hard to figure out what year it is when something's happening.
A lot of my frustration stems from the fact that there is that kernel of an interesting idea at the centre of the story: If we can identify a genetic disposition to violence and we identify a child as having this genetic marker, if the child has violent outbursts, are they naturally occurring or were they caused by society/family/community having treated that child as if their existence was violent in and of itself before the child was even capable of making choices?
This show was certainly something. It had everything. Eugenics. Serial killers. Vengeance. Police being bad at their jobs. Problems that could have been solved if just one person answered their phone. Amnesia. Brain transplants. Murder. Government conspiracies.
And that is the problem. It had everything, so it wound up being a mess. There were bits and pieces of good ideas in the show, but the way that it came together was...not good. I finished it out of fascination, going 'what the hell' the whole time. And then in the end, the government conspiracy is successful! The bill passes!
I found the editing very confusing, especially in episode one. I was so confused about how each scene related to the others with the 'two years before' 'one year later' 'ten years ago'. It took me until like halfway through the show to actually cobble together what the actual timeline for those events was. I get that part of the point with the editing was that it was supposed to be misleading so that the reveal partway through actually means something, but there's ways to do that without making it hard to figure out what year it is when something's happening.
A lot of my frustration stems from the fact that there is that kernel of an interesting idea at the centre of the story: If we can identify a genetic disposition to violence and we identify a child as having this genetic marker, if the child has violent outbursts, are they naturally occurring or were they caused by society/family/community having treated that child as if their existence was violent in and of itself before the child was even capable of making choices?
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