Top 25 Characters of 2024

 Another delayed listicle. I have long loved doing this 25 characters list.

You can see a couple of them here and another one here

1 Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn), Bad Monkey- Like the hard-boiled detective or the steadfast cowboy, Yancy marches to the beat of his own drummer. Yes, he would love to get it on with a hot detective, get his badge back, or enjoy tormenting his waspy neighbor (he’s more chaotic than lawful good), but not if it means letting a white collar criminal go free. It’s the archetype of the wayward American hero across multiple genres, but not many characters can walk the walk,  and talk the talk with such gusto. And it’s Vince Vaughn playing the part, so we know right off the bat, this guy can at least talk that talk.

2 The Goddess Deliria (Hannah Wadddingham) Krapopolis-Let’s face it. Most Gods have a hint of vanity. It’s sort of a requirement for the job, isn’t it? The difference between Deliria and your run-of-the-mill p is that she exists on pure vanity. And enough motherly instinct to make her recognizable for those of us with tough-love mothers. But not too much or the show wouldn’t be as riotously funny.

3 Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), If Matt Damon’s snub at the Oscars for the 1999 film was one of the biggest tragedies of that era, it’s pretty remarkable that Scott can come in and fill those shoes with such fearlessness. Scott’s Ripley is somehow both more forcefully vindictive, and more understated than Damon’s creepy leech interpretation.

4 Jerry (Mike Patrick O’Brien), What We do in the Shadows-The key to adding a character late into the mix of a show’s run is they have to be rough around the edges. Jerry is a perfect foil in that he has the nerve to call out his fellow vampires on their sloth. Every character choice that went into to Jerry was a winner from his outfit as a Transylvanian butler, to his Pinky-and-the-Brainesque casualness about the task of taking over the world, to his aloofness to his role in a Nandoor-induced love triangle


5 Rogue, X-Men 97- If I were to rewatch an old episode of X-Men, it would be for the cringey puns based on ridiculous regional stereotypes. In other words, the Cajun Gambit, the Canadian lumberjack Wolverine, the Black Pantheresque Storm, and Southern Belle Rogue are the caricatures worth ironically laughing at, with a little bit of 90s child Jubilee adding some seasoning. In this attempt to mature the season to accommodate the aging of its primary fan base, the show has miraculously managed to keep Rogue cringe while giving her an actual arc.

6 and 7 Morgan (Justine Lupe) and Sasha (Timothy Simons), Nobody Wants This- I’ve been slowly learning that the difference between a romantic drama and a romcom is all in the supporting players. If there’s laser focus on the leads, then it’s the Richard Linklater Before series. Add the leads’ social circles as stand-ins for their romantic values, and add an extension a dose of quirk and it’s a party. That’s what you have here with a will-they-won’t-they-oh-no-they-can’t….can-they?

8 Amanda LaRusso (Courtney Henggeler) Cobra Kai- The bizarreness of a modern-day high school environment (with its emphasis on anti-bullying compared to the ‘80s), in which teenagers have to learn karate just to survive a Mad-Max-like dystopia of constant bullying, has had a strong need for a deadpan skeptic like Amanda. But at the end of the series run? Screw it. Amanda as the karate equivalent of a soccer mom feels like a more apt direction at this point.

9 Tindaro (Dougie McMeekin) The Decameron-My favorite show of the year was an upstairs-downstairs comedy set in a century where both sides of the societal divide were equally at the mercy of plague-carrying rats. And the bumbling hypochondriac Tindaro would probably not get very far in the “who lives longest” betting pool. But this rotund ball of delight proved full of mettle in a relatively dynamic arc.

10 Eddie Horniman (Theo James)The Gentlemen-In an era when nepobaby is a bad word, it’s not easy to root for anyone with such generational privilege. But it certainly helps that Eddie is never more than a couple false moves from having his head, the heads of those he cares about, and those under his employ blown off. As the title suggests, he’s a sly operator but also a class act.

