Bryan Fuller

The first season had its flaws, but I liked it a lot. I looked forward to seeing seaon 2, but it took a long time before I found a reasonably priced DVD box.

The flaws of season one are still there. There are again only 8 episodes and again the story suddenly ends. Indeed, season 3 is already announced.

Perhaps the novelty is gone, but even though season 2 is very similar to season 1, I liked it a lot less. In fact, I do not even know if I want to watch season 3. Perhaps I will wait to see if after 3 comes a 4 and…

Anyway, in season 2 it is obvious who “Mr. Wednesday” is. He is gathering “old Gods” to wage war against the new Gods, particularly “Mr. World” and “Media” (the latter is not played by Gilian Anderson this time). Mr. World is quite annoying. Wednesday is a fun as he was and he is a very ambivalent character just as the God he was styled after.

Again there are all kinds of known and unknown Gods and other spiritual beings, many references to known and unknown myths and stories with sometimes great dialogues if you understand the pun. There are also ‘intelligent’ dialogues and monologues and also critique on the modern way of living.

As I said, I liked season 2 less than I did season 1. There are some great scenes, amusing situations and weird characters, but nothing really ‘happens’ and the story about Shadow Moon and his dead wife is not really interesting.

Just alright.

I found this series because Ian McShane is in it who is brilliant in “Deadwood“. The series seemed strange enough for me to like it. And I did!

Let me start with a down part. The season is only 8 episodes and it looks like half a story. The series is based on a book by Neil Gaiman, so my guess is that the whole story has been divided over two seasons. Had I known that beforehand I would have waited until the entire series are available before watching it.

To the series then. It is not clear to me why a man named Shadow Moon has such a big part in the story, but coming out of jail, he is picked up by a man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday, but people who know him call him Grimnir. I leave it to you to guess who he really is. With the identity of Mr. Wednesday in mind, the series make a whole lot of fun.
What Mr. Wednesday represents is one of the Old Gods (a bit out of place in America though) and he is looking for other old Gods to get the influence back that they used to have. There are many, many references to all kinds of mythologies and religions, sometimes obvious, sometimes vague. The story is not about the fight between prechristian religions and Christianity, Mr. Wednesdays opponents are of the like “Mr. World” (a god of globalization?) and “Media” (Gillian Anderson).

In this manner there is plenty dialogue about the demise of wonder and religion in modern man and critique to modern society. This is done in witty dialogues, with good humor and with both subtle references and blunt statements.

And so we have a fairly vague, at times pompous series with elements that make only little sense and elements that start to make sense as the series continue. My guess is that a few things will only start to make sense in season to and I wonder if the story is going to be milked out in an 8+ season series or if the creators will stick to the book.

Season one is very promising and made an interesting watch.