Category: Reviews of Television Shows
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...
Blown Away: With Nick Uhas, Katherine Gray, Deborah Czeresko, Elliot Walker. A reality show featuring glass blowers from around the world competing to be the best. One artist is dismissed after each episode/challenge. Season three continues the beauty of season 1 and 2, but it also continues the same audio stingers and soundtracks, which are getting super old at this point. Buy On Amazon!
Ms. Marvel: Created by Bisha K. Ali. With Iman Vellani, Matt Lintz, Zenobia Shroff, Yasmeen Fletcher. Kamala is a superhero fan with an imagination, particularly when it comes to Captain Marvel; Kamala feels like she doesn’t fit in at school and sometimes even at home, that is until she gets superpowers like the heroes she’s looked up to. Ms. Marvel starts off slow enough and that first episode felt like it was going to be another one of those D+ shows that meanders just a bit too much or never really figures itself out, but by the third episode I...
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, Jenny Lumet, Gene Roddenberry. With Anson Mount, Rebecca Romijn, Ethan Peck, Christina Chong. A prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series, the show will follow the crew of the USS Enterprise under Captain Christopher Pike. Finally, a Star Trek series that I can get into, and boy howdy did I get into it. It took them over 6 seasons of Disco and Picard, but there’s finally a Trek for me! Anson Mount knocks it out of the park as Christopher Pike and the entire supporting cast, down to the...
Stranger Things: Created by Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer. With Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown. When a young boy disappears, his mother, a police chief and his friends must confront terrifying supernatural forces in order to get him back. See that question mark? Did I just watch season 5 or was this 4.5, or was it 5.5? Netflix hasn’t split seasons up like this in the past, so it’s super confusing to know what you’re watching, numerically. Add to that, the ending of this 4 episode season was completely unfulfilling and felt more like an ellipse than...
Baymax!: Created by Don Hall. With Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter, Dichen Lachman, Sarah-Nicole Robles. The characters in the unique city of Big Hero 6 get their own series, packed with adventures. You know those shorts that Pixar does before every Pixar film? The ones that usually make you cry like a big dumb baby, but it’s ok because everyone in the theater is doing the same dumb thing? Well this is a series of sorta unrelated shorts starring Baymax that do the same thing. It’s not Baymax in his Iron Man-esque armor, but Baymax the automated health professional, who goes...
Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey: With Kate McNally, Nicholas Kartashov, Marco Colosimo, Jewelle Barlow. Examines the rise of Warren Jeffs in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and his shocking criminal case. A short mini series of the extremist offshoot of the already extremis Morman religion, this one chronicles the child rapist Warren Jeffs, who was the only person to actually go to jail for the organized child rape cult that he ran, which really makes me wonder about what the actual fuck is going on out where these cults are operating? Buy On Amazon!
We Own This City: Created by George Pelecanos, David Simon. With Jon Bernthal, Wunmi Mosaku, Jamie Hector, Josh Charles. Tells the story of the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force and the corruption surrounding it. With only six episodes to tell the story, there’s not much breathing space or time for nuance, so a couple of the ‘bad cop’ characters come off as caricatures, but from what I’ve read up on them, this is pretty much what they were like. Jon Bernthal in particular is all over the place with out he portrays the...
Locke & Key: Created by Meredith Averill, Aron Eli Coleite, Carlton Cuse. With Darby Stanchfield, Connor Jessup, Emilia Jones, Jackson Robert Scott. After their father is murdered under mysterious circumstances, the three Locke siblings and their mother move into their ancestral home, Keyhouse, which they discover is full of magical keys that may be connected to their father’s death. Another great season of a show with a unique premise based off a comic book series that I enjoyed several collections of. There’s a moment about half way through the season that the difference between a kid and an adult hearing...
The Kids in the Hall: Created by Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, Scott Thompson. With Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney. The iconic Canadian sketch comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall return from the dead with a reboot of their ground-breaking sketch series. Remember these guys? They had a tv show back in the day, then did absolutely nothing since then. Sure, there was a fever dream in which people thought there was a movie or something, but that never happened. I’m glad they’re back, this renewed series is on Amazon is well worth...
Halo: Created by Steven Kane, Kyle Killen. With Pablo Schreiber, Shabana Azmi, Natasha Culzac, Olive Gray. Aliens threaten human existence in an epic 26th-century showdown. TV series based on the video game ‘Halo.’ The broad strokes of the franchise are here, and there’s definitely a whole bunch of stuff that I recognize from the videos games, but most of what I recognize are the long plotlines from the books, which has to be absolutely maddening for anyone that didn’t read nearly every single one of them. There’s also a ton here that’s just unique to the televison series and it’s...
