TV Diary
a) "The Veil"
I feel like putting an American playing a Brit at the center of any film or series is asking for trouble, but I will hand it to Elisabeth Moss, her accent work in "The Veil" is very good, if this was my first time seeing her in something I'd just assume she's English. I like it so far, I love seeing Josh Charles play a spy, he's such a great, underrated actor, but I'm curious how this story is going to pay off in a 6-episode miniseries, so far it almost feels like this could or should have just been a 2-hour feature, but maybe I'm underestimating the potential for twists.
I still have a couple of episodes left of the first season of Netflix's "Sandman" series that I intend to finish at some point, but I have to say, I already enjoy this spinoff series more. Great cast, good visual effects, clever approach to some familiar tropes about ghosts interacting with the living.
Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities is the classic example of a contemporary novel that was a huge acclaimed hit and was adapted into a critically panned box office flop. I've sometimes wondered if someone would take a mulligan on Bonfire and try to make a better movie or miniseries out of it, but David E. Kelley and Netflix took the probably smarter approach of adapting Wolfe's next novel, A Man In Full. Jeff Daniels is from Georgia, like his character in this, but it's funny, I never even realized he's from the south. I can't stop thinking of Tom Pelphrey's character Raymond Peepgrass as Frank Grimes from "The Simpsons," like visually and in terms of the characters personality and role in the story, it's very close.
d) "Sugar"
"Sugar" starts out as a pretty conventional neo noir story with Colin Farrell as a modern day detective who's obsessed with old mystery movies, with frequent cuts to clips of old black & white movies -- sometimes it gets a little meta, as when he alludes to "L.A. Confidential" in an episode where a significant character is played by James Cromwell. But Apple TV+ has marketed it as a "genre-bending" series, and someone noticed that Apple TV+'s announcement of the show two years ago described it as "sci-fi." So I'd been watching the show for weeks waiting to see what the twist would be, nervous that it would be some kind of ripoff of The Matrix where the guy is in a simulated reality. It turns out it's not that, but I can't say I love the twist or the way they revealed it, it felt like they put all their chips on it being a mind-blowing surprise and I don't know if the show has too much else going for it.
e) "MaryLand"
This PBS series on "Masterpiece Theater" (which they just call "MASTERPIECE" now, I guess) is not about the state of Maryland, which you could probably guess from the capitalized L. Instead, it's about a recently deceased woman named Mary's life on the Isle of Man, which is a pretty eye-rolling explanation for the title, but he show is good.
f) "Hacks"
Two years between seasons is just long enough that I feel kind of surprised that a show still exists, but I love "Hacks," I'm glad it's back. It feels like they're intent on changing the dynamic between Deborah and Ava and their respective careers each season, and I hope they don't outsmart themselves and break the show by not recognizing that people are just happy to watch these characters interact with or without a clever story arc. I like this season so far, though, it's fun to see Deborah in comeback mode after her gambles of the first two seasons paid off and see they still have interesting stories to tell about that, she doesn't just ride off into the sunset.
It's fun that Quinta Brunson was able to make this transition from funny videos on the internet to prime time television and now she's regularly helping other people do that by giving Casey Frey or Sabrina Brier guest spots on "Abbott Elementary."
I didn't realize that "Bob's Burgers" was one of the few network shows that came back with new episodes last fall during the WGA and SAG strikes, thanks to the slower production schedules of animated shows. So I've had a whole bunch of "Bob's Burgers" episodes to catch up on lately, which was nice. I loved the episode about Regular-Sized Rudy, I like that with "Simpsons"-like longevity they can really zoom in a little more on supporting characters over the years. I don't like the voice they have for Jimmy Pesto now, but it's at least funny in the sense that it reminds me that the original Jimmy Pesto was fired for being at the Capitol on January 6th.
i) "Knuckles"
My kids love the Sonic the Hedgehog movies so they were locked in for the new spinoff series, I think they watched all of it in one day. Adam Pally is well-equipped for this kind of silliness but I hope he gets more work outside this franchise.
j) "Fiasco"
This Netflix series is framed as a behind-the-scenes documentary on the set of a French director's debut film, it hits some familiar mockumentary beats but it has its own voice and comedic rhythm, I really like it.
