TV of 2022

[therewillbeblus]

We should have realized when Soderbergh’s films were left for DVD trash.

[therewillbeblus]

Genndy Tartakovsky, Primal

This was one of my favourite shows of 2020, and it deserved so much better for its UK premiere than to be tucked away on a sub-digital channel in the early hours of a weekday morning. It certainly deserved a Rick & Morty primetime slot at the very least. Hopefully E4 will get to showing the second season soon, although if they do it may be in the same timeslot, so I am keeping an eye out for it!

Um, anyone catching up on Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal should refrain from spoiling the latest ep for themselves, but it's a clever narrative and aesthetic departure that has the audacity to extinguish the show's empathy leanings in favor of a survivalist genre exercise. Moreover, Tartakovsky cheekily forfeits this interest (temporarily, to be sure) when the compassion would be directed toward more superficially 'relatable', but perhaps less dignified principals! I'm sure we'll tune in next week to find a return to the consciously balanced empathy/survivalist engagement, but sometimes you need to take something away (again, humorously by adding a whole lot that some might find is "missing" from the show's mode) to make one appreciate how the series operates, and how much of a heart it has for non-colonial humanity. Though that seems to be at the center of the titular theory behind the episode, so it's self-reflexively empathic only by the ep's final moments

[The Curious Sofa]

It just got renewed for a 4th season, so apart from me somebody must be watching it, but I'm surprised how little the Apple+ show "For All Mankind" is in the conversation as being among the best current TV dramas, despite getting continuing strong reviews. I just finished season 3 and it keeps being the greatest ongoing science fiction show I've watched in the 21st century. What makes the show work so well is that it's a character driven drama first. The action scenes and special effects sequences are thrilling when they come but they work all the better because they focus on characters we come to care about (some of the main characters are loosely based on real people in the space program, imagining more opportunities for them). How they deal with perils and exceptional situations is rooted in their personalities and the plot flows from there.

This is very much in my ballpark I have to admit, the premise of NASA continuing its exploration of our galaxy after the Russians land on the moon first (this is where the show diverges from our reality to becomes an alternate history drama) is pure catnip to a NASA nerd like me. I would have watched this even if it wasn't executed as well as it is. I prefer hard sci-fi to the more fantastical stuff and this is rooted in actual science more than any space exploration show I have seen. It primarily plays out as a work place drama, starting in the late 60s, initially it feels like Mad Men meets The Right Stuff, then vastly expands in scope from there but NASA always keeps being at the centre of the show.

There are a few niggles. As the show by now spans three decades, the characters don't age that convincingly, though just going with greying hair and subtle ageing make-up is probably better than lathering them in latex. Occasionally this can drift into soap and many of the pop cultural references are the same even decades later. There is a pregnancy storyline in season 3 I found credulity stretching,

Spoiler

why would it be a good idea to get pregnant on Mars, with all the danger it puts the crew in ?

though how it gets resolved is audacious:

Spoiler

this show dares to shoot a pregnant lady into space.

All of that is more than made up for by how much the show gets right, from the spot on period art direction (as good as Mad Men or Stranger Things) to great acting by an outstanding ensemble cast and for really going for the "what if" of had NASA continued exploring space. It's also to the credit of the show that the earthbound storylines are as involving as the space set ones, so I never felt restless to get back to space. The space ships and hardware are rooted in something recognisable, making the perils those rickety looking NASA space crafts get themselves in more tangible than those of more fantastical space set shows.

Props for making the majority of lead characters women, all of whom have admirable traits, while also being complex and believably flawed and also for including an epic LGBTQ+ storyline (initially based on the first female US astronaut in space, Sally Ride) which stays true to a more socially repressive era.

There were complaints that season 1 takes a while to get going, though I didn't feel that. Season 2, where the cold war moves to the moon, is my favourite so far and season 3 delivers on taking mankind to where it hasn't gone before. One thing which comes as a surprise is that while being neither dystopian nor bleak, the show can be almost as ruthless as The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones in dispatching lead characters, so the stakes always feel high (don't check the Wikipedia cast list if you want to avoid spoilers of who makes it to the following seasons).

[therewillbeblus]

Bluey is tremendous fun. It's a great kids animation about families - it's Australian but I've yet to see any overt references to Young Einstein or anything!

