TV Diary
The "investigation of a teen or child's murder in a small town full of secrets" genre of miniseries has really exploded in the past decade, it feels like one or two of these shows pop up every year. Only a couple of those shows have veered into any kind fantasy or heightened reality direction like the genre's obvious forerunner "Twin Peaks," though, and "Mare Of Easttown" heads in the opposite direction of extreme realism. Despite the familiar territory, however, I'm all in after a couple of episodes. The first episode made my heart break for Cailee Spaeny's character even before she turned up dead, Kate Winslet's performance is kind of casually brilliant (I love when she went to the fancy author's event and shoved an hors d'oeurve behind a couch cushion), her dynamic with Evan Peters is entertaining. And Craig Zobel, director of my favorite feel-bad movie of the 2010s, Compliance, is so good with all the scene-setting small town Pennsylvania details. I liked Phyllis Somerville's little bit in the first episode, it reminded me how much I like her and then I saw the "in loving memory" note in the credits and found out that she passed away last year.
My wife has read a couple of the books in this series so as usual she's been able to explain to me a little of what's going on in Netflix's new fantasy YA franchise, I'm not really hooked on the story yet but the cast and the special effects are pretty good so I'm enjoying it.
"Parks And Recreation" is, for me, one of Michael Schur's lesser creations, so I was iffy about his new show that to some extent seemed to be another one about civics class nerds working in local government. But the first episode sets an interesting plot in motion and it seems to be maybe tonally a little more like "The Good Place" in terms of how the humor and the personality clashes work. Plus it's pretty cool to see a show with an Indigenous showrunner and actors and writers that has kind of a frank sense of humor about an aspect of American culture and history that most shows wouldn't know the first thing about getting a laugh out of.
d) "Chad"
Adults playing children is something that works fine in sketch comedy but I tend to find it more irritating than funny if not downright uncomfortable in a series or movie. A lot of people love the show "PEN15" but I just couldn't stomach more than an episode or two. But Nasim Pedrad was consistently great in her 5-year "SNL" tenure and I've always wanted to see more of her since then, so I was willing to give "Chad" a chance. And it doesn't help that Chad, the 14-year-old boy Pedrad plays, looks almost exactly like the kid Martin Short played in the movie Clifford, but this show is pretty hilarious at times ("obviously I'm a huge feminist but if you could redirect your evil female energy") so maybe I can get past my hangup.
It's interesting to see the American comedy zeitgeist refracted in other countries in shows like "Why Are You Like This," which feels a bit like an Australian answer to "Broad City." Not derivative per se but certainly the stars/writers are poking fun at themselves in a similar way.
Another comedy from a different part of the world that kind of feels like it would be a little too hip and of-the-moment for all but a handful of American networks, starring Brandon and Domnhall Gleeson as best friends who are not related, which is kind of weird considering how much they look like each other. Domnhall's been in a lot of stuff but I haven't seen Brandon in anything before and he's got great comedy chops, very fearless.
g) "The Nevers"
Another show with Irish accents that are very enjoyable to listen to. Joss Whedon created this show and worked on the first half of the first season before stepping away from the show amidst his professional taking a dive last year, and it's been pretty awkward watching HBO try to market the show without mentioning him and critics trying to set up the forthcoming post-Whedon episodes as inevitably far better than the ones airing right now. But who knows, maybe the show will get great without him, I've never really had too much attachment to his work give or take "Firefly," so I'm trying to just enjoy it as another silly HBO show, and the premise is kind of cool and the mostly unfamiliar cast is excellent, Amy Manson seems to really make the most of her scenery-chewing villain role.
An excellent ABC sitcom about the complicated relationship between 3 adult siblings who are in very different financial situations, with the brilliant casting decision of having the wealthiest sibling played by Jimmy Tatro, best known for his pitch perfect portrayal of an absurdly obnoxious teenager in "American Vandal" a few years ago. As someone who doesn't really have warm feelings towards "That '70s Show" but regards Topher Grace pretty highly as a comic actor, I'm happy to see him in a really promising new show, although the weakest part of every "Home Economics" episode is when they force him into some contrived slapstick physical comedy scenario.
i) "Them"
People are pretty unhappy about this show, and I get it just from the little I watched and what I read about later episodes. "Lovecraft Country" tread similar territory and occasionally went arguably too far, but "Them" seems to exist a lot more artlessly for shock value.
