The Continental (2023)
3 / 5
Streaming shows are in a weird place production-wise. The algorithms that keep us watching demand a ceaseless fountain of content, and I think it’s hard to argue with the notion that this means it’s easy for a streaming show to go on too long. On some level, nobody making them cares if they’re too long. The channel needs content, and the more the better. Somebody will watch it. It made me suspicious of this show, but I love me some John Wick, so why not? What can I say? The algorithm got me.
So did The Continental do me nice? Well, it entertains, but it fails to stick the landing. I blame the format at this point–it’s just too long. It’s three 90-minute-ish episodes; it could have shed 30 minutes of that easily, and maybe a full hour. The 70s groove is undeniably awesome (New York has never looked scuzzier), and the producers lean hard into the fashion and the tropes, but as it goes along it starts to feel self-aware, like it’s cosplaying the 70s rather than being IN the 70s. Part of that might be that everything is a set, in Budapest. And man do they cram a lot in there. Too much, really.
Some is great. Colin Woodell channels the occasional glimpse of Ian McShane’s mannerisms; you can almost see how Winston will age, and that’s neat. But then the show shoehorns in an “origin story” for Winston that’s not really necessary and requires the insertion of a police detective doing lady-Serpico, which is not neat. The black owners of (of course) a karate dojo and their nod to Blaxpoitation movies is pretty cool, and I would watch a show about just them. And Mel Gibson … um, dude. He is a delightful scenery-chewer, but gets too loopy by the end. It’s all just too much, and the whole thing just needed tightening.
3 stars of 5: If you like the world of the High Table, there’s plenty here to have fun with, but just once.