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EP. REVIEW: Babylon


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Iron Maw



Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 482
PostPosted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 12:39 am Reply with quote
Haven't watched this series since ep 7 due being vacation for awhile. Looking at these weekly reviews since then, it seems like that was best time to stop. The show has completely collapsed under the weight of it's own ideas and no longer even has suspense to keep at least moderately entertaining to cover up it's flaws.

What a trainwreck, ah well. Gambette James.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 1:28 am Reply with quote
I've always been afraid this would go off the rails and over the shark, but I never dreamed it would literally launch itself into space! To pull the switch or not, indeed.

I mean, how in the world did they go from discussing a suicide law to threatening war over it? I can't even imagine a reality in which that makes a lick of sense. "You're letting your people kill themselves?! Well, then, even though it means a lot of our people will die, we have no choice but to kill you until you make your people stop killing themselves!"

I lol'ed at Germany's "We'll support the law now, so that we can defer our decision for later." What was that, some kind of Schrödinger's vote?

And why were they meeting in this tiny, padded cubicle? Every time they'd show the high angle shot, it felt like a low budget SEELE meeting.

Alas, it's clear that none of the legitimate plot questions raised during the course of the series will be answered in the last episode.
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Kirki



Joined: 11 Jun 2019
Posts: 296
PostPosted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:30 am Reply with quote
Maidenoftheredhand wrote:
At this point I am only finishing it because there are so few episodes left. It showed promise at first but didn’t deliver at all.

Also somehow this series got tons of underserved nominations for the CR awards


Hey, it just hit me, but has anybody considered that this might be... you know, not the end?

Maybe it will get a second season or something?

Zen has done absolutely nothing in this final quarter of episodes, and I don't think there is enough time to do anything anymore either. Zero. Squat. Nada. If this truly ends like this I'm going to be laughing for a week straight. Laughing
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EiMs



Joined: 14 Jul 2018
Posts: 50
PostPosted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 10:35 am Reply with quote
To be honest I really liked this show till this episode. I wouldn't mind that everything escalate to word-wide thing, but this was just unnecessary information dumping and trying to be clever episode. I really hope they have planed something good for last episode.
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yuna49



Joined: 27 Aug 2008
Posts: 3804
PostPosted: Fri Jan 24, 2020 10:51 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
And why were they meeting in this tiny, padded cubicle? Every time they'd show the high angle shot, it felt like a low budget SEELE meeting.

And without aides or anything?

Wouldn't you think that if the leaders of the G7 wanted to discuss good and evil, they might have brought in a few philosophers to help them?
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11306
PostPosted: Sat Jan 25, 2020 1:43 am Reply with quote
It's like it's gone full meta, where the series itself is trying to commit suicide... Should it be stopped, or should it be encouraged to jump? I'm half expecting a poll to determine which alternate ending will air.
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writerpatrick



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 670
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sun Jan 26, 2020 10:44 pm Reply with quote
I haven't been able to bring myself to watch episode 11 yet. It was a fairly watchable show before episode 9, but since then it's just become a chore to get through. If the next episode wasn't the last I would drop it, but I think I'll wait until I find out how it ends. It definitely sounds like episode 11 can be skipped though.
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Zhou-BR



Joined: 28 Feb 2008
Posts: 1419
PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:31 pm Reply with quote
Thanks for reviewing the whole thing until the end, James. God, what a shitshow of a final arc, and I say this as one of the few people who liked Kado's ending. Was Mado Nozaki trolling us or something? When the last five episodes got delayed, maybe the universe was trying (and failing) to save us from watching them.
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DarkEXE



Joined: 10 Oct 2019
Posts: 73
PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:42 pm Reply with quote
Man, fudge THIS SHITTY SO-CALLED SHOW!
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bennyl



Joined: 06 Apr 2019
Posts: 123
PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 5:16 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
but it eventually revealed itself incomprehensible bore with delusions of grandeur, one that that ran up so fast to join the other Super Serious Anime at the adult table that it tripped over its untied shoelaces, and also soiled its pants in front of everyone


If there is a review quote hall of fame, this needs to be in it. I didn't watch a minute of this show and yet I feel like I perfectly understand it.
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OH&S



Joined: 15 Jul 2013
Posts: 306
Location: Sydney, Australia
PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 5:32 pm Reply with quote
Damn James, you always seem to get the short end of the stick with these reviews.

As for me, I couldn't even get past the episode before the axe massacre because I realised there wasn't actually anything intelligent being debated. I can't believe it went even more off the rails after that.

When I first learned that the writer for this series was the same as for KADO, I had some hope that it wouldn't turn into a trainwreck in the second half. Surely, he'd have learnt some lessons from... Psyche! It was even an bigger trainwreck!


Last edited by OH&S on Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:23 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Maidenoftheredhand



Joined: 21 Jun 2007
Posts: 2632
PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 5:39 pm Reply with quote
I was reading comments on Twitter and a lot of them were positive and I wondered what alt dimension I entered that people thought it was a good ending. Glad I am not alone in thinking it sucked


Honestly think the entire last part (starting with Ai Magase killing all the characters we had known up to that point) was when things really started to go downhill

And for them to then introduce more characters in this last half for Magase just to kill them all again.

They really could have ended this show in one episode for all the substance it had.
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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6199
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 5:58 pm Reply with quote
Heh. It's Kado all over again Wink
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Takkun4343



Joined: 19 Jul 2007
Posts: 1493
Location: Englewood, Ohio
PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 9:51 pm Reply with quote
Are you ready to apologize to W'z yet, James?

I didn't have much interest in watching this series to begin with, and after reading all about its ultimate stumble from the show's TWIA moment in the spotlight to the final episode's review, I'm thankful I dodged that bullet before even seeing it coming my way.
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Nom De Plume De Fanboy
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Joined: 14 Jan 2011
Posts: 606
Location: inland US west, pretty rural
PostPosted: Tue Jan 28, 2020 11:10 pm Reply with quote
I think we all owe Mr. Beckett a round of thanks for taking one for the team.
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