Another French show on Netflix, a gritty crime drama about a Marseille drug dealer, kind of tired of these kinds of shows.
A Mexican fantasy series on Disney+ about kids discovering a musical score with magical properties, some nice production values but it's in that zone where it's really for kids but not something my kids would be interested in, they mostly like animation.
This South Korean series on Netflix reminds me of a certain genre of American show, about a young woman who endures a big career setback, returns to her hometown, and has a romance plot with a childhood friend. If this was an American show it'd get at least three seasons on CW.
This Indian show is kind of a morbid black comedy about infidelity, murder, and soup, I like it.
A Netflix miniseries from Netflix, kind of an emotionally messy relationship comedy.
A South Korean show where one surgeon's spirit possesses the body of another surgeon and together they become a composite of both of their best qualities. Totally deranged concept, played fairly straight as a medical drama, I love it.
Another South Korean show that takes place in a hospital, but kind of a more straightforward character-driven thing about a nurse in a psychiatric ward.
An Indian miniseries based on the true story of a group of railway workers who stepped up and started saving lives when there was a gas leak from a factory and people all over a town start dropping dead. A nice inspiring story but also terrifying because I never thought about the possibility of somethig like that happening.
A French reality competition show on Netflix with 13 people strategizing and bickering for a cash prize, feels even darker and more exploitive than a lot of American shows in this style.
I like soccer a lot as far as sports go, but I don't follow it (or any sport) closely. So it was cool to see an up close view of some of the major figures I do know, Manchester City and Pep Guardiola, in this Netflix docuseries.
Netflix has been experimenting more and more with live shows, and with creating new spins on the late night talk show format. And this John Mulaney thing, which just wrapped up a 6-episode run, feels like probably the best one they've done so far, and I say that as someone who's never been hugely into Mulaney. It just feels like he threw together the bits of Conan O'Brien and Dick Cavett's shows that he liked, added a bunch of other strange comedy bits and call-in segments and left it all deliberately, self-deprecatingly loose. My personal favorite parts were Richard Kind on sidekick duty, Brian Grazer telling anecdotes about Apollo 13 and American Gangster to children, and that wonderful Wang Chung theme song. The British chat show-style panels with all the guests together on the couch were kind of chaotic and the weakest parts of the show, though.
A 5-hour docuseries about a happy-go-lucky band of pop metal hitmakers like Bon Jovi might seem like overkill, but I like that they get the space to really tell their story in granular detail, and show a bit of the daily reality of a huge touring band getting older. Richie Sambora left the band a decade ago, so it's fun to see him pop up and tell his part of the story, I really think he's an essential part of Bon Jovi so I'd love to see him back onstage with them. And that first episode, seeing Jon Bon Jovi get his Jersey rock education from Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny, I love that stuff.
As someone who's spent the last 14 years on Twitter, it's weird to watch a Hulu docuseries recap so much of the stuff I watched unfold in real time, all the 'Meet me in Temecula' type moments, a really unusual walk down memory lane. But maybe it's the right time to memorialize this era of social media, who knows how much longer lasts before Elon finally kills it for good.
I feel like sometimes celebrities get to do reality shows based around doing really fun things that a lot of us wish we could do, like Selena Gomez spending time with famous chefs at major restaurants, learning stuff from them and trying to create her own dish that would be good enough to be served there. It's weird to say but Gomez is such a natural for reality TV, the somewhat stilted quality of her performance on "Only Murders in the Building" totally falls away when she's just being herself on camera.
This Netflix show is about a real Arkansas jail experimenting with giving inmates more freedom, I'm a little uncomfortable with this being turned into entertainment, but I suppose anything that could potentially make our penal system more humane is good to see.
The Space Shuttle Columbia disaster was in 2003 so I'm sure I was aware of it when it happened, but it doesn't loom as large in the American cultural memory as the Challenger explosion. So I didn't really remember much about it in detail, interesting to go over it in detail 20 years later, hear from the families of the victims, sad story.
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