Skip to main content

TV Series Review: Loki (2021) *Spoiler Free*

Loki Season One Poster
Marvel's third, direct movie tie in series, Loki immediately piqued my interest tenfold when I heard it would be a time travel themed series. Basically completing the trifecta of my favorite themes, Sci-fi, Superheroes, and Time Travel (pretty much the ingredients of Avengers: Endgame with a lot less superheroes).

While it's not really fair to compare any of the three series, WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki to each other (they're all very different), Loki, for me, had the most satisfying season finale of them all... and not just because it's the only series confirmed for a second season. Which is important to mention because it's possible to forgive a few loose ends if you know there's still more to come.

Loki follows the journey of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) as we know him to be at the end of the first Avengers movie, where we saw him escape in Avengers: Endgame. His escape sets off a Nexus event, an anomaly in the timeline, that attracts the attention of the Time Variant Authority (TVA), an organization working outside the main timeline. From there a mystery and a chase ensues.

A lot of Marvel fans are all about the action of superheroes being superheroes, saving the day etc. so this series may have slightly less appeal however, Loki is very much a series of extremely thoughtful conversations between different pairings of characters. While it does have many action sequences, I found myself really looking forward to the next conversation.

In particular, any interaction Loki had with Mobius (Owen Wilson), playing what is essentially a time detective role, and Loki's handler. It works so well because Owen is very much playing the laid back, easy going type character he's known for but, right away, you know he's also smart enough to spar with Loki's quick intelligence and not take any of his BS.

So much character development for both Loki and Mobius is achieved just through their conversations that it's almost a disappointment when we cut away to a new scene.

Tom Hiddleston's performance is truly next level, having to revert back to the arrogant and inflated ego Loki we first met years ago, and then going through an entirely new character arc that sets Loki up once again as one of the greatest anti heroes in the MCU.

The supporting cast is equally as strong with no weak links at all. I'd name drop a few but I'd potentially be giving away minor spoilers.

I have seen some people's enjoyment marred by their expectations of characters not being what they expected based on their comic book counterparts but, at this point, you should be well aware the MCU is inspired by the comics and is not an exact retelling of any comic book series. 

Sometimes I feel lucky to have not read most of the comic books Marvel movies and shows are based upon. I get to go into everything with no preconceived expectations of what characters should be like.

I would highly recommend you just let characters in the show be who they are in the show... particularly in a show that is all about different variations of characters (not a spoiler since you learn this almost from the get go in episode one).

If I could cite any disappointment at all (and this is relatively minor) is the time travel element of the show didn't particularly jump around many familiar timelines from actual Earth based history. The trailers felt like more of this was promised than we actually got. It was fine though. The time travel we did get, and the reasons for choosing those locations made plenty of sense. I didn't really miss seeing real world timelines being disrupted.

Overall I really enjoyed the series. I feel watching this will give you a better understanding of what's coming in Marvel movies going forward but I can see it's not necessarily critical either. 

That said the entire team that put this together have done some amazing work, with some of the best acting performances you'll see anywhere on a big or small screen. With only six episodes, each less than an hour long, you've got time for this.

Comments

Buy Whimsical Cat Art Prints by TET (Redbubble Store)

Enjoy Your Favorite TET Art Up Close, Interactive, and so Relaxing!

Enjoy Your Favorite TET Art Up Close, Interactive, and so Relaxing!
Relax and Challenge Yourself with a Fun, Whimsical Cat Art Jigsaw - 30-1000 pieces. Click Image for More.

Popular posts from this blog

Software Stylus for Tablet Drawing

 I own an Android Tablet that has available to it many great drawing applications.  The trouble is, drawing on a touchscreen with  your finger is like trying to sketch with jumbo crayons.  As is trying to draw with most stylus pens which are only a marginal improvement over using your finger.  Precision drawing on your average touchscreen seems like wishful thinking.  However I've had this idea for a software stylus that acts like an extension of your finger and allows drawing with greater precision.  See my rough diagram below.  Essentially it's a pointer that follows your finger around the screen. Its angle can be adjusted so that from your vantage point it looks like the tip of  your finger is coming to a point. Softnib concept sketch.  You simply move the pointer around and the line is drawn from the point of the stylus instead of somewhere under your finger, where you can't see it.  Obviously I haven't worked out a...

Who Even Reads This?

