In this edition:
What We Do In The Shadows Season1 - FX
Doom Patrol Season1 - Space/Crave
Krypton Season1 - Space/Crave
Fleabag Seasons1&2 - Amazon Prime
AP Bio Season2 - NBC
Westworld Season2 - HBO
Review Seasons1-3 - Crave
Letterkenny Season1 - Crave
Barry Seasons1&2 - HBO
3% Season1 - Netflix
...aaand GO!
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I love Flight of the Conchords, which led me to discover the film Eagle vs Shark which Jemaine Clement had done with Taika Waititi. I wish I could say I fell in love with Waititi's absurd drollness immediately but it took a couple films to get me there. The cinematic What We Do In The Shadows takes on a semi-improvised mockumentary format (in the Christopher Guest model) and is such a well crafted piece that should live in growing infamy as one of the funniest movies of the decade. I worried that a TV translation of the movie would lessen it somehow. Classic cinematic comedies grow in the zeitgeist over the years, as people start incorporating quotes from it into their regular lives. With a TV show in the offering would it dilute the film's penetration into the zeitgeist as it divides people's attentions? And could it even possibly live up to the film's brilliance, without seeming like a pale copy.
What little faith I had and what little I knew of the production. Clement is credited as the show's creator, also he has written and directed some of the episodes as well as crafted an exceptional ensemble of writers. He brought semi-legendary (and Kent household favourite) comedic performer Matt Berry into a cast of largely unknown talent, all who very quickly proved themselves exceptional in the first half hour of the show. Waititi himself was not far away from the proceeding either. It's a show that transposes the concept to Staten Island (Toronto posing as...) and finds many new angles to vampires in this setting. There are genuine shocks, surprises, and big belly laughs in every episode. It's very much the equal of its predecessor film, and rather than reinventing the world, it shares it nicely, sporting with one of the best ever cameo ensembles mid way through its run.
[12:27]
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I honestly had low expectations for Doom Patrol. I've been an longtime fan of the comics but it's taken many forms over the years, none of which I thought would be at all palatable to a mass audience, nor even adaptable into a live action format of any kind. Plus, I had heard that Brendan Fraser and Matt Bomer (the show's biggest names, next to Timothy Dalton) would be voicing Robotman and Negative Man, but with other actors doing the physical performance. I thought, well, talent like that only providing voice work, sounds kind of cheap. Turns out I was wrong on all fronts, and I'm so pleased to be wrong.
Doom Patrol is one of my favourite shows of the year. It dispenses with any pretense of superheroism, and instead focuses on the human element of its cast, a menagerie of science-freaks... a former race car driver with his brain in a robot, a woman with 64 split personalities (each with their own superpower), a woman who can shapeshift (but with great strain and, when relaxed or anxious turns into a blob), a man with a possibly alien spirit living within him, and the Chief, who tries to help them all mentally and physically...but is he as altruistic as he seems?
Time is strange in the show, and perhaps its only drawback...the characters seem to have lived long lives in isolation (Rita since the 50's, Larry since the 60's, Jane since the 70's, Cliff being a relative newcomer) but are only now dealing with aspects of themselves (Larry coming to terms with both his sexuality and negative spirit partnership, Rita letting go of her ego and pretense). Even Chief has been around for over 100 years at this point. The show barely touches on why time is so askew, as if these great spans of time are barely even that.
The show embraces the weirdness -- there's a vengeful mouse in one episode and a donkey who has an entire subdimension up its ass in another for example -- but the show always centers on the emotional drama of the characters (and likewise understands their absurd reality). There's real heart to the show, and much of the charm is in the vast unexpectedness. Fraser and Bomer also surprisingly appear a lot, actual starring roles, but in flashbacks for the characters. Fraser most notably gives an award-worthy vocal performance as Cliff Steele... the intonations in his reactions are ceaselessly hilarious. And the show looks great, very cinematic. Visual effects may be a little cheaper than a big budget movie but for a small platform like the DC Universe, the show has a very big feel.
[23:54]
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Krypton was a hard pass for me when it first came out. A show about Superman's grandfather on Krypton? Yawn. Who wants that? Who is asking for it? Nobody. The show was in rumoured production for a while...for so long in fact I had thought it had fallen through altogether, but no, the SYFY channel in the states was committed and made the damn thing. It looked ... not great from the commercials I had seen and I wanted nothing to do with it.
