TV Diary
Of all the films and series made from Stephen King's work, he's been directly involved in the screenplays for a good number of them, but they're not necessarily the most well regarded or remembered King adaptations, aside from say Pet Sematary or the miniseries of "The Stand." "Lisey's Story" looks really impressive, thanks to Jackie director Pablo Larrain and a big name cast, but after 3 episodes I'm still a little iffy with it. It's funny how someone with Stephen King's wild imagination writes so many novels about novelists, and Clive Owen's character Scott Landon is a King surrogate who gets shot by an obsessive fan. Julianne Moore is his wife Lisey who's being stalked about another fan after Scott's death, and the stalker is played by Dane DeHaan, giving one of the most absurd over-the-top performances in a career that's always been bereft of subtlety. After Scott's death, he seems to be sending Lisey messages from beyond the grave through her mentally ill sister played by Joan Allen, who cuts the message "help me Lisey" into her arm, which I think is a pretty stupid and borderline offensive plot point regardless of where this strange story ends up.
One thing I like about "Sweet Tooth" is that what's driving the whole story is the very prevalent public failure to tell the difference between correlation and causation -- a deadly virus arrives around the same time that human mothers start giving birth to kids with fur, hooves, and other animal features, and so people blame the hybrid children for the virus and start hunting them. That said, it's kind of a weird mix of tones, this very dark dystopian show that stars an adorable little boy with antlers.
c) "Loki"
I definitely enjoy the MCU more when things playful and weird, and hiring Michael Waldron, a writer from "Rick And Morty" and "Community" as head writer and exec producer of "Loki" is a really good way to set the tone for a series about a character that's always been comical and unpredictable. And Owen Wilson with a mustache? Man, we've been way overdue for Owen Wilson with a mustache in series television.
d) "Solos"
"Solos" is an anthology show on Amazon Prime where more or less each of the 7 episode stars one actor in some kind of sci-fi scenario, sometimes just talking to themselves, or some kind of clone of themselves, or their future self just after they've just invented time travel. It's kind of a mixed bag, I thought the Anne Hathaway, Anthony Mackie, and Constance Wu episodes were the best ones, but in general it's all pretty cleverly constructed and keeps you guessing. It kind of worked out the same way as the recent Apple TV+ series "Calls" where each episode initially feels like a distinct, unlinked story, until you get to the last episode and see how it all ties together.
This very charming show on Peacock is about a Muslim punk band in London who meet a guitar teacher with stage fright and try to convince her to be their lead guitarist. It's very sitcommy but in an enjoyable way, the characters and the performances are just so perfectly realized and in a weird way it does kind of conjure some of the spirit of playing in a punk band.
"Little Birds" is based on a collection of erotic short stories, and is about an American debutante living in Tangiers in 1955. So it's a kinky period piece, but very stylized and imaginatively rendered, lots of surreal colors and camera angles, feels very artsy and impressionistic.
g) "Panic"
This Amazon show's tagline "every small town has a secret" really has me pining for just one TV series about a small town that's not full of secrets. The whole premise in this with teenagers playing a weird game to win the ability to leave their town just doesn't make a lot of sense, too, not interesting.
This show kind of feels like Starz attempting to have their own "Insecure," it's not bad but feels a little too soapy for a half hour show, like they haven't really found a comedic voice.
This Showtime comedy set in Brooklyn has a very relaxed, amiable vibe that I haven't seen in many recent shows about New York -- it's not about ambitious careerists or aimless hipsters or cops and criminals, people are just hanging out and going to their jobs, it's kind of refreshing.
"Home Before Dark" is probably my least favorite Apple TV+ series that I've watched so far. It's not bad, I just feel like it's a little flat, I want the story of this kid doing investigative journalism to be really cool and exciting but I don't feel any connection with the characters.
k) "Dom"
Amazon's first series that takes place in Brazil, no pun intended, a very broad and pulpy show about the son of a police officer getting mixed up in drugs and gangs. The first episode was very loud and full of cliches, no real desire to keep watching.
This is one of the worst FOX 'animation domination' shows I've ever seen that wasn't created by Seth MacFarlane, it just feels like those Secret Life of Pets movies with way worse animation and slightly more 'adult' humor, big waste of the voice cast talent.
