What I'm Watching July Edition

 Severance (Apple Plus)-One of the best-developed science fiction worlds I’ve ever entered, Severance is about a world where a set of workers have their memories completely compartmentalized when they are in and out of work. Audience surrogate Helly (Britt Lower) works in a classified division of a faceless company who clocks into work every day and has no memory of what her life is like outside. When she clocks back into work, she is essentially a different person with a different set of memories. For Mark (Adam Scott, in his first Emmy nod), erasing his memories for eight hours a day is a good way to deal with the grief of his lost wife. Like great sci-fi, the show explores big themes of the human condition in dramatic terms. There’s also a good mystery angle that moves the plot forward. For reference, the show reminds me of Orphan Black on BBC.

The Bear (Hulu)-This show, about the adrenaline of a gourmet chef managing the kitchen of a high-end New York restaurant, is getting some good reviews. It’s an exciting sphere of our world that we don’t often get a glimpse of, so there’s a lot of potential here on paper. However, I personally wasn’t hooked. It either works or it doesn’t. The show is episodic and none of the 30-minute plots were memorable enough to remember 5 minutes after the show’s conclusion so the show relies primarily on atmosphere which isn’t enough to get over the hump. At the very least, the show gives employment to Abby Elliott, a decent character actor, who was very much in no man’s land through three and a half seasons of SNL.

The Orville (Hulu)-The Orville: New Horizons expanded in ambition this season with a larger special effects budget (a plus) and a new one-hour-plus format (a mixed bag).

The first few episodes were wobbly right out of the gate and when an episode doesn’t hit, the longer running time makes things worse. Ideally science fiction combines character development with the kinds of thought-provoking situations that can be created by when reality can be altered through scientific imagination. But the first two episodes of the first season are based on character moments that are irrelevant to the viewer: The first episode deals with the crew hating on Isaac but didn’t Isaac’s betrayal of the crew happen in early season 2? The second episode revolves around Claire’s ex-husband but he never existed before.

Another episode, “A Tale of Two Topas”, is a blatant attempt to preach around the modern-day issue of gender identity but it doesn’t combine the character development with any science-based plotting. It’s essentially a soap opera that’s too topical to have breathing room. On the other end of the spectrum, another dud of an episode, “Mortality Paradox”, is all science and no character, and there’s nothing remotely interesting behind the science. An away team goes to a planet or something that resembles a high school cafeteria (maybe they ran out of budget and decided to scout the nearby high school?) before being wandering aimlessly to a Moclan death crypt and a lake on Keyali’s home world. The episode sprinkles a couple clues as to what’s really happening and eventually the reality is revealed, but if this is an episode based on a twist, the extra-running time doesn’t suit that twist.

That being said, even as four of the first five episodes failed to land, there was no show I was looking forward to each week because the potential was always there to turn in something good. Ambition and a firm tonal grasp always trumps a mediocre show. As such, some of the greatest episodes I’ve seen all year have occurred in the back half of the season.

What We Do in the Shadows (FX)-Regularly topping my list of favorite shows, this show continues to be all that and a bag of chips. The third season saw the characters attempt to do big things. Nadja was going to take over at the world vampiric counsel, Nandor was going to travel the world, Guillermo was going to be a vampire, and Lazlo was going to raise Colin Robinson (mistakenly thinking that the new creature that emerged from the old Colin would be less boring). This is a sitcom so a lot of those arcs got aborted, but the show wisely has continued to mix things up.

Star Trek: Picard & Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount Plus)-My first time coming into contact with either of these two shows on the instructions of an editor for an essay I was writing.

Strange New Worlds is typical Trek. The characters are a bit more modern and relatable (and Spock’s jacked), but it’s the same technobabble-heavy tripe.

Picard, on the hand, is a season-long mystery. It’s visually stunning and tonally coherent. There are characters here you’ve practically never seen in Star Trek. A vagabond pilot (Santiago Cabrera), a nervous nellie of an engineer (the always underrated Alison Pull), and a depressive who self-mediates to escape her pain (Michelle Hurd). Picard is like a late-stage-John-Ford Western hero, once revered but now living with guilt. There was never a fraction of this depth on TNG, and Patrick Stewart finds a way to be true to the shallower version of Picard without making him an entirely new character.

The first season (of which I’ve seen six episodes so far) is a mystery that can compete with TV’s Golden Age in terms of telling a story that can integrate flashbacks and switch points of view without losing a beat.

Ten Honorable Mentions in Television for the best of 2019

Every year I do a top 12 list (check the label) for the best of the year in television and add an extra top 10 honorable mentions. Through thick and thin, I've done this list for 12 straight years and treated it with the gravity as if I'm announcing the Nobel Prizes. This year, I thought I'd separate the honorable mentions and give them their own entry for space reasons. Perhaps, also the readers can best absorb ten entries at one time.

Source: Den of Geek

American Horror Story: 1984 (FX)-As if the homage to the horror films of the 1980s wasn’t enough, the deluge of aerobics, side pony tails, synthesizer music and whatever else to set the place and time with the delicacy of a sledgehammer. But, hey, I dug the series’ cheekily self-referential tone and strong sense of place. Like other versions of AHS, the series is guilty of overpopulating its villains but there was a surprisingly strong thru-line to keep the narrative engaging and a couple genuinely bitching heroines worth rooting for.

