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TV Reviews (End of 2020 and Early 2021)
What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu, Season 1) – While this is done in the mockumentary format of the movie (focusing on a new group of equally-useless vampires), it’s hard to maintain a narrative thrust for a full TV season when the characters are useless fops who never really accomplish anything. There are plot through-lines, but they’re very loose; Jethrien wandered in for random scenes and never felt lost. It has a sitcom sort of quality to it, but it doesn’t pull you in deeply. I suspect the second season will have slightly more angst but not be any more serious.
Preacher (Hulu, Season 1) - I watched the first few episodes of this—I had read the comic series years ago—and while it’s entertaining in a black comedy sort of way, I’m not down for four seasons of it, especially since I know that most of that will be retreading thin plots I read in the comics and was unimpressed with then. It’s a Garth Ennis post-editors project, with means lots of gratuitous violence and gay rape, both of which the TV series tones down but not by much.
Schitt's Creek (Amazon Prime, Season 1) - Johnny Rose and his ultra-rich family lose their money to fraud and are forced to move to Schitt’s Creek, a tiny town they technically own but seem incapable of doing anything with. (I realize that it’s a conceit of the narrative that ownership of the town gives them the ability to stay in the local motel but nothing else, but that irks me to no end. You can’t just generally own “the town” without some claim to the property it sits on that lets you do things like “charge the inhabitants rent” or “sell mining rights”.) It’s cringe-comedy in a lot of ways, because it’s fish-out-of-water starring Eugene Levy and his son (who has the same sense of humor, he just plays it queer). That said, I suspect the later seasons when the humor gets a little more generic as “wacky residents of a small town” will be more entertaining to me overall.
Fleabag (Amazon Prime, Season 1) - This less a sitcom and more a black comedy stand-up routine that’s being acted out; and it’s pretty aware of that. Waller-Bridge ignores the 4th wall with impunity; and most of the characters (including her main one) don’t have given names. I don’t know how much of this was based in reality (honestly, I hope very little), but it’s a good show of her working through issues with her insane family and her best friend’s death, as she also talks irreverently about sex and being a terrible person. Again, it’s got a feel of stand-up comedy that gets periodically dark, so that’s both a recommendation and a warning.
Harley Quinn (DC Direct, Season 2) – This remains hilarious. And very self-aware—the fifth episode has bumpers with two geeks watching it on DC Direct and making common internet complaints about it. They clearly had no idea if a third season would happen, so they tied up pretty much every loose end from the first season (the Justice League and the Joker returned, half of the rogue’s gallery is dead, Gotham goes relatively back to normal) and Harley and Ivy get together in a suitably “happily ever after” way.
Disenchantment (Netflix, Season 3) – I watched season 2, but apparently didn’t write anything down about it and couldn’t remember half of the events or cliffhangers. (So clearly it was memorable.) They can’t quite decide what’s a big ongoing plotline and what’s a one- or two-episode gag, and they bring back stuff that was clearly originally intended to be forgettable as part of larger plots. I’m starting to guess that they don’t actually have a big metaplot planned, they just keep laying things down and calling it good enough. (The fact that how evil any member of the castle staff is varies wildly from episode to episode is most of that.) I do appreciate that Bean’s bisexuality isn’t a joke or even a remarked-upon thing at this point. This leaves off on series of cliffhangers: Bean, now queen, is brought by her mom to the depths of the earth for a wedding. Dreamland was secretly the ancestral home of the elves. Elfo was kidnapped by ogres. (I’m betting he’s half-ogre and that’s a big reveal.) Zog is in an insane asylum. Luci is technically dead and I heaven. Somebody got their fourth season order already!
Preacher (Hulu, Season 1) - I watched the first few episodes of this—I had read the comic series years ago—and while it’s entertaining in a black comedy sort of way, I’m not down for four seasons of it, especially since I know that most of that will be retreading thin plots I read in the comics and was unimpressed with then. It’s a Garth Ennis post-editors project, with means lots of gratuitous violence and gay rape, both of which the TV series tones down but not by much.
Schitt's Creek (Amazon Prime, Season 1) - Johnny Rose and his ultra-rich family lose their money to fraud and are forced to move to Schitt’s Creek, a tiny town they technically own but seem incapable of doing anything with. (I realize that it’s a conceit of the narrative that ownership of the town gives them the ability to stay in the local motel but nothing else, but that irks me to no end. You can’t just generally own “the town” without some claim to the property it sits on that lets you do things like “charge the inhabitants rent” or “sell mining rights”.) It’s cringe-comedy in a lot of ways, because it’s fish-out-of-water starring Eugene Levy and his son (who has the same sense of humor, he just plays it queer). That said, I suspect the later seasons when the humor gets a little more generic as “wacky residents of a small town” will be more entertaining to me overall.
Fleabag (Amazon Prime, Season 1) - This less a sitcom and more a black comedy stand-up routine that’s being acted out; and it’s pretty aware of that. Waller-Bridge ignores the 4th wall with impunity; and most of the characters (including her main one) don’t have given names. I don’t know how much of this was based in reality (honestly, I hope very little), but it’s a good show of her working through issues with her insane family and her best friend’s death, as she also talks irreverently about sex and being a terrible person. Again, it’s got a feel of stand-up comedy that gets periodically dark, so that’s both a recommendation and a warning.
Harley Quinn (DC Direct, Season 2) – This remains hilarious. And very self-aware—the fifth episode has bumpers with two geeks watching it on DC Direct and making common internet complaints about it. They clearly had no idea if a third season would happen, so they tied up pretty much every loose end from the first season (the Justice League and the Joker returned, half of the rogue’s gallery is dead, Gotham goes relatively back to normal) and Harley and Ivy get together in a suitably “happily ever after” way.
Disenchantment (Netflix, Season 3) – I watched season 2, but apparently didn’t write anything down about it and couldn’t remember half of the events or cliffhangers. (So clearly it was memorable.) They can’t quite decide what’s a big ongoing plotline and what’s a one- or two-episode gag, and they bring back stuff that was clearly originally intended to be forgettable as part of larger plots. I’m starting to guess that they don’t actually have a big metaplot planned, they just keep laying things down and calling it good enough. (The fact that how evil any member of the castle staff is varies wildly from episode to episode is most of that.) I do appreciate that Bean’s bisexuality isn’t a joke or even a remarked-upon thing at this point. This leaves off on series of cliffhangers: Bean, now queen, is brought by her mom to the depths of the earth for a wedding. Dreamland was secretly the ancestral home of the elves. Elfo was kidnapped by ogres. (I’m betting he’s half-ogre and that’s a big reveal.) Zog is in an insane asylum. Luci is technically dead and I heaven. Somebody got their fourth season order already!
no subject
I found once it became more of its own thing (think Magicians(TV) vs the books), the better it was. The way some characters made them differ from the books made them shine, and the characters who felt like they walked off the page (Cassidy, Starr, Featherstone) held the structure.
I understand not wanting to invest time into a show you that's not your jam, but IMO they do address a lot of the issues the first season had.
no subject
To be fair, most of the last couple of months of TV watching has been, "Well, this isn't bad, I guess I'll keep watching" rather than anything I was desperately into; except for Harley Quinn, which I was watching with Jethrien and couldn't just binge.
no subject