a) "Hollywood"
When I heard that Ryan Murphy's next show was a period piece about post-WWII Hollywood, I imagined something in the vein of "Feud: Bette And Joan," a way for him to dramatize whatever old movie star gossip he wanted to. Instead, "Hollywood" is a weird historical wish fulfillment rewrite of history, something like later Tarantino movies, except instead of the good guys murdering the bad guys, the minorities win Oscars in the '40s and the bad guys who tried to stop them tearfully apologize. The weirdest part was the way most of the story's trailblazers were imaginary except for Rock Hudson, who in this story gets to come out of the closet but is still characterized as an untalented dope who caught a lucky break.

b) "Upload"
This show is about a future where dying people can have their consciousness uploaded to a realistic computerized afterlife that they can spend eternity in. It's a concept I've had a lot of trouble buying into when it was the premise of several episodes of "Black Mirror" (and also "Devs," kind of), but "Upload" is more of a comedy, and the pilot made me laugh quite a few times, so I'm a big more on board with buying into the idea. And it feels different enough in tone from, say, "The Good Place," and has a little element of foreboding and mystery to it, that I'm really curious to see where it goes.

c) "Mrs. America"
At this point, we're constantly seeing major movie stars do series television for the first time, and it no longer feels like the novelty or starpower of their presence is enough to carry it -- even Al Pacino can do a show that's still absolute crap, as "Hunters" was. Cate Blanchett gives a great performance in "Mrs. America," and there's an argument that Phyllis Schlafly doesn't deserve to be rendered as a complex prestige television protagonist by a major actor, and I dunno, that may be where I'm at by the end of the last episode. But so far, it feels like they're not letting Schlafly off the hook and are balancing her with a lot of figures on the left like Gloria Steinem and Shirley Chisolm.

d) "Black AF"
I rolled my eyes at the trailer for "Black AF" because it really just feels so transparent that Kenya Barris made yet another version of "Black-ish," this time as "Curb Your Enthusiasm" with him playing a profane and unflattering version of himself. The show is better than I expected, though, Rashida Jones is pretty hilarious and it's a refreshing change from her being the bland straight man on stuff like "Parks & Recreation." But the whole thing is awkward, watching Kenya Barris and his TV wife bicker and call each other assholes in a funny TV way when in real life Barris is getting divorced and reportedly dating Tracee Ellis Ross, who plays the other TV version of his wife on "Black-ish."

e) "Normal People"
I usually think TV series are more suited than movies for adapting novels, simply because there's more room to get in the whole story without cutting corners. But, without having read the novel Normal People, I am kind of getting the sense that it probably could've been adapted satisfyingly into a 2-hour movie. And yet, I'm glad it's 6 hours of television instead, it feels like they're able to just tell the story of a young Irish couple in a really patient, textured way that feels lived-in, and Marianne is a great character.

f) "The Baker And The Beauty"
"The Baker And The Beauty" is kind of a Notting Hill-style romcom where a regular working class guy starts dating a big glamorous celebrity, with a Miami pastry chef hooking up with an Australian supermodel. The strength of the show is that it's really an ensemble show with subplots about all the other characters surrounding the main couple, who aren't terribly interesting and don't have a lot of chemistry. The show opens trying to make the baker's ex look bad, but the more the show follows her in subsequent episodes, the more I like her, I mean she's more my type than 'the beauty.'

g) "Never Have I Ever"
"Never Have I Ever" has a lot of the same tropes and comic rhythms as Mindy Kaling's other projects, but as a coming-of-age high school comedy about a girl who's anxious to lose her virginity. The first couple episodes have been pretty charming, the whole conceit of John McEnroe narrating the show is goofy but it works.

h) "Belgravia"
I've never really watched "Downton Abbey" but I get the impression that this show, a period piece about 1815 London from the same creative team, is pretty similar. I'm used to Tamsin Greig in comedies like "Episodes" and "Black Books," so it's a little weird seeing her in something more serious, although there is a little bit of dry levity in the dialogue here and there.

i) "The Midnight Gospel"
This Netflix adult cartoon from the creator of "Adventure Time" is basically a podcast with surreal animation, so this alien comes down to Earth and interviews the president (played by Dr. Drew) during a zombie apocalypse, but most of it's just a podcast conversation with Dr. Drew about recreational drugs with occasional references to the zombies you're watching them run from. Kind of a weird hybrid of "Dr. Katz" and Waking Life and "Rick and Morty." Which might sound really cool to you but I dunno, I rolled my eyes at the whole thing quite a bit.

j) "The Big Show Show"
I don't watch wrestling so I wasn't familiar with The Big Show, but his show on Netflix is a pretty decent family sitcom. He's got good comic timing and delivery, I could see him having a future in movies like some of the other WWE guys.