Black Mirror (Netflix) -Charlie Brooker's prescient sci-fi anthology set in some unspecified near future continues to stay fresh and kinetic in its 5th season. That there were only three episodes is a source of complaint but each episode is relevant in multiple ways to our technoscape (isn't talking to the bastards who made your technology when it blows up on you the ultimate vicarious fantasy?) and meticulously crafted (all the little foreshadowings show up on rewatch).

Bless the Harts (Fox)- The first animated Sunday night entry in Fox to earn a second season renewal since "Bob's Burgers", this take on red state lower class working families would be in danger of being seen as a condescending parody of it weren't so sweet. The characters (a single mother, daughter, serious boyfriend and live-in mother) are all fully-formed comic creations and they bounce off each other well. The show also gets extra mileage out of a most amusing passive-aggressive rivalry between two grandmas (one played by guest star Mary Steenburgen showing off a previously unseen vicious side)

Source: Variety

Derry Girls (Channel 4/Netflix)-Of the many shows featuring teenagers I saw this year, few were as funny and fewer captured both the gut-wrenching awkwardness and carefree joy as this entry. The show is also a wayward family sitcom as the bickering family members of three generations keep the show lively.  Set in Northern Ireland at the heat of the IRA’s disruption in the 1990s, the show is rooted in a strong set of place and time. The season finale in which James traded an unstable mother for the continued awkwardness of being a boy in an all-girls school made no sense (nothing ever does with James' situation) but it was an earned emotional coda.

Disenchantment (Netflix)-This appeared in my top 12 last year based on potential and while it needs to round it still needs to round its lead characters, it has the visual richness and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it humor that made “Futurama” so rewatchable. Additionally, it’s a positive sign for the show’s world-building that Luci, Derek, and Oona got appropriately TGIF-ish (but not too cheesy) special episodes of the week.

Source: The Verge

Good Omens (Amazon)-The juxtaposition of minute details and unaware characters with unimaginable cataclysms was something I’d missed since…well..a few months earlier when “Miracle Workers” was on the air. That’s ok, we can never get enough apocalyptic comedy and the British whimsy (mostly in the tradition of Douglas Adams) approach is always welcome. The series is adapted from a Neil Gaiman book about a lowly angel and demon who violate their bosses’ orders to prolong the end of days. Because the book is so dense, the miniseries has the deck stacked against it in terms of delivering digestible entertainment because of all the exposition-oriented hurdles. Still, the series does an admirable job and the sweet odd couple of David Tenant and Michael Sheen is quite sweet. 

The Other Two (Comedy Central)-A wayward exploration of the effects of sudden viral fame, “The Other Two” has the sharpness in dialogue that is reminiscent of “30 Rock” with a tinge of family sitcom sweetness. The show is about a YouTube sensation modelled after Justin Bieber but it wisely focuses on the lives of the four cogs in his support system: The overly eager manager (Ken Marino), the menopausal mom seeking her positivity (Molly Shannon), and the two flailing adult siblings who had performance aspirations (Helene Yorke and Drew Tarver). The fact that the two adult siblings are supportive and not bitter of their brother gives the show a requisite gooeyness that places it on the list.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

The Orville (Fox)-When this show premiered, there was a very understandable chorus of bafflement by critics. Copying the Star Trek universe so closely that it bordered on copyright infringement, spending a lavish budget without any pay off on special effects, and straddling the most awkward line between comedy and drama screamed like a Seth McFarlane vanity project. But towards the back half of its second season, the show cemented itself as a show that offered something the Star Trek universe was lacking: A remedy to the stuffy atmosphere that permeated Starfleet (particularly in TNG).  It seems much more natural that the crew members would drink alcohol and play pranks on each other, doesn’t it? So think of Orville as a version of TNG with characters who are a little looser. The drama is still there. The science is really there. And occasionally there’s a belching contest. No biggie.

Source: Den of Geek

Russian Doll (Netflix)-Natasha Lyonne's protagonist here is such a sweetheart, her id-driven M.O. doesn't come off rude but more exposing the superfluous of polite banality. The show could have done more to get viewers invested in the actual logistics of the Groundhog-Day-like time loop or eliminated all the technobabble about it altogether. However, on the level of a woman (and later, a stranger/friend) seeking growth and being forced into it, the show was genuinely moving.

Source: Den of Geek

What We Do in the Shadows (FX)-I was going to go with “Baroness von Sketch show" in this slot until I saw this on another end of the year list and saw the name Jermaine Clement as one of the creators (Jojo Rabbit’s Taiki Waititi is also on the creative side). While not up there with “Flight of the Conchords” in relatability, it’s a bizarre trip about four vampires clashing with modern-day Staten Island that has a surreal brand of humor that occasionally knocked me straight over.

