I adore Toni Collette, and it bummed me out that her one big previous TV series, "United States of Tara," was something I really disliked and could not watch. So I was happy to see that she did this 6 episode BBC/Netflix series, which feels like a one-off but was so good that I kinda hope they continue it somehow. The story, about a married couple who mutually decide to start having extramarital affairs, covers material that feels very familiar for contemporary TV dramas, but the cast and Luke Snellin and Lucy Tcherniak's direction really elevates it. I thought the 5th installment had kind of a bottle episode vibe and didn't really work that well, but it was still overall really strong.
I got kind of turned off by the concept of "Mr. Robot" early on, so I feel like I never got to appreciate just how playful and unique Same Esmail's direction was until "Homecoming," which is really one of the best things I've seen in a while, I devoured the first 6 episodes over the weekend and want to get through the other 4 soon. I started watching it thinking the podcast the show was based on was some nonfiction true crime thing, but once I realized it was a work of fiction and there was not necessarily any limit to where the story could go, I've really been on the edge of my seat. Seeing Julia Roberts in a TV series is a trip and her performance is great, but the whole cast is great, Stephan James is fantastic and Bobby Cannavale and Shea Whigham give some of the best performances of their career. I just hope the ending lives up to what I've watched so far.
This show invites "LOST" comparisons with its tale of a plane that disappears for 5 and a half years and then lands with its passengers not having aged or experienced any passage of time. But so far they've laid on the supernatural mystery aspects kind of thin and focused on the drama of people coming back to a world that thought they were dead for 5 years. I don't know, though, it just hasn't really grabbed me much, I think my wife is a little more into it and has some theories, but I don't feel like the show has made me care that much beyond a few interesting twists in the pilot.
I kind of expected that Lena Dunham would just play thinly veiled versions of herself in Woody Allen-style autobiographical projects for the rest of her career. But her first post-"Girls" project for HBO is an adaptation of a British series and she's just writing, not onscreen. It's alright, kind of feels like a very familiar kind of comedy about awkwardness and rude or uninhibited people stepping on the toes of easily offended people. Jennifer Garner has done comedy before but it feels like her public persona has been of this extremely uptight, proper person that it's almost hard to think of her as being in on the joke, even though she must be to play a character like this. I've seen Ione Skye so rarely in the almost 30 years since Say Anything that it's really nice just to see her again, she's still gorgeous.
"Roseanne" without Roseanne is kind of a crazy post-modern joke come to life, but even before she got fired from her own show I said that they could probably do a better show without her, and it's true: even if she created the show and its sensibility, John Goodman and Laurie Metcalf and Sara Gilbert were equal and often greater contributors to what actually made the show worth watching, and it's kind of fun to see them all stab that shitty racist in the back and just keep marching on, even if I have a limited appetite for these kinds of revivals of characters I was fine leaving 20 years in the past. Also, I got a weird sense of deja vu after watching episodes of "Camping" and "The Conners" that both featured Juliette Lewis as a free-spirited girlfriend character tagging along where she wasn't welcome.
As far as dark sexy reboots of Archie Comics go, of which there are now more than one for some reason, this show makes more sense on paper than "Riverdale," but of course nobody likes "Riverdale" because it makes sense. This seems moderately witty but I dunno this stuff is not my bag, give me reruns of Melissa Joan Hart and the cat puppet.
g) "The Rookie"
I feel like I'd much rather Nathan Fillion do a full-on comedy than get into another ABC drama even more conventional than "Castle." But as unpromising as "The Rookie" seemed on its face, the pilot was really strong, they did a pretty good job of laying the groundwork of who the characters are and how this is and isn't like other cop shows (it mostly is).
h) "The Kids Are Alright"
There have been so many sitcoms over the years following the "Wonder Years" formula, but most of the recent ones have taken place in the '80s and '90s, where "The Kids Are Alright" actually takes place in 1972, part of the period "The Wonder Years" took place in. And there's nothing wrong with the show's execution, it just feels like I've seen everything about it too many times before.
i) "Bodyguard"
"Bodyguard" has nothing to do with the Kevin Costner
The Bodyguard, but it is about a bodyguard having an affair with the woman he's sworn to protect, so it's not entirely unrelated, I guess. But this British show, which had record-breaking ratings for the BBC, is kind of a boilerplate sexy political thriller while also getting into some interesting themes. I can't imagine the biggest show in the U.S. being about Iraq veterans wanting to murder a politician who supported the Iraq invasion.
j) "The Woman In White"
The 1859 novel
The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins is regarded as one of the earliest mystery novels, and the BBC's current miniseries adaptation is the 8th time it's been adapted for the screen and the 3rd time by the BBC alone. But this is my first experience with the story so I'm trying to just go along with it, it's pretty interesting, although I think they failed in a typical TV way to cast Jessie Buckley as a character who is supposed to be "not attractive" in the novel, she's really cute.
k) "Best. Worst. Weekend. Ever."