This is very much in the middle of the pack of FOX animated sitcoms, but I'm glad it hasn't been canceled but "Bless The Harts" has, there's usually a few sharply written lines in every episode that make me laugh hard.
n) "Feel Good"
I enjoyed the first season of "Feel Good" last year and now it's back for a second final season, and the addition of John Ross Bowie to the cast is a welcome one.
The first two seasons of "Mr Inbetween" were mostly about Ray the hitman's banal daily life in Melbourne and how his double life as a career criminal occasional interferes with it. But the third season feels like things are coming to head as it all catches up with him -- he spends a couple episodes in jail after a road rage incident, and then his daughter finds his gun and shoots a hole in the wall. I'm not really sure where things are gonna end up but it seems like it's gonna get dark, but the show is still occasionally really funny.
I'm kind of glad this show has stuck around long enough to make it to 3 seasons, the combination of David Caspe's "Happy Endings"-style banter still feels really incongruous with the period piece '80s storyline, but the cast is clearly having so much fun with the dialogue. And I like the way this season started off with all the characters getting away from Wall Street and embarking on odd new careers.
q) "The Chi"
I've never found "The Chi" terribly interesting but I think I'm officially too bored with it to keep watching in season 4, I was at least serious to see how they'd course correct in season 3 without Jason Mitchell in the cast but now I just have no interest at all.
Natasia Demetriou is so funny on "What We Do In The Shadows" that I decided to check out this British series she did a couple years earlier that recently came to HBO Max and I think is getting a new season soon. Her brother Jamie Demetriou is the main character, a rental agent, and in a way it feels like a very familiar British mockumentary about an obnoxious guy who thinks he's a lot funnier and more charming than he is like the original "The Office," but they put their own spin on the formula well.
"In Treatment," an adaptation of an Israeli series, ran on HBO from 2008 to 2010, and it was good when I watched it, but I just couldn't keep up with it -- they had the unusual format of running episodes of the half hour drama 5 days a week (therapist Gabriel Byrne's weekly appointments with 5 patients) and it was just so much. After going dormant for a decade, HBO has revived "In Treatment" with a new therapist, played by Uzo Aduba, and what I've watched of it is so far is really good, but again, I have no idea if I'll be able to catch up with it all -- at 24 episodes, this is their shortest season to date, but that's still more than pretty much any scripted cable series. Amazingly, one of the producers of "In Treatment" is Mark Wahlberg -- this show may not have ever wound up on HBO if not for "Entourage."
t) "Naruto"
My 11-year-old son has gotten big into anime in the last few months, he watched every episode of "Naruto" on Netflix and now he's moved onto "Naruto: Shippuden." I guess it's a good sort of intermediate cartoon for a kid of his age but it all feels a little cheesy and childish to me. He's always asking to stay up for one more episode because the last one was a cliffhanger, but practically all of them are cliffhangers, it's such a scam.
Another anime my son has been really into, maybe a little dark for him but it's good, I'm more impressed by it.
v) "Claymore"
Between the shows our son's been watching and the latest season of "Castlevania," my wife's been on an anime kick lately too, it's about some kind of cool demon slayer lady, I like it.
w) "Trese"
Netflix just premiered this anime from the Philippines, I like the animation style but I dunno if I'm too interested in the story yet.
This Netflix show stars youtuber Daym Drops as their Guy Fieri going from city to city trying to local greasy delicacies. I've only watched the Baltimore episode but it gave me a few ideas of places I want to check out (that pork belly burger with the fried egg at Mount Vernon Marketplace looks amazing), and the host being this big animated guy whose enthusiasm for eating guy seems really genuine makes the show fun to watch.
It feels like Joel McHale is being served some kind of karmic revenge by hosting goofy high concept reality shows after making fun of them for a decade on "The Soup," but he deserves better than a show like "Crime Scene Kitchen," where teams of cooks look at a messy kitchen and the crumbs of ingredients
A very campy VH1 show that tells tales about murder cases involving NBA players and stuff. Kind of cheesy and lowbrow, but it's nice that my R&B fav Monica is getting some TV checks.
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on Monday, June 14, 2021 at 9:03 AM.
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