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10/19/2024 0 Comments The bear (season 3) The polarizing third season of The Bear very much feels like a microcosm of the frustrations of the streaming era, and the current state of television as a whole. The culinary FX/Hulu series - which follows renowned chef Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) as he returns home to Chicago to take over his family’s sandwich shop in the wake of his brother’s suicide - became an immediate breakout hit… mostly because it fed people’s insatiable appetite for characters screaming over one another in a chaotic, pressure-cooker environment (and fed it generously). But the landscape shifted after the highly addictive first season, as Carmy elected to reinvent “The Original Beef” as a fine-dining establishment called “The Bear”… and it feels like the show has been listing sideways ever since.
Those hoping to revel in the emotional wreckage of the restaurant’s “friends and family” test run (in which Carmy ended up trapped in the walk-in and inadvertently torpedoed his relationship with Claire (Molly Gordon)) will no doubt be frustrated. Season premiere “Tomorrow” is the most obnoxious sort of prestige TV throat-clearing… a non-episode that wanders preciously through flashbacks of Carmy’s culinary upbringing in various five-star kitchens. But things only marginally improve from there, as series creator Christoper Storer defiantly - almost vindictively - embraces dramatic inertia. The kitchen settles into the highs and lows of the daily service grind. Carmy initiates an absurdly misguided “daily menu” protocol he hopes will eventually fetch a Michelin star (which puts added strain on the staff - and the restaurant’s financial margins). Sydney (the ever-gifted Ayo Edebiri) contemplates her future as Carmy’s sous chef - particularly after receiving a competing offer. Sugar (Abby Elliott) nears childbirth while trying to keep the entire venture from going off the rails. Pastry chef Marcus (Lionel Boyce) looks for inspiration in magic and violets. Richie (the increasingly indispensable Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Carmy get on each other’s nerves (what else is new?). Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) frets over skyrocketing expenses. Claire remains AWOL. Jamie Lee Curtis makes another showy bid for a Guest Emmy, while the likes of Josh Hartnett and John Cena are (distractingly) added to the show’s roster of high-profile guest stars. This would likely feel intolerable if not for the fact that The Bear still produces individual scenes that are as well-written and well-acted as anything on television. Watching the show now feels akin to hunting for those precious truffles, those insulated pockets of delicately observed grace between two characters (such as Richie sitting with his ex Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs) as they watch their daughter on the playground, their interaction lubricated with the comfortable ease of two people who’ve known each other their entire lives). If there’s one episode that perfectly encapsulates everything enthralling yet maddening about this season, it’s “Napkins” - a much-welcome showcase for Tina (newly-minted Emmy winner Liza Colón-Zayas) that needlessly chronicles how she first came to work at The Beef. The episode’s extended sequence between her and Jon Bernthal’s Mikey is like exquisite chamber music - every note sweet and true (once again one has to wonder why the magnetic Bernthal isn’t a mega-star… if he broke through in the 70s, he’d almost certainly have had De Niro’s career) - but even though it’s arguably the single best scene The Bear has ever produced, does it actually illuminate anything about Tina’s character that isn’t already self-evident? Not particularly. What exactly do we even want from television? The frequently exhausting, 22-episode plot churn of network TV is rightfully mocked, but as others have asked - is waiting almost three years for eight new episodes of Severance really so much better? There has to be a happy medium. Television was built on the simple and reliable comforts of hanging out on a weekly basis with characters we actively look forward to spending time with… but these days it’s more akin to The Bear’s fussy artisanal fare, micro-portions meticulously plated and garnished as if with Carmy’s trademark tweezers. In that sense, The Bear is a show that seemingly operates on meta levels both consciously and unconsciously. The thematic undercurrent of the season is whether the ideal of greatness that Carmy is relentlessly chasing is actually a summit worth reaching… the fact he was willing to jettison Claire - the one thing in his life that actually made him happy - just so he could dedicate himself more fully to his tortured, self-flagellating craft speaks volumes. Offhand references to the beef sandwich take-out window being the only consistent moneymaker (it’s basically keeping The Bear afloat) hammers home the notion that Carmy’s gastronomic self-aggrandizement is mostly servicing a non-existent demand - and that the Original Beef, dysfunctional cesspit though it often was, had carved itself a genuine niche within Chicago’s culinary ecosystem. But so too does The Bear itself now feel like a show paralyzed by its own prestige - dispensing its drama in oblique dollops of foam… when most people still crave (not to belabor the obvious metaphor) that overstuffed meatiness of the first season. In that sense, it’s rather fitting that the series and Carmy’s restaurant bear the same name, because the two have essentially become indivisible. Sydney’s wistful look at a press clipping for the Original Beef in the closing moments of the season finale suggest the characters are beginning to recognize what they’re missing; it remains to be seen if the show’s creators will as well.
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7/31/2024 0 Comments clipped (season 1) It wasn’t lost on people that the Lakers recently received a prestige HBO series in the form of Winning Time, whereas the Clippers - longtime second-class basketball citizens of Los Angeles - were fittingly reduced to streaming on Hulu. Clipped, created by Gina Welch, chronicles the downfall of the franchise’s notorious owner Donald Sterling, who spent decades as a swollen boil on the ass of the NBA before the league was finally able to lance him over racist recordings that surfaced on TMZ. It feels like a subject bursting with dramatic possibilities (concerning professional sports, race, wealth, cancel culture) - and it is - yet the series never seems quite sure how to make sense of it all… the narrative ingredients are simply jumbled in a pot and left to simmer at low boil - underseasoned and ultimately undercooked.
Some have pointed out that Mickey Rourke - his face ravaged by plastic surgery and scar tissue - bears more than a passing resemblance to Sterling these days… and he might have brought a tragic, Shakespearean grandeur to the role. Instead the show cast sitcom veteran Ed O’Neil (of Married… with Children and Modern Family fame) and, unsurprisingly, he’s terrific, though his portrayal never rises much beyond that of an oblivious cartoon - unable to grasp his perilous situation, let alone reckon with it. He certainly captures Sterling’s more grating qualities - that particularly noxious blend of extreme affluence and crass classlessness with more than a hint of sleaze (exemplified by his preseason “white party,” in which he parades his predominately Black players around in front of his wealthy white friends like something out of Get Out). Laurence Fishburne, as the team’s championship-winning coach Doc Rivers, is mostly reduced to two core modes - righteous indignation and extreme incredulity. He’s torn, fascinatingly, between the recognition that he should be taking a principled stand by boycotting and his competitive fervor… cognizant that this was the rare Clippers team (led by bona fide franchise stars Chris Paul and Blake Griffin - both oddly miscast) that could genuinely compete for a title (and cement his own status as a coaching legend in the process). Fishburne, much like Rivers himself, brings instant credibility to the table. But the show gropes its way through awkwardly self-conscious sequences, such as a flashback to Doc’s playing days, when he struggles with the Rodney King verdict from his position of privilege, or showing clips of Jesse Owens in Berlin to the team as evidence of athletic triumph carrying more social weight than any protest (when in doubt, simply have Rivers philosophize in the sauna with LeVar Burton - don’t ask). Where Clipped feels most at sea, however, is its attempts to get a handle on V. Stiviano (played by Cleopatra Coleman), Sterling’s half-Black/half-Mexican personal assistant and pseudo-mistress (she rubs his feet and coos affirmations in his ear while appearing courtside with him at games, but wasn’t sleeping with him - supposedly). It’s all too easy to depict V. as a wannabe fame-whore in the Kardashian mold - obsessing over social media (the show revels endlessly in shots of scrolling Instagram feeds), trying to leverage the scandal into some sort of “brand” (she proudly shows a box of “V. Stiviano” hats to an incredulous friend, unable to articulate what their actual appeal would be to the buying public), parading enigmatically in front of the media in facial visor and roller skates - but that portrayal is hard to reconcile with a woman who was also in the process of adopting two teenage boys. At times she appears pointedly ruthless in her pursuit of notoriety; at others, almost childlike in her naivety over the scandal’s fallout (she insists, in her Barbara Walters interview, that she and Sterling remain “best friends”). The biggest standout, not surprisingly, is the ever-dependable Jacki Weaver. As Sterling’s long-suffering wife Shelly, she’s positioned as a materteral presence, the candied antidote to her husband’s toxic bologna (she refers to everyone in the organization - from the staff to the players - as “sweetie” and “honey,” as if she were doting on her surrogate grandchildren). But the show, to its credit, isn’t content to direct its slings and arrows solely at Sterling. Shelly, for all her honeysuckle folksiness, serves as a reminder - in the show’s cutting denouement - that the 1% truly are collectively indivisible from their own self-centered orbit. In the end, the Sterlings lose their control of the Clippers (to the tune of two billion), V. fades back into obscurity, Doc and his players pass from the hands of one billionaire owner to another, and the NBA machine marches on, confident in its brief display of moral superiority. Maybe that’s why Clipped ultimately feels so frustrating. For all its soapy spectacle, it’s a series about a seismic event that somehow ended up changing virtually nothing. 3/27/2024 0 Comments obliterated (season 1) It would be easy to dismiss Obliterated at first glance as the lowest of low-hanging fruit - an obvious and deliberately lowbrow spoof of Michael Bay’s particular brand of high-gloss, action junkie heroin (highly addictive, yet deleterious to your health). But anyone familiar with creators Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald should have the intuitive sense to check that impulse. The prolific trio is best known for their ongoing Karate Kid continuation Cobra Kai and - in spite of that show’s massive popularity - I still don’t think they get nearly enough credit for the insane tonal needle they’ve effortlessly threaded over five seasons… a complex cocktail of legacy sequel, coming-of-age teen melodrama, affectionate spoof, and genuine martial arts epic that blends together flawlessly. Leveraging nostalgia for childhood properties has become a poisonous business, but Cobra Kai remains the flagship for how to do it correctly.
Obliterated isn’t nearly as good as Cobra Kai, but it’s given a similarly solid foundation of character from which to operate. Ava Winters (Shelley Hennig) is a CIA field agent in charge of a joint special-operations team tasked with thwarting the sale of a stolen nuke in Las Vegas. Her designated crew consists of cocksure Navy SEAL McKnight (Nick Zano) and his partner-in-crime Trunk (Terrence Terrell), sharpshooter Gomez (Paola Lázaro), NSA tech geek Maya (Kimi Rutledge), helicopter pilot Paul (Eugene Kim), and Hagerty (C. Thomas Howell), exactly the sort of eccentric nutcase you’d expect to find in the field of explosive ordnance disposal. The mission is accomplished, notorious arms dealer Ivan Koslov (Costa Ronin) is taken into custody, and an evening of narcotics-and-booze fueled debauchery ensues. Only problem is, the recovered nuke turns out to be a fake… and the team suddenly has just twelve hours to find the real one, caught in a hung-over, drugged-out malaise of dysfunctional disarray. It’s easy to imagine the elevator pitch (“It’s The Hangover… but the Simpson/Bruckheimer version”). That being said, Hurwitz/Schlossberg/Heald are much too savvy to simply leave it at that. Various nuggets of character-based (and drug-induced) drama (Winters and McKnight’s love/hate sexual tension; Maya’s unrequited crush on McKnight; Trunk’s sexuality) flare up over the course of the post-mission interlude, leaving the team with considerable interpersonal wreckage… minus the luxury of time or headspace to actually iron any of it out (compounding matters is the fact the straight-edged Paul accidentally ingested LSD-laced guacamole and is literally seeing gremlins (the sort voiced by Jason Mantzoukas), while Hagerty is so zonked out on a special acid-and-mushrooms cocktail he remains out of commission for nearly three-quarters of the season). Obliterated is the sort of show that’s sensible enough to get its ducks in a row before shifting into full-on looney tunes mode. Hennig is an actress who’s seen a fair amount of success playing pretty girls on soaps like Days of Our Lives and teen shows like The Secret Circle and Teen Wolf, but this is the first time she’s felt like a potential star - her comedic touch is legitimate, as is her ability to carry a series. She pairs well with Zano (looking like a cross between Josh Holloway on Lost and celebrity hair stylist Chaz Dean), who slots in comfortably to the role of brash, red-blooded, all-American action hero (though characters like these operate so close to the edge of self-parody to begin with, it rarely feels as if he’s comedically subverting the archetype). The entire cast has an easy appeal and camaraderie… which is a good thing, because even Cobra Kai’s creative team can’t overcome the fact that Obliterated is essentially a two-hour action movie that’s been tenuously stretched over an eight episode frame. The thinness of the premise is difficult to overlook. Running gags - such as the voracious Trunk being continuously thwarted in his quest for anything even semi-edible - grow tired sooner rather than later (obvious Vegas humor - such as Elvis impersonators - is inevitably mined). The comedic formula doesn’t really have legs… at some point the series simply more or less becomes what it originally set out to satirize. Certain casting choices supply additional juice (David Costabile from Billions and Breaking Bad proves a welcome addition as a black market baddie making a play for the nuke, while Alyson Gorske is a surprise standout as a vapid party girl/social influencer who gets pulled into the adventure and proves more resourceful than you might expect). At least the show doesn’t skimp on the visual fireworks; it flaunts an authentic appreciation of its stylistic inspirations, unafraid to indulge in R-rated carnage. The humor proves overly reliant on gross-out gags and bodily fluids though… rendering the series more of a crass guilty pleasure than was likely intended. Perhaps it’s for the best that Netflix declined to move forward with a second season. As the Hangover sequels showed, the aftermath tends to be a lot less funny the second time around. 2/14/2024 0 Comments gen-v (season 1) I was admittedly sluggish when it came to embracing Amazon’s popular adaptation of The Boys, mostly due to my mixed feelings where the Garth Ennis/Darick Robertson comic is concerned… little did I realize that just about everyone appears to hold said comic in at least some degree of contentious regard. Initially a brilliant and darkly comedic superhero satire, the series swiftly devolved into an outlet for all of Ennis’s worst creative impulses (it doesn’t take long for the notion of literally every superhero being either a sexual deviant, sociopath, or closet homosexual to grow deeply wearisome). What was initially biting quickly became stultifying, and more than a little desperate in its one-note cynicism. The best thing creator Eric Kripke did with the TV adaptation was downplay the puerile shock value and emphasize what was always most compelling about the comic’s setup - the conceit of superheroics being just another billion-dollar corporate brand, beholden to optics and shareholders and marketing strategy in the exact same way as the Apples and Coca-Colas and Starbucks of the world. The end result has been one of the defter adaptations in recent memory, one in which virtually every character - from Butcher to Homelander, and just about everyone populating the figurative battlefield in-between - has proven wholly superior to their comic-book counterpart.
