The World of Insufficient Light

I feel like I have relatively little to talk about from my TV watching this year, because so much of it was ongoing series or sequels that I’ve been watching for years already. So rather than group by genres, I’ll group by category.

I opened this year continuing the Star Trek kick from last year, with five more seasons: one of Discovery, two of Picard, one of Lower Decks, and a rewatch of season 4 of Next Generation.

I finished out a bunch of series I’d been watching for a while, all of which managed to land the plane reasonably well: Superman & Lois, The Dragon Prince, What We Do in the Shadows, and The Sandman. On the whole, Superman & Lois and The Sandman both got a little compacted from what would have been ideal; and Dragon Prince and What We Do in the Shadows were both a little long in the tooth by the time they wrapped up; but they all told their complete stories and ended well.

I watched another season each of various ongoing shows that I’m likely to watch additional seasons of if/when they make them: The Sex Lives of College Girls, What If, Harley Quinn, Wednesday, Peacemaker, and Poker Face. Pretty much all of them can be summed up as “more of the same, if you liked it before you’ll still like it.”

The two new standouts: Dying for Sex was a limited series based on a podcast which is a kinky black comedy/tragedy about a woman dying of cancer but determined to find sexual fulfillment before she goes; and Michelle Williams sells it. The first season of Murderbot was a downright delight and very true to the spirit, if not always the letter, of the books. I heartily recommend that.

Going into 2026 I’ve got the final season of Stranger Things, which I need to watch before it gets totally spoiled. I’ve got a couple more seasons of various Star Treks backed up, and then…not much I’m really excited about? I may need to go spelunking in the archives of the various streaming services I pay for and figure out what I’m actually interested in (or, as necessary, cancel them!)
(ARR watched virtually no TV this year, interestingly.)

My 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.

I’m going ahead with a cut for this, because it’s very long and includes commentary and spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery (Season 3), Star Trek: Picard (Seasons 1-2), and Star Trek: Lower Decks (Season 5).

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Overall: While it doesn’t match old Trek in tone and format, I have been enjoying new Trek, and I have three more seasons of various shows still to go. And I’ll probably rewatch more old Trek while I’m at it. It’s a good time for optimistic, competent, and collaborative sci-fi universes.

Marvel’s Legion (Hulu, Season 1) – I’ve had this on my list for years, but finally watched it because there was a question of whether Aubrey Plaza was going to play the same character in Agatha All Along and whether there would be callbacks. (She very clearly doesn’t and there aren’t.) The first few episodes are really crazy; completely out of order sequences where it’s never clear what’s real, memory, or hallucination. Then things settle down, but they need to keep coming up with reasons for David to not be able to control the full extent of his powers as a telepathic, telekinetic teleporter (almost to a reality-warping extent). They tease connections to the larger mutant-based Marvel universe but this doesn’t actually present a world that can reasonably connect to the movies or other TV series. I’m reminded of Doom Patrol in tone, where despite the existence of outside enemies, at the end of the day the protagonist is going to be the source of all of his own problems.

Agatha All Along (Disney+, Season 1) – Marvel tries desperately to recapture what made people watch WandaVision, and remains firmly aware this is a sequel to that. (I personally think the sitcom style conceit meant it had a gimmick that made each week / episode sufficiently new and interesting played a role. Virtually every other series has been a four-hour Standard Marvel Movie told in six episodes. WandaVision had a "what are they going to do next?" effect to keep pulling people back in, even ones who were starting to get tired of superhero stories.) The opening true crime pastiche was cute, but they also did a decent job with making the side characters entertaining. Honestly, the weakest character for the majority of the series is Agatha herself (though Hahn does a magnificent job with everything they give her), because while you’re entertained by her and occasionally feel sorry for her...you’re never really rooting for her? You want to see Teen succeed and maybe see the other witches resolve their issues, but Agatha is more along for the ride. And in the end, that turns out to have always been the case: Who was grifting everyone? It was Agatha, all along.