The Morning Show: Created by Jay Carson, Kerry Ehrin. With Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Billy Crudup, Mark Duplass. An inside look at the lives of the people who help America wake up in the morning, exploring the unique challenges faced by the men and women who carry out this daily televised ritual. With the acting as good as or better than the fantastic first season, unfortunately the writing isn’t as impressive as it could have been with some well telegraphic and silly things happening towards the end of season 2. It was again only 10 episodes long, but several of...
Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story: With Roger Ordish, Mark Lawson, Meirion Jones, Alison Bellamy. Jimmy Savile once ruled the airwaves with a quirky persona and good works. So how did this icon manage to hide his many alleged bad deeds for so long? I only heard of this guy after the news broke about his unfortunate life choices and the hundreds of people that he took advantage of. The damming part of the story is that of all the police that were contacted and were made aware of what he was doing, not a single one of them got...
Severance: Created by Dan Erickson. With Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman. Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs. Delightfully atmospheric and mind boggling weird, my only complaint is that season one doesn’t wrap up the story, so we’ll have to wait for season two to (maybe?) wrap up this strange story of people living two lives inside of one body. Buy On Amazon!
Trickster: Created by Tony Elliott, Michelle Latimer. With Joel Oulette, Crystle Lightning, Kalani Queypo, Anna Lambe. Jared is an Indigenous teen struggling to keep his dysfunctional family above water. When he starts seeing strange things – talking ravens, doppelgängers, skin monsters – his already chaotic life is turned upside down. Only six episodes long and released 2 years ago, so there’s not likely going to be a sequel, but that’s just fine, this mini series did everything I could hope for with the subject matter, going places that I didn’t expect with a story that seems goofy on the face...
Moon Knight: Created by Doug Moench. With Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, May Calamawy, F. Murray Abraham. Steven Grant discovers he’s been granted the powers of an Egyptian moon god. But he soon finds out that these newfound powers can be both a blessing and a curse to his troubled life. I was somewhat tentative about this show, but figured that Oscar Isaac would be able to pull it off. They were only given six episodes to do the story in, so while the entire thing feels rushed, the full story is laid out, though there are a TON of unanswered...
Star Trek: Picard: Created by Kirsten Beyer, Michael Chabon, Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman. With Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera. Follow-up series to Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) that centers on Jean-Luc Picard in the next chapter of his life. Season 2 has come and gone, and it’s abundantly clear that my opinions of what Trek is about vs what the creative minds of this show consider the heart of Trek are in completely different places. The season opened with a couple minutes of gloriously blurry spaceship scenes with all the lense...
Yakamoz S-245: With Kivanç Tatlitug, Jerry Hoffmann, Ecem Uzun, Özge Özpirinçci. After disaster strikes Earth, a marine biologist on a submarine research mission must fight to survive with the crew as a conspiracy comes to light. I got about halfway through this Netflix series before I realized that it shared a LOT of plot points with “Into The Night” and at one point they even referenced the things that the story from that show, and it was at this point that I thought to myself, hey now, this show is sharing a universe with “Into The Night” and it certainly...
Pacific Rim: The Black: Created by Greg Johnson, Craig Kyle. With Gideon Adlon, Calum Worthy, Erica Lindbeck, Victoria Grace. After Kaiju ravage Australia, two siblings pilot a Jaeger to search for their parents, encountering new creatures, seedy characters and chance allies. Much less giant mecha fighting than what I was hoping for, they’re going harder on the anime aspect with much more interpersonal conflicts and arguing, neither of which I care for, but at least it furthers the story along. I got my fill of mecha battles in the final episode though, so the slog to get there was well...
Somebody Somewhere: Created by Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen. With Bridget Everett, Jeff Hiller, Mary Catherine Garrison, Danny McCarthy. Sam is a true Kansan on the surface, but, beneath it all, struggles to fit the hometown mould. Grappling with loss and acceptance, she discovers herself and a community of outsiders who don’t fit in but don’t give up. A completely great series that made me feel feelings, but maybe I didn’t want to feel those feelings right now. It’s a well done series, but i’m definitely not in the right headspace for this show right now. Buy On Amazon!
DMZ: With Rosario Dawson, Hoon Lee, Freddy Miyares, Jordan Preston Carter. In a near-future civil-war-torn America, fearless medic Alma sets out on a harrowing quest to find her missing son – crossing into the demilitarized zone of Manhattan, where a ruthless battle for control rages between rival gang leaders. Rosario Dawson seems to be in Hollywood’s spotlight these last couple years, from playing a fan favorite in the Netflix Marvel television series, to playing a fan favorite in Disney’s The Mandalorian, to doing a long list of voice over work, she seems to be everywhere I look. For good reason...
