Well, on day one I was in awe at the direction, story, and inventive characters. I then watched 2 more episodes that really dragged on, had very little action and lowered the overall rating but I still had hope. Tonight I watched 2 more episodes which brings us all the way through EP 7.
There are no spoilers in this entry so don't be afraid.
I come bearing bad news unfortunately. Episodes 6 and 7, in particular episode 6, might be some of the worst television I have seen in a long time. The script is just awful and the entire episode feels as though it was put on by a local theater in 2 weeks. I don't know why this episode exists, it is horrible and the acting isn't very good either. It is as if the stars of the show realize it is crap and have trouble making anything of it even though all of their performances up to now were pretty great. These are 2 episodes of filler... just filler. This would make sense if there were commercials but this is Netflix - a long season isn't necessary.
Rather than having any real story the various members of the family just constantly argue with one another for an hour, many times talking over one-another and interrupting. Also, despite the fact that every single one of them has seen apparitions of some sort throughout the other episodes NONE OF THEM will believe the crazy things that their family members have seen. It is just some of the worst dialogue I have ever experienced in any higher-budget series in quite some time. Plus the director thought it would be a good idea to have the cameras circling around the family so now we get motion sickness as well as boredom.
Another problem is these 2 episodes aren't even remotely scary. Only one thing that can be considered frightening even happens and well, that was shocking but then the two sisters involved get right back to arguing with each other about some irrelevant sh*t rather than focusing on the fact that a ghost just basically attacked both of them.
There is a meme out there that says "I rolled my eyes so hard that I saw my own brain" or something along those lines and these two episodes are an eye-rolling bonanza.
I can't believe this is the same series. The director has also abandoned the really cool methods that were being used in the first 5 episodes where each episode was being told through the eyes of a different family member. Why did they stop doing that? It was really fantastic.
This show is spiraling towards mediocrity and that is really disappointing to me because it had so much promise at the start. There are still a few episodes left and I certainly hope that they were able to reel it back in, because at this rate, if it gets worse, i am going to run out of points to deduct.
Phase 1 : 9 / 10
Phase 2 : 7 / 10
Phase 3 : 3 / 10
Overall Score (up to now)