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TheSpiritOfTheTimes
Reviews
Shôgun (2024)
Game of Thrones set in Japan
This is done very much on the wings of GoT's success and trying to cater to the same demand and don't let anyone tell you otherwise: fun, gory, lots of cloak-and-dagger politics. Fortunately set in a much more interesting setting, 1600 feudal Japan rather than some faux-medival Europe with dragons and murdering shadows. As a limited miniseries it also can't overstay its welcome, even if the ending is not very satisfying or cathartic and a tad bit anti-climactic. I don't know the source material so I'll reserve judgement on that but I was surprised to read it followed it closely and that the book was as nuanced and its focus wasn't solely on Blackthorne as it isn't in the miniseries. Cosmo Jarvis is a bit of a headscratcher: actively disliked his casting in the beginning, which might just have been due to his misshapen head or some odd pet peeve like that rather than his shouting performance, and not to say it is a good performance, but he did grow on me; the rest of the cast is pretty decent, Asano as Yabushige is the standout and the other two presences I liked most are Sanado and Hira as the two arch-rivals. All-in-all: well-written, well-produced, well-acted, and an entertaining way to spend 10 hours.
Black Mirror: Demon 79 (2023)
06: A jumble of a season, Charlie Brooker has lost his edge, if he ever had it
It's still watchable, there's always the anticipation of some sort of twist that keeps your interest, but it doesn't have any kind of edge or insight anymore, the novelty's worn off, it's now more often than not a commentary-and-twist on familiar TV and movie genre tropes. This season sometimes leaned into fantasy more than technology commentary.
It has too much of a personal imprint from Brooker in a way, the kind of refuge when your imagination is failing you: in the last episode I immediately speculated that he's going to model the protagonist after his wife (or maybe his mother-in-law) and guess what? He gave her his wife's surname!
The Righteous Gemstones: Wonders That Cannot Be Fathomed, Miracles That Cannot Be Counted (2023)
The writing simply quite often fails these great performers
The strength of this show is the stacked cast, just an amazing parade of laugh-out-loud performers, but the writing often fails them: I know there's a lot of improvisation, but it's disjointed, sometimes there are these weird action inserts with cars and bikes to fill the time, the big overarching stories don't go anywhere or repeat themselves or just fall flat. Okay, there is an occasional good song (like this season Sturgill Simpson doing All the Gold in California).
Edi Patterson was always near the top, but this season she might be the MVP, and Tim Baltz deserves an honorable mention too. Obviously Devine, Cavalero, Goggins, McBride are also great, it's one of the best casts around and not one poor performer, even in the smallest of roles. Just this season had Zahn, Haas, Dorff, (and the season MVP) Stephen Schneider.
Succession (2018)
Prestige TV comedy: well-written, well-acted, well-appointed but ultimately unimportant in the history of TV
The title I cribbed from an NYT comment, I had been a fan throughout of this often excellently written quasi-drama/actually-a- comedy led by the guy who did Peep Show, but the fourth season became a chore to finish: the intrigues were getting stale, there's only so much juice you can squeeze out of this and it was high time they ended it. You really can't knock the writing, it's prestige TV, but I am also truly skeptical this show will have any staying power or wider cultural resonance.
In terms of the cast Jeremy Strong and Matthew Macfayden were the standouts for me, Braun a good (albeit one-note) comedy insert, Culkin was the least interesting child and also more like a one-note comedy character, I don't think Cox was doing anything memorable, and Snook I disliked the most, difficult to pin it either on the character or how she played it; Ruck's character was also hilarious as were a lot of the peripheral characters.
The Last of Us: Look for the Light (2023)
S1: First-rate suspense that keeps you watching but there's not much else to this show
It is tense, mostly (there is an absolute dud of an episode towards the end, the 7th, which is terribly conceived, drawing out something we know the conclusion of and even the execution-a rehash emotionally of a previous episode done much better-is completely flat), but ultimately it's also quite forgettable zombie fare consisting of recycled dystopian and zombie tropes seen a million times. It's absolutely not prestige tv or smart or insightful, it's just a good production, courtesy mostly of its budget.
I never played The Last of Us, only watched some of the cinematics, which stayed with me because of the twist in the intro. The writing-from Craig Mazin who did the overpraised Chernobyl and a lot of cretinous comedies-is predictable and uninspired, although some much-needed levity and an occasional joke land. The girl is quite okay, Pedro Pascal is not great (doesn't do brooding that well and unbelievable as this supremely capable, and in the last ep invincible action hero), but both are decent and likable enough.
Bad Sisters: Saving Grace (2022)
S01: Fun, bingeable, but nothing outstanding
It's enjoyable as you'd expect from a fun premise (4 sisters decide to kill the sociopathic husband of the 5th sister) in capable hands.
In the beginning, the patriarch is too improbable in how insufferable he is and his scenes are sometimes insufferable as a result, but then it veers into the absurdly enjoyable and by then you're already along for the ride.
The performances are fine: the sisters are all okay (Horgan, Birthistle, Duff) to tolerable (Greene), Bono's daughter is quite engaging and good (who recently had a multi-day breakdown on Twitter because she was called a nepo baby), as is her love interest, and the lesser Gleeson. Claes Bang has a role that was surely fun for him and he acquits himself very well.
Does not merit a second season at all though.
