1.The death of Blind Blake
2. Neagley came into the picture too early
3. The story behind the medal is a great one.
But, for most of this, the story should have been set in mid 90s, when it had been written.
That would drive up productions costs too much to be worth it. Period pieces are always more expensive. You have to make sure every scene is free of buildings, road signs, cars, clothes, hairstyles, computers, etc. which are anachronistic. This eliminates some shooting locations, makes it more expensive just to get enough cars of the right period, totally eliminates most scenes you might want to locate in a big city with lots of people and vehicles, because it's just too expensive to eliminate the anachronistic elements.
It's easier and cheaper just to update it to the present. Amazon probably doesn't consider the expense of being period correct to be worth it when we're only dealing with a time difference of about 20-25 years. Sure it's easier and less expensive to recreate a more recent period like the '90s than it would be to recreate an earlier era (like Amazon did with "The Man in the High Castle"), but updating to the present avoids that expense altogether, and the show ends up not looking that different, and the story works just fine.
I'm glad they didn't try to force a 90s vibe like in the new Resident Evil movie. Series was great in a contemporary setting, too.
shareI don't think it would be that hard to recreate the 90s, especially since the books are pretty minimalist, but it is easier to keep it contemporary, in case it gets renewed.
shareI thought it followed the book rather well, considering the awful adaptations I've seen in the past.
They had enough time to show (tell) more about Blake, so I don't know why they didn't bother. That back story was not needed to drive the plot, but it fleshed out Blake and Teale a bit more.
It was pretty good. Easy, fun. Didn't follow the book to the T, but close enough. They probably didn't show the Blake story because, in the book, it happened around WW2, if I remember correctly. Different times.
shareIn the book, Reacher learns how Blake died and a bit more about Grover Teale's past. Teale is still an SOB in both though.
shareIn an interview one of the creators stated Neagley was brought in because when developing the series it was felt that there was just five episodes worth of material with the book, so Neagley was brought in early, among other things, to lengthen the series.
sharePointless. Her presence didn't add that much time, maybe half an episode.
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