TV Diary
a) "The Bear"
Jeremy Allen White was always the standout of the many previously unknown actors in the cast of "Shameless" and I was always a little surprised that he get some big movie roles during that show's 11 seasons. But now it feels like "The Bear" is his big breakout moment, sort of playing the same character he played on "Shameless": a smart, ambitious young guy trying to scrape out a life in Chicago. I worked as a line cook throughout high school and college, and "The Bear" makes me pretty nostalgic for it while also reminding me why I'm glad I don't do that kind of exhausting, low paying work anymore. A few elements of the story are kind of eye-rolling but the cast is so good and it's such an endlessly watchable show, I'm glad it found an audience in this crowded TV landscape.
b) "Loot"
I think Maya Rudolph is probably the most talented "SNL" alum of her generation who hasn't really had a stellar career since leaving the show, every time she does something new I hope it's gonna be the big star vehicle she deserves. "Loot" is a sitcom where Rudolph's character is a Mackenzie Bezos type who divorces a tech billionaire and becomes one of the world's richest women, and I've seen some people characterize the show as tonedeaf, which is weird because it seems very clear to me that the humor is purposefully derived from Rudolph's character being a tonedeaf wealthy person. It's not a home run or anything, but there are usually a couple huge laughs in every episode where Rudolph is hilarious in a scene where a less performer probably wouldn't have made it work nearly as well.
c) "Black Bird"
This Apple TV+ miniseries is the first time I've seen Taron Egerton play an American, and his performance as a swaggering coke dealer in "Black Bird" is a little cheesy. But his chemistry with Sepideh Moafi is great, and Paul Walter Hauser is so good as a weird creepy serial killer that I kind of wish he had been on "Mindhunter." Ray Liotta, in one of his final roles, plays a dying old man, but it doesn't really feel like he's being given enough to do.
FX has always excelled at these grizzled tough guy shows, and this is the best one they've had in a long time, with Jeff Bridges as a badass retired spy evading hitmen and John Lithgow as his old ally/adversary. The show builds tension so well with these long, quiet dialogue-driven scenes and occasionally explosions of violence, and I love that they didn't reveal a major plot point until the 3rd episode that I think most shows would've dropped into the pilot. After Alia Shawkat really showed her range on "Search Party" it's great to see her do something heavy like this.
This Starz show is about Queen Elizabeth I as a teenager, seems well made but I really haven't found it very interesting at all, have started to just tune it out when it's on.
f) "Moonhaven"
"Moonhaven" depicts a future where there's a big utopian human colony on the moon while things are getting worse and worse on Earth -- the kind of future the billionaires are dreaming about these days, basically. And then there's a murder on the moon, and all the peace there starts to get interrupted. I like the cast and there seems to be some potential in the story but I dunno, the look and a lot of the premise feels weirdly dated, like it's a 1950s sci-fi story.
g) "Irma Vep"
I haven't seen the 1996 film Irma Vep, but I guess director Olivier Assayas decided to remake it as an HBO miniseries. And I like it, it's funnier than I expected and kind of a sharp show business satire, definitely want to go back and watch the original although maybe I'll finish the series first so I don't know how it ends.
Last week we were visiting with my mother-in-law, and she was telling us she watched something where Chris Pine played a Navy SEAL, and she couldn't remember the title but was describing the plot at length, and I just kept trying to figure out what it was and googling Chris Pine projects. Then we finally figured out that she meant Chris Pratt and it was "The Terminal List." I feel like Pratt got this by yelling at his agent to find him a project where he can be a Navy SEAL who plays guitar, and he feels a little out of depth with the darkness of the story. I like seeing Constance Wu in something like this, though.
i) "Boo, Bitch"
I put the first episode of this on, and my wife, who'd seen Lana Condor in the To All The Boys I've Loved Before movies, seemed to be enjoying another cute story with Condor as a high schooler. And my wife was just so disappointed when she learned that the name of the show is "Boo, Bitch" and that Condor's character was about to die and be a ghost for the rest of the series. Personally, though, I like the silly title and the supernatural twist.
j) "Maggie"
The dreamy Rebecca Rittenhouse was one of the many supporting players that passed through the revolving door of the ensemble cast on "The Mindy Project" for a season or two, and now she has her own sitcom on Hulu as a psychic who freaks out when she starts to see glimpses of her own future for the first time. Some of the jokes on this show are extremely cheesy and it's very easy to imagine this concept being executed in a less hacky way, but it has a certain charm to it, I may like Rittenhouse and Nichole Sakura from "Superstore" enough to keep watching.