This Netflix show is one of those things that's about teens but I'm not sure who's really the audience for it, I find it boring as an adult but I don't know if a teen or a pre-teen would like it much either, it's like a watered down version of that movie
Fanboys that wasn't good to begin with.
l) "The Curious Creations Of Christine McConnell"
An odd little Netflix show that feels like a spooky version of "Martha Stewart Living," with a creepy yet charming lady talking to weird little puppet creatures and creating weird ooky dishes and crafts. I think if I was throwing a Halloween party I would totally watch this show and take a bunch of notes.
m) "Eli Roth's History of Horror"
This been a pretty cool little documentary series so far, I have mixed feelings about Eli Roth as a horror filmmaker but he's probably as much a student of the genre as anybody to oversee something like this and they got some good interviews with directors and actors from the classics, I like the way they divided it up into episodes about zombie movies, slasher movies, demonic possession movies, and so on.
n) "T-Pain's School of Business"
I've always liked T-Pain's music and thought he came off as a pretty charming, relatable guy, so FUSE having him host a show about inventions and tech start-ups is a cool idea. The music-related stuff is the most interesting and natural for him to talk about, but they've showcased a pretty cool range of stuff and he's able to get the ideas across well.
o) "Brainchild"
This Netflix show kind of feels like someone watched "Adam Ruins Everything" and decided to copy its entire format and gear it towards teens and preteens. It's not the worst idea, though, they pull it off well enough, I might try to show my son this show and see if he likes it.
p) "Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj"
My favorite thing Hasan Minhaj did on "The Daily Show" was his recurring bit satirizing YouTube vloggers where he'd overemphasize everything he said and gesticulate dramatically like a camp counselor. So it's a little weird to me that that body language has seeped into the way he hosts his own Netflix show, but I think maybe he'll get a little more comfortable once he's done it for a while, I like the way the first couple episodes dove into current events from his perspective as an American Muslim.
I've always really liked Busy Philipps on "Freaks & Geeks" and "Cougartown" and want to see her in more stuff, so I was happy to hear she was one of the rare women to get a late night show. It feels a bit closer to a daytime show like "Ellen" in terms of its casual warmth, but that's not a bad thing at all, and it's a huge step up from what Chelsea Handler used to do in the same E! timeslot.
r) "The Alec Baldwin Show"
"Sundays With Alec Baldwin" had a soft launch earlier this year when ABC aired a one-off pilot episode, and now the show has finally started a weekly run, still on Sundays but under a different title. The biggest change is that episodes now end with weird little bits where they play an interview excerpt that didn't appear earlier in the episode while showing drawings of Baldwin and the interview subject by a New Yorker illustrator, it's really bizarre. Anyway Baldwin is obviously not a very seasoned interviewer and the conversations all seem to exist inside this weird celebrity bubble that reminds me of the "SNL" sketch where he and Kim Basinger and his brothers were on "Family Feud" and gave ridiculous showbiz answers to every question. It's a pleasant show but I dunno how much longer it'll stay on the air what with Baldwin getting arrested for fighting in parking lots and shit.
s) "You"
I was really intrigued by this show when it debuted
in September, and at the time I felt it could go either way of being great or kind of painting itself into a corner. And I'm happy to say that it's continued to be really gripping, albeit in a strange and uncomfortable way where the unreliable narrator can be charming and smart and relatable while doing horrible things. The fact that they've already renewed it for a second season, and have a second book about Joe to base it on, has me really curious how they're going to end this season.
t) "Kidding"
One of my pet peeves is when TV shows launch with a big name director who usually does features directing the pilot, and then every subsequent episode they don't direct looks different and usually worse or missing their distinctive touch. Michel Gondry has directed 6 of 10 episodes of "Kidding," so the majority of the season. And there's always something in his episodes that stands out and makes me realize the other episodes don't have the same visual flights of fancy, but the show is really more about the characters and the performances so it's not a big problem. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this show, there are these little surreal moments where it comes alive but the characters could be fleshed out a little more beyond their current problems.
u) "The Resident"
There's a funny thing with big network ensemble shows where once they're successful, they just keep piling on more established actors who want part of the action. So by the time "The Resident" finished its first season a few months ago, Malcolm-Jamal Warner had joined the cast, and when it returned for the second season, Jane Leeves had also joined, with Jenna Dewan in a recurring role. The original core cast was fine but I like the additions, especially Warner's character, who's one of those brilliant egotistical surgeons that TV actors love to play in medical shows.
v) "The Deuce"
When the second season of "The Deuce" started a couple months ago, I felt like the show was still this new thing that would be around for a while, or at lest 4-5 seasons like "The Wire" and "Treme." Then it was announced that the third season would be the final one, so we're already into the back half of the show's run. There's a lot I like about it, particularly in the second season, but it also often feels like this hug ensemble of characters is just breezing past me without me getting to know them or care that much.
w) "Castlevania"
This cartoon full of blood and cursing based on a video game from my youth was one of last year's great surprises, so I'm happy that it's back with twice as many episodes as it had last time. The Peter Stormare-voiced character that they brought in for this season is a great addition.
x) "The Good Place"
This show is such an unusual achievement in that it manages to bring you back to your funny sitcom friends every week even while the ground is constantly shifting under your feet and the whole nature of the show keeps shifting. I was skeptical that the show could be as good on Earth as it was in the afterlife, but this season has been good.
y) "Daredevil"
Now that Netflix has been letting the hammer fall on "The Iron Fist" and even "Luke Cage," I wonder if they're trying to focus on keeping their more successful Marvel shows around for as long as possible, or if they're not too far off from getting canned too. My investment in these shows was never too strong and it's at an all-time low, but I still like the characters enough that I'm giving season 3 a try. I thought I wanted Kingpin back but so far I'm not sure if I actually do, maybe when he gets out of jail things will be exciting again.
z) "Bob's Burgers"
Even though they don't have any traditional way of doing it like "Treehouse of Horror," "Bob's Burgers" always does great Halloween episodes and this year's was no exception, it's crazy to think they didn't even air the show in the fall until the 3rd season.
