SummaryLos Angeles police Sgt. Sam Hodiak (David Duchovny) is paired with officer Brian Shafe (Gray Damon), who poses as a hippie in 1967 for a missing person case that will later be revealed to be connected to Charles Manson (Gethin Anthony).
SummaryLos Angeles police Sgt. Sam Hodiak (David Duchovny) is paired with officer Brian Shafe (Gray Damon), who poses as a hippie in 1967 for a missing person case that will later be revealed to be connected to Charles Manson (Gethin Anthony).
The epic battles over race, gender, drugs, and the Vietnam war are all on display here, without any phony Let It Be soundtrack muffling the shrieks of the wounded.
Great show. Bring it back for Season 3. Great history. Perfect mix of entertainment, intelligent plot and great acting. Strong characters. Keeps me paying attention from start to finish.
Hooray! I love Aquarius and I just can't enough of it. It's such a great TV show that I binge watch it once, twice, or three times online and the televised show. The TV show is way more original than Jurassic Park - how original does it take to make a sequel of it - not very much.
I watch Aquarius for the action pack scenes and the clever, crazy, and charmer - Charles Manson. I think my side stories plots give the show more excitement.
Aquarius is different and has energized my summer. I would give the TV show a 10/10. I can't believe it is NOT on Thursdays anymore and that it is now on Saturdays.
Though the '60s music is sometimes laid on with a heavy hand, Aquarius benefits from its stylish look, and a moody atmosphere that doesn't become oppressive, thanks to Duchovny's mordant wit. It's an unusual summer season offering, sometimes unsettling, but worth checking out.
Aquarius sets up several subplots that are nicely turned, and as ’60s pieces go, it’s hardly the worst. It just doesn’t quite make you feel you’re there.
Too much about Aquarius is boilerplate cop-drama material; by the second episode, Shafe and Hodiak are investigating other cases while the Manson plot plays out over the long term.
The show's strengths--Duchovny's smarm-tinted megacharm, a functional police procedural--don't seem like quite enough to make people desperate for another chapter.
A patchwork pastiche of 1960s clichés that tracks the killings of Charles Manson through a hippy-trippy Los Angeles, because all you really want is for Duchovny to be in The X-Files instead.
This is a well made show first and foremost. Not enough thoutful well crafted shows on Network TV right now.
I'm glad to see something like this on regular Network Programming.
Not a historically accurate account of many events, but more of a dramatized extension of the true stories. If it were 100% accurate there would be no characters to truely relate or care for. I'm really hoping this show gets the story arc and seasons they've planned for it.
It's very well acted and of course Duchovney shines over all the cast in a big way!
The retro vibe and bizarrely charismatic antagonist only amount to average thriller. Aquarius has good foundations for a drama thriller with its time period and decent cast. That being said, it doesn't really excite. The atmosphere is drab, not in intentionally classic manner, and the plot isn't audience friendly due to the vague script. The most it can offer is buddy cop mystery or the chase of an enigmatic villain, which is actually decent. However, as audiences have known better mystery show like True Detective or even The Following which has remarkably similar concept, Aquarius might not reach the iconic stature of its original source.
The show opens with a missing girl. Sam (David Duchovny) is called by his associates to look for the girl, who unfortunately has record of misbehavior. Then he embarks on the investigation, meeting potential suspect and hardheaded colleagues as the show frequently switches to the antagonist’s point of view. It tries to give perspective of both sides in parallel.
It’s properly made with sandy visual flair and hefty influence of the era like the baggy costume or old-fashioned tune. However, the introductions of the characters are bland. They are not memorable, even the role of Charles Manson is overly cryptic. It gets the story going, but doubtfully captives the audience. The songs and gimmick feel cosmetic, they don't emphasis much on the time except occasional reminders of trivial hippie style.
David Duchovny also isn't that engaging as the lead. He seems flat and is an uninteresting reminiscence of cop stereotype. Gethin Anthony as Charles Manson does a decent role of creepy yet alluring mysterious man, although he might not be that psychologically menacing. The script could've done a better job on setting the era or the character, but as much of the dialogues feel forced in hope to be edgy but ends up unrelatable.
Aquarius doesn't have glaring flaws, it doesn't possess clever hook or identifiable characters either. It's an average mystery drama with all of its aspects intact, but it is not as exalted as the real life source.
Only Hollywood, and worst off Network TV, could try to join the hippie mentality with Charles Manson rhetoric and show it in a positive light and make them the sympathetic characters while also having them be the antagonist. While this could be compelling on paper, giving the antagonist some depth, it is not translated this way on screen and just feels confused, disjointed, and inconsistent. It also sells itself as a gripping Manson bio-pic but turns out is just another TV Cop Drama. There are other big problems but these were my main ones.
There is simply not much to "Aquarius". The writing is mediocre at best, Mr. Duchovny is basically expressionless, and the plot seems largely nonexistent. The show purports to be about the Manson gang before it has started committing its major crimes. The actor playing Manson, a total non-look-alike, projects very little of the hypnotic personality that presumably allowed Manson to hold his followers completely under his control.
I think I will have to instruct my DVR to find something better to do with its time while "Aquarius" is on.
I like David Duchovny, but this feels like the wrong vehicle for him. This feels like a very slapped together piece of nostalgia. The first two episodes, which aired in a single block Thursday, used the most cliched music from the period over the top of a somewhat unsettling, constantly uninteresting story. Charlie Manson is notorious and gross, so why NBC wants to build a show around his (fictional) mythology is beyond me. The failure of this show will be even more evident next week when "Hannibal," a brilliantly done series about a monster, is paired with "Aquarius" on NBC.