This miniseries has kind of a novel structure, in that it's constantly jumping between three timelines: the same day in three consecutive years, before during and after some kind of kidnapping plot gone awry. I don't really find it too engaging beyond the cleverness of that format, though.
k) "Rebel"
Episodes of "Rebel" open with a slightly silly chyron that the show is "based on Erin Brockovich's life today," I guess to differentiate it from the events earlier in her life that the movie Erin Brockovich were based on. But instead of having Sagal play Brockovich, she's playing a similarly feisty character who goes by the ridiculous name Rebel, and the whole thing is a little too cartoony for its own good.
l) "Kung Fu"
The CW made a shrewd decision to reboot the old white guy martial arts show "Kung Fu" with an actual Asian American lead, kind of like what people wanted the "Iron Fist" series to be. And it's a decent little action series, not as campy as the source material but still pretty broad.
m) "Big Shot"
It's kind of funny that in between enormous Star Wars and Marvel event series, Disney+'s programming is stuff like "John Stamos is a coach in Coach Stamos." "Big Shot" manages to be about as well written and aware of sports show conventions as it can be, but it's not exactly a materpiece.
Jamie Foxx is rightly praised as a generational talent who can do a staggering number of things well, but apparently he's not too stuck up about it to do an extremely silly family sitcom on Netflix about his life as a single father. I kind of respect that, but the show's not really any good, despite the way he throws himself into it with typical commitment. I liked how when the characters smoke, the smoke is really poorly CGI's into the scene.
o) "Zero"
Netflix's "Zero" is about a Black teenager in Italy who feels invisible and then gains the actual superpower to turn invisible, which is a great premise, but I haven't watched too much of the show yet, it hasn't totally hooked me.
This is an anime about a yakuza boss who retires to become a househusband for his career girl wife, and it's just such a great over-the-top satire of anime action tropes, I'm finding it even funnier than I normally would because my 11-year-old son watches practically nothing but anime these days.
The first season of "Everything's Gonna Be Okay" was a really charming and memorable portrait of two teen sisters whose parents are both dead being raised by their older brother. And the second season, more than any show I've watched in the past year that takes place during the COVID-19 pandemic, really seems to capture what life at home during the pandemic has been like, what everyone being home all the time has done to families. The episode with Richard Kind and Maria Bamford was fantastic.
r) "Breeders"
Another sort of insightful comedy about family in its second season, "Breeders" can be a little tough to watch sometimes - some episodes have very few laughs at all - but I'm finding it really engrossing any way.
s) "Manifest"
My attention wandered a lot during the first season of this show, and coming back to it for the second season, I feel like I have less and less of an idea what's going on, I think I'm getting off the bus now.
I thought things were going pretty well with "SNL" kind of shaking off its post-Trump hangover, at least until they announced that Elon Musk is hosting an episode soon and kind of brought some unpleasant feelings back. But Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman have really been doing great out of the featured player set, and Melissa Villasenor has really hit her stride, I think she might be the one who gets her due whenever Kate McKinnon decides to stop carrying the show on her back.
Raoul Peck makes some very strong points in this HBO miniseries about colonialism and genocide, but I think a lot of the show's personality comes straight from Peck's decision to do the voiceover narration himself, his voice has a really commanding presence, almost a Werner Herzog sort of thing.
A CNN miniseries about a woman who successfully sued the KKK after son was lynched in 1981, pretty crazy story, can't believe I had never heard it before.
w) "Sasquatch"
The people in this Hulu series are about as intense as you'd expect people in a documentary about Bigfoot to be, I don't know if I believe any of this stuff but there's a reason people are obsessed with the possibility that it's true.
It's kind of weird that Mark Wahlberg, the only billion dollar box office movie star with hate crimes on his rap sheet, is so devoted to vanity projects, like "Entourage" and "Wahlburgers" and this HBO docuseries, about how cool and relatable his exploits with his family and friends are. But this one even more than the others just makes him feel like the most vacuous careerist bro, there's really just nothing under the surface, it's all surface. But it's kind of nice to see that Marky Mark is still friends with at least one member of the Funky Bunch, Ashey Ace (although I'd really appreciate an update on Hector The Booty Inspector).
One of my favorite animated shows of the last few years just wrapped its 4th and final season, I don't think it was their best (or at least my 5-year-old hasn't watched it over and over like the other seasons) but it was a solid one, I enjoyed the whole story of Ryan and Min-Gi's band and related to it.
I grew up on stuff like "Sesame Street" and "Fraggle Rock" and kind of wish there was more puppetry on contemporary kid's TV. But watching this, which looks less like Jim Henson stuff and more like "Crank Yankers," I dunno, the style of puppetry definitely matters. I do like this show's sense of humor and satirical take on fantasy tropes, though.
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on Friday, April 30, 2021 at 7:36 AM.
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