Summer 2022 TV
Aug. 22nd, 2022 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThe Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Disney+, Season 1) – After the first episode, I worried that it would take itself too seriously and I was concerned about Bucky’s plotline with the old Japanese man. Especially having watched Hawkeye first, where the way Bucky should have dealt with the problem was clearly shown: “Hey, buddy, your son was killed by a HYDRA assassin called the Winter Soldier. He was an accidental victim, totally wrong place and wrong time. The Winter Soldier is gone forever, Captain America made sure of that. I’m sorry there can’t be any more closure, but what happened to your son won’t happen again.” Just enough truth to assuage guilt, just enough misdirection to not make the situation ten times worse. And it took six episodes for him to…not really get that. Overall, this was a mess of attempts to straddle a line of making everybody a little right and a little wrong and I’m not sure how well they threaded the needle. The supporting cast of the Captain America movies are a fine group of characters but this was a interstitial piece at best and you can likely jump to the next movie they appear in without too much confusion if you skip it.
Stranger Things (Netflix, Season 4) – This season is full of really long episodes--too damn long and bloated with too much stuff. Brown is a better actor than a lot of the hulkspeak nonsense dialogue they give her to work with. (Though, to be fair, if anything Eleven’s misery parade was downplayed. She functionally has the language skills and emotional maturity of a child half her age and she’s had repeated massive traumas and losses. She should never have been in “gen pop” at the new high school…but the fact that the administration doesn’t care is one of the most realistic things in the show.) I’ve seen complaints about Will’s character, too, but Will being a taciturn asshole because he's secretly gay…I mean, it was already the 90s when I reached middle school, but doesn't anyone else remember how casually and horribly homophobic the 80s were? And how much we all just internalized that?
Honestly, I think the character scenes really work and the show would be better if they just cut out all the CGI monsters. I love the Dustin/Steve dynamic, I love the Robin/Steve dynamic, I LOVE the Robin/Nancy dynamic. I'd personally watch Wynona Rider read the phone book, but you've got to admit that she sells all the ridiculous bullshit they give her. Somebody on Tumblr suggested the Duffer Brothers just make a show where Steve and Robin get a new minimum wage job every episode and just banter for 22 minutes at a time. If Dustin and Erika alternated episodes showing up to make trouble I'd give that whole thing six seasons and a movie.
The Umbrella Academy (Netflix, Season 3) - As with the previous two seasons, it makes much more sense than the volume of the comic it was based on, and actually ties together a lot of the plot and character moments better. Opening with the dance-off was glorious. Vanya’s transition to Viktor was a little spontaneous if you don’t know the actor’s backstory, but it worked neatly into the family dynamic and (though they didn’t emphasize it) worked as one more crack that led to Allison’s degeneration. The Sparrow Academy members were underdeveloped and I feel like more of the 10-hour runtime could have been dedicated to their backstories and the alternate history. They teased more details about the “Jennifer incident” that killed original Ben and the “particles” that give the team their powers and caused their births, but ultimately gave us nothing; and in both cases that’s okay because the ultimate revelation won’t be as good as the mystery. While there are hanging threads at the end (Hargreeves is apparently running the world, Sloan’s whereabouts are unclear, how and why Five founded the Commission is nebulous, and how the team fits into the current history is an open book), I’d be perfectly fine with them ending the series here.
Love, Death & Robots (Netflix, Season 3) – As before, the Scalzi episode (while clearly written out of pique) is one of the best, and the rest are a mixed bag. Also, the animation continues to run the gamut from “goofy cartoon” to “renders from a PS4 game.” The final episode is particularly WTF, with a weird janky animation style which we couldn’t decide if it was stylistic or just incompetent. The fact that each episode is short is likely the reason we just watch the whole thing instead of picking and choosing.