What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu, Season 5) – Guillermo’s attempts to get turned into a vampire continue to go poorly, but honestly the long-running drama between the characters is the least compelling part of the show. This show is best when it remembers it’s a sitcom and comes up with wacky situations to put the characters in, like Colin Robinson’s political campaign or accidentally stepping in as hosts for the evening news. (The episode where Colin accidentally becomes too interesting to feed was hilarious.) Plus we get random celebrity cameos as themselves and Doug Jones chewing furniture. I’m glad they’re wrapping this up next season because it’s been long in the tooth for a while, but there’s still entertainment to be had.

We also watched the first episode of Doctor Odyssey, and it was so, so bad. It’s the latest Ryan Murphy show, starring Joshua Jackson (Pacey from Dawson’s Creek) as a hot doctor who joins the staff of the cruise ship, probably because he has so many ethics complaints he can only practice medicine in international waters. It can’t decide if it’s a comedy (it’s not actually witty), an ER-style medical drama (there’s no mystery or real procedure), or a romance (there are four named characters all in a professional hierarchy). Like Glee, it’s batshit and unevenly written; unlike Glee it doesn’t have the musical numbers to save it. And it’s a shame, because man, Jackson has aged well and I’d love to watch him be charming on a better show.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 2) - The transition from season 1 (Beverly Crusher goes to head Starfleet Medical but Wesley opts to stay, Pulaski is introduced to be bigoted about Data, etc.) is remarkably condensed but explicit. “Elementary, Dear Data” actually makes a startlingly accurate prediction about generative AI: The computer can only create “new” Sherlock Holmes stories by mashing together elements of old ones. There are some really solid episodes in this season, and also a number of ideas and characters that get revisited later.

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 3) - The show really hits its stride in this season. I’m not going to say there aren’t a few clunkers, bad special effects, or bad guest actors; but it’s a great season. And the first part of “Best of Both Worlds” is possibly the best season-end cliffhanger in TV history.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (Download, Season 4) – The Lower Deckers all get promoted to Lieutenant JG and are joined by a new Vulcan crewmate, but the loving send-up of Star Trek otherwise continues apace. There’s an entire episode dedicated to the most absurd episodes of Voyager; and another that introduces “Moopsy,” a horrifying monster just begging to be made into a plush toy.

Liberty Cabbage (Kickstarter, Season 1) - Zombie Orpheus/Dead Gentlemen Productions, aka the folks who made The Gamers and associated properties, did a Kickstarter for a season (four episodes) of a sketch comedy show. It’s…okay? It’s very self-referential, there are definitely some funny bits, but they also start relying on running gags and intersecting sketches very quickly. They were trying for a Monty Python vibe with modern sensibilities and the writing just isn’t quite strong enough for it. I’m glad I backed it in that I got my money’s worth and I want to see this troupe keep producing things, but I’m not seeing this as a breakout sensation.

Avatar The Last Airbender (2023) (Netflix, Season 1) – A live-action retelling that establishes itself as “not for kids” when Sozin burns someone to death In the prologue. I feel like the audience for this is people who grew up watching the cartoon—which also describes the actors. It’s very pretty, and both the visual effects and the tone are much better than the movie version. (Shocking, I know.) Character beats are changed: Aang doesn’t flee the firebender invasion, he goes out to clear his head before it happens and gets caught in the storm. Sokka isn’t sexist. Azula is introduced much earlier and she and Ozai get much more screen time and development. Lt. Jee actually gets some character and Cmdr. Zhao has much, much loftier ambitions. I was actually less critical of this after reading Patrick Stewart go on at length about remakes and revisions of Shakespeare; there’s a lot of fun and love in this beyond just cynical Hollywood cash-grab, and I can appreciate that.