11 Rufus Coatesworth, Death and Other Details-Considering there are so many takes on the eccentric, tunnel-vision. detective — whether modeled after Hercules Poroit, Sherlock Holmes or whatever the hell Daniel Craig is doing in Knives Out — it’s pretty remarkable for Mandy Patinkin to come up with such a unique creation here, as the detective entrusted with solving the murder of his protégé’s mother.


12 Dove Maloney (Siobhan Cullen), Bodkin- Fitting squarely in the category of female firecrackers who won’t let anyone put them in a box, Dove is the best of the trope. Of course, it helps for a hard-core journalist to have a great foil, in the hapless podcaster Bodkin (played with aplomb by the introspective Will Forte): A directionless and obtuse foreigner particularly with what she sees is a naive kindness.

13 Principal Cinnamon Scuttleworth (voiced by Phil Lord), Clone High- It was thrilling to see my favorite one-season wonder return to the airwaves but the sharp edges of these characters had been filed off and the new additions were pure vanilla. Except Scuttleworth. He has the hamminess of a cartoon villain with a couple ounces of pathos for good measure. You might enjoy seeing him blown up like a Looney Tunes villain, but you root for him to piece himself back together for his next crazy scheme.


14 Nadja, What We do in the Shadows-The best thing about the “Guillermo and the vampires become tech bros” arc is how enthusiastically Nadja assimilated. Her treatment of Guillermo and most other humans as pesky miscreants who are mostly useful for menial labor and meals, so she was always a good fit for the world of passive aggressive one-upmanship of Wall Street.

15 Dexter (Leo Woodall), One Day- What’s this, the thug from White Lotus is a sensitive heart throb underneath all those tattoos? Well, even as a straight guy, I thought Woodall was pretty hunky. But watching him sell this gender-flipped beauty and the geek romance. I’m impressed.


16 Dr Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) , Evil-The show gets a lot of mileage out of this extremely charismatic actress who telegraphs so much with her face.
17 The Bleacher Creatures, Clone High-We all know that the cool kids in school are never the most interesting. Giving Christopher "Topher" Columbus villain friends was the best thing the second season ever did.  
18 Det. Helen Chamberlain (Danielle MacDonald), The Tourist-A brilliant detective with a heart of gold. That successfully sets up a labyrinthine plot to get away from an evil captor and can't pull it off. That's an interesting choice.
19 Mr Beast (James Donaldson), Beast Games-The Beast Games were a disappointment, but it was an interesting glance into the mind of history's most successful YouTuber. Despite attempts at cancellation, he's one to root for.
20 Ethan Crum (Greg Larsen), The Tourist-Helen, Elliot, meet your comic relief. Now that that's out of the way...
21 Beatrice Worth (Brooke Lena Johnson), Cruel Intentions-If the show (like the movie) is centered against the two amoral step-siblings, then Beatrice is your sidelined hero. She had casual sex with one sibling (let's applaud her for sex positivity) and tried to pledge three times to the sorority of the other, but adolescents are complex and conflicted. She's still the right person to take down the elitism in my book.
22 Android SM 33 (voiced by Nick Frost), Star Wars: Skeleton Crew- Confession, I just li
23 Frank the Temp (I can't even remember; that's the point), Futurama-At long last! Someone who's less respected among the crew than Zoidberg
24 Colin Robinson (Mark Porsch), What We Do in the Shadows-Colin has always been a wonderfully jagged fit to the rest of the vampires, and I'll miss him tremendously. Who ever thought of a villain who's super powers were based off boringness. 
25 Heather (Edi Patterson), Resident Alien-Heather, the avian alien who visits Earth for a bureacratic check-up, has a resistant courtship and an epic whirlwind romance. It's thanks to Heather, we now know how Harry's gills are cleaned. We are eternally greatful.

The Curious Political Attacks on Next Goal Wins

Next Goal Wins tells the true story of the American Samoan soccer team in a unique type of sports film. It’s not about a team that wants to win a big game or tournament. Instead, they have the more modest goal of not being the worst team in the entire world. In 2001, the team gave up 31 goals to Australia marking the most lopsided victory in the history of World Cup qualifying.

