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This documentary made me aware of a number of facts about American television and culture, especially their Kids TV shows to which I had almost no exposure. I definitely learned something new by watching the first four episodes.

The problem with this documentary is that it bundles and links together incidents of vastly, enormously different severity: the range goes from really common American workplace grievances (long hours, unjust pay differences, unfair dismissals), to scenes that sexualize children through tacky innuendos, to actual convicted child predators operating on set!

There isn't really a fil rouge connecting everything, and so this documentary creates one by pointing the finger at Dan Schneider as this improbable boogeyman, despite failing to present a single quote or fact about its conduct that is truly incriminating. He is really just an awful boss: imagine a character like Michael Scott producing a Kids TV show.

I don't understand why every documentary in American media has to be a hit piece.

I recommend this show to everyone who is curious about the uniquely unpredictable Italian political drama of the 1990s, and in particular how the arrest of a second-rate politician triggered a chain of events leading to a radical restructuring of the systems of power in the country.

If as a non-Italian you are under the misapprehension that you know anything about Berlusconi, think again. You know almost nothing. The story is both more interesting and far, far scarier than you think.

The story is of course embellished but the main turning points are factual and the historical figures are fairly accurately portrayed.

The acting is laughably overdone but sadly that is the case for most Italian dramas of the last 30 odd years. Actresses such as Margherita Buy (not on this show) contributed to creating a modern tradition of Italian acting that cannot properly express intensity and dramatic tension because *every* line is delivered with exaggerated intensity.

Last, women in the show are for the most part eye candy. The show wants us to appreciate that Miriam Leone is a piece of ass, and that would be fine if it weren't for the fact that we are constantly shown her actual ass without it playing any role in the story, just because it sells.

Let's start by stating the obvious: Astral City offers a rather poor cinematic experience. The overall quality of this product is that of a soap opera. Writing, acting, and direction are naive in a way that will be obvious to anyone, except those who are heavily invested in spirituality and are easily impressed by any relevant work.

The movie has not much artistic merit.

However, I have to acknowledge that while better-made movies about the afterlife (e.g. What Dreams May Come) succeed in entertaining me, they fail to elicit the same level of soul-searching and spiritual curiosity of this B-movie. I am sceptic by character and very hard to impress or persuade, and of course I don't believe that the book on which this movie is based was actually psychographed, yet I find the ideas of cyclic reincarnation, spiritual healing and spiritual elevation insightful and worthy of research, especially for Western audiences who may not have had much exposure to them.

Something I didn't like about the theology in this movie (and presumably the book if I were to read it), which is maybe stemming from the culture in which it was produced, is that the astral city is organised as a powerful bureaucracy which micro-manages every aspect of your (after)life, to the extent that in order to make meaningful progress in your spiritual path, you have to go to a public building and queue (yes!) to talk to some patronising government official.

I am British and have no particular sympathy for the libertarian extremists in the US, but I dread the idea of my afterlife being ruled by a celestial bureaucracy where good deeds can be effectively spent as a currency to access government-supplied benefits. I hope that is not what afterlife looks like: possibly, it is just the utopia of a "fair" bureaucracy conceived by someone who is fed up with corrupt governments and institutions here on Earth.

I am totally fine with all the magic in the show. My objection is really about basic logic: how the hell did the Halliwell explain Andy's death in their own house?

In the real world there is no magic, fine, but even if there were magic, I am pretty sure police wouldn't stop questioning people who have policemen dying in their dwellings -- with no easily identifiable cause of death.

Yeah, at the end they say the police are looking for Rodriguez, but how the bloody hell did the police buy the explanation (what explanation, by the way?) the three sisters gave about Andy dying in their very house!?

I am fine with supernatural powers, demons that disappear into thin air, premonitions, spells, etc... Otherwise I wouldn't be watching this TV show.

What I truly cannot believe is that in a well-arranged, high social class wedding the bride is replaced 24 hours before the wedding and no guest asks why (where are the bride's parents, relatives, and friends, for crying out loud?), a man is killed in mysterious circumstances and no investigation is carried out (even though there is a video containing some serious incriminating evidence), a wedding is cancelled after a demon casts a spell over the whole attendance (!), and no-one says "wtf?" and talks to the TV or the newspapers. The police just walks away, the various attendants and security guys in the villa clean the mess up and ... that's it???

Anyone who does not notice this overwhelming implausibility (even taking magic into account) is, quite frankly, an idiot. There is NO way this could have happened, as the Halliwell sisters' powers do not include making 200 people suddenly brain-dead.