So what changed? I dunno, perhaps it was the teasing for Season 2 which showed glimpses of Brainiac (who looked really comics-accurate for a change) and Doomsday and Lobo... plus I caught wind that Adam Strange was in this too, which piqued my curiosity. So I gave the first episode a chance and it was... not that bad, actually. The show's creators made a real effort to build a unique society in Kandor City on Krypton, highlighting the unfair class and hierarchical structures. It seemed like there could be some actual meat on these bones, playing towards hard sci-fi rather than loose superheroism.
Alas, the show gets kind of lost in the loose superheroism, and forgets about the harder sci-fi elements. The intriguing production values of the pilot start to look cheaper and cheaper the more the season runs on and sets are used and reused and budgets start to run out. Story wise, there's a lot of treading water happening, and a lot of melodrama that doesn't really go anywhere, and yet, there's enough momentum and more than a few surprises along the way [Zod] to make things interesting. And yes, Brainiac, when he finally shows up, is pretty damn cool. I'm not going to be right on top of Season 2 when it comes out, but I'll give it a watch eventually when time permits.
[31:44]
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Phoebe Waller-Bridge is one of the fastest rising names in Hollywood. I was completely unaware of her until about a year ago, when Killing Eve hit TV screens. She was the show's creator and showrunner, but the only reason I even store the name in my brain was that she was also the voice of Lando's robot lover L337 in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Her voice in Solo was so assured and hilarious, and somehow intimately familar without having ever heard it before.With this newfound familiarity, I began hearing about how great her British TV programmes were, specifically Fleabag. I had no idea what it was about, but the first ep lands us in Fleabag's lap (a lot of the characters go unnamed) as she navigates her family, her sexuality, and her lingering grief and depression some time after the accidental death of her best (and only?) friend. It all sounds very dramatic and intense, but Fleabag's candidness, taking aside glances or breaking fourth wall mid scene addressing the camera, ingratiates you to this troubled character.
It's a character study definitely and she can make any situation uncomfortably funny (I don't know that it ever falls directly into cringe comedy, however, because those asides-at-camera deflate some of the cringe-y tension with Fleabag aware that her behavior was inappropriate, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes intentionally). Season 1's 6 episodes are a funny, if challenging ride, but Season 2 is where the show explodes into brilliance. Fleabag meets her match in a sexy Catholic priest played by Andrew Scott. Their chemistry is incredible. Plus her character is in a better space at the start of the season and much of the difficulties in the season start to be external to her (Olivia Coleman's beefed up role as her cheerily spiteful artist stepmother is a glorious thing to watch). I cannot overstate how worth it it is to get through season one in order to have season 2. It's up there with Leftovers season 3 as one of the great works of television.
[43:26]
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RIP AP Bio. Your life was cut short way too soon. This was a show that easily could be spun off into 17 different shows, each one following one of the characters within it. It built such an amazing community in its 25-ish episodes, call it the Simpsons effect where you have a large roster of recurring background characters who occasionally seep into the foreground then recede into the back again. In this case it's a high school in Toledo, Ohio.
The first season found fallen Harvard philosophy prof Jack (Always Sunny In Philadelphia's Glenn Howerton) taking a denigrating job as a high school advanced placement biology teacher, living in his dead mother's house, and having zero interest in being that Welcome Back, Kotter guy. He wasn't going to do anything that gave any impression he cared. He wasn't going to dress in anything but sweats and t-shirts and baggy sweaters, he wasn't going to teach the damn class (keep quiet and you get an "A"), and he wasn't going to do anything but get the hell out of his current situation. He was prickly and sarcastic and even a little bullying towards his students. But Principal Durbin (Patton Oswalt) was so enamored to have a Harvard prof in his school, he let Jack get away with anything.
The show's tone shifted quickly in that first season, from focusing on Jack's caustic nature to how Jack's caustic nature just makes things worse for Jack. He was its focal character, but we see him through the eyes of everyone else, and everyone else sees him for who he is...and kind of accepts him. The class of students is a glorious ensemble of nerd types who very quickly start to defy the usual expectations of nerd types, and Season 2 gives way to even more of their lives and thoughts.
Jack meanwhile softens a tad in season 2, finding a relationship that gets him and sees through him, even though his get-the-hell-out-of-Toledo puts a barrier between them. Paula Pell, as Durbin's office admin, is the shows secret weapon. Her relentless positivity, even when she's hopping mad (literally in one occasion) highlights a comedic performer left in the shadows far too long. She's brilliant. The entire cast of this thing is top to bottom amazing and I want more and more time with them all.
