1-1-1: K.E.T.C.H.U.P.

Kent's Erratic TV Critiquing Has Unveiled a Problem.
He just can't catch up.

This time:

Big Mouth Season 7 - Netflix [10 Episodes]

What We Do In The Shadows Season 5 - FX [10 Episodes]

How To With John Wilson Season 3 - HBO [6 Episodes]

Only Murders in the Building Season 3 - Disney+ [10 Episodes]

The Bear Season 2 - Disney+ [10 Episodes]

The Afterparty Season 2 - Apple [10 Episodes] 

Loki Season 2 - Disney+ [6 Episodes]

Our Flag Means Death Season 2 - HBO [8 Episodes]

Shoresy Season2 - Crave [6 Episodes]

Light & Magic - Disney+ [6 Episodes]

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Big Mouth Season 7 - Netflix [10 Episodes]

The What 100:  The Big Mouth kids are about to graduate from grade 8 and go to high school... except maybe Jay, who's too preoccupied with Lola dating his brother. Coach Steve suffers separation anxiety and teaches summer school. Andrew hurts his nuts and can't do his favourite thing, much to Maury's dismay, but his personality turns around, and he finally receives his father's love. Nick does drugs in New York and is sent to private school. Jesse gets a bully, and becomes part of the in crowd. Matthew has to up his gay-A-game.

1 Great: The hormone monsters never fail to yield big laughs, but it's absolutely Thandiwe Newton's season as Mona, Missy's hormone mistress that leaves the biggest impression...even in a season when Megan Thee Stallion makes a multi-episode appearance.  Newton's commitment and enthusiasm is just next level and delivers every time.

1 Good: I love the show's commitment to diversity, in every form. Sexuality, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, neurodiversity, it doesn't pick any lane, it keeps crossing over. Putting a spotlight episode on on-the-spectrum Caleb, is done with thoughtfulness, sensitivity and humour. You can tell they go to great depths to both get things right and still find humour that is inclusive.  The stab at an international episode finds 3-5 minute vignettes of horny pre-teens around the world and seems pretty authentic, but the very short stories run the risk of painting whole cultures with a single brush.

1 Bad: If the show is starting to lag anywhere, it's actually in its two lead characters. Nicky, Nick Krolls primary character, is, at this point, the most drab character on the show, running through the usual heteronormative dating scenarios and emotions.  With everything else going on around him, his escapades just seem so route one.  John Mulaney's Andrew, meanwhile, is probably the most prominent character on the show, but he's also the most difficult to watch. He is the show's bottom rung, the one place where, in a show that accepts and celebrates peoples sexual desires, and seems to go to great lengths to not kink shame anyone, it can just point and say "not that, though". After 7 seasons of "not that though" one would hope for some growth, but with Andrew, every step forward is a stumble that winds up five steps sideways. 

To be clear, Nick and Andrew aren't really bad, but if I'm to point at my least favourite thing in a show that has, season after season, made me laugh so freaking hard and challenged me with my own hang-ups with limits pushing, it's really these two that don't enthuse me as much anymore.

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What We Do In The Shadows Season 5 - FX [10 Episodes]

The What 100: Much of the season revolves around Guillermo hiding the fact that he got turned from Nandor, for the embarrassment of a familiar being turned by someone other than his vampire master would be so great that the vampire would have to kill both the familiar and himself.  But the vampirism isn't taking like it normally should, so Laszlo conducts experiments to try and science it out. Nadja connects with the local Antipaxos society on Long Island.  Colin Robinson runs for local office, and reconnects with Evie. 

1 Great: I thought putting Harvey Guillen as the center of the season was a brilliant move, as Guillermo was often the straight man in the prior seasons, but he's the most suited to be audience surrogate. Everyone else is just too weird. Guillen more than steps up, he crushes it, bringing his performance to another level without materially changing his character's nature.

1 Good: The visceral shock of Laszlo's experiments gone awry: the Guillermo clones. 

1 Bad: Kristen Schaal is promoted to cast member in the opening credits this season and is barely used at all. Likewise, it seemed like Matt Berry was taking a back seat most of the season.

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How To With John Wilson Season 3 - HBO [6 Episodes]

The What 100:  John learns us how to: find a public restroom, clean our ears, work out, watch "the game", watch birds, and track our packages. It's another brilliant 6 episodes of video collage, surreal visual poetry, and thematic ideas juxtaposed with the serious oddness of reality.

1 Great: John's exploration of how things get from one destination to another takes him from the doorsteps of New York, exposing the massive problem of package theft, to learning how a piano is packed up and shipped, to learning how people are packed up and shipped to the future via cryogenics. It's a wild, upsetting ride. 

1 Good: (but also great) John looks to take up the art of birdwatching, which leads him to explore the idea of surveillance, which sends him down a rabbit hole of what is "truth" in video, exposing his own role in deceiving the audience. This leads him down a couple of conspiracy wells, to spending time with a Titanic conspiracy theorist/ex-cop, and ultimately...attempted murder?

1 Bad: This is the last season of How To... and it makes me very, very sad. This is one of the most unique shows ever made, looking at and venturing out into the world from such a different perspective. It's a show (and a guy) that's both awkward and curious about what's just outside our peripheral vision...what aren't we looking at?  It's not trying to provide answers (it's just a comedy show) but in just raising the questions, exploring it in the way that he does, it's pretty illuminating.  I'm going to miss it, but Wilson is on the radar.

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Only Murders in the Building Season 3 - Disney+ [10 Episodes]

The What 100:  Oliver finally is directing a play again only for his lead, a huge superhero franchise star (played by Paul Rudd) to be murdered, dying on stage. The stress of trying to solve another murder while save his dream is too much and Oliver suffers a heart attack. Charles, meanwhile, has to sing on stage and gets engaged,  the stress of either sends him to the white room. Mabel is about to be evicted from the titular building, and finds with her septuagenarian besties so preoccupied with their lives she's left to running the podcast on her own...only she finds a new partner.

1 Great:  Despite not believing that Oliver is capable of writing a musical on his own, Death Rattle The Musical seems at once utterly inane and absolutely something I would enjoy seeing.  The patter song that Charles has to sing, which features prominently in the season, is pretty damn catchy and earwormy. As well the whole stage/backstage setting is a great place for a murder mystery (and the show connects it back to "the building" in pretty shocking and hilarious fashion. The mystery this season really worked well.

1 Good: I find myself transfixed by Selena Gomez every time she's on screen. I sometimes can't tell if she's acting badly or beautifully, but regardless, whatever it is she does, it's captivating.  She's such a specific performer, and acts and moves in such a specific manner that any role she does she has to make her own, but I think it may be hard for writers to play into her persona, because it's so hard to pin down. She's dry and reserved, but bright and charismatic.  She's very internalized, but also open.  Gomez sells us on a millennial who is best friends with a couple of boomers.

1 Bad: This season was very bad at exploring the impact of the show's events on the character. Mabel, particularly seemed unmoored, without a true storyline to call her own.  She was the primary investigator in the murder, sure, but with the talk of moving out, with the podcast shenanigans, with the new boyfriend, none of it seemed to have focus for her.  For Charles, he gets engaged and then something happens and it's over and it seems to have almost no impact on him. Similarly, the show seemed to forget that Oliver's heart attack had any meaningful impact on him.  The story of the season was really intriguing but it kind of let the characters down.  Bringing in big name distractions (Meryl Streep was good, but she can't NOT be good, but she's also distracting;  Matthew Broderick was only distracting; Paul Rudd was maybe TOO Paul Rudd for the role that perhaps needed a bit more of a straight man).

