I enjoy thinking about the whole intersection between science and cooking (Netflix's "Salt Fat Acid Heat"? Awesome show, I loved it). And "Lessons In Chemistry" and the novel it's based on have a lot of fun with that in the story of a '60s chemist who becomes a cooking show host. As with the many many other period pieces on TV the last few years about fictional female trailblazers, there's a lot of feelbad moments old school sexism and feelgood moments of the resourceful young woman triumphing over adversity, and I'm often left wondering if there was a real life figure with a similar story they could've made this about where it would feel a little less calculated to appeal to modern sensibilities. It's a pretty good show, though, one of Brie Larson's best performances to date, and I always find Lewis Pullman charming. I did, however, really dislike the episode narrated by a dog (voiced by B.J. Novak), that was pretty stupid. 

"Midnight Mass" and Oculus are still by far my favorite things Mike Flanagan has made, but this is pretty far up there. It felt like a really loving and inspired tribute to Edgar Allen Poe much in the same way Doctor Sleep was to Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick, there's tons of plot elements and names from other Poe stories and poems (I can't tell you how excited I was when they finally Cask of Amontillado'd a guy). But it's also kind of a "Succession"-style satire of a wealthy family with lots of nods to the Sacklers, and Flanagan's repertory cast has a lot of fun with these characters (plus two people from "iZombie"!). There were times when it went more over-the-top than it needed to, but I still really enjoyed it. 

"Bodies" is a Netflix show with four parallel timelines of London murder investigations in 1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053. The first couple episodes didn't really appeal to me, though, it just felt like it just crumpled under the weight of its own high concept ambitions and didn't grab me with the characters or the story. 

"The Irrational" is, like the awful "Found," one of the only new network shows this fall that NBC had delayed before the WGA strike. It's better than "Found," but a bit of a more formulaic procedural, with "Law & Order" veteran Jesse L. Martin, I find it a little charming but also a little dull. 

A Canadian series currently airing on PBS in America, about a First Nations woman who was adopted into an affluent Jewish family in the '60s. I like it so far, feels like it's tonally and visually closer to the mark than a lot of recent '60s period pieces, without being too flashy or self-congratulatory about it. 

A Canadian series currently airing on The CW in America, about a former cop and her mystery novelist mother (who's vain and keeps bringing up the time somebody said they look like sisters), who kind of stumble into becoming amateur detectives. A pretty fun show, I feel like Lea Thompson probably always had a good role like this in her and just hadn't been given the right opportunities very often. 

Another Canadian series currently airing on The CW in America, this one a little more generic "a woman in crisis returns to her hometown after many years away" show with actors from "One Tree Hill" and "Gilmore Girls." 

Shea Serrano made the jump from journalism and bestselling books to scripted television with Freevee's "Primo" earlier this year, and now he's got another pretty good sitcom, "Neon," on Netflix. "Neon" is about an aspiring reggaeton star, and it follows the template of most scripted shows about the music industry or show business in general, that "Entourage"-type thing about a plucky hero and the crew of friends that believes in their talent. Not my favorite formula, but "Neon" is pretty charming, good cast. Emma Ferreira was on another new Netflix sitcom earlier this year, "Unstable," and is one of the best things about both shows, I hope she keeps booking gigs everywhere. 

I never really read R.L. Stine when I was a kid -- I went straight to darker stuff like Edgar Allen Poe and Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark -- but I like that there's kind of entry-level horror stuff for children of a certain age. This new Disney+ series is alright, some cool visual effects, and I'm glad the Travis Scott hit "Goosebumps" has finally been used in the Goosebumps franchise. I'm irritated that Disney+ put out the first 5 episodes and is then releasing the other 5 weekly, feels like they couldn't decide between the two popular ways to roll out a streaming series and tried to do both. 

Another kid-friendly horror show, a Netflix sitcom about a 13-year-old vampire. Cute, but not really for me. 

