The Get Down Season 1 Review

The Get Down (2016-)
Season 1 Part 1 (2016)

Created by: Baz Luhrmann and Stephen Adly Guirgis
Starring:  Shameik Moore, Justice Smith, Herizen Guardiola, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jaden Smith, Skylan Brooks, Tremaine Brown Jr., Mamoudou Athie, Jimmy Smits, Giancarlo Esposito
Rating: TV-14 

The Get Down

Plot: 
This Netflix original created by Baz Luhrmann tracks the origins of hip hop music in the Bronx during the '70s through six episodes.

Verdict
This blends kung fu, hip-hop, and the '70s with teenagers just wanting to rebel through song. With multiple story lines like Zeke (Justice Smith) who seems poised to become a rapper, Shaolin Fantastic (Shameik Moore) who is a mysterious graffiti artist, and hopeful singer Mylene (Herizen Guardiola), it's never boring, but it just feels like a zany adventure instead of the epic story of the hip-hop invention. I keep waiting to get to the big moment that takes until the sixth episode to arrive. While this has been called a musical, it just features characters singing at different points. This has potential, but it needs to start paying off in part two.
It depends.

Review
The Get Down is an odd surprise. Coming off of HBO's Vinyl, I was expecting something a little more like historical fiction.  Shaolin and Zeke's group is about to invent hip hop, but then Shaolin loses his records and then Shaolin's DJ sensei disavows him. The show hints about it's main point, but then the characters suffer a setback. I wouldn't be surprised if scrolling text proclaimed "LEVEL UP", to signal the story progression. This feels like a video game with a lot of action but less story.

The Get Down definitely captures the '70s vibe.

The get down is the term for music created by the DJ spinning two records, getting the best parts of them and creating an indelible beat. We get hints of Nas's contributions but for the most part Zeke is still finding his footing as a rapper and Shaolin has yet to level up to DJ supreme status. This often feels like a video game fetch quest adapted to a movie. Somehow the birth of hip hop is linked to angsty teen love.

Zeke and Shaolin Fantastic

Shaolin Fantastic is surreal, even mystical. I thought this might be just a point of view, but it's not. He's Bruce Lee if Bruce Lee was a street artist, back flipping over cars and training to become a master DJ.

There's a gang that's reminiscent of The Warriors (1979), and Jimmy Smits is a land developer. You can tell these stories are going to come together, but this runway is long. This show doesn't chronicle the birth of hip-hop, it chronicles the lead up to the birth.

The first episode opens with a modern rapper and flashes back to the '70s, not to make it more interesting, but to show us where hip hop is and from where it came. The series is a lot of style over substance, but that's typical for Luhrman.

The Get Down is definitely notorious, though not for the best of reasons.

Episode two was much more focused with Shaolin learning the trade. He and Zeke try do determine how a crayon is the most important tool a DJ has. Unfortunately this focus only lasted an episode before we return to the frenetic tempo this show sets. When this show focuses on creating beats and raps it works really well, that just doesn't happen often enough.

This throws a lot of drama into the mix, needlessly so as it drowns out the main story or at least what I thought this was about. We learn a lot about a record producer who wants to sign Myelene, but he ultimately seems unimportant.

Mylene is on the heels of stardom.

The end of episode four and the beginning of episode five is strong. In tandem, Mylene develops her song with Zeke raps with Shaolin. Both scenarios are high stakes and pay off.  The music is the best part of the show and episode six continues with Mylene's song and the Get Down crew showing their potential.

This has become one of the most expensive series to make with each episode costing more than ten million, and that is the reason the first season is split into two parts.

Through part one of season one, we've gotten one good song, Mylene's. You can the crew's breakout song in episode six, but that's on the line. I was expecting more, but this first part definitely feels like a lot of set up. I look forward to part two, but if it's more setup than payoff I won't watch season two.