a) "GLOW"
I love A League Of Their Own, so I think my favorite thing about this show is how much it evokes that for me, even if it's unintentional and in a completely different setting and Marc Maron is no Tom Hanks. I'm only a few episodes in but it's pretty good, I thought the pilot had a few iffy choices but the episodes since then have gotten into a nice groove and have fleshed out some of the supporting characters well.

b) "Snowfall"
The 1983 Los Angeles of "Snowfall" is a bit different from the 1985 Los Angeles of "GLOW" both in its subject matter and its tone, but it's still kind of interesting to see some of the many period pieces on TV right now tackling more or less the same time and place. John Singleton creating a show that kind of goes back to a few years before Boyz N The Hood to when crack first hit L.A. is a pretty promising concept, but the first episode felt a little bland to me, like a boilerplate gangster movie instead of something that's going to attempt anything like the depth of "The Wire." Still, good cast and great production values, it has potential.

c) "I'm Sorry"
I like Andrea Savage and am always glad to see her on TV more, although this show kind of feels like a dozen other recent autobiographical sitcoms comedians and actors have created about their family and work lives. The first episode had a couple big laughs, though, it has potential.

d) "Gypsy"
The first two episides of this show were so deeply dull that I wasn't even surprised when I realized they were directed by the same person that directed Fifty Shades Of Grey. It just moves incredibly slowly for no real reason, I think this would've been a dull movie but stretched out to an entire series it's just grueling, like they thought they could just throw in a few Naomi Watts sex scenes and there'd be no need for anything else.

e) "Hood Adjacent with James Davis"
I've never seen the host of this new Comedy Central show before but he's pretty funny. I like that this show is kind of more of a satirical commentary show than sketches, gives him some flexibility to respond to race issues via internet memes and current events in creative ways. I was amused, though, that when they pulled up an example of white YouTubers mangling R&B songs, they picked the Beyonce song where she's quoting the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

f) "The Mist"
I was not a fan of the film adaptation of this Stephen King story that came out about 10 years ago, and I don't necessarily see how it would translate better to episodic television. But a lot of what I disliked about the movie was in the specific execution of the dialogue and the ending, and here they've pretty much wiped the slate clean and put a completely different set of characters into the same premise, and so far it feels like they've got enough people and plot points to fill up a series, I'm just not especially into it.

g) "Crashing"
I adored Phoebe Waller-Bridge's show "Fleabag," so I was happy to see that U.S. Netflix had recently released another show starring her that aired in Britain last year. Of course, they had the unfortunate timing to put it out a few months after HBO aired an unrelated comedy also called "Crashing," but oh well. It feels like a Brit version of "Friends" or "New Girl," your standard generic sitcom about a bunch of attractive people living together in a cheap place and hooking up, but it's funny.

h) "Boy Band"
Given that One Direction are by far the biggest act launched by a reality music competition in the past decade, doing a show like this is probably overdue. And I feel like it's a little more fun than the average music reality show lately, but still kinda stupid and not something that held my attention for more than a few minutes at a time.

i) "Blood Drive"
This is SyFy's attempt at capitalizing on the whole "grindhouse" nostalgia thing, albeit many years after the Tarantino movie, which is kind of lame, but I'm enjoying how much fun they're having with the concept. I think my favorite part is that the "future" dystopia in which cars run on blood takes place in 1999.

j) "Claws"
This show also feels a few years behind a particular zeitgeist; in this case "Claws" has that same seedy Florida noir feel that several movies (Pain And Gain, Spring Brakers, Magic Mike) were all mining about five years ago. I like it, though, it's still refreshing to see a violent antihero cable show with an all female cast.

k) "Long Strange Trip"
This miniseries documentary on the history of the Grateful Dead is pretty fascinating and well done, I've only watched the first part so far but it feels like a good way for me to delve further into a band I always mean to spend more time with.

l) "Nightcap"
I feel like this show, about people working backstage at a late night talk show, is only as good as the guest stars in a given episode. I liked the Rachel Bloom and Alec Baldwin episodes, but a lot of the time when I put it on I just lose interest really quickly.

m) "Wrecked"
The fact that this show was created by two brothers named Shipley makes me root for it a little more than I otherwise would. But it's an enjoyable little summer series about people stranded on a desert island that is really just dedicated to having as much fun with the premise as it can. I particularly enjoyed the recent episode where all the characters were craving updates on "Game of Thrones."

n) "Preacher"
This was one of my favorite new shows last year, glad it's back and for the time being settling into a more fun episodic kind of show about the main trio of Jesse and Tulip and Cassidy, Ruth Negga is just amazing. The flashback about Arseface was really pretty disturbing. But man, I really hate those ads for the new season that say 'POWERFUL AF,' this show really shouldn't be promoted with trendy slang.

o) "Casual"
I've always been a little ambivalent about this show, which is smart and unpredictable and at turns pretty funny, but also kind of a forgettable dramedy that epitomizes a lot of TV trends I'm not crazy about. I feel like I've warmed up to it a little more lately, the Judy Greer arc probably doesn't hurt. I'm also impressed that, at a time when many shows still hire zero female directors, 9 out of 13 episodes of the third season of "Casual" were directed by women (including Gillian Robespierre, Lake Bell, and Carrie Brownstein). I also like that they've given a little more screentime to Julie Berman this season, she's always had some of the funniest scenes on the show but she tends to be a fleeting presence.

p) "The Carmichael Show"
I always had mixed feelings about this show, and it felt like NBC never fully committed to it with three brief seasons that always ran in the summer, so I wasn't surprised or especially disappointed when they recently decided to cancel it. I always hoped the show would loosen up and get a little less relentlessly topical and let the characters be more than strawmen for whatever side of whatever argument they were supposed to be on that week, but if anything it just got more formulaic. Tiffany Haddish is gonna continue to thrive, though.

q) "Playing House"
I don't know why it took USA an unusually long time to renew this show for a third season, and then an even more unusually long time to get the new episodes on the air. But now they're all available on VOD and I've watched the whole season, it's a pretty sweet little show, even the cancer plot this season was kind of oddly breezy, although I think that was a deliberate and refreshing decision.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 07, 2017 at 4:28 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.