Spin-off series Gen-V shifts the satirical focus to the no-less-fertile arena of higher learning, following the collegiate “supes” of Godolkin University as they prepare for a life of superpowered public service (one of the running jokes is that only a select few actually study crimefighting; most of them major in performing arts). For freshman Marie Moreau (Jaz Sinclair) - a hemokinetic who’s able to psychically manipulate blood - admission is a literal lifeline; she’s spent the past several years in a hardscrabble group home following personal tragedy (an opening sequence that rivals the fate of Hughie’s girlfriend in The Boys pilot for sheer fist-to-the-gut shock value). Marie intends to keep her head down and make the most of this opportunity, but it isn’t long before she gets mixed up with the campus elite, the crème de la crème (with their enviable top ten status on the school’s official leaderboard to prove it), led by BMOC Luke (Patrick Schwarzenegger), the aptly named “Golden Boy,” who’s got a ticket straight to the Seven waiting after graduation. But events take a dark turn… and Marie and her new friends soon get wind of the fact that the school is operating a clandestine research facility known as “The Woods” that, well… does precisely the sort of fucked up shit that nestles very agreeably within the established universe of The Boys. One wishes the plot demands of Gen-V weren’t quite so aggressive. The stakes rapidly escalate, yet it’s difficult to shake the alluring tug of campus life… the show is arguably at its best - or at least its most fun - when filtering the traditional college experience through its deconstructed comic book lens (we feel like prospective students who just want to ditch the campus tour and go exploring on our own). A sequence in which Andre (Chance Perdomo, a Chilling Adventures of Sabrina alum, just like Sinclair) attempts to impress a girl at a club with his magnetic abilities, only for it to go horribly wrong, perfectly encapsulates the franchise’s modus operandi. If The Boys stripped away heroic idealism to suggest the sobering reality of what happens when human neuroses and moral shortcomings are fused with god-like capabilities, Gen-V explores a similar scenario - only with emotionally unequipped kids who barely understand how to navigate their day-to-day lives, let alone how to wield great power with great responsibility. Several cast members stand out. Maddie Phillips, as Luke’s girlfriend Cate, is precisely the sort of willowy beauty that’s populated decades worth of generic teen dramas… but she eventually reveals herself to be arguably the most tragically damaged of the bunch (the emotional stress on her sylphlike frame causing her eyes to literally leak blood by the finale). Jordan has the ability to seamlessly swap sexes - a clever riff on non-binary identity - and London Thor and Derek Luh (as the character’s XX and XY iterations) do a commendable job synching the physical nuances of their performances. The show’s breakout star, however, is undeniably Lizze Broadway. As Marie’s perky roommate Emma - better known as YouTube star “Little Cricket,” who can shrink herself mouse-size by emptying the contents of her stomach - Broadway is the season’s “WTF” showstopper… a scene in which she infiltrates The Woods and burrows into a guard’s ear canal (taking a gruesome detour through his cranial innards) is as plainly outrageous as anything that’s happened on The Boys (to say nothing of a drunken hook-up that incorporates her powers in a rather - shall we say - *indelible* fashion). But Broadway, for all her sweet effervescence as a performer, also captures Emma’s insecurities with heart-rending vulnerability - you just want to hug her tight (the show is perhaps a touch heavy-handed in the way it equates superpowers with teenage self-harm - Marie accesses her abilities by cutting, Emma by purging). Marie finds her hopes of anonymity dashed as she rockets up the university leaderboard and becomes an overnight media sensation… the satirical bite of Vought International’s insidious tendrils being laced through every facet of the college experience proves tart and tasty. Academia, it turns out, has a facade every bit as manufactured as the rest of the corporation’s portfolio. The season eventually introduces the long-awaited character of Tek Knight (played by Derek Wilson), a Batman-sendup who has otherworldly powers of deductive reasoning but also a tumor in his brain that compels him to screw anything resembling an orifice (be it a bathroom hand dryer or a tree trunk). As the pompous host of the true crime series The Whole Truth, he is - not surprisingly - a notable upgrade on his insipid comics counterpart (a raging sex addict - yawn)… but the character never quite pops. There’s almost limitless potential in the Godolkin student body (date rapist Rufus - who utilizes his telepathic abilities like a Rohypnol substitute - gets his just desserts in glorious, graphic fashion), but Gen-V - it would seem - has more pressing ambitions. The big, bloody campus climax features a welcome cameo and would appear to dovetail into the upcoming fourth season of The Boys. That might disappoint some would who prefer the series didn’t evolve into precisely the sort of sprawling, Marvel-esque “shared universe” that it once mercilessly mocked, but the creative forces at work deserve a bit of faith. So far they’ve hardly put a foot wrong. 11/8/2023 0 Comments ahsoka (season 1)
Remember when Star Wars used to feel special? The most significant challenge posed during the ongoing Disney era has been how to extract every drop of potential (“potential” being a gentle euphemism for “dollar”) from this incredibly lucrative brand without reducing it to fast food content. Let’s just say the challenge has not been particularly well-met thus far. Ahsoka - the latest streaming series on Disney Plus - is fine, the same way The Mandalorian is (by and large) fine, and proves moderately more fine than the likes of The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi… but with the exception of Andor (a show whose brilliance was drastically overstated, but nonetheless had a semblance of a dramatic pulse), Star Wars is fast becoming the equivalent of a Burger King Whopper - mindlessly consumed and supplying minimal nourishment. In other words, “a galaxy far, far away” is starting to feel a lot more like “conveniently located on every street corner, with a 24-hour drive-thru.”
Ahsoka is already a bit of a creative oddity, in that it’s essentially a live-action continuation of the animated series Star Wars Rebels - those without at least a passing familiarity with its cast of characters might feel as if they accidentally skipped over the premiere episode (though it’s admittedly easy enough to get your bearings). A star map supposedly revealing the location of Grand Admiral Thrawn (last seen being dragged through hyperspace to parts unknown by a purrgil (basically a massive star whale) in the Rebels finale) is uncovered… which, for former Jedi Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson), is an opportunity to stamp out the Empire’s last remaining embers… but for her on-again/off-again Mandalorian apprentice Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), it’s a chance to find her best friend Ezra Bridger, who was also aboard Thrawn’s flagship when it disappeared. Meanwhile, the fallen Jedi turned mercenary Baylan Skoll (the great Ray Stevenson - sadly in his final screen appearance) and his apprentice Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno) also seek the map - along with Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto), who previously appeared on The Mandalorian - in order to facilitate Thrawn’s triumphant return (the New Republic, meanwhile, feels a lot more like the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter - all too content to thrust its head into the sand). Creator Dave Filoni remains a polarizing figure in Star Wars fandom, though it’s hard not to interpret a lot of the stick he receives as old-fashioned jealousy. After all, he’s basically living the dream many of us grew up fantasizing about… signing on as George Lucas’s de facto Padawan and eventually being granted the enviable opportunity to create his own characters and stories within the Star Wars sandbox (with many fans confident - deep down - that they could have done a better job). Filoni did some excellent work in the animated space, between Clone Wars and Rebels - and has ably assisted Jon Favreau on The Mandalorian - but his ability to move between animation and live action is less fluid, less instinctual than, say, someone like Brad Bird. Casting isn’t the issue. Ahsoka Tano always seemed like an exceedingly tricky character to translate into live action, but in Dawson they found an actress who captures her essence almost seamlessly (even if she’s playing an older, wiser, more cool-headed incarnation than “Snips” on Clone Wars - Ariana Greenblatt portrays that version in flashback, in a jarring reminder of how young she was actually supposed to be on that show). She’s totally aces in the role. All of the Rebels characters are well-realized, with Bordizzo and Eman Esfandi as Ezra particularly spot-on… though Mary Elizabeth Winstead, as rebel pilot turned New Republic general Hera Syndulla, struggles to transcend the cosplay veneer of her pea soup complexion and cranial tentacles (technically known as “lekku” to all the Star Wars dweebs out there). The problem - as has been the case with almost all Star Wars streaming content - is how flat it all comes across dramatically… how unrousing it feels for a franchise that, at its apex, was as rousing as anything ever seen in cinema. The lightsaber battles feel like dance choreography that’s being staged for the tourists at Galaxy’s Edge. Thrawn is played by the Dutch actor Lars Mikkelsen, who has a slippery, calculating quality that made him ideal as the Putin stand-in Viktor Petrov on House of Cards… but shows up here looking like a paunchy, blue-skinned Elon Musk. After considerable buildup over multiple episodes, he just… casually strolls on-screen. Where’s the sense of the dramatic moment? Stevenson was born to play a Jedi mercenary with a compromised moral compass, and his screen presence is considerable… but his encounters with Ahsoka are restrained to the point of inertia. In other ways, the show has a light and limber touch. Dawson and Bordizzo’s affectionately frictive rapport goes a long way (David Tennant is also a reliable gem as the grumpy droid Huyang, who literally crafted lightsabers for the Jedi Order for millennia). Ahsoka is one of those exasperating shows, however, that seems to exist predominately to set up the *next* thing (supposedly the “Heir to the Empire” saga) and keep the content pipeline churning. Its own individual sense of magic is in short supply. And the Star Wars galaxy feels that much more ordinary as a result. 10/21/2023 0 Comments the full monty (season 1) It was purely by chance that I happened to revisit The Full Monty earlier this year - unaware that the cast had literally been reassembled Avengers-style for an impending follow-up series - and found it just as charming as it was upon release 25 years ago. The streaming iteration, however, proves a decidedly odd duck… and not only because it’s been entirely (and understandably) divorced from the original’s steelworkers-turned-strippers premise. The show is buoyed by an irreverent whimsy, full of unapologetically broad, sitcom-style hi-jinks (there’s a dog-napping plot connected to Britain’s Got Talent; a get-rich scheme involving racing pigeons and a Korean billionaire; and a hostage situation at the local job center that devolves into darkly comic folly)… but it also has a deep-rooted melancholy that pierces the film’s protective layer of fantasy hard and unforgivingly.
Part of the movie’s sweet-natured appeal was recognizing, deep down, that a striptease performance was unlikely to alter the hardscrabble lives of its characters in any significant way… and yet, as their moment of triumph was immortalized in freeze frame, we could pretend that it somehow did. But, as the show makes abundantly clear… it didn’t. If anything, working class Sheffield has become even more depressive in the ensuing quarter-century (the club where they performed has long since been shuttered). Gaz (Robert Carlyle), still cavalierly lives life day-by-day, always on the lookout for his next scheme and trying not to screw up his relationship with teenage daughter Destiny (Talitha Wing, a real asset) too badly. Dave (Mark Addy) and Jean (Lesley Sharp) are still married, but their attempt to start a family years ago ended in tragedy and they’ve never really recovered (Jean asks him point blank if there’s anything in his life he takes pride in). Lomper (Steve Huison) runs a semi-struggling cafe with his husband Dennis (Paul Clayton), but feels largely ineffectual in the relationship. Gerald (Tom Wilkinson) is basically limited to a handful of cameos within the cafe, quipping in a voice that sounds like warmed over death (seriously, Wilkinson appears in shockingly poor health - though if anything is going on, he’s done a good job keeping it private… either way, it’s unfortunate, given that he was arguably the best thing about the original). The saddest figure, however, is probably Horse (Paul Barber), aging and physically debilitated, doing his best to keep his spirits up in spite of constantly falling through the cracks thanks to a social services system that’s as uncaring as it is ineffective (Hugo Speer’s Guy, meanwhile, has limited screentime and abruptly disappears from the series altogether - supposedly due to accusations of inappropriate conduct on-set). In spite of going gray, Carlyle maintains his general boyishness; there’s no denying, however, that the cast (not to sound harsh) has otherwise aged rather starkly. It renders the undercurrent of their ongoing struggles that much more doleful. Original screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, who created and wrote the series along with Alice Nutter (formerly of Chumbawamba - yes, *that* Chumbawamba), made the somewhat debatable decision to build each episode almost entirely around a single character… which results in certain plot threads crisping unevenly. At first, Dave - who works as a caretaker at the badly neglected Sheffield Spires Academy (where Jean is the headteacher) - becoming a father figure of sorts to a bullied student (lessening his own paternal void ever-so-slightly in the process) feels like the relatable heart of the series… but the relationship is barely touched upon beyond the second episode. On the other hand, it’s a new addition to the cast - Miles Jupp, as the wincing bureaucrat Darren - who lands arguably the most well-rounded storyline, in which he finds unexpected happiness with a Kurdish refugee and her teenage son (speaking of offspring, Gaz’s son Nathan from the film is all grown up, and a policeman to boot, but he and his family mostly get the short shrift… one too many characters jockeying for screentime, it would seem). Without the stripping scheme to hold focus, the series tends to wander; it’s a good thing the cast remains so uniformly likable (it’s hard to tell if Gaz’s impishness is more or less exasperating now that he’s in his 60s, but this older, more weatherworn version of Dave gives Mark Addy a clear opportunity to shine). This new iteration of The Full Monty lurches between the farcical and the funereal, between easy levity and social didacticism and yet, in a weird way, that’s sort of its appeal. It has the rutted rhythm of life itself - the triumphs and setbacks, the jolts of joy and tugs of sadness, the cyclical interplay between absurdity and heartbreak. For an oddball continuation of one of the more unlikely breakout hits of the 90s, there’s a certain imperfect satisfaction in that, at least.  In a certain sense, it’s not terribly difficult to understand why Star Trek fans have been so quick to embrace what Strange New Worlds is selling. Given Picard’s fumbling and floundering (admittedly redeemed by its far superior third and final season) and the increasingly lamentable dirge of Discovery, the basic SNW pitch - vibrant color palette, aspirational-in-tone, with an emphasis on weekly, stand-alone adventures - is mighty tasty. It feels like a correctly modulated retro throwback to the halcyon days of Roddenberry. But one can’t help but feel as if the show is being graded on a significant curve - it performs the Trek basics well, but frankly not a whole lot else. Its core competency has been largely misconstrued as greatness. Two seasons in and I’m not sure you could claim a single episode has been a genuine banger (the closest was season one finale “A Quality of Mercy,” and that’s only because it was doing a karaoke version of “Balance of Terror,” not unlike the way Into Darkness utilized Wrath of Khan as a creative crutch).
