Recent shows:
Task Master: This is somewhat of a guilty pleasure. Loosely a game show, but mostly it is sorta-semi-celebreties doing dumb tasks. Occasionally they (the sorta-semi-celebrities) are also witty. The Lovely Mrs. DzM and I have binged all 11 seasons/series over the last two months or so. It's dumb, but amusing, fun.
Killing Eve: We have now finished season/series 4. Without exposing too many spoilers - this series claims to be "THE END." I'm pleased at some of the choices they made in this series, though they still danced shockingly close to "international secret cabal that rules the world." None-the-less, it's good that this is THE END. Within the world and story the show created there was really not much place for it left to go without just descending (further) into soap opera + murder.
Bob's Burgers: I really resisted watching this. "Another adult-oriented cartoon with crappy animation. Ugh" was my preconceived opinion. But you know what? ~2 seasons/series in and I'm enjoying it. It IS shockingly difficult not to hear Bob as Archer (same voice actor), and Kristen Schaal (always funny) does really lean into "shout your lines, except louder." It's a fun show.
Outlander: We have found that we hate-watch this show so that we can complain about it. It is the most
Mary Sue show we've watched in ages. Recently we've begun describing it to each other as a show that is porn for women, and that we can track how it has shifted from young-woman porn in its early seasons ("Mary Sue gets to travel back in time, leaving behind her distant and disinterested husband so she can have sex with the dashing young highlander AND can save the day with her battlefield medical expertise (a skill that will come in handy in Scotland during the Jacobite rebellion!)") and, more recently, has become middle-aged-woman porn ("Mary Sue has left behind philandering, distant husband to live with handsome highlander, but both have aged 30+ years. They still have sex, but it is preceded and followed by being asked about how Mary Sue's day has been and her feelings.") It is lavishly produced, competently acted, and passably written. The really big draw for us is the costuming.
The Walking Dead: We continue to watch this mostly out of habit and the fallacy of sunk costs. I mean - We've committed to 11 years. It's gotta be going SOMEWHERE, right? We can't have just WASTED all those Sunday evenings! Let's just stick it out one more episode!
Snowpiercer: This is truly hate-watching. A dumb show derived from a dumb movie that tried to make some kind of statement about classism in Korea. The core concept (outside of class criticism) that the movie was based on was just stupid. And then they decided to make a TV show out of it. And THAT was even worse than the movie because they have to keep it going forward. "Oh crap, we got renewed! What stupid conceit can we do for next season? Crap." At least there isn't a smoke monster or something. I hate this show.
Wellington Paranormal: A New Zealand "reality show" (think "Cops" mocumentary style) about incompetent cops that deal with the supernatural goings-on around the Wellington, NZ area. It doesn't take itself seriously and is always fun. A second spinoff from the
What We Do in the Shadows movie.
Star Trek: Discovery:This show started as some reasonable Star Trek nostalgia. Sure, their Klingons were redesigned again. Sure, they indulged in some Mirror Mirror silliness. Still, basically fun Star Trek nostalgia. But man, these last few seasons/series have descended into some incredibly painful "everybody matters and is important; what are YOUR feelings?" territory and it's really become tedious as hell. "Ensign! How do you feel if we go to warp speed? Would you feel OK about that?" "The Giant Alien Beings that were destroying entire star systems say that they didn't realize they were hurting anyone and they feel super bad about it. They're sorry! Can we hug it out?" "Madame Vulcan President, I think it would be very nice if we could have a dinner date, but only if you also agree and can overcome your own fear of intimacy. I understand it will take time for you to ever have friends again, and I do not wish to put undue pressure on you, and of course will respect your wishes if you would prefer that I never speak to you again." One of the big mid-season revelations this year is that the ship now has a personality and anxiety but, with appropriate affirmative coaching from the captain and engineering, it feels OK with dedicating some more power to, I dunno, shields or warp engine or something. This has stopped being nostalgia and had clawed its way into hate watching.
Raised by Wolves: Season/series 1 started with some hard sci-fi ideas that were interesting despite being tainted with the Ridley Scott sci-fi check list (Milk blood: check; Androids that speak in stilted ways: check; The best, truest (and most frightening) calling of all sentient beings is to have children: check; etc). By mid-season it had descended into "nooooo" and by the end of the season I was shouting at the TV "planet penetrating worm tunnels just like in the Phantom Menace? WTF are they doing?! THIS IS STUPID! THIS SHOW IS DEAD TO ME!" And then season two rolled around and we ended up watching it. But now I am numb to flying snakes and much more forgiving of some of the season 1 choices and, you know what? I actually got really engaged. I was actually surprised and a little bummed when the season ended.
Letterkenny: This show knows what it is and embraces that. It is, as the kids say, "the kind of thing you will like if you like that kind of thing." It's a one-trick pony as far as what it tries to accomplish, but the dialog can be fast and funny. It's a fun aperitif.
