TV Diary
a) "The Regime"
In "The Regime," Kate Winslet plays the autocratic chancellor of a fictional European country (they don't even give the country a name, which I kind of like, it fits the loopy unreality of it all). An HBO political satire about a woman unfit to lead invites comparisons to "Veep" or "Succession," but I think the more cinematic production values and a dramatic actress of Winslet's standing give the whole thing a regal Shakespearean tragedy vibe that's nicely undercut by the humor. It seems to be getting middling reviews but I wanna see how the whole season plays out, I'm intrigued.
b) "Shogun"
This is a pretty cool lavish violent period piece, I think people have really been craving an epic series like this for a while because they're already talking about it being the new "Game of Thrones." I'm not quite as over the moon about it, but I like it so far, the big action setpieces are awesome.
I remember years ago somebody was really eager to show me the British cult series "The Mighty Boosh" and I just did not take to it at all. I like Noel Fielding's new Apple TV+ series, though, it's just kind of an unapologetically silly historical comedy in the "Monty Python" tradition.
An appropriately stylish-looking Apple TV+ period piece about Christian Dior and Coco Chanel during and after World War II. I don't really know anything about the history of these people so it's interesting to me, to learn about the people behind these famous brands. But my favorite part is definitely John Malkovich, he's great in this, I wish he got more screentime but I guess the guy he's playing is inherently a supporting player in the story.
An Apple TV+ sci-fi series about an astronaut who comes home from a mission and is either losing her mind or stuck in some kind of rupture in reality or parallel universes. It's pretty good, but I feel like I've never seen a Noomi Rapace performance that made me feel anything, like she's just occupying space where another actress might have made me actually care about the character or be more curious about their inner thoughts.
f) "Tracker"
There's a long tradition of the network airing the Super Bowl putting a scripted show on after the big game to take advantage of the big audience, sometimes an established hit, and sometimes the series premiere of a new show. "The Wonder Years" and, weirdly, "Homicide: Life On The Street" are some of the shows that aired their first episodes after the Super Bowl. This year it was "Tracker," a show about the himbo from "This Is Us" playing a survivalist who helps law enforcement find missing people in the wilderness. Pretty bland, garden variety CBS junk.
I watched the Guy Ritchie movie The Gentlemen a couple years ago and it didn't leave a big impression but it was moderately fun. The new spinoff series is a completely different set of characters in a similar story about British nobility and cannabis selling and criminal schemes, and I like it so far, Theo James is really becoming an excellent leading man.
I've only ever seen the original animated "Avatar: The Last Airbender" in passing, and I never saw the M. Night Shyamalan live action movie. But people said that movie was bad, and they're also saying the new Netflix series is even worse, which I believe, this is pretty crappy-looking.
Netflix has been churning out a ton of adaptations of books by the mystery writer Harlan Coben, I haven't finished this one yet but it seems like the promising one I've seen, in terms of the cast and production values.
I really enjoyed "Suits" during its original run and thought it had a great cast, so when "Suits" became massively popular on Netflix last year, I hoped it would do good things for the actors' career. Sarah Rafferty in particular was great on "Suits" and hasn't been in a whole lot else of note, but the new Netflix show she's in, "My Life With The Walter Boys," is just a crappy teen soap opera where she plays one of the parents.
k) "Culprits"
I like the premise of this Hulu show, about a group of criminals 3 years after they pulled off a big heist and went their separate ways, been meaning to go back and finish it at some point, the first couple episodes were promising.
I think Jon Cryer could've had a really excellent, interesting character actor career, but "Two And A Half Men" made him very rich and successful, so he's probably fine with that instead. Still, it's disappointing that his return to network TV is just a retread where he plays another pathetic divorced guy. In this show, his ex-wife is dating the owner of the Boston Celtics, played by Donald Faison, and apparently the show is based on the life of the real owner of the Boston Celtics, which is just weird, why did people think that needed to be a sitcom? Anyway, just a terrible laugh track sitcom, like devoid of even the virtues of "Two And A Half Men.
