Really a housecleaning post, I suppose:
First of all, the problem with doing a "streaming shows I've watched lately" post after a few months is that you're bound to forget one, and I forgot a big one:
Season two of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt!
I have mixed feelings here actually.
For the most part, there was a lot to love. With the exception of a couple episodes, the jokes are always funny, and several of the plots -- Kimmy dealing both with the trauma of her life in the cult and with her feelings about her mother, Tina Fey as her therapist, basically anything to do with Carol Kane -- worked really well. There was a lot of speculation about whether this season would be different since it was the first one they knew would be on Netflix -- the first one had been made for NBC before NBC decided at the last minute not to air it.
But man. Tina Fey, once again, consistently embarrasses herself in the face of criticism: announcing prior to the season that she's not going to read the internet anymore, then having the last word by devoting an early episode to internet commenters and portraying them as people who literally vanish from existence if they run out of things to complain about. This is dumb enough without further context, but even more wince-inducing given that Fey's politics have long been ... well, pretty Liz Lemonish, in that she seems very much like someone who likes the idea of being perceived as a liberal but is not particularly committed to actual liberal ideals, especially when they take effort. The show's commitment to Asian stereotypes for the sake of lazy comedy, and weird origin story for Jackie, are perfectly valid targets for criticism, and if you don't want to engage with that, then be a fucking adult and don't engage with it -- don't slam your bedroom door and then hang a sign outside it that says everyone who disagrees with you is a poopy doo doo head.
Second, I feel the need to react briefly to the news of the many cancellations that were announced yesterday. As many have noted, it's become unusual to cancel this many shows -- the "death" of cancellation had already become the topic of TV columns, though largely in reference to cable networks, which don't have to answer to affiliates and in some cases don't have to worry about advertising dollars.
These cancellations, though, come from the broadcast nets, and to be fair, when you look at which shows are being cancelled, it doesn't exactly seem like an indiscriminate massacre. You have a mix of shows that had already been given a second chance to get their ratings up and had failed to do so, Fox shows that lived out their seasons but would have been canceled long before now on any other network (Fox is more likely to let a show go a full season and then fail to renew it rather than drop it after four episodes the way the alphabet networks do, which winds up contributing to their reputation for "abandoning" shows), and a cancellation that isn't even a cancellation, just the announcement that a pilot isn't being picked up.
That latter bit -- ABC announced it isn't picking up the latest version of an attempt to spin off Adrianne Palicki's Bobbi Morse from Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I can't stand the SHIELD show but would give a Bobbi Morse show, or any Adrianne Palicki show a shot, so this is a shame ... but not a cancellation.
An actual cancellation, though, is Agent Carter. On the other hand, this had sort of always been treated as a series of miniseries anyway, and Hayley Atwell and Dominic Cooper have already taken roles in other shows, so I don't think anyone had been assuming there was going to be a third miniseries.
Castle was canceled because as much as we all love Firefly, Nathan Fillion was a dink and got his female co-lead kicked off her own show because they weren't getting along, which gave the network no reason to renew it. Not a show I watched, but I have to role my eyes at Fillion anyway.
cf: Sleepy Hollow, the cancellation of which was previously announced, which also saw the departure of the female co-lead, whose presence is built right into the premise -- even moreso than in The X-Files or Moonlighting. Doing Sleepy Hollow without Abby is like doing Mad About You without Paul or Jamie, so naturally the network cancelled it.
I've posted about Sleepy Hollow this season -- it was one of our favorite shows in first season, felt a bit uneven in second season, and immediately lost focus (and half of the cast) in third season. We gave up only a few episodes in -- it just wasn't the same show anymore.
Back to ABC, though, which also cancelled ... Galavant and The Muppets.
Sigh.
This is what I mean about second chances, though. Galavant had such low ratings in its first season that it's a surprise it ever got a second season, and ABC has changed bosses since that renewal. The Muppets is an important franchise, but premiered to critical shrugs, went on hiatus, changed showrunners, improved considerably ... but saw little change in the ratings. The idea is probably that a low-rated show does more harm than good to the brand, I suppose, but I wish they would stick with it and just try to make it better.
Honestly, I still think the best way to do a Muppets TV show is to just do it like the original Muppet Show -- a variety show, even though that's anachronistic now. Go ahead and include jokes about it being anachronistic. Anything else has always just felt a little forced.
Galavant is going to sting. Like I said, yes, it's a surprise it got a second season, but it was such a good second season, and as I've said before, Tim Omundson has been doing Emmy-level work on this show in both seasons -- and the show did an excellent job transforming him from scene-stealing villain to deuteragonist to capitalize on that. I hope his next job makes the maximum use of his talents, but the problem with these little gems of shows is that so often they fit people into niches that let them shine in ways that other shows just don't, and instead he'll wind up playing somebody's dorky husband or something.
ABC also cancelled Nashville, which has had ongoing showrunner problems and became ever soapier after first season -- something they were apparently going to rectify by bringing on the thirtysomething creators, of all people, as showrunners in the event of a renewal. On the one hand I am saddened that we won't get to see that, because what a very strange match that would be. On the other hand, this frees the thirtysomething guys up for another project.
Speaking of freeing people up, CBS cancelled the awfully titled CSI: Cyber, so perhaps Patricia Arquette can do something better and James van der Beek can rustle together a reunion of everyone's favorite show ... I'm talking, of course, of Don't Trust the Bitch in Apt. 23.
Fox cancelled ALL of their first-season comedy shows: some stupid fucking Seth MacFarlane thing which who the fuck cares about because fuck Seth MacFarlane, Cooper Dooper's Guide to Something, Grandfathered, and The Grinder.
Grandfathered was cute, but never essential for me. Every episode always had a few too many lazy jokes, and it felt like pieces were always being moved around while the show found itself. Still, I think it could have found itself in time.
The Grinder, though. This was something I had only moderate interest in at first, based primarily on the cast -- Rob Lowe's newly discovered comedic chops thanks to Parks, the return of Fred Savage, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, the underused and underrated Natalie Morales, William Devane, this is a fucking great cast long before you get to the insanity and delight of Tim Olyphant playing himself in the middle of the season. It quickly became one of the funniest, smartest, meta-est shows on TV -- though Natalie Morales remained underused, and any episode that really leaned on her did so by making her a love interest prop, which is my only real complaint about the show -- and sometimes you'd stop mid-laugh and go, are they really making that joke? Not in a Two and a Half Men, oh that's so dirty, kind of way -- more the Arrested Development third season, oh that's so fourth-wall-breaking, kind of way.
The Grinder rests :(
Friday, May 13, 2016
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
it's not tv, or hbo
Between multiple trips, a long summer cold (okay, it's not quite summer yet), and a busy work schedule, I haven't had a lot of time for blogging, but there also hasn't been a whole lot new to say about television, I don't think. Still, in that time there have been a few streaming shows to check in on, so let's do that:
I'm still not feeling Daredevil ... in fact, far less so in the second season than in the first, which seems to be the consensus of most of my friends, even most of those who liked first season more than I did. Now, part of this -- especially since the main exceptions here are some diehard Daredevil comics fans -- may be that, as I've said before, Daredevil was never the main focus of my comics fandom. Certainly Frank Miller's run was on my radar, but I got into comics more for the weirdness (Dr Strange, Steranko's SHIELD covers, "imaginary stories" and red Kryptonite) than the grimness). Furthermore, I never liked the Punisher, and I was a regular comics reader when he first achieved his fame and got his first solo series, so I was the demographic that was supposed to like him.
Anyway. So I just haven't finished the second season of Daredevil, and who knows if I will.
Elsewhere on Netflix, Flaked was a big disappointment, a big frustration. Will Arnett is great on Arrested Development and Bojack Horseman, and I actually watched both Up All Night and Running Wilde. But this show ... if you haven't seen any of it, Flaked is about an alcoholic in recovery who is a sort of unofficial community leader in his LA neighborhood despite clearly and consistently acting in his own self-interest all the time.
Arnett developed it with Mitch Hurwitz, but somehow Hurwitz forgot one of the key lessons of Arrested Development, and Arnett forgot one of the key lessons of having been married to Amy Poehler: women are funny too, for Christ's sake. The women in Flaked are plot devices at best, and most of the women who appear don't even manage to have that much of an impact. Both plot and laughs are reserved for the men. I was going to say that none of the women have discernible personalities, but I suppose it's more true -- and more damning -- to say that the stronger and more evident their personality is, the crazier they come across, and the more of a nuisance they are to Arnett's character.
Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?
Arnett's Chip is so unlikable that although the plot developments later in the series do make things much more interesting, they don't do anything to redeem him or make him more interesting, especially since they feed into the above problem. That said, some of the writing is strong enough, and some of the performances strong enough -- especially the fantastic George Basil as Cooler -- that it turns into one of the shows where the flaws just frustrate the shit out of you because the good things make you want to keep watching. This is where the binge-watch is handy, because you can just power through it on a Saturday afternoon and it doesn't feel like a heavy time investment.
When Flaked came out, some column by some fiftysomething -- judging by the photo that runs by his byline, so he may be a sixtysomething if it's not a recent photo -- bitched that it was yet another sitcom about yet another rich young kid, which is eyeroll-inducing since a) Arnett was 45 when the show premiered, b) his character is perpetually broke and lives in a store owned by his ex-father-in-law, c) class conflict between the broke residents of the neighborhood and the wealthy developers who want to tear the store and other buildings down is actually a major theme of the show. I think "rich young kid" was a kind of code for "unmarried person without children, in southern California," especially since the other shows the columnist namechecked were Togetherness (in which only one of the four leads is rich, and he's only rich in the second season), You're The Worst (one of the characters has a nice house, but That's Television For You, the characters are pretty clearly middle class), and Love.
Love is another Netflix show, and it's one of my favorites in a while, though I definitely understand why it wouldn't be for everyone. For one thing, both of the leads are total messes, and each can be a total asshole at times.
Love is about Mickey (the great Gillian Jacobs) and Gus (co-creator Paul Rust), who are both go through break-ups from terrible relationships in the first episode and meet at the end of that episode. It's a long time before they actually go out on a date, though -- several episodes, despite Gus's obvious interest in Mickey. There are various reasons for that, but it immediately sets the show apart as very different from Mad About You or A to Z or something -- this is not about love at first sight.
Like I said, they're both messes. Mickey has drug and alcohol problems. Gus is a "nice guy" with a lot of the baggage that self-identified nice guys can bring to the table -- namely that he's not actually that nice when you come down to it, and can be a bully. They're each pretty judgmental about the other -- and they don't have a whole lot in common. There's definitely something there between them, but at the same time, after a while you're not sure whether you're really rooting for them to get together or not or if it's going to be spectacularly unhealthy.
I'm probably not making a great case for it, but you can't sum up the tone of a thing. For me, the show works terrifically. Each character has just enough likable moments for their flaws to feel like things they can overcome rather than indications that they're simply toxic people. It's a tough balance to hit, and maybe I watch enough TV to appreciate that balance.
Another reason to watch is Claudia O'Doherty as Mickey's new roommate Bertie. I don't know what she's done in the past, but I have to imagine she's going to do a lot in the years to come, because she's hilarious.
Moving on from Netflix to Hulu, we have the weird situation of The Mindy Project.
What the fuck happened here?
This is a show that has never been able to sit still for very long. Cast members have come and gone on a regular basis as the show has been constantly reconceived -- remember when Anna Camp was Mindy's best friend? When Stephen Tobolowsky was introduced midway through first season and written out as soon as second season started? The weird ways Adam Pally has come and gone from the show?
But having Mindy and Danny break up and move on via montage only to start building a plot where a different older and more conservative co-worker shows an interest in Mindy? What on Earth is the point?
If Chris Messina has moved on to another show and Mindy Kaling just really likes the dynamic of Mindy Lahiri with an older and more conservative love interest, there would be less clumsy ways of handling it. The only clumsier way of managing it would be to cast a different Italian-American from New York and have him join the practice and immediately start a bantering love-hate relationship with Mindy.
It's hard to judge the decision to have Danny and Mindy break up separately from the Mindy and Jody plot, given that one transitions almost seamlessly into the other. It's a weird choice even if it's completely one-sided and just winds up being a season of Jody pining after Mindy, just because we've been down this road before.
This has never been a consistent show, but lately my incredulity has just made it difficult to even pay attention to.
PIVOT!
On to Horace and Pete, which isn't on a streaming service but is available straight from Louis CK. This is his ten-episode series that you purchase direct from him for download or streaming, starring him, Steve Buscemi, Edie Falco, Alan Alda, and Jessica Lange, with a bunch of people in the supporting and guest cast.
Louie's entering the show as a drama for the Emmys, which is about right. It definitely has funny moments and moments structured like stand-up comedy, but the latter are the weakest parts, overall. Let's see if I can figure out how to sum this show up. Well, Horace and Pete's is a 100 year old bar in Brooklyn, named for its original owners, a pair of brothers. It's always been owned and run by a Horace and Pete ever since, and when we open, it's being run by Horace the 8th (Louie), Uncle Pete (Alda), and Horace's brother Pete (Buscemi). Pete is an outpatient at a mental hospital, who sees monsters and has violent fits if he doesn't take his medication; until that medication was developed, he was hospitalized for many years. Uncle Pete is a grouchy old racist asshole. Horace is devoted to keeping the bar going because it's a safe space for Pete, who has never lived anywhere else -- their apartment is up the stairs from the bar, and was also their childhood home.
Horace and Pete's sister Sylvia (Edie Falco) wants to sell the bar because Brooklyn real estate is worth so much and they can make a lot more money from selling it than they could make from a lifetime of running the place -- especially since the men are insistent on only serving Budweiser and watered-down liquor, no mixed drinks, with separate pricing for the regulars and the hipsters who come in to drink ironically at a dive bar.
So those are your initial conflicts. And those conflicts, that story, plays out satisfyingly, if also bleakly and incredibly depressingly. The story of the factors I've just described is a good one.
Furthermore, this is a show like nothing else, in that it's shot like a play, complete with an intermission. I know that Amy Sedaris's dialogue in the last episode was improvised -- I don't know how common that was.
The weak parts of Horace and Pete fall largely into two areas:
The stand-up-ish bullshit: the bar is populated by barflies whose chatter about current events is frankly not much different from stand-up rants, but which takes a distinctly conservative meatheaded position. Sure, I'm sure this is true to what you hear at bars like this, but it's not like "women who get abortions are all going to hell, and so are the fetuses" is a part of the conversation that's missing from television. Between this show and Louie, Louis CK stands back and gives these guys the mike without challenging them more often than you'd expect for someone who seems personally to be ... if not a liberal exactly, certainly not a Fox News Republican.
Every episode has a scene of these guys spewing this bullshit, and it just doesn't add anything. I would've started fast-forwarding through it, if the controls on the Roku were better.
Secondly, the characters in general can be very hard to like. They're very well-written and realistically conceived -- I understand why they're assholes and where that assholishness comes from. But watching unpleasant people be unpleasant to each other can be that much more unpleasant when it's realistic, you know? It just adds to the bleakness, especially when Horace and Sylvia both have kids, and you wonder how those kids are going to turn out when they become parents in turn, and when this cycle ends, and how far back it goes.
That said. This is a one of a kind thing in television. There is nothing you can point to and say "well, such and such did it better," because there's nothing else out there that's doing this. The last three or four episodes are powerful television, it's just a bit of a climb getting there.
I'm still not feeling Daredevil ... in fact, far less so in the second season than in the first, which seems to be the consensus of most of my friends, even most of those who liked first season more than I did. Now, part of this -- especially since the main exceptions here are some diehard Daredevil comics fans -- may be that, as I've said before, Daredevil was never the main focus of my comics fandom. Certainly Frank Miller's run was on my radar, but I got into comics more for the weirdness (Dr Strange, Steranko's SHIELD covers, "imaginary stories" and red Kryptonite) than the grimness). Furthermore, I never liked the Punisher, and I was a regular comics reader when he first achieved his fame and got his first solo series, so I was the demographic that was supposed to like him.
Anyway. So I just haven't finished the second season of Daredevil, and who knows if I will.
Elsewhere on Netflix, Flaked was a big disappointment, a big frustration. Will Arnett is great on Arrested Development and Bojack Horseman, and I actually watched both Up All Night and Running Wilde. But this show ... if you haven't seen any of it, Flaked is about an alcoholic in recovery who is a sort of unofficial community leader in his LA neighborhood despite clearly and consistently acting in his own self-interest all the time.
Arnett developed it with Mitch Hurwitz, but somehow Hurwitz forgot one of the key lessons of Arrested Development, and Arnett forgot one of the key lessons of having been married to Amy Poehler: women are funny too, for Christ's sake. The women in Flaked are plot devices at best, and most of the women who appear don't even manage to have that much of an impact. Both plot and laughs are reserved for the men. I was going to say that none of the women have discernible personalities, but I suppose it's more true -- and more damning -- to say that the stronger and more evident their personality is, the crazier they come across, and the more of a nuisance they are to Arnett's character.
Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?
Arnett's Chip is so unlikable that although the plot developments later in the series do make things much more interesting, they don't do anything to redeem him or make him more interesting, especially since they feed into the above problem. That said, some of the writing is strong enough, and some of the performances strong enough -- especially the fantastic George Basil as Cooler -- that it turns into one of the shows where the flaws just frustrate the shit out of you because the good things make you want to keep watching. This is where the binge-watch is handy, because you can just power through it on a Saturday afternoon and it doesn't feel like a heavy time investment.
When Flaked came out, some column by some fiftysomething -- judging by the photo that runs by his byline, so he may be a sixtysomething if it's not a recent photo -- bitched that it was yet another sitcom about yet another rich young kid, which is eyeroll-inducing since a) Arnett was 45 when the show premiered, b) his character is perpetually broke and lives in a store owned by his ex-father-in-law, c) class conflict between the broke residents of the neighborhood and the wealthy developers who want to tear the store and other buildings down is actually a major theme of the show. I think "rich young kid" was a kind of code for "unmarried person without children, in southern California," especially since the other shows the columnist namechecked were Togetherness (in which only one of the four leads is rich, and he's only rich in the second season), You're The Worst (one of the characters has a nice house, but That's Television For You, the characters are pretty clearly middle class), and Love.
Love is another Netflix show, and it's one of my favorites in a while, though I definitely understand why it wouldn't be for everyone. For one thing, both of the leads are total messes, and each can be a total asshole at times.
Love is about Mickey (the great Gillian Jacobs) and Gus (co-creator Paul Rust), who are both go through break-ups from terrible relationships in the first episode and meet at the end of that episode. It's a long time before they actually go out on a date, though -- several episodes, despite Gus's obvious interest in Mickey. There are various reasons for that, but it immediately sets the show apart as very different from Mad About You or A to Z or something -- this is not about love at first sight.
Like I said, they're both messes. Mickey has drug and alcohol problems. Gus is a "nice guy" with a lot of the baggage that self-identified nice guys can bring to the table -- namely that he's not actually that nice when you come down to it, and can be a bully. They're each pretty judgmental about the other -- and they don't have a whole lot in common. There's definitely something there between them, but at the same time, after a while you're not sure whether you're really rooting for them to get together or not or if it's going to be spectacularly unhealthy.
I'm probably not making a great case for it, but you can't sum up the tone of a thing. For me, the show works terrifically. Each character has just enough likable moments for their flaws to feel like things they can overcome rather than indications that they're simply toxic people. It's a tough balance to hit, and maybe I watch enough TV to appreciate that balance.
Another reason to watch is Claudia O'Doherty as Mickey's new roommate Bertie. I don't know what she's done in the past, but I have to imagine she's going to do a lot in the years to come, because she's hilarious.
Moving on from Netflix to Hulu, we have the weird situation of The Mindy Project.
What the fuck happened here?
This is a show that has never been able to sit still for very long. Cast members have come and gone on a regular basis as the show has been constantly reconceived -- remember when Anna Camp was Mindy's best friend? When Stephen Tobolowsky was introduced midway through first season and written out as soon as second season started? The weird ways Adam Pally has come and gone from the show?
But having Mindy and Danny break up and move on via montage only to start building a plot where a different older and more conservative co-worker shows an interest in Mindy? What on Earth is the point?
If Chris Messina has moved on to another show and Mindy Kaling just really likes the dynamic of Mindy Lahiri with an older and more conservative love interest, there would be less clumsy ways of handling it. The only clumsier way of managing it would be to cast a different Italian-American from New York and have him join the practice and immediately start a bantering love-hate relationship with Mindy.
It's hard to judge the decision to have Danny and Mindy break up separately from the Mindy and Jody plot, given that one transitions almost seamlessly into the other. It's a weird choice even if it's completely one-sided and just winds up being a season of Jody pining after Mindy, just because we've been down this road before.
This has never been a consistent show, but lately my incredulity has just made it difficult to even pay attention to.
PIVOT!
On to Horace and Pete, which isn't on a streaming service but is available straight from Louis CK. This is his ten-episode series that you purchase direct from him for download or streaming, starring him, Steve Buscemi, Edie Falco, Alan Alda, and Jessica Lange, with a bunch of people in the supporting and guest cast.
Louie's entering the show as a drama for the Emmys, which is about right. It definitely has funny moments and moments structured like stand-up comedy, but the latter are the weakest parts, overall. Let's see if I can figure out how to sum this show up. Well, Horace and Pete's is a 100 year old bar in Brooklyn, named for its original owners, a pair of brothers. It's always been owned and run by a Horace and Pete ever since, and when we open, it's being run by Horace the 8th (Louie), Uncle Pete (Alda), and Horace's brother Pete (Buscemi). Pete is an outpatient at a mental hospital, who sees monsters and has violent fits if he doesn't take his medication; until that medication was developed, he was hospitalized for many years. Uncle Pete is a grouchy old racist asshole. Horace is devoted to keeping the bar going because it's a safe space for Pete, who has never lived anywhere else -- their apartment is up the stairs from the bar, and was also their childhood home.
Horace and Pete's sister Sylvia (Edie Falco) wants to sell the bar because Brooklyn real estate is worth so much and they can make a lot more money from selling it than they could make from a lifetime of running the place -- especially since the men are insistent on only serving Budweiser and watered-down liquor, no mixed drinks, with separate pricing for the regulars and the hipsters who come in to drink ironically at a dive bar.
So those are your initial conflicts. And those conflicts, that story, plays out satisfyingly, if also bleakly and incredibly depressingly. The story of the factors I've just described is a good one.
Furthermore, this is a show like nothing else, in that it's shot like a play, complete with an intermission. I know that Amy Sedaris's dialogue in the last episode was improvised -- I don't know how common that was.
The weak parts of Horace and Pete fall largely into two areas:
The stand-up-ish bullshit: the bar is populated by barflies whose chatter about current events is frankly not much different from stand-up rants, but which takes a distinctly conservative meatheaded position. Sure, I'm sure this is true to what you hear at bars like this, but it's not like "women who get abortions are all going to hell, and so are the fetuses" is a part of the conversation that's missing from television. Between this show and Louie, Louis CK stands back and gives these guys the mike without challenging them more often than you'd expect for someone who seems personally to be ... if not a liberal exactly, certainly not a Fox News Republican.
Every episode has a scene of these guys spewing this bullshit, and it just doesn't add anything. I would've started fast-forwarding through it, if the controls on the Roku were better.
Secondly, the characters in general can be very hard to like. They're very well-written and realistically conceived -- I understand why they're assholes and where that assholishness comes from. But watching unpleasant people be unpleasant to each other can be that much more unpleasant when it's realistic, you know? It just adds to the bleakness, especially when Horace and Sylvia both have kids, and you wonder how those kids are going to turn out when they become parents in turn, and when this cycle ends, and how far back it goes.
That said. This is a one of a kind thing in television. There is nothing you can point to and say "well, such and such did it better," because there's nothing else out there that's doing this. The last three or four episodes are powerful television, it's just a bit of a climb getting there.
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