TV Diary
I've long been kind of a "Curb Your Enthusiasm" skeptic. I'm a huge "Seinfeld" fan and naturally appreciate Larry David's significant contributions to that show (including the very funny George Steinbrenner bits), but I see him as kind of a boring, limited performer that I don't think needs to be in front of the camera. So my expectations for his new HBO series, sketch comedy about American history, were so low that I might have circled around to being relieved that I found it mildly amusing. That's partly because there's a lot of good supporting talent (Henry Winkler, Alan Tudyk, Chris Parnell, etc.) making the sketches feel like slightly more than window dressing for Larry David playing historical figures. I don't think it's something I'll want to keep watching for long, but the first episode gave me a chuckle here and there.
A show about a man in his 50s dating his best friend's 26-year-old daughter feels like a thinkpiece powder keg, no matter how much "Alice and Steve" tries to play a lot of as a somewhat straightforward romcom. Even with beloved comedy veteran Jemaine Clement as Steve, who has genuine chemistry with Tali Topol Margalith as Alice's daughter Izzy, it's very easy to imagine that most of the viewing audience just seething with rage like Alice, played by Nicola Walker. The plot and tone is actually pretty similar the 2011 film The Oranges, which wasn't very well received even in a time when age gap discourse wasn't nearly as heated as it is now. I'm not particularly opinionated on this topic so I was able to largely enjoy it as a pleasant, middling comedy, but the finale really built to a very contrived climax, felt like they just kind of gave up on exploring the complexities of the story to force it into a resolution.
"Wild Cherry" is a British series from "Mood" creator/star Nicole Lecky but it feels like every fifth American prestige TV drama since "Big Little Lies," a story of scandals and secrets among mothers and teenage girls in an affluent community. It's a perfectly good premise for a show and this one seems moderately promising, but it's hard to shake the feeling that I've seen a lot of this kind of thing already.
Amazon Prime continues to prioritize the YA romance genre way beyond any other streamer, "Off Campus" is definitely their breakout hit this year but "Every Year After" seems to be doing well too and has already been renewed for a second season. Sadie Soverall looks a little like Sadie Sink from "Stranger Things," as if redheads named Sadie are walking off an assembly line somewhere. It's a pretty engaging story and doesn't feel overly formulaic, I particularly liked the first episode directed by Gillian Robespierre of Obvious Child fame.
This is the first other Britbox show that I've started to get into since we signed up so my wife could watch "The Other Bennet Sister." The main character in "A Woman of Substance" is the richest woman in the world, with her story told across several decades with Jessica Reynolds playing her as a young woman and Brenda Blethyn playing her as an older woman. Interesting plot I don't always like TV that bounces between multiple time periods but I think they do a good job with the storytelling here.
Given that it seems there's going to be a long, long wait between every season of "Severance," I'm glad that Britt Lower booked a miniseries to occupy her time and stay on TV. Unfortunately, it's one of those Harlan Coben adaptations that Netflix pushes out every few months. This one feels especially old-fashioned and melodramatic, with Sam Worthington as a fugitive who was wrongly convicted of murder and trying to clear his name.
A British miniseries about the harrowing true story of a 2-year-old boy who was the only witness to his mother's murder, hadn't heard about this before so I'm watching it curious how it ends, pretty good so far.
h) "Sugar"
I spent a chunk of the first season of "Sugar" just trying to figure out whether it was simply a derivative noir detective story or if there was something more high concept. And I found the eventual big reveal of what was really going on to be pretty underwhelming. Now that they've continued with that story in the second season, though, with Colin Farrell as a detective who's learned pretty much everything he knows from old detective movies, I have to admit the show is finally growing on me a little, especially since they added Sasha Calle and Laura Donnelly to the cast.