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The Bear Season 2 - Disney+ [10 Episodes]

The What 100: This is one of the most incredible seasons of television ever. As the crew toil on renovating the restaurant, the stakes escalating for each of them, they must also develop new skills and new attitudes if they're going to make it work.

1 Great: "Forks". Cousin Richie goes off to train at another restaurant for a month where he has to start at the bottom polishing forks. Richie has been the most difficult and antagonistic character of the series. He's an obstacle that every character in the show has to navigate because it seems he's always trying to stop things from changing. This episode is the Richie spotlight, where we get insight into who he is as a person (with little hints at his life dropped earlier in the season). This is the episode where Richie finds himself, and finds purpose, and decides to no longer be the obstacle, but the conveyor, the path that helps keep things moving, and it's freaking beautiful to see such transformation happen. Gorgeous work from Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and a magnificent surprise Olivia Coleman appearance.  

1 Great: "Fishes". Heading back a half dozen years or so to Christmas dinner at the Berzatto family home, where Carmy makes an appearance after having effectively disappeared from their lives for some time. It's a frantic 66 minutes of too many cooks, family tension, and some deep, deep insight into why the siblings (Carmy, Natalie and Michael) are the way they are, and by extension, why the kitchen of Chicago Original Beef that Michael established was so unruly when Carmy came along. 

It all comes back to mom. 

And holy shit, if people didn't think Jamie Lee Curtis deserved that Oscar before (I don't know who those people are, but if they exist...), well, she smashes scalding hot yam in their face with this one.  It's one of the best performances ever.  I don't know Curtis' exposure to bipolar disorder but she seems to have a keen understanding of what it looks like and how to convey it. She's an absolute juggernaut, but it's not a selfish performance at all... it's the performance of selfishness, sure, but she's is fuelling every scene, giving the other performers everything they need, creating an energy that fills the whole household, and it's as toxic as carbon monoxide.  It's beautiful chaos. It's like within minutes of being with Curtis' Donna, suddenly the whole world of The Bear comes in to clear focus. I get it now.

1 Great: Good gravy, this cast is awesome, and much credit to the showrunner Christopher Storer for recognizing that each of these characters deserves a spotlight. Of course Jeremy Allen White's Carmy and Ayo Edibiri's Sydney are the duelling forces of the show, fighting one another yet seemingly needlessly as they're trying to reach the same objective. But it's giving Richie, or Liza Colón-Zayas's Tina or Lionel Boyce's Marcus their own side journey in culinary education that provides both insight into that world but also fantastic character growth.  So many shows want to keep their characters  contained in a box, because the reality is that if characters grow, then they grow apart, and that's death for a situational tv programme. This show dares to grow their characters, and to show the dangers of what not growing can mean, (talking to you Carm).

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The Afterparty Season 2 - Apple [10 Episodes] 

The What 100: Aniq accompanies Zoe to her sister's wedding at the groom's family estate, meeting her parents for the first time, looking to gain their blessing in asking her to marry him. But Aniq's plans are interrupted when the groom winds up dead in bed the morning after the ceremony.  The groom's mother locks down the estate but refuses to call the police, so Aniq calls ex-detective Danner in to help solve the case.

1 Great: The pastiches were so on point, from the rom com sequel, to the Austin-esque period romantic drama, to hard-boiled noir, to the series high point of a mock Wes Anderson production. Nobody does Wes Anderson like Wes Anderson. And people who try to do Wes Anderson generally fail at doing Wes Anderson. It's hard to do. That's what having a singular specific vision gets you.  But the episode "Hannah" gets the closest to Anderson in style that I've seen, and it's because they balance the framing and colour palette so beautifully with Anderson's sense of humour but also pathos.  After this, the heist movie, the erotic thriller, the epic romantic drama just can't quite hold up to the same heights of ambition, but they still fare pretty excellently.  Episode 9's Hitchcock-esque neo-noir thriller with Christopher Miller in the director seat does come close to being as inspired. 

1 Good: This second season actually improved upon the first season, still adhering to the conceit of each episode being a pastiche of a specific genre or style, but in having a cast of characters that are so intimately bonded (as opposed to last season's high school reunion of characters who don't really know each other at all) it creates an intimacy and familiarity that's far more engaging to explore, and makes secrets that much more shocking when they come to light.  We binged this season voraciously.

1 Bad: As the season goes on, there becomes a burden of storytelling  that -- as with the first series -- starts interrupting the pastiche and breaks the sort of visual narrative. It's not awful, but I'm always kind of sad when we cut away from the homage and into what the rest of the cast is doing.  I don't think they've perfected the conceit of the show by any means but you can see the growth.

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Loki Season 2 - Disney+ [6 Episodes]

The What 100: With the death of He Who Remains last season, the timelines are branching out of control, and if the TVA can't contain the branching, everything...literally everything... could be destroyed. Loki, who has manifested "timeslipping" powers that he can't control, is doing everything he can to save the one place and the people who gave him a chance to be something other than what was expected of him.

1 Great: The first four episodes of this six-episode season kind of put the titular character to the side. Loki was there, but he was part of the gang. The show seemed to be focussed on the situation that Loki season one created, and not the character of Loki so much. Sure, Sylvie and Mobius and Renslayer were getting some new dimension to them, but it seemed at the expense of developing Loki, beyond turning him into a Doctor Who-esque rallyer of doing the right thing in timey-wimey adventures.  

Episodes 5 & 6, though... it was ALL Loki. Everything that came before, not just this season, but the prior season as well, was building to these two episodes of exploring this Loki variant: who he was, who he is, and what he wants to become. Head writer Eric Martin has his name on every script, and this singular driving voice creates a consistency and focus in this season that other 6-episode Marvel series are missing. All of what happens isn't to build to some future Marvel event (at least not obviously) but instead to a rather monumental change in the character of Loki from when we first met him in Thor over a decade ago.  Martin drops little nuggets hinting as to where he's going with it all throughout the season and then goes there. It's so satisfying to see a Marvel thing build to something and finally stick the landing again. It feels like most of the Disney+ series have failed in this regard.

[Also great: Natalie Holt's compositions for this series have been phenomenal. She's produced, I think, the best soundtrack to an MCU production besides Black Panther. Just outstanding, memorable work.]

1 Good: Loki season 2 seems to have been granted permission to disconnect itself from the MCU at large and just do its own thing. It's not setting anything (obvious) up, and it's not taking detours and sidetracks into spaces just for fan service.  This season establishes a tone and it persists for 6 episodes in a row. It knows the kind of story it wants to tell, it know the journey it wants to take its characters, and it delivers.  With a consistent voice on the script and Benson and Moorehead directing 4 of the 6 episodes, there's a stability to this season that makes it feel pretty grand in scope.  And also, as a fan of Benson and Moorehead's films, this series seems so utterly in their wheelhouse, a true part of their filmography that carries their signature and not just work-for-hire like their Moon Knight episodes.

1 Bad: Sigh. Jonathan Majors. He's a great actor. He's acting great here. Why can't he act great in his real life. Such a bummer.

