Five Things We Don’t Like about Showtime’s “Black Monday”

Five Things We Don’t Like about Showtime’s “Black Monday”

Black Monday is one of those shows that a lot of people had a great deal of hope in since there’s been success in featuring one of the worst stock market crashes in the past. But while the show does feature a few very good actors the reality is that sometimes the effort can fall a little flat. Critics are notoriously harsh when it comes to just about anything that doesn’t fit their style or what they believe something should look like when it comes to a TV show or a movie, but in this case they might be correct. Black Monday had a lot of expectations put on it for a number of reasons since it’s a program detailing one of the more disastrous moments in American history, in terms of our economy. The problem though is that in this day and age it’s the kind of story that a lot of people aren’t interested in or don’t know enough about.

Here are just a few reasons why some folks might not care for the show.

5. Some of the jokes fall a little flat.

It’s great to hear points of reference that were used in old jokes back in the day, but unless you were there and really understand them then they become essentially meaningless since you have to look them up just to get the point. That’s one of the big killers for any show, not being able to explain the jokes, or having to explain them and therefore ruin the whole thing. People from this current era that are watching and not understanding are those that didn’t grow up back then and have no basis for the kind of humor being used in this show, which is unfortunate but true. The moment you have to look something up for a joke it’s kind of ruined.

4. Some of the characters need a little more development.

This is another thing that can kill off any show, as the characters need to be solid and be able to develop as people watch, almost as though you’re unfolding an envelope to discover a surprise hidden inside. But, the trick is that the surprise needs to be fully-formed and ready to be unveiled, not half-finished and still in need of some real development. A few of the characters are in fact quite well-developed and have no problems when it come to the overall story. But there are at least a few characters that could use a lot more attention and therefore gain a great deal from being given a more realistic sense of self.

3. The knowledge of the 80s is really limited to those that lived through them.

One of the greatest downfalls of any show that is set in a fixed time period is that those who lived through it will understand it best, if they watch it. Those that didn’t live through unfortunately won’t have a single clue about what’s going on until they look it up in a history book, or online. The basis for this kind of show is best understood by those that knew what was going on back then and understood that the American economy had taken a massive hit and wasn’t bound to bounce back so quickly. Those that came later on in the 90s or the 2000s won’t have any personal stock in this show and might be a little confused.

2. The writing doesn’t seem as up to snuff as it should be for this show.

This is hard to say about any writer but it almost seems as though the writers for this show were tasked with handing in something that was half-finished and wasn’t given the time to really be developed. In some ways it seems as though the producers told them to ‘just come up with something’ and hand it in. It’s not all bad, there are moments when it appears as though they might have had a coherent thought and got it down just the way they needed to, but for a lot of the story it would appear that they were either in a daze or, perhaps, were just too caught up in studying the history of the 80s to really pay attention to what they were doing.

1. The direction of a few of the characters still seems up in the air.

It does sound as though I’m doing exactly what I hate to see critics doing, bashing something in a way that isn’t fair or even constructive. But in all honesty this show does have a lot potential, so long as its characters are given a direction that people can follow and a course that makes sense for each one of them. There’s nothing to say it won’t get better, but at this point the show has underwhelmed a lot of people.

The hope, and the belief, is that it will get better.

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  1. budlaura79
  2. Tom
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