And for reference, here's all the shows I watched at least one episode of in 2019. If they have an asterisk, that means exactly one episode (minus the top 12):

Abby’s (NBC), Adam Ruins Everything (TruTV), Almost Famous (ABC), Archer (FX), Baroness von Sketch Show (IFC), Big Mouth (Netflix), Card Sharks (ABC), Castle Rock (Hulu), Carmen Sandiego (Netflix), Carnival Row (Amazon)* Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (CBSAA), Corporate (Comedy Central), Crashing (HBO)*, Chernobyl (AMC)*, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW), Dollface (Hulu), Documentary Now (IFC), Final Space (TBS/Netflix)*, Fresh off the Boat (ABC), Futureman (Hulu), God Friended Me (CBS), Good Girls (NBC), Grand Hotel (ABC), Hot Date (Pop TV), I-Land (Netflix), I Think You Should Lave (Netflix), Perfect Harmony (NBC), Politician (Netflix), Sex Education (Netflix), Schitt’s Creek (PopTV), Shrill (Hulu), Society (Netflix), Superstore (NBC), Sunnyside (NBC), Those Who Can’t (TruTV), Thirteen Reasons Why (Netflix), Undone (Amazon Prime), Umbrella Academy (Netflix), Will and Grace (NBC), Yellowstone (Paramount Network)

My Week in TV Part I: Carmen Sandiego "Opera in the Outback", The Orville "Deflectors"

My week in TV: In early 2018, I did a series on a Disqus channel where I chronicled my week in TV. It's been difficult to keep track of all the offerings out there, so I'm tackling a single week of what i'm watching in detail. The problem is that by the time I finish and proof these episodes they'll probably be several weeks old. 

Credit: Netflix

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (Netflix)-"Opera in the Outback"-I was a geography major and grew up on the computer game, the game show and the cartoon. So I was especially excited for this series even if I’m not the target audience. The visual look is sleek with a largely 2-d feel that evokes the computer game and the trademark red fedora and coat don't disappoint. In this case, it's somewhat of a plot point that Carmen re-invents herself through the wardrobe itself.

Along with effectively teaching your kid about geography, unfortunately the series will teach your kid about the broadest of stereotypes. Why the Japanese instructor hasn’t been called out by anyone for his Chinglish or why Gray (AKA Crackle) is acceptable as a walking bundle of clichés, is beyond me.

Fortunately, we have an Australian who loves opera this week and not didgeridoo music so that’s a start. This episode has Ivy and Zach (two Boston chowdaheads without any nuance) which is rarely a plus considering Carmen is so well-developed. The episode’s plot takes some surprising turns which is more than I’d expect for a kid’s show:  The whole “launch the boomerang” was quite sophisticated.

One problem that often plagues serials is that the good guy always wins at the end. Even adult-oriented procedurals like “Monk” had the good guy winning in the end, whereas better shows like “Burn Notice” and “The Good Wife” teased out serial plots with the protagonist hitting peaks and valleys. This is a kid’s show but it ingraining it with a bit more sophistication would do wonders.

Credit: SBS.com

Orville (Fox)-“Deflectors”-One of the reasons that TV sitcoms with celeberatory plotlines of romance aren’t as sex positive as you might think is that these shows often imply that singlehood is a state of incompleteness and everyone needs to be paired up (ditto romantic comedy genre). You know Orville is becoming Star Trek: Love Boat when Star Trek when the show is trying to get a robot with no feelings laid. This week, we know next to nothing about the new security chief yet it initially appears it’s going to be another romance-of-the-w eek. The unfortunate thing is if you’re only casually familiar with “The Orville”, you might have noticed the casting change which is why it’s often recommended that casting directors go for physical contrasts when trying to differentiate people (according to a book I read on casting, at least).

Fortunately, the episode becomes significantly more than just a romance story as it morphs into a murder mystery with capable twists. The episode highlights a heavy reliance of “The Orville” on the Moclan for the alien of the week. While the Moclan can be a little one-note and present fairly obvious social commentary, their contrast is good for the show’s humorous edge. It’s also slightly more realistic for the viewer than Star Trek’s M.O. of having differing aliens each week to the point where it was impossible to get a sense of scale for this. In an era of TV that places more emphasis on world building as opposed to the 1960s this is pretty forward-thinking.

What is also a positive here is a natural progression to the romance. If a healthy relationship is when the pursued takes the lead to show the pursuer how she wants to be courted, it certainly sparks the imagination to think of the confusion and sense of discovery that must be going through the Moclan’s head when she leads her to a holosuite recreation of post-World War II Paris and teaches him how to dance.  Considering this show’s main advantage over Trek is its more light-hearted approach to the material and the way it can poke through tropes (i.e. the officers are going to drink real alcohol, why wouldn’t they), it’s disappointing people are still stuck in 20^th Century Earth. No one wants to see a version of 2060 where Florida is under water?

The show’s attempts to tackle social issues are generally in need of a bit more tonal calibration but I was personally surprised by how well it earned its final dramatic moments. It was mostly sold in the actress’s delivery. It’s not particularly often in happy future land when someone is legitimately pissed off to the point of cutting off contact.  It helps a little that the security officer is new so it’s not a plot invention within this hour-long arc that she has decided she’s had enough of Klyden. Like an audience surrogate, her lack of experience with the people on board makes a very negative impression far more credible.