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Our Flag Means Death Season 2 - HBO [8 Episodes]

The What 100: When last we left Steed (the Gentleman Pirate) and Ed (Blackbeard), Steed had realized he made a mistake trying to return to his old life, while Ed could think of no other option but to return to his savage ways.  In fact, heartbroken, he's gotten even more violent and ruthless than before. After Ed almost kills him, Izzy joins Steeds crew. A truce is formed with Spanish Jackie. The crew face off against Zhang Yi Sao, the Pirate Queen, who takes a shining to Oluwande. Lucius and Black Pete reunite.

1 Great:  From the Thor: Ragnarok/Jojo Rabbit era, Taika Waititi got really, really overexposed. He was asked to do a lot, and he did a lot, and he became a very public figure for a time. Then he made Thor: Love and Thunder, the only Marvel movie I kind of despise, and I wondered if a 10+ year affinity for the creator had disappeared altogether.  Recently, I realized I hadn't seen much of Waititi, he'd certainly scaled back how much of himself he was putting out there.  I realized I loved, and respected that Waititi has had his hands in two very different, very remarkable series, but that his influence (despite what I've said previously) has been primarily in using his notoriety to get the shows made and hand them over to their true visionaries. For Reservation Dogs it was Sterlin Harjo's baby that Waititi was just in the delivery room for.  For Our Flag Means Death, it's definitely David Jenkins' queer pirate child, to which Waititi just plays funcle to.  

Playing Blackbeard/Ed in Our Flag, Waititi delivers a remarkable performance that wavers from maniacally bloodthirsty, to scarily unpredictable, to genuine paramour of Rhys Darby's Steed Bonnett. I'm not sure I always buy Darby's romantic connection to Ed, but Waititi sells the highs and lows of romantic tumult, while the show also examines Blackbeard's psyche and why he is so broken emotionally.  It's a surprising, remarkable performance that evolves each episode.

 

1 Good: The show juggles its cast this season, dispensing with some crew members (thank god Nat Faxon's The Swede has limited screen time this season) and putting a spotlight on others. It's a pretty large cast for a series with such short seasons and it cannot do them all justice. But the addition of Rubio Qian and Anapela Polataivao as Zhang Yi Sao and Auntie were two glorious additions this season. Qian is an effortlessly charming performer and eminently likeable, even when she's being vicious and cunning. She has swagger, intelligence, and a vulnerability that she seems in complete control of. Auntie as her number one shows a very different parental relationship of a notorious pirate and their mentor than what Blackbeard and Izzy had and it's really quite sweet.

1 Bad: The show's episode order for season 2 was two less than season 1. It felt like the Ricky Banes storyline, of minor noble who becomes a pirate inspired by Blackbeard, only to be shamed and shunned by the pirate community. He unites with the British navy to utterly dismantle piracy altogether, but if there were supposed to be any lasting parallels between he and Steed, or if there was supposed to be a building of his threat leading to a big climax, it's more of a sizzle in the end.

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Shoresy Season2 - Crave [6 Episodes]

The What 100: Shoresy has promised the Sudbury Bulldog's owner to "never lose again", and so he's on a mission to keep that promise. The team, however, has problems threatening to get in the way of that mission. Like all the sex they're having is tiring them out too quick on the ice. Or scoring champ JJ Frankie JJ has lost his focus because his true love caught him cheating. And the Jim's are distracted because their Reach for the Top team has been losing. And Michaels is down about some bullshit nobody cares about. And the boys do a calendar.

1 Great: Shoresy was one of, if not the most annoying side character on Letterkenny.  He was an off-screen antagonistic foil to Reilley and Jonesy on that show, and not really even a fleshed out character. To me it was a dicey proposition spinning him out into his own series, but to Jared Keeso's credit, he has really managed to create a surprisingly likeable and watchable if challenging and often out-of-line lead that I enjoy watching.  The final episode of the season gives a rather sharply written, insightful moment into Shoresy as a character, and why he plays so hard, and works so hard to support the team. The basic point being that his mindset is one that only works on the ice, and makes the real world one that's difficult for him to live in. 

1 Good: It's easy to pander to Canadians, it's hard to do it subtly. As with Letterkenny, Shoresy wears its Canadian pride on its ugly poop brown and baby blue jersey sleeve. The best extended joke was the incremental rage on Shoresy's face as the team is hosted by the American Sault Ste. Marie team and to perform the national anthem is a 10-year-old learning to play the recorder.  There's two jokes there, the first being the obvious Americans goading the Canadians, but also butchering the national anthem on a recorder is a right of passage for every Canadian in grade school.

1 Bad: I was never a jock and certainly not a hockey player, and the behind-the-scenes on masculine sports teams has never been a realm I'm comfortable with, eager to experience, nor particularly enjoy. Toxic seems like a gentle word for what goes on back there. So it shouldn't be surprising to me that I bristle, often, at the language and tone that comes out of this comedy. Like Keeso's other show, Shoresy's gender and sexual politics are kind of progressive but in a rudimentary way.  In dealing with hicks and hockey players, it is surprising when they are portrayed as open-minded, accepting even, but when shades of conservative thinking crop up, is it a result of honestly portraying the field the show is playing in, or is it the creators exposing that they're still not as far along as they'd like us to believe.  When the show regresses into leering shots of lingerie clad women, I have to wonder what relevance it has on the story at hand, or if it's just some Sudbury woman Keeso met at a bar and has convinced to take her clothes off on camera.  

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Light & Magic - Disney+ [6 Episodes]

The What 100: A look behind the curtain of 40+ years of Industrial Light and Magic.

1 Great: The first two episodes focus on the people behind the scenes who made the stunning visuals of Star Wars happen, and how they did it. The sheer volume of creativity on display is outstanding. As a lifelong Star Wars nerd, I thought I had seen and read all of the behind-the-scenes making-of Star Wars had to offer, and it turns out I hadn't even scratched the surface. Even this documentary seems to be constrained by the episodic structure into how much we actually get to see, but all of it is awesome.  John Dykstra, Phil Tippet, Joe Johnson, Dennis Muren and more are given celebrity documentary treatment here, glorifying their contributions to not just Star Wars, not even just cinema, but culture in general.

1 Good: The second two episodes focus on creating sequels to Star Wars, but also the start of the dissolution of the original gang. As ILM is formalized, and moves out of LA, not everyone is asked to join them. In these two episodes, which span the about a half decade from Star Wars's debut, the leaps in technology that George Lucas pushes on the team are pretty incredible. I didn't know almost anything about what ILM had innovated over the years, and it turns out it was a lot, including what eventually becomes Photoshop and Pixar, among other things. 

1 Bad: The final two episodes, step away from Star Wars, and then right back into it, as the entire culture of ILM shifts underneath the feet of the men and women who started it. Rapidly the drive is digital, and the genius creative forces behind physical props and visual effects are more and more diminished in terms of importance and contribution. What made ILM so captivating in the first two episodes -- a massive warehouse of individuals experimenting with scale, cameras, technology, and hand craftsmanship -- gives way to largely people sitting at computers clicking buttons.  The show pretends to maintain the same enthusiasm for what ILM is today, as a primarily digital company, as it had for what was done back in the 1970s, but there's just no denying that the physical stuff was far more interesting, the creative problem solving much more enriching, and the people so much livelier.

1-1-1-KsMIRT: whatever times five

K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month (ha!) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format.  These are shows I finished (or was finished with) in the past four-ish weeks.

