Summer TV Catch-Up
Aug. 25th, 2025 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroMy backlog of shows piled up while I was busy finishing books and video games.
Murderbot (Apple TV, Season 1) - Though this rearranges some plot points and adds a few things, it stays pretty true to the spirit of All Systems Red and Skarsgard definitely got the memo, managing to look incredibly uncomfortable every time he needs to interact with anyone. For that matter, the rest of the cast also got the memo, managing to convey touchy-feely academics who are vastly out of their depth and then varying levels of traumatized. Well done; I hope they get six seasons and a movie and Martha Wells makes bank.
The Sex Lives of College Girls (HBOMax, Season 3) – I honestly wasn’t sure if this would be back, but it is, and the girls all mend fences in time for sophomore year. Leighton is only in the first two episodes; her insane math skills net her a transfer to MIT as her girlfriend moves to Boston for a job, which is the nicest damn send-off I think I’ve ever seen a sitcom character get. So then they bring in a new fourth member of the suite to keep things interesting. (Amusingly, she was the only cast member even close to college age! Most of the cast is over 30.) The show continues to evolve into a standard college dating sitcom with less emphasis on sex and no nudity; and the mix of humor and drama is often uneven. I found it particularly interesting how rapidly the boys they date change personalities from episode to episode, practically becoming different characters to serve the needs of the plot.
The October Faction (Netflix, Season 1) - I watched this to compare and contrast versus the comic series, and it’s another of the cases where they only took the broad strokes; though they also managed to tie together some completely random unconnected bits from the original comics into coherent plot elements that had business being there. They clearly hoped to get a second season, because they left off with a bunch of dangling plot threads including a major character who’s dead but clearly has a path to revival.
What If…? (Disney+, Season 3) – Another set of alternate-universe stories mostly starring the supporting casts of the big movies that inexplicably turn into a combined storyline. The “Howard the Duck and Darcy Lewis get married” one was notably fun—especially when their daughter grew up to be voiced by Natasha Lyonne.
Dying for Sex (Hulu, Season 1) – Drama? Comedy? Black comedy? A woman with terminal cancer decides that if she’s making a bucket list, she wants good sex to be on it. It’s goofy and kinky—actually one of the best depictions of some kink I’ve seen—but also highlights the real disaster that is being a caregiver for a cancer patient. (Her best friend’s life absolutely falls apart over the course of this. And, spoiler: She’s dying and does, in fact, die.) Michelle Williams’ ability to carry a show is evident.
Creature Commandos (HBOMax, Season 1) – In basically the same continuity as The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker (and with the same black comedy tone), Waller recruits Rick Flagg Sr. to lead a Task Force X team of monsters, and it goes as badly as you’d expect. Everybody gets a flashback episode; lots of people die. Some of our favorite comedic voice actors earn their paychecks. G.I. Robot is the best. One quibble: Why does Frankenstein keep getting called “Eric”? His name is Adam! And the moral is that humans are the real monsters; well, except for some monsters, who are also the real monsters.
Sandman (Netflix, Season 2) – I really wish Gaiman had managed not to let his reputation sink all of the projects he was attached to until this had gotten a full proper run, because the actors and the production staff clearly cared so much and did a really good job. And all things said, they did a great job of cramming and cutting to get the entire story in. The fourth episode is where it really becomes clear they had to cram two-thirds of the comics series into eight episodes and they started condensing heavily—the entire arc (“A Game of You”) Wanda appears in was cut, so her appearance and death are crammed into a different story entirely. Thessaly was excised entirely as well. Admittedly, there were storylines and issues of the original Sandman comic where Dream never appears or barely appears, but those also let the series breathe and let the side characters grow and develop.
But the flipside is that especially in the context of cutting out filler stories from the full narrative, some of the individual episodes feel bloated, where conversations drag out or are repeated unnecessarily. I think my one big issue with this adaptation is that it didn’t trust the audience, and got repetitive with dialogue and explanations. That, and I think they were willing to run with the idea that Morpheus was a person who died and was replaced in his role by another person. (They draw a lot of big, obvious parallels between Dream and the Corinthian.) In the original story, he was not a person, and that was a lot of the point: Morpheus was an idea, a way of presenting Dream to the world; and when Dream changed to the point where Morpheus was no longer an accurate representation, Daniel needed to replace him. The real question of the story is how far and idea can change before it’s a different idea.
Anyway, this was well-cast, delightfully acted and beautifully presented and I’m glad they managed to get the entire story done despite real-world snafus.
And the culls...
Dead Boy Detectives (Netflix, Season 1) – Nominally in the Sandman universe and cursed to a single season by Gaiman’s fall from grace, this...is okay? Two ghosts and one medium attract too much attention from a living witch, the King of Cats, and the various denizens of the afterlife and drama ensues while they solve mysteries. There’s a bit of “you’ve been dead and doing this for decades, how are you not better at it despite being stuck as teenagers.” I lost interest.
Six is Not a Crowd (HBOMax, Season 1) – Dubbed/subbed from Spanish, this came to my attention because it’s a drama surrounding a man who joins an existing five-person polycule. The problem is, the translation is clearly losing some of the feel of the original and it’s not nearly funny enough or heartwarming enough to hold me on either axis.