Delicious In Dungeon (Netflix, Season 1) – Tumblr has been crazy about this show, and I understand why, because it’s a combination of D&D jokes and anime food porn. It’s clever, it’s funny, and it’s got the single most autistic character I think I’ve ever seen. The depth of the worldbuilding is particularly noteworthy, because they take a lot of standard D&D monsters and tropes but pull them in a different direction (an early example: Living Armor is actually a colony of mollusks!). The season ends with a clear goal and problems for next season, which could be 6 episodes or 48 episodes and probably still work out well.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Netflix, Season 1) – It looks like this is going to be just another rehash of the graphic novels and the fights versus Ramona’s evil exes…until Patel wins the very first fight and Scott dies. It focuses most heavily on Ramona and her working out her issues with the seven evil exes, but eventually becomes clear that this is really a sequel to the original comic/movie that works a lot better if you’re already familiar with the material. They got pretty much the entire original cast from the movie to come back and do voices, which means it’s pretty darn star-studded. And it’s a bit better at acknowledging that Scott is…kind of a loser. This was clearly made with the expectation that there won’t be a second season; time (and the whims of Netflix) will tell.

Loki (Disney+, Season 2) – I will admit, especially for material that is neck-deep in the continuity bog, I like the 6-episode format better than the over-long movies. It gives you places to stop and also gives the story and characterization time to breathe. And this is genuinely fun! They have some solid time travel shenanigans, they have entertaining characters, they give Loki a real arc and a proper finality for the character. (I’ll admit that Victor’s stutter was annoying, and I think if O.B. came back for another series I’d get annoyed with him too, but neither was a deal-breaker.) I question whether He Who Remains/Kang the Conqueror is actually a good villain for a decade’s worth of movies, but he worked nicely in this.

Doom Patrol (HBOMax, Season 4, part 2) – Immortus is released…and revealed to be the random actress who Rouge accidentally dumped into a time portal when she arrived two seasons ago. (Which makes the entire existence of the team a terrible series of interlocking time loops, because Caulder used pieces of Immortus to form them in the first place.) There’s a terrible musical episode so fitting with the team! And they end it shockingly well. They bring pretty much everything full circle, and in the end everyone finds some kind of closure. (Though it was a little odd that Dorothy doesn’t appear in the final episode, even for a 30-second “what’s she doing now?” spot.) This ended up a lot more character-driven than the comics ever managed to be, and stayed fairly consistent throughout the run.

Harley Quinn (HBOMax, Season 3) – It’s been a while since we watched the last season, but I think they ratcheted down Harley’s intelligence to make jokes and drama work (particularly regarding Ivy’s science work). Still a fun show; Batman and Commissioner Gordon remain really stupid and the Joker keeps his character development; and Ivy manages to be a sensible grown-up in terms of managing her relationship with Harley and not doing the nonsense sitcom breakup stuff. The bonus 11th episode of this season is the Valentine’s Day special, which clearly everyone had a lot of fun making, but most of all Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso’s Roy Kent, playing himself).

What If..? (Disney+, Season 2) – They got the all-star voice cast back again, which is nice. It’s interesting where they went with this, because it’s all over the map: A bunch of episodes are “What if this character was the lead in this other movie?” but there’s also a brand-new character who gets an origin episode; and a lot of time spent with Captain Carter. (I’m wondering what set of politics led to Captain Carter being the main character of this; but I honestly hope it was just “Hayley Atwell is delightful and we want to work with her more.”) This is another case where you need to know all of the continuity to really get anything out of it, and while it was entertaining, I feel like they could have gotten more creative and gone a bit more off the well-tread rails than they did.

Secret Invasion (Disney+, Season 1) – This feels like the took chunks of a planned Captain Marvel sequel, removed Carol, added a lot of Cold War spy thriller nonsense, rolled it in a mess of takes about the various messes British/American colonialism left behind, and turned it into a Nick Fury movie. I’m sure there are a dozen thinkpieces comparing this to Israel/Palestine (and Ireland, and India, and American intervention in the Middle East, etc.) and I am absolutely NOT going anywhere near them. The comic this was loosely based on famously became the excuse for every continuity and characterization error for a decade. I think this, instead, manages to create more of them than it solves. (If nothing else: How the hell was everyone cool with Rhodey walking again without the robotic leg braces? He still had them in Endgame, right? Did Skrull-Rhodey just make up some stuff about Tony leaving a magic leg fix when he died?) Also, this leaves the MCU at war with the Skrulls on Earth, which totally should have repercussions on future movies and I’m pretty sure is going to get completely forgotten.