This show is about a London counter-terrorism bomb squad, very somber action-packed stuff, doesn't really interest me.
l) "P-Valley"
It's tough for shows that had to take a long pandemic break after their first season, but two years away seemed to build anticipation for "P-Valley" and really solidify it into a hit, Nicco Annan really seems like the breakout star. But I really love Elarica Johnson, hard to believe she's British in real life.
The first season of "Only Murders In The Building" debuted only 10 months ago, so it's refreshing to get a second season so soon, I guess Steve Martin and Martin Short figured they're not getting any younger and should strike while the iron's hot. And Short really gets the best lines in this show, perhaps even moreso in the second season.
The first season of "We Hunt Together" kind of felt like a complete self-contained story: a couple went on a Mickey-and-Mallory style killing spree, and at the end the guy, Baba (Dipo Ola) died and took the blame for the murders, and the girl, Freddy (Hermione Corfield), pretty much got off scot-free. But they did a good job of picking the story right back up for a second season, with Freddy as this true crime celebrity who everyone thinks is guilty but can't prove it, and a new series of murders that might involve her.
A Spanish thriller on Netflix about a serial killer in prison, feels kind of over the top and dumb.
Despite the horrible title, this Netflix series is pretty good, feels like a German attempt at Wolf of Wall Street with some very entertaining dialogue and performances.
I've never played a Resident Evil game or watched any of the movies, but I figured I'd give this Netflix animated series a try, thinking it might be some cool stylized anime thing. But it looks just like a video game cut scene, that horrible uncanny valley Polar Express aesthetic, I hate that shit.
A pretty good animated horror comedy series on Netflix, sort of pitched as a 'young adult animation' like "Infinity Train," which seems like a pretty promising genre on the rise right now.
s) "Ghostforce"
When this show premiered on Disney XD a while back it seemed like my entire family roasted it and dismissed it for being crappy and having characters with the same color scheme as the characters on "PJ Masks."
This is one of those cartoons that was popular when I was a young adult who didn't have kids yet, so I never really saw it until my kids started checking out reruns, and honestly, it's pretty funny, I thought it was gonna be dumb.
I was hoping OWN's first late night show would be a "Tonight Show"-type variety show but it's more of a chatty "Watch What Happens Live" type thing with reality star guests. Seems like they're having fun but not really my speed.
Last week my family played this fun board game called Mind The Gap where there are Trivial Pursuit-type questions categorized by whether a boomer or gen X or millennial or zoomer is most likely to know the answer, and it was a real hoot. This ABC game show operates on much the same premise, and is also fun to watch. Also apparently I'm still very attracted to Kelly Ripa?
The name of this Netflix show has an unfortunate similarity to the middling animated film The Secret Life of Pets, but it's a docuseries about animals with cool skills or unusual habits, really charming stuff.
A lot of Paramount+ shows are kind of an awkward extension of the MTV brand, and this show is like an update of "Pimp My Ride" with houses where they probably intended on coming up with a better title than "Hip Hop My House" and never did. Cam'ron has always seemed more washed up and sad than other aging rap stars, and never moreso than here, helping people have, like, a Rae Sremmurd-themed home makeover.
I was ready for this Netflix show to be pretty ridiculous and potentially gross. But the host who does the sex room renovations is this charming gray-haired British woman named Melanie Rose, and most of her clients are normal affable married couples, so the whole thing gets a little demystified and destigmatized.
Taking a bunch of obnoxious upper class young adults and telling them they're going to be on a fun glamorous reality show and then sticking them in a wilderness survival situation isn't the worst idea. But putting 'snowflake' in the title and making it like this sneering at lazy zoomers thing is so corny it takes all the fun out of it.
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on Monday, July 11, 2022 at 12:09 PM.
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