I had dinner with some old colleagues this evening and my friend who's a parent of two young kids, and who tends to have very similar tastes in film and TV as I do, vehemently recommended Bluey. She supported a theory (apparently going around within the social work field) that the show is aimed more at parents of the coddling generation to assist them in engaging in play with their kids than it is for the kids themselves, and I can totally see it as genius from that angle. Episodes like Keepy Uppy are directed as much at teaching parents social skills for getting on their kids' levels as it is at kids for developing social skills to learn lessons by their parents' standards, and there's something so tremendously novel about that trick. It's also ironic that parents who struggle to engage with kids in the way they need to be engaged also move towards coddling, which is actually its own form of distancing in avoiding the intimacy that comes with conflict- so when this show is making a push to disrupt an adult's comfortable routine in order to meet the kid where they're at, it's actually what the concept of coddling is misunderstood to mean at face value by those very parents resisting this push!

Anyways, you'd never know it was all that complex (which it might not even be, I've been awake for like 20 hours) because it's so lovable for everyone. I just watched a handful of episodes and I'm feeling pretty cozy over here, and I don't even have kids.

[TMDaines]

Severance was a rare bit of almost perfect science fiction. Absolutely loved every minute of it and only watched it on a whim after getting a free trial of Apple TV+. I can’t see any posts on it here. People have surely watched it though?

[therewillbeblus]

Primal's "The Colossaeus" three-part structure was absolutely incredible, culminating in Part III's pirate ship setpiece, which is handedly the best action choreography I've seen in ages, animated or otherwise. This feels like what Genndy Tartakovsky has been building to his entire career, and I had to watch it twice to make sure I wasn't missing something. So many wonderful visual ideas thrown into the mix.

[therewillbeblus]

Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn re-team for new series, with two-season order for Apple TV+ It's apparently being described as Twilight Zone-esque, but in grounded narrative form, with Gilligan's fine-tuned balance of darkly comic and dramatic sensibilities

[soundchaser]

I’ve only finished the first episode of Irma Vep, but so far I find it equal parts fascinating and frustrating. When it’s self-consciously *about* filmmaking, it’s dull as dishwater. When it’s dealing with the nature of film as a medium, demonstrating the heightened contrast between techniques of the early 20th century and the early 21st, it’s bizarrely compelling.

Speaking of bizarrely compelling, Alicia Vikander is a very confusing actress.

[flyonthewall2983]

Is the guy who played Johnny Sack on The Sopranos in Andor?

[flyonthewall2983]

Tulsa King is really good. It’s some of Stallone’s best acting, and the ensemble around him ups the credibility I have noticed only in Sheridan’s stuff so far. Guess it’s time I get caught up on Yellowstone then.

[RIP Film]

Anyone watched The Cabinet of Curiosities thing on Netflix? A friend at work keeps suggesting it.

[Roger Ryan]

Anyone watched The Cabinet of Curiosities thing on Netflix? A friend at work keeps suggesting it.

I'm four episodes in... and can't really recommend it. As far as hour-long horror/science-fiction anthologies go, it's better than Jordan Peele's Twilight Zone reboot, but there's still the sense that each story is padded out far beyond its merits (seriously, Ana Lily Amirpour's satirical episode only needed about 15 minutes to make its point, not 65 minutes). There are lots of gore effects taking precedent over everything else, but surprisingly few chills. Of course, I'm only half-way through the first season, so I'm hoping the second half is better. As to that first half, I thought The Autopsy had the best story and the best performances, but even that episode overstayed its welcome.

[RIP Film]

That’s about the impression I got from it. Sounds like another case of Black Mirror where there’s a cute idea milked far beyond its value. I thought maybe with del Toro producing it could have a higher stamp of quality.

[Roger Ryan]

That’s about the impression I got from it. Sounds like another case of Black Mirror where there’s a cute idea milked far beyond its value. I thought maybe with del Toro producing it could have a higher stamp of quality.

While tastes can vary, Black Mirror is one of the few anthology series where I felt the concepts were effectively presented in longer form overall!

[RIP Film]

Well my comment was mostly directed at the later seasons, if that makes a difference.

[Roger Ryan]

Well my comment was mostly directed at the later seasons, if that makes a difference.

