TV Diary
The big stylistic flourish of "Kevin Can Fuck Himself," that the show regularly switches between a bright shrill laugh track sitcom and a darker, more realistic drama, might be a little more impressive if "WandaVision" didn't already become one of the most acclaimed shows of the year with a similar trick (and a little more different stuff going on beyond constantly flipping between those two contrasting tones). The performances by both Annie Murphy, as the person who exists in both of these worlds, and Eric Petersen, as the person who only exists in the broad sitcom world, are both really impressive, but I kind of don't know where this show is going or if there's a point to doing this kind of dark satire of a genre that's such an easy target.
b) "Physical"
I feel like a broken record, but with period shows being really in vogue these days, I feel like I'm always watching something about a fictional trailblazer of some interesting industry and wishing they'd made a fact-based show about whoever really did that stuff. Rose Byrne's character in "Physical" is a well rendered, three-dimensional protagonist, a woman who starts the show broke, in a bad marriage, and suffering from a serious eating disorder but eventually starts an empire of aerobics instruction VHS tapes seen in frequent flash forwards. I don't know if I'm eager to get the origin story out the way and get away from the shitty husband, or if I want them to linger on the goofy surfer couple who helps her get started (Della Saba and Lou Taylor Pucci, who it's a little weird to see as a bearded grownup so long after his various coming-of-age roles in the mid-2000s).
c) "Starstruck"
This 6-episode British series starring New Zealand comedian Rose Matafeo was really funny and charming, kind of an anti-romcom at times that kept driving the characters apart but it had a sweet ending, I'm glad they're getting a second season. What made the whole 'a movie star dates a common person' story work is that she didn't know who he was and he clearly isn't that into show business so it just feels like they're both trying to escape these aspects of his fame that they can't quite get around. One thing I would say is that Minnie Driver's hilarious role was too fleeting, but I suppose the show did just fine without shoehorning her into more episodes.
The 2018 movie Blindspotting was a good but flawed movie, and this series is sort of a sequel/spinoff that continues the narrative focusing on one of the supporting characters from the movie, Ashley (Jasmine Cephas Jones). There's still some of the sort of heightened reality gags and poetry slam moments that made me roll my eyes in the movie, but it's a pretty engaging, funny show with a strong cast that includes, sort of unexpectedly, Helen Hunt.
This show on The CW is about some hot people in a small New England town who find a way to declare the town its own country in order to oppose a big corporation's mining operation tearing the place apart. I don't know if the story makes sense but it's a cute little show.
f) "Sex/Life"
I feel very pandered to by this show where Sarah Shahi has a lot of gratuitous sex, but I'm not complaining. The voiceover is kind of cheesy, though.
This series based on a YA novel is definitely one of the first non-Marvel non-Star Wars show on Disney+ that I found genuinely impressive, kind of is in the same niche as A Series of Unfortunate Events but the whole thing feels very witty and twee and influenced by Wes Anderson, which could be terrible but they pull it off well with a cast that includes Tony Hale and Kristen Schaal. The kids in the cast are great too, particularly Emmy DeOliveira, but I think the person who's really surprisingly perfect in a show like this is Ryan Hurst from "Sons of Anarchy."
This Italian import on Netflix is pretty promising, features present day characters flashing back to the point in the '90s when the Internet changed their lives and looks at how that's reverberated through time.
This Netflix import is basically "Gossip Girl" with a Swedish prince, I find it pretty dull.
j) "Katla"
This Netflix import is about Icelandic volcanoes with a supernatural twist, pretty cool stuff, need to watch more of it.
This music docuseries on Netflix is really fun and enjoyable stuff. Even on the topics they cover that I'm already a know-it-all about like Britpop or AutoTune, they get some fresh perspectives in the artist interviews that make them worth watching. And I feel like music critics aren't talking heads in music docs as much as they used to be back when David Fricke was in everything, so it's fun to see some critics of my generation like Chris Molanphy and Julianna Escobedo Shepherd pop up in episodes.
l) "The Cube"
I kind of wish this TBS game show hosted by Dwyane Wade was exactly like the fictitious game show "The Box" that Matt LeBlanc hosted in "Episodes." It is more or less about as ridiculous, though.
m) "Big Timber"
This Netflix reality show about Canadian loggers is a nice low key thing to watch, although it's kind of hilarious how much cursing they have to bleep, and I snicker immaturely every time the narrator says something about choking a monster log.