Michael Fassbender plays Dutch-American coach Thomas Rongen who (in one of many instances of dramatic embellishment) has been fired from three previous jobs meaning that this is the end of the line for him. His life is in turmoil. He lost a daughter in a crash, and his wife (Elizabeth Moss) separated from him. When he wants to return to the States, she levels with him there really isn’t anywhere for him to go. Ouch!

Next Goal Wins follows the beats of a typical sports movie, but only to a certain extent. It’s a travelogue that has pedagogical appeal in teaching us about the blip in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that flies an American flag but feels like a world all its own. More importantly, it portrays the culture with an overwhelming sense of joy. In fact, American Samoans’ priority for fun in sports is a refreshing contradiction to our cultural drive for victory (past Little League, at least).

The film is marked by three central relationships. Despite the fact that Rongen was happily married through it all, Waititi felt it gave him more of an arc to be separated or divorced but aiming to find amiability with his ex; The Soloist, Moneyball, and Begin Again are other films that have gone down this road. Secondly, Oscar Knightley plays the federation chief of Samoan soccer who serves as a foil (of the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” variety) and comic relief. Lastly, there’s a transgender player named Jaiyah who is currently within the legal bounds of eligibility for a man’s team but will soon transition to a woman.

With increased sensitivity to portrayals of identity, filmmakers risk coming under fire today for putting together a White character and a marginalized person if they lean more on one or the other, whether it’s the White Savior trope or the equivalent of a Magical Negro character.

This film has faced a small amount of backlash (here and here) over the fumbling of its trans character. It’s certainly something that needs to be examined: In the case of Polygon’s criticism, they claim Rongen doesn’t apologize to Jaiyah for dead naming her. The article also faults the film for having a homophobic character in the first place, without accounting for the context that most people in 2011 would be far more uneducated on transgenderism than the present day.

Esther Zuckerman at Indiewire writes that the film “highlights (and tries to get some laughs out of) her otherness and seems unequipped to handle discussions of hormones and other facets of transness.” I’d challenge Zuckerman to find an instance where any jokes are in the script about her otherness. There are jokes about culture clash, but nearly everything in the script from the musical tone to the gravity of Jaiyah being misgendered is treated with solemnity.

We can quibble about these vague definitions, but the larger point might be that Taiki Waititi has a long history of highlighting LGBTQ visibility in his work. In an interview with Out Magazine:

Taika Waititi loves telling queer love stories.

The director, star, and co-writer of Marvel Studios’ new film Thor: Love and Thunder has been known lately for his romantic LGBTQ+ storytelling, both in the HBO Max series Our Flag Means Death, and in the latest Thor, where he plays gay characters who get to fall in love.

Why does he love getting to tell these kinds of stories? Because he says he can relate to them on a personal level.

“We’re all queer,” Waititi tells Out when asked why he likes telling LGBTQ+ love stories so much. “Just to varying degrees of where we are on the [sexuality] spectrum, I think. I think, innately, humans have all got some degree of queerness in them.”

Because of that, he was excited to bring that queerness to his new movie. “With Thor, it’s great to be able to finally get Tessa’s character, and my character as well, where we’re both queer,” he says.

While Valkyrie getting her love interest was the dream that didn’t happen in Love and Thunder, we should remember that this movie is a Disney movie, and Disney is exceedingly slow when it comes to queer representation.

In much of his work. He mentioned that for a GLAD survey, that all of his characters in What We Do in the Shadows are queer in some ways. He added a queer element to the story Our Flag Means Death midway through and confirmed in an interview that Jojo Rabbit has a queer storyline. Some might consider each of these moves unnecessary. In the case of the former, the nature of the vampires on WWDITS is pretty clearly depraved and ravenous and might better be viewed without traditional sexual boundaries rather than as political talking points.