The White Lotus: Arrivederci (2022)
S02: an immense improvement from season 1
HBO prestige tv is back, baaabyyyy. Don't think I've ever seen such a leap in improvement between two seasons of the same show, albeit an anthology series. While the first season grated on me because it was so aggressively about The Discourse and was so insufferably au courant about a certain kind of American cultural set this is just much better scripted and genuinely funny at at time with some great casting, good actors and memorable performances, just much much better than the first season in all departments. The setting, ancient but lively Italy is also more enjoyable than insipid colonized Hawaii.
Andor: Rix Road (2022)
S1: Very good, a commentary on the now with Star Wars just as sheen
Perhaps not exactly prestige TV with one too many tropes and some rote acting as it's still constrained by being part of this monstrously gargantuan franchise, but this show is actually a surprisingly well-woven and interesting story that only uses the Star Wars as coating but is a commentary on many of our predicaments. The writing is very competent, there is recognizable moral and political conflict (colonialism, capitalism, even a shot in at the prison system), good casting. Some serious turds have been produced under the Star Wars banner but I guess in our IP-ruled world you get the whole plethora under the same name.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Alloyed (2022)
S1: Unworthy of bearing the same name as Jackson's LOTR, not a disaster but just mediocre
There was obviously going to be a racist backlash to color-blind casting, because even if Tolkein had impeccable liberal beliefs in private, the unchallenging, simplistic morality of the races and the story itself can very neatly fit into all sorts of right wing fantasies (cf the incoming Italian PM who is a big fan and also a direct descendant of fascists). But what is the point of doing color-blind casting if you do casting that's not very good? There are no memorable characters or performances, the most decent ones are by Clark and Aramayo doing Galadriel and Elrond respectively, but most of the others are complete ciphers. There's lots of callbacks to the movies, the dialogue is wooden algorithmic stuff and there's lots of boring stuff seen a million times before. An average fantasy show, aimed mostly at kids, on a very big budget.
The Rehearsal: Pretend Daddy (2022)
S01: Many laugh out loud moments, but overpraised and there is something unpalatable about Fielder's persona
The scathing review by Richard Brody in The New Yorker titled "The Cruel and Arrogant Gaze Nathan Fielder's the Rehearsal" has a lot of legitimate points: it calls Fielder's gaze on his subjects "arrogant, cruel, and above all, indifferent", says the "driving force" of the show are its "vanity and ambition" and ends with "he looks the Look (the stare in which those with power look at their subjects) at the people he films, but doesn't seem to see them". I agree that there is something off-putting about Fielder's approach. Still, there was a number of times I guffawed watching this show and it is funny most of the time, but an unpleasant aftertaste stayed with me.
Only Murders in the Building: Open and Shut (2021)
S1: Steve Martin looks like Noam Chomsky in the intro animation
Corny, often lame, Selena Gomez is impossibly beautiful but not much of an actress, Martin Short is okay, Steve Martin his usual self, Jane Lynch sucks. It's not terrible, can be binged or be background, but it is forgettable uninspired stuff.
Derry Girls: The Agreement (2022)
The series' comedy is broad, but it's a nice, pleasant watch
The comedy is very broad, the performances are very broad, but it's more than the sum of its parts. The novelty and the interesting part is that it's set in Northern Ireland against the denouement of the conflict; the lead, the father and the nun are the standouts. The coda is also nice and correct.
Severance: The We We Are (2022)
S01: Mediocre and only mildly interesting
Drawn-out, only mildly intriguing, lots of cheap trickery plotwise. Rarely funny and without any kind of edge. The cast is really good though with lots of likable faces; the whole cast is good except for Arquette... a terrible performance. She's been spending too much time on Twitter, lost contact with reality.
The Righteous Gemstones: I Will Tell of All Your Deeds (2022)
Great cast
I'm afraid it's still not McBride's crowning achievement. The writing is still too uneven at times, too broad, too much improv, occasional misses. An absolutely stellar cast though, difficult to pick a stand-out although it probably is Goggins. Adam DeVine and Edi Patterson are great too, but for me perhaps it's Tony Cavalero who steals almost every scene he's in.
Le bureau des légendes: Episode #2.10 (2016)
Fun, nuanced, subtle, well-plotted spy drama with great performances
S2 is even more fun, and even though the overarching plotting is still very smart, there were a few hackneyed dialogues and it was a bit less believable in some places than S1. The cast really is very good: Kassovitz, Giraudeau, Darrousin, Drucker, Loiret Caillet are all memorable with the slight standouts being Darrousin and Drucker for me. It is superior to any spy US show since it's more nuanced, subtle, realistic, and less rah-rah (but also not supremely cynical), and it does this while often really looking like it's shot on a very limited budget.
Le bureau des légendes: Episode #1.10 (2015)
A very good spy drama attempting verisimilitude
It's not perfect, I disliked a few things plot-wise and thought they made a few missteps, but it's never tedious and always gripping despite being very low-key for something in the spy genre. A very good and memorable cast (I'd throw my life away for Zineb Triki too). Sometimes a bit too dense, which can be a good thing in the sense that it's not really something that's bingable.
The White Lotus (2021)
Seems to have been written for the NYC Twitter media set
It's not very good. It's also lamentably predictable, but I guess the point is that it's a character study. It seems to have been written for-and-by the NYC media-politics twitter types. Without explicitly saying so everyone from that orbit quickly divined from the interviews that the Red Scare podcast, for example, was the inspiration for the monotone exchanges between the two girls.
Regarding the actors: Coolidge's character seems to have been written to show off her comedic chops (which, granted, are impressive) and Connie Britton, I thought, did a bad pantomime performance. The closest to a standout was Murray Bartlett.