k) "Outer Banks"
My family would go to the Outer Banks sometimes growing up and I love that area, so I thought it was pretty brilliant to set a TV series there. This Netflix show is just kind of okay, though, lots of shirtless teens riding around on boats and trying to solve a mystery.

l) "Summertime"
"Summertime" is another sexy teen show on Netflix like "Outer Banks," but it's Italian, and has much better production values, the direction's really impressive, just a beautiful show.

m) "Breeders"
I was surprised at how intense the last couple episodes of this show's first season were. The early episodes dealt with mortality in terms of a grandparent's death, but then one of the kid's had a life-threatening illness, and even if there were moments of levity they barely landed because of how stressed out the storyline made me. Good show, though, I hope it gets renewed for another season.

n) "Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist"
Another show that has been more emotional than I expected it to be, which I think has really been the key to the show working, that the actors are convincingly going through things like heartbreak and grief in the scenes in between the big surreal musical sequences. I think I'm actually more impressed with the choreography than the musical arrangements most of the time, they do an interesting job of using the characters' surroundings as props.

o) "The Last Dance"
I'm about as uninterested in sports as you can get, but I kind of passively follow the NBA through sheer social media osmosis, and I grew up in the age of Michael Jordan being, like, the center of the universe. So I appreciate something like this, seeing all the footage of the Bulls' last championship run, the amazing amount of candid footage they got at the time and how willing everybody is to speak frankly now, it's really engrossing stuff. And the sequence set to Prince's "Partyman" just ruled.

p) "Absurd Planet"
This Netflix show is, like, wacky clips of wildlife with a host cracking corny jokes on the voiceover like "America's Funniest Home Videos," it was so unbearably bad that I almost didn't get through one 20-minute episode.

q) "Too Hot To Handle"
A Netflix reality show where they put a bunch of hot people on an island and tell them it's a dating show, but then reveal that the only way to win the cash prize is to not hook up with each other or have any sex. It's kind of deviously clever but also definitely horrible.

r) "The Innocence Files"
So much of the true crime genre leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it's more about steering the audience towards believing someone's guilt or innocence but often still operating at the level of entertainment rather than journalism or legal analysis. So I like that this show about the Innocence Project really looks at the legal process of exonerating people, it's not some bullshit where someone's shouting that Carole Baskin murdered her husband.

s) "Cooked With Cannabis"
This feels pretty much like other cooking shows other than the fact that everyone's putting cannabis in the food and the hosts are Kelis and this total weirdo who seems like Adam Sandler doing a bit. Some of the food looks pretty good, but my only experience with pot cooked into food was the worst brownies I've ever tasted so I can't help but imagine this stuff actually tastes gross. Maybe people know what they're doing with this stuff now, though.

t) "True Terror With Robert Englund"
I feel like being a horror icon is a pretty cool gig, although Robert Englund is a classically trained actor so maybe he doesn't like being Freddy Krueger and only Freddy Krueger to the world? This show he hosts about creepy news stories from throughout history is a cool idea, but the dramatized segments are just not very well done.

u) "Niall Ferguson's Networld"
A thing on PBS kind of looking at things like the internet and social media from a historical and sociological perspective, interesting stuff but not really something I want to watch every episode of.

v) "Family Karma"
It's kind of funny to see Indian families on reality television through the lens of a glamorous Bravo show that takes place in Miami, it feels maybe a little more substantial and realistic than these shows often are but not by too much.

w) "Songland"
This show has really remained a favorite of my wife and I in its second season, even the episodes where the artist is someone she doesn't know and/or someone I don't care about, the process of hearing the songwriters present their songs and workshop them with the judges is really fun to watch. Often the songs we like the best aren't the ones that win, but usually you understand that it's really about what the artist is looking for and what fits them. All the songs in the H.E.R. episode were really good, I'm glad they put all the songs on streaming services whether they win or lose.

x) "Saturday Night Live"
I'm glad they've done the quarantine video chat "Saturday Night Live At Home" episodes more than once now, wouldn't mind if there were a bunch of them. It just forces the show to abandon so many of its formulas for sketches and try new things, and while sometimes the sketches cast members make on their own are like bad YouTube bits, they've gradually stepped up the production values from the first to the second and done some interesting conceptual things. Weekend Update with no audience is awkward, though.

y) "Shaun The Sheep: Adventures From Mossy Bottom"
This is basically just a new season of the previous "Shaun The Sheep" series with its own title, still pretty adorable. I'm so glad that my kids get to grow up watching Ardman Animation stuff, I wish they watched this more often really.

z) "True And The Rainbow Kingdom"
An extremely cutesy Netflix cartoon about a little girl and her cat sidekick, I didn't realize until just now that Pharrell's company produces it but that doesn't shock me. My 4-year-old loves this show.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 02, 2020 at 11:48 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.