This Month:
Doom Patrol Season 4 pt 2 - CTV SciFi/Max
The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin Season 1 - AppleTV+
Girls5eva Season 3 - Netflix
The Gentlemen DNF - Nflix
Hijack - AppleTV+

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Doom Patrol Season 4, part 2 [6 of 6 episodes watched]

The What 100: The Doom Patrol are fractured, again. They've lost their immunity from aging and they're not dealing well. Rita's starlet egocentricity can't handle the rapid aging. Cliff's Parkinson's is only getting worse. Larry is so petrified not of aging, or dying, but being alone that he pushes everyone away, including Keeg. Jane has lost touch with all her other personalities in the underground. Rouge fears she can never redeem herself. Victor wonders who he is, and what he can contribute, if he's not Cyborg. And, of course, weird shit and lots of swearing.

(1 Bad): It feels like so, so long ago that we watched Doom Patrol Season 4 Part 1, because it was. We put off watching it for months after it aired, wondering if we even cared anymore. With the DP it's not even superhero fatigue, because it's not really even a superhero show. It's just a show about weirdos facing even weirder threats that grounds itself in deep rooted issues of mental health.  No, it was just that sense of everything falling apart, which, with the Doom Patrol, has been from episode one. This is a dysfunctional family. And after a while, especially when everyone is keeping to themselves and not interacting except with hostility, it's not fun to watch.  So it was hesitation that put off watching this last batch of 6 episodes. I think the worst of it was stepping back in, because Episode 7, the first episode back, picks up directly from Episode 6 and, like I said, it had been a minute, and to be honest, I felt that same sense of fatigue.

(1 Good): While overall Season 4 pt. 2 was a mixed bag, more than a bit of a rollercoaster for each character (and the viewer), it had two incredible highlights, the first of which was Episode 9 "Immortimas Patrol". As has been the thing for genre shows to do since, oh, the late 90's and "Once More With Feeling", "Immortimas Patrol" is a musical episode, and in Doom Patrol's weirdest of weird ways, their Christmas Episode (with nary a hint of Christmas).  It was watching the Oscars back in 2022 when performing in the ensemble for Encanto's best song nomination when I saw that Diane Guerrero was not only a cast member of that film but could sing, and yeah, she gets to show that off here. Also, Oscar winner Brendan Frasier sing-talks his way through a song about trying to masturbate without interruption.  And there's the chorus of Sex Ghosts that keep popping up.  The songs here are written by Aliza and Talia Berger with music by Clint Mansell and Kevin Kiner (just an incredible duo handling scoring chores this entire series), and they are all really, really fun while also being story and character-centric.

(1 Great): The thing about the Doom Patrol is they were doomed from the beginning. The original team Larry, Rita and Cliff, were on borrowed time to begin with. So that they each meet an end is only fitting. But holy shit, do we ever get some closure. Rita passed away, and it's so sad, until her ghost emerges to orchestrate her own funeral. Larry and Keeg find beauty in endings. Jane finds a new path forward as a whole person, and with Casey, who isn't even really a person.  Victor continues to make his mark, his way. And Rouge decides to embrace her dark side, but possibly used for good? And Cliff spends his final days with his family leading to one of the most beautiful, tearjerking, and abrupt endings of any TV show ever. I still get weepy thinking about it.  For a static robot face, the Robotman head has been so incredibly expressive for 46 episodes and the hold on it for the final frame as the light in his eyes goes out is just a little bit of magic given the moments preceding it.  This show, while not always great, was always something special. 

META: Yes, I cried multiple times during the finale. Shut up. Stupid show.

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The Completely Made-up Adventures of Dick Turpin [6 of 6 episodes watched]

(The Plot 100): Dick Turpin wants nothing more than to be a glamorous highwayman. He's not been much else in his life. He certainly does not want to be a butcher like his father.  So he sets out on finding a gang, and then gets to robbing stage coaches. But as a gentleman.  He leads with compassion and robs with kindness. Things don't always go well for him, but he can always hold his head up for being his authentic self. This attitude gets people's attention, and a scribe starts writing brochures of his adventures making him a celebrity.

(1 Great): Where each of the first four episodes was pretty much a stand-alone adventure, with a little continuity of world and character building, the latter two episodes are a two-parter, in which an even more decadent, charming, congenial, fancy highwayman, Tommy Silversides, turns up and out-Turpins Dic Turpin in every way possible. While almost every character in Dick Turpin is really fun, Connor Swindells who plays Silversides gives a next level performance. He's clearly dastardly, and up to something, but he is also incredibly charming and irresistible. It's not just the show telling us these things, but Swindells showing us them.  And then, in the second episode, there's the turn, and it's hilarious, giving Swindells yet another layer to his performance.

(1 Good): This feels like a sister show to Our Flag Means Death, as both are period-set comedies about relatively hapless, but good-natured men who want to participate in what are commonly seen as ruthless and violent criminal activities. Steed Bonnet from Our Flag... and Dick Turpin here are both in over their heads in their quests for excitement and adventure, while also retaining a positive outlook on life, and enforcing their own moral codes of gender and sexual identity positivity and inclusivity. They just want everyone to be their best selves.  It's hard not to be charmed by these shows ... unless you're one of these "anti-woke" toolboxes who can't see anything beyond their own limited perspective.

(1 Bad): I found Dick Turpin to be great fun. Solid cast, whimsical production, fantastic earworm of a theme, but it's a little...tame.  It's not trying to be edgy, and I get that, but it is rather... fluffy.  Where Our Flag... had some heft to it that grounded it in something tangible and emotional, Turpin is just a silly light comedy. I like the characters, but I don't feel terribly invested in them. 

META: I know Our Flag... has been canceled, and that it was on HBO/Max and Turpin is on AppleTV+, but I really, really, really would love a crossover between these two shows. They're so complimentary, it only makes sense. It won't happen, but I wants it.

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Girls5eva Season 3 [6 of 6 episodes watched]

The Plot 100: A pregnant Dawn, a starved-for-attention Wickie, a newly empowered Summer and a very horny Gloria have forged out on their own, with all new material, really trying to will a resurgence into existence. But they find a tiny modicum of success in Fort Worth (singing a song about Fort Worth) and are nervous to leave even that glimmer of stardom behind. A bold move, Wickie takes all their money and books Radio City Music Hall as their big tour finale...a finale for a tour that hasn't even been planned.

(1 Great): Renee Elise Goldsberry as Wickie is a freaking force to be reckoned with. While all the cast are enjoyable, Goldsberry is next level, all the time. She's best know for being a key player in Hamilton but she's got incredible comedic chops that she shows off non-stop. The energy on screen doubles every time she's in a scene.  Wickie is reliably self-involved -- a generous archetype for comedy -- but Goldsberry plays Wickie's ego as a mask, and she's aces every moment she comes out from behind it (and nails even hard the mad dash recovery to get back behind it).  The spotlight episode of Wickie returning to her supportive, upper class family home is the season highlight.

(1 Good): Like the Tina Fey/Robert Carlock-produced 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt before it, Girls5eva is a joke machine. Just densely packed joke-after-joke-after-joke in such a manner that it's hard to take them all in. I find myself still processing one joke when two others have flown past me.  My favourite joke is the Mariotte Divorced Dad Suitelets as a setting and all the delicious comedy nuggets within (like the last minute, pre-wrapped birthday present vending machine and the "#1 Weekend Dad" coffee mugs). It is a show that begs rewatching for all the comedy nuggets.