The further adventures in time and space of the alien adventurer known as the Doctor and their companions from planet Earth. This is it, the final season that I’m going to check in on the Doctor. I actually love Jodie Whittaker in literally everything else that she’s done, so I find no fault in her as an actor, but instead I lay it 100% on the show runners and the remarkably uninteresting scripts they threw in her general direction. The special effects are great, the companions are suitably weird (but lovable) but there wasn’t a single episode in the last...
Star Trek: Discovery: Created by Bryan Fuller, Alex Kurtzman. With Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Anthony Rapp, Emily Coutts. Ten years before Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise, the USS Discovery discovers new worlds and lifeforms as one Starfleet officer learns to understand all things alien. Season four is done and I’m pretty sure I’m done with the series, at least in a “gotta watch it as it comes out” sense. It’s not necessarily a bad series on the whole, but I’m not a fan of the story telling method, nor the special effects decisions that they’ve made, nor the universe that...
Doom Patrol: Created by Jeremy Carver. With Diane Guerrero, April Bowlby, Matt Bomer, Brendan Fraser. The adventures of an idealistic mad scientist and his field team of superpowered outcasts. Season 3 ended back in November of 2021 and I’m just now getting around to watching it, and while I love how weird the show is, I think they’re going in a direction that’s just too esoteric for my tastes, and they’re definitely not connecting with any of the other DC shows anymore, so I won’t be missing much if I skip season 4 of this and just watch Titans. The...
The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek: With Gates McFadden, Marc Cushman, Larry Nemecek, David Gerrold. Chronicles rare and fascinating details of how “Star Trek” began, where it’s been, and how it’s going where no television series has gone before. It’s an eleven episode series of 45 minute longish episodes that go into all the details of the franchise up to about the TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT era with plenty of talking heads from the various series, though not many of the big names showed up for it. It’s interesting if you’ve not seen Trek documentaries before, and it’s still entertaining for...
The Boys Presents: Diabolical: With Grey Griffin, Antony Starr, Ben Schwartz, Chris Diamantopoulos. The Boys animated spin-off. Eight unrelated episodes about mostly unknown characters in the same universe that “The Boys” takes place in, there’s a couple extremely good episodes, a couple ok episodes, one that’s just dumb, and a few more that are middle of the road. I’m happy they didn’t make them all connected in some way like “What If…” did. Be warned, there is a significant amount of gore and violence here, though if you’ve seen the live action show, this animated stuff won’t seem out of...
Upload: Created by Greg Daniels. With Robbie Amell, Andy Allo, Allegra Edwards, Zainab Johnson. A man is able to choose his own afterlife after his untimely death, by having his consciousness uploaded into a virtual world. As he gets used to his new life and befriends his angel (real world handler), questions about his death arise. The 8 episode season two is here and I continue to think that this is a pretty enjoyable show that doesn’t take the topic serious enough to actually do it justice. Buy On Amazon!
Wolf Like Me: With Ariel Donoghue, Isla Fisher, Josh Gad, Emma Lung. Gary is an emotional wreck and struggles to provide for his daughter since the death of his wife. Mary has a secret she can’t bring herself to share with anyone. The universe brought these two together for a reason. They’re trying to be coy with the premise here, but the title is pretty damn literal and I’m all about this story about a lady that locks her self away once a month and the man that’s forced into her life of horror. The final episode made me seriously...
Peacemaker: Created by James Gunn. With John Cena, Danielle Brooks, Freddie Stroma, Jennifer Holland. Picking up where The Suicide Squad (2021) left off, Peacemaker returns home after recovering from his encounter with Bloodsport – only to discover that his freedom comes at a price. Man, this is a stupid, low brow television show that has no reason to exist, is about as low budget as you can get, and I love absolutely every damn minute of it. It’s only eight episodes long, and they’ve already approved a second season. Also, there’s about 30 jokes set up throughout season one that...
The Book of Boba Fett: Created by Jon Favreau. With Temuera Morrison, Ming-Na Wen, Frank Trigg, Collin Hymes. Bounty hunter Boba Fett & mercenary Fennec Shand navigate the underworld when they return to Tatooine to claim Jabba the Hutt’s old turf. Jon Favreau once joked that Book of Boba Fett was going to be “The Mandolarian Season 2.5” and that’s actually what we damn near got here. I’m not really complaining, because as the two of them are currently written, Mando is by far a much more interesting character than Boba Fett, which honestly is a damn shame. Boba has...
Reacher: With Alan Ritchson, Malcolm Goodwin, Willa Fitzgerald, Hugh Thompson. Jack Reacher was arrested for murder and now the police need his help. Based on the books by Lee Child. There were two movies made with this character, but in those he was played by Tom Cruise, a great actor, but not known for his height or bulk. Alan Richson however, is known for being a tall dude with some absolutely impressive bulk, something he’s been building on since I first saw him back in Smallville or even the failed Aquaman television plot. It was a few year between his...