The funny thing is that the cast, by and large, is excellent. Anson Mount, as the Enterprise’s patriarchal Captain Christopher Pike, offers a near-perfect balance of humor and gravitas (not to mention a spectacular head of hair). Celia Rose Gooding plays a deliberately desexualized version of Uhura, but brings a brainy pluck to the role all her own. Ethan Peck and the recurring Paul Wesley deliver perfectly palatable modern TV versions of Spock and Kirk, respectively (Peck in particular has grown into the role after an understandably trepidatious start). Rebecca Romijn rarely feels fully utilized as Una Chin-Riley, aka “Number One,” Pike’s second-in-command, but is a reliably sturdy performer whenever called upon. Melissa Navia has an outsized daredevil charisma as Erica Ortegas, the Enterprise’s gifted helmsman, while Carol Kane brings her usual inimitable daffiness and singularly off-kilter acting choices to the role of chief engineer Pelia (an inspired second season addition). Best of all is Christina Chong as the ship’s taciturn chief of security La’an Noonien Singh (yes, as in *that* Noonien Singh), whose prickly demeanor (her eyes narrowing warily until her gaze could cut glass, her lips compressed so tightly they’re almost colorless) is a considerable asset. With this much acting talent on display, it’s a puzzle why the show itself feels so commonplace. If anything, the second season offers up an even slighter batch of episodes then the first. A measure of gimmickry is inevitable - some of which pays dividends (the Lower Decks crossover is actually a major hoot, mainly because Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome are so great as the live-action versions of their animated counterparts), and some of which doesn’t (the musical episode, I’m sorry to say, was one of the more torturous hours in recent memory). Una faces dismissal from Starfleet when her genetic modifications as an Illyrian come to light (classic Trek always trafficked in political allegory, though rarely this ham-handed), La’an gets pulled into an alternate timeline where she and Kirk strike romantic sparks in modern-day Toronto, while hi-jinks ensue when a higher-dimensional race rewires Spock’s genetic coding so that he’s fully human… right as he’s set to undergo a Vulcan engagement ritual with fiancée T’Pring and her disapproving parents. All of this is fine (mostly), but it doesn’t engage the imagination the way the best Trek episodes do. There’s no particular sense of wonder to this final frontier. It’s a well-executed but bloodless facsimile. As a direct prequel to the Original Series, Strange New Worlds is uniquely positioned to engage in rampant fan service re: established Trek mythology (remember when Spock’s half-brother Sybok was teased in the first season?)… but the show is frankly better when it keeps that powder relatively dry. Pike gaining foreknowledge of the disfiguring accident originally established in “The Menagerie” raises one’s Vulcan eyebrow (“Intriguing”)… but the eyebrow remains raised in less complimentary fashion when Pike uses a Klingon time crystal to try and alter his fate, only to inadvertently destroy the galaxy. Meanwhile, the show seems to have embraced the lizard-like Gorn as their primary antagonists (the orphaned La’an’s colony ship infamously encountered them when she was a child) - a one-off race from the Original Series that mostly endure thanks to to Kirk’s unintentionally hilarious fisticuffs with a lumbering brute in a rubber suit. This less-humanoid, more-reptilian iteration of the Gorn could (generously) be compared to the Xenomorphs from Alien (and not only because they seemingly copped the basics of their reproductive cycle) - intelligent and highly evolved pack predators. Fearsome indeed, but how are these creatures piloting advanced starships, let alone building them in the first place? When we finally get a good look at one, it’s basically a velociraptor with a space helmet. There’s little of thematic note to the depiction beyond basic savagery. The Borg, they are not. Strange New Worlds, to its credit, maintains a mostly relaxed and accommodating vibe… it’s free of the drab self-seriousness and narrative pretzels that have afflicted much of the streaming era of Star Trek. But it still feels too often like a show that’s venturing forth tepidly, rather than boldly. 9/28/2023 0 Comments Swagger (season 2) Swagger is one of the better shows on streaming that no one ever seems to talk about. The Apple TV+ drama - which focuses on teenage basketball prodigy Jace Carson (Isaiah Hill), while grappling with everything that being one happens to entail - isn’t on the same level as Friday Night Lights (another show whose quality, sadly, far exceeded its buzz)… but it’s basically the next best thing to that pantheon series and its incredibly successful blend of coming-of-age melodrama, athletic competition, and tight-knit community saga.
Season one followed Jace as a 14-year-old, playing for his AAU team in the DC suburbs (the show was loosely inspired by NBA superstar Kevin Durant - who's credited as executive producer - and his upbringing)… with “Swagger” serving as both team nickname and the show’s guiding philosophy in terms of how one faces the challenges and adversities of life. Season two actually time jumps over three years, picking up with Jace on the cusp of his 18th birthday and starting his senior year at prestigious Cedar Cove Prep, where he thankfully (and perhaps conveniently) still plays with all his prior middle-school teammates we grew to know and love. It’s also pretty much a plotting formality that he’ll somehow be reunited with his former coach, mentor, and father figure Ike “Icon” Edwards (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) on the court before the season premiere is finished. Unfortunately, Swagger saw its second season slashed from ten episodes to eight, and one can feel the slightly truncated strain. Creator Reggie Rock Bythewood has a lot on his mind; he and his writing staff perhaps try to cram one too many issues into the margins of each episode. Certain characters get the short shrift - Shinelle Azoroh, so good as Jace’s mother Jenna in season one (the fiercely protective steward of her son’s NBA dream, though not always necessarily in the best way), is still very much present, but feels less instrumental (likewise, Caleel Harris seemed like an early breakout star as point guard Musa… until he was curiously exiled to California as part of the first season’s Covid storyline. Just as his character must contend with reduced minutes on the court in season two, he feels like an actor who never quite regained his place in the starting rotation). On the other hand, Solomon Irama remains an absolute standout as the soulful Phil, while Shannon Brown proves a fine addition as sophomore CJ - struggling to live up to his father’s legacy as an NBA star, amongst other burdens weighing heavily on his shoulders. For better or for worse, much of the second season is a reckoning tied to a specific incident from the first season… in which Jace learned his BFF Crystal (the Joey to his Dawson, played by Oscar nominee Quvenzhane Wallis) was being molested by her basketball coach, leading to him and his teammates carrying out a vigilante assault. The creative decision makes sense. The dramatic fallout (Jace sees everything he’s worked towards suddenly teetering on a knife’s edge as D-1 offers are swiftly revoked) touches upon so many of the social issues the show is concerned with. A bracing episode built around a visit to a youth detention center for a pickup game underscores that a single mistake can derail an entire future, no matter how promising… particularly in a society where young Black men aren’t typically afforded second chances. But our affection for these characters is so great, there’s a protective urge to push back against the storyline. Logical or not, it’s dramatic territory we aren’t necessarily keen to venture into. Nonetheless, Swagger remains, on the balance, an enormously entertaining show. The basketball scenes are filmed with a thrilling, free-flow immediacy (the aforementioned pickup game is shot and staged in a single take of smoothly choreographed technical virtuosity)… the real-time social media updates (reflecting the fickleness of athletic adulation) an innovative flourish. Those who heart Jace and Crystal (and really, why wouldn’t you? Hill and Wallis have terrific chemistry) will be delighted with the arc of their relationship. The core of the show though remains the bond between Ike and Jace (the former desperate to ensure the latter avoids his own missteps as a one-time b-ball messiah), with Jackson and Hill both outstanding. Hill in particular has a quiet magnetism that anchors the drama - it’ll be interesting where his career goes from here. The second season builds to what feels very much like an emotionally satisfying series finale… we could, of course, theoretically follow Jace on to college, but with the characters all pursuing different paths, this feels like the end of the show as we know it. The measure of closure is nonetheless gratifying. As Swagger makes clear, the NBA may be the destination, but the journey itself is far more compelling.  Jinkies! On paper, Velma sounds like a potentially fun time - a satirically deconstructionist Scooby-Doo prequel specifically built around the titular character (voiced by Mindy Kaling), who’s always enjoyed a particularly devoted cult following within Scooby circles. In practice, however… ruh-roh. It’s hard to remember a pilot that more discordantly strikes all the wrong notes than this one (after a while, your facial muscles acclimate to the cringe and just sort of settle into a numb grimace of disbelief). Whatever the show’s intentions, it’s hard to read the tone as anything but aggressively hostile towards its source material. Who on earth is this series for? Not Scooby-Doo fans, that’s for sure. This iteration of Velma comes across an awful lot like a Daria clone garbed in a familiar orange sweater - a pariah at Crystal Cove High, who nonetheless embraces her lack of social standing and maintains an open air of smug superiority in regards to her fellow classmates. Meanwhile, Fred (Glenn Howerton) is an entitled and dim-witted man-baby, Daphne (Constance Wu) is a stuck-up mean girl with adoptive lesbian moms, and Shaggy (going by his given name of “Norville”) is a drab straight edge who carries a torch for Velma and feels a lot more like an animated extension of Sam Richardson’s comedic persona than anything Hanna-Barbera related. Well, at least his shirt is green. Ostensibly this is a Mystery Incorporated origin story (God knows how Scooby eventually factors in), even though the main foursome basically detest each other and revel in their own hostile dysfunction. In its rush to establish a tone of ironically detached self-awareness, the show goes scorched earth on its own IP. The series does commendably commit to a season-long arc, as Velma attempts to unravel the mystery of her mother’s disappearance while a serial killer is busy harvesting brains from popular girls. And if we’re being honest, there’s way too much vocal talent assembled here (Howerton and Richardson in particular, but also the likes of Cherry Jones as Fred’s domineering mother and Wanda Sykes and Jane Lynch as Daphne’s aforementioned moms) for some jokes not to squarely land. But Velma is one of those irritating shows that feels as if its writers were cultivated in some sort of TV incubator - it has little to offer beyond pop culture references and meta-snark. Too many punchlines are punctuated with a whiff of self-congratulation (“It’s just until you’re popular enough to do whatever you want… like a homophobic chicken sandwich chain”). At worst, the series feels more like a fumbling attempt by conservative writers to lampoon their lazy interpretation of “woke comedy” (“Hey, no offense, but can we just let the actual doctor explain? Just being a white guy with a clipboard doesn’t cut it anymore”). In spite of overwhelmingly negative online buzz, the show was renewed for a second season (I watched all ten episodes, so I guess I have no one but myself to blame)… nonetheless, one senses a distinct shift in the cultural sea breeze. There’s less appetite for this brand of snide subversion. It sounds crazy, but most people would rather just celebrate the things they grew up loving, rather than trying to act cool by crapping on them.  Gremlins is an anomaly - the rare 80s classic that’s remained largely untouched and unexploited for nostalgic gain… though it’s not difficult to see why. Few films better exemplify just how hard that decade went, particularly where kids were concerned (the 80’s just hit different, man - why do you think we all revere our Gen-X childhoods so much?) - by today’s standards, it’s literal nightmare fuel (the kitchen scene, with gremlins getting eviscerated in blenders and exploding in microwaves; Kate’s infamous tale of Christmas woe; Stripe graphically melting into a puke-like puddle) - and this was after Chris Columbus’s original script was drastically toned down (no more Billy being greeted by his mom’s severed head being tossed down the stairs). There is simply *no way* this movie could realistically be remade today, regardless of how many cuddly Gizmo dolls Warner Bros. yearns to sell to subsequent generations of kiddie filmgoers.
An animated prequel series, it would seem, was the most palatable compromise. Unlike Velma, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai makes no attempt to dampen its obvious reverence for Joe Dante’s cinematic efforts - when the familiar theme kicks in over the opening titles, it brings a surge of giddy delight. Set in the early 1920s, the show leans heavily on Chinese folklore as it delves deeper into the mythology of the Mogwai (let’s just say it has a lot more to do with Gods and human creation then you might have assumed in 1984). When Gizmo is taken from his village in the Valley of Jade, he winds up in Shanghai as a circus performer… but soon crosses paths with 10-year-old Sam Wing (Izaac Wang) - yes, the old Chinatown antique dealer from the film - who works in his parents’ apothecary shop and is known for his kind soul, if not his aptitude for risk-taking or adventure. Long story short, Sam must team up with hardened street urchin Elle (Gabrielle Nevaeh Green) - who’s all about risk-taking and adventure, but a bit less kind-souled, at least on the surface - to help Gizmo get back home… while being relentlessly pursued by the power-hungry sorcerer/industrialist Riley Greene (Matthew Rhys, chewing the scenery with chest-puffing gusto), who believes ingesting a Mogwai will grant him immortality. The series has more than a little in common with Avatar: The Last Airbender - another animated show filtered through a compelling lens of Eastern mythos that follows a mismatched band of child heroes as they embark on a coming-of-age journey of supreme importance… and it’s probably as much a gauge for potential enjoyment as one’s own fanatical Gremlins fandom. The episodes have a spirited creativity and visual style very much their own. On the downside, the gremlins themselves simply don’t translate as strongly into animated form - they lack the tactile, reptilian presence… the grotesque impact they had when they were rubbery marvels of 80s puppetry (Gizmo, on the other hand, feels more liberated - he’s a fully realized character, as opposed to a merchandising opportunity). Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai may not match the anarchic turbulence of the live-action films that inspired it, but it’s still a treat in its own right. This is fan service done correctly - with sincere affection, best consumed before midnight. 8/16/2023 0 Comments secret invasion (season 1) Is Marvel officially in trouble? “Trouble” might be an aggressive wording, but there’s little question they’ve found their post-Endgame footing uncommonly slippery. From attempting to launch lesser-loved properties such as Eternals to the ongoing glut of Disney Plus offerings that often makes staying on top of the MCU feel like an untenable workload (if not a full-time job), the Marvel brand may not be stagnant, but it is starting to feel a bit like a hamster wheel. People will still turn out in droves for characters they feel genuinely invested in - as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 readily proved - but the days of every Marvel project being eagerly embraced as a vital piece of a larger whole, or enjoying preferential box office status (remember when Captain Marvel generated over a billion dollars?) feel largely behind us.
