TV Diary
Monday, November 04, 2024 
a) "Sweetpea"
Starz canceled a pretty good show, "Sweetbitter" starring Ella Purnell, after a couple seasons, so I'm amused that they receintly premiered an unrelated new show, "Sweetpea," starring Ella Purnell. She's kind of known for her enormous eyes and tends to play these innocent and put-upon characters, including in the recent breakout hits "Fallout" and "Yellowjackets." And "Sweetpea" plays off that brilliantly because she plays a young woman who gets pushed around and ignored and endures all sorts of misfortune, and then snaps and starts killing people. Like many cable antihero shows where the main character is a violent killer, "Sweetpea" walks the fine line of making you wonder whether you're supposed to relate to Purnell's character or be disgusted by her, but that ambiguity is only possible because it's a great performance.
b) "Before"
Billy Crystal is such a consummate wiseass that I feel like I'd never seen him do anything completely outside comedy before his new Apple TV+ series "Before" -- I think he can act, he's been a very good leading man in some dramedies and can do things like 700 Sundays with real pathos, but there's usually still a laugh somewhere in there. But "Before" is a pretty dark psychological thriller, and Crystal occasionally gives line readings that remind me of times he's been funny, but I wouldn't go even as far as calling it a dark comedy. Intriguing show so far, I'm not really sure where this story is going but I'm curious to see.
c) "Rivals"
This British series about feuding rich people in 1986 has lots of big, scenery-chewing performances from Alex Hassell and David Tennant and some very well-chosen '80s pop needledrops (which is harder to pull off than it sounds, given how many '80s period pieces there are these days and how often the music doesn't really hit).
d) "Hysteria!"
Another '80s period piece, this one about a suburban metal band in the 'Satanic panic' era, with some good music moments, not all of them '80s songs (like a very good usage of Thin Lizzy's "Cowboy Song," one of my favorite songs of all time). "Hysteria!" hits some classic horror comedy notes pretty well, helped in part by Bruce Campbell in a prominent role, but I'm not totally sold on it yet after a couple of episodes, it's a little more like "Stranger Things" than the '80s stuff it's paying homage to. It's also kind of fun that they typecast Anna Camp as the same kind of character she played in "True Blood" (but with a darker hair color!).
e) "Teacup"
Another show with a good soundtrack, the frequent use of Neil Young songs goes strangely well with the creepy atmosphere. I had no idea where the story was going in the first episode, and in the second episode some really nasty horrifying things happened but I'm still not really sure what's going on, but I like it so far. Nice to see Scott Speedman of "Felicity"/Underworld fame is still working, I guess.
Tyler Perry's first series for Netflix has slightly better production values than a lot of his stuff, but it's still pretty soapy and not very interesting to me.
g) "Territory"
This Netflix series is about a succession power struggle at a big profitable cattle farm, so it obviously invites "Yellowstone" comparisons. But it takes place in Australia so it's a little more interesting to me right off the bat, and the cast is pretty good.
I really enjoyed the first season of "The Diplomat," more for the snappy dialogue and well drawn characters than the global politics, but it all went together in a nice entertaining package. The season ended with a cliffhanger that kind of ramped up the political intrigue, so I've found the beginning of the second season a little less breezy and charming, but still a really good show, looking forward to watching the rest of this season.
There aren't a lot of live action sitcoms that I'd be want to see continued as an animated sequel series, but it works pretty well with "Everybody Hates Chris." They even pick the story straight back up where the original show ended, and bring back a lot of the cast from the original show (sans Tyler James Williams, busy on "Abbott Elementary"). I think I'd wanna watch all the episodes I haven't seen of the old show before really getting into this one beyond a couple episodes, though.
Hayley Atwell voices Lara Croft in this new animated series, and I adore her, so that's about reason enough to watch, don't relaly care about this franchise generally.
One of the ugliest animated series I've seen in recent memory, looks like a video game cutscene from 20 years ago.
l) "La Maquina"
Old friends and collaborators Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna reunite in this miniseries about an aging Mexican boxer and his manager. Physically, Garcia Bernal isn't that convincing as a champion boxer, but that's not really the point and it's a pretty charming, character-driven story.