Murderbot (Apple TV, Season 1) - Though this rearranges some plot points and adds a few things, it stays pretty true to the spirit of All Systems Red and Skarsgard definitely got the memo, managing to look incredibly uncomfortable every time he needs to interact with anyone. For that matter, the rest of the cast also got the memo, managing to convey touchy-feely academics who are vastly out of their depth and then varying levels of traumatized. Well done; I hope they get six seasons and a movie and Martha Wells makes bank.
The Sex Lives of College Girls (HBOMax, Season 3) – I honestly wasn’t sure if this would be back, but it is, and the girls all mend fences in time for sophomore year. Leighton is only in the first two episodes; her insane math skills net her a transfer to MIT as her girlfriend moves to Boston for a job, which is the nicest damn send-off I think I’ve ever seen a sitcom character get. So then they bring in a new fourth member of the suite to keep things interesting. (Amusingly, she was the only cast member even close to college age! Most of the cast is over 30.) The show continues to evolve into a standard college dating sitcom with less emphasis on sex and no nudity; and the mix of humor and drama is often uneven. I found it particularly interesting how rapidly the boys they date change personalities from episode to episode, practically becoming different characters to serve the needs of the plot.
The October Faction (Netflix, Season 1) - I watched this to compare and contrast versus the comic series, and it’s another of the cases where they only took the broad strokes; though they also managed to tie together some completely random unconnected bits from the original comics into coherent plot elements that had business being there. They clearly hoped to get a second season, because they left off with a bunch of dangling plot threads including a major character who’s dead but clearly has a path to revival.
What If…? (Disney+, Season 3) – Another set of alternate-universe stories mostly starring the supporting casts of the big movies that inexplicably turn into a combined storyline. The “Howard the Duck and Darcy Lewis get married” one was notably fun—especially when their daughter grew up to be voiced by Natasha Lyonne.
Dying for Sex (Hulu, Season 1) – Drama? Comedy? Black comedy? A woman with terminal cancer decides that if she’s making a bucket list, she wants good sex to be on it. It’s goofy and kinky—actually one of the best depictions of some kink I’ve seen—but also highlights the real disaster that is being a caregiver for a cancer patient. (Her best friend’s life absolutely falls apart over the course of this. And, spoiler: She’s dying and does, in fact, die.) Michelle Williams’ ability to carry a show is evident.
Creature Commandos (HBOMax, Season 1) – In basically the same continuity as The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker (and with the same black comedy tone), Waller recruits Rick Flagg Sr. to lead a Task Force X team of monsters, and it goes as badly as you’d expect. Everybody gets a flashback episode; lots of people die. Some of our favorite comedic voice actors earn their paychecks. G.I. Robot is the best. One quibble: Why does Frankenstein keep getting called “Eric”? His name is Adam! And the moral is that humans are the real monsters; well, except for some monsters, who are also the real monsters.
Sandman (Netflix, Season 2) – I really wish Gaiman had managed not to let his reputation sink all of the projects he was attached to until this had gotten a full proper run, because the actors and the production staff clearly cared so much and did a really good job. And all things said, they did a great job of cramming and cutting to get the entire story in. The fourth episode is where it really becomes clear they had to cram two-thirds of the comics series into eight episodes and they started condensing heavily—the entire arc (“A Game of You”) Wanda appears in was cut, so her appearance and death are crammed into a different story entirely. Thessaly was excised entirely as well. Admittedly, there were storylines and issues of the original Sandman comic where Dream never appears or barely appears, but those also let the series breathe and let the side characters grow and develop.
But the flipside is that especially in the context of cutting out filler stories from the full narrative, some of the individual episodes feel bloated, where conversations drag out or are repeated unnecessarily. I think my one big issue with this adaptation is that it didn’t trust the audience, and got repetitive with dialogue and explanations. That, and I think they were willing to run with the idea that Morpheus was a person who died and was replaced in his role by another person. (They draw a lot of big, obvious parallels between Dream and the Corinthian.) In the original story, he was not a person, and that was a lot of the point: Morpheus was an idea, a way of presenting Dream to the world; and when Dream changed to the point where Morpheus was no longer an accurate representation, Daniel needed to replace him. The real question of the story is how far and idea can change before it’s a different idea.
Anyway, this was well-cast, delightfully acted and beautifully presented and I’m glad they managed to get the entire story done despite real-world snafus.
And the culls...
Dead Boy Detectives (Netflix, Season 1) – Nominally in the Sandman universe and cursed to a single season by Gaiman’s fall from grace, this...is okay? Two ghosts and one medium attract too much attention from a living witch, the King of Cats, and the various denizens of the afterlife and drama ensues while they solve mysteries. There’s a bit of “you’ve been dead and doing this for decades, how are you not better at it despite being stuck as teenagers.” I lost interest.
Six is Not a Crowd (HBOMax, Season 1) – Dubbed/subbed from Spanish, this came to my attention because it’s a drama surrounding a man who joins an existing five-person polycule. The problem is, the translation is clearly losing some of the feel of the original and it’s not nearly funny enough or heartwarming enough to hold me on either axis.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-25 11:51 pm (UTC)I mean, also I’m just not watching a whole lot of tv. Many evenings I can’t get up the will to watch anything narrative. Feel things? Blech. Sounds exhausting.