Category: Reviews of Television Shows
Andor: Created by Tony Gilroy. With Diego Luna, Kyle Soller, Stellan Skarsgård, Genevieve O’Reilly. Prequel series to Star Wars’ ‘Rogue One’. In an era filled with danger, deception and intrigue, Cassian will embark on the path that is destined to turn him into a Rebel hero. Is this the best Star Wars show that Disney has done since their acquisition of the franchise? Quite possibly yes, with some small caveats: there are no Jedi, there are no Sith, just regular people getting all mixed up with the creeping bureaucratic horrors of the Empire, rebeling in their own small ways that...
Tales of the Jedi: Created by Dave Filoni. With Corey Burton, Ashley Eckstein, Dee Bradley Baker, Ian McDiarmid. It showcases animated shorts that feature Jedi from the prequel era. Entirely way too short, this is a collection of six tangentially related short stories that are all under 20 minutes in length, with quality ranging from “ok” to “oh my”. Obviously I’m head over heels about seeing Ahsoka on screen again, if you like the character as much as I do, you should check these out. Buy On Amazon!
House of the Dragon: Created by Ryan J. Condal, George R.R. Martin. With Rhys Ifans, Matt Smith, Fabien Frankel, Graham McTavish. An internal succession war within House Targaryen at the height of its power, 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen. The first season is done, and boy was I underwhelmed. The CGI was great to middling, the acting was ok to middling, and there were at least 3 massive time jumps, one of which involved replacing many of the main leads, a decision that had me scratching my head. It took me right out of the show and...
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Created by Jessica Gao. With Tatiana Maslany, Ginger Gonzaga, Malia Arrayah, Jameela Jamil. Jennifer Walters navigates the complicated life of a single, 30-something attorney who also happens to be a green 6-foot-7-inch superpowered Hulk. If you judge this series on what it set out to do, it did it very well and stuck the landing. I’m not here to judge that though, I’m here to judge the basic premise of the show. In a prefect world, She-hulk could stand on her own story without the meta-meta commentary that’s inherent with the character. I think I would...
See: Created by Steven Knight. With Jason Momoa, Sylvia Hoeks, Hera Hilmar, Christian Camargo. Far in a dystopian future, the human race has lost the sense of sight, and society has had to find new ways to interact, build, hunt, and to survive. All of that is challenged when a set of twins are born with sight. A glorious ending to an amazing series.. That ending unfortunately went about 20 minutes longer than it should have and introduced all sorts of things that I didn’t appreciate, but none the less I still enjoyed the entirety of the series for how...
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Created by Patrick McKay, John D. Payne. With Morfydd Clark, Ismael Cruz Cordova, Charlie Vickers, Markella Kavenagh. Epic drama set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. The first season is finally done and with a LOT of complaining from the internet, I have to sit back and ask: was it worth the nearly half a billion dollars that Amazon spent...
Resident Evil: With Ella Balinska, Tamara Smart, Siena Agudong, Adeline Rudolph. Nearly three decades after the discovery of the T-virus, an outbreak reveals the Umbrella Corporation’s dark secrets. Why they decided to split the typical Resident Evil insanity with a teenage commentary on modern society, I’ll never know, but they did themselves a disservice by doing that There was one hilariously bad episode that was a solid hour of the two teenage girls going on a scavenger hunt in their home to find clues that their dad had left them in a note, all while talking about their relationships with...
The Old Man: Created by Robert Levine, Jonathan E. Steinberg. With Jeff Bridges, John Lithgow, E.J. Bonilla, Bill Heck. A former CIA officer who’s living off the grid finds himself on the run from people who want to kill him. FX continues to be a gold mine of amazing content, this time with Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow killing it in every scene that they’re in. Alia Shawkat, who I knew from Arrested Development, is way past the comedic stuff that I knew her best for and plays a serious character that I’m shocked to see playing right up to...
Alone Together: A DS9 Companion: With Alexander Siddig, Andrew Robinson, Shana Collier, Cirroc Lofton. Set 25 years after the events of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Alone Together follows Dr. Julian Bashir as he goes to visit his old friend Elim Garak on Cardassia, and uncovers a dark secret in the process. Released all the way back in July of 2020 during the absolute pit of despair that we found ourselves in after staying in our homes for several months after the covid-19 lock down began, I watched the first episode, put the others on my “watch next” list on...
The Sandman: Created by Neil Gaiman, David S. Goyer, Allan Heinberg. With Tom Sturridge, Boyd Holbrook, Patton Oswalt, Vivienne Acheampong. Upon escaping after decades of imprisonment by a mortal wizard, Dream, the personification of dreams, sets about to reclaim his lost equipment. Dare I say it, but this adaptation of the much loved comic book series by Neil Gaiman is actually quite good! Netflix has a much deserved reputation for not handling adaptations all that well and DC / WarnerBros has been failing at nearly everything they’ve done in the last couple years, with nearly every single one of their...
