"Atlanta" was good enough often enough that I felt like a lot of Donald Glover's bad ideas were contained to his music, but he and his collaborators really let 'em all fly with "Swarm." Dominique Fishback's performance is extraordinarily committed, and there are a couple episodes where the concept sort of works or points in some interesting directions. But ultimately, it felt a lot like "This Is America," pressing on a lot of hot button issues in a sort of vacuous way, lots of violence and provocative pop culture references in service of something kind of mean, empty and glib. Also, probably would've worked better as a feature, just 3 of the best episodes with everything else trimmed out, you've got a reasonably novel little slasher movie, but as a series it really left a bad taste in my mouth. 

Delroy Lindo and Kerry Washington are great in this comedy about a man who gets out of prison after 17 years and tries to reacclimate to the outside world, and his daughter who has a lot of complex feelings about letting him back into her life. There's some familiar sitcommy humor about dysfunctional families but it really feels like they're pulling no punches with the emotional minefield of the situation and letting all the characters feel like real, flawed people. Also Brenda Strong is in her 60s now and holy shit I would still die for her. 

"School Spirits" is one of Paramount+'s more promising shows to date, the story of a teenager who dies, and then haunts her high school trying to solve her murder and meeting the ghosts of every other kid who died at the school over the years. It's both melancholy and playful about death in a way that reminds me of "Dead Like Me," which is high praise. I'm not totally sold on it yet, but Peyton List and the rest of the cast, none of whom I've really seen in anything before, are all really good, and I'm curious to see where the story goes. 

As I mentioned last week, I'd never actually seen History of the World: Part I until recently despite being a big fan of many Mel Brooks movies, and I was a little unimpressed. And I have to say, Hulu's sequel miniseries is pretty fun, for the most part it gets what worked in the original and comes up with new bits that work in the same way and occasionally have a more contemporary sensibility. Who knows how many jokes Brooks actually wrote with dozens of much younger comedy stars pitching in to pull it off, but it feels like a very loving continuation of what he started. There's a lot of Nick Kroll doing gratingly broad accents, which is not something from "Kroll Show" that I missed, but otherwise, pretty good. 

Don't really know what to make of this British comedy, Jack Farthing's character Selby is a really fascinating, magnetic screen presence, but the frequent scenes without him kind of amble onward as a comparatively uneventful slice of life story. 

Will Trent is the main character in a series of crime novels, one of those quirky fictional detectives who has personal difficulties (dyslexia, trauma from growing up in foster homes) but is incredibly good at their job. I haven't read the books, but I can tell just from watching the show that they didn't work too hard at a faithful adaption based on New York native Ramon Rodriguez's atrocious attempt at a Georgia accent as the title character. It's an above average police procedural, though, and the whole dynamic with Rodriguez and Erika Christensen is interesting. 

"Accused" is a FOX anthology series, based on a British show, with each episode about a different court case. And they try to structure each story cleverly so that you're not sure at the outset who's the defendant, or exactly what they're on trial for, and then go back and tell the backstory with some misdirection and red herrings until it's all revealed. And I have to say, some of these stories are really stupid and emotionally manipulative, turning real life issues like school shootings or surrogate mothers into these simplistic little thought exercises. 

An interesting Freeform show where a woman works a nanny for a wealthy family while scheming to steal from them, and also tries to solve the mystery of what happened to their previous nanny. It feels like the story is moving a little slow and isn't really a nailbiter, but I still enjoy it. 

Hilary Swank is the kind of acclaimed Oscar-winning actor who should have seamlessly transitioned into doing some great iconic TV roles in the past decade, but Netflix's "Away" was nothing special and I liked FX's "Trust" but kinda forgot she was in it. Now she's starring in a show on ABC that feels kind of beneath her, especially since they gave it a really lousy schedule -- the first 6 episodes aired back in the fall, then they did a dumb no-suspense cliffhanger, took it off the air for a few months, and then dumped the last 4 episodes in March. In some moments it's a good thoughtful show about journalism -- Swank had a great line in a recent episode, "editors are like dogs, they have to p*ss on everything" -- but sometimes it the plot feels ripped-from-the-headlines in a hacky way. 

