TV Diary
After Lily Gladstone's standout performance in Killers of the Flower Moon, I was eager to see what she'd do next, since I haven't see much of her other work outside of her great but brief guest role on "Reservation Dogs." She's one of the leads on Hulu's "Under The Bridge," and has great chemistry with Riley Keough, but Keough has the more interesting role -- she plays Rebecca Godfrey, who wrote the book Under The Bridge upon which the series is based (sadly, Godfrey died of cancer soon after the series was announced). So it's about the 1997 murder of a Vancouver teenager, but it's also about the non-fiction book about the case. So far I'm really impressed by the younger actors, especially Chloe Guidry, and how well the show gets the details right of high school life in the late '90s, at least as far as ringing true to my persona experiences. The period music selections have been as good as "Yellowjackets" if not better.
Another series based on a book I haven't read, in this case Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer-winning novel. Because I'm kind of a philistine, I also haven't seen any of Park Chan-wook's films, just his "Little Drummer Girl" miniseries and this, which are both really impressive. Hoa Xuande and Robert Downey Jr. are both great in "The Sympathizer," but I suspect the quirky gambit of Downey playing several characters is mostly a clever ploy to pool together the screentime of all the white American supporting characters to make the American movie star one of the series leads.
c) "Fallout"
A series based on...a video game I haven't played! We haven't finished the season yet but it's been a fun dystopian spectacle so far, Walton Goggins playing a creepy ghoul is absolutely must-see TV for me. I'm kind of amused that after Ella Purnell's character on "Yellowjackets" died, she got cast in a show where her character goes through almost as much horrible stuff.
A couple years ago, CW ended the 4-season run of "In The Dark," a show about a young blind woman who solves mysteries and unravels crimes despite being unable to see. CW just started airing a new series, "Sight Unseen," with a pretty similar premise (the main difference is the blind woman is an ex-cop, but the lead actresses even look a little alike). So far, though, this show doesn't have nearly as much personality or humor as "In The Dark," so I'm not too interested.
e) "Franklin"
I was kind of surprised by the casting of Michael Douglas as Benjamin Franklin, but it makes sense in this Apple TV+ series, it feels like they wanted to depict him as a guy who had movie star charisma in his time, not just a stuffy historical figure. And it feels like a smart choice to focus on his time in Paris rather than a full biography or focusing on the famous founding father stuff on our side of the Atlantic.
This Netflix series stars British comic Richard Gadd as a fictionalized version of himself, recounting an older woman becoming obsessed with and stalking him. It's supposed to be uncomfortable and harrowing but I have a certain discomfort with the tone of the storytelling and acting beyond that, the lurid mix of comedy and drama. I don't think I'll finish watching it, just getting a bad vibe off the whole thing.
"Friday Night Dinner" was a popular and acclaimed British sitcom with an unusually long run (six whole seasons!) and there were three previous attempts to adapt it for American television (including one by Greg Daniels, who made the very successful U.S. version of "The Office") that never got on the air. The fourth attempt finally got made, just barely, on Amazon's free tier streaming service Freevee. I wanted to give it a chance because I like a lot of the cast and Freevee had a surprise hit last year with "Jury Duty," but I have barely laughed at all through "Dinner With The Parents," it actually feels like a clumsy, dumbed down American version of a British farce.
h) "Hapless"
Peacock recently brought 2 seasons of this British sitcom to American television. It feels like it transparently wants to be "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and I don't even like the real "Curb" that much. It also feels like a bad time to roll out a show about a proud Zionist who frequently expresses contempt for Palestinians.
i) "Dinosaur"
A sitcom about the friendship between two young Scottish sisters, one autistic and one neurotypical, a pretty charming character-driven show, and I adore Kat Ronney and her accent.
j) "Big Mood"
A sitcom about the friendship between two young British women, one bipolar and one neurotypical, not bad but a little less charming, a little more broad and predictable.
Apparently there was a huge British postal service scandal 10-20 years ago where a faulty IT system called Horizon was creating cash shortfalls that employees were being erroneously blamed and prosecuted for. A pretty fascinating and mortifying situation, and they got together a pretty good ensemble cast to dramatize and explain the whole sordid tale.
l) "Loot"
"Loot" has an incredibly strong cast led by Maya Rudolph and a premise that doesn't easily lend itself to sitcom hilarity. And I feel like they're still struggling tonally with that a little in season 2, but I mostly enjoy it, I like that they gave Michaela Jae Rodriguez a cute little romcom storyline with O-T Fagbenle. I think they're underusing Nat Faxo, though.
