In the past, I’ve indicated some great Amazon Prime Originals (made-for TV or movies) I’ve enjoyed. These include the tremendous BBC series Catastrophe and the uber-impressive Fleabag (Season One: brilliant/eccentric; Season Two: perfect [drops microphone] ).

And I haven’t even weighed in on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – two seasons of sheer exhilaration, and Season Three drops next week – there goes that weekend….

However, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns on Amazon Prime – there are some other shows I’ve watched that have disappointed:

• Absentia – Starring Stana Katic (of Castle fame – Detective Kate Beckett). In this show, she’s an FBI agaent who has been missing for years and declared dead in absentia. From IMDB:
  

  She disappeared. No one heard from her for six years. No one knows what happened to her, not even her [FBI agent husband]. An FBI Agent tracking a Boston serial killer vanishes, and is declared dead. Six years later, she is found in a cabin in the woods, with no memory of what happened during the time she went missing. She comes back to a husband who has remarried, and whose wife is raising her son. She will have to navigate in her new reality, and she will soon find herself implicated in a new series of murders.

  Sounds like an interesting premise – and it is. But the show is just a dud. I watched all 10 episodes of Season One (it was a slough), and even watched a couple of episodes of Season Two. Sometimes a show does a reset after a first year, jettison this or that character/story line to make it more compelling. Nope, not here. I bailed after a few S2 episodes. As I understand it, it was renewed for Season 3, because, what else is there?? Very disappointing.

• Manhattan – A period piece that documents – in fictional form but with a few real-life characters (Oppenheimer etc.) – the Manhattan Project: The secretive project to produce the world’s first atomic bomb during World War II. The cast is exceptional (a pre-Mrs. Maisel Rachel Brosnahan highlights as one of the top scientist’s wife), and the plot has enough twists to keep you mildly engaged. But I just couldn’t get through the two season (23 episodes). I wanted to see more science and character development; instead, the show focused on constantly adding/rotating characters with a firm emphasis on the secrecy – everywhere, every episode: who’s the spy? That’s valid for a show about such a secretive project, but not for me. Like when legal shows focus on office politics (who gets to be partner, will they merge with a larger firm?) I lose interest – it’s more fun to see the approaches they take when trying to defend impossible cases.

  Again, just my taste.

• Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan – Seasons 1 & 2 – I watched both seasons, one recently, and I cannot really recall anything of interest about either season. I’ve seen many the Tom Clancy movies, including The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, A Clear and Present Danger, and I’ve enjoyed them. This TV series is just kinda “meh.” John Krasinski – as Jack Ryan – is an ill fit for the role, and even Wendell Pierce – who is usually great in everything – is just going through the motions here. Other characters help make the show interesting, especially in Season Two (the Black Ops squad, Michael Kelly as a CIA station chief), but I was just never really engaged. High production value, but I put it in the “never going to watch again” bucket.
  
  Thinking about it, one of my issues with this Jack Ryan is that he’s such a departure from the books/movies – that Jack Ryan was just a CIA intelligence Analyst who finds himself in situations where he has to be the hero, thwart the bad guys. This Jack Ryan is more Jack Bauer (from 24): No desk for him, actively seeking out the bad guys and is perpetually locked and loaded.

I think that is all the Amazon Prime Original Videos I’ve watched, so three good and three not-so-good. Not a bad percentage, especially considering the good was so good, and even the bad – in the case of Jack Ryan – was at least mildly entertaining.