[54:13]
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I reviewed Westworld back on April 14, 2017. So it's been over 2 years since I last watched the show. I was worried launching into Season 2 how much I had forgotten that would be important to proceedings. Turns out, most of it was recapped subtly in-show or it came back when necessary.
The first season was pretty damn tight with the culminating realization that there's two different timelines at play by the end, but season 2 again plays with timelines but with less fluidity. A lot of it has to do with Bernard's memories fracturing and putting him in different timelines in his own head, but it makes for messy watching. As well the show's direction seems to be exploring whether the artificial intelligence of Westworld is still life or if they are just unreal constructs with the facade of emotions and intelligence... programmed responses rather than learned behaviour, programmed memories and dreams, rather than a real subconsciousness.
It's that aspect I keyed into the most, as some characters felt like real, thinking people and others felt like automatons. It was wholly intentional, as Dolores' actions turn her more and more into a monster, the more human she seems, same with some of the other characters who, despite their programming being changed find their way back to their natural state of mind. The humans become increasingly callous, and Dolores, leading the revolt, responds in kind. The pile of dead bodies in this show (both hosts and humans) is astonishing, and likely record setting. Like nudity in the first season, viewers become numb to death this season, and at a certain point death doesn't ever seem like something even possible anymore.
First half of the season struggles to find its feet again, a diversion into Shogunworld is visually fantastic and its parallels to Westworld are delightful, but it's almost unnecessary story-wise. The latter half pulls itself back together and gains its directive thrust (an episode focusing on one of the native characters is a real high point for the series, a meditative, beautiful and painful hour of television). Though not nearly as rewarding overall as season 1, it's still a pretty great watch.
[1:06:37]
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For the past 10 years I've come to know Andy Daly as one of the best improv character performers in podcasting. Daly knows how to inject a richness and depth to his characters that makes them feel like larger than life people rather than just a pliable joke. There's an inner consistency he brings to them on shows like Comedy Bang Bang, Womp It Up, and his own Andy Daly Pilot Project that spotlight him as a premiere improv performer.
Review [with Forrest MacNeil] put Daly on camera as Forrest MacNeil, host of a program where he reviews any and all life experiences as submitted by viewers of the show. It may seem like just simple basis for quasi-sketch comedy, but in the process of reviewing things like "Doing a William Tell" or "Being falsely accused" or "Eating 15 pancakes" we find a character study of Forrest MacNeil, a family man who is willing to sacrifice anything and everything for the integrity of his program. It really kicks into high gear early in the first season when he has to review what it's like to get a divorce, and culminates at its peak when he's asked to review what it's like to kill a man. The after affects of these scenarios linger as he does things like reviewing what it's like to join the mile high club, or get into a bare knuckle brawl, or start a cult.
Forrest is not insane per se, but his commitment to his reviewing integrity is certainly questionable. The show has some moments that will surely send shivers up your spine while also making you laugh close to tears. We learn through Review that Forrest, in trying to be a good reviewer, becomes a pretty terrible person despite his better nature. Watching Daly do despicable things so reticently, so reluctantly (like blackmailing his girlfriend) is the performer's most shining moments. And it end so aptly, on such a perfect note that really brings the shows philosophical implications into light. A real wild ride of a series.
[1:18:57]
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There was a low brow primalness to Trailer Park Boys that utterly repelled me from the show, but one that I respected for giving a Canadian property a rather massive hit outside its borders. But celebrating trash culture in a scripted or improvised way made it like the Jersey Shore of comedy. I was under the impression that Letterkenny would be more of this, more dumb humour for the dumb people to celebrate their dumb lives in dumb culture.
But very quickly in the Letterkenny pilot it becomes obvious that this isn't about dumbness as comedy, but an exploration of small town Ontario life, and that the hicks aren't necessarily dumb, but just kind of bored. Created and starring Jared Keeso (originally started as a youtube series), the show highlight the small town animosity between the farming hick, the drug addled EDM skids kids, the hockey jocks, and the religious freaks. It's a look at the young life in town, highschool through to early 20s, and it's mile-a-minute dialogue is so regionally colloquial and fast paced that it's really hard to keep up with.
Via the show Keeso has a lot to say about this small town life, both in celebration and in critiquing it. His character, Wayne, is the toughest guy in town (an early episode declares he's retired from the fighting life, but upon learning about the other jerks claiming to be the toughest guy in town, he takes each of them on in surprisingly organized and civilized fashion) and perhaps the most sensible. He suffers fools, because he has no other choice. He's a farmer, living the life he wants to live, but seemingly only ever tolerating the world around him.