Perhaps, the recent WWDITS fifth season episode “Pride Parade” highlights the absurdity of the box that Waititi’s work is put in by others. In the episode in question, neighbor Sean is running for city comptroller and decides to put on a pride parade featuring his vampire neighbors, because they’re all gay. Despite the fact that Nandoor and Lazslo’s relationship has included casual hand jobs and Lazlo has a crush on Sean himself, being labeled as “gay” comes off as odd to the vampires.

This might be seen as very similar to Waititi himself, who publicly came out in 2022.

In his press statement, he said, “I’ve never really put a label on myself. I’ve never really felt the need to. I think if you’re attracted to someone, it doesn’t matter what gender they are.”

It’s fitting that in the episode, Nandor and Lazslo are not particularly cognizant of Sean’s definition of queer, but agree to it anyway.

In Next Goal Wins, Taiki Waititi made a conscious choice to elevate the character. The real-life Jaiyah was a high schooler who rode the bench and got 10 minutes of playing time in the entire tournament. Her on-screen counterpart was the team captain, Rongen’s best friend, and made two of the key plays to secure a win.

Furthermore, the film has a clear thesis. The legitimacy of the two-spirit principle — the idea that transgenderism has a Native American historical basis and is not a recent invention — has become a contested theory even among Native Americans. Waititi takes careful care to explain that gender fluidity is part of Samoan culture and even has a name (“fa’afafine”).

Next Goal Wins is an inherently political film. Many might call the embellishments of the historical record within the bounds of typical dramatic license for this film. What should be acknowledged is that Waititi chose this culture because he wanted to tackle the two-spirit theory and that the media praised and elevated this movie because of a transgender character.

Acknowledging this bias certainly doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong or right about the two-spirit movement, transgenderism, or the fa’afafine.

In fact, I found it to be narratively effective and a beautiful story. Since forever, sports films like Bad News Bears, Mighty Ducks, A League of Their Own, and Hoosiers have relied on cranky coaches who’d rather be anywhere else learning to meet their teams halfway and accept a different team culture. In a narrative sense, Jaiya is as far away from Rongen’s experience so it’s an ideal relationship that thematically ties in deeper to the traditional coach’s journey.

Critics on the right would do well to acknowledge the bias behind the film’s purpose and enjoy it. Critics on the left who use their platforms as gatekeepers of cinema to enforce standards of marginalized representation (often, by their narrow definitions) would do well to not put someone who aligns with their goals, like Waititi, into an increasingly conscripted tight-wire act with so few options as to what a positive LGBT film can be.

Top 12 Shows of 2023: 10 Honorable Mentions

Always check out the After Party Tag:

The After Party (Apple)

https://www.slashfilm.com/1254579/the-afterparty-season-2-trailer/

Tiffany Haddish, in a pitch-perfect role, is back in this comedic murder mystery series that copies the innovative style of devoting each episode to a different character’s point of view. This time, however, the show takes on the added challenge of telling each story in a different genre. The always-reliable Ken Jong and Paul Walter Hauser ooze comic potential with their line delivery here, and the supporting cast (particularly the unknown Anna Konkie) can keep up. Zoe Chao and Sam Richardson’s characters have now settled into a comfortable relationship and their interplay is kind of adorable.

Captain Fall (Netflix)

https://images.app.goo.gl/Koo7LEGnVES81KoC8

An aspiring captain with a massive inferiority complex is selected by a criminal cartel precisely because he’s at the bottom of his class and would be least likely to notice the wide-scale atrocities they commit daily. Throughout the first season, they trafficking bride for an Arab billionaire, abduct humans for a people zoo, kill endangered animals for a form of Viagara, facilitate arms deals, and sponsor child soldiers. Has there ever been an animated comedy this dark? I’m pretty sure it has Archer beat. With its Truman Show premise, it’s also one of the cleverest comedies on TV.