On paper, the new Disney Plus series Secret Invasion sounds terrific. It builds on the events of the aforementioned Captain Marvel, as Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) promises the Skrull refugees that he’ll help them secure a new planet… in exchange for doing much of SHIELD’s dirty work (which, given the Skrull’s shape-shifting capabilities, mostly involves espionage and assassination). But Fury whiffs on his pledge, then the Blip happens, and then the un-blipped Fury (the fire mostly gone from his belly) takes a post-Endgame gig in outer space as a form of self-exile. Former Skrull leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) remains loyal, but many other Skrulls - including his own daughter G’iah (Emilia Clarke) - are left disillusioned and flock to a rebel splinter group led by the dangerously driven Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir who, amusingly, can currently be seen as one of the Kens in Barbie). Fury and Talos discover that Skrulls have infiltrated the highest levels of government across the globe and that Gravik is plotting to engineer a war between the United States and Russia in order to seize control of the planet. The series promises a densely-layered conspiracy thriller - much in the same way that The Winter Soldier drew creative inspiration from the paranoia and political thrillers of the 1970s - and the setup initially compels… particularly once Fury attempts to sound the alarm bell but finds himself cut off at the knees by his longtime friend and ally James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) - which stokes the flames of Samuel L. Jackson’s inner-Samuel L. as if he were a dormant forge. Many, however, have expressed increasing frustration with Disney Plus’s preferred six-episode format, and with good reason… it’s a tricky creative nebula; more bloated and meandering than if the premise had simply served as the foundation of, say, Captain Marvel 2… but not long enough to spool out the plot threads in sufficient detail, or allow the characters to amply marinate. The end result has an oddly lurching rhythm - plodding, yet rushed. So much of the MCU’s creative energy is now expended trying to explain how a mess of conflicting plot points coalesce across multiple properties (or don’t… as many are fond of pointing out, no one’s seen fit to comment on the fact that the colossal Ocean Celestial from Eternals remains in a state of partial emergence, its head and hand just jutting from the Earth for all to see). For the first time, Marvel’s shared universe feels like it’s handicapping creativity, rather than vivifying it. Secret Invasion assembled an impressive cast and it should come as no surprise that Oscar-winner Olivia Colman is the obvious standout as MI6 operative Sonya Falsworth, whose chipper demeanor masks a heart of cold, British stone (her honey-dipped delivery during a surprisingly brutal interrogation of a Skrull prisoner is probably the highlight of the entire series). If only everyone else fared quite so well. Gravik seeks the Harvest - basically the Barbasol canister in Jurassic Park, only with superhero DNA instead of dino embryos - which sets the stage for a climactic “Super Skrull” smackdown… but Kingsley Ben-Adir and Emilia Clarke are stranded in a sludgy CGI slugfest (cycling between powers like a Marvel video game’s “character select” screen) that feels largely bereft of emotional stakes or narrative logic. The constant shape-shifting reveals and fake-outs also begin to feel like a storytelling crutch, not unlike the masks in Mission: Impossible (the second one in particular). There’s a lot of ripe moral murkiness at play - Gravik essentially being a sin Fury must atone for - but the tragic dimensions of their conflict never fully take root. It’s all rather shapeless… not unlike the abstract style of the much-maligned AI-generated opening credits that arguably set this entire series off on the wrong foot in the first place. 7/11/2023 0 Comments dead ringers (season 1) If you were to pick a David Cronenberg film to be remolded into a streaming series (insomuch as you’d reluctantly pick anything, given that Cronenberg is one of the most inimitable filmmakers of the past fifty years), you’d probably lean towards something like Scanners… what with its heads-exploding-like-rotten-pumpkins aesthetic and its high-concept mythology based around warring telekinetic factions, which at least provide a broad pulp canvas from which to work from. Unlikely to rank near the top (or even the middle) of the list would be Dead Ringers, Cronenberg’s cerebral, morgue slab-cold 1988 pic about identical twin gynecologists descending into madness… and yet, here we are.
It’s a dubious-at-best prospect that instantly became a lot more palatable once it was announced that Rachel Weisz would be playing the lead role… the Oscar winner’s pedigree speaks for itself, but this is also an instance in which gender reversal makes thrilling sense. Dead Ringers was about many things, but it definitely tapped into the squirmy terror of men being the dispassionate medical overlords of female anatomy (and everything it entails, physically and psychologically). The series takes a similar approach, minus Cronenberg’s operatic flair (his red surgical frocks were like something straight out of the Grand Guignol); it’s more subtle and insidious, the horror cloaked within a deceptive shroud of female empathy and protection. In this case, the vagina is more like a Venus flytrap. Weisz plays the Mantle twins, Beverly and Elliot, Manhattan-based wunderkinds of the OBGYN scene. Elliot is the extrovert, devoted to her sister and little else, her aura of smirking detachment like an impenetrable Teflon-coating. Beverly is more reserved, more maternal… driven by a fundamental idealism her more cynical twin lacks. It’s no surprise that Beverly is tasked with interfacing with the patients while Elliot is better suited to clinical research. As was the case in the movie, the duo have a delicate, deeply co-dependent balance that becomes dangerously destabilized when Beverly falls in love with an actress named Genevieve, played by Britne Oldford. Weisz, not surprisingly, is astonishing. Like Jeremy Irons, she inhabits the dual leads so completely, and is so consistent in her subtleties of body language, that the two characters remain fully distinguishable at all times (admittedly, Weisz benefits from stronger visual cues - such as Beverly typically wearing her hair up and Elliot wearing it down - but, as Irons did before her, she makes the challenge of acting opposite herself appear almost effortless). Not since Tatiana Maslany was performing the logistical equivalent of riding a unicycle across a tightrope while juggling milk bottles on Orphan Black has portraying twins been such a feat of actorly dexterity. The six-episode series follows the basic trajectory of the movie, with one significant change… Elliot and Beverly are still in the process of securing the financing to launch the private fertility clinic/birthing center they envision as their legacy. Jennifer Ehle (as you’d expect) is aces as Rebecca Parker, the daunting, Sackler-esque venture capitalist who thrives on the sort of cutthroat gamesmanship that’s like catnip to the combative Elliott and fingernails-on-a-chalkboard to the reticent Beverly. A sequence in which she hosts a dinner party for the twins to effectively sing for their supper is the series at its twisted and darkly comic apex… the verbal sparring like a storm of fencing rapiers furiously criss-crossing the table (dinner parties in general are seemingly the show’s bread-and-butter - equally memorable is Elliot and Beverly flying their parents in for a disastrous birthday celebration that keeps finding new emotional depths to plumb). One of the smartest things the new Dead Ringers does (though it’ll no doubt be a disappointment to some) is that it doesn’t even attempt to best Cronenberg at his own game… in other words, gynecology isn’t overtly utilized as a body horror battleground (the speculums, retractors and forceps evolving into literal instruments of alien terror). It traffics in a more muted, less deliriously weird - but no less potent - form of trauma. The female perspective keeps uncovering fresh angles and planes within the material. Beverly’s desire for a baby - and Elliot’s corresponding desire to concoct the perfect embryo for her - brings a maternal dimension to their bond that the film obviously wasn’t capable of (the presumptive co-parenting of said child is just one of the many reasons Genevieve’s disruptive presence feels so ominous; she threatens not only the relationship between the twins, but their familial potential). Not everything in the series works. The subplot concerning Poppy Liu as the Mantles’ housekeeper dovetails thematically (after some ample head-scratching), but there’s an artificiality to it - Liu drifts through scenes on a compartmentalized wavelength. And the ending wobbles undeniably, though it’s hard not to appreciate the sheer brazenness of its narrative cheek. Weisz is the reason to watch, however. There’s no guarantee - given the cluttered streaming landscape, in which content largely passes, ghost-like, into the ether - that she’ll garner the Emmy recognition she so richly deserves, but this is undoubtedly one of the past year’s best performances. She’s diabolically good. Diabolical, methodical and fundamentally gynecological. 6/27/2023 0 Comments ted lasso (season 3) Ted Lasso may be an American comedy, but its willingness to bid a defiant farewell at the apex of its popularity feels distinctly… British. It’s not yet official that the show’s third season on Apple TV+ was its last, but it seems relatively certain that it won’t be continuing in its current iteration led by Jason Sudeikis’s titular star (my best guess - a half-continuation/half-spinoff called The Richmond Way). It seemingly joins the ranks of UK shows such as Fawlty Towers, The Office and Derry Girls that espoused the belief that it’s better to walk away years too early than a day too late.
Ted Lasso’s mere existence still feels like a minor miracle. The idea of building an entire show around a character Sudeikis basically created to help NBC promote its Premier League coverage still seems laughable… its ceiling on network television would charitably have been described as a critically derided midseason replacement destined for cancellation after four episodes. Instead, the delicate and disarmingly feel-good alchemy of its first season (bolstered in no small part by the dolorous backdrop of the pandemic) flowered on streaming and the show quickly became an Emmy-winning phenomenon. Ted’s fundamental and unironic decency was like a drug, and we all became willing addicts. There’s no need to mince words, however. It’s pretty well documented at this point that Ted Lasso’s third season careened through some fairly sizable narrative potholes. With Apple effectively removing all creative guardrails, the formerly half-hour comedy started routinely turning in mammoth 70-minute episodes - though they rarely justified the extra fat. Too many storylines frankly went nowhere. Richmond’s paradigm-shifting acquisition of self-aggrandizing striker Zava was a hilariously spot-on spoof of Swedish star Zlatan Ibrahimovich but otherwise petered out without incident (you’d assume Zava’s self-centered greatness would clash with Ted’s team-first ethos, but this is oddly never really touched on). Everything involving Keeley’s PR firm - from her ill-advised decision to hire party girl pal Shandy to her lesbian fling with venture capitalist Jack - simply fills space. Too often humor would dictate character, rather than the other way around (the eternally cheerful Dani Rojas morphing into a stone-cold assassin when pitted against teammate Zoreaux on international duty is good for a chuckle, but it’s inorganic caricature). At times, Ted just hovers over it all like a benevolent, mustached deity… almost as if the writers were stress-testing a version of the show without him in it. As others have pointed out, too much of the season left the characters stranded in their own individual orbits… like pinballs being paddled in parallel lines. This was particularly evident with Nate, whose heel turn at the end of last season was already on shaky narrative ground. Left largely adrift as the newly installed manager of West Ham United and with no obvious way to exploit his fledgling rivalry with Richmond (it’s not like the two clubs could play every week), his redemptive arc was clumsily fast-tracked, glossing over the part in which he actually, you know… earns it (everything is chalked up to Rupert’s Sith Lord influence, even though he had no hand in Nate’s original betrayal). Under the circumstances, it’s not surprising that viewers gravitated most strongly towards Roy and Jamie’s sweet-and-sour friendship, which was the most reliable fount of character-based humor and growth. It was an especially pleasant surprise that Jamie - the formerly bratty striking prodigy played by Phil Dunster - turned out to be the best-serviced member of the ensemble... especially after the show had so little idea what to do with him last season (on the flip side, Toheeb Jimoh’s Sam - last year’s rightfully beloved breakout star (as an actor, Jimoh has an almost ecstatically endearing presence) - gets largely and disappointingly sidelined, aside from a few key episodes). And while Sarah Niles was deeply missed as team psychologist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone (the only person seemingly immune to Ted’s folksy cheer), James Lance - as journalist Trent Crimm (formerly of The Independent, and someone very much *not* immune to Ted's folksy cheer) - was smartly ushered in off the fringes and incorporated into the main fold. And yet, in spite of it all… Ted Lasso’s charm remains indefatigable. The premise was already starting to strain credulity (Ted’s ignorance of soccer worked in the first season, because he had insights that transcended the sport; but at this point, not knowing the offsides rule just makes him look bad at his job)… but the show’s value of optimism and courtesy proves as potent a balm in these fractious times as ever. Its world - a sports comedy filtered through the whimsical lens of Paddington Bear - is absolutely worth spending time in. As always, certain cast members deserve special mention. Brett Goldstein, like a live-action Oscar the Grouch with his perpetually scowling visage and fiercely knitted caterpillar eyebrows, remains a curmudgeonly delight as the eternally grumpy Roy Kent. Hannah Waddingham, as Richmond owner Rebecca Welton, has a uniquely radiant presence - it's still hard to believe the best Game of Thrones could devise for her was ringing the shame bell. Her speech in opposition of a proposed Super League was possibly the highlight of the entire series (one of the best things the show ever did was pivot beyond its pseudo-Major League premise and Rebecca’s antagonistic positioning as quickly as possible). And, of course, Sudeikis himself, the amiable glue holding it all together, who no doubt makes his job look a heck of a lot easier than it is (in an art imitating life moment, Rebecca tells Ted emotionally “I can afford to make you one of the highest-paid coaches in the league, but… I still think I’d be underpaying you for what you mean to this club.” On the other hand, Sudeikis hints at the show moving on just fine without him when Ted gently suggests Trent change the title of his forthcoming book The Lasso Way - “It was never about me”). But whatever the third season’s shortcomings, all of that lingering frustration gets swept aside during the stellar season (series?) finale “So Long, Farewell” (that early conversation about Julie Andrews films - and Mary Poppins in particular - was definitely not an incidental detail). It’s a perfect distillation of everything Ted Lasso does best - effortlessly teasing that fist-sized lump into one’s throat while reminding us of the uniquely galvanizing dramatic power of sports. If this truly is the end, the show will be missed. As Ted says “I know folks like to say there’s no place like home. And that’s true. But man… there ain’t a whole lot of places like AFC Richmond either.” 5/31/2023 0 Comments the peripheral (season 1) The Peripheral is the sort of perfectly competent show that tends to get swallowed up in the never-ending churn of streaming content (even within the confines of its own science-fiction subgenre, it’s basically a less creatively juiced, less visually muscular Altered Carbon)… but it nonetheless has a certain analytic value in terms of the delicate art of television adaptation. The source novel, written by cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson, was an entertaining read - but didn’t really have the internal architecture for a potential series, beyond its dizzyingly high-concept premise. In the hands of novelist-turned-showrunner Scott B. Smith (A Simple Plan, The Ruins), however, the story’s gotten some notably meaty plot upgrades. Smith wisely approached the book as a narrative sandbox and immediately set about erecting his own castle spires.