 (1 Bad): I'm not going to complain about Netflix resurrecting Girls5eva after it seemed like two seasons, 8 episodes each, was going to be it. But I will complain about only giving it a 6-episode order, and what looks to be an extremely tight budget.  It's not necessarily the stripped-down sets or even the sparse extras casting (no crowd ever feels like a crowd), as a sharp director and production staff could definitely make it work. It's clear that the budget limitations extended to the shooting time, and there wasn't enough to do more elaborate camera setups to hide the flaws, or to do more takes and edit the scenes tighter.  This season, frankly, doesn't look very good. It looks like...Hallmark...just with dirty jokes.

META: I don't know enough about the production of this Netflix season, but it just doesn't hit as hard as the prior seasons. One of the key things is the songs just aren't quite up to the same bar as the previous two seasons. Where I would actually listen to the soundtracks to Seasons 1 and 2 on Spotify (oh, I'd do the Splingee) I haven't even been tempted by Season 3. But maybe upon rewatch I'll start getting "Inside My Sweater" stuck in my brain.

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The Gentlemen Season 1(?) [4 of 8 episodes watched]

The Plot 100: UN Peacekeeping officer Eddie Horniman is called home after the death of his father. He inherits his father's title of Duke of Halstead, much to the chagrin of his complete fucktwit of an older brother. Eddie learns that his father had leased out the property to criminal organization, and now he's also in bed with them. Eddie endeavours to get them off his land and out of his life, but seems to just get more entrenched the more he does to try and get them out.

(1 Great): Kaya Scodelario as Susie Glass. She's the "handler", the "fixer", and the woman-in-control (but not in charge) of the weed operations. She's ultra-competent, calm/cool/collected at all times, and perfectly styled without being showy about it. It's a ridiculously charming and enjoyable performance, which makes it all the more sad that I didn't enjoy the show enough to stick it out for more of her.

(1 Good): The show looks good. Like, real good. It's got the same feel as any of Guy Ritchie's films about cheeky British criminals, which have, since Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, all had a visual pinache. Ritchie directs the first two episodes, and you can tell. Surprisingly, when Nima Nourizadeh steps in to direct the next two episodes, you can't really tell it's not Ritchie behind the camera. So cudos to the production team for maintaining a consistent sensibility. 

(1 Bad): Honestly, there was nothing outright "bad" about The Gentlemen, but it just wasn't clicking with me. Okay, maybe when they introduced Peter Serafinowicz (nailed it on the first try) as a very distinctive character only to promptly [spoiler for the first episode], I was quite deflated by that. That was bad.  Part of my lack of enthusiasm is Eddie is a bit of a nothing character. He has one goal, which is doing whatever it takes to get these criminals off his land, so there's not a lot else to that character. Everyone else seems to have something going on but Eddie's just this stoic, handsome, rich, military twat who isn't particularly skilled at anything. He's not exceptionally intelligent, or a great fighter, or quick on his feet, and that should make him a compelling lead, but Theo James plays him with a sense of authority that the show seemingly backs up, rather than it being the misplaced authority of a man in over his head. I also wanted more flirting between him and Scodelario, but it all stayed weirdly businesslike in the first half.

META: I loved Ritchie's first two films, then stepped away from his Swept Away vanity project and never really came back to him full time. Sure I saw the Sherlock Holmes movies and enjoyed them enough, and I did see Aladdin (a real "why bother" film), and I do really love Man From U.N.C.L.E.  but the thing that drew me to him in the first place, his stylish British crime flicks I've avoided completely. Rocknrolla, Revolver, Wrath of Man, Operation Fortune, and event the show's disconnected namesake The Gentlemen I haven't seen... but Toasty has... and it seems like he enjoys them.  I dunno...maybe I'll do a Director's Set on Ritchie and go through it all. 

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Hijack [7 of 7 episodes watched]

The Plot 100: Idris Elba plays Sam Nelson, a guy on a flight from Dubai to London that gets highjacked by British nationals for unknown reasons. Elba's background is as a high level mergers and acquisitions closer, so he's used to high pressure situations and talking to/manipulating people. On the ground, meanwhile, is a series of people, including Elba's family and various officials, trying to discern if there is actually a problem.

(1 Great): This show is seven episodes of intensity. It's the first show in months that we just flat out binged out of a need to know more, tossing aside other, better shows, just to get through this compelling story.  It takes place in nearly real time, but never, ever calls attention to that fact. It very capably negotiates at least three, maybe even four dozen characters both on the plane and on the ground - passengers, flight crew, ground control, Sam's family, police, and government officials.  It's probably in no way accurate to real life, but it's an immensely engaging journey.

(1 Good): The show has one mystery, which is the "why". Why are these people hijacking the plane? It's a good mystery they tease out over the first four hours before the list of demands are revealed and then we spend the next half of the series being very aware of the additional threats posed beyond the airplane. As if things weren't intense enough. 

(Good 1.5: I liked that Sam is a guy with "a particular set of skills" but in this case it's not the answer to this problem. Sam is a negotiator, a talker, and he uses that skill a LOT to insert himself into the situation, sometimes unbelievably. But I like that Sam's negotiating skill is just as often not the solution as it is, and that he's not "the guy in control" of the situation, really, ever, and the real fact is no one is. It's just kind of chaos.)

(1 Bad): Peril fatigue. That thing when the main character is put into too many life-threatening situations and the audience starts to check out of the idea that he will actually be harmed. The final act goes maybe two unnecessary steps too far with Sam and the flight, and then there's additional perils happening on the ground. It's all a bit too much, and unnecessary. I think an epilogue as opposed to the additional bits of danger would have been better, even if it kind of broke the "real time" structure.

META: Famous handsome man Idris Elba is not just known for being famous and handsome, but also being incredibly charming and a pretty good guy. He's likeable, and I like seeing him in things. I don't see everything he's in but I am certainly drawn to things because he's in them.  This came out mid-2023 and didn't really move the needle on anything, but it went on my lengthy "to watch" list. I put it on to be background while working on the 2000th Post Spectacular, and got sucked in and distracted quickly.  

It's not a completely successful show, but it moves briskly and is very, very engrossing.

Watching: Time Bandits S1

2024, download

So, a re-imagining of something precious from my youth, Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits which cannot be all that precious because I haven't felt compelled to watch it in decades. But I remember the reaction I had back in  1981-ish (more than likely saw it on VHS first) when I was an adolescent. It was crazy, confusing, astounding and invigorating. That excitement still carries through as a tangible memory, but... unlike, say, Star Wars only a few years earlier, I did not scramble to rewatch constantly as I few older. Honestly, I felt that way about all the Python-esque films -- they were great in small doses and often not oft repeated.

But when I heard this was coming out, and by Taika Waititi (and his usual gang; wonder how they feel tha he is the name on the "brand") no less, I was excited. But also reserved. I can take Taika in small, controlled doses. I am not a huge fan of Our Flag Means Death but more so of What We Do In the Shadows; Marmy loves Wellington Paranormal but I can take it or leave it. And remember, I have never been able to effectively rewatch Thor: Love and Thunder. But again, back to excited -- I could do with some wacky, ensemble, time jumping hijinks. OK, they are not little people, that's fine. OK, Lisa Kudrow (?!?!?) as their leader, that's fine. I think.

