Great series so far. First three episodes dropped last week. The HBO documentary a few years back about Elizabeth Holmes is great too.

the show has been excellent and does a much better job than the multiple podcasts and shows on the Theranos debacle

I had no idea the main character was such a tiny human. She looks so small.

Sea Speed said:

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I had no idea the main character was such a tiny human. She looks so small.

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Real Elizabeth Holmes is not that short. I'm not a fan of the actress so far. The show is just ok for me so far. I'll continue with it, but only because I haven't found anything better lately.

Yea I meant the actress. She looks tiny. I feel like her voice is also not deep enough.

I find it just good enough to keep watching.

I've heard the story several times before, but it blows my mind every time I hear that her father worked for Enron.

According to the interwebs, Holmes is 5' 7". Amanda Seyfried is 5' 3"

I thought the HBO documentary was fantastic. Not sure how I would like a series about it

The 20/20 episode is really good.

I think my biggest issue so far (about 2 1/2 episodes in) is that they almost seem to be trying to make her character sympathetic. ie, she was just in over her head, she was dealing with being treated like a woman in man's world, her boyfriend was an a-hole, etc.

Also, one of the common things I remember from documentaries/podcasts was that she could cast an aura and convince people to follow her. Sort of like Steve Jobs. She was crooked as hell, but she had an ability to make people believe in her. I'm not seeing that in the miniseries. She seems totally incompetent and a *****. I don't know why anyone ever invested any money with her.

AustinAg2K said:

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I think my biggest issue so far (about 2 1/2 episodes in) is that they almost seem to be trying to make her character sympathetic. ie, she was just in over her head, she was dealing with being treated like a woman in man's world, her boyfriend was an a-hole, etc.

Also, one of the common things I remember from documentaries/podcasts was that she could cast an aura and convince people to follow her. Sort of like Steve Jobs. She was crooked as hell, but she had an ability to make people believe in her. I'm not seeing that in the miniseries. She seems totally incompetent and a *****. I don't know why anyone ever invested any money with her.

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You have to create some level of sympathy in your lead character usually, but I actually think she's pretty annoying and unlikable here.

For your second paragraph, I'm pretty sure that's what most of Episode 3 shows. Her growing from an inept leader to someone who can at least fake leadership qualities.

They are portraying her as someone with big dream but naive at first, but who later does illegal things to try to achieve those dreams. I do think they are trying to create a narrative that she had to break bad because of underlying sexism in Silicon Valley.

I've listened to pretty much every podcast and watched every documentary/docuseries about Theranos and while I prefer those more in terms of learning what happened compared to this dramatization, I think Amanda Seyfried is doing a really good job portraying Elizabeth Holmes. Her mannerisms are very accurate, her brief bursts of acting manic/dancing/awkwardly smiling are on point. Most importantly, she's not overdoing Elizabeth's fake deep voice thing, which is very annoying in person and those of you that watched Inventing Anna can attest, if an actress tries to be too accurate, it can make the whole show tough to watch.

Only critique I have is that Elizabeth Holmes, creepily, almost never blinks. I dont know how she does it, but its one of the more unnerving and strange things about her.

I felt the same way, but -- and I will have to watch epi 4 -- but it sounds like the deep voice is something she develops later on. It's definitely not a natural timbre.

Yea definitely, you hear it in the beginning as she is being deposed.

The actress is definitely talking in a funny tone of voice, sort of like she had a cold. However she seems to be mostly refraining from going as artificially low as Holmes, I think mostly to avoid being a distraction or to keep from seeming like an SNL caricature.

BadMoonRisin said:

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Only critique I have is that Elizabeth Holmes, creepily, almost never blinks. I dont know how she does it, but its one of the more unnerving and strange things about her.

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Elizabeth Holmes confirmed for Lizard People.

Just finished episode 4, and this show is a mess. At the end of episode 3 she is on the verge of being fired and only keeps her job because she starts crying like a girl getting pulled over by a cop. Now all of a sudden she's a genius CEO and Walgreens is run by idiots who make a deal because of a Katie Perry song. They don't mention anything about her fabricating test data to give Walgreens, and the fake Pfizer trial results. They went so far as to make up fake documents on Pfizer letter head. I really feel like they are doing a terrible job at showing what an awful person she is.

Sounds similar to Inventing Anna. Is it similar to Inventing Anna?

I only watched the first Inventing Anna episode, but I would recommend listening The Dropout podcast over the show, or watching one of the documentaries on HBO or Hulu. I think the actual story is much more interesting than the Hollywood version.

Episode 4 finally started building up the fraud. You would happen to refresh my memory but were the fake Pfizer letterheads public knowledge before the trial started? I know they started filming before the trial was over. As far as Walgreens, they aren't completely removed of any responsibility. Their due diligence failed when they took a gamble on a tech startup for profits when your main responsibility is health.

In my opinion, the worst thing this show needs to hammer on is how she treated Gibbons. I hope further episodes capitalize on that. And the harassment of the future whistleblowers

Finishing up, and I think it was pretty good. It's like breaking bad, but real life. She does a pretty good job at making you hate her. Just constant high-horsing everyone.

I came into it knowing nothing about the story other than the CEO had a fake voice and had been arrested.

11 years in jail

Carlo4 said:

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11 years in jail

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Justice