TV Diary
I've liked Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett in everything I've seen them in up to this point and rooted for them, so it's cool to see them headline a big HBO show together. My wife has been pointing out the ways the series diverts from the Lovecraft Country book, which is apparently more of an anthology thing, and I guess in a way it's harder to keep the monsters-symbolizing-racism device metaphorical when you're putting it on the screen, but I'm interested in how they're navigating that balancing act.
I'm really enjoying this Netflix show created by Kathleen Jordan, who was a writer on last year's short-lived and underrated "American Princess." The first episode swings very broadly into the premise of two very religious sisters who attend a Christian high school (Anjelica Bette Fellini and Maddie Phillips, both giving great comic performances) falling into working for a bounty hunter (Kadeem Hardison, who I didn't recognize all these decades after "A Different World"). But with each episode the characters become a little more 3-dimensional and the knowing silliness of the show becomes a little more lived-in and natural, it's hilarious but it's also got a lot of heart and kind of grapples with how hard it is for kids to go through puberty in a community that preaches abstinence. It's probably for the best that they dropped the first word from the original title, but on the other hand, 'Slutty Teenage Bounty Hunters' has the name number of syllables as 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.'
c) "P-Valley"
The rare scripted shows that take place in the deep south are often set in major cities, so I'm happy to see a premium cable drama like the Mississippi-based "P-Valley." The writing sometimes leaves a little to be desired -- "guess they don't call it the dirty south for nothin'" is an actual line of dialogue on this show -- but there are some great performances from Nicco Annan and and Brandee Evans, among others.
The title of "We Hunt Together" has a clever/stupid meaning because the show is about a British couple on a Mickey and Mallory-style killing spree, and a man and woman on the police force who are trying to catch them. It works, though, there's an interesting dynamic between the tense, creepy gore of the killers' storyline and the kind of droll odd couple comedy of the investigators' storyline.
I rolled my eyes pretty hard at the existence of this show, and especially the title. But it's not a bad idea for Freeform to do a little rom com miniseries about dating and relationships during quarantine, and the execution is charming enough. It can be a little of a drag when people are talking about COVID-19 and how it's disrupted daily life in pretty much every scene, but that's only because it's so close to real life, particularly when all this started. And apparently Andie MacDowell has another daughter who's also absolutely stunning.
f) "Hitmen"
Peacock's scripted programming continues to be almost entirely shows produced in other countries, mostly the UK, including this comedy about two British women who are contract killers. Predictably, all the humor is derived from the contrast between their nasty violent work and their mundane workaday attitude about it, and the way they bicker with the people they're about to execute. It's funny at times, but feels a little like a one trick pony.
This Peacock import from Australia is about five people seated at the 'singles table' at a wedding who decide to invest in a house together and live together. It's kind of a sweet, empathetic, character-driven dramedy like American network TV occasionally does well, but I've never seen a show like this from Australia.
Another British comedy recently picked up by an American network, in this case The CW. It reminds me a lot of "Spaced," the way the characters' lives are set against their obsession with a video game and the humor is a little mean and a little at their expense, but it's still a fun show with a likable cast.
One of the upsides of the oncoming scarcity of TV programming after months pandemic lockdown is that it seems to have increased the trend of networks picking up web series and shows from subscription streaming services. For instance, The CW has begun airing "Tell Me A Story," which ran for 2 seasons on CBS All Access. It kind of feels like a more grounded version of "Once Upon A Time," where the stories all parallel classic fairy tales, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes kind of heavyhandedly (for instance, you know that 3 thieves are the 3 little pigs because they pull a heist in pig masks).
SyFy has also been picking up web series, and their acquisition of DC Universe's "Harley Quinn" has been one of my favorite things on TV this year. "Dallas & Robo," featuring the voices of John Cena and Kat Dennings, is just okay, kind of feels like "Futurama" software running on "Archer" hardware.
k) "Hoops"
Another new animated sitcom that's on Netflix, with Jake Johnson as a high school basketball coach. It kinda feels like they're fitting as many curse words as they can into every scene, it's funny now and again but it's just trying so hard to be naughty and irreverent, almost on a "South Park" level.