Flynne Fisher (Chloe Grace Moretz) occupies a lower rung on the socio-economic ladder in a rural North Carolina of 2032, where she works in a 3D print shop and cares for her ailing mother. When her ex-marine brother Burton (Jack Reynor) is hired to test a video game sim with a new, state-of-the-art headset, Flynne - the more naturally gifted gamer - agrees to fill in for him and finds herself in a futuristic London… where she’s sent to an upscale shindig with orders to seduce (and subsequently abduct) a specific partygoer. It’s all good fun, until Flynne learns the startling truth - she’s not actually playing a sim at all. In fact, the headset creates a virtual bridge between her world and a London 70 years in the future (which exists in the aftermath of an apocalyptic series of systemic global crises referred to as the Jackpot), where she’s able to pilot an artificial body known as a peripheral. And now she’s drawn the attention of some very dangerous people who are very eager to eliminate her and her family. Flynne soon gains an ally in the form of Wilf Netherton (Gary Carr) - a celebrity publicist in the novel, now a somewhat vaguely defined “fixer” in the employ of the powerful oligarch Lev Zubov (JJ Feild). He explains that Flynne exists in a “stub” - an alternate timeline that diverged at the precise moment their respective worlds made initial contact. He’s trying to locate Aelita West (Charlotte Riley), the woman who initially hired Burton/Flynne and who may be connected to the Neoprims, a mysterious group the seeks to destroy the post-Jackpot world order. Much of this deviates from the book, in which Flynne witnesses Aelita’s death while running drone security… for all of its complex conceits and world-building, Gibson’s plot was a fairly mundane murder mystery, one that spent several hundred pages building up to Flynne attending a party (hosted by Aelita’s performance artist sister - and Wilf’s ex-girlfriend) in hopes of eyeballing the killer. The series understandably seeks to raise the stakes and install a more propulsive engine... one designed to power a reconceived conspiracy that’s significantly knottier and calculated to span multiple seasons - and to that end, it’s rather successful. The Peripheral, however, never quite engages the imagination with the sense of wonder that the very best science-fiction evokes. Futuristic London - a sparsely populated shell of a metropolis that papers over its ruins with artificial imagery - intrigues on a surface level, but doesn’t entirely convince as a setting… as a fully realized world dreamt into literal being. Moretz, inherently likable as always, was a good choice for the lead. She has fun with the Matrix-style duality of the role - the worn, blue-collar seams of Flynne, contrasted with the sleek and styled poshness of her peripheral - though one wishes the power fantasy elements came across stronger (the character of Connor (Eli Goree) - one of Burton’s former squadmates - touches on the wish fulfillment aspect at least, seeing a peripheral as an opportunity to escape the limitations of his broken body). Flynne, after all, is a gamer effectively inhabiting her own real life video game avatar, but the show is too self-serious to tap into the down-and-dirty fun of that notion. Several performances stand out. Alexandra Billings brings a proper flourish of theatricality to the role of police inspector Ainsley Lowbeer. Harry Potter’s Katie Leung has an edge like sharpened Scottish flint as Zubov’s no-nonsense associate Ash, while T’Nia Miller is so coolly cunning as antagonist Cherise Nuland - a role invented for the series - she looks as if she could cut your throat simply by blinking. Elements of the book are brought to life in visually appreciable fashion - such as the cybernetic implants that allow Burton to link up with the other members of his “haptic recon” unit, forming a lethally cohesive battle phalanx (or Ash’s tattoos, which glide across the surface of her skin like sentient ink). The Peripheral struggles for oxygen a bit in the ever-crowded streaming landscape (even just within the Amazon Prime ecosystem), but there’s enough dramatic pulp to chew on here; it’s worth keeping tabs on its still-in-development second season. UPDATE: Never mind, Amazon changed its mind and cancelled it. Too bad. 4/21/2023 0 Comments the mandalorian (season 3) When The Mandalorian first launched as the inaugural flagship series on Disney Plus, there was a distinct appeal to its modest ambitions. Essentially an old-fashioned space western in which its titular hero (played by Pedro Pascal) got into weekly adventures alongside his almost criminally adorable ward Grogu (aka Baby Yoda) Lone Wolf & Cub-style, the show felt refreshingly, almost defiantly unbothered by the trappings of the iconic universe it inhabited. That shifted in season 2, as creators Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni steered more heavily into Star Wars mythology and overt fan service, then abruptly spilled over into spin-off The Book of Boba Fett, which inexplicably morphed into The Mandalorian 2.5 around its midpoint and never really looked back (those who didn’t bother to watch will no doubt be left wondering how on earth Grogu returned to the fold after departing with Luke Skywalker in the season 2 finale).
Season 3 eases back on the throttle once again… to the point that the starship is all but left idling in neutral. It’s a curiously slight and narratively static collection of episodes. Ostensibly, the focus is on the Mandalorians themselves, as Din Djarin (aka Mando) seeks to redeem himself in the eyes of the creed and Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) attempts to unite the tribes in order to take back their home planet of Mandalor. But forward momentum proves incremental at best. Much has been made of how the lines between television and moviemaking have become troublingly blurred in the streaming era… and how the art and rhythm of constructing an individual episode is becoming increasingly lost as the medium gravitates towards more of a cinematic long-form mentality. It’s how you end up with a largely inert season premiere in which Mando just scrounges for droid parts… or an episode like “Guns For Hire,” in which five minutes of genuine plot muscle (Bo-Katan challenging Axe Woves for control of her former fleet) are preceded by a whole lot of unfortunate narrative gristle - including Jack Black and Lizzo as flouncing nobles who dispatch Mando and Bo-Katan on a roundabout side quest in order to pad out the runtime. There’s also a bit of insight into the dysfunctional bureaucracy of the New Republic, which sounds compelling… but these scenes feel a lot like the Daily Wire trying to craft a clumsy Star Wars allegory about what happens when the Democrats come into power. The last two episodes do manage to feed the basic appetite for galactic action space adventure - including the welcome return of a key adversary and a memorable sequence in which Mando fights his way through a gauntlet of stormtroopers. But like much of the Star Wars content on Disney Plus, the show’s sense of the moment proves a little too staid (compare it to a series like Stranger Things, whose crowd-pleasing beats detonate with maximum thunder). If there’s an obvious bright spot this season, it’s Sackhoff - the sort of actress whose mere presence can improve virtually any project she’s injected into, and whose Bo-Katan lends the series an additional dose of gravitas (Grogu’s main purpose remains selling stuffed toys, but he does have an amusing “Timmy’s trapped in the well” bit in the second episode). Playing the lead in a Star Wars series was undoubtedly a no-brainer at the time, but given Pedro Pascal’s dramatic rise in profile of late, the role - between Din Djarin’s limited emotional range and the obvious constraints of his helmeted visage - is probably starting to feel a bit like a poisoned chalice. The final shot of season 3 could easily have been series-concluding… and it wouldn’t necessarily be devastating if it were. Of course, there’s lots more Mandalorian customs and traditions to explore, but let’s be honest… we were never particularly drawn to Boba Fett’s cultural upbringing as kids, we just thought it was cool he had a jet pack. 4/1/2023 0 Comments the last of us (season 1) For some time now, video game adaptations have felt poised to generate a potentially seismic impact on film and television, not unlike the manner in which comic books and superheroes came to dominate the medium over these past 15-20 years… but now that we appear to be on the cusp (it took an agonizingly long time for the penny to drop, but Sony finally seems to have acknowledged “Hey - we have a hugely popular gaming ecosystem and our very own entertainment division… maybe there’s some synergy there!”), it’s hard not to feel a certain ambivalence. Video games have become so cinematic and narratively ambitious in their own right, it begs the question of why even adapt them at all? If the end result is too loyal to the source material, it runs the risk of feeling like a needless transcription, a glorified xerox… but deliberate deviation for the sake of deviation simply degrades the product and alienates the fanbase (the recent Uncharted movie - in spite of its box office success - was a prime example… arbitrary decisions, such as making the lead characters significantly younger, meshed awkwardly with slavish recreations of the game’s action set pieces. The end result was floundering at best).
HBO’s new series The Last of Us - based on arguably the crown jewel of Sony’s acclaimed stable of Playstation exclusives - is the first adaptation that manages to thread the needle almost perfectly… aggressively faithful, but using the opportunity afforded by a full season of television to further enrich and deepen the game’s narrative. It’s not surprising, given the creative auspices involved. TV heavyweight Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) joined forces with the game’s creator, Neil Druckmann, and the synergy is instantly apparent. The Last of Us is a series that generates a lot of breathless hyperbole and bluster (the melodramatic comparisons to Schindler’s List; Mazin himself anointing it flatly as “the greatest story ever told” in gaming history), but it really is a masterpiece amongst masterpieces (its polarizing sequel even more so) and if any video game felt destined to light the way, it was this one. Whether it truly forges a lasting bridge between mediums remains to be seen, but a workable blueprint has finally been provided. At first glance, The Last of Us might seem like just another post-apocalyptic zombie saga, but the story is rooted in very real (and very terrifying) science. Cordyceps is a parasitic fungus found in the insect world, which mutates its host and assumes control of its mind and motor functions in horrifying fashion. The pilot’s chilling opening sequence features John Hannah as an epidemiologist on a 60s talk show, laying out the precise conditions that might theoretically lead to cordyceps making an evolutionary leap to a human host (hint - it involves climate change). Cut to 2003, as conjecture becomes reality and the world collapses with swift, stark and stunning fragility (in an even better vignette, an Indonesian mycologist, realizing what’s coming, informs the authorities “There’s no medicine. There’s no vaccine. Bomb this city… and everyone in it”). Jumping to present day, two decades after the initial outbreak, we pick up with Joel (Pedro Pascal), a smuggler hardened by tragedy and hollowed out by years of grief, who operates out of Boston (which, like most major cities, is under military rule). A chain of events leads to him assuming the role of reluctant protector to a teenage girl named Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who appears to be immune… and needs to be transported cross-country to a medical lab in Colorado run by the Fireflies (rebel freedom fighters… or violent terrorists, depending on who you ask). Pascal is starting to feel a bit ubiquitous these days, given that he already portrays the title character in Disney Plus flagship The Mandolorian… but it’s hard to imagine anyone else playing Joel, so good is he hinting at the embers of humanity still smoldering beneath his taciturn shell (as an added bonus, he doesn’t have to wear a helmet 97% of the time). When The Last of Us was originally announced as a potential film, many fans called for Maisie Williams to play the crucial role of Ellie (and she openly lobbied for consideration)… but too much time passed and the part ironically went to her Game of Thrones co-star Ramsey (who played the small but memorable role of Lyanna Mormont). Rather serendipitously, it turns out, as the young English actress proves a major revelation. Her Ellie has sharper edges and a chip on her shoulder that’s more deeply furrowed than her video game counterpart’s, but she ably captures the character’s endearing blend of guarded empathy, snarky wit and survival instinct (“This is my second day in a fucking car, man!” she exclaims when Joel criticizes her ability to read a roadmap). If Mazin and Druckmann do, in fact, use the more Ellie-centric second game as the blueprint for next season, there’s little doubt that Ramsey will be well up to the task. These iconic characters are in good hands. The Last of Us has often been described as a cross between The Walking Dead and the Cormac McCarthy novel The Road, but the series heavily shades the balance towards the latter. In fact, those expecting a more conventional zombie offering may be thrown by just how little presence the infected actually have on-screen (there’s an agonizingly tense encounter with a pair of Clickers in the second episode, and a climactic action blowout - featuring a Bloater - near the end of episode five, but that’s about it). To be honest, the story navigates some fairly over-trodden apocalyptic territory (you might be floored to learn that the *true* monster… is humanity)… but it’s a credit to the rich spectrum of supporting characters (and casting) that the series lands one emotional haymaker after another, flush to the jaw. These include Merle Dandridge as Firefly ringleader Marlene; Anna Torv as Joel’s partner-in-crime Tess; Lamar Johnson as a young man named Henry and the endearing Keivonn Woodard as his younger brother Sam; Melanie Lynskey as morally compromised revolutionary Kathleen; Gabriel Luna as Joel’s younger brother Tommy; and Graham Greene and Elaine Miles as a Native American couple who have less than ten minutes of screentime, but feel ready-made for their own spinoff series. Translating the pacing of the game into the pacing of a tv series is a tricky issue that Mazin and Druckmann maintain a firm handle on, though the grip often proves a slippery one. The nine episodes they have to work with encompass all of the game’s major dramatic checkpoints… though without the benefit of the hours upon hours of gameplay that allow Joel and Ellie’s bond to fully marinate. Some fans grumbled that - with available screentime at a premium - an entire episode was dedicated to Bill (Nick Offerman), a closeted survivalist who finds unlikely happiness with Frank (Murray Bartlett) over a 20-year period… or that another episode was earmarked to dramatize the “Left Behind” DLC (a flashback featuring Storm Reid’s Riley that essentially functions as Ellie’s origin story). While the former was almost bewilderingly overpraised (it was certainly a fine episode, but hardly warranted the fawning Twitter meltdown that ensued), both play a vital role in the show’s thematic trajectory. It’s worth trusting in Mazin and Druckmann’s instincts. In spite of the inevitable nitpicking and second guessing (would the subplot concerning sinister cult leader David been more effective as a slow-boil over multiple episodes? Maybe… maybe not), they show an intuitive grasp of when to deviate from the source material and when to replicate moments from the game virtually beat-by-beat and line-by-line (including - most notably - the final scene, which still stands as one of the most perfect closing beats to a video game ever). The climax of the game generated considerable debate back in 2013 (and in the years since) and it’s been fun seeing that debate ferociously rekindled in the wake of the season finale. Without getting into the details, it’s worth noting that the ethical repercussions aren’t necessarily a simple binary issue - you can view Joel’s actions as inherently selfish while still believing he absolutely did the right thing. My personal belief is that the narrative trajectory of the game (hours spent violently fighting off scavengers, raiders and various other people who’d love nothing more than to gut you and take what little you have) was designed to insinuate that the human race is too far gone. There’s no going back; no rebuilding society, miracle cure or not (as we see in Kansas City, the only thing worse than military occupation is the alternative). The title obviously refers to the remaining uninfected… but on a deeper thematic level it suggests that the final glint of our humanity is our ability to emotionally connect with another person; to care about someone other than ourselves, to value something beyond mere survival. The people Joel and Ellie encounter along the way - Frank and Bill; Henry and Sam - reinforce this concept… and suggest that it’s the one thing left in the world that’s actually worth fighting for. The one thing in the world you don’t ever sacrifice. The one thing in the world you hold on to and never let go of. 3/8/2023 0 Comments Connect (season 1) Such is the current reality of the streaming landscape that one day you can find yourself casually, almost absent-mindedly browsing Hulu and stumbling across a new Korean series called Connect you’ve never even heard of - one in which all six episodes were directed by much-lionized Japanese cult auteur Takashi Miike, no less. What a time to be alive, eh?
