My Review of "The Last Dance"

The Last Dance is a really fascinating documentary of the Chicago Bulls during the 1990s. As many of us have lived through the era, it's a beautiful walk down memory lane. It's tough to believe that it's been 22 years since the Bulls had won their last championship. Now a new era of basketball fans will understand the hype of this Chicago Bulls team.

This documentary is compartmentalized into different aspects of the team. Ultimately it's about the final year that the Chicago Bulls won their last championship.

It's one thing to know that a team had won so many championships but it's another to know the context behind their victories. This series goes into it in pretty good detail with footage that hasn't been seen for over 20 years. One must wonder why this exclusive footage has been hidden for so long up until now? I'm sure there's a huge story behind that as well.

The series is separated into 10 episodes and the focus is mainly on Michael Jordan. The 1997/98 season was titled the Last Dance because it was believed that that would be the final year that the dynasty would be together. There was talks of trading players away and retirement of other players. All of the staff and team members knew this would be a very special year.

To give the viewers a better context of why this team was so special the series would often flashback to earlier years of the Chicago Bulls. In the flashbacks we see the hills and valleys that the team had to overcome in order to become the powerhouse team they would eventually become.

As it is squarely based on Michael Jordan, we start off with his origins and how well the Bulls were doing before he joined the team. They were pretty much a joke and were given no respect. The series would go into detail of all of the side dealings that happened in the background in order to secure Michael Jordan to their team.

Then in later episodes they would go into some detail about who the supporting players to help elevate the Bulls to legendary status. Although, Michael Jordan is probably the best player to ever play the game he did need a good supporting cast. He even goes on to explain that he had to change up his game and adapt with his teammates to become a winning team.

I didn't expect them to go into so much detail about Michael Jordan's life. It makes sense as he was a pivotal part in the success of the team. They also gave a detailed account of some of the supporting players as well. I'm sure they weren't able to cover everyone on the team though. It would take too long to give everyone's testimony.

Still, with all of the players involved in this dynasty it was good that the filmmakers were able to focus on a specific topic for each of the episodes. It was very coherent. They were able to demystify a few of the myths that were circulating back in the day.

The drama is high creating big anticipation even to this day when we already know what is going to happen. That's a good credit to the filmmakers of this series. Much of the storytelling is so well packaged that I believe that non-sports fans will even enjoy it.

Normally I prefer to watch these series in a long binge watch marathon but they opted to release 2 episodes each week. It was the first time I was anticipating a new episode of a series since Game of Thrones. Having a TV series to look forward to is kind of a nice thing. I forgot what it felt like to anticipate a release of something. During the global pandemic this was certainly a nice change of pace.

Overall, I really liked this series and feverishly awaited new episodes every week. The story was really well told and didn't hold punches. All of the praise and faults of each of the players were told. It felt a true account of what really happened during the Chicago Bulls dynasty of the 90's. I have to give this series a 9 out of 10. I am sure I'll be watching this series all over again.