Florida Man (Netflix)

https://images.app.goo.gl/5xPsGfYDrdzfGe8U6

What might be classified as a sun-drenched noir that plays off the more creative modes of vice people in the Sunshine State are often drawn to. Unlike Killing It, this is more of a dramatic showcase but a gripping one nonetheless. Edgar Ramirez shines as a former detective hired by a peculiarly short mob boss (Emory Cohen) to track down an ex he happens to already be in love with (Abbey Lee). It’s a show that knows how to escalate as necessary.

Hello Tomorrow (Apple)

https://paleofuture.com/blog/2023/1/21/apple-tvs-upcoming-series-hello-tomorrow-looks-like-mad-men-with-hovercars

In this parallel version of the 1950s, we didn’t just land on the moon but were able to quickly subdue it for human colonization to the point that we were selling real estate on it. Although little about the show makes sense historically, there are a lot of deep thematic veins underneath the surface of this façade. This show reflects a 1950s-era sensibility in which men are breadwinners, and there’s no better way to win that bread than to don a suit and sell something. Several heavy hitters — Billy Crudup, Alison Pill (pictured above), Hank Azaria, and Susan Heyward (not the Oscar-winning actress from the 40s and 50s but a relative newcomer) — do some of their best work here.

History of the World Part II (Hulu)

https://www.ign.com/articles/history-of-the-world-part-ii-premiere-review-episodes-1-and-2

After 22 years, this 1981 Mel Brooks anthology film of world history parodies finally returns. Incredibly, Mel Brooks is still alive at 95 and had a creative hand in the project although most of the legwork for producing, acting, and writing goes to a pretty random trio of collaborators: Ike Barinholtz, Nick Kroll, and Wanda Sykes. The show has a great sense of pacing knowing which stories to focus on and which only need a minute or two to get to their punch lines. Best of all, the show has a playfulness with a genre that would go well in a high-end lit mag, while also not limiting itself to low-brow jokes when the moment feels right.

Krapopolis (Fox)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14016574/reference/

In this reimagining of ancient Greece, the laughs-per-minute ratio is high, and even higher if you catch all the easter eggs in this satire on democracy and the pantheon of the gods in Ancient Greece. The story takes place at the dawn of civilization as a young king (Richard Ayodaye) tries to initiate very basic ideas for progress but meets resistance at every turn. The breakout character, Deleria (Hannah Waddingham), isn’t the god of anything useful but comes with all the vanity that one would expect a god to have.

Mulligan (Netflix)

https://images.app.goo.gl/oUSD3KVafTStc6Hv8

From Tina Fey’s 30 Rock co-creator Robert Carlock, this animated series imagines a near-apocalypse in which only a couple thousand survivors remain in DC. The only surviving member of Congress (Dana Carvey) takes the vice presidency behind a dimwitted baseball player (Nat Faxon) as head of state because he accidentally saved the city from an alien attack. The rest of the cabinet is a similarly entertaining pairing of contrasts, and the dialogue is on par with some of the funnier sitcoms of the 2000s. Did I mention Questlove and Weird Al survived the alien invasion too? Sounds like a party!

Night Agent (Netflix)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/the-night-agent-review-netflix-1235358918/

This isn’t the only series to use the 24 formula of lone moral voice within the DC infrastructure tasked with saving the country. But I can’t think of one with better execution: The casual moral vacancy of the villain, the slowly creeping love story, just the right amount of characterization (humanizing but not too empathetic) of the two assassins, and a very palpable sense of danger.

Poker Face (Peacock)

Poker Face — TV Review | Empire Online

Fresh off his well-received Agatha Christie homages of Knives Out and its sequel Glass Onion, Riann Johnson makes use of his creative capital with high-end guest stars and prestige writing in this anthology series. Natasha Lyonne channels Culombo’s Peter Falk as a runaway from the mob with a keen ability to determine whether someone is lying. Like most detectives in procedurals, she has the uncanny misfortune of crossing paths with murders waiting to happen and there’s the interesting angle at play of how much of a duty she has to do right by the victims. Some episodes hit and some miss based on the nature of the plot, but the show always has that prestige sheen.

