"The Third Day" is a uniquely structured miniseries with 3 episodes about Jude Law finding himself on a strange mysterious island off the coast of England, one 12-hour (!?) live special depicting the island's seasonal festival, and then 3 more episodes centering on a different set of characters on the island. I'm a little annoyed to find that Sky Atlantic broadcast the special in the UK but it doesn't seem to be part of the series as it's shown in America on HBO. But those first 3 episodes are pretty gripping and strange, at least until things get kind of punishingly dreary towards the end and land on a not terribly satisfying plot twist. 

I've never seen the well regarded original UK version of "Utopia," which was created by "The Third Day" creator Dennis Kelly, but it seems like the American adaptation by Gillian Flynn is getting much more mixed reviews. I found the cast and the premise really promising, but then the villains just go around violently wreaking havoc on sympathetic characters and it becomes a bummer pretty quickly. Like I was happy to see Desmin Borges from "You're The Worst" in a new series, but then I had to watch him get his eyeball scooped out with a spoon, it was unpleasant. 

I love Jeff Daniels as an actor, but his character on "The Newsroom" made him such an avatar for smug boomer liberals (like, literally an avatar) that he's the most eye-rolling possible choice to play James Comey in this, the first big budget prestige cable depiction of the Trump administration. At this point, we've seen dozens of people play Donald Trump in a comedic context, but this is the first time a big time actor has played him in a fairly serious, straightforward production -- I'm actually surprised it never occurred to me that Brendan Gleeson has the perfect physicality to play Trump, but then I can't think of any time I've seen him play a character that wasn't Irish. Naturally, it's impossible to play Trump without at least a hint of comedy, as much as they try build him up and make him intimidating -- you don't see his face of hear his voice for the entire first episode, and there are only 2 episodes -- but Gleeson just saying the words Trump has actually said or plausibly would say can't help but come off ridiculous, because he is ridiculous. I would say Gleeson does a better job than I expected but it still doesn't work on some level that maybe is insurmountable and beyond him or any other actor. But it is interesting to see actors portray almost every major Washington figure of the last 5 years -- Jo Lo Truglio doesn't really look like Jeff Sessions, but he might be the only person elfin enough to play him, and they found a dead ringer for Jared Kushner in Phillip Ricio. 

Netflix is marketing "Deaf U," a show about deaf students at Gallaudet University, as a 'docusoap,' which I suppose is a novel term for the kind of drama-heavy reality shows we've been watching for decades. That made me think of things like "Laguna Beach," but really this show reminds me more of "Love on the Spectrum" in that it's a show where pretty much the whole cast is disabled, and there's this really wide range of likable and unlikable personalities that I think is really refreshing and is probably better for representing and humanizing a marginalized community than any show with just one or two disabled people in it. 

This is Freeform's attempt at kind of a teen-friendly version of an informative topical comedy show like "Last Week Tonight" or "Patriot Act" to run for a few weeks before the election. I think it's fine, I'm not totally the audience for it but I'm glad they're doing it, and it's made me laugh a few times. 

It's interesting to see Showtime do a docuseries about the history of The Comedy Store two years after canceling "I'm Dying Up Here," which was basically about The Comedy Store in the '70s with all the names changed (except Johnny Carson). That show might have been better if they didn't fictionalize everything, the real stories and people are just more interesting than the stuff they came up with. But it kind of feels like a missed opportunity that they seemingly made this show right after Mitzi Shore died in 2018, she's kind of the main character of the story and it would've been great to actually have her interviews alongside all the comics. 

This Netflix docuseries profiles different pro sports coaches, I only watched the episode with Doc Rivers but I liked it, coaching is such a strange job and he seems like a really interesting, thoughtful guy. 

A new interview show on PBS, kind of dry but I like it, I never thought Charlie Rose was actually a good interviewer so I would be fine with this kind of filling that space, Corrigan seems to really listen to the people she's talking to. 

A dog grooming competition show on HBO Max that really leans into the silliness of the concept and has fun with it, but still takes the craft seriously and lets the competitors be creative and take pride in their work, cool show.