There are some who would place Miike amongst our greatest living directors… in truth, his output is far too uneven to be part of that conversation (for every genuine masterwork, such as Audition, or display of edgy audacity, such as Ichi the Killer, he probably cranks out a half-dozen scattergun genre works of wildly varying quality… seriously, at his peak he was sometimes releasing up to five features a year), but there’s no denying his name carries creative weight. Connect follows Ha Dong-soo (Jung Hae-in), a reclusive musician who’s abruptly snatched off the street by a gang of organ thieves. He manages to escape… but not before he loses an eye that winds up in the body of Oh Jin-seop (Go Kyung-pyo), who’s so fastidiously regimented and emotionally repressed, he’d almost have to be a serial killer - which, in fact, he is. He’s been posing his victims in elaborate “corpse art” across Seoul as Ha Dong-soo comes to realize they now share a psychic link through his purloined eyeball that allows him to see what Oh Jin-seop sees… inspiring him (perhaps ill-advisedly) to play amateur detective. That alone would be more than enough to sustain a series (it’s basically a better, more high-concept version of last year’s lackluster AMC offering Ragdoll), but Ha Dong-soo also happens to be a “Connect”… meaning he’s effectively invulnerable. If you chop off his hand, the blood quickly coagulates into sentient tendrils that reattach the limb (you’d be surprised how often that seems to occur in his day-to-day life). If you throw him off the roof of a building, his splintered bones snap back into place as his bent and broken body gruesomely knits itself back together. There are some cursory similarities to the film Unbreakable - not only in terms of Ha Dong-soo’s imperviousness to blunt force trauma, but also in the way the series ponders the concept of superpower-like abilities grounded in an otherwise real world context. The question of whether said abilities could be used for a greater good (or evil) is teased out subtly - particularly through the character of Irang (Kim Hye-jun), a snarky blogger with a deep-rooted interest in Connects (the stuff of urban legend)… whose own closely-guarded agenda has a plethora of twisty, onion-like layers. Those craving Miike’s special sauce may be disappointed - contrary to the above plot description - that the show isn’t all that “out there.” It’s relatively unassuming in its stylistic approach, the plot not really giving off fumes of truly gonzo weirdness until the finale. Still, the show has its own unique creeped-out pulp flavor. When Oh Jin-seop, having gotten wind of Ha Dong-soo’s “condition,” reveals his master plan, it’s a reminder of why Asian television - South Korean in particular - has gained such a foothold in the West. Their creatives produce elevated genre fare with a fearless nerve that feels almost second-nature. You might assume Connect was conceived as a self-contained entity, but think again - the finale ends on a rather jarring and unrepentant cliffhanger (the end credits almost mocking in their arrival). Not that that’s a bad thing. There’s an untapped mythology here that goes well beyond cat-and-mouse games, just begging for Miike to cut loose and unleash it next season. 2/22/2023 0 Comments tulsa king (season 1) “Don’t leave town, Mr. Manfredi.”
“Who the fuck would want to leave this paradise?” There’s one very good reason to watch Tulsa King, the new series streaming on Paramount+, and that’s its iconic star, Sylvester Stallone. At 76, the venerable screen legend and longtime action hero wears his age impressively well, having lost almost none of his swagger, charm, or granite-like physical presence - if anything, his acting has more of a natural, charismatic ease than ever before. Sly may be known as the Italian Stallion, but he has a lot more in common with fine Italian wine these days. Which is a good thing, because the actual show that’s been erected around him is a relatively unambitious and old-fashioned fish-out-of-water comedy - the sort of series you might have found on a network like A&E over a decade ago (or possibly USA during its “blue sky” era). Sly plays mob capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi, who finishes up a 25-year stint in prison… only to learn, in spite of his loyalty, the New York-based Invernizzi family prefers him out of the way and that he’s effectively being exiled to Oklahoma, of all places (if this sounds an awful lot like the plot to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, right down to Dwight assembling a makeshift crew and starting to build his own criminal empire, well… you’re not wrong). Dwight’s allies include Uber driver Tyson (Jay Will); weed dispensary proprietor Bodhi (Martin Starr); ex-Invernizzi soldier turned ranch hand Armand (Max Casella); and bar & grill owner Mitch (Garrett Hedlund - once playing the lead in studio blockbusters like Tron: Legacy, now 6th or 7th on the call sheet for a relatively middle-of-the-road streaming series. Such is life). The early episodes lean heavily on middling culture shock gags - Dwight trying to get the hang of the apps on his smartphone, and learning the hard way that no one deals in cash anymore - that don’t always gel with the corrosive streak coursing through the show’s bulging veins. Creator Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone) has built his lucrative brand largely on red state appeal, reflected in his portraits of old-school masculinity. Dwight puts his stamp on Tulsa like the bull in the proverbial china shop, and most problems are solved by bruising a few knuckles, snapping a few fingers, or twisting a few limbs at unnatural angles. It might border on the distasteful (or, at the very least, come across as ploddingly crass) if it were literally any other actor… but Stallone’s appeal is like armored plating; you can’t even dent it. Soon after arrival, Dwight strikes sparks with a woman named Stacy (Andrea Savage) and not long after they tumble into the sack, we learn she works as an ATF agent - one of several plot contrivances that give off the acrid whiff of mothballs. To be fair, some of the character work is effective (Jay Will is particularly good as a wannabe hustler whose confliction between his real-life father and his new boss/father figure is nonetheless profound). But Dwight’s feud with a local biker gang supplies mostly perfunctory conflict (in spite of Ritchie Coster’s snarling performance as their ringleader)… while his disintegrating relations with the Invernizzi family - specifically the Don’s underboss son Chickie (The Wire’s Domenick Lombardozzi) - are generally kept simmering for next season. Tulsa King offers a measure of untaxing, red-blooded entertainment in appreciably tight packaging (the majority of episodes run a refreshing 36-38 minutes), even if it’s as rough-hewn as its protagonist. Otherwise, the show’s attraction basically begins and ends with its star. After all, Tulsa isn’t the most enticing of destinations, but Stallone manages to keep each visit lively enough. 2/12/2023 0 Comments willow (season 1) Chances are, if you were between the ages of 7 and 12 in 1988, then you have a certain degree of residual affection for the Ron Howard-directed/George Lucas-concocted fantasy-adventure Willow. And if you’re literally any other age, you probably couldn’t care less about it. Which perhaps makes it a dubious choice for the full-blown Disney Plus treatment (social media buzz since its release has been seemingly nonexistent), but - as someone who, in fact, was nine-years-old in 1988 (right in the sweet spot), and briefly considered Willow the greatest movie ever made (at least until Who Framed Roger Rabbit released a month later) - it really wouldn’t do to look this long-awaited gift horse in the mouth. The faithful (such as they are) have been waiting over 30 years for this.
Willow represents a welcome throwback to the days when the fantasy genre marshaled its imaginative powers in the name of escapist fun (as opposed to the freighted self-seriousness of Lord of the Rings, or pseudo-fantasy historical fiction like Game of Thrones). The series, however, proves an ongoing struggle between heart and head… ripe with nostalgia, yet rickety in execution. Picking up 17 years after the film, Sorsha (the returning Joanne Whalley) now rules as Queen over the peaceful kingdom of Tir Asleen, where her biggest headache is her twin children - playboy prince Airk (Dempsey Bryk) and his sister Kit (Ruby Cruz), who, as is so often the case, is far more interested in fighting and adventuring than being a proper princess. The idyll is short-lived. A surprise attack initiated by the minions of the Withered Crone (member of a taboo cult called The Order of the Wyrm and the greater evil who Queen Bavmorda was supposedly in thrall to all along) results in Airk being abducted and Kit launching a rescue mission alongside the Nelwyn sorcerer Willow (Warwick Davis). Rounding out their ragtag fellowship are Kit’s best friend and knight-in-training Jade (Erin Kellyman) and her milquetoast would-be fiance Graydon (Tony Revolori), charismatic mercenary-thief Boorman (Amar Chadha-Patel), and kitchen maid Dove (Ellie Bamber), who’s Airk’s beloved… and perhaps *more* than just a simple kitchen maid (okay, since there’s no way to dance around this - SPOILERS - she’s actually Elora Danan, the child-of-prophecy from the film, now all grown-up and both very blond and very photogenic. Her identity is revealed at the end of the pilot, and frankly should be obvious to anyone within five minutes). The most troubling aspect of the series - and the narrative aqueduct from which all other issues seem to flow - is its approach to Willow himself. The writers (led by showrunner Jonathan Kasdan) were clearly influenced by a certain other Lucasfilm production - The Last Jedi - which also grappled (controversially) with the quandary of how to revisit an iconic character who’s already completed his “hero’s journey.” But the thinking is needlessly complicated. Rather than simply allowing Willow to assume his natural place as the group’s Gandalf/Obi-Wan Kenobi, he’s presented instead as an awkward hybrid of wise sage and bumbling charlatan. He now serves as his village’s High Aldwin (a position that functions a lot more like a Catskills MC than it did in the movie), but we learn he had a falling out with Sorsha after she told him bluntly he wasn’t skilled enough to oversee Elora’s training… and it would seem he never much evolved beyond a parlor trick magician (so much for Fin Raziel’s vote of confidence… though his actual abilities seem to expand and contract in accordance with the needs of the plot). As an actor, Warwick Davis has a fine, self-deprecating touch - as anyone who saw his HBO series Life’s Too Short can attest - but the dry-wit has a tendency to undercut the dramatic texture (in general, the humor often dominates rather than augments). The show also repeatedly stresses that Willow’s victory over Bavmorda was, at best, a feat of dumb luck… which is a shocking and inexplicable betrayal of the film (in which Willow clearly triumphs through heart, courage and ingenuity). Then there’s the unfortunate elephant in the room, which is the absence of Madmartigan - the charismatic swordslinger played by a bursting-into-stardom Val Kilmer back in 1988. The character reportedly disappeared years earlier - for reasons never fully elucidated - and there’s something weird about how the show keeps teasing a potential return that - given Kilmer’s real life health issues - we know isn’t coming. But then so much of the plotting is the equivalent of a narrative sand castle - impressively erected at first glance, but fragile, easily kicked over, prone to sudden crumbling. What holds it together is the cast. All six leads are outstanding, and their collective chemistry as a group is potent narrative fuel. Kellyman - who previously played the villain in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier - is a particularly distinctive actress; she partners well with Cruz, who has all the attributes of a great fantasy heroine (in light of those who rage over Disney foisting its so-called “woke agenda” on established properties, electing to romantically entwine the daughters of Madmartigan and General Kael is an absolute chef’s kiss - no notes). Chadha-Patel’s scene-stealing Boorman, meanwhile, is the latest in a proud tradition of disreputable ruffians who maybe aren’t quite so disreputable when push comes to shove. Willow’s lively pace keeps the adventure rollicking from one danger to the next, and the fan service frequently elicits tingles of childlike glee (a return to Bavmorda’s castle Nockmaar is accompanied by an episode-closing needle drop that’s so astoundingly perfect, it’s impossible not to be left buzzing). But the narrative tripwires are extensive. The show correctly recognizes that Elora has far too much potential as a character to be relegated to a common damsel-in-distress… but Airk is an awkward substitute and the quest is consequently lacking in emotional gravitas (he’s not a bad guy, but he’s callow; the more Elora evolves, the less worthy he feels as the waiting prize). Part of the issue is world-building that feels convoluted and oddly inorganic - a byproduct, perhaps, of the original Willow’s mythology not really being conceived to sustain more than a feature film. In the end, the big climactic moments - Elora leveling up as a sorceress, Kit wielding Madmartigan’s sword - still manage to land, albeit with a bit of a wobble. Of course, a post-credits scene reveals that these were the events of just the first of three existing volumes of “The Book of Willow.” There’s still plenty of time to iron out the show’s narrative kinks… provided Disney is willing to continue indulging this very concentrated subsection of viewers reliving their childhood dreams. 1/27/2023 0 Comments Wednesday (season 1) IP may defiantly remain king, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still room for creative expression. Take Netflix’s newest breakout hit - series creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar could easily have settled for an umpteenth variation of The Addams Family - the devilishly morbid riff on the traditional nuclear family first dreamt up by cartoonist Charles Addams, whose popularity has endured for close to 85 years. Instead, they chose - rather ingeniously - to build a show entirely around Wednesday, the Addams clan’s dispassionately deadpan teenage daughter, who - let’s be honest - is most people’s favorite character anyway (particularly following Christina Ricci’s iconic portrayal in the 90’s live action films). The result is a ticklishly macabre teen horror comedy - like a subversive reimagining of Veronica Mars tricked out with a tantalizing fusion of gallows humor and gothic flair.
