TV Diary
George Wallace is one of the funniest comedians in the world who I feel like never gets his due. And this sitcom he co-created with Laverne Cox is such a good vehicle for both of them, with the late great Norman Lear as an executive producer (and I'm really glad this is maybe the last new project with Lear's name on it instead of that terrible animated "Good Times" reboot Netflix put out last year). Desiree (Cox) goes back to her hometown in Alabama and her father Harry (Wallace) is surprised to learn that his son is now a woman, and I'm glad that they don't make Harry a full-on Archie Bunker-type bigot but still find the humor in the situation.
Kaitlyn Dever got her first Golden Globe and Emmy noms for two true crime miniseries, so it's no surprise that she did another one. But she played a downtrodden and sympathetic victim in "Unbelievable" and "Dopesick," while she's also very good at playing a bad guy for I think the first time in her career, a wellness influencer scammer, in "Apple Cider Vinegar." It's kind of funny to watch a show about a horrible Australian person named Belle Gibson, I don't think they ever comment on her name rhyming with Mel Gibson.
c) "Paradise"
Dan Fogelman excels at folksy, big-hearted dramedy, so it's interesting to see him try his hand at a conspiracy thriller. Sterling K. Brown and Julianne Nicholson are great leads, and it's nice to see James Marsden in a substantial role where he isn't acting opposite any talking CGI animals. I thought the first episode was by far the most entertaining one, though, I'm still waiting for the rest of the series to live up to that one.
Apparently this show is not filmed in the Netherlands and has zero commitment to cultural accuracy and Dutch wiki editors are furious about it, which cracks me up. Denis Leary is kind of a tiresome one-note lead, but I like the rest of the cast, which includes Taylor Misiak from "Dave" and the great Danny Pudi.
Danny Pudi is also still on "Mythic Quest" so I'm really enjoying having two shows to watch every week that he's in right now. "Mythic Quest" was also co-created by a "Community" writer, Megan Ganz, and the longer the show goes on, the more I feel like they're getting to stretch their legs and do "Community"-style conceptual episodes, I really enjoyed this week's murder mystery episode.
Another "Community" alum, Joel McHale, is in a more formulaic network sitcom, but I have to say this show has surpassed my expectations, I generally look forward to new episodes and everybody has good comedic chemistry.
g) "Mo"
It's a bummer that the only show on American television created by and starring a Palestinian-American is ending after only two seasons, especially because "Mo" is pretty hilarious and doesn't shy away from Mo Amer's cultural identity but isn't entirely about it. I like the episodes that are more about Mo's day-to-day life in Houston than the whole storyline of him winding up in Mexico that took up a lot of the end of the first season and the beginning of the second season, but even that stretch of episodes had a few really funny bits.
I liked the first season of "School Spirits" a lot, and I'm not sure if the second season is boring or taking itself too seriously or if the novelty has worn off.
I don't really like the animation style of this show. In theory, doing a rotoscope (or rotoscope-ish?) version of a classic comic book aesthetic sounds cool, but something about the way it moves just looks janky and almost cheap.
I think "Harley Quinn" is one of the funniest shows on TV, and while watching recent episodes I realized that Max ran a spinoff last summer that I had heard nothing about, so I'm catching up on it now. Kite Man was a hilariously minor DC Comics character to turn into a significant part of "Harley Quinn." So I love that they doubled down on the joke by giving him his own show where he buys a bar, especially because they brought along one of the funniest "Harley Quinn" characters, Bane.
k) "Invincible"
The second season of "Invincible" was a lot less entertaining or memorable than the first, I understand from a story standpoint why Omni-Man wasn't in those episodes much, but it just felt like the show suffered for it. So far, though, the third season feels like a course correction.
"Sky Rojo" is one of my favorite foreign language shows on Netflix, and creator David Victori's recent Apple TV+ series "You Would Do It Too" hasn't quite hooked me as much but has some of the same pulpy action thrills.
Apparently people in Mexico rely on ambulances run by private businesses, and this Apple TV+ show is about a med student who works on a Mexico City ambulance by night, pretty good show.
A lot of the Korean shows I see on Netflix have these very contrived premises that remind me of the kind of concepts that went out of fashion on American TV after the '80s, I almost kind of like it sometimes, but not in this instance.
I am not familiar with the Canadian comedian Carolyn Taylor, but apparently her most popular standup bit is about her hearing Whitney Houston's "I Have Nothing" on the radio and feeling consumed with the ambition to choreograph a figure skating routine to the song. And then she made a 6-episode reality show about actually turning that dream into a reality, in a very self-aware and ridiculous and charming way. I always enjoyed "I Have Nothing," it's prob a dark horse top 5 Whitney single for me, but it feels kind of obscure now, which makes me like the show even more.
p) "Roller Jam"
Really talented roller skaters are so entertaining to watch, I haven't watched a lot of this Max reality show but when I have I've enjoyed it.
Travis Kelce's palpable thirst for fame feels a little embarrassing to me. If he's hosting game shows now, just imagine what kind of crap he'll be doing for attention someday when he's no longer playing in Super Bowls and dating the biggest pop star in the world. He's not a bad game show host, though. One fun thing they do on this show sometimes is bring back people who were the kids on the original "Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?" to compete on this show as adults.
It took me way too long to realize that the title of this show refers to Bear Grylls and not an actual bear. It also took me way too long to realize that I've never heard of any of the celebrities in this show (except Scary Spice) because they're all British celebrities.
The Stauffers became famous outside family vlogger circles a few years ago because they'd adopted a young boy with special needs, put him all over their YouTube channel, and then decided to give the kid up and act like he never existed. Understandably, these people didn't want to participate in the HBO docuseries about how they're terrible people, but a lot of it is told through the eyes of other YouTube parenting influencer types and I don't think that was necessarily the right lens for the story.
A docuseries about a woman trying to find out the truth about her brother who died as a baby, really harrowing, heartbreaking stuff.
It's weird to watch a show about a federal agent taking down a White supremacist group at a moment when some White supremacist fucks are taking over the government and kneecapping federal agencies, it's almost nostalgic for a bygone era really.
It feels a little self-congratulatory to make a show like this, but I'm glad that this is what Prince William is doing with his time, more people with power and influence should be putting out the message that poor people not having homes should not be considered acceptable in a modern society.
I like Lucy Worsley's shows on PBS, she's a charming lady, and I'm pleasantly surprised at how much there is to say about Arthur Conan Doyle's life and work for a whole miniseries.
This Netflix series is not the best UFO doc I've ever seen, but a lot better than some of the crap the History Channel puts on the air.
There are already multiple documentaries about Sean Combs and I'm definitely not going to watch most of them, but this one's pretty well done, it's probably the one to guy with if you want to watch one.
I love nature documentaries, I wouldn't put this in the top tier with the "Planet Earth" stuff but this one's worth a look, I'm impressed by how many different locations and species they cram into 10 episodes, apparently they filmed in 24 countries.
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on Friday, February 14, 2025 at 11:42 AM.
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