Disenchantment (Netflix, Season 5) - This series desperately needs a "previously on" segment at the start of each season. And possibly a few new jokes. But then again, this was clearly the last season and they knew it. There’s a big climactic battle, every character comes back, every mystery and running gag I can remember gets paid off, and everybody lives happily ever after except all the assholes who die. So you know what? I can forgive it getting a bit tired because they actually did five full seasons of entertainment with a real ending and payoff. That’s so damn rare it deserves applause.

Superman & Lois (HBOMax, Season 3) – I had one of those random thoughts regarding a previous season: When John Henry and Natalie were in town, Nat started going to high school with the boys. I don’t remember a scene where anyone asked how they knew her, but they should have totally claimed she was their cousin—which is essentially true; they aren’t really half-siblings because they don’t have the same actual mother, but their mothers were functionally twin sisters from a genetic perspective. That’s a really convenient excuse for all of the Kent-Irons interactions (and why Nat is weird around Lois, should anyone pick up on it); Sam Lane would totally back it up and “fix” any necessary government records, and while Lucy wouldn’t she’s not talking to anyone in Smallville anyway. I need a comic con panel to bring this up at.

Anyway, Spoiler Warning, but this season has a big plotline around Lois getting cancer, and it’s treated fairly realistically. This is actually a really clever idea by the writers because it gives Superman a problem that he can’t punch. And it ends up tying together with the Bruno Mannheim plot. Some of the other side plots got stretched a bit (Jordan has two plot threads and both of them just keep lingering), but the writing is overall pretty good. Interestingly, the season’s real arc is 11 episodes long—Bruno is dealt with and Lois has her surgery in 3x11, there’s some denouement, and then they bring in Lex and Doomsday for the season ending cliffhanger that really should have been the first episode of next season. (They’re clearly rearranging and resolving plotlines to deal with having less use of the supporting cast next season; but it’ll probably be another year with all the strikes until season 4 gets made and they left off with Superman fighting Doomsday on the moon.)

The Dragon Prince (Netflix, Season 5) – There are a number of points where I just got annoyed that they were artificially creating drama. The trip to Lux Aurea, for one: The monsters only come out at night, so they needed to get in and out before sundown. Why not…come back tomorrow? Make multiple trips? I think the problem is that the writers are good at writing entertaining individual scenes, but the only way they can come up with to string them together is the characters being stupid. I’m going to forget all of my predictions by the time the next season comes out, but I think my most important guess is that Aaravos is a filthy liar and Varin won’t die.

Gotham Knights (HBOMax, Season 1) – Despite the Arrowverse being over, they still made a couple of last gasps with superhero shows in the same model. In this case, it showcases a bunch of overly-attractive, hyper-competent and mostly-queer teenagers in a Gotham immediately following the death of Batman, after he’s had a long and storied career and most of his major rogues have come and gone. The Dark Knight Returns clearly was a major influence, as Carrie Kelly appears as the only Robin to have existed up to that point, and the Mutant Gang play a major role in the first few episodes. My dad’s run on various Bat-books clearly also influenced, as the Joker’s Daughter is a regular and the big twist about her backstory is, in fact, her original origin from the 70s. And yes, Harvey Dent is the major “sensible adult” character, running around as the DA and apparently having never been Two-Face. I cannot imagine the behind-the-scenes nonsense that led to the creation of Turner Hayes as a brand-new character (especially with Carrie, Duela, and also Stephanie Brown running around) instead of using Dick, Jason, Tim, or Damien. They slowly spool out to you the history of Gotham up to this point, establishing a lot of Batman backstory that only matters because of how it echoes to the modern day—especially since we can tell from the Joe Chill episode that Bruce Wayne must have been in his late 50s when he died in the first episode, so presumably had almost 30 years of running around as Batman. This only got the one 13-episode season (and it does have a little cliffhanger with Turner being presumed dead and abducted by the League of Shadows), but it works pretty well as a single-arc limited series and wraps up all the major plotlines and important character beats. Despite my usual dislike of non-super superheroes, I thought this was fun.