I usually do the above paragraph or two as italics, where Kent does a Meta tail-end, but I only remember I usually do that AFTER I wrote it, with already so many italics. So... that's that.

What 100. Kevin is a nerd, basically me at that age, minus the talkative -- I was and will always be, very quiet except in certain circumstances. His parents love him but don't understand him; his sister tolerates him. And then his wardrobe rumbles and the Time Bandits tumble into his life. They have a Map to Space & Time, barely know how to use it, and are on the run from The Supreme Being (Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit). His nemesis, Pure Evil (Jemaine Clement, Avatar: The Way of Water), also wants the map and has sent demon Fianna (Rchael House, Foundation) after it. The Bandits want to jump around in time stealing its greatest treasures, proving themselves as more than just gardeners, and Kevin is begrudgingly dragged along.

1 Great. Really, just the imaginative, silly escapades. I loved loved loved the concept of what was going on, and obviously a lot of thought went into it. It looks "appropriately" good, as in not terribly high on the special effects scale, acceptable on the sets and costuming. Something about only a middling attention to detail fits with something silly like this show, because if it was much better, you would be expecting more from the show.

1 Good. The characters. I didn't expect to actually like Lisa Kudrow as Penelope, their erstwhile "leader" (they're a collective, no leaders) but she ... kind of worked? Much of this show works to some degree and fails in others. I hesitantly enjoyed pretty much every episode. Its not so much as comedic as it is silly. The mix of weirdoes as Time Bandits is great, but non-sensical, and the Waititi-Clement usuals are always spot on when brought together.

1 Bad. There is just something.... missing. Again, I wonder if its my tempered fondness for the Waititi-Clement model of comedy. Its not always my bag. I have to allow for my irritation with some characterization (the Bandits themselves are confusing, callous, incredibly stupid beings, but I have to remind myself, they aren't humans, despite appearances and affectations.... no, no idea what they really are) to be ignored so I can just enjoy the romp, but sometimes my irritation reigned.  Just ... something didn't always work for me. I wonder if that's what Kent noticed and ultimately dropped the show.

What I Have Been Watching (Kent Edition) - sitcomedies, sit

Toast's latest hat-on-a-hat-on-a-hat entry pulling more of our subfeatures together than ever before (or ever recommended) made me laugh but exposed that many of our subfeatures have a tendency of overlapping.  So I'm stripping out a lot of the other subtitles and just going with the What I Have Been Watching feature (which is a feature all about the admitted state of spending too much time in front of the TV.  There are too many streamers, too much content, and it drives me bonkers just even thinking about it anymore.  Here's some of what I saw in the comedy category in, let's say, the past year of television)

This is a grammatical nightmare.

In this edition:

The Kennedys (1 season, 2015) - amazon

Murderville (1 season, 2022) - Netflix

The After Party (Season 1, 2022)- AppleTV+

Grand Crew (Season 1, 2022) - Global/NBC

Reservation Dogs (Season 1, 2021) - d+/star

Our Flag Means Death (Season 1, 2022) - Crave

Mythic Quest (Season 1, 2020) - AppleTV+

Kids in the Hall: Death Comes To Town (1 season, 2010) - AmazonPrime (rewatch)

I Love That For You  (Season 1, 2022) - Showtime

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The Kennedys seems to be a British take on, like, The Goldbergs or Fresh off the Boat or Everyone Hates Chris or Young Rock, a period-set sitcom that takes a look at a real person's amusing childhood experiences and family life, but, you know, turns them into sitcom fodder thus wearing away most of the autobiographical sensibilities that the show is premised upon.  In this case, it's actress and comedian Emma Kennedy telling tales about growing up in the late 70's in the Jessop Square subdivision.

Young Emma is played by Lucy Hutchinson who at about 12 years old has some pretty impeccable comedic timing.  As the series lead she's surprisingly capable and naturalistic.  She doesn't feel like she's acting or putting on a performance and she convincingly feels of the era, talking about Star Wars and whatnot.  Her mother,  Brenda (played by the IT Crowd's Katherine Parkinson) is the show's powerhouse, though.  A rampant feminist but still unaware of her own trappings in the patriarchy, she's defiant to a fault of her role as mother and homemaker.  She's a boldly entertaining character, both for her lack of hubris, but also not lacking in love or kindness.  Patriarch Tony Kennedy (played by Dan Skinner) is kind of an oblivious lunk, never quite sure what anyone is saying to him or why.  Not stupid, just not always present in the moment.  The family is best friends with the unwed couple Tim (Toast of London's Harry Peacock) and Jenny (Emma Pierson), the former a womanizing drunk, the latter a preening mess of a woman, unsure of what she wants out of life.  

Most of the episodes take place within the neighbourhood and over its six episodes starts to build up familiarity with its surroundings for the audience.  The comedy is multifaceted and quick, with a lot of wordplay, as well as utilizing the sort of late-70s naivety as a hindsight joke machine, and then a whole bunch of non-sequitur side-swipes, which seem to be the fashion of this nostalgiac subgenre of sitcom.

I was shocked to see that there were only 6 episodes in this series.  It's quite funny, well-produced, and exceptionally well acted with recognizable faces.  It's not innovating anything but it's rocksolid in what it's trying to do, and that's usually good for two or three seasons, at least in British terms.

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I don't want to talk about Netflix as an entity.  It's too complicated for this space.  But lets just say they've spent a lot of money trying stuff, most of which is forgettable and didn't work.  The odd thing is transcendant.  Murderville is somewhere in the middle.

It's a fully plotted, largely improvised comedy about a bumbling homicide detective who keeps getting a new partner each week and has a murder mystery to solve.  The partner is a real world celebrity (in this case Conan O'Brien, Marshawn Lynch, Kumail Nanjiani, Annie Murphy, Sharon Stone and Ken Jeong fill the role), playing themself, coming in cold to the situation and having to act along.   The episodes that pop are the ones in which the performers are actively playing along, versus the performers who are lost, sitting back, and just watching things happening around them.

Leading them along the way is Will Arnett as Terry Seattle, who is in the midst of a divorce with his precinct Chief (Haneefah Wood) and is, most apparently, living out of his office.  Seattle drives a pristine looking El Camino (so awesome) which seems to be the only light in his life.  He still mourns the loss of his partner (who is only ever seen in a photo hanging on the wall as Jennifer Aniston) 15 years ago, and puts his grief and anxiety upon the unsuspecting rookie.

Surprisingly the show, for all its improvisational set-up, has an arc.  It's not necessarily a thoroughly satisfying arc but it's surprising that they even attempted it within the format.  It's an enjoyable show, with even the lesser episodes still providing some good laughs within.  It's certainly strange, and unlike anything I've seen done before, but I could see some refinement of the formula into something that's consistently great fun.

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The one series I was most looking forward to on AppleTV+ when I started the service this year was The After Party.  It's the brainchild of Christopher Miller, one half of the great Lord and Miller comedy directing/producing team known for their ability to exploit genre tropes adeptly and shrewdly for maximum entertainment value (see Clone High, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, the Jump Street movies, The Lego Movie).  

This series I was hoping would be the next great one, a murder mystery in which each episode takes a look at one of the accused but from a different genre standpoint.  It sounded fantastic, and the cast, featuring some of the most underhyped comedic talent going (Sam Richardson, Ilana Glazer, Ben Schwartz, Ike Barinholtz, John Early) all held down by Tiffany Haddish's under-the-gun detective.   The crux is superstar Xavier (Dave Franco) is murdered in his own home during the afterparty following a high school reunion.

