a) "The Boys"
Now that the superhero genre has kind of swallowed the entertainment industry whole, we've got a whole canon of things that subvert or satirize the conventions of the genre. Having not read the graphic novel it's based on, I wasn't sure if "The Boys" was going to tread familiar territory, but a few episodes in, I'd say it's got its own distinct flip on the genre, dark and cynical but otherwise not derivative of, say, Watchmen. But even having watched a few seasons of Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's other adaptation of a Garth Ennis comic, "Preacher," I was a little surprised by the gore -- there's a grisly and detailed explosion or evisceration of a human body in almost every episode. It's good, though, really kind of ends up feeling like a realistic depiction of how humans would superpowers would give into greed and self interest if they existed but would still want to be seen as heroic.

b) "Pennyworth"
One of my favorite recent satires of superhero movies was Teen Titans GO! To The Movies, where Robin gets his hopes up that the next Batman spinoff movie will be about him, only to see trailers for action movies about Alfred and the Batmobile. So I think about a lot when I watch "Pennyworth," a prequel series about Bruce Wayne's future butler that's even more deeply unnecessary than "Gotham." It's a pretty well made and entertaining show, but it would just as good if the characters weren't named Alfred Pennyworth and Thomas Wayne, I don't really get anything out of that context always lurking in the background.

c) "Pearson"
When talk started up a couple years ago of Gina Torres's "Suits" character getting her own spinoff series, it seemed like a pretty good idea to me. But now, with "Pearson" finally debuting alongside the final season of "Suits" limping to the finish line with a fairly different cast than the show started with, it feels like maybe they waited too long to make it happen. Also, New York lawyer Jessica Pearson now works for the mayor of Chicago and the character's personal background seems kind of incidental, like "Pennyworth," they could've just renamed the character and not made it a spinoff of anything and it would've been just as interesting, if not moreso.

d) "A Black Lady Sketch Show"
Robin Thede had some pretty funny moments on "The Nightly Show" and her own shortlived BET show "The Rundown" so I was rooting for her new HBO sketch show. It's a little hit and miss so far, but the first two episodes had a couple sketches where it all clicked so I'll keep watching.

e) "Alternatino With Arturo Castro"
Jaime from "Broad City"'s new sketch show is really, really funny. I'm always a little skeptical of sketch shows that have one or two stars that carry every sketch instead of a whole cast spreading the work around, but he's pretty incredibly versatile in terms of what he plays from sketch to sketch. And just the sheer range of concepts in the first few episodes is pretty impressive.

f) "Four Weddings And A Funeral"
Given Mindy Kaling's whole preoccupation with rom coms on "The Mindy Project," I'm not surprised that the next thing she'd make for Hulu would be a miniseries of the '90s rom com Four Weddings And A Funeral. The first episode even has a bit where people attend a costume party dressed as characters from classic rom coms (including Love Actually, which is kind of confusing since its director Richard Curtis also wrote Four Weddings). The whole thing really just falls flat, though -- not funny and not much romantic chemistry between the characters. I expected something at least passable given Kaling's track record and that a lot of the cast have been funny in other things. I don't watch "Game of Thrones" so I'd never really seen Nathalie Emmanuel in anything before, she's stunning but it's funny that they made her play an American character, her accent needs a litle work.

g) "Another Life"
My heart really went out to Selma Blair when she gave an interview about her MS diagnosis last year, I really missed seeing her in movies and was happy to hear that she'd be in this new Netflix series. She has kind of a small supporting role in "Another Life" but I'm intrigued to see where she fits into this weird story about an alien artifact landing on earth. The show's gotten pretty negative reviews so I'm kind of afraid the execution of the premise won't come together but I'm still curious to see where it goes.

h) "Pandora"
There's something especially sad to me about The CW's summer shows, like being in The CW's regular season schedule is not that high a bar so if you can't clear that, damn. I like the futuristic premise of "Pandora" but the name sucks and I don't feel like they got enough of an effects budget to make it look cool.

i) "One Spring Night"
A South Korean show on Netflix, felt like a very slow moving soap opera to me, probably wouldn't have found it very interesting even if I didn't have to read subtitles.

j) "Infinity Train"
Cartoon Network has been on such a roll lately, my whole family really enjoyed this 8-part miniseries, we all wish there were more episodes. It's a whole weird fantasy story where a girl ends up in an alternate universe populated by talking corgis, and at one point there's a whole setpiece involving Cameo's "Word Up," it's a really entertaining show.

k) "Where's Waldo?"
Just as I was recently complaining about the new Carmen San Diego series that completely abandons the premise of the old show, I'm amused that this show kind of does away with the point of the Where's Waldo? books and has this whole weird narrative where Waldo is a 'wanderer' being mentored by a wizard. I'm kind of surprised they're still trying to wring life out of the franchise, I haven't seen a kid look at a Where's Waldo? book in 20 years. But I did enjoy turning on the show for 5 seconds, pointing to Waldo and saying "There he is! This show sucks."

l) "Corn & Peg"
A few months ago I was on here ranting about how similar "Unikitty" and "Rainbow Butterfly Unicon Kitty" were, and here comes another new cartoon about a unicorn that's friends with a pegasus. Maybe there's just some kind of huge unicorn zeitgeist in the collective unconscious right now.

