Mr. Burke Reviews

Review #9: The Last Ship The Last Ship , which just finished its fourth season on TNT , is an action-adventure series set, mostly, aboard the USS Nathan James , which, in the first series, was the last U.S. Navy destroyer manned and ready to save the world. The series is set in a reality that has been devastated by virus that has wiped out much of humanity. However, while the worst was happening, the Nathan James was stationed in the Arctic on a scientific mission. Their isolation is their salvation, along with Dr. Rachel Scott, who knew about the virus before the pandemic, and was working on a cure for it. The crew of the James, under the command of Captain Chandler, needs to hold it together, survive out in the ocean, find a safe harbor to resupply, avoid enemies that wish to kill them as well as anyone who could contaminate the ship and everyone on board. All in a day's work. The show stars Eric Dane as Chandler. You may be familiar with him from his many episodes of Gray...

Review #8: The Defenders This review contains spoilers for both seasons of Daredevil as well as Jessica Jones , Luke Cage , and Iron Fist . The day The Defenders dropped on Netflix, some nice young women were in midtown Manhattan handing out free stickers, cookies and sunglasses. Not that this matters much, except it certainly got my attention. A few days later, I asked some friends on Twitter if I needed to see the other shows before viewing this one. The consensus was, "No, you don't, but you'll enjoy it more if you do." They were all crazy: viewing the earlier shows is mandatory. Furthermore, if you watched Jessica Jones or Luke Cage , you absolutely need to see The Defenders before you catch the next season (if any) of those shows because their story lines continue here. Unlike the other series, we only get eight episodes of The Defenders, but that's all that's necessary. The familiar faces from the four tributaries flow right into the river of t...

Review #7: Daredevil, Season 2 Finishing up my pre- Defenders viewing by watching Season 2 of Daredevil out of sequence. (It should have come after Jessica Jones and before Luke Cage .) In a nutshell, while better than Iron Fist (damning with faint praise), it's a letdown from the first season. It has its moments, and yes, there are some great characters, but it's just all over the place. Basically, they have enough plot and characters for a 22-episode season (or 44 on The CW ) and they cram it all into 13, running from here to there, and forgetting stuff along the way. And I'm past complaining about the cost of saving a person who then goes on to die in later episodes. The result is something that is neither episodic nor season-long story arc, and more showing people and things so that they can be referenced in future projects. As the season opens, Hell's Kitchen is ripe for the taking since most of the underworld was disrupted or on the run. The Irish Mob is...

Review #6: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Season 1 I recently rewatched the series Dirk Gently because during its first run, a glitch somewhere prevented my DVR from recording one of the episodes, pivotal as it was. For anyone not aware, Dirk Gently is the creation of Douglas Adams , who also wrote the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series and had worked on Doctor Who back in the 70s. Keep this in mind as you watch Dirk Gently. Adams wrote two Gently novels that I'm aware of, but I haven't read either one. This review is coming from a non-reader, based only on what I saw on the screen, without any comparisons to the source material. Maybe at some point, I'll revisit the books. I won't lie: the first time I watched the first episode, I hadn't a clue what was going on. But that was okay, because a lot of the characters weren't too aware of what was going on either. On the rewatch, I already knew what was going to happen, and i could still s...

Review #5: Iron Fist, Season 1 Continuing my "pre- Defenders viewing... There's a line in the first season of Daredevil where Matt tells Foggy how he was trained in martial arts by an older blind man. Foggy responds, "Isn't that the plot to Kung Fu ?" He's not far wrong. That old TV series was just as much an inspiration for creating the character of Iron Fist as those Saturday afternoon martial arts flicks were. Thankfully, Iron Fist only uses the Kung Fu fighting style, not their story line. First off, after Luke Cage , I was pretty sure that Iron Fist would be a little bit of a letdown. However, I didn't expect it to be the least impressive of the bunch. You have to figure that they had the other series to build upon, right? So I piece of advice would be watch this series before you watch Luke Cage. There's a brief reference that won't really spoil anything, and you'll end on a stronger note. Iron Fist is the least satisfying a...

Review #4: Luke Cage, Season 1 Writer's note: now that school has started again, I don't know how much time (or inclination) I'll have for "binge-watching" TV shows. Plus, I running out of Defenders predecessors. There are not enough parts for black actors, and as a result, there is a huge talent pool to choose from when a project like Luke Cage comes along. Mix in Marvel's reputation, and you can attract the best talent available into your production. Exhibit 1: look at the "big names" in Hollywood doing Marvel sequels . Exhibit 2: Luke Cage . This Netflix show features Alfre Woodard , who has been winning praise and awards for decades, as well as Mahershala Ali , who recently won an Academy Award for Moonlight , which I haven't seen, and appeared in Hidden Figures , which I did. A little recent revealed to me that the reason he looks so familiar is because he starred in the TV show The 4400 , which appeared for a few six-episode season...

Review #3: Jessica Jones, Season 1 Before it premiered, Jessica Jones was just a name to me. I had no information about the character other than what I picked up from others. I guess she's after my time with comics. What I did know was that this one was definitely more adult-themed. For starters, I knew that she had previously been under someone else's mental control and now living with the after-effects. I didn't know, prior to viewing, what those were, and if that control was magical, physical, psychological, or psionic in nature. And I knew she was going to be a private eye, and that David Tennant (the Tenth Doctor, for anyone counting) signed on to be the Big Bad for the season. For anyone knowing as much as I did, Tennant plays Kilgrave who was able control Jessica Jones, and anyone else, simply by talking to them and given them an order. The person would have to comply. Jones broke from him and thought he was dead, but he's made a comeback. Jones is a priva...