Jenna Ortega assumes the title role, and she enjoyed a breakout year in 2022 - appearing in the horror films Scream and X, as well as the SXSW-winning indie The Fallout. It’s hardly a stretch to suggest that the show rests entirely and unequivocally on her diminutive, pigtailed frame. The character of Wednesday is a deceptive quandary for any actress - her stoic moroseness both exceptionally easy and exceptionally difficult to play. But Ortega is game, and commits fully to the role. She fixes her face with a dour, recalcitrant scowl that appears impregnable, her lips pursed with scorn and her eyes heavy-lidded with preemptive boredom (Ortega supposedly never blinks in the entire series). Her monotone delivery rarely quavers… yet she commands a wide spectrum of emotions that breach her otherwise impassive features in impressively subtle ways; in this case, the minute adjustment of an eyebrow or facial muscle, or the precise angle she tilts her head conveys volumes. If Ricci seemed more preternaturally suited to the role, that’s only because Ortega is called upon to do far more. If her previous films hinted at her potential, this is the performance that cements her stardom. After an unfortunate incident involving piranhas and the boys water polo team, Wednesday is expelled from yet another high school and subsequently finds herself enrolled at Nevermore Academy - her parents’ beloved alma mater. Luis Guzman and Catherine Zeta-Jones are well-cast as Gomez and Morticia, but they’re basically limited to a pair of early episodes (Fred Armisen pops up as Uncle Fester later in the season) - it really is Wednesday’s show lock, stock and barrel, and only the disembodied hand Thing (a marvelously expressive triumph of FX work) can be counted as a series regular (even in their limited screentime, Ortega’s chemistry with Zeta-Jones is considerable; it would be a shame if their relationship weren’t utilized more fully in season two). Nevermore suggests The Academy of Unseen Arts from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but it feels more like Hogwarts with a heavy infusion of Tim Burton’s kook-goth DNA (the veteran filmmaker helms the first four episodes and is such a natural fit on both a spiritual and stylistic level, one almost forgets it was actually Barry Sonnenfeld who directed the films). To a certain extent, the show wants to have it both ways. Nevermore is a haven for supernatural freaks and oddballs and weirdos (they’re literally referred to as “outcasts”)… and yet Wednesday is somehow depicted as a disruptive force, swimming upstream against the typical high school social currents. It doesn’t help that virtually no other character on the show is a genuine match for her - not Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) as Nevermore’s tight-faced principal Larissa Weems; not mooning townie Tyler (Hunter Doohan) or brooding classmate Xavier (Percy Hynes White), who form the opposite and the adjacent to Wednesday’s hypotenuse in a would-be love triangle; not the town sheriff (Jamie McShane) or Wednesday’s court-mandated therapist (Riki Lindhome); and not resident Queen Bee Bianca (Joy Sunday) or her siren cohorts or the secret society known as the Nightshades. The one exception is Emma Myers as Wednesday’s almost pathologically bubbly werewolf roomie Enid - her vibrant pastels and Wednesday’s monochromatic gloom separated by a demarcation line that literally bisects the stained glass window that dominates their attic dorm room (Wednesday, explaining that she’s allergic to color - “I break out into hives and then the flesh peels off my bones”). But their rapport is joyously good… and when the emotional payoff between them comes, it’s a moment that’s so fully-earned that even the hardest heart is bound to quicken. It’s one of the most endearing female friendships on TV. Wednesday further evokes the Harry Potter formula in terms of the everyday rhythms and rituals of school life being juxtaposed against a larger mystery to unravel… in this case a murderous creature whose trail of bodies triggers Wednesday’s inner-sleuth (not to mention her recent tendency towards psychic visions). The payoff isn’t terribly difficult to suss out - each red herring fairly obvious in intent - but that doesn’t detract from the show’s mordant sense of fun (Tyler, trying to appeal to Wednesday’s fondness for horror films, screens Legally Blonde for her. “That was torture. Thank you,” she remarks afterwards). Watching Wednesday command the entire school’s attention with a blistering late-night cello rendition of “Paint It Black” is an obvious highlight, but the season’s most universally beloved moment (if legions of TikTok videos are to be believed) comes when she cuts loose to “Goo Goo Muck” by The Cramps at the Nevermore dance - her eyes widening as if possessed, her normally repressed limbs goosed into life, as if by electrical current. But then that has always been the appeal of Wednesday Addams - an icon to those who chafe at the pressure of trying to fit in, a patron saint of eccentricity, an unapologetic outsider who’s completely comfortable in her own deathly pale skin. “I act as if I don’t care if people dislike me. Deep down… I secretly enjoy it.” Nonetheless, by season’s end, Wednesday has managed to amass her own fiercely loyal Scooby gang, and it’s an appealing group… the sort that make the prospect of a return to Nevermore a giddy no-brainer. But then that’s the show’s most unexpected, unlikely triumph - Wednesday’s child may be full of woe, but Wednesday’s Netflix series has a big, bloody, beating heart.  Those who claim irony is dead, almost certainly watched an episode or two of the new Netflix series Blockbuster. Netflix, of course, was one of the driving forces (if not *the* driving force) behind the video store monolith’s high-profile downfall, and now they’ve produced an actual sitcom about the last remaining Blockbuster on Earth (a sitcom whose thematic stance is that brick-and-mortar video stores are vital because they offer the sort of human connection you can’t get from a streaming algorithm). On second thought, irony isn’t simply dead; it’s been hanged, drawn and quartered. If the fit seems off (beyond the obvious), that’s because Blockbuster feels for all the world like an NBC comedy that took a wrong turn and somehow landed on streaming. The show largely comes across as Superstore’s dorky sidekick… and manager Timmy (Randall Park) channels some serious Leslie Knope-style positivity as he tries to soldier on in the video rental game without corporate backing. His staff is the usual cross-section of endearing misfits, including secret crush Eliza (Melissa Fumero); would-be Tarantino Carlos (Tyler Alvarez); daffy, doe-eyed Hannah (Madeleine Arthur); and middle-aged den mother Connie (Olga Merediz). Park and Fumero (coming off Fresh Off the Boat and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, respectively) are reliable sitcom veterans… and the entire cast is perfectly likable (including the ever-invaluable JB Smoove as Timmy’s best friend and landlord Percy). But the writing sputters, and there’s something oddly disconnected in the way the show attempts to leverage nostalgia for the early aughts while pretending as if Blockbuster literally went out of business last week. In fact, the series never really seems to have a handle on why it even takes place in a video store. Creator Vanessa Ramos was undoubtedly inspired by the real life “last remaining Blockbuster” in Bend, Oregon… but that place endures, in part, because it’s made that gimmick the cornerstone of its entire identity. Since Blockbuster largely overlooks the time capsule quality of its setting, it mostly functions as a generic small-business comedy with some movie jokes sprinkled in. A few of these hit the mark (“We may have a parental situation. I mixed up The Hungry Caterpillar and The Human Centipede again”). Most do not (“The last time I went on a date, we all hated Anne Hathaway for some reason”). A workplace comedy requires at least a degree of specificity, and most of these storylines (including Timmy and Eliza’s “will they/won’t they” romantic tension) are pulled from the all-purpose sitcom writing bin. Nothing about the show feels particularly fresh - sadly, it comes packaged with multiple “pre-owned” stickers.  The smartest thing Mythic Quest ever did was presenting itself as a comedy about a video game studio… in which the video game is completely beside the point. For all the talk of the creative genius of Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney), Mythic Quest’s vainglorious creator, the titular game is little more than a deliberately generic World of Warcraft knock-off, its presence reduced to a few transitional cut-scenes here or there… which in no way detracts from the comical dysfunction that goes into making it. It’s a show that intuitively understands just how much to draw from the gaming industry without succumbing to myopic self-indulgence.
To be completely honest, the third season of Mythic Quest is slightly less terrific than the first two. Not surprisingly, McElhenney and his creative team looked to shake things up at the end of season 2, as Ian and his long-suffering lead engineer/co-creative director Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao) struck off to start their new company “GrimPop”… leaving henpecked middle manager David (David Hornsby) behind to mind the MQ store. Much of the season is thus spent feeling out these new dynamics (which includes corporate shark Brad (Danny Pudi) finishing his stint in prison for insider trading and rejoining the MQ team… as a janitor). Poppy remains an absolute delight, one of the most endearing characters on TV (two words: “the brunch”)… but she’s better when she’s positioned as the grounded (and frequently exasperated) counter to Ian’s raging narcissism. Instead her own neuroses are cranked to the max, leaving her and Ian’s personalities to ricochet wildly off one another within the confines of their futuristically dystopian office space - which sort of looks as if Steve Jobs and George Orwell collaborated on the set design for Solaris (former tester Dana is eventually added to the GrimPop mix to help modulate things somewhat, but her presence only goes so far). Of course, Mythic Quest established itself as one of the sharpest workplace comedies on TV thanks to its cast, and that hasn’t changed (even if the show disappointingly bids farewell to F. Murray Abraham as hack fantasy novelist CW Longbottom). Hornsby remains an obvious standout, a Jedi master in the art of fumbling beta subservience, as does Jessie Ennis as his unnerving, Machiavellian assistant Jo. Brad steering the guileless, wannabe SJW Rachel (Ashly Burch, who also writes, directs and happens to be one of the industry’s top voice actors) towards the dark side of video game monetization also pays comedic dividends. Much of the season ultimately feels like a write-off, as Ian and Poppy return to the MQ fold (and GrimPop seemingly goes the way of The Michael Scott Paper Company), but it was a necessary course correction; the series runs in optimized performance mode (4K 60fps) when the characters maintain a tighter orbit with one another. 1/3/2023 0 Comments The Crown (season 5) The problem with the new season of The Crown is that series creator Peter Morgan remains beholden to the basic tide of history. The first two seasons of his Netflix flagship - which featured an impeccable Claire Foy as the fledging Queen Elizabeth - were cultivated from tremendously fertile soil. Foy’s was an Elizabeth forced to learn on-the-job not only what it means to be Queen, but also precisely how intransigent her duties to the Crown truly are… and when you can build scenes, episodes, even entire narrative arcs around her formative relationship with Winston Churchill (two of the most significant British figures of the 20th century - one at the dawn of her service to England, the other at his twilight), it could almost be considered a dereliction not to produce narrative gold on-screen. The first season in particular set the bar incredibly high; a triumphant apex the show has often struggled to match.
One could hardly have asked for a better successor to Foy than Oscar-winner Olivia Colman at the start of the third season… but her iteration of Elizabeth was framed as a resolutely cold fish, thematically moored in middle-aged rut. It was a disappointing tenure (through no fault of Colman’s own), but Morgan found rich veins to mine in other subplots… mostly involving the splendid Josh O’Connor as the young Charles (learning Welsh and embarking on his vastly misguided courtship of young Diana Spencer), as well as the colorful dramatics of the Margaret Thatcher era (embodied by a loopy - albeit Emmy-winning - Gillian Anderson performance that could best be described as “nuanced caricature”). Season five ushers in further cast turnover, and the results are mixed. Imelda Staunton brings a welcome touch of grandmotherly twinkle to Elizabeth, but hardens just as easily into a posture of indomitable steel when challenged… not unlike a porcupine raising its quills. Yet it’s telling how rarely she feels like the show’s actual focal point (likewise Jonathan Pryce lends suitable gravitas to the role of Philip, but his usage rate fades badly)… instead the season is inevitably dominated by the tabloid disintegration of Charles and Diana’s marriage - exhaustively traveled terrain that’s frankly a drag more than anything. As the Princess of Wales, Elizabeth Debicki - with her octopus-like limbs that seem to go on forever - adeptly captures both Diana’s doe-eyed poshness and the stress fractures simmering beneath the surface of her porcelain facade (no explanation given for how she seemingly sprouted a full foot over Emma Corrin between seasons)… but she isn’t given anything fresh to play here, no uncharted corners of Diana’s complicated persona. It’s a greatest hits medley. So much of the season sees Morgan straining to make thematic connections that feel beneath his talent. The impending decommission of the royal yacht Britannia is likened to the Queen’s own stagnating and out-of-touch Monarchy - a rather leaden allegory that drives both the premiere and the finale (it doesn’t help that the season opens with Foy christening the ship in 1953 - how terribly the show misses her presence!). Philip’s speech to Diana about the Royal Family being less a family in the traditional sense and more of a meticulously regimented “system” would be more impactful if Morgan hadn’t been writing variations of it for the past five years. The subject of Margaret’s doomed romance with Group Captain Peter Townsend is litigated yet again, for the sole purpose of juxtaposing it against the messy marital missteps of Elizabeth’s own children (the Timothy Dalton guest spot a welcome highlight otherwise). By the time Charles and Diana’s impending divorce is contrasted with the irreconcilable differences of “ordinary” British citizens, the cringe levels are trending uncomfortably high (but only because the series has achieved so much better). Morgan is still capable of crafting a great stand-alone episode - as evidenced by the season’s obvious highlight, which chronicles the rise of self-made Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed and his determination to integrate himself into British high society (by earning a face-to-face audience with the Queen that never quite materializes). Morgan's always been at his best when he’s able to compress his focus onto these lesser-known pockets of history. And certain scenes manage to stand out, such as when Charles and Diana assess their failed marriage over scrambled eggs in the kitchen of Kensington Palace - the tone of rueful conviviality quickly giving way to jabs of still-raw acrimony (or when Diana peevishly calls in to a televised poll concerning whether the Monarchy still has a purpose in British society to repeatedly vote “no”). But the season on the balance feels oddly shapeless and anticlimactic, the connective tissue all rather tenuous. It’s hard to feel particularly bullish about the show moving forward… unless it’s building towards an eventual meta wrinkle in which Claire Foy rejoins the cast as herself, having just been hired to play the lead in a new Netflix series about the Royal Family called The Crown, much to the Queen’s obvious consternation. 12/2/2022 0 Comments The umbrella academy (season 3) The Umbrella Academy has never really evolved beyond it’s initial elevator pitch (“What if you crossed the X-Men with the Royal Tenenbaums?”) - and that’s okay. The show has found a comfortable, irreverent groove, in which nothing ever quite feels at stake, even though the fate of the universe is always at stake - literally. The structural repetition has somehow gone from a weakness to part of the fun.