A Peacock docuseries that I put on and then kind of tuned out, I'm kind of tired of hearing about this crap and I don't think they had the scoop on any new information.
I really respect that Helen Mirren doesn't take herself too seriously and is game to appear in things that might be considered lowbrow for an actor of her stature. But this goofy ABC show where voice actors do comedic riffs on the interior monologues of animals in nature documentary footage is really just beneath her, it's cheesy.
Sort of a modern "Schoolhouse Rock" kind of thing exec produced by the Obamas, 10 little animated music videos with popular musicians singing about how the U.S. government works. It's cute, maybe sometime if I'm trying to explain some of this stuff to my kids I'll show one of these to them.
q) "Evil"
"Evil" was one of my favorite new shows of the 2019-2020 season and pretty much the only show on CBS I care about. So naturally, when it finally came back after a year without new episodes post-COVID, CBS moved it over to Paramount+, the one streaming service I already decided I didn't care about and wouldn't pay for. So I watched the first episode of the 2nd season that was free on Amazon and it was really good, I'm glad they're still leaning into making Michael Emerson as creepy as possible, but now I'm trying to figure out if I like this show enough to take the Paramount+ plunge and I'm really annoyed about it.
r) "Generation"
The first 8 episodes of this HBO Max show came out back in March and April, and I assumed that was the whole first season and it'd be back next year. But now they've come back a couple months later with 8 more episodes. The two big story arcs that kind of ran their course at the end of the first 8 episodes, the baby and the student who wanted to be with his guidance counselor, were really kind of the most poorly handled storylines in the show, so I'm glad to move on and see this characters in different situations, the cast is pretty charming.
s) "Dave"
I will admit that the Lil Dicky sitcom was surprisingly good in its first season, but now that the surprise has worn off, the second season already feels like a step down from the first. That's partly because his girlfriend helped redeem the character, and since they've been broken up this season, GaTa is really the only likable character in the show sometimes and Dave and his manager Mike are just the most insufferable dickheads and not in a funny way that often. And they definitely shouldn't have opened the season with the Korea episode, that one completely sucked.
I'm glad this show is a hit in Canada because it's on the 5th season and they're working on the 6th. Doesn't make me laugh as consistently as the early seasons but it's still one of the best sitcoms going.
I always wonder if "Rick And Morty" is finally gonna write itself into a corner and run out of ways to make this premise funny, but they keep managing to find some pretty creative ways to fill up episodes, I really liked the decoy family episode and the apocalypse bar crawl episode.
It's fun to see a show come back for a highly anticipated second season after the first one became a gradual word-of-mouth hit. I feel like the second season has more yelling curse words than the first season, but I guess it works, particularly in the haunted house tour sketch. My wife came home last night while I was watching this show and had a very "what the hell is this?" reaction.
A recent Cartoon Network show about talking mushrooms, my kid likes this show and the animation style is pretty cool-looking.
A Disney Channel show that got canceled 5 years ago that my 6-year-old randomly discovered and got into. It was created by Craig McCracken of "Powerpuff Girls" and "Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends" fame and is a little weird than those shows, but it's good, it's a shame it didn't really find an audience at the time.
My 6-year-old watches this cartoon on Netflix, and I don't think he really gets the queer subtext of the show, but I'm glad this cute little woke show exists.
My 6-year-old knows way more about math than what they've taught him in Kindergarten, mostly because he watched the show "Numberblocks" a lot and got obsessed with it and learned all about multiplication, so I'm glad to see more math shows on Netflix, I'm happy to see some of these educational shows actually teach kids something since you never really know sometimes if they work at all.
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on Wednesday, July 07, 2021 at 9:05 AM.
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