Despite the title, this is actually one of the less obnoxiously edgy new shows I've seen on Adult Swim, don't love it but it has potential.
m) "Biohackers"
I enjoy watching stuff like this German sci-fi show on Netflix with my wife because she knows all about the subject, and every few minutes she gripes about the various violations in lab etiquette or bioethics. I'm impressed by the direction, though, there's been some vivid colors and imaginative camera angles.
Other than being made in Colombia and watching it with subtitles, "The Great Heist" feels like every other heist story I've ever watched in a movie or TV show. And it totally rules as usual, I love watching the crew come with all the different specialists come together and plan out the big job.
This South Korean show on Netflix is a pretty charming rom com about a woman trying to choose between four suitors. But the episode lengths of Asian shows really exhaust me, I never want to put a show on if I know it's gonna be like 70 minutes or more.
p) "Corporate"
At this point, I just assume the pandemic has disrupted every show's production schedule and am pleasantly surprised anytime it turns out a show got its next season done before the lockdown, and I feel especially bad for shows on their way out that had to delay finishing their final season. So I was pretty happy that "Corporate" returned for its third and final season, even if it was only 6 episodes, this show has grown on me more and more since it began. And I feel like they're going out at the top of their game, their satirical voice has gotten so sharp and every episode is so tightly written, every scene and every line of dialogue keyed into building the heightened reality of that particular episode's premise. The season premiere, where the company launches a streaming service and tries to redo the disappointing finale of a popular show, was especially funny and timely.
These days, if I miss a show's first season, I usually kinda give up on the thought of ever catching up on it. But now and again it's fun to go back and start a show once it's been on for a few seasons, and "Wynonna Earp" seemed to have such a fervent cult fanbase that I was curious about it, and Melanie Scrofano was really funny in Ready Or Not. We're only about halfway through its run, but I feel like it's gotten progressively better as it goes, the cast chemistry gelling and slightly more money going into the special effects.
This is a pretty well made docuseries, I love seeing this detailed breakdown of how Master P built the empire, year by year. When I was a teenager No Limit seemed to come out of nowhere suddenly ubiquitous, but they laid so much groundwork before that, I like seeing what those steps were.
The Ruff Ryders miniseries that BET started running right on the heels of the No Limit one might be even better, it's just so dramatic and, again, they were working for so long to set DMX up for that huge explosion he had in '98, and they have these amazing stories about him just walking around Yonkers with his dog robbing people and occasionally getting involved in rap battles.
I enjoyed "SyFy Wire's The Great Debate," but their other new show is a little more of a generic late night show with a sci-fi nerd twist. Some of the bits with the puppet co-host are funny, though, and it was cool that the first episode featured a segment with Grant Imahara from "Myth Busters" that he taped before his death.
It's still strange to me that Ozzy Osbourne and his family are all reality TV royalty and seemingly at any given moment one or more of them has a show on the air. This one is a simple little quarantine era show where Jack shows viral videos of UFOs and other unexplained phenomena to Ozzy and Sharon and asks them what they believe is real (Kelly was, I guess, busy taping "Celebrity Call Center"?). It's a silly show, but considering that Ozzy has Parkinson's and Jack has MS, it's kind of nice to just see them together, doing okay and enjoying each other's company.
I'm kind of baffled by the 'unboxing' YouTube trend so I was morbidly curious if this A&E show was just a TV version of that, but it's more of a "Storage Wars" knockoff about people who buy and sell liquidated merchandise.
Another silly new A&E show, hosted by Jeff Foxworthy, where people get their memorabilia appraised. But since it was done in quarantine, everyone's video conferencing from home, and the experts aren't in the same room with the objects, so they're kind of just guessing at their appraisals and nothing gets sold, so the whole show is kind of done with an inconsequential shrug.
I kind of like this Canadian show where chefs have to create a great meal with nothing but the contents of a given family's refrigerator, it's kind of just a flashy TV version of what normal people do all the time.
A cute live action kid's show where a pregnant lady does science experiments with kids like Mr. Wizard. My 5-year-old who loves doing Kiwi Crate experiments and sometimes talks about becoming a scientist like his mom has really enjoyed it.
z) "Alien TV"
Another new Netflix show that my 5-year-old likes. It's similar to Minions or "Rabbids Invasion" in that it's a bunch of obnoxious little identical creatures causing mischief and talking to each other in an indecipherable babble, but it's actually more annoying than either of those.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, August 27, 2020 at 10:06 AM.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
Post a Comment