I have to admit, for all the anticipation others built up waiting for this show, I built up none. When the pilot first came out, things didn’t really catch me enough to even finish reading it. What a mistake that was! I finally sat down to see what the hype was all about, and what I came to find out was the Shackles was the kind of story just waiting to be told at MZP. The mixing of this slightly supernatural drama, with a deeply troubled family angle is perfect.
Shackles is filled with large visuals that really stimulate all your senses, not just the visual. We have the clanking shackles, the painfully bleeding nails, the plants dying before our eyes. It’s all too much, but I love it. It is probably one of my favorite aspects of the premier.
The main character, Duncan, is an odd one. We learn very little about him in the premier, so I don’t really know what to think of him yet. He seems like this big lovable guy, but the fact that he has done something really horrible to put him in prison all those years is just a bit confusing. There are too many questions left open for Duncan at the end of this episode. I know this is a very serialized show, but I feel like the premier should have been a bit self contained, and this was not the case. I think that might have been the weakest point of the pilot. A way to remedy this, I think, would have been to make this more about Duncan’s immediate transition. He is pushed into this mission with little explanation, and the one he was given was a load of bull, in my honest opinion. I’m sure we will learn more later on, but for a pilot I would have just like to see a bit of a ‘full story’.
For that reason I think the better part of this episode was the first half. Everything was moving at a good pace, setting up a great story, and then what I thought would lead to some sort of closing just brought on more set up.
All that said, I did thoroughly enjoy Matilda. Brilliant character that you’d like to think is more than meets the eye. The character of Epoch is also really well written. He is young when we go into his past, but he seems wise, kind, and oddly alluring.
The ‘Team’ you’ve set up is well put together. You have much of the family working together, which will make balancing the storylines of Duncan’s two different mission a bit easier, but messier. Good drama, if you ask me.
Overall, great start to the series. It left a lot of questions open, but I’m sure all of this will be handled later on. I’ve already read the next two episodes so I more or less know the answer to that. Look out for those reviews later.
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