I roll my eyes a lot at "mindfulness" culture, so I really enjoy this German satire on Netflix about a guy who becomes a serial killer but in a very balanced and healthy granola way. A little reminiscent of American Psycho but with its own entertaining comedic rhythm.
The Netflix series "Children of the Church Steps" is based on a true story of something tragic that happened in Rio de Janeiro in 1993, and just reading about that has me braced for what will eventually occurs in the series, I like it so far but I'm not in a rush to finish it.
I guess this Amazon series is based on a video game I'd never heard of, but I like the show, some solid stunts and fight choreography.
I don't see a lot of international comedy shows on Netflix that really appeal to my American sensibility, but this Korean show, about women selling sex toys and adult products door-to-door in the '90s, is pretty good and funny.
I don't think I'd actually ever heard a Tragically Hip song before I started watching this Amazon Prime docuseries about the band, I just knew they were really popular and beloved in Canada, and kinda wanted to love them too just because of that, Canadian bands are so cool. And I really enjoyed this doc and it inspired me to start listening to their albums and having favorite songs. Their story is kind of a familiar tale of rock stardom, success, acrimony and tragedy, but the documentary really works the specifics of their story, their individual personalities and how they leaned into telling Canadian stories in their songs, it's a really emotional and compelling watch. I also love how there are as many Canadian comedy guys (Dan Aykroyd, Bruce McCulloch, Will Arnett, Jay Baruchel, the cast of "Trailer Park Boys") as there are Canadian musicians doing the talking head segments.
This Max docuseries is cleverly split into two episodes called "Taylor's Version" and 'Scooter's Version," but neither Swift nor Braun participated in the project, so it's not really either's version. A decent talking head-driven doc diving into the whole complicated situation, though.
Daddy Yankee exec produced this Peacock docuseries, but I like that it really goes into the musical roots of reggaeton, before that Daddy Yankee era when it became big in the English-speaking world and I started to hear it a lot.
J. Balvin is I guess late period reggaeton, into the point where people started to call it stuff like "latin trap" (ugh), and this is a series where he hangs out with celebrity friends like Jimmy Butler. I remember J. Balvin used to collaborate heavily with Bad Bunny, and then Bad Bunny put out a record where he seemed to diss Balvin in this weird ambiguous way ("I always walk with the same people/ While you are friends of the whole world like Balvin") that made Balvin look good. But I dunno, maybe Balvin just loves to pal around with celebrities like in this show and Bad Bunny hates it? I dunno.
Every sport has its own delicate racial dynamics but it seems like the NFL is the only big league where individual positions on a team are racialized in different ways and there's these whole conversations about Black quarterbacks having trouble getting opportunities when White quarterbacks for the norm. So this series is an interesting look at the history of that, who were the trailblazers and who probably should've gotten opportunities and didn't.
Another sports docuseries, I remember when the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years and what a big deal that was, so it's interesting to see that story told in detail. Particularly now, 20 years later, when they've won three more pennants and it's not just this isolated moment of glory.
Linda Napolitano has one of the more unique alien abduction stories. And this Netflix series about her is really artsy and visually interesting and cinematic for a documentary, which is cool, but also makes it even harder to know what to believe than usual with this kind of stories.
I've occasionally gone down the rabbit hole of wanting to know more about the Zodiac Killer but I don't really know all that much, and this Netflix docuseries has some compelling details I haven't heard before. I don't think we'll ever absolutely know the Zodiac's identity, but I love hearing the clues and indications that point at certain people.
This docuseries is about a woman who fabricated a bunch of things about herself to get hired as a writer on "Grey's Anatomy" and continued lying in the writer's room. I don't know, maybe I'd find it more interesting if I ever watched "Grey's," but it's still a pretty good entry into the rapidly growing canon of docs about scammers and frauds.
This is another doc about a fraud, this White lady named Katie who built a yoga business empire as 'Guru Jagat,' weird fascinating stuff.