The Sandman (Netflix, Season 1) - This is a delight, and I say that as a fan of the original comic. The first season encompasses the first two graphic novels and a few shorts. They updated a bunch of the material, excised a bunch of direct DC references (the Halls’ superhero careers and John Dee’s supervillainy, primarily), and while they kept it very much a horror piece, they removed a few of the more graphic segments (particularly regarding Fun Land and the Calliope story, I feel like the sexual nature of abuse was downplayed or referred to a lot more obliquely). The race-lifted and gender-swapped a bunch of characters and somehow made the incredibly queer original work even more queer; I’m very interested to see what they do with Wanda in season 2. Also, that’s Mark Hammill voicing Merv Pumpkinhead. My only two complaints are about Lucifer’s hair and that they removed, “You got what everybody gets. You got a lifetime.”
Stranger Things (Netflix, Season 4) – This season is full of really long episodes--too damn long and bloated with too much stuff. Brown is a better actor than a lot of the hulkspeak nonsense dialogue they give her to work with. (Though, to be fair, if anything Eleven’s misery parade was downplayed. She functionally has the language skills and emotional maturity of a child half her age and she’s had repeated massive traumas and losses. She should never have been in “gen pop” at the new high school…but the fact that the administration doesn’t care is one of the most realistic things in the show.) I’ve seen complaints about Will’s character, too, but Will being a taciturn asshole because he's secretly gay…I mean, it was already the 90s when I reached middle school, but doesn't anyone else remember how casually and horribly homophobic the 80s were? And how much we all just internalized that?
Honestly, I think the character scenes really work and the show would be better if they just cut out all the CGI monsters. I love the Dustin/Steve dynamic, I love the Robin/Steve dynamic, I LOVE the Robin/Nancy dynamic. I'd personally watch Wynona Rider read the phone book, but you've got to admit that she sells all the ridiculous bullshit they give her. Somebody on Tumblr suggested the Duffer Brothers just make a show where Steve and Robin get a new minimum wage job every episode and just banter for 22 minutes at a time. If Dustin and Erika alternated episodes showing up to make trouble I'd give that whole thing six seasons and a movie.
The Umbrella Academy (Netflix, Season 3) - As with the previous two seasons, it makes much more sense than the volume of the comic it was based on, and actually ties together a lot of the plot and character moments better. Opening with the dance-off was glorious. Vanya’s transition to Viktor was a little spontaneous if you don’t know the actor’s backstory, but it worked neatly into the family dynamic and (though they didn’t emphasize it) worked as one more crack that led to Allison’s degeneration. The Sparrow Academy members were underdeveloped and I feel like more of the 10-hour runtime could have been dedicated to their backstories and the alternate history. They teased more details about the “Jennifer incident” that killed original Ben and the “particles” that give the team their powers and caused their births, but ultimately gave us nothing; and in both cases that’s okay because the ultimate revelation won’t be as good as the mystery. While there are hanging threads at the end (Hargreeves is apparently running the world, Sloan’s whereabouts are unclear, how and why Five founded the Commission is nebulous, and how the team fits into the current history is an open book), I’d be perfectly fine with them ending the series here.
Love, Death & Robots (Netflix, Season 3) – As before, the Scalzi episode (while clearly written out of pique) is one of the best, and the rest are a mixed bag. Also, the animation continues to run the gamut from “goofy cartoon” to “renders from a PS4 game.” The final episode is particularly WTF, with a weird janky animation style which we couldn’t decide if it was stylistic or just incompetent. The fact that each episode is short is likely the reason we just watch the whole thing instead of picking and choosing.
The Sandman (Netflix, Season 1) - This is a delight, and I say that as a fan of the original comic. The first season encompasses the first two graphic novels and a few shorts. They updated a bunch of the material, excised a bunch of direct DC references (the Halls’ superhero careers and John Dee’s supervillainy, primarily), and while they kept it very much a horror piece, they removed a few of the more graphic segments (particularly regarding Fun Land and the Calliope story, I feel like the sexual nature of abuse was downplayed or referred to a lot more obliquely). The race-lifted and gender-swapped a bunch of characters and somehow made the incredibly queer original work even more queer; I’m very interested to see what they do with Wanda in season 2. Also, that’s Mark Hammill voicing Merv Pumpkinhead. My only two complaints are about Lucifer’s hair and that they removed, “You got what everybody gets. You got a lifetime.”
