This Amazon Prime offering seemed to have a lot of promise at the outset. Canada! British protagonists! Evil oil companies! Complicated back story! The promise of “dark humor”! My husband and I settled in for several nights of what we hoped would be great viewing. And then we got to Episode 3.
“I’m done,” said my husband. “Let’s find something else to watch.”
Sometimes when my husband digs his heels in like this, I will cajole him into watching “just one more episode.” More often than not, he will. Things will resolve and we will find ourselves with a good story (mostly well-told.) But this time, he was having none of it. I, however, forged on.
As one episode gave violently way to the next, I went from being a hopeful watcher to a forensic analyst. How can I put this? Tin Star has a “Coen+Tarantino” wanna-be vibe that just doesn’t work because combining those two things is like an hors d’oeuvre comprised of a hunk of Limburger topped with goat cheese. The Coens don’t beat you over the head with the incongruity of how people just tryin’ to get ahead or just mindin’ their own business can get into such pickles. Tarantino doesn’t trick you (even when he does!) about what kind of ride you’re in for. Tin Star, however, is “Fargo meets Pulp Fiction” and the entire series falls apart as it takes its characters on an unmitigated revenge-porn binge.
It isn’t just the main character, Sheriff Jim Worth, played by actor Tim Roth, who becomes unhinged. All the characters become unhinged. Angela Worth, the wife and mother (played by Genevieve O’Reilly) had a really bizarre arc. And, c’mon! Christina Hendricks is in this series! She plays Elizabeth Bradshaw, Vice President of Stakeholder Relations for North Stream Oil and was a tolerable character, but all I could think of was how wonderful she was in Mad Men. As the narrative unfolds, puppies and children have the worst time of it. The last episode lacks puppies and children, but it was so awful that I wished I could un-watch it.
Here is a typical review from The Hollywood Reporter: Tin Star Review
Have you seen Tin Star? Am I just an old fuddy-duddy and this is really and truly cutting edge Peak TV? I’d love to hear your opinion.
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