a) "Back To Life"
Creator/star Daisy Haggard's "Back To Life" is produced by the same people as "Fleabag" and has some of the same combination of droll comedy against a backdrop of tragedy and grief. But I the balance is a little off in "Back To Life," the story is just so horribly sad but Nathan and some of the other supporting characters are almost cartoonishly silly and some of the subplots feel really at odds with the tone of the main plot. I mostly enjoyed it, but at the end of the 6 episodes it felt like it didn't gel very well.

b) "Dollface"
I waited through 6 terrible seasons of "2 Broke Girls" for my beloved Kat Dennings to be in something worth actually watching, but her new Hulu show is just ok. The high concept fantasy sequences remind me a lot of "Man Seeking Woman," which I hated, but the show has a strong ensemble and the dialogue can be pretty sharp when they just let the characters stay in real life and not drift off into goofy CGI visual gags.

c) "The Feed"
The British sci-fi series "The Feed" has the very "Black Mirror" premise of a near future where everyone has an internet brain implant and can see or listen to whatever they want at any time -- which is demonstrated in the beginning of the first episode by a guy listened to The Pietasters instead of paying attention to the people in the room with him, which was kind of a strange and hilarious flourish. And then everyone's implant gets hacked and they're assault with traumatic images and the whole world freaks out. It's kind of interesting but I almost wish it was just a "Black Mirror" episode that got on with it, I don't think I care enough to watch 10 episodes of this. Also I think I reflexively dislike Guy Burnet so much from his character on "Counterpart" that I don't care to watch a show with him as the progagonist.

d) "Nancy Drew"
No gritty sexy CW version of some wholesome old intellectual property could be as ridiculous as "Riverdale," but it kind of makes sense to reboot "Nancy Drew" in this way, since it's already about mysteries, and the best show The CW ever aired, "Veronica Mars," was kind of a gritty "Nancy Drew" anyway. This show doesn't really live up to its potential, though, you really need good dialogue and plotting for any kind of detective show and it's kind of flat in that department.

e) "The Accident"
In this miniseries, a bunch of teenagers in a small town in Wales sneak into a building under construction right at the exact moment that there's a huge industrial explosion that harms or kills them all, and just the whole premise feels too contrived from the jump for me to really buy into the soppy melodrama of it sll.

f) "Dublin Murders"
The reaction to this show seems to be largely that it's not as good as the books it's based on, which seems about right, it's kind of dull.

g) "Truthpoint"
Beloved Twitter poster Dril getting his own Adult Swim web series inspired a lot of lively debate when it was announced, but I've barely heard about it since it actually came out. And that's probably because it's almost as difficult to watch as the Alex Jones stuff it's parodying. Comedy Central's short-lived Infowars parody "The Opposition with Jordan Klepper" already came and went over a year ago, and I found it pretty enjoyable at times in that polished "Daily Show" format. But episodes of "Truthpoint" are an hour long and ramble along like a real Alex Jones webcast, with occasional really funny moments that you kind of have to patiently wait and pay attention for. The effect is very, very different from reading a brilliant Dril tweet in 5 seconds, or for that matter the zippy pace of a 15-minute Adult Swim show. Plus it's weird that Dril wanted to do a TV show but is still so interested in keeping his anonymity that he wears a mask and distorts his voice. It's Adult Swim, why didn't he just make an animated show?

h) "Hache"
Out of all the different countries that Netflix has been importing foreign language dramas from in recent years, Spain has impressed me the most with production values, already this year there's been some great-looking period pieces like "High Seas" and "45 rpm" and now the '60s crime drama "Hache." This one isn't as interesting as the others, though, and the sex scene in the first episode was unintentionally hilarious.

i) "The Stranded"
This Netflix show from Thailand is the latest twist on the Young Adult fiction trope where a group of teens are stuck somewhere together with no adults on a mysterious island or whatever, in this instance because of a tsunami. Some of the visual effects in the first episode were impressive, but I've just seen it all before.

j) "We Are The Wave"
The German show "We Are The Wave" is not also about a tsunami, but about teen activists leading a revolt, seems interesting depending on how the story pans out.

k) "Scams"
This Japanese show about guys scamming old people who are hoarding money is really stylishly made despite low production values and feels very zeitgeisty. It's one of the few Netflix imports now that has subtitles instead of dubbed dialogue, and I kind of feel like more than any other recent show it could really have a successful American remake.

l) "The Preppy Murder: Death In Central Park"
Somehow I'd never heard of the Robert Chambers murder case, but it was apparently a very big deal in 1986 (and Sonic Youth's "Eliminator Jr." is about it!). Seems like a pretty bad guy, not enough a true crime guy to watch all of this.