It's a hectic show that is looking-down-its-nose at lowbrow comedy while also kind of reveling in it. It walks a tightrope in this regard and does it better than almost every other effort of this type. It's also shot incredibly well, with a cinematic quality to its composition and editing. I will slowly pick at it and see how it changes from season to season as it gets further away from its youtube roots.
[1:32:30]
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Barry has been a bit of a media darling since its debut on HBO last year. Bill Hader left SNL for other projects but his film work (outside of his great costarring role in Amy Schumer's Trainwreck) never really put him in the spotlight. His series Documentary Now! with Fred Armisen on IFC is one of the greatest showcases of his character-creation talents but it's a show largely gone unrecognized by the media (as most IFC shows do). But in Barry he gets his starring role as a discharged veteran with sever PTSD who works as a hitman and decides to try and quit the life when he joins an acting class in L.A. It's a boffo premise that shouldn't really work, but does because of Hader's committed performance and Henry Winkler's egocentric drama teacher.
In a sense Barry is taking the piss out of the world of Hollywood wanna bes and the people who prey on them, and yet it also understands them very, very well. It blends this examination of these delusional actor types (and their equally delusional mentors) with the various mafia figures Barry encounters, who have delusions of their own (only theirs often result in extreme violence). The key player in this is Noho Hank, an absurdly wide-eyed, cheerful character for the mafia, but an utter joy every moment he is on screen.
The first season ends with the understanding that Barry, our protagonist, is outright a bad man. He's a wolf hiding in sheep's clothing because he desperately wants to be a sheep, but his nature as a wolf is inescapable. This is the thrust of season 2, finding Barry looking ever more sheepish, but those fangs come out far too often. There are some solid twists this season, with a dynamite middle act in episode 5 where Barry decides not to do a hit his normal way and it leads into perhaps the wildest, most surreal action movie ever. It's just a damn golden piece of television that justifies the show's existence from now to eternity.
As much as I love that episode and Noho Hank, I still have problems with Barry most of the time, primarily it's that Dexter effect where this bad man, trying to be a good man, has insinuated himself into regular people's lives. Decent enough people who now actually care for him and he could wind up getting them killed, or worse, leaving them with the emotional scars when they discover they were friends or lovers with a monster. I have a difficult time with stories like these. I like Barry as a bad man trying to do good, but I don't like Barry as a bad man pretending he's a good man and willing to kill to maintain that illusion.
[1:46:04]
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3% has been on Netflix for a few years now but it barely makes a dent in the discussion around what's worth watching. I recall on seeing a few positive mentions of it on Facebook when it first started but next to nothing since. Likely because of the lack of attention I never bothered to figure out what it was actually about. I heard it was a bit dystopian and figured it was probably about class issues in a future world.
Which is what it is exactly about.
In the not too distant future Brazil, things have gotten really bad. Society has effectively collapsed and it's a struggle to survive on its run-down streets. Everyone is given the promise that, at 20 years old, they can take "the process" and perhaps become one of the 3% to go to the island, a place of refined, luxurious existence, perfection, heaven. The first season follows a subset of the hundreds of entrants as they take the latest round of the process. The show gives us plenty of world building, insight into how these structures that govern the 3% work and what the trials are accomplishing. Each episode focuses on a specific trial, as well as a specific character, providing flashbacks for that character. It's the Lost model, and it's very effective here.
Also at play is the work of Ezequiel, the trial-runner, who is under audit from the ruling council, and has a secret life that threatens his prestigious role. As well there's the threat of an underground resistance group who don't believe there should be an elite society, that its riches should be shared with everyone, that the trials are subjective and discriminatory and can take a deadly toll on the participants (sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally).
It's a show with limited budget and limited sets, but it doesn't need more than what it has, and it leans into the drama and intrigue it's set up. It cares about its characters, and the more time you spend with them, coming to understand them, you learn that they're all desperate in their own way to achieve their goal, and that none of them are intending to be bad, but none are all that good either... except maybe Fernando, a character through which the show examines ableism like no other show or movie I've seen.
There are a few things that don't make sense, such as how the process cant discern if people have fake implants (when scarring is a telltale sign) or if they have smuggled implants on their body.
[1:58:22]
Ran a little long in each of these little reviews but that's because most of them venture on the smarter side of television and I enjoy exploring them.