Poker Face (Download, Season 1) – It’s been established that I love Natasha Lyonne and her ability to play an extremely clever disaster human. And that’s on full display here, as her “Charlie” is the only regular character, drifting from place to place and running into murders along the way that she can solve with her amazing ability to be a human lie detector. I’m particularly entertained by the episode structure because it’s not a whodunit but it’s not quite a procedural either: Every episode opens by showing up the means, motive and execution, and then rewinds to introduce Charlie to the situation and then watch her do the whodunit detective work. The biggest surprise in each episode is the clever way that she (as a fugitive on the run from organized crime) manages to get the killers caught. And there’s a cavalcade of guest stars and ridiculous locations, which is always fun. Interestingly, the “fun” episodes are all concentrated in the middle of the season, and the “dark” episodes are the first and last few. I wouldn’t recommend binging all of these in a row (I watched them interspersed with other shows over a couple of months) because the episode formula gets tired, but it’s a fun series.

My name is Barry Allen… and you know the drill by now.

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Overall: I’m glad I finished this out. Goodnight, Arrowverse Earth-Prime. I’ll see you elsewhere in the multiverse some day.

Up Here (Hulu, Season 1) – A musical romantic comedy where the anxiety voices in the main characters’ heads become the Greek chorus of the musical. Starring Carlos Valdes (Cisco from The Flash), Mae Whitman (Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender, among many other things), and Katie Finneran, who I’ve loved the comedic genius of since Wonderfalls. Apparently based on a stage musical, but based on what I can find it’s been rewritten within an inch of its life. The portrayal of i-banker bros is such that you can tell that while none of the writers have ever done investment banking, they have100% been forced to spend time with investment bankers. While the story was a limited series and “ends”, they clearly hope for a second season; ending just after midnight on January 1, 2000 with the realization that there’s a baby on the way. I think this was a little too drawn out—it actually might have been stronger in six episodes rather than eight with one fewer will they/won’t they back-and-forth—but it was entertaining and the Broadway power is there.

Side note: It was during this that I realized that Hulu’s ads were not being targeted specifically to me, just to the expected demographic for this show. Because otherwise Hulu would somehow have to have concluded I was a sexually-active Latino gay man who wore a lot of makeup.

Ted Lasso (Apple TV, Season 2) – I’ll admit, the second season loses a bunch of the charm from the first, and I think a lot of that is the need to continue spinning plotlines out of the same set of characters. (I think the best new character dynamics all spun out of “Doc” Sharon, the only new recurring character.) There are definitely some really funny moments, but they aren’t quite as common. (There’s also a few scenes of Ted breaking down that don’t carry the power of his first panic attack; and an emotional revelation about his father’s death that I didn’t want in a show of this type.) The precariousness of Roy and Keeley’s relationship gets too much attention for no actual payoff. They kept Jaime but couldn’t quite decide how to use him for a full redemption plotline—it felt like he had setpiece scenes but he disappeared in between them. Sam’s storyline is lovely but it’s clear they got a third season order and they decided to spin out the romance. And I’m not sure how much I believe Nate’s fall into “angry guy”. I’m guessing somebody involved felt the show really needed a villain and the writers had to manufacture one. I’m not sure I’m going to bother with season 3 unless I hear it’s really a return to form.

Masters of the Universe: Revelation (Netflix, Season 2) - I had lost track of watching the second half of this (and despite Hordak in the stinger, they’ve clearly lost interest in making more of it), but taking the entire series as a whole…it was just an excuse to pull out the box of He-Man toys and have fun with them with a big animation budget and a bunch of movie stars. Mark Hammill is just loving his time as Skeletor. We once again go four out of five episodes without actually having He-Man show up in them. The side characters—particularly Teela and Evil-Lynn, but also Man-At-Arms and Andra—get the character beats that really matter. Skeletor gets beaten in the way that matters most to him: He isn’t the important villain in the end. Lots of action figure characters get a cool scene or a cool moment, but we all know that Fisto is in there to say he wants to fist someone, not because he’s actually going to grow as a person. In the end, Teela becomes the new sorceress (which we all knew would happen, even back in 1986), He-Man saves the day, and there will always be other battles between Masters of the Universe.