Murderville: Created by Krister Johnson. With Will Arnett, Haneefah Wood, Lilan Bowden, Philip Smithey. Eccentric detective Terry Seattle teams up with clueless celebrity guest stars to investigate a series of murders in this improvisational crime comedy. It’s got a pretty unique concept and it works for the most part, but I do feel there could have been more done with it. I don’t regret watching it though, it was pretty funny. Buy On Amazon!
Daredevil: Created by Drew Goddard. With Charlie Cox, Deborah Ann Woll, Elden Henson, Vincent D’Onofrio. A blind lawyer by day, vigilante by night. Matt Murdock fights the crime of New York as Daredevil. I started re-watching this after I saw the latest Spider-man film, and forced my wife to sit with me while I was watching it. It’s still the best Marvel content that Netflix put out, followed closely by season 2 of Daredevil, none of the other stuff comes even close. There’s a rumor going around that all the Marvel stuff is going to be moved from Netflix in...
The Witcher: Created by Lauren Schmidt. With Henry Cavill, Freya Allan, Anya Chalotra, Mimi Ndiweni. Geralt of Rivia, a solitary monster hunter, struggles to find his place in a world where people often prove more wicked than beasts. Season two is worlds better than season one, primarily because they did away with the absolutely pointless timeframe jumping around that completely confused me so effectively during season one. Add to that, Freya Allan had a larger focus as Ciri and absolutely killed it in Season Two. Buy On Amazon!
Station Eleven: Created by Patrick Somerville. With Mackenzie Davis, Himesh Patel, Matilda Lawler, David Wilmot. A post apocalyptic saga spanning multiple timelines, telling the stories of survivors of a devastating flu as they attempt to rebuild and reimagine the world anew while holding on to the best of what’s been lost. I went in knowing nearly nothing about the story or how it would end, so I assumed it was going to be like most other post-apocalyptic stories, filled with horror, violence and a condemnation of humanity as it is today. While there was a bit of condemnation, that isn’t...
Children of Dune: With Alec Newman, Julie Cox, Ian McNeice, Steven Berkoff. The twins of Paul “Muad’dib” Atreides become embroiled in the political landscape of Arrakis (“Dune”) and the rest of the universe. Even James McAvoy and Susan Sarandon couldn’t hold my attention on this adaptation. True, the special effects are somewhat better and the spice eyes are much improved, but the base story is just so bland and boring. I remember this was the book that I decided that I wasn’t going to read any more of them because of how impossibly slow the entire things is. Buy On...
The Expanse: Created by Daniel Abraham, Mark Fergus, Ty Franck, Hawk Ostby. With Steven Strait, Dominique Tipper, Wes Chatham, Shohreh Aghdashloo. In the 24th century, a group of humans untangle a vast plot which threatens the Solar System’s fragile state of detente. Well the show is done and while there were no major missteps, this last episode had about 3 seasons worth of material in it, it’s a shame they didn’t get the time to either edit this down to something with a tighter story or give it just another season to follow through on the promises they were making....
Moonbase 8: Created by Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker, Jonathan Krisel, John C. Reilly. With John C. Reilly, Tim Heidecker, Fred Armisen, Joshua Davis. Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker and John C. Reilly star in this new comedy series as three astronauts trying to qualify for their first lunar mission. They encounter obstacles along the way including loneliness, self-doubt and incompetence. Cringe worthy in all the wrong ways, I stayed with the first season because it was weird. Turns out the entire thing is just delightfully and wholesomely weird through and through. It’s more of a “Fred Armisen” weird than a “John...
The Wheel of Time: Created by Rafe Judkins. With Rosamund Pike, Daniel Henney, Zoë Robins, Madeleine Madden. Set in a high fantasy world where magic exists, but only some can access it, a woman named Moiraine crosses paths with five young men and women. This sparks a dangerous, world-spanning journey. Based on the book series by Robert Jordan. Season one has wrapped and boy howdy did a whole bunch of nothing happen. Sure it was exciting and it set up a whole bunch of stuff, and the setting up was pretty cool, but it would have been super dope for...
The Imagineering Story: With Tom Morris, Kevin Rafferty, Angela Bassett, Matt Fowler. The inside look into the Walt Disney Imagineering company. An extremely indepth look at the history of the WED Team, later renamed to the Disney Imagineering Team. It’s nearly pure D+ propaganda, but has a ton of interesting behind the scenes content that even the casual Disney fan can appreciate. Buy On Amazon!
