The Pleasure Principle

I saw Wasteland and was almost thrilled, so I was looking forward to this co-production and, naturally, my expectations were way too high. The series was dragging on and on, the investigation kept stalling and the writers absolutely failed in their attempts to provide insight into the personal lives of the individual characters. What’s more, there was no atmosphere, suspense or action, which I think is a significant problem when it comes to a crime thriller. Although the detectives managed to solve the case in the tenth episode, I just couldn’t care less because I had not found a way to relate to the series at all, I was just glad it was over. (01/14/2020)

For a long time, Czech television has been luring me with a promise of a European collaboration between the Czech, Polish and Ukrainian filmmakers, which seemed rather epic to me. This was further enhanced by the Czech cast, which included some of our best actors. However, the result is remarkably unsatisfactory in this case. I had a huge problem with the Czech dubbing. The problem was mainly because everything and everyone is dubbed, which makes the whole film seem terribly stupid, illogical and artificial. Someone had the bright idea that if it was all in Czech, then it will be watched even by the patriots from remote villages where the digital signal has not yet arrived. But that’s not really how it works. After the second episode, I couldn’t stand it anymore. So when I discovered by accident that the Czech television also offers a second variant with original sound, I didn’t hesitate. The series became a lot better after that. I even became used to the annoying Polish girl, liking her a bit more with every episode. But the interesting collaboration of three countries failed at the premise. It simply wasn’t powerful and interesting enough to merit a whole series. A pity; it could have been interesting, but ended up being totally mediocre. (02/10/2020)