As a follow-up to my assessment on Dec. 7th, I've now finished watching all 8 episodes of The Cabinet of Curiosities and will amend my earlier opinion by stating that I wish all the episodes could have reached the quality of the final one: Jennifer Kent's The Murmuring. The writer/director of The Babadook invests in actual character interaction and development for the only episode that doesn't feel overlong in its hour-plus format. While not particularly original (apart from the fact that the story centers on married ornithologists - via an idea courtesy of Del Toro), Kent adeptly handles a standard haunted house story, creating good suspense and maintaining an unsettling tone throughout. Apart from one image, the gore effects so predominant elsewhere in this series are absent, yet this episode is actually chilling.

I'm also going to give some credit to Panos Cosmatos's episode The Viewing. Padded beyond what the material deserves with some flat characterizations and dull screenwriting, the art direction and cinematography (reveling like never before in Cosmatos's love of the 1970s) make this one an enjoyable departure from the grimy and/or gothic look of the episodes that came before. The fact that it's content to be a "hang-out" experience for the majority of its running time helps make the final freakout scenes more effective; still, I wish the writing was stronger to make the hanging out more diverting. As it is, Peter Weller gets the opportunity to chew the scenery in an amusing fashion and he gets the one memorable line of dialogue found in the entire series...

Spoiler

"There's no smoking in the obelisk chamber."

[flyonthewall2983]

Tulsa King is really good. It’s some of Stallone’s best acting, and the ensemble around him ups the credibility I have noticed only in Sheridan’s stuff so far. Guess it’s time I get caught up on Yellowstone then.

Might have lost me, even more than The Old Man did. That at least did enough subversion of its premise to keep me baited along to it.

[flyonthewall2983]

Tulsa King is really good. It’s some of Stallone’s best acting, and the ensemble around him ups the credibility I have noticed only in Sheridan’s stuff so far. Guess it’s time I get caught up on Yellowstone then.

Might have lost me, even more than The Old Man did. That at least did enough subversion of its premise to keep me baited along to it.

8th episode, directed by Lodge Kerrigan, won me back. Next weeks finale looks awesome. I like Stallone’s chemistry with the women on the show, particularly Andrea Savage. I liked her a lot on Bosch, and think she’s excelling here standing up with a living legend like Sly.

[Yakushima]

The Offer - a recreation of making The Godfather from the point of view of its producer Albert Ruddy - is phenomenal. Excellent writing, sensational performances and stunning cinematography. I was blown away. Surprised that no one has brought it up in this thread yet.

[Penti Mento]

The Offer - a recreation of making The Godfather from the point of view of its producer Albert Ruddy - is phenomenal. Excellent writing, sensational performances and stunning cinematography. I was blown away. Surprised that no one has brought it up in this thread yet.

I love much of Tolkin's work, but I've had an impacted assfull of the biopics, "true" stories, movies-about-movies and ripped from the headlines potboilers that have polluted cinema the last 25 years. I wonder if this series has anything to offer other than the perverse condescending delight of seeing marshmallows like Teller, Goode, Fogler, Ribisi and Hanks playing dress-up in poor approximations of period hair and wardrobe, when there has already been so much so thoroughly written about this film and its era?

[Yakushima]

Penti Mento, although I cannot guarantee that you will love it, The Offer has definitely a lot to offer, both factually and stylistically.

[beamish14]

AMC+ both canceled Pantheon, one of the best programs on American cable, and has opted to completely bury its completed second season, presumably as a write-down.

It’s similar to what HBO Max is doing, although there are earlier precedents. For example, Nickelodeon has never aired a final season of Yo Gabba Gabba that was completed years ago.

[therewillbeblus]

Severance was a rare bit of almost perfect science fiction. Absolutely loved every minute of it and only watched it on a whim after getting a free trial of Apple TV+. I can’t see any posts on it here. People have surely watched it though?