Doctor Who: Another show we watch mostly out of habit. At least the worlds and special effects are now better than "look, another rock quarry with a cardboard space ship." But man, I am no longer the target demographic for this show. I often fall asleep to it. I am pleased, however, that Matt Smith is not the Doctor any longer. I hated that period. Matt Smith got stuck with "OK, now be zany!" and the damn incidental music from that season still haunts me, sounding every bit like a fast paced "oom-pa! oom-pa! oom-pa!" circus track that you'd hear being played on a loop at the Tilt-a-Whirl ride. "Doctor! Let's run over here!" [oom-pa! oom-pa! oom-pa!] At least Jodie Whittaker's Doctor isn't cursed with that soundtrack.
Disenchatment: I want to like this show more than I do. I fall asleep to it often.
The Book of Boba Fett: An entire show constructed out of fan service, pastiche and nostalgia. I guess, on the plus side, it looked pretty. Mostly. Except for that episode with the Quadrophenia scooter gang in Mos Eisley (or some other interchangeable desert city on Tatooine). Good lord that was terrible. Also amusing that toward the end of the season the writers kind of ran out of story ideas and decided to dedicate an episode or two to the OTHER Star Wars nostalgia show,
The Mandalorian. And of course ran out of ideas for THAT and decided that they needed to dedicate an episode to a CGI Luke Skywalker space-wizard-puppet-training.
The Expanse: Space Opera done reasonably well. One area where this show stands out from its peers is that this version of space has mostly-realistic physics to it (though every time there was an exterior shot of all the debris after a battle in space I'd find myself shouting that it wouldn't all just be hanging out in clumps of very salvageable scrap - it would continue traveling at whatever it's explosive speed was until some gravitational well had enough of an impact on it to pull it into the well OR at least pull it into some form of orbit OR deflect it on some new trajectory - but just floating all together in a cloud of debrief waiting for others to come pick through it and say things like "well some kind of big battle happened here"? Yeah, no). But beyond that, it's an expansive "humanity makes the leap from Solar System to Galactic" and does it in a mostly engaging and interesting way. It's a shame that the show has ended after six seasons, because there's still more story to tell. One of those few shows that, when it's done, you don't find yourself saying "well thank god for that; should have happened two seasons ago."
Dexter: New Blood: Speaking of shows that should have ended two or three seasons before they did -
Dexter. AND that show ended so badly that they eventually made this show as a mini-series, "yeah, sorry about the way the show ended originally. Maybe this will be better!" And it was better. Sorta. Still not great, but passable. What's really shocking is that they set up the world to be passing-the-torch of "serial killer, but for good!" to a new character and actor and then, when the show finished, basically said "yeah, never mind." I suppose they could always change their minds, but it WAS nice to see a show not play out as an ad for "buy more episodes from us, OK Showtime?"
Gomorrah: An over-the-top "mafia in Naples is ruthless and scary" show. Lots of people die. And swear allegiances. And then break them. I enjoyed this overall, though. And then the final season happened and made me very, very angry. A total betrayal of the multiple seasons that came before and reduced the entire show to "well this was just a waste of time." This damn show. Stay away. You will be angry.
The Great: A non-accurate comedic take on Catherine the Great. It is awesome. You should watch it. Also, the costuming is absolutely gorgeous.
What We Do in the Shadows: A spinoff of the movie by the same name, and lives in the same universe as
Wellington Paranormal (see above). This show is fantastic. You should watch it.
Only Murders in the Building: A charming show. Very much a Steve Martin product. His fingerprints and sensibilities are all over it. If you liked him in
Roxanne,
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and
Planes, Trains and Automobiles, this show has similar sensibilities. Not in the material, but in the approach to acting. Martin Short is also great in it. Selena Gomez is cursed to have to perform with these two and, by comparison, appears to have the emoting/acting capabilities as a piece of lumber throughout. It's a charming show and worth watching.
Another Life: My god this is awful space opera. Just run away. Be happy it's already been canceled. Let all these talented people go on to work on something worth watching. How did money get spent on making this?
Britannia: Another that exists just to be hate-watched. There is nothing redeeming about this hot mess. (The Lovely Mrs. DzM insists that the CGI recreations of Roman settlements are nicely done.)
The Boys: If, as a kid, you thought comic books and super heroes were kind of cool; and then in the Naughties were a little happy to see that there has been a small but growing collection of superhero films that don't suck, and then more recently have grown utterly exhausted by the never-ending stream of punch-and-fly-and-explosions crap that are all of the various Cinematic Universes -
The Boys exists for you. It exists to point out that the supes are all flawed; it leans heavily into cynicism, and corporate greed, and "what really happens in the head of super people that have no real limits on their behavior?" I like this show.
Better Call Saul: A surprisingly really good prequel spinoff of
Breaking Bad. Really well written, really well constructed, and doing a surprisingly good job of building the world that leads into
Breaking Bad's universe. If you enjoyed that universe and want more of it, really well done, you owe it to yourself to watch this show. And hey! The final season/series premieres this week! Hooray! Many critics call this "the best show on television." Obviously, personal taste will differ, but I agree that this one is very much worth watching.
“I know all those people that were in the film [...] But that’s when they were young and strong and full of life, you know?”