m) "BH90210"
A lot of people seem to have assumed that this is a revival of "Beverly Hills, 90210" with the original cast playing their characters again, which of course nobody needs. But it's worse than that: a trendy "Curb Your Enthusiasm"-style show where the actors play themselves trudging through their post-"90210" careers and reunite. I feel a very specific kind of embarrassment when actors who are not great at comedy try to be funny and play exaggerated unflattering versions of themselves. At least there was a nice little nod to Luke Perry in the first episode that felt sincere.

n) "Free Meek"
Putting together my Meek Mill deep album cuts playlist the week this show debuted was fun and kind of reminded me of just how much his discography centers on the issues he's only pretty recently gotten credit for bringing into public debate. It seems like they conceived this show and did most of the interviews during that 2017-2018 period when Meek's future was uncertain, so it doesn't have the same urgency now that it probably felt like it did at the time, but I'm still glad they made this and are using a different medium to tell Meek's story and further the conversation about the criminal justice system.

o) "Girls Cruise"
It's kind of hilarious how transparently VH1 just saw the success of Girls' Trip and rushed out a reality show loosely inspired by it, with Lil Kim going on a contrived group vacation with Mya and Chili from TLC. They kind of shoehorn social media celebrity B. Simone in there for comic relief, which is fine because at least she's trying to make the show entertaining while everyone is just kind of being boring and earnest.

p) "Lights Out with David Spade"
After 15 years of filling the post-"Daily Show" timeslot with spinoffs like "The Colbert Report," "The Nightly Show," and "The Opposition," Comedy Central has finally given up and reverted back to the "Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn" formula of half-assed panel discussion with an aging "SNL" guy at 11:30. It kind of amazes me how much David Spade seems to fail upward and show contempt for putting a minimal effort into being on television, just a total waste of once valuable TV real estate.

q) "The UnXplained"
A William Shatner-hosted History Channel show my wife have been watching a bit lately about famous mysteries and urban legends. The episode about the Goatman of Beltsville, Maryland really blew my mind, we live a few minutes away from there but somehow I'd never heard about it.

r) "Blown Away"
I'm amused that one of the side effects of there being so many shows on Netflix is that their reality competitions have gotten more and more niche, like this glass blowing competition show. It's a pretty interesting craft but it's just funny to see it done in a "Top Chef" type format. Also I'm very immature and amused that there's something they all have to call "the glory hole" with a straight face.

s) "Taco Chronicles"
Tacos are a very important topic to me, I appreciate seeing a docuseries give the subject the kind of loving attention it deserves. I gotta not watch it on an empty stomach, though, the al pastor episode really made me hungry.

t) "The Last Czars"
Amazon's "The Romanoffs" wasn't exactly about the Romanov family and was pretty bad, Netflix's docudrama "The Last Czars" is more directly about the Romanovs but is even more dull and mediocre. Tough run for a family that, er, has been through a lot already.

u) "Killer Affair"
One of those true crime shows on Oxygen, some interesting stories but not really my cup of tea.

v) "Murder In The Thirst"
This is BET's attempt at a true crime show in the vein of "Killer Affair," except it feels like it only exists as an excuse for the punny title and the host says "thirst" as often as possible to hammer home the tenuous concept of the title.

w) "Snowfall"
I tend to associate "Snowfall" with another FX drama co-starring Emily Rios, "The Bridge," that was on for two seasons a few years ago. But now "Snowfall" is in its 3rd season and has been renewed for a 4th so I'm like OK, this show has surpassed "The Bridge" and I shouldn't compare them too much. The third season had one of the more memorable death scenes I've seen in a while, wasn't graphic or anything, just really artful camera movement.

x) "Divorce"
I've never seen seasons of a show shrink from year to year like "Divorce," which went from 10 episodes to 8 episodes to 6 episodes for its third and final season. I suppose that's pretty unflattering given that Sarah Jessica Parker was once the queen of HBO. But it feels like a very small human-scale show that I've really come to enjoy, and it probably wouldn't make sense to do much more than 24 episodes about one couple's divorce.

y) "Killjoys"
My wife's perennial favorite SyFy show is wrapping up its run with its 5th season, it's really grown on me over the years. I feel like it's one of the rare sci-fi shows where the characters occasionally seem to acknowledge how bizarre the situations they're in are, they get a lot of comedy out of that. And Kelly McCormack's character Zeph has really become one of my favorite parts of the show this season.

z) "Veronica Mars"
"Veronica Mars" was the first show my wife got me into when we moved in together, so it feels very satisfying and nostalgic to watch the show's new 4th season together. Of all the revivals of long-canceled shows the last few years, this was the first one I actually actively looked forward to, and I'm happy to say that it's the first one other than "Twin Peaks" that wasn't crappy and unnecessary. The sex scenes felt kind of campy and tonally disconnected from the rest of the show and the last big plot twist was a bummer, but otherwise it was totally satisfying and I'd be thrilled if they came back for a 5th season. The whole gang from the original show all got some great moments and J.K. Simmons and Patton Oswalt contributed interesting characters to the story instead of just being gratuitous celebrity additions to the cast.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 16, 2019 at 11:58 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.