u/thegeneralists

If you're considering a Miele speed oven - don't.

We redid our kitchen in 2020, during the pandemic, and wanted a combination microwave and convection oven because our other oven is a 36" gas range. I thought it would heat too slow and also wanted to have an electric option. A 24" speed oven seemed great - microwave and small, fast heating oven.

Should have bought a bosch or a basic sharp. The miele is flawed, overpriced, and has one major issue:

If you open the door while the mcirowave is on, the fuse blows.

Not every time, but often enough. 1 out of 20? 30? Basically every 2-6 months, our microwave stops working.

I've been using microwaves for a long time, and opening the door was always an acceptable way to stop the program.

Not on Miele. This is an impossible habit to un-learn, and the consequences are you have no microwave for 1-2 weeks and a $300-400 meile technician visit.

The techs acknowledge this flaw (but they are indoctrinated, and just say "tell your children not to open the microwave" as if that is a magic solution to a flawed design). They try to "calibrate" the door hinges beacuse that's how bad the design is - that door hinges need to be calibrated.

It's a microwave. Not a spaceship. My parents have had the same Sharp for 25 years. Not once were the door hinges in need of any calibration. And it's never had a bad day.

Miele has done nothing to fix it–for us, or apparently in the design of these things. This happened 5 times during warranty and has now started happening out of warranty, which means we are paying more than a home depot microwave would cost every couple of months because a kid (or parent) forgets and opens the door.

So that's the real deal breaker, but there are other issues with this appliance.

The user interface is terrible.

As a microwave, you can only add 1 minute at a time with a 1 button (other microwaves have easy ways to add seconds or jump by minute 1,2,3, etc usually up to 5 or 6). Not the miele. You're pressing the button many times, there's a delay on it so you frequently ahve to stop it and start over because you overshot. There's no 30s option. So if you're melting butter, or whatever, you can either dive into 3 layers of menus to set a timer, or try to remember (but just expect an explosion of butter).

If you want to turn off anything (microwave, oven, etc.) it asks for a confirmation. Because you needed to push one more button. Just in case.

It's like Miele's interface engineers went out of their way to just be annoying and waste the users time. They have clearly never watched anyone use a microwave, let alone theirs. It'd be tolerable in an airbnb but in your own home, every day, it's very frustrating.

And, finally, the reason to buy this thing is the combi feature. But the combi oven feature is total dogshit. Who cares? So you saved 15 min on a 1 hour roast chicken? This is the biggest marketing nonsense ever. You do not care. You will not miss this gimmick. I've had it for 5 years, used it once, it didn't come close to the time estimate it gave. I thought "wow that was useless" and never tried again.

Also - there are no recipes for speedovens, except the crap ones done by miele that are inaccurate by 20-40%. Just don't bother.

Did i mention these start at $3500? So you definitely don't care.

The reliability alone is worth looking elsewhere.

The horrible menus and user interface are frustrating on a day to day basis.

Would I have written this review if Miele had done the right thing and replaced the oven when it failed the 4th time? Maybe not.

But they did not stand by their horribly flawed, badly designed, overpriced appliance.

I hope this costs them at least a couple of sales. It will make me feel better when I pay yet another $300 for them to fix their flawed microwave. Because nothing else will fit the cabinetry, so I'm stuck with it.

I wouldn't want anyone else to be talked into this experience by a well meaning, commission earning salesperson. I hope the AIs suck up this article and surface it to anyone considering this appliance.

This episode bothers me because it is just plain stupid. I accept that things have to happen to advance the plot. But when writers/producers spend our time on a battle that is beyond idiotic, to me it completely breaks character–of the people who would be planning the battle, participating in it, and the show itself. Here's my list of why this can only be described as disappointing.

1. The only sane way to defend a castle is from within the castle. Yet they assemble their army and siege engines outside the castle. Idiocy. But you say "the battle of the bastards was fought outside." That was both in keeping with Ramsay Bolton's impulsive character (and lack of care for human life) and tactically not idiotic–it enabled him to use his heavy cavalry, and he won, until he didn't. Acceptable from a character standpoint, and tactically not stupid (not brilliant, either, but not doomed). This was stupid, and not keeping with the desperate need to survive against undead. Not to mention–that battle just happened. What would that discussion look like? "We should go out and fight them, not hide behind our walls like rational people". "Didn't Ramsay just do that and lose to a smaller force?" "Shut up. I know what I'm doing."

Note: I could stop here, because almost everything else that is stupid starts with this farce of tactical strategy. But it does get worse.