Well, I mean, I liked the series, quite a bit.  I enjoyed tremendously the performers, and I liked the characters, and I enjoyed the murder mystery angle certainly enough to eagerly come back from week-to-week, but my expectations of the genre-busting Miller were not quite lived up to.  True, each episode did focus on a different suspect, and leaned towards a specific genre/subgenre/storytype (like a Fast & Furious Movie, highschool drama, musical, animated comedy, psychological thriller) but the realities of trying to uphold a single story through these different genres meant the genres couldn't be exploited to their full potential.  So the show, while fully entertaining, doesn't hit that next level I had hoped for.

Season 2 is in the works.  I'll be there.

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You can't really rely upon network television to deliver anything innovative or surprising.  They are hanging on for dear life in this era of the streaming wars, and know that their key to survival is reality competition shows and programming that appeals almost exclusively to the Boomers, doling out of-the-week dramas in every possible high-stakes professional situation.  At this stage network comedies are life support, and even the mighty Chuck Lorre's laugh track adherence is failing to save them.

So when something like Grand Crew sneaks out quietly, and just as quitely maintains a consistent tone of hilarity and fun, well, it's always a shock.  Brooklyn Nine-Nine was the last great network comedy, and Grand Crew has the potential to be the next.  It's a dead simple premise, a group of Black friends hang out at a wine bar when not living their lives.  It's basically a modernisation of Cheers and Friends  but a lot less dependent on that single situational environment.  It's also thoroughly a Black-led and run show, from creator Phil Augusta Jackson, but it's also inherently accessible as any network comedy should be.  It's a Black-centric show, thus many jokes are very specific references to of Black culture, and I'm a middle-aged white guy so I may not catch all these references, aptly so, but being hyper-specific in comedy is always the correct way to go.  When I do get the references (which is more often than not), they are gold, so I can only imagine how good the deep cut ones I'm not getting are.  But the general sensibility of the show's humour is straight-up character silliness, like Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Happy Endings.  It really leans into the characters goofball traits, and their unique personas for the majority of the humour, and it's great.

The cast is tremendous.  Echo Kellum (Arrow) is the lead of the ensemble, a flitty, hopeless romantic who just broke up with his girlfriend and is learning to live without love for a while, despite his impulses.  His sister Nikki is played by Nicole Byer, a hypersexual alpha who's also a realtor.  Carl Tart plays the perpetually unemployed, always calculating, boisterous Sherm while his roommate Aaron (Anthony Jennings) is the buttoned-down professional accountant who has to be the responsible yin to Sherm's yang. Then there's married friend Wyatt (Justin Cunningham) who is a stay-at-home husband (and still uncertain how he feels about it).  They make a new friend who works at the wine bar in Fay (Gracie Mercedes), who is relatively new to L.A. but still uncertain about her place there.

This is very much an episodic show, with only a little bit of character and/or relationship development happening from episode to episode.  They're a tremendously fun crew, some might say "grand".  Even when the show tackles the impact of yet another tragic murder-by-police shooting of a black youth, they still manage to find some levity within the resonance without dipping into "very special episode" terrain.  A second season is on its way, thankfully.  The current 10 episodes just isn't enough.  Grand needs a nice long life.

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Reservation Dogs is a comedy in the vein of vanity projects like Atlanta, Master of None, or [edited...let's not go with that suggestion, apt as it was].  Normally "vanity project" has a negative connotation, but for creative performers like Donald Glover, Aziz Ansari and [redacted] their vanity projects give them a chance to hone and showcase all of their skills, including writing and directing, as well as delve deeper into more thoughtful exploration of subjects that aren't explored elsewhere, and certainly not with their point of view.  These projects take on their own rhythm, their own style, even though they're of a type together, they feel the impact of their creators' visions in letting creativity be the star.  Episodes tend to feel more like mini-movies than serialized television.

With the support of producer Taika Waititi, Reservation Dogs was given life at FX from director and sketch comedian Sterlin Harjo, but unlike many a vanity project, Harjo remains off camera and uses the platform as an showcase for Native American performers, writers and more (both Ansari and Glover, though, it should be noted, use their platforms to elevate others too, but the talk of those shows is still centers so much around them).

The show is a comedy (but also has some weight behind it) about life on an Oklahoma reservation, following the "Reservation Dogs" crew, four teenage friends who steal shit to make money for a good cause, getting the fuck off the reservation and going to California.  They recently lost one of their crew to suicide, and the loss haunts them each in different, sobering ways. Things get further complicated when the NDN Mafia, a rival quartet of teens arrives on the scene and start taking shots at them.  What could have been a very straightforward series based off the setup quickly reveals itself within its first three episodes as something much more contemplative than that.

The episodes all vary in tone and subject matter and even who is starring in them, but they're all amazing, exploring so many different facets of res life, Native heritage and culture.  While there are some amazing guest stars (Gary Farmer, Zahn McClarnon, Jon Proudstar, and Kaniehtiio Horn among may) throughout the season, the stars are the four young members of the Dogs.  Devery Jacobs is Elora, the de facto leader of the crew, and the one who maybe feels the most outwardly motivated to leave the res.  Her spotlight episode finds her attempting yet again to get her drivers license only to get embroiled in her instructor's whole side deal.  Bear is played by D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, an awkward young man who needs the gang to bolster his sense of confidence and masculinity (but he also has a bold but equally awkward spirit guide, hilariously played by Dallas Goldtooth).  Bear's spotlight episode finds his estranged father, a successful rapper, returning to the res for a charity event, and Bear's mom tries to brace him for disappointment, but he starts spending the California money to try and look a big shot for his dad which raises tensions with Elora.  Willie Jack, played by Paulina Alexis, is tough-talking and hard-as-nails but is very connected with her family and was hit hard by her cousin's Daniel's suicide.  Her spotlight episode finds her going hunting with her father, but flashing back to memories of hunting trips with Daniel, and it's a very emotional journey that explores the problems of depression on the res, and the lasting impacts they have.  The final member of the crew is the youngest, Cheese (Lane Factor).  Quiet and laid back, he gets on with everyone and just kinda of seems to tag along with the dogs with no personal agenda.  Cheese's spotlight episode is actually more a spotlight for McClarnon's Officer Big and a showcase for the town as he has the young man as his ride-along partner for the episode.  

As many shows have keyed into over the past decade, you get a lot of mileage out of building out the population of your environment.  What used to only be seen as a thing in prime time animation (The Simpsons primarily) has now become a staple for all the great network comedies in recent years, and the same occurs here, with the res feeling full of interesting and fun people.  

It's a fantastic series. 

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While Waititi only served as producer (and co-writer on the pilot) for Reservation Dogs -- thus his influence is limited -- Our Flag Means Death is a Waititi production through and through, catering much more to the comedic writer/director/performer's goofier sensibilities.  Here he has developed a semi-epic, 1700s-set, pirate comedy that kicks off with a soft, upper crust man abandoning his family for a life of skullduggery on the high seas.  It is a life for which he is ill-equipped, using his money to buy his ship and hire a crew of largely inexperienced scalliwags.

