"Twisted Metal" is based on a demolition derby video game, and they made it into a pretty fun action comedy. Stephanie Beatriz and Thomas Haden Church are great enough in this that I kind of tolerate a constantly smirking Anthony Mackie and lots of obnoxious needledrops. When two characters who've been fighting and flirting for half the season finally kiss for the first time, the song that immediately begins playing is "Tipsy" by J-Kwon. Later, a man smashes a watermelon with his enormous penis and "Party Hard" by Andrew W.K. immediately begins playing and okay, that one was pretty good. 

I haven't read the novel this Amazon series is based on, kinda slow moving but very moody and atmospheric, I'm impressed by Glendyn Ivin's direction. Sigourney Weaver really isn't believable as an Australian, though, I wish they just kept the whole cast Australian instead of putting one American star out in front. 

This show is a good example of how Paramount+ doesn't know if it wants to be an old-fashioned network or a contemporary cable/streaming outlet. If this was on CBS, it would be called "Special Ops," and if it was on Showtime, it would be called "Lioness," but on Paramount+ they use both names and it doesn't really work. I'm not a big Taylor Sheridan skeptic, I get it, I haven't kept up with "Yellowstone" but I think it's a good, entertaining show. This Zoe Saldana spy show is probably the most dull and solemn Sheridan show to date, though, it feels like a waste to do a series with Nicole Kidman in a thankless supporting role and Morgan Freeman in an even smaller role. 

The CW has imported a lot of Canadian shows for its summer programming, and it feels like Canadian TV still committed to making solid old-fashioned sitcoms a little more than American TV right now. It's nice to see Meaghan Rath from the SyFy version of "Being Human" again, she's very funny in "Children Ruin Everything," they lay on the title sentiment a little thick but I enjoy family sitcoms that are a little more barbed and unsentimental about the ups and downs of parenting. 

Another decent Canadian sitcom on The CW now, so Canadian that the characters dance to "BaKardi Slang" at the end of the first episode, Rakhee Morzaria is really funny. 

"Son Of A Critch" just feels like a Canadian version of "The Goldbergs" based on creator Mark Critch's memories of growing up in the '80s. Kind of fun to see Malcolm McDowell play a cranky sitcom grandfather. 

A lot of shows get canceled these days and talk about jumping to another network or streamer but it rarely actually happens. So it was a huge relief last year when "Minx" didn't get picked up for a second season on HBO Max and Starz immediately stepped up to take the show. And the second season is great so far, the Jake Johnson/Ophelia Lovibond dynamic really drives the show but they've got a great ensemble and keep adding good new characters. Elizabeth Perkins is so funny on both this and the current season of "The Afterparty," I feel like she's building up a well deserved career revival right now. 

"Heels" star Stephen Amell recently made an ass of himself openly criticizing the WGA/SAG strike and getting a ton of bad publicity just as the show was finally returning for a second season, which drives me nuts because I love this show and I don't know anybody else that watches it. But the cast is so good, especially Chris Bauer, Trey Tucker, Kelli Berglund, and Mary McCormack, I'm really enjoying spending time with these characters and this story again, the way the cartoonish pro wrestling storylines parallel the behind-the-scenes drama is so much fun to watch. 

"Good Omens" is based on a book I love by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, but Pratchett died before the Amazon series was went into production, so I figure it would just be a one season thing. So it was an awesome surprise that Gaiman went ahead and made a second season using ideas he and Pratchett had for a second book that they never finished. 

I'm watching the third and final season of "Physical" with a lot of interest in exactly how the story is going to end. That's partly because in the show's early episodes I wondered if this was going to be an inspiring wish fulfillment thing about a fictional female trailblazer triumphing over her bad marriage and eating disorder to become a superstar fitness instructor. But the further along we go with Sheila Rubin's story, the more she seems like an antihero who's totally losing any moral grounding, and her sanity, in her pursuit of success. So I'm curious what kind of note this is all ending on. I still have kind of mixed feelings about the show in general, and feel like they've sort of cycled through some great supporting players too quickly, but I like the cast right now, particularly Sheila's dynamic with Greta (Dierdre Friel) and Fidelia (Paloma Esparza Rabinov). 

"Breeders" is an excellent show that I think has really grown and had some really daring and engrossing stories since its first season, and I was looking forward to its 4th and final season. I have mixed feelings about it so far, partly because they've jumped forward a few years for the last season, something that's become a really trendy way for sitcoms to end in the last decade ("Parks & Recreation," "New Girl," "Brockmire"). "Breeders" already did this once, jumping ahead from season 1 to season 2 and recasting Paul and Ally's children with slightly older actors, and they've done it again for season 4. And it really bummed me out this time, because their son Luke had really become kind of the emotional core of the show as played by Alex Eastwood in seasons 2 and 3, and now he's played by a new actor and it just feels like some stranger, not the same character at all. It seems like they were just so eager to end the show with this storyline of Luke as a young adult becoming a father but I wish they didn't recast the role. 

TBS has been such a clusterfuck the last few years that I'm really grateful that one of my favorite shows, "Miracle Workers," has survived on there for four whole seasons. And they appropriately decided to end the show with an apocalyptic story with lots of Mad Max jokes. I love seeing how they use the same ensemble in different ways each season, such a fun way to do a show. 

This is one of those shows where it feels like the main character is the biggest drag on the show, Julio is played by creator Chris Estrada and I'm sure he just thinks the show needs a straight man reacting to the funny other characters, but Julio really just feels like more and more like a miserable buzzkill, the way he treats Maggie is so annoying. The show is fun sometimes, though, the two-part hostage negotiation episode is probably the high point of the series. 

I tend to complain a lot about the poor state of 'adult animation' these days, especially on Netflix, but this series on Netflix is really clever and funny, created and written by Norwegians with an American voice cast including Jason Ritter, Christopher Meloni, and Anthony Carrigan. It's about a whole organized crime enterprise running a cruise ship and hiring this clueless inexperienced captain to be the fall guy, and it's really entertaining to watch the whole thing unravel. 

Another surprisingly good adult cartoon, I think the first one on Freeform, with Annie Murphy as a woman who inherits her late father's cult and has to decide whether to become a cult leader, very strange funny premise. 

Probably my favorite animated series on TV right now, still hilarious, the Vegas episode was one of their best. 

The first season of "Invincible" was well over two years ago and we're only getting the first half of season 2 in November and the rest next year, so I'm glad Amazon Prime threw out a special prequel episode recently to the patient fans of the show. Atom Eve is one of my favorite characters so I enjoyed the origin story but I probably would've liked this more as just another episode in the middle of a season, didn't do much more than make me impatient for more. 

This Netflix superhero cartoon from Zambia has a pretty cool animation style, I put it on one day and I think my 8-year-old and I watched the whole season. 

When this Netflix docuseries was announced, advertising the many rappers interviewed for the show, a lot of focus was on who wasn't mentioned, people acting like the show was going to erase Nicki Minaj or Lil Kim or whoever because they didn't grant an interview for the series -- and really "a story of women in hip-hop" is a good way to phrase it because this is just one perspective, not the end-all-be-all. And they really spoke to dozens of women and gave pioneers like Sha-Rock and Roxanne Shante and MC Lyte and Queen Latifah, as well as people like Dee Barnes and Drew Dixon, and still give Nicki and Kim their props, it's a really well done doc that covers the subject from a lot of angles really thoroughly. 

An interesting true crime docuseries on Netflix about this guy Veerappan who had just an incredible criminal career, smuggling and elephant poaching and terrorism and kidnapping politicians, like it's hard to even conceive of one person having this kind of reign of terror in America. 

This Spanish show on Netflix takes the garden variety cruelty and manipulation of modern reality dating shows and ramps it up with deepfake technology, showing people footage of their significant others flirting or kissing other people without telling them whether it's real. I almost respect the show for demonstrating how dangerous this technology is but it's also some seriously evil television. 

I enjoy the concept of this show on The CW, where a professional chef is teamed up with a friend who can't cook in some over-the-top silly cooking challenges. I'm not a terrible cook but I'm definitely not as confident in the kitchen as my wife, so I empathize with the weak links in these teams. 

I watched an episode of this obnoxious travel show on The CW without knowing who the two annoying British hosts are, turns out they played the Weasley twins in the Harry Potter movies, which I've never really watched. 

A reality show about "animal influencers" is inherently goofy, but at the end of the day it's just a show about cute animals and my son and I enjoyed a few episodes of it.