What We Do in the Shadows (FX)

https://www.ign.com/articles/what-we-do-in-the-shadows-season-3-premiere-review

One of TV’s funniest shows has relied on a status quo corollary in which the idiot characters can’t ever achieve their outsized ambitions of conquering Staten Island, finding love, raising a Colin Robinson that isn’t so loathsome. But five seasons in, these miserable characters needed some forward movement, which is why I was thrilled for Guillermo to (spoiler alert!) become a vampire. Or did he? Unfortunately, it didn’t last long which is why this show didn’t make my top 12 this year.

What I'm Watching August Edition

 Mulligan (Netflix)-A post-apocalyptic comedy that stands out for its levity. A close comparison would be Will Forte’s  dark comedy “Last Man on Earth” in which a small band of characters survived a pandemic in a sea of nothingness; while the comedy centered around the pathos of sexual frustration. guilt, and the rotating door of ostracizing. In contrast, the post-apocalyptic landscape of Mulligan is a semi-populated city (Washington DC) that survived the attack of aliens, thanks to our titular hero. Mulligan is a dim-witted hunk in the style of Pete Davidson (though surprisingly played by Nat faxon) who compromised the aliens’ defenses threw his only skill: Throwing a baseball through a Death-Star like-design-flaw. The sole surviving senator decides that’s enough to qualify him as president and he’s joined by Mrs. Nevada (Chrissy Tiegen) who serves as his first lady (though their relation goes unconsummated so far); a senator that embodies Southern cliché to humorous rapture (Dana Carvey), a pair of star-crossed academics (Tina Fey and Sam Richardson) with a great Sam-and-Dianne vibe; and an alien leftover from the invasion (Phil LaMarr) who is often the sanest person in the room. There is also an ample amount of room for cameos (Questlove and Weird Al play themselves), world building (the previous president is confirmed to be alive at one point) and entertaining recurring guest stars that could build the world out. On the whole, this is a show has a few broad strokes (if the Korean billionaire isn’t supposed to be a proxy for Kim-Jung Un he’s awfully stereotypical; ditto the beauty queen) but it mines the character interactions well.

Good Omens (Amazon)-Neil Gaiman’s seminal novel of biblical humor pits the four Horsemen of the apocalypse, the antichrist, a rogue angel Azaraphel (Michael Sheen), his demon partner-in-crime Crowley (David Tenant) and a number of other colorful characters in a tale that’s as epic as it is whimsical. But that was the first season. This season centers around a mystery: The angel Gabriel (Jon Hamm) shows up at a Azaraphel’s book shop with an interesting case of amnesia. Considering Gabriel’s playing for Team Heaven and Crowley’s playing for the other side and it’s an eternal battle with high stakes, Crowley’s terrified at the site of his old nemesis. He wants to off him, but then we wouldn’t have a reason for Azaraphel and Crowley to go on adventures together and this uneasy alliance is the heart of the show, so Azaraphel convinces forked-tongue pal to perform a minor miracle and hide him from the powers that be. Trying to keep the secret from their overlords and the ensuing aftermath is the bulk of the plot. Through four of six episodes so far, the majority of the screen time has been spent on pseudo-origin stories on the Azaraphel/Crowley friendship and other wayward angles. I want to root for this show and the whimsy and world-building is always charming, but if they have to have this much filler, perhaps they should have started from the drawing board with this one. I’ll stick it out to the end.

Captain Fall (Netflix)-Although it’s flying under the radar, I’m not sure if any animated black comedy has come along that’s this black—or at least this murdery. Maybe Archer? Captain John Fall is the black sheep of his family and that’s an understatement. His parents don’t want him to appear at family parties because he’s such an embarrassment, and his brother is an inappropriate mooch of epic proportions. It doesn’t help that John is at the bottom of his class at the naval academy. However, failing upwards is as good of a way to succeed as any. An international cartel is seeking the dumbest possible captain to serve as a patsy for all the war crimes they wish to commit on international waters, so after the unfortunate murder of everyone at the employment referral agency, John lands himself a prestige position where the crew go to elaborate lengths to keep him and the passengers in the dark to all the atrocities they commit the following atrocities: Trafficking brides for an Arab billionaire, abducting humans for a human zoo, killing endangered animals for Viagara, facilitating arms deals, and sponsoring child soldiers. Pretty horrific, huh? What’s more, the crew alternatively seduces, befriends, and feeds the captain a continuous stream of false information to keep him under the illusion that he’s riding high. The ride is entertaining enough that we’re excited for the anticipation of what happens when this all comes crashing down.