What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu, Season 4) – As predicted, they got back to the status quo in the space of the first episode. They time-jump a year, everybody comes home, and hijinks resume. Nandor finds a Jinn lamp, wastes a lot of wishes, and gets obsessed with getting married, gets married, and eventually wishes his wife away again. Nadja opens a vampire nightclub and it’s exactly as badly mismanaged as you’d expect. Colin Robinson’s childlike regenerated form is annoying and learns about musical theater. (And by the end of the season he’s fully grown back into his original self with no memory of the intervening year, giving us another confusing and ultimately useless clue in the life-cycle of Energy Vampires.) Guillermo comes out to his family, gets a boyfriend, and eventually gives up on expecting the main crew to change and ends the season trying to bribe another vampire into turning him. Oh, and there was a send-up of a house-flipping show that worked reasonably well as a parody of such shows and then turned out to all be a trick to get Lazlo’s bloody cursed hat. Honestly, I think this peaked back in season two and it’s running out of steam.

Wednesday (Netflix, Season 1) – I don’t love the actors playing Gomez and Morticia; their performance feels awkward and stilted. I appreciate the call-backs to the original series and movies and also that they aren’t overwhelming. (I adore Christina Ricci and I’m glad they used her in this.) I think there’s a thesis to be written about Wednesday’s autism-coding. They aren’t terribly consistent about where her interests and fascination with death, gore and mayhem end and where her dislike of the season’s villains begins. When the monster finally does his smirking confession to her, it felt like she should have responded, “I’m shockingly attracted to you right now;” but instead she inexplicably stayed in “You’re evil and I hate you” mode. They go into the second season (assuming they get one) with pretty much all of the “adult” regulars dead, so a return to Nevermore will be with the same core cast of teenagers and a completely new staff. Oh, and yes, the “Wednesday Dance” scene was worth all the hype about it.

The Dragon Prince (Netflix, Season 4) – The existence of a fourth season of this caught me off-guard; I figured it was dead and buried. I’m wondering if they’ll actually get the full six seasons they were clearly going for from the start (there are six forms of elemental magic and they’ve been naming each season after them). They have an issue with constantly repeating the exposition over and over, even within the same episode; and the season felt stretched out because of it. They do some decent foreshadowing, but Chekov’s gun can only get you so far. And there are several points where a character clearly does something specifically because the plot needed them to get somewhere, not because it made any particular sense. There are a couple of cute references to Avatar. I appreciate that characters are just matter-of-fact queer, including the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reveal that the himbo wood elf boyfriend is trans. I think this is going to end up being a forgettable imitator to Avatar when all is said and done, but I’ll watch whatever else they manage to produce.

Titans (HBOMax, Season 4, Part 1) and Doom Patrol (HBOMax, Season 4, Part 1) - I’m annoyed that HBOMax dropped half a season of each of these, both leaving off on big cliffhangers. The Titans narrowly escaped to The Red as Brother Blood rises to use Trigon’s power to destroy the world. The Doom Patrol are captives of the Scissormen who are going to bring Immortus to destroy the world, and the zombie butt apocalypse is still a going concern. I think both of these shows have really found their voices and hit a good stride (and love that, since they’re keeping Tim Drake as a main character, Titans has introduced Bernard), I’m mostly just annoyed I can’t binge the who season in one go.

Superman & Lois (HBOMax, Season 2) – They apparently felt the need to beef up the show’s diversity credentials by having Sarah come out as bi and letting her change from the Cushing family back to the original Cortez after her quinceañera. This season’s villains include a self-help guru/cult leader; and Superman’s new liaison to the US military whose America First brain poisoning causes him to fundamentally misunderstand the government’s relationship to Superman. Credit here for maintaining Clark and Lois as decent parents who love each other and try their best, and for giving all of the really stupid decisions to either teenagers or villains.

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