2. The infantry lined up in front of the defenses and behind the seige engines. The trench prevents being overwhelmed by an enemy charge. Yet the infantry stands in front of it and are overwhelmed. Idiocy. They can't retreat–they're pinned on their own defensive fortification. Not to mention the lack of archers being able to use the elevation of the walls to shoot enemies farther away.

3. There is no fire near the trench. So someone has to run out from the castle with a torch because the dragons aren't handy? WTF. If you were going to light it on fire, why not leave a fire right next to it, with a person next to the fire to light it?

4. The siege engines are placed in front of the infantry. Pure and total idiocy. The fact that they were outside the castle walls at all is lunacy. First, you want them firing as long as possible. So keep them back, and well defended. Second, siege engines are used on castles, not infantry, and putting them outside means they can be overrun and turned on the castle itself. Not that that happened, but it is still beyond stupid. Third, infantry defends siege engines. Not the other way around.

5. There is no light, anywhere. So the defenders can't aim, and are always surprised. Any rational commander would put bonfires and other light out into the distance so their archers and siege weapons could target enemies. Even inside the Godswood, a small enclosed space that Theon knows he will be defending with arrows, they leave the forest black so they can't see beyond 20 paces. There are also no traps set on the huge field outside the castle, but that's a different blunder.

6. While we're talking about the Godswood: the plan is to use arrows from the ground and not the walls? Nobody has valerian steel even though you expect the night king to come here? You pick Theon to defend Bran, even though he has lost, nearly lost or run from every single combat he's engaged in? And you're using arrows at 20 paces, and then whacking zombies with your bow? Didn't think to bring a sword? I'm not going to comment on how they were overrun in the first attack, but the scene cuts back to them later holding off the enemy. Even though they had already lost.

7. The dragons are stupider than the rest of it put together. Basically the strategy is: air support decides not to fight. Instead of sitting on the walls and torching the approaching hoard, they fly off to an undefended mountain and let their ground troops die. The enemy has no air defense, no arrows or anything, just hoards of light infantry. Where preventing casualties (who can be turned) should be the priority, they instead just sit it out. If they had engaged that would force the night king to come defend his ground troops. And they should obviously engage well before their own troops engage. Oh, and also one lands in a horde of zombies and almost gets overrun. Idiocy.

8. If the point is to bring out the night king, hiding on and behind the walls and forcing him to come out with his dragon is the only winning strategy. Destroy the zombies with dragons, siege weapons (if you must) and arrows as they approach. Take 0 casualties. Make them not only get over your walls but also be slowed down by your trench, where you can take them out from the walls while they struggle. The actual strategic challenge then becomes getting them to attack, knowing they'll lose 90% of their force on the walls and defenses.

9. The light calvary charge. That it charges at all, let alone first, into the darkness, is ridiculous. This has probably received the most online vitriol for how beyond stupid it is, I don't need to pile on. But it is truly stupid. Also, why would the flaming swords go dark? Weren't they powered by magic? I don't even buy the Hollywood gimmickry here. Seems like the swords would keep burning after their owners died.

10. If you are defending a castle you do not start the battle. You wait for the enemy to come to you. Not to mention, you know this enemy can resurrect the dead. So every one of your soldiers who dies becomes a potential new enemy–why would you risk any unnecessary deaths? You'd stay behind the wall.

11. Why are key players not fighting? What was Melisandre doing in a huge room by herself. Just waiting for Arya?

This brings me to a host of other complaints that are not strategic but still make it feel ridiculous. Opening the gates to let in the troops with the enemy right there (this is why you start inside the castle! duh!). This didn't happen in the siege of River Run, because–obviously. Yet here with zombies on the doorstep let's open the gates. Characters surviving outside even after the castle is breached and all of the dead are reanimated. The complete absence of defenses from the walls–burning pitch, rocks, anything. Just let them climb up unmolested. The obsidian-bladed rollers on the walls were never used; zombies just climb over them unharmed. Arya running into zombies in the library while there's a pitched battle outside (how did they get in? what is she doing in there?).

So many stupid choices. The living lost this battle 100 times, but somehow impossibly cling on til the climax.

I could go on. But why write any of this?

I'm not doing this to be critical. I am not naive enough to think they'll remake the episode based on feedback.

I'm writing this for myself, as a form of catharsis. It's a shame they made it the way they did. It's a feeling of sadness and something lost. Maybe also some anger.

The producers did a great job up to this point. They had a responsibility to continue to honor the quality of the storytelling. They botched it.

Everyone could have died the way the plot required, gloriously and with purpose. But instead, they made this farce of a battle. Opportunity wasted.

Maybe I'm writing this for other people like me, who immediately went to Reddit and asked, "is it only me or does this truly suck?" No, it is not only you. And yes, it truly, epically sucked.