Righteous Gemstones (HBO)-Having just watched and fallen in love with Danny McBride’s “Vice Principals”, there’s not as much of a tightness to the narrative here. One can miss almost any episode and not feel particularly lost. This is becoming a bit of a weakness in the third season. Even the religious satire – the key factor separating RG from McBride’s other two shows – isn’t particularly strong when the family’s descent from moral grace isn’t particularly defined. On the upside, Edi Patterson and Tim Baltz are given much more to do as a couple whose marriage is tested by an extra-marital affair. On the minus, there’s significantly less Baby Billy (Walton Goggins) and he has the most potential for an interesting storyline and the tongue-twister-based best running joke (Baby Billy's Bible Bonkers) I've enjoyed in a while. When you put each character’s arc on this show through a fine-toothed comb, there often isn’t anything that interesting going on with many of them. It’s not a knock on the character work of John Goodman, Adam Devine, or Danny McBride, but standing still will only get you so far.

What We Do in the Shadows (FX)-At times, “What We Do in the Shadows” is among the funniest things on TV, but oftentimes ambitious shows can go in directions that don’t take everyone along. One of the show’s serialized arcs over the third and fourth seasons saw Nandoor the Relentless get increasingly depressed and lonely. This infected the show with an unfortunate Debbie Downer vibe for me, but I get the sense that the feedback from many of the fans was successful. Besides, the last season offered the vampires engaging in a full-on commercial venture and the uncanny valley of Colin Robinson (an uncanny valley of a character) growing from toddler to unruly teenager before our very eyes. And Shawney! OK, I concede…there’s generally too much going on right with this show to tune out. But when the show starts off on the right foot, like Season 5, it’s a beautiful site to behold. By this, I mean forward movement: Guillermo is finally a vampire, Colin Robinson has discovered his own tribe, he and Evie are trying to bore the world (or rather, Staten Island, on an epic level).

Miracle Workers (HBO)-Simon Rich, the SNL writer, who penned “Man Seeking Woman”, has a way of writing absurdist historical fiction (and adjacent tropes) that has served him extremely well in this anthology series. In the original season (set in a Kafkaesque version of Heaven), The Middle Ages and Oregon Trail, Rich’s characters possessed a charming sense of anachronism as they went about their limited existences: Characters were either too loaded with blind optimism or too self-aware about bleak circumstances.  While this is an anthology series with the same actors switching off roles each season, the general configuration through the first three seasons has been: 1) Steve Buscemi as the dumb optimist (despite being God himself at one point) 2) Geraldine Viswanathan as the cautious pragmatism, 3) Daniel Radcliffe being the most dynamic character that drives the plot 4) Various other actors (Lolly Adefope, Quinta Brunson, John Bass, Karan Soni, Peter Serafinowicz) fill out the cast as needed. In this version, things are askew as Geraldine Viswanathan is a warlord in an apocalyptic landscape, and Buscemi mostly plays a filler role as Daniel Radcliffe’s employer. The formula is off.

Mrs Davis (Peacock)-A nun goes to war against a practically omnipotent AI system with the help of an ex-boyfriend and Jesus in human form (a dude named Jay). This is an interesting world to kick around in. It’s also a plus if you’re a luddite myself and wish to vicariously live through a heroine kicking ass against thoughtless technological advancement. But it’s extremely dense and confusing. I’m sticking with it but, fair warning, this requires a lot of checking on the wikis for clarification.