exxtrafoxx

I agree totally with a prior reviewer's statement that there's something so fresh about Irish shows. Probably because the location stock footage and aerials haven't been "done to death" as they are with New York City, London, Manchester, Washington DC, San Francisco, Miami, and Los Angeles. To call this series "hackneyed" and "improbable" is outrageous. Anything can happen these days! Since Y2K, Donald J. "Trumpelstiltskin" made it into the White House with a wife who has done lesbian porn, an entire female family dynasty was launched by one sister's sex tape and peaking with her stepfather going from gold medals and fatherhood to gold stilettos and "sisterhood", and wannabe music artists, strippers, middle-age blond (?) gold diggers, and has-been athletes, all becoming (in)famous due to "reality" television. It's called life!

This show may lack the cutting-edge concept of "Ali McGraw" or the in-your-face honesty of "The Wire" (cuz YOU can't handle the truth!), but it's no more incredulous than "The Sopranos" depiction of an irrelevant La Cosa Nostra family led by a capo in psychotherapy! In "Striking Out", a personable Amy Huberman leads a great ensemble, with something for everybody.

My only complaint is that 4 episodes is way too short a period to really establish a solid following for a new series. Viewers unfamiliar with Ireland just don't "know" Dublin well enough. Even well-known film locations like London and NYC require sufficient time to establish the plot and character arcs. We have to learn the dialect and customs. Is the steering wheel right or left? Is tea or coffee the preferred beverage? Is the meal called "tea" actually lunch or dinner? We were just understanding that "Garde" mean police by the final episode. I'm still not sure how the whole Irish court process goes. I was up on barrister vs. solicitor, Crown Prosecution Service, and "M'Lord/M'Lady" to the judge. This is an Irish legal drama yet the viewer was only given 4 episodes the familiarize ourselves to both the country and its legal system. What? No legal briefs rolled up and tied with pink ribbon?!

Still, this series depicts a different side of Dublin - beautiful, lush, and intelligent. Not a pub or leprechaun in sight! No one has "ginger hair", freckles, or bad teeth. Just a fresh new look at one of the oldest and resilient countries in the world. I say "Out with the old & in with the new......Ireland"!

I LOVE ANYTHING "WILDE" but this is the worst representation of the famed Victorian literary master that I have ever seen! All it is a bunch of famous(?) people quoting the ascerbic and witty Oscar. It really tells nothing about the man. And the choice of people to appear is all over the place. What does Rosie Perez have to do with anything!? She did manage to lose that usually overdone "NuYoRican" accent long enough to give the great man his due; maybe director Bill Hughes managed to convince her that the viewer would not be able to appreciate Wilde's barbed quotations if they were unable to understand the speaker? In the immortal words of the "Men On" duo of television's "In Living Color", the equally witty Blaine Edwards and Antoine Merriweather, "HATED IT!"