i) "The Bear"
I think "The Bear"'s decline has been a little slower and more gradual than other people do, but I think it's pretty undeniable that the fifth and final season is a huge step down from how good the show used to be. Maybe they're self-conscious about criticism of the show, because it feels like an attempt at a course correction -- six tight half-hour episodes building to two longer climactic episodes, all focusing on the day-to-day restaurant operations. The 7th episode even basically reruns of the 7th episode of the first season, with the restaurant accidentally accepting more reservations than they can handle instead of more online orders than they can handle, and it just feels contrived. The most jarring thing, though, is that they completely stopped with the evocative alt-rock needle drops that felt like a key part of the first four seasons, it's all generic instrumental score now. The only thing I liked about this season is that Carmy and Syd's relationship remained platonic, the shippers always seemed way off base about them.
j) "The Season"
This Hulu thriller about a Hong Kong yacht feels a little like "The White Lotus" meets Crazy Rich Asians, first episode does a really good job of introducing all the characters and setting the story in motion, pretty promising.
k) "Oasis"
This Spanish series on Netflix is about more rich people on vacation, less interested in the plot but everybody's ridiculously beautiful and some of the characters are pretty charming.
People often talk about how a time travel story can really depending on whether you're a minority that was more oppressed in the past. And this Thai series takes that idea in an interesting direction, with a modern day queer pop star who's transported into the body of a closeted 18th century nobleman.
m) "Reborn"
Another 'timeslip' show, this one from Japan. A CEO is pushed down some stairs and dies, and then is reincarnated as one of his employees 14 years earlier and tries to solve his own murder, just a very convoluted concept and really irritating direction and storytelling.
This Thai series has a pretty boilerplate legal drama premise -- an unscrupulous defense attorney has to clear the name of someone who's actually innocent for once -- but I feel like the title "The Evil Lawyer" is appropriate for how much fun they're having with the story and the characters.
This South Korean action show, where school 'inspectors' are authorized by the government to use physical force to discipline teenagers, I dunno, it's better if you don't think too much about it but even then it's not great.
A pretty charming Indonesian show on Netflix about two K-pop fans working together at a convenience store.
I feel like in America, the superhero movie glut got to the point where nobody even has a fresh take on superhero comedies/satires anymore. But this Korean show, where some awkward young social outcasts get superpowers, is pretty good, feels character-driven and not as concerned with dunking on the genre.
This Netflix docuseries narrated by Martin Sheen feels like a pretty boilerplate attempt to look at early American history, most of the talking heads are academics, but they also have modern day politicians, including Mike Pence, and seeing his ugly fucking face in there trying to be respectable really ruined my mood.
There are so many true crime miniseries about cults and predators and con men these days, but American Movie director Chris Smith really goes for a stylized mood piece while still looking deeply at the sordid details. It's pretty compelling and refreshing compared to the more dominant artless tabloid style.
This miniseries from the same team that made "Walking With Dinosaurs" looks at more extinct prehistoric species, including a lot of large mammals, and it's interesting subject matter but I just hate the visual style, everything looks hideous and kind of fails to spark the imagination of what these animals actually would've looked like at the time.
This is another weird animated Netflix thing about animals from 2020 that my son found on Netflix after he'd watched docs about dogs and cats. But pretty impressive because Jonathan Jones apparently made this in his home studio in a month as a COVID lockdown-era project.
My son also found this documentary about South African penguins narrated by Patton Oswalt that I missed when it came out a few years ago, really cute stuff.
My son has always loved "Octonauts" and watched every episode multiple times, he's started watching "The Creature Cases," which feels like an "Octonauts" knockoff, he likes it but I really hate the animation style.
Another thing my son found on Netflix that's described as a "'Black Mirror' for kids"-style horror anthology. He likes things like The Nightmare Before Christmas so I'm kind of hoping as he gets older I can watch horror movies with him and nurture his love of creepy stuff, so I like that there are gateway shows like this.
z) "Among Us"
Among Us is so popular with kids that I'm a little baffled why Paramount+ went the 'adult animated sitcom' route with this show, it's definitely not for my son but I don't really feel like it's for me either.
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