The first season of "Wolf Like Me" was a pretty weird little horror comedy that had a surprising amount of dramatic tension given that the leads, Isla Fisher and Josh Gad, are known mainly for comedy. I'm really please it's back for a second season, and I think they've leaned a little more into laughs, without losing that dramatic gravity. 

"Our Flag Means Death" seemed to me like a fun little oddity the first time around, but I think I underestimated it, it's just a great time with a ton of great characters. And the ensemble got even bigger and better in the second season, I particularly loved the additions of Ruibo Qian and Madeleine Sami.  

There have been so many Marvel shows on Disney+ in the past few years, many of them one-offs that just kind of zipped by in 6 or 8 episodes without really leaving much of a lingering impression. So I'm glad that they brought back "Loki" for a second season and it's actually getting better, it feels like they've finally got something that feels like series television. And I'm glad the show feels a little less about Loki in a universe full of parallel Lokis thanks to some great additions to the cast including Ke Huy Quan and Rafael Casal. 

Kelsey Grammer had a pretty great and unlikely run, appearing as a recurring character on the third season of "Cheers" and eventually turning Frasier Crane into a TV icon for 20 years and many Emmys. But bringing Frasier back one more time for a sequel series where he goes back to Boston, without any of the other characters from "Cheers" or the original "Frasier," just feels kind of thirsty. The new show has an okay cast and occasionally makes me laugh when the writing falls into those familiar old rhythms, but there's just a weird uncanny valley quality to all of it. 

"The Venture Bros." had a remarkable run, with 80 incredibly entertaining episodes over the last 20 years, and as a fan I don't think I could ask for more. That said, it was really frustrating that Cartoon Network renewed the show for an 8th and final season, and then reneged and canceled the show during the pandemic, after Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer had already worked on writing the season, and allowed them to just do a finale movie. Radiant Is The Blood Of The Baboon Heart is even more dense and action-packed than "Venture" usually is, since they probably tried to fit as many of their ideas for the final season into the equivalent of three episodes, and the big reveal about Rusty and The Monarch felt like a nice button to put on the story to make it really feel like a finale. So if this is the end of the entire franchise, I'm happy with it, but I'm very curious to see what these guys do next whether or not it has anything to do with Team Venture. 

I've only watched one episode of this Korean series on Paramount+ but it was good, and felt like it could've worked very well as a self-contained horror movie. I don't know if any of the subsequent episodes can quite match the setup and reveal, I like how they did most of it with just two characters in a hotel room with a long dialogue-driven scene. 

A pretty good Turkish update on Frankenstein on Netflix, I probably would've watched more of it by now if there wasn't such a glut of horror-themed TV coming out in October. 

This Netflix telenovela has a pretty intriguing plot about a young woman taking on a false identity to infiltrate a family and get revenge, but as with telenovelas, there are so many episodes I don't think I'll stick with it to see where the story goes. 

This Korean show on Netflix is about a university student who realizes that one of the girls living in his dorm is a former K-Pop idol (and apparently the actress really was in a pop group). If this was an American show, the premise wouldn't really work (mainly because we haven't had multiple successful girl groups in U.S. pop music in decades), but the whole K-Pop angle makes it interesting because I'm sure there are a lot of kids who get chewed up and spit out by that industry and then try to lead a normal life. 

This Netflix series from India is a pretty gripping thriller about people living on two islands that are overcome with a myserious illness. 

A Netflix reality show where six couples go to a beautiful island and compete in challenges to win a prize, and find out that their mother-in-laws are also there, predicated on the whole '70s sitcom premise that everybody hates their mother-in-law. My mother-in-law is pretty great! This show is dumb. 

A queer ghost hunter reality show created by Kristen Stewart and her hairstylist friend? Sure, why not. Silly but fun. 

This kinda feels like an example of the documentary industrial complex, we don't need hours of television about this subject. A good solid magazine feature about this, maybe, that I'd read. 

Apparently a BBC journalist was shot in broad daylight in front of her house in 1999 and nobody's really sure who did it, pretty crazy story that I'm surprised I'd never heard of before this Netflix docuseries. 

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »

| Next »