I'll just preface this by saying if being on this forum has taught me anything, it's how much we all differ in our perception of media... No offense, guys, but reading through this thread as well as some Reddit posts about the series,
I feel like I'm experiencing a glitch in the matrix.
Let's agree to disagree then, but having invested 5 hours of my life into this current amazing Netflix headliner, I do have something to say:
The show is an abomination, a slap in the face to the science-fiction genre, and I feel literally appalled by it, let alone to see it called a "thrilling story that redefines sci-fi drama with its layered mysteries and genre-bending high stakes" from a list of Emmy-winning authors, like holy fuck.
Not sure if I feel my intelligence insulted harder by trying to suspend my disbelief watching this endless, offensively stupid drivel that seems to be in contest with itself to one-up every dumb idea with a somehow even dumber one, or by reading positive reviews of it on the internet. It's hands down the most retarded plot I've been subjected to in years, played out by a lead cast of cardboard cutout diverse tokens as believable as scientists as Clooney's bat-nipple, whose whole schtick is throwing up word salads made of semi-contemporary science buzzwords and expecting the viewer to have no idea what they actually mean, written in hopes to impress 12-year-olds reading Astronomy For Dummies or your 70-year-old mom who's been long out of the loop.
Reaching its peak in episode 5 with some of its BIG REVEALS, secret service genius nanofiber vs ship hard drive retrieval strat and the final twist quantum-entangled-proton-tech all seeing eye so mind-numbingly idiotic I just sat there in awe. And don't get me started on the trash-tier CGI or the whole "VR game" sub plot, good lord...
It's neither so-bad-it's-good bad, nor unintentionally-funny type bad. It's just bad, so fucking bad by the end of it I felt like I needed to take a shower.
Maybe except for certain performances by a few smoking hot chicks (the sect assassin girl? #would... oh and Sir Davos), but I'm not watching episode 6 even if someone would pay me for it.
Let's just take this moment to thank Denis Villeneuve for Arrival and Nolan for Interstellar. Sci-Fi isn't dead, just hidden far behind literal mountains of turd.