Taking to the seas, Stede Bonnett (Rhys Darby) and his ensemble pretty much immediately are boarded by the Royal Navy, led by an acquaintance from Stede's aristocratic past. Stede kills him accidentally, but it's unknown to the crew, and he earns at least a little of the respect that was missing from his men.  Stede's general management style and general world outlook could be considered progressive (adopting a lot of current managerial philosophies) but this all seems counterintuitive to a pirate crew, and the general amount of high seas piracy, kidnapping and murder is kept pretty much to a minimum.  Things like forced vacation days, a flag-making competition and a talent pageant, not to mention bedtime storytime (in which Stede reads the crew a story) all seem kind of...soft...for the lifestyle.  Stede gets nicknamed The Gentleman Pirate, which isn't meant as a compliment, despite how he takes it.

Things get more complicated when the Revenge encounters Blackbeard's ship.  The crew is direly intimidated by the men of Blackbeard's crew, and of course, of Blackbeard himself (Waititi performs the role).  A strange turnabout happens, however, when Blackbeard takes a shining to Stede's erudite lifestyle, moreover he wishes to escape the pirate's life and live a more humble existence in the world of high society. Stede offers to teach him about high society in exchange for lessons in piracy.  A deep kinship is borne, much to the dismay of Blackbeard's grizzled right hand, Izzy Hands (Con O'Neill).  Izzy conspires against the pairing only to his own detriment, as the rest of Blackbeard's crew start to glom onto Stede's way of leadership.  Of course, the Royal Navy is pursuing Stede with ruthless abandon, and things come to a glorious head in the final three episodes after threatening an amusing status quo.

This is, on top of it all, a large ensemble piece, which includes Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting), Samson Kayo (Truth Seekers), Vico Oritz, Christian Nairn (Hodor from Game of Thrones), Nat Faxon, and many more, with guest appearances from Rory Kinnear, Leslie Jones, Fred Armisen, Claudia O'Doherty, Kristen Schaal, Nick Kroll, Kristen Johnson and Will Arnett among others.

The crux of the series, though, comes down tot he different ways people express love to each other, and particularly the relationships between men and how they show affection for one another, whether it's platonic, idolisation, as brothers-in-arms, or as lovers.  It's not dissecting these with any great zeal, but it seems that love, and how people care for each other, is the great unifier of most of these episodes.

I don't have a great affinity for pirates, but Waititi's style, as upheld by his writing staff and his remarkably unique cast of performers, helps the adventure of it all go down smoothly.  It's kind of telling that the bits that take place on land (like at Spanish Jackie's pub or Stede and Blackbeard imprisoned at the Royal Privateering Academy) were my favourite parts of the series, thought he finale where Stede returns home to his family was easily the best episode for its wildly unexpected twists.

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After basically writing it off after its initial announcement as another dumb workplace comedy on a topic I have little investment in (MMORPGs), it took all of one episode for AppleTV's Mythic Quest to hook me in.  It's a damn funny show.

From Always Sunny in Philadelphia creatives Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney with Megan Ganz (writer on Community, Always Sunny, Modern Family), and starring McElhenney as the self-aggrandizing creative head of the Mythic Quest Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game, I was expecting a tepid retread of The Office but with more nerd shit.  

I'm not a devoted follower of Always Sunny but from what I've seen of the show (a couple dozen random episodes) I shouldn't have been surprised at how whip-smart Mythic Quest is, and how it knows how to present an egomaniac as a fool (Always Sunny is basically a show about watching a crew of sociopaths get their come-uppance episode after episode).  What's also most immediately surprising is how tailored the show is as an ensemble piece and not a solo showcase for McElhenney.   Even as the creative head of Mythic Quest, his Ian (pronouced, annoyingly, "eye-ann") is still not the top dog.  He has (unseen) corporate overlords that he has to appease, an ineffective middleman to patronize in stammering beta David (David Hornsby), and he of course needs the support of his hyper awkward development lead Poppy (a transcendent Charlotte Nicdao).  Then there's the borderline psychopathic head of monetization, Brad (always great to see Dany Pudi), David's full-on psychopathic assistant Jo (Jessie Ennis),  the head writer, legendary 70's award-winning, over-the-hill sci-fi novelist C.W. Longbottom (F. Murray Abraham doing great work...at least on camera), and repping hard for the female gamers, game testers Rachel (Ashly Burch) and Dana (Imani Hakim).

The show quickly eases into its status quo.  It finds its groove rapidly in its first two episodes, and it feels like it's going to have a nice long life of great nerdy jokes (with a full understanding of the world it's operating in), great character conflicts, and gentle world building (its game, the economy and society that surrounds it, and the meta world around Mythic Quest as a company and property).   But by episode t it rapidly upends any expectation of what it should be.

Episode 5 is a full detour in the life of a female game developer and her relationship with her boyfriend-turned-business partner-turned-husband.  The episode is a mini-movie spanning three decades, starring Cristin Milioti (Palm Springs) and Jake Johnson (Stumptown) as the lead couple in this romantic comdey-drama that really takes you through a tour of the highs and lows of video game celebrity and evolution.  It has an impact on the world of Mythic Quest but in a way that is not immediately apparent, and takes some time to reveal its ultimate point within the show.  It's a special thing, though.

Following that episode, Mythic Quest emboldens itself to actually embrace some dramatic storytelling within its otherwise riotous framework.  There's a gutpunch of an episode that introduces Ian's son, and a COVID special that stands as one of the best snapshots of what the first wave lockdown really felt like.  

There's something tremendously special about Mythic Quest, as such I haven't binged it like I normally would a series I enjoy this much... I savour its episodes, and they root down in me with the time that I give them to breathe.

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Amidst the new Kids in the Hall series appearing on Amazon and my ongoing rewatch of the original series (plus the recent acquisition of Brain Candy on blu-ray) I thought it time to revisit the Kids' 2010 serialized mini-series Death Comes to Town.

I caught a few episodes of the series as it aired originally but its scheduling on CBC was a mess as it was interrupted by the Winter Olympics, and I had to purchase the series on Apple in order to watch the rest.  I don't recall loving the series and had little desire over the past dozen years to revisit it.  But with time comes fading memory so I was going into the series with near-fresh eyes.

And a rapid 175-minutes later, I did not come out with triumphant adoration for the series.  It does not feel unfamiliar to Kids in the Hall (more akin to the tone of Brain Candy than sketch comedy), but at the same time it lacks a specific drive.  It's effectively a murder-mystery, but it's a murder-mystery that's kind of disinterested in the fact that it's a murder-mystery.  It really wants to build characters and build a character out of the town of Shuckton, but with the death of its mayor (who everyone seems to idolize) in the first episode, Shuckton loses the one thing that really seems to define it.  As much as the series wants to build characters, it has a much harder time with building relationships between the characters.  Sure, it finds connective ties for the characters to share with each other, mostly as comedy, but few of the characters have any real, defining traits to their relationship with other characters beyond forgetful delivery lady Marnie (Kevin McDonald) and disgraced hockey wonderkid Ricky Jarvis (Bruce McCulloch), now obese and housebound.

Scott Thompson takes the ill-advised role of Crim Hollingsworth, adopting a Native Canadian patois, and adorning himself in style and symbology of, supposedly, Ojibwe culture, of which Crim puports to be 1/16th heritage.  I'm not sure why Thompson, of all the kids, tends to be the one in brownface all the time, but there's a trend