W riting this blog is largely both a labor of love and a discipline. Since about 2006 (the blog started in 2004) I have written a minimum of two posts per month. Sometimes I've posted more, particularly in the last 4-5 years, where I've tried to write and post at least one article a week without fail. Unfortunately it's not a niche blog, unless the niche is things that interest me. Which means my blog is either too broad to have regular readers or too niche to have anyone other than my mum reading it. Which she does (hi Mum) as we established back in January of 2014 in the post Ya Mum Reads it... That said, this blog overall regularly gets 6-7k views every month, mostly through people finding various articles through search engines. By far the largest traffic source is 'Other' which is basically unknown sources. I'm willing to bet a large percentage of that is the dead internet. Bots testing my comments to see if they're spamable or Illuminati spammers. Whil...

Occupy Wall Street - Movement for Change of... Something?

I've been kind of following the Occupy Wall Street 'movement' from my position of apathetic denial of what's actually happening in the real world - that you can see if you pull back the curtain or disconnect from the Matrix. In particular I've watched vlogs of the Melbourne, Australia, Occupy Movement through the eyes and camera of You-tuber Sean Beadlam . Sean is quite a hard hitting comedian whose humor is topical, political and often based on the injustices faced by the oppressed. He also focuses on the media and how they'll beat up a story to get their 'angle' rather than provide balanced reporting of the whole story. Although not one of his comedy routines this video below from Occupy Melbourne is a good example of Sean's work with several juxtaposes of the Occupy movement with media and Sean's use of technology. Although Sean isn't the only source of my information, you would think that a guy like him would have...

Pt5. Three Cat Tails Painting by TET

Finished: Three Cat Tails Acrylic on Canvas panels. Day five of my video diary (embeded below) following the creation of my latest series of paintings, Three Cat Tails. View Part one , Part two ,  Part 3  and Part 4 if you haven't seen them yet. In the final episode of this series I get to paint the black and white layers that I thought I'd be painting on day 4 but delayed in exchange for adding more purple and green shadow. The black and white layers take the artworks through to completion. Then I finish each panel off with a dark blue border around the edge (to cover up the paint marks on the sides). Whilst I do continue to talk about what I'm doing as I paint this episode does contain a few quite moments of just me painting away because there isn't really a lot to say about the white and black layer. However I hope you'll stick with it to the end just the same. The series of artworks are available to buy so if you're interested contact m...

Pt4. Three Cat Tails Painting by TET

WIP: Three Cat Tails Darker purple and green shading added. Day four of my video diary (embeded below) following the creation of my latest series of paintings, Three Cat Tails. View Part one ,  Part two  and Part 3 if you haven't seen them yet. Yesterday I said that I would begin on adding my black and white final layers today. However after looking at the paintings a few times over night I decided the cats could really use more shadow to give them just a little more three dimensional form. I had a strong feeling that adding purple and green shadows was what the images really needed. Especially the two larger images needed the purple shading on the background behind the cats to connect them with it - since those two particular images actually make more sense if you get the feeling that you're looking at the cats, laying on a blue floor, from above. At this point I pretty certain I'm ready for my final black and white detail layers - which I'll get onto...

Pt3. Three Cat Tails Painting by TET

WIP: Three Cat Tails Darker shading and cream fur added. Day three of my video diary (embeded below) following the creation of my latest series of paintings, Three Cat Tails. View Part one and Part two if you haven't seen them yet. In this video I mix a dark brown colour to add some shadow and stripes to my cats. You'll see how the brown tones the orange down quite a bit to make the colouring of the cats a little more believable. I also mix a light cream colour to fill in the transitions between the orange and white area of the cats fur. You'll see in a later episode more clearly what I mean once I add the white back in. Note how, when I add the cream, it initially goes on too thick and I have to wipe it back with a cloth and water it down to make it more translucent. The perils of mixing colours with white paint! Finally I finish up by adding in a few small details like paw pads and noses. It doesn't actually seem like I did that much today. O...

Pt2. Three Cat Tails Painting by TET

WIP: Three Cat Tails background and base colours. Day two and part two of my video diary (embeded below) following the creation of my latest series of paintings, Three Cat Tails. View Part one if you haven't seen it yet. After painting my initial base painting using the three primary colours, in this episode I demonstrate blocking in my backgrounds and the base colour for the three cats. This episode is a little longer than the last but hopefully is still interesting to watch. All the painting you see is in real time but obviously edited down quite a lot to show the 'highlights' and I explain what I'm doing as I go. I realize these videos aren't as exciting to watch as the more common 'speed painting' style videos but if your the kind of person that likes to watch over the shoulder of a real live artist at work then these might just be up your alley. Continue to Part 3 .