"Loot" has an incredibly strong cast led by Maya Rudolph and a premise that doesn't easily lend itself to sitcom hilarity. And I feel like they're still struggling tonally with that a little in season 2, but I mostly enjoy it, I like that they gave Michaela Jae Rodriguez a cute little romcom storyline with O-T Fagbenle. I think they're underusing Nat Faxo, though.
Another sitcom in its second season that has its funny episodes and its flat episodes but I'm sticking with it as long as it's on because it has a lot of actors I like. They shoehorned Brad Garrett into the cast at the beginning of season 2, and I like him too, but he's just playing a stock obnoxious boss character, not really adding anything.
This was just canceled the other day and I'm bummed out, this is by far the best show CBS has right now, and they've done some pretty cleverly plotted episodes this season in addition to the snappy dialogue and family dynamics. Madeline Wise was great in her first series regular gig, I hope she lands another.
o) "Will Trent"
This was just renewed, I'm not in love with it but it's a pretty solid procedural with a good supporting cast. I just can't really shake the sense that Ramon Rodriguez isn't really good choice to play Will Trent as he's written, it feels very forced, like he'd be better as a more conventional cop show lead but this was the show they had in development the year they decided to make him a star.
p) "Good Times"
This has gotten awful reviews and I can't say I disagree. I'm generally pretty over "edgy" animated sitcoms and the way Netflix decided to reboot a Norman Lear classic with some really broad, puerile humor is disappointing. Lear had some involvement in this project before he died last year but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't sign off on these scripts.
q) "Bluey"
"Bluey" is apparently now by some metrics the most watched show in the world, and my family was kind of early to the show when it first started streaming in America in early 2020, and I've always really liked it, so I'm happy for its success. The recent 28-minute episode "The Sign" (as opposed to the usual 7-minute episodes) was really great but I kind of understand why it upset some parents that an episode about Bluey's family moving ended with her dad going "nevermind, we're not moving!"
A Korean drama on Netflix, put it on as background noise a couple times, seemed a little slow and syrupy for my taste.
Conan O'Brien's gotten plenty of respect over the years as the comedic mind behind some of the best "Simpsons" episodes and one of the best late night hosts ever. But I think his hilarious recent appearance on "Hot Ones" really changed the conversation and more pople are really putting Conan in the category of one of the funniest people in show business, in the world. And that was was a perfect set-up for "Conan O'Brien Must Go," where he really leans into the more improvisatory livewire Conan that he had to kind of dish out sparingly from behind a desk.
A much more conventional celebrity travel show, about two of the most boring famous people there are (Bloom and his girlfriend, Katy Perry).
Octopuses are really fascinating to me, and I'm enjoying the hell out of this NatGeo miniseries narrated by Paul Rudd (usually I say octopi, put Rudd says "octopuses" a lot in this show, so I'll follow his lead). The Day Octopus that's color blind but can change color to blend in with the coral and avoid sharks is my favorite.
Another movie star, Cate Blanchett, narrates this nature docuseries, which is a little broader but also has some great production values and great footage.
The weak link of the recent crop of new nature shows, don't really like the editing and they have some cheesy computer graphics to explain some stuff.
I hate the true crime industrial complex, because what do you mean a guy with a porn addiction who became obsessed with a cam girl and murdered his family, and the series about it is called "Ctrl+Alt+Desire"? The way stories like this gets packaged is just really distasteful to me.
It's very weird to see a show on PBS that's exec produced by Drake and has a Grimes theme song. I feel like they're trying to find a new angle on technology and utopian optimism but there's just a lot of tedious talking heads and tiresome narratives in this.
About 16 years ago I watched this lady's first attempt at reality TV stardom and found it really stupid, and I'm amused to see she's still making shows and trying to become famous. Now she's trying to apply her lessons from finding trophy girlfriends for rich guys to normal people's relationships and it just feels like she has no idea what she's talking about.
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on Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
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