"SNL" has annoyed me a lot lately with things like Shane Gillis and Nikki Haley, but I think the show is in one of those cool phases where the younger cast members (Bowen Yang, James Austin Johnson, Sarah Sherman, etc.) are setting the tone more than the veterans. It even feels like they're finally letting Kenan Thompson carry the show less and giving Devon Walker a lot of the parts Kenan would usually play, like they're getting ready for him to finally leave in a year or two. Chloe Troast is my favorite new "SNL" player in a minute, she had a fantastic sketch in November that made me really take notice of her, but she hasn't gotten a lot more chances to really show off
n) "Grimsburg"
A new Fox animated series where Jon Hamm voices a main character who's a detective (but the character looks more like David Harbour, which always throws me off). Kind of feels like a satire of all those small town murder mystery shows, which is something that's ripe for parody, but I dunno, the humor is largely just generic Fox animated sitcom stuff.
A sci-fi animated sitcom on Amazon Prime with lots of cool people who've never done animation before (Kieran Culkin, Natasha Lyonne, Stephanie Hsu), kind of a small chuckle type show but I enjoy the funhouse mirror space alien version of a hospital and the comedy that comes out of that.
p) "Big Nate"
When I was a faithful newspaper comics section reader in the '90s, "Big Nate" was always one of those 3rd-tier strips I'd skip over or read with indifference. I didn't realize it even had the cachet to be adapted into an animated series, and it's kind of weird to see Nate's goofy chunky haircut in 3D animation, but my son and I watched a few episodes of teh show, it's not bad.
q) "Sonic Boom"
My son has been through a big Sonic The Hedgehog phase. He's never played the games, but he keeps rewatching the movies and cartoon shows. This series that ran from 2014 to 2017 is one of those cartoons where the dialogue is surprisingly smarter than it needs to be, I keep catching all these references and big vocabulary words I don't expect. I actually explained the concert of feminism to my 8-year-old son after he saw the famous scene where Knuckles calls himself a feminist.
r) "Pluto"
Apparently this new Netflix anime is a reboot of a series from the 2000s, kind of a cool murder mystery taking place in a world with robots (who are being murdered, along with humans).
This Thai series on Netflix has a sort of "Squid Game"-like premise where it's a scripted show about a game show in a dystopian universe, a dating competition in a world where the population is only .01% male. Pretty interesting show, surprised this hasn't taken off in America like "Squid Game" to be honest.
The creator of "Dragon Ball Z" made a manga in the '80s called Dr. Slump, but this is something completely different, a South Korean romcom about two people who hate each other but then end up living together after their respective careers in medicine go off the rails.
A Brazilian series about federal investigators going after organized crime, feels very close to generic American shows about this kind of thing.
v) "High Tides"
This Dutch show on Netflix about rich teenagers summering on the Belgian coast seems well suited for people who complain that there aren't enough gratuitous sex scenes anymore, there's just so much fucking on this show.
This 4-part A&E docuseries is pretty excellent, covers James Brown's entire career in detail, looking at his work from a musical and cultural/political standpoint. And it doesn't try to sweep anything complicated under the rug, they've got two of his daughters talking about his history of abusing women, they get deep into how endorsing Nixon really broke a lot of his fans' hearts, but they still celebrate his huge contributions to music.
"The Last Dance" has really opened the floodgates for docs about athletes and teams who won a lot, and I didn't think I'd find something about the Brady/Belichick-era Patriots interesting, because their dominance over the last 20 years became this boring thing that football fans seemed to hate. But they really tell the story well and make it compelling, especially the point where they'd built the franchise around Drew Bledsoe, and then Tom Brady stepped up as their backup QB and just thrived and it completely altered the trajectory of the team, I didn't really know about all that stuff. I wouldn't say I find Brady likeable, but he's an interesting figure, this young guy who was so obsessed with winning that he would cheat at Tecmo Bowl with his roommates when he was a rookie.
Another Apple TV+ docuseries about one of the most successful athletes of our time. I love playing or watching soccer, but I don't follow the sport at all. When people say Lionel Messi is one of the most famous people on the planet and a superhuman talent, I just take their word for it. So it was cool to actually get to know the guy and his story, some of the highlights of him on the field are just nuts.
I like spicy food, but I definitely have a limit where I don't want to eat something that's so spicy that I'm not enjoying it, and I find the world of insanely hot peppers and competitive eaters interesting. I didn't really think there'd be enough on the topic for an 10-episode docuseries, but there really is, that world is full of interesting personalities.
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