Let me get this out of the way before I start my review: I am a fan of the Dan Brown books. I read the books long before the movies came out. I read The Lost Symbol before it was made into a TV show. Naturally, as a fan, as soon as I read about this show being made I decided that I wanted to watch it.
According to some sites that I visited about the show, this was supposed to be a movie, a prequel to the other movies since this is set before The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and Inferno. It did not work out and they decided to, later on, make this into a TV series.
I am not familiar with any of the actors on the show with the exception of the male lead who plays Robert Langdon. I remember seeing him before on Designated Survivor. I think that it was good that I wasn’t familiar with the actors as much because sometimes if I’ve seen actors repeatedly in more famous roles I tend to see them as those people rather than the characters they are currently playing.
As with most books turned into movies or TV shows, while some key elements of the book remained the same, there were also a lot of parts that were changed. I’m assuming that this was done so that the story could be more entertaining to a larger audience.
The show was OK. I can’t say that it was great but it was not bad either. I felt that while it had its moments, it wasn’t as exciting as I would have liked. I was looking for it to be a bit more adventurous than it turned out to be. I felt like even though there were a lot of tense moments in the show, they just did not feel that intense enough for me. There was something missing, but I can’t really pinpoint or explain what it was exactly.
There were also a lot of ridiculous moments in the show that I felt could have been better explained or executed. One thing that I found odd was the character Nunez, played by Rick Gonzales. He was a Capitol police officer who was guarding a museum. From being allowed by the CIA to participate in the case from the start (yeah, like the CIA would do that) to him having the resources to get information (and evidence) needed when he wanted it…it all just seemed too impossible. It was so off. Yes, he was a former soldier, but still. I doubt if he realistically would have had that kind of pull anywhere.
Agent Sato (played by Filipino Thai actor Sumalee Montano) also had an impossible moment in the show. Malakh practically crushed her larnyx and she had almost no voice after that but by the end her voice was back to normal? Seriously?
One of the things that I enjoyed from the books and the movies were the parts where Langdon had to solve the puzzles and had to connect it with some historical fact that just made you wonder if it was all possible or real. While there were critical moments that showed him trying to solve the mysteries or symbols involved, I felt that there was not enough of it. There were also not much reference to historical events or facts that would make you go, “what if?” the way that the movies and books do.
As with most shows during this pandemic, there were only 10 episodes for the season. I didn’t mind. It was getting dragging and boring in some parts that I think having more than 10 episodes would have made it all much worse.
There’s no news yet if there would be a second season for this show. This was based on that one book and if they were to do one that is not based on the other books since they have already been turned into movies (except for Origin), I don’t know where they’d start. But if they did have one I hope that they could make it a little more exciting than this first one. I’d still watch it, but I don’t know if I’d finish it if it is still missing that it factor that I’m looking for.
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