m) "The Devil Next Door"
Another Netflix crime docuseries, this one about a Nazi prison guard who quietly lived in Cleveland until the '80s when he was extradited and put on trial. It's depressing to think about how it took decades for some of these people to be held responsible

n) "Green Eggs And Ham"
Every screen adaptation of Dr. Seuss invariably has to invent a lot of plot beyond what's in the source material. This Netflix cartoon has the voices of Michael Douglas, Adam DeVine, and Eddie Izzard and seems kind of fun, but it really feels almost unrecognizable from the book I've read to my kids a hundred times, and my kids didn't seem to like the show as much as the book either.

o) "Watchmen"
Damon Lindelof's 2019 "Watchmen" has been slow to really spend time on characters from the original 1985 story, which I don't think is the main reason people have felt like the early episodes have been slow or confusing or pretentious, but it's certainly a component. But the show definitely seemed to immediately get more compelling with the entrance of Jean Smart as Laurie Blake and I'm looking forward to Jeremy Irons getting more screentime as they move behind slow pedaling his storyline with these ominous little vignettes. People are starting to object a lot to the premise of the show, the idea that a super liberal and politically correct American government has inspired a racist backlash, but I'm still kind of unsure exactly what statement Lindelof is making and don't want to rush to draw any conclusions.

p) "Stumptown"
This is still one of my favorite new network shows of Fall 2019 (although it's maybe fallen behind "Evil" as my #1), the Donal Logue arc was fun. It's not quite on a "Terriers" or "Veronica Mars" level of neo noir but tonally it's close enough that it's very much up my alley, I like that really normal life stuff keeps intruding on the exciting crime storylines, it feels like a very fully realized world.

q) "Bless This Mess"
"Bless This Mess" got such a quick 6-episode run in April that I'm glad they got to come back for more episodes in the fall. I'm a sucker for shows about quirky small towns that feel a little out of step with the rest of the world, although I wish this was a little less "Green Acres" and a little more "Northern Exposure."

r) "The Unicorn"
One of the more promising shows of the fall that just feels like it's amiably moving along, it's weird to see Walton Goggins just play a nice guy straight man, I think maybe he's uncomfortable with it and they need to build the character more around his natural weirdo charisma to make the show work.

s) "The Jim Jefferies Show"
Comedy Central quietly cancelled this after 3 years and aired the last episode this week, and I'm a little sad to see it go. As one of the few topical comedy shows not hosted by a "Daily Show" alum, it had a different texture and perspective than its many contemporaries but Jefferies never went too far in an "are you triggered by my politically incorrect joke!?" direction.

t) "Sorry For Your Loss"
Even though it's increasingly normal for actors to star in multiple series, I have watched the second season of "Sorry For Your Loss" assuming it will be its last, since Elizabeth Olsen is doing a big dumb Marvel series for Disney+. I hope I'm wrong, though, because I really like this show and the season 2 finale didn't leave off in a way that I found a satisfying ending. Overall the last few episodes were good, though, the Leigh/Danny storyline didn't drive me as crazy as I thought it would and LisaGay Hamilton really gave a great performance in a small amount of screentime.

u) "The End Of The F***ing World"
I enjoyed the first season of this show a lot without necessarily wanting more, but the second season kicks off really interestingly with a new character tied into the old story who's as fucked up as the protagonists, I'm excited again to see what weird directions this goes in.

v) "The Resident"
This has become the token network medical drama that we watch, the cast is really good but sometimes the show drives me nuts. The whole first season was geared around Bruce Greenwood being horrible and possibly headed for personal or professional disaster, but then they decided to keep him around and make him a more sympathetic character but I don't trust it, I still want his character to just die or get fired.

w) "Superstore" 
I hoped Kelly Stables would be a permanent addition to the cast, so I'm salty that they kinda ended her arc and made her an occasional guest star. But I'm impressed at how well the show is navigating timely storylines about unionizing and ICE, since there were one or two sensitive stories I thought they really botched in the past.

x) "Rick And Morty"
It feels like "Rick And Morty" is going the way of "Venture Bros." with these longer and longer waits for smaller runs of episodes, but each episode feels like a lot in and of itself, so I'm kind of okay with it. The first couple new episodes really felt they're doubling down on the dark existential gross out stuff, but I'm glad that even after the show's fanbase became a laughing stock I can still just enjoy watching it.

y) "Silicon Valley"
"Silicon Valley" probably dodged a PR bullet when TJ Miller exited before his scandals broke, but the show is definitely not as good without him and it feels like they're limping to the finish line with this shorter final season. There's been some funny scenes, though, happy to see Arturo Castro in the mix.

z) "Shameless"
The farewell of Emmy Rossum's character was done well enough last season that I was curious to see how they'd start off without her. But it just feels like they're doing Fiona storylines with Debbie now, it makes thematic sense that the little sister would fill her role in the family but the way it's done in the show feels lazy.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 23, 2019 at 1:51 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.