Better Than Us - General Discussion

[MisterGlass]

Starting a new thread for anyone who would like to discuss Better Than Us, the Russian series about robots that debuted on Netflix in August 2019.  The series stars Paulina Andreeva and Kirill Karo.  There are currently 16 episodes which Netflix has listed as a single season.

I finished watching this today.  I knew little about the series and had no expectations, and came away very impressed.  There is explicitly some inspiration from Isaac Asimov, but the show goes off in its own interesting directions.  The world building is good, and the effects are better than I would expect from most genre television.  The lead actress is exceptional at playing a robot.  The show kept subverting my expectations, and taking less obvious directions.  I am surprised at how much was packed into these episodes.  There were a lot of twists and turns and relationship drama, which would sometimes put me off a show.  But the actors are good and I became invested in the characters, and anxious to see what would happen next.

I'd call it a solid scifi show.

[LeGrandElephant]

We’re watching this on Netflix and near the end of the first season. I wish there were episode threads because so much is going on! But I don’t want spoilers, so I guess I’ll be back once I’ve finished it. 

[LeGrandElephant]

Well, I guess almost no one else is watching it. I finished it and I highly recommend it. We watched it with the English dub, which was very well done. 

[MisterGlass]

I'm glad someone else out there enjoyed it. 

I watched the subtitled version, which was a bit odd.  It seemed like every other episode was subtitled by someone different, because the spelling of the names changed a lot.  It was a challenge to keep track.

[LeGrandElephant]

On 7/14/2020 at 4:33 PM, MisterGlass said:

I'm glad someone else out there enjoyed it. 

I watched the subtitled version, which was a bit odd.  It seemed like every other episode was subtitled by someone different, because the spelling of the names changed a lot.  It was a challenge to keep track.

I had the subtitles on with the dub. I did notice one character was named Egor and another one named Igor, and at least in the English dub there’s no pronounciation difference, so that was confusing. 

[Ottis]

Around episode 11 I started losing interest. It has become a swirl of this faction and that faction, first wanting one thing and then wanting an opposite thing. Egor runs away, then he comes back, then he runs away. Safronov likes Arisa, then is mad at her, then likes her. They want to destroy Arisa, then they want her to do something, then they want to destroy her again. The fake cop kills a real cop, then is almost caught, then fools them again. "The Liquidators" do this heist and that heist but never accomplish much.

I got tired of keeping track. I just wish the sorry would move forward and conclude. 

The one thing that had stood out to me, and it really shouldn't because I have traveled around the world but not to Russia, is how modern Russia seems in this. I expected a lot more traditional stuff, even in a sci-fi show.

[MisterGlass]

On 4/4/2024 at 8:04 AM, Ottis said:

The one thing that had stood out to me, and it really shouldn't because I have traveled around the world but not to Russia, is how modern Russia seems in this. I expected a lot more traditional stuff, even in a sci-fi show.

I'm accustomed to rural images of Russia, but similar to other countries I suppose large cities are more modern.

The most traditional part about the show was the attitudes and social norms of the characters.  There were some tropes that were more in common with US shows of the 80s, like the treatment of the tech guy's wife by the doctors.