Highly Overrated But Still Good

Expected more

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I would have to disagree with a few comments...I totally got what she's doing as a filmmaker. She's become the filmmaker, not just someone interviewing and walking away from a set...it becomes more intimate.No huge crews, just her a camera, sound person and another camera. The viewer doesn't understand once you bring on a huge crew, etc...it takes away the intimacy with the interviewer...it allows the person who is being interviewed to become relaxed, very docu-style...indie filmmakers get this...I work with filmmakers who request small crews and very little people onset to focus on the filmmaking process.Smaller cameras, easier lighting, small sound equipment is allowing filmmakers to get a better performance and more intimate setting.I was taken in with all the episodes, so much, I binged watched a few in a roll.Kudos---

Lisa Ling takes a look at the lifestyles, joys, challenges and realities of people who have chosen a path that is different from the norm. For these people, "this is life" and we are being given a glimpse into it.What I appreciate most about the show is how she doesn't present these stories with any sort of bias based on her own beliefs. It would be very easy to lead an audience to the same conclusions that she personally drew. However, she chose the route of letting the viewer draw their own conclusions. She treated every single person with decency, non-judgment and respect. Very well done... and I look forward to the next season.

Within the title of "This Is Life with Lisa Ling" is a sense that the stories are part of a normative, human existence. This, however, is not exactly what this show is about. I have watched perhaps eight episodes of this on Netflix so far, and I am very much in the dark as to what the point of this show is supposed to be.I don't know if the stories just aren't compelling, or that Lisa Ling tries so hard to empathize with her subjects, but it just doesn't come across as authentic, like she's trying to create emotion that just isn't there. Maybe it's that she's just in these people's lives for a short time to exploit their condition in order to make a television show, and then she's gone. I find that to be very disingenuous and nearly on par with the likes of Springer or Maury (but without the sensationalism).The stories themselves are what you might find featured in shows like "Taboo" on National Geographic Channel, yet with "insight" from a journalist who, to me, just has a look of being disinterested. These don't tell me anything about life, or shed any new light on the human condition. I am not captivated by their stories, nor do I end up feeling anything for these stories. To me the whole thing just comes across as contrived.

THIS is life? Lisa Ling is supposedly exploring "dangerous subcultures and alternate communities" in this series, as per the Netflix description, but it really seems she's chiefly obsessed with the world's oldest profession in all its forms, promoting it and legitimizing it. Girls, you can make more money than you ever dreamed of! On websites like Seeking Arrangements, in boom towns like Williston North Dakota, and you don't even have to touch those guys, you can just strip and gyrate on web cam! Ling does an admirable job of standing back and looking slightly disturbed at the "freaks" she tracks down to exploit, but the clear takeaway from each of these episodes is that selling your body is a lucrative business and you ain't gonna make more with that degree, so go for it! Highly recommended.