This is not entirely a boilerplate teen werewolf show, despite having the same showrunner as MTV's "Teen Wolf" series. But it also has not really held my interest since a mildly promising first episode, and I feel bad for Sarah Michelle Gellar that she's been reduced to a thankless supporting role on a show like this. 

It feels like FOX put this on the air just looking to fill out their schedule with more stuff like "9-1-1," but to its credit it's not as mind-numbingly stupid as "9-1-1." But it feels very generic, like Scott Caan just needed another procedural to jump to after "Hawaii Five-0" ran its course. 

There's a long, complicated history of networks retooling sitcoms and adding new cast members trying to turn it into a hit. So I rolled my eyes pretty hard when "Welcome To Flatch" returned for a second season with Jaime Pressly added to the cast, it almost felt like someone went "Well, what was the last successful sitcom about small town life, 'My Name Is Earl'? Let's get someone from that!" That being said, Pressly fits in with their existing ensemble pretty well, and the show's ratings went up slightly, so maybe it will help them get renewed for a third season, so I accept that change happily, transparent as it feels. 

Part of the appeal of "You" is naturally seeing Joe get himself into an impossible situation and somehow manage to survive and get what he wants (at least temporarily, before he starts killing people again). And the fact that Netflix split the 4th season into 2 parts released a month apart made it seem like maybe the show really had an ace up its sleeve on how it was gonna move the story forward this time. I just kinda rolled my eyes at how this season ended, though, it was fine and may set up an interesting season 5, but it kinda feels like the show has peaked now and they should be thinking about a good series finale. 

The second TV series based on Elena Ferrante's books is on Netflix and seems to have gotten way less attention than HBO's "My Brilliant Friend." It's pretty good, though, and it's been nice to see Valeria Golino more again lately on this and "The Morning Show," she was one of the first actresses I ever had a crush on. 

This Spanish crime thriller is in its 3rd season and is I think one of my favorite foreign language show Netflix has ever had, really ludicrous storylines and entertaining dialogue but still a little grounded in reality. 

It feels like Jon Stewart's Apple TV+ series is a little less lethargic than when it started and has finally started to have a couple viral moments and start some larger conversations. I'm still not wild about the format, though, and it feels like he's moved into a less charming version of late period Letterman where his intrinsic embarrassment and self-deprecation about hosting a TV show has sort of swallowed any sincere efforts to host a TV show. 

There's a whole fascinating history with Carson guest hosts and these days when Jimmy Kimmel goes on vacation it seems like unexpected celebrities are always really excited to land a temporary late night gig. But Comedy Central deciding to bring in a different guest host on "The Daily Show" for several months after Trevor Noah's exit feels fraught and awkward. Is every guest host auditioning for a permanent gig? Are they just killing time? As influential as it's been, I think "The Daily Show" has a very particular tone and it's felt very strange at times watching people who've had other late night shows like Chelsea Handler do their take on it. So far Hasan Minhaj has been the only "Daily Show" alum in the guest host rotation and I thought he was by far the best, "Patriot Act" was an excellent show and I wish they'd just give the job to him (or Roy Wood Jr. or Desi Lydic, honestly). The low points have been Kal Penn, who just isn't really a comedian, and Marlon Wayans, who interviewed NYC mayor Eric Adams in character as a guy in a jersey named 'Quon,' just garbage. 

This is really the bottom of the barrel of reality TV, a bunch of obnoxious fame hungry minor celebrities like Anthony Scaramucci and Kate Gosselin doing a simulated military boot camp and complaining about how hard it is until most of them get injured or give up. 

I'm surprised it took this long for someone to make a How Stella Got Her Groove Back-inspired dating show about middle aged women hosted by Taye Diggs, that's money in the bank. Feels like a less embarrassing alternative to the recent "MILF Manor." 

A really weird quasi-academic reality show where a bunch of families compare their parenting styles and they try to 'prove' whether helicopter parenting or more casual parenting is better, the way they gamified these interesting subjects felt very unserious. 

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »