[10 for 10... that's 10 movies TV shows which we give ourselves 10(ish) minutes a piece to write about. Part of our problem is we don't often have the
spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie TV show we watch. How about a 10-minute non-review full of
half-remembered scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable?]
In this edition:
- Never Have I Ever s2 - netflix
- The Bad Batch s1 - D+
- MODOK s1 - D+
- Black Monday S3 - Showtime/Crave
- Clickbait - netflix
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine S8 - NBC
- Locke & Key S2 - netflix
- Wellington Paranormal S1 - 3 - crave
- Lego Masters Season 1&2 - fox/ctv scifi
- Doom Patrol S3 - space
GO!
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Oh boy do I ever love Never Have I Ever. It hits all the teen rom com sweet spots for me and teen rom coms are kind of my least favourite of the rom com genre (because teens are kind of awful).
I indeed loved season 1, so much so that I happily did a binge re-watch of it just as season 2 was hitting Netflix, after which I was SO excited for season 2...which I was already SO excited for.
The problem now is, I'm writing about it and I can't remember much of what happened...oh, except Devi tried to date both Paxton and Ben at the same time, which wound up in her losing both of them rather quickly, returning Ben to nemesis status. Then her mom starts thinking about moving them to India to be closer to family, and also Devi having a crisis of identity when the new cool girl in school, Aneesa, is also Indian like her but kind of better in every way (or so she thinks). She accidentally starts a nasty rumour about her which she has to atone for. It all leads to Devi being forced to reconcile her behavior towards Paxton, Ben, her mom and all her friends, as well as finally addressing the trauma of losing her father last year. (Mississauga native Maitreyi Ramakrishnan is a powerhouse this season as Devi).
Meanwhile Nalini (Devi's mom) discovers that maybe India isn't going to be the supportive return home she's looking for. So back in LA, she starts getting closer to a super-handsome competitive dermatologist (played by Common) much to Devi's disgust.
Devi's BFF Fabiola starts dating, but hides that she's queer from her mom. Devi's cousin Kamala, now in a seemingly happy relationship with the man her family arranged to marry, starts having issues at work and he seems less than supportive (traditional roles get examined, and feminism within tradition prodded). Paxton gets a spotlight episode (with Gigi Hadad doing the narration), and Ben and Aneesa start dating, which sets off alarms in Devi's head?
It's all complex drama, and watching Devi handle these twists poorly over and over, yet still learning from them is both frustrating and rewarding. She's a fascinating central character, but a complicated one for sure (which is what makes for interesting, entertaining television). John McEnroe providing her inner monologue is still the most entertaining thing, and he's such a bang-on suitable choice because of his own hot-headed temperment, and his asides into his own personal tennis accomplishments - sometimes related, sometimes not - is just good comedy.
I love this show. Repeat viewings needed. More episodes needed. I kind of want to go rewatch it all right now.
[16:14]
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Time was I could spend hours upon hours thinking and writing and talking about Star Wars, any Star Wars. I have thoughts and feelings about all of it, and a lot invested into that crazy universe. But, I don't have a lot to say about Star Wars: The Bad Batch. I don't have complex feelings. I like it. It entertains me. But it doesn't rock the boat, and maybe that makes it just a little... bland.
Picking up from the recent Disney+ release of The Clone Wars Season 7, The Bad Batch follows a quintet of, let's say, aberrant clone troopers at the dawn of the Galactic Empire. The clones are Hunter (an expert tracker with a strange face tattoo), Tech (he's got super smarts and is good with gadgets), Wrecker (who is big, abnormally strong, and kind of dim), Crosshair (a sniper with a chip on his shoulder), and Echo (a "regular" clone who was experimented upon and decided to join with the Bad Batch).
In the pilot, the Batch meet their sister, Omega, who was not rapidly aged as they were so is still a pre-teen girl. Together they escape the dismantling of the cloning facility by the Empire, as well as manage to avoid the effects of Order 66. Except that Crosshair swears loyalty to the Empire, and becomes their number one enemy/pursuer. They take on mercenary work-for-hire roles, including rescuing a rancor and facing down bounty hunters (Cad Bane returns).
There's a lot of emphasis on found family, and they meet new friends along the way (Rhea Perlman plays their handler, and she's great). The show operates within the era of the building of the Empire, so it's intriguing to see that in its nascent form, an element I wish they would hit even harder.
I was iffy about Omega at first (as I always am when Star Wars introduces a youthful character) but she fast becomes utterly endearing and is never grating (the New Zealand accent is one of my favourite things). This show is almost entirely devoid of The Force which makes it stick out from most other Star Wars.
I like what happens in this show, but I'm not as enamored with it as I was with Rebels. It's very much a continuation of Clone Wars, if only more focussed. The animation picks up much of the Clone Wars aesthetic with a bit of a paintbrush feel. It often looks outstanding, there's some great set and environment designs.
[30:44]
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The animated series MODOK is, of course, an anomaly in the current Marvel catalog. Since Disney+ launched, basically all Marvel programming has fallen under Marvel studios careful watch. All other programs that were running had stopped and any in-flight productions were cancelled (RIP New Warriors...they robbed me of a live action Squirrel Girl).
MODOK (as well as a handful of other projects, including the upcoming Hit Monkey) were announced around the same time as all these other things were winding down, and the new slate of Marvel programming at Disney+ was ramping up. These shows would not be Disney+ shows, but airing on rival streaming service Hulu (in the US at least), and all would be adult animation. It was a weird decision, but not an unwelcome one.
Behind MODOK is comedian(/actor/writer) and nerd extraordinaire Patton Oswalt along with Jordan Blum and produced with Stoopid Buddy Stoodios who also make the long-running animated action figure sketch comedy Robot Chicken. The series uses the stop-motion puppets that Soopid Buddy has perfected, and employs a lot of the physical comedy language that series has used for over a decade and a half.
The story of MODOK, the "Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing", is surprisingly a dual family/workplace comedy. It follows MODOK as the leader of AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics) where he has no shortage of rivals looking to usurp him, and no shortage of minions who he feels are completely undermining him. At home, his marriage is falling apart, and his children have no respect for him.
What could have been a bog standard animated show, which resets its norm after each episode is instead an ongoing character study of this very, very unusual man, as his life crumbles before him and he needs to build it back up. He gets his greatest enemy in himself (thanks to some wonky time travel) and manages to team up with his former greatest enemy, Iron Man (Jon Hamm). He also has a rivalry with Hollywood superstar superhero Wonder Man (Nathan Fillion) who starts dating MODOK's wife.
It's a funny show, featuring occasionally extreme puppet violence that somehow is surprisingly endearing in painting a portrait of a sad-sack killing machine, but it's one for the nerds...like me.
[42:39]
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I just recently wrote about Black Monday Season 2, which was a wild, sometimes very bloody mess of a run set in the fast-times world of a Wall Street stock brokerage firm in 1990 (and rapidly expanding outside of that). Season 3 we watched hot on the heels of Season 2, and it presented a story of even greater scope and ambition, with more extremes, that managed to somehow still feel overly contained.
Dawn (Regina Hall) is fresh out of jail. Mo (Don Cheadle) is running his own record label now, and ready to settle down with Dawn. But the nature of their relationship makes progressing it a very painful experience and Mo winds up engaged to one of his new musical prodigies instead.
Blair (Andrew Rannells) meanwhile, is now a politician (sacrificing all dignity and integrity posing as a Republican gay) but gets shot at a rally. Following the attempt on his life is more attempts on his life as well as a few more successful attempts on the lives of others in the orbit of the "Jammer Group". Oh, yes, there's a serial killer on the loose.
So the gang, having all fractured by late in the season (as they do every year) must come together and devise an absurd plot to out the killer.
Stepping away from the Wall Street satire, Black Monday does lose a sense of purpose, but it doubles down on its characters and the arcs in presents them. Thinning out the peripheral cast by killing them off just further emphasizes the show's commitment to this likeable if nothing-but-flawed group of not-friends.
I like Black Monday a lot. I want to love it but it's characters maybe a little too cruel, and too lacking in self awareness, and the outlook a little too bleak to be something I want to celebrate and view over and over. That said, it is pretty damn outlandish, and there's not a lot of that type of comedy going around (at least in live action).
[56:58]
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Clickbait was HUGE for Netflix a few months back, one of those limited series that people binged in one or two sittings, just pulled through its tawdry story, and ironically a viral sensation.
But it's also one of those shows that's all empty calories, a tasty meal you don't even remember having a couple days later.
So what the hell is Clickbait?
Ah, right. This guy (Adrien Grenier - Entourage) is kidnapped, and his kidnappers put him up on a video on a youtube analog, with him holding signs saying "I hurt women" and that at 5,000,000 views, he dies.
His family, and the police and others start digging into his past, into his web history, into his accounts that start to reveal a history of joining dating sites and carrying on relationships with women who are not his wife. There's also insinuation that may something inappropriate happened between him and one of the college-age volleyball players whom he is a sports massage therapist for.
This is a critique on the nature for people to pile-on to a situation with only the thinnest of information, to form judgements without facts, and to treat clickbait headlines as "all the information I need to make a decision". It's actually pretty sharp in that regards, though the series needs to work some serious gymnastics to get to the ultimate reveal and then pile on some stakes that, seriously, just don't feel right, or earned.
That said, it is a compelling view, one that deliberately pulls you through it. Each episode shifts point-of-view to a different character, hitting harder that idea that even with multiple perspectives you may still not be getting the whole truth, the whole story. There is a savvy statement underneath this pulpy, trashy show.
It's not a must watch, but it certainly fits the bill if you want something propulsive and bingeable...it's the TV equivalent of a bag of potato chips.
[1:06:24]
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I can't believe that Brooklyn Nine-Nine has run for 8 years, and that it's over. I still remember putting it down as a show to watch in a Fall TV Preview back in 2013. Looking at the other shows that I listed along with it, only a few lasted more than a season or two, and none of them lasted as long as B99...and none of them I really enjoyed except B99.
About 2 or 3 years ago, I let my daughter start watching it, and she immediately became obsessed with it. She's watched every episode at least three or four times over, some of her favourite episodes I'm sure she's seen dozens of times. It was really hard for her to let go of the show. She put off watching the final 2-part episode, until I convinced her of its greatness and sat down and watched it with her. There were tears. Michael Shur has given us three of the greatest series enders with B99, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place. He's figured out how to close out a long running/beloved show with satisfaction and sentimentality, without being treacly. He knows how to deliver series enders that feel important, grander than just another episode, yet still fit as part of the whole.
Here he does that with one of the show's famous "heist" episodes (where the key players of the department participate in a friendly competition that means more to all of them than it logically should). I might even say that it's perhaps the best of the heist episodes, and they're all highlights of the show.
Even before the two-part finale, the show had a lot to deal with coming back: Black Lives Matter, defund the police, COVID-19... they all are brought into the series opener, and then put down a thread underneath the show that is not just story beats, but actual resonance with the characters. The stress of BLM and systemic racism in police structures took a toll on Holt and broke up his marriage to Kevin (poor Cheddar lives in two homes now). Of course Jake makes it his mission to reconcile them but it's not as simple or easy as he thinks. Rosa quits the police force and becomes an advocate for marginalized individuals who experience police harassment. They face off against a police officers union representative (John C. McGinley in a most disgustingly earnest repeat role), which hits its climax when Jake makes a wrongful arrest, and has to decide whether he wants to fight via the union or accept a semi-just punishment... does he take advantage of a broken system or set an example no one will notice or follow?
B99 still stayed funny and absurd in spite of the weight of the changing world on its back, and not a lot of sitcoms have ever managed serious issues without sacrificing the comedy for the "very special episode". I'll miss you B99, it was a good run, but it was your time to go.
[1:23:12]
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I wrote my history with the comics of Locke and Key in my season 1 10-for-10 write up, my general sentiment being that the show did some things the comic did well and did its own things well but had a general problem with tone. Was I excited for season 2 of Locke and Key? Not so much, and the first episode was a big soggy noodle of an episode that threatened to stop me watching altogether.
Season 2 returns with an all-teen-drama all-the-time episode that just drove me bonkers. I turned to my wife and said "I'm here for the magic keys and demon fightings, not teen drama". The show used the first episode as a cleanser as well as a refresher for the second season, a way to establish that Tyler's girlfriend Jackie is aging out of her understanding of magic, that Kinsey is still painfully unaware that Gabe is Dodge (and some other love triangle crap), that Bodie is lonely, that Uncle Dunc is having trouble adjusting to life in Keyhouse, that Nina, having put her alcoholism into remission, needs something else in her life, and that Gabe is escalating his plans... he wants to make his own key.
These threads then play out over the subsequent 9 episodes, and there's a lot of fun magic key action. What's frustrating is the sheer ineptitude of the Locke family to use the keys effectively. I mean, it's believable enough that these kids aren't warriors, they're not really experienced in fighting demons or crafting elaborate plans, but geez. They're the new "Keepers of the Keys" and they manage to lose SO MANY of them to demons who can't forcefully take the keys from them.
The actor playing Gabe/Dodge, Griffin Gluck, I've liked in other projects, and last season he was fine as Gabe (before we knew he was also Dodge), but here when he has to go into menacing he only sometimes pulls it off. He looks like a young Joseph Gordon Levitt, and there's not a lot of sinister happening in that face. That all said, you really do just want to give him a smack all.the.time.
There's some absolutely great moments of intensity this season, some real pulse pounding sequences of the Lockes putting themselves into jeopardy, not because they're being stupid, but because they're being daring. There's also some good creepiness here, but the show's production design doesn't really lean into it. It was part of the complaint about season 1, that horror should be a definite element of the show and it's by and large side stepped.
The first episode not-withstanding, as well as a late in season 2 flashback episode that really doesn't tell us anything we don't already know, this was really quite fun. Not perfect, but fun. It deviates wildly from the comics while still utilizing much of what the comics established, so it's not feeling like a retread. I've come out feeling more positive about season 2 than I did season 1.
[1:38:12]
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It's always hard to write about comedy in a way that actually sells the comedy and does it justice. I have in the past described whole scenes or tried to detail jokes which I know don't really serve the actual comedy well. Comedy is not meant to be explained. Explaining why something's funny only dulls the potency.
So, that said, for the three seasons, 18 episodes (so far), of Wellington Paranormal, I'm just going to hit upon some touch points that will either give you the reader an "I'm in" or "Pass" result.
Wellington Paranormal was created by Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement and super-director Taika Waititi. Clement acts as showrunner, I believe, and has a more active hand in the series, while Waititi is just an executive producer. It is actually an offshoot of What We Do In The Shadows, the 2015 movie (which itself spun off into the ongoing FX series of the same name).
Wellington Paranormal is set in Wellington, New Zealand and follows O'Leary and Minogue, two police officers who have been tasked by Maaka, their Sergeant, to head the "Paranormal Crimes" division.
Wellington isn't a super metropolis so the type of crime that Minogue and O'Leary are used to facing is mostly domestic disturbances, street crime, break-ins that sort of thing. They have a very particular demeanor when handling people they encounter in these situations (it's asking a lot of rhetorical questions) and they approach the paranormal with the same casualness, until situations escalate and Minogue typically freaks out.
The same conceit of What We Do In The Shadows is employed here, which is that the officers are being followed by a documentary crew. Toasty mentioned in a recent review how he prefers found footage to this documentary style, but for comedy (not necessarily horror) it works well enough (see also The Office, Parks and Recreation, Modern Family etc). The thing that Wellington Paranormal does with its documentary footage that is unique, however, is it acknowledges that documentary footage is/has been captured (in one episode in season two and another in season three, the cops reference the fact that they've seen the documentary What We Do In The Shadows, which I love).
I found the series to be hilarious from the get go, right in my wheelhouse humour-wise. I giggle incessantly during the show. The storytelling and the types of paranormal encounters they experience get ever more creative as the series progresses, to the point that season three has many of the series highs (though I did like the pod people of season 1 and the follow-up episode even more...there's actually some continuity).
The show is goofy, silly comedy, relying a lot upon the officious mannerisms of O'Leary and the denseness of Minogue, but it also is very often exceptionally clever with its use of paranormal activity and later episodes toy with horror convention much more than the earlier ones do.
This will go on the "rewatch often" pile. I think it's funnier than What We Do In The Shadows.
[ok, one joke... one of my favourite lines in the show. Sergeant Maaka asking his assembly of officers if anyone has seen his missing box of jam donuts his grandma made. "My name was clearly written on the side of the box! 'Maaka' written in marker." The New Zealand accent truly is one of my favourite things.]
[1:53:57]
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I'm long past my point of enthusiasm or interest in "reality TV". There are some people who subsist almost solely on them for their entertainment diet, and I pity them. In recent years the only "reality TV" I have watched/binged is Nailed It, a baking show where the contestants are knowingly set up to fail in trying to bake elaborate cakes and things beyond their capacity, yet try their best anyway (in a time too short to *actually* accomplish it) with hilarious results. But I'm not here to talk about Nailed It.
Lego Masters I started PVRing for my stepson, who is a Lego buff and seemingly more so as he ages. I thought the show would be something he would really be keen on, programming directed directly at him.
Alas, he mostly plays video games, and occasionally watches murder procedurals.
I just put an episode on while killing time, just to see, and while all the usual manipulative bullshit editing of reality TV is still there (just show me the people building!) by the half hour mark of this hour long show the projects are built and the judging commences.
And wow, what some of these people build is outstanding, and like any specialty form of art, whether it's cakes or blown glass or metal forging or home renovating, you have to have at least a passing interest to really care, but it's probably possible for anyone to appreciate the skill and craft put into these Lego diaramas or constructs.
Lego Masters is a rare show where it's relatively clear who are the strong and who are the weak each episode. There's no upset-for-sake-of-drama, and the contestants are all very, very supportive of one another. The challenges they face are frequently very challenging and even though they may sometimes cater to a strong skill of one designer or another, it doesn't guarantee anything.
Some of the challenges, my favourites actually, involve stress testing the designs, whether holding up in strong winds, or to a shaking foundation, or to weight put atop them. It's impressive what those little plastic bricks can do.
We watched about half of season two before catching a marathon of Season 1 (only catching the latter half of Season 1) and then finishing season two. They're immensely interesting to watch, to see what they're asked to do and to see what each team comes up with. Will Arnett hosts and is amiable enough to not be annoying, and smart enough to know when his dumb jokes are dumb, and play into them.
I kind of got hooked.
[2:06:06]
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Doom Patrol, season 3 baby! It's still airing as I write this, but I'm just so enthused that I have to say that the best special effect on the show is Brendan Frasier's swearing.
As the series progresses, the showrunners seem to be on a mission to have the most swears per minute of any form of entertainment ever (they've got to have beaten Deadwood by this point). Frasier is the king of swearing in the show (and now in real life), but he's obviously been training the rest of the cast because all of them have gotten very, very good at hitting those swears for maximum comedic punctuation.
But Frasier's voice coming out of Robotman/Cliff Steele is just one of the absolute best things on Earth. The way Cliff swears makes me laugh every.time. It's like when a child swears not knowing that what they're saying is inappropriate...that's how Cliff swears. And he does it so, so much, and with such gusto. [Edit. Just watched episode 8, and there is, what may be, the best scene on TV this year, with Robotman (the guy in the suit) meeting a physical subconscious entity of Cliff Steele (actual Fraser) and the "What.the.fuuuck?" exchange is fucking goddamn deliriously fucking glorious.]
This season has been an interesting affair, with a lot of plot lines that don't seem to really go anywhere and a main plot line that has unseen purpose. The arrival of Michelle Gomez to the cast has been a fucking delight. She's just an absolutely compelling presence with the driest of dry British humour.
The show has sent Rita, in search of purpose, time traveling. It's sent Larry off into space and back again with a little lump inside him. It's solidified Cliff's reunion with his daughter and welcomed in a grandson he loves to bits, but also given him something more serious to avoid (or deal with irrationally). As for Jane, she's trying to liberate her host, Kay, to help her be well and take control, but the other personalities are ready to go to war in a fight for self-preservation. Cyborg struggles with his identity, and identifying the trauma of what his father has done to him. Oh, and Chief's dead, and the Sisterhood of Dada are brought in as their main ...not antagonists, but, rather...thing... for this season (with the Brotherhood of Evil, led by a petty, petty Brain [he's a brain in a big, immobile, metal skull] and Monseur Mallah [a French-speaking gorilla wearing a beret] rearing their heads).
[Edit: episode 8, even ignoring the great Robotman/Cliff "what the fuck?"-off, is maybe the best episode of the series yet as each character has to face off with their subconscious self, and it gets, real, real deep. It's a potent, but still very very wild episode].
Doom Patrol is not a superhero show. It's a comic book show, yes, and it features people with super powers, yes, but they're quick to point out they're not superheroes. Early in the season one of them points out that they won't bother to intervene in something bad happening because they seem to just make things worse whenever they do... so they're just going to sit it out and veg, loaf, whatever.
It's a bizarre entity but always unexpected, and even if a particular plot doesn't resonate, man all that swearing will elicit more than a few hearty chuckles.
[2:18:29] (only 60 minutes over..sigh)
---FIN---
Dang. Now I want to rewatch Never Have I Ever again too.
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