I'm not sure how this one managed to fly below my radar for as long as it did because I do quite like Jason Momoa ever since I was first introduced to him in Game of Thrones. I also tend to enjoy dystopian tales of earth... well, that is if they are done well. There are so many of them that the lines between that is good and what is crap changes every couple of months it seems.
This one had a unique take on the rebuilding of the Earth after humans wiped everything out in that everyone on Earth has lost the ability of vision to the point where life has completely changed including combat, which honestly, I thought would be quite difficult for them to pull off.
src
We start out in small village that is lead by Baba Voss (Momoa) as their general, and how his wife is giving birth to twins right as the village is getting word that they are being invaded, for reasons that are made clear as the first episode carries on. As is the main theme of the show, the acting done to show that everyone is blind now is done really well, with actors wearing either something over their eyes, or they have in contact lenses that make their eyes all glazed over. I'm sure they had to practice quite a lot as far as how a blind person would engage with the world and of course to never divert their eyeballs towards someone that they are speaking to.
src
When they do enter the first battle I was curious as to how they could pull off a large fight between two groups where no one has the ability of sight but they did pull it off. Humans, just like blind people that you may know now, have developed increased abilities in other sense such as super hearing and sense of smell to determine where the approaching hoard happens to be at the time. They also wave whips around their heads for those who are in the front of the pack to identify obstacles and enemies near them. It's all done exceptionally well and it is believable that this is actually how two armies, neither of which have the ability of sight, would engage with one another.
src
To say that the first episode was a "cracker" of a good time would be an understatement because it was done phenomenally well and I was very entertained for the entire one hour. Unfortunately, it seems as though they have followed the typical "epic series with not as much money as they would like to have" formula because things slow down a LOT just in the 2nd episode alone. Just like has been done with so many series in the past, they switch over from fast-paced storyline where every scene is essential to the overall story and instead of "set pieces" where a ton of dialogue is taking place and for the most part, you just get really tired of it and start to have a "get on with it already!" attitude about the show in general.
Most episodes would consist of one major event that happens for 10 minutes or so and then 50 minutes of painfully slow what I refer to as "filler." This is the problem when a studio determined beforehand that they need a certain number of episodes, with each episode filling up a certain amount of time. While I am not yet finished with the first season's 8 episodes, I can honestly say that almost nothing has happened in the last 3-4 of them. There's a bunch of talking in circles and then even more dialogue followed by more dialogue. I'm not the kind of person that needs (or even wants) non-stop action throughout an entire series or episode, but it's just so boring to have them talk and talk and talk and talk when all that is really being done here is to waste time so that we can get to the climactic scene that inevitably takes places in the last 5-10 minutes of every episode. This formula is used too frequently and even Game of Thrones was guilty of it.
src
In one particularly frustrating scene, Baba is leading a small crew of villagers following a group of "slavers" that have kidnapped his son. They are just steps away from where the son has been taken to and time is definitely of the essence because he will be sold and moved very quickly if they don't proceed fast. Instead of having a "time is of the essence" attitude that would definitely be the case in a real-life version of this, they stop on the outside of the city to have a near 10 minute conversation about their pasts rather than continue forward. This isn't the first time that they have done this on this one journey either. They are meant to be in hot pursuit of the kidnappers, but because they need to waste more time they instead stop and have a bunch of time-wasting chats along the way.
It seems to me that at least one person in the group would be like "hey guys, can we save this argument for later? We kind of need to keep moving."
There are many other instances of exactly this sort of thing happening as well.
src
Given the fact that this series was likely wildly expensive to create I can understand why they would feel compelled or even required to do this. That doesn't mean that I have to agree that it was a good idea though. This 8-episode first series could have easily been 3 or 4 episodes and all the garbage that they shove in the middle of each episode could have simply been omitted and the audience would still get all of the story.
Should I watch it?
It is visually incredible and the way in which they present how a completely blind society could function is actually very nice and believable. The dystopian elements such as technology of earth from hundreds of years prior existing around them without them knowing what the hell all of it actually is, is also done very well. The location where they shot in Canada is perfect as well. Basically, they did a lot right with this series and I am just a bit disappointed that they somehow managed to make this epic series so incredibly boring just by attempting to extend it to be longer than it needed to be with so much trivial dialogue that repeats itself many many times.
I still think it is worth seeing (pun intended) but I think a lot of people will drop off because it just lulls so much in the middle of the very first season. Perhaps, much like GoT, it really picks up later, but I am only still watching it because I don't have any alternative at the moment. "Drags itself forward at a lugubrious pace" are the words of one professional critic and I had to look up waht lugubrious actually means. Upon learning that new word, I completely agree.
The first season had rather terrible scores but season 2 doubled in popularity. So for now at least, I am going to stick with it but in all fairness I can't really recommend this to people and can only give it a "maybe." If you have already watched Fallout then maybe give this one a shot if you have nothing else on your plate.
The only place to legally stream this currently is on AppleTV+