Bodies (2023)

Watchseries; As a weaving of four stories this works well. The sets are great and even the thirty years into the future thread wasn't too out there.

There are a few good characters, some good light and shade and some that develop nicely as the series progresses.

Everything starts with a body being discovered in a lane in London and develops with four different time lines, Victorian, World War Two, present day and thirty years into the future. At first there is a lovely kind of what-is-going-on feel to the story, but come the middle of it, you realise that it's just the same thing that's been done so many times in so many other sci-fi programmes and films that it becomes more and more disappointing and eventually so incredibly and sadly predictable.

As a weaving of four stories this works well. The sets are great and even the thirty years into the future thread wasn't too out there.

There are a few good characters, some good light and shade and some that develop nicely as the series progresses.

Everything starts with a body being discovered in a lane in London and develops with four different time lines, Victorian, World War Two, present day and thirty years into the future. At first there is a lovely kind of what-is-going-on feel to the story, but come the middle of it, you realise that it's just the same thing that's been done so many times in so many other sci-fi programmes and films that it becomes more and more disappointing and eventually so incredibly and sadly predictable.

Bodies watchseries. I expect to see on Apple TV. In th last couple of month Netflix release mostly social media style shows and movies. This show is totally differed and after canceling 1899 a surprise as mystery thriller based on a comic. 1 murder victim and 4 time lines with clear different production design and colouring. A dense production based on excellently written scripts. Compliments to the director. None of this would have been possible if the cast had not been so fortunate. Especially the choice of the 4 detectives is phenomenal. A joy of acting down to the smallest supporting role. Even though the composition of the pictures is in the finest cinemascope, I would have wished for a corresponding camera here as well as in the setting of the various time series, but that is complaining on a high level. A happy hand also with the soundtrack.

The episodes fly by and the nice thing is, like a good book, you can watch the show more than once. Then you'll definitely get more of the little Easter eggs. The scene changes between the timelines are wonderful.

I am thrilled..

Just like many things we see on Netflix recently, this is a show with hooks and no substance. The Causality Time Paradox is so overwhelmingly insulting that I only kept watching as one does a train wreck. Fortunately I'm catching up to Netflix marketing formula department in realizing that when there are too many hooks that it is likely not going to be a very logically cohesive story. This has proven to be true. Despite my realization of this, I see others who are completely fooled by it and, thus, the trend will continue. They pulled this stunt with "1899": All Hooks with no real story telling. Then the recent season of Black Mirror was a shadow of its former self. All the while increasing fees!? Someone is placing formula and money over content and I'm about ready to vote "no" with mine.

I am enjoying the series, if I close my eyes during the gorey scenes where history is being mutilated....

It's impossible to be 100% accurate, but sometimes the mistakes are distracting. Like many contemporary productions, this series fails to understand how people behaved in the past. There are two instances in particular that particularly stand out.

In 1890 London, the molly house with two men dressed up in corsets on the street simply wouldn't have happened in daylight in front of the police because they would have been immediately arrested. It wasn't okay to act gay in any way in public in 1890.

The other most egregious errors occur in the 1941 blitz scenes, with people screaming and running for shelter from their apartments while bombs are falling in the neighbourhood, and the crowds then being denied access to an underground station for shelter. Anyone who has ever talked to anyone who lived in London during the Blitz knows that Londoners were prepared and calmly resigned to the bombings. There were usually many minutes between the first alerts and the first bombs - enough time to make a thermos of tea and dress warmly. There were also alternate street-level shelters to the undergrounds, and many people just defied fate and waited it out at home. As well, the cars have too much light being projected from the head lamps, and the detective's apartment had no blackout curtains, so sitting in the apartment with the lights on was illegal, and he would have been fined or arrested. Covering light from windows would have been tested in drills by ARP officers from the home army in the early months of the war, well before the Blitz began.

It's too bad these blatant errors exist because they pull down the quality of the production. Period set films really need historians to check basic facts, and directors need to LISTEN to them.

I must admit this is right up my alley. I'm a hardcore Whovian, Trekkie, and lover of both comics-turned-film (Marvel) period drama (think Downton Abbey). I believe it's a strange combination; I've never met anyone who enjoys all of these genres. Until now, maybe? This series is the exquisitely crafted intersection of all of them. It weaves together the lived and experiences of 4 people, scattered across time in London. Each time period is crafted, from costumes to music, with care and precision. It's both hopeful and tragic, and so compelling that I'm about to rewatch the entire series. If this is read by anyone affiliated in any way with its creation, know that you are brilliant. And your work is loved.

Time travel. Hmm. It's so tough to pull off - the key is to make it entertaining, fill it with quality acting and writing, and just do enough to make it believable to you don't end up trying to figure out the science or poke holes in paradoxes.

Bodies is about as good as anything there is in the time travel sub-genre of science-fiction. If you liked shows such as Dark or The Devil's Hour, or loved Predestination or any of the smarter time travel stories around then you'll be very happy with this surprising gem. It's tense, atmospheric, genuinely original and wholly unpredictable.

The historical periods depicted are done so in a rich and convincing manner, particularly the 1890s. The modern-day cops are entirely believable, and the depiction of the future - always the trickiest to sell - kinda works too. After watching a seemingly endless run of TV shows with immensely dislikable characters, it's refreshing to have protagonists to root for - especially the antihero DS Whiteman played by the exceptional Jacob Fortune-Lloyd.

Among the sea of dross being pumped out by Netflix and Disney+ in particular, Bodies really stands out.