When we last saw the Hargreeves siblings, they’d left 1960s Dallas behind and returned to the present after narrowly preventing a nuclear apocalypse… only to discover they’d arrived in an altered timeline in which their father, Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore), adopted seven different children with fantastical powers and created The Sparrow Academy, rather than The Umbrella Academy. The Umbrellas being brought face-to-face with their Sparrow equivalents is, not surprisingly, a total hoot. These include Fei, who compensates for her blindness by wielding crows that manifest from her body; Alphonso, a misshapen brute whose body absorbs pain and reflects it back (in other words, if your fist connects with his face, you’re the one who feels it); Jayme, who spits a hallucinogenic venom; and Christopher, who’s quite literally a telekinetic cube. The two most significant members, however, are Sloane (the very cute Genesis Rodriguez), who develops a romantic interest in lovelorn Luther, and an alternate version of Ben, the Umbrellas’ deceased-since-childhood sixth sibling who, well… is kind of a raging dick. After spending two seasons in the largely thankless role of a spectral sidekick visible only to Klaus, actor Justin H. Min is finally given the opportunity to play a proper cast member, and he sinks his teeth in with gusto. All of the Sparrows - but Ben in particular - give the show’s core chemistry a healthy jolt, as if the team dynamics were remixed in a martini shaker. Good thing too. The characters might not have otherwise survived a third season without noticeable stagnation. The Umbrellas eventually take refuge at the nearby Hotel Oblivion and ponder their next move… until it’s revealed that their presence has generated a time anomaly known as a “Kugelblitz,” which threatens the very fabric of space and time. In other words - same shit, different day. Much had been made of how the show would handle the real-life transition of star Elliot Page and the answer turns out to be - with as little fuss as possible. Vanya decides he’s now Viktor, to which his siblings basically shrug and declare “Cool” (this could be seen as a heartwarming display of familial acceptance, if not for the fact that they mostly treated him like crap over the first two seasons). Page remains the cast’s biggest name, but the show’s reigning MVP continues to be teenage actor Aidan Gallagher. As Five, the cynical time agent trapped in the body of his 13-year-old self, Gallagher’s distinct blend of withering exasperation over his siblings and their frequently juvenile dysfunctions, and the sort of didactic disdain that inevitably comes from being the only reliable adult in the room, never fails to entertain - it’s honestly one of the more underrated and unsung performances on TV (if anyone else is deserving of mention, it’s Tom Hopper, whose Luther was a mostly run-of-the-mill meathead when the series began, but has quietly cultivated a self-deprecating comedic touch). The last two episodes of the season achieve a certain crackerjack pop fervor, though it takes a good deal of narrative meandering and side-questing to get there - some good (anything involving Diego and Lila, who shows up with a 12-year-old kid (amusingly played by Euphoria’s Javon Walton) she claims is their son), some not-so-good (anything involving Klaus, who remains best in small doses). Without the historical context of the JFK assassination and the Civil Rights movement that framed season two, some might feel a bit unmoored. But then a big part of the show’s charm - for better or for worse - is its weird blend of square pegs and round holes (after three seasons, I still have absolutely no idea why this series needed a talking chimpanzee butler). Not surprisingly, the season ends the same way the first two did - crisis averted, new timeline, new crisis. Netflix has already announced that the fourth season will be the last, which is probably just as well. No matter how many times you reshuffle the deck, the card trick remains very much the same. As a spiraling Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) comments at one point - "We can't just keep doing this." 11/21/2022 0 Comments house of the dragon (season 1)
If nothing else, House of the Dragon seems to have answered the question of whether there’s still an existing appetite for Game of Thrones - something that seemed far from certain following its loudly denounced final season. Set nearly 200 years before the events of HBO’s flagship fantasy series, this prequel saga should appeal to viewers who felt overwhelmed by the sheer sprawl of characters and houses, banners and sigils featured in the original by offering a more focused and bite-sized take on life in the Seven Kingdoms. Think of it as a Westeros starter kit, of sorts.
Largely restricted to King’s Landing and Dragonstone, and revolving almost entirely around the Targaryen clan - at a time when their grip on the Iron Throne was still absolute - the show follows King Viserys (Paddy Considine), a generally capable but somewhat middle-of-the-road ruler whom the realm elected to back over his arguably more suitable (though infinitely more female) cousin Rhaenys (Eve Best) years earlier. That prickle of feminist outrage isn’t an incidental detail (you could almost read it as a Hillary allegory, though Viserys is more Tim Kaine than Trump). After his wife dies in childbirth, Viserys makes the fateful decision to disavow his unpredictable and hot-headed younger brother Daemon (Matt Smith) in favor of anointing his teenage daughter Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) as his heir… a decision he stubbornly stands behind, even after he marries Rhaenyra’s childhood best friend Alicent Hightower (Emily Carey), who bears him multiple sons. You don’t need a Westerosi compass to see where this is going. House of the Dragon amounts to - what else - another game of thrones, and it’s a little frustrating that it takes an entire season to reach what feels like the story’s actual starting point. The writers execute not one, but two major time jumps (Alcock and Carey bow out after five episodes, with Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke taking over as their adult versions), and the effect is undeniably jarring. Alcock, mostly limited to Australian television up to this point, is a real find; the show is worse off without her willfully luminous spark. But then she’s one of the few cast members who feels properly maximized - Cooke, for example, is a talented actress who’s forced to play almost every scene as if she’s gotten a whiff of curdled milk. As her father Otto, the King’s Machiavellian Hand (is there any other kind?), the dynamic Rhys Ifans has rarely seemed this penned in (Daemon, meanwhile, is a pretty standard George R.R. Martin creation, but the role at least affords Smith the opportunity to indulge in charismatic cruelty). So sour was the taste left by the Game of Thrones finale, that many went so far as to dismiss the entire series as a sunk cost. This, of course, was foolishness, and there were many invaluable lessons from that show that House of the Dragon would have been wise to recognize. Martin’s novels offered a simple moral dichotomy - Starks = good / Lannisters = bad - that allowed readers an easy-to-grasp point of entry into a fantasy world whose central conflicts would slowly turn grayer and more complex - an approach adopted by creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss. But the prequel’s emotional stakes are much harder to pin down. The fact that the entire conflict effectively teeters on the fragile childhood bond that still lingers between Rhaenyra and Alicent is rich with potential… and will hopefully blossom next season (whenever that is). But as things stand, there isn’t much impetus to choose sides - one might favor Team Rhaenyra by default, simply because her kids prove slightly less obnoxious than Alicent’s brood. House of the Dragon does rival its predecessor in terms of production value… and any sequence involving dragons in flight packs an undeniable charge (the promise of dragon-on-dragon battles is also one area in which the series has a clear leg up on what Game of Thrones already offered). But it’s hard to believe the show navigated the entire development process without someone pointing out how desperately it could use a character with a touch of wit - a Tyrion or, at the very least, a Littlefinger to cut against the grim grain of these humorless Targaryen dispositions. These characters are, frankly, a collective drag much of the time. It almost makes one inclined to wander up North, and see what the Starks are up to. 11/7/2022 0 Comments Bad sisters (season 1) There’s no reason to be coy or to beat around the bush here - Bad Sisters is one of the very best shows on TV at the moment. Inspired by the Flemish series Clan, this blackly comic Apple TV+ offering is the latest from immensely talented writer/star Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe), and, if there’s any shred of common sense, this should cement her place as one of the medium’s leading creative voices.
Set in Dublin, the show revolves around the five close-knit Garvey sisters - specifically the gentle-tempered Grace (Anne-Marie Duff), who has the misfortune of being married to the almost unfathomably loathsome John Paul (Claes Bang)… a prick of such astonishing magnitude that Grace’s sisters - Eva (Horgan), Ursula (Eva Birthistle), Bibi (Sarah Greene), and Becka (Eve Hewson) - finally decide they have no recourse but to plot his demise. In a rather brilliant structural move, half of the series takes place in the aftermath of John Paul’s funeral, as half-brothers and mismatched insurance investigators Thomas (Brian Gleeson) and Matt (Daryl McCormack) show up, desperately looking for any excuse to prevent Grace from collecting on her husband’s life insurance policy (a situation made that much more complicated by Matt and Becka becoming romantically entangled before either realizes who the other is)… while the other half unfolds in flashbacks, following the Garvey sisters as they try in vain to plan the perfect murder (if the early episodes have an overly farcical whiff about them (it’s hard not to be five steps ahead of a liver poisoning plot that goes awry), it’s worth persisting; the narrative threads braid together slowly, delicately… almost imperceptibly). While it seems impossible to believe that John Paul doesn’t inevitably come off as the most cartoonish of caricatures, such is the laser-attuned specificity of the writing (and the impressive discipline of Bang’s performance), that this is never the case (the fiendishness with which he manipulates, gaslights and generally ill-treats Grace in particular frequently causes you to suck the air in through your teeth). But the show in general doesn’t traffic in simplistic moral binaries. Thomas seemingly begins the series as a garden variety weasel whose utter cheek in insinuating himself in the lives of the grieving Grace and her sisters is appalling, even to Matt… but as his motivations for wanting to see the claim rejected come into focus, he becomes possibly the show’s most painfully relatable character. Likewise, the married Ursula’s primary impulse for wanting John Paul dead is his threat to expose her ongoing affair with a scruffy photographer; his behavior may be smugly repulsive, even violative, but she hardly ranks as the sympathetic party in the equation (which isn’t meant as a condemnation either - she’s just flawed and messy, as, you know… people tend to be). The entire cast is excellent, and it’s no surprise that Horgan is the dependable conductor who ensures the trains run on time, so to speak. But three in particular are worthy of mention. Sarah Greene, as the one-eyed Bibi (and so tremendous does she look with an eye-patch, it’s difficult to go back to her non-eye-patched acting), is the most venomously aggressive about seeing the plan through, delivering each and every line with a barb of vinegary disdain… but also soars to tragicomic heights, particularly in the pitch-perfect payoff to the paintball episode; Eve Hewson, as the flighty but almost criminally adorable Becka (the sort of Irish girl one aspires to meet, but doesn’t quite believe really exists), is heartbreaking for so many reasons; and Daryl McCormack, who flexes major star potential as Matt, plays a thoroughly decent figure who finds his loyalties painfully pulled in multiple directions as he’s abruptly positioned as the denouement’s unlikely catalyst. More than anything though, Bad Sisters is frequently and morbidly hilarious. Looking to minimize any chance of collateral damage, the sisters plot to spike John Paul’s nose spray with Rohypnol… only for the situation to spiral completely and riotously out of control (a cat’s unfortunate fate strikes a sour note, but - objectively - the fallout marvelously underscores, once again, what a monumental turd John Paul is). As the series soldiers towards the brink of its climactic revelations - effectively scored to God’s Gonna Cut You Down - it’s not terribly difficult to figure out where things are headed (and as the final pieces fall into place, a few of the plot seams do admittedly start to show), but the conclusion is both appropriate and satisfying. Bad Sisters is a self-contained and fully-realized season of television, but some sort of follow-up - in which the Garvey sisters find themselves enmeshed in a fresh pickle of some sort - would be more than welcome. These characters are far, far too good to bid farewell to already.  Once upon a time, before it inevitably collapsed under the crushing weight of its own convoluted plot machinations, Pretty Little Liars was one of the most enjoyable shows on TV, a near pitch-perfect blend of heightened teen melodrama and fizzy-pop mystery-thriller. Freeform, knowing they had a major hit on their hands, milked the show for all it was worth, cranking out an almost unfathomable 160 episodes (to put that in perspective, that’s almost 90 episodes more than Game of Thrones ran, and I can assure you that Westeros is a far more expansive world than Rosewood, Pennsylvania). Forced to contrive new ways to keep the narrative plates spinning as its premise was stretched into limp taffy, the show became an exhaustive endurance test long before it reached the finish line.
Following two short-lived spin-offs (Ravenswood and The Perfectionists), the franchise has been ported to HBO Max with a new iteration that has little to do with the original (aside from taking place in the neighboring town of Millwood). Pregnant teen Imogen (Bailee Madison) finds herself at the mercy of a texting tormentor known simply as “A,” along with her cinephile pal Tabby (Chandler Kinney) and three other girls - uptight ballerina Faran (Zaria), sheltered tech geek Mouse (Malia Pyles), and juvenile delinquent Noa (Maia Reficco). The five of them come to learn that their mothers were once Millwood High’s reigning mean girl clique and they had some sort of hand in the suicide of a troubled girl named Angela Waters… seemingly passing their sins onto their daughters, who now find themselves caught in a fiendish morality play in present day. The leads don’t enjoy the instant chemistry that Lucy Hale, Ashley Benson, Shay Mitchell and Troian Bellisario did in the original… but their rapport grows stronger and more assured over the course of the season. Each of the five girls acquits herself well on-screen, but Kinney’s the most compelling presence… even though she bears the brunt of the watered-down, Kevin Williamson-style meta dialogue (“You know I’m a Dream Warriors girl,” she quips in regards to a Nightmare on Elm Street reference). Original Sin is less fun than the original Pretty Little Liars, and that has a lot to do with the creators embracing a surprisingly grungy, torture-porn-in-training aesthetic. A lumbering masked killer looms on the fringes (probably meant to call to mind Leatherface, but more reminiscent of former WWE star Kane); the opening credits evoke the grubby aesthetics of Seven, with a version of the theme song that sounds as if it were remixed by Trent Reznor during a spare lunch hour; dilapidated box cars and a decrepit house of horrors make up the show’s unsettling locations. There are some limp subplots (Noa thinks her boyfriend might be taking performance enhancing drugs; Tabby’s film teacher is a fuddy duddy who doesn’t appreciate Jordan Peele) and a sexual assault component that feels largely agenda-driven, but also some impressive touches - such as Mouse’s trans boyfriend Ash, whose identity is barely remarked upon, refreshingly… or Faran’s complicated relationship with her mother and her dancing (even if it’s hilarious that this random, small-town high school has what feels like a fully-stocked professional ballet company). Kudos as well to the handling of Mallory Bechtel as identical twins Karen and Kelly Beasley, who don’t impact the plot quite as obviously as you might expect - particularly when one of them strays afoul of "A" early on. The best thing about the show, however, is its tightly controlled plotting across ten episodes - it achieves something the original Pretty Little Liars couldn’t, and that’s offer an actual resolution to its core mystery. Of course, it lays the groundwork for a second season (which has already gotten a green light)… but if its predecessor were any indication, Original Sin might want to quit while it’s ahead - for all our sakes. |
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