I'm not very far into it, and might come back to record thoughts later when I'm caught up, but for now I think it's a solid dystopian sci-fi premise dutifully focused on existential concerns, without overdoing the westernized work culture social commentary too much. The humor is black and mostly integrated into the tone without feeling at odds with the more somber shades, but it's the cast that stands out as the strongest component, and I"m just so happy to see Man Seeking Woman's Britt Lower get such a meaty role

[therewillbeblus]

Alright I finished Severance, really liked it overall, but since absolutely nothing about this conceit should be known going in, I'll spoiler my thoughts completely:

Spoiler

I appreciate the series' focus on the ethical dilemma of entering into this agreement having an unintended consequence of birthing a new 'self' that one may be philosophically responsible for, and I also admired its exploration in how this kind of choice is motivated by industrialized western civilizations' behavioral responses to dysphoria sensitivity via suppression. Here the dystopian binding contract substitutes blinding oneself to a fraction of their finite amount of time awake, during which we may be thinking and feeling about unbearably uncomfortable things, for the tangible distraction aids in medication, sex, drugs, TV, etc. we default to indulging in our actual world to cope via disengagement (interestingly enough by swapping settings, since these characters still have their problems during unstructured residential hours). However, I think this relatable, rather banal observation could be stressed a bit further into the tangible consequences and sufferings across environments, and away from the theoretical concerns or existentially-inducing emotional reactions within one environment only, i.e. Irving falling in love at work; Dylan having an acute crisis when suddenly forced to reckon with a small detail that exists in another life.

I would hope that future seasons would lean little harder into the impact of organically occurring traumas between settings, due to the same body carrying two selves (i.e. how addiction could play a role in interfering in the workplace setting, since we see Mark self-medicating a lot with alcohol outside of work for example - not that this is shown to be problematic itself; or how the effects from the hostile workplace can have long-term effects on the brain due to trauma for the outside self/outie), but that feels impossible due to two key reasons. One is practical: the show simple isn't moving at that speed. That path would bask in the possibilities of ordinary problems rather than progress at the rate of ante-upping the series is going for. And that's fair: the world-building is so ripe and by accelerating so rapidly, the show is missing opportunities, but it's also economical and revealing far more questions with its forward momentum that have other agendas in place. I'm truly excited to see where this midway-twist Lost material is going.

The problem I have is more in line with the second reason.. which is that within the world of this show, the creators don't actually seem very interested in human nature, but they think they do. Sure, they like exploring how we are resilient and will find our way out of situations and question with skepticism or go along out of fear, taking a page out of Zimbardo and Milgram, etc. But... the season essentially ends with the reveal that these selves are uniformly different, especially Helly. Now, I fully expect this to become a more nuanced meditation in the coming seasons: Helly may be a "different person" in her conditioned self as an outie, but the innie Helly could still be her true self, vulnerable and capable of suicide and rebellious under certain conditions. But the conditioning aspect is what the show seems most focused on- not the nature. The Helly who had her memories erased shouldn't also lose her experiential memory from her emotional and bodily instincts that have been stored her whole life... or does this "procedure" just give the writers a blanket-free reign to do whatever they want psychologically, as well as develop new personalities? I don't think that's really fair. Helly is instinctually rebellious when she has no marker of what's going on (indicating a simple fight/flight response we all have), but her personality is also rebellious, whereas the Helly outie appears to be the least rebellious person possible- silver-spoon-fed, brainwashed with ideology, catered to and living in a bubble and doing as she's told. Restarting her wouldn't unlock a buried developed and rich personality that behaves the opposite! That's absurd. And yes, I know the show is absurdist, but it's also trying to be honest about aspects of human nature and conditioning, and I don't think the writers really thought through some of these irregularities to earn having its cake and eating it too.

Who knows, maybe Helly's outie is actually working with the underground anti-Severance group, and is a rebel. That would make sense. I'll wait to judge this aspect until it all comes out, but it's weird to allow characters' inherent sexualities to remain the same between innie and outie and yet completely rearrange other inherent aspects of one's identity, especially when kids are born with personalities right out of the womb that can only be changed so much. And this is just a knock on the ending: detailing how trauma would affect them between innie and outie selves is key and a missed opportunity. Clearly it comes for Irving in his dark paintings of the corridors, but that's not really meditating on the psychological ramifications that could literally stunt development and cause erratic changes in behavior on the outside due to torture inside. I don't know, maybe we'll meet characters who've been 'in' for like ten-fifteen years and are totally fucked, vs the few years the main cast has been in. We'll see.

Still, aside from that incongruity (that I suppose is allowed to still be a mystery), I thought this was mostly great.

[flyonthewall2983]

Sad about Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel signing off the air, and kind of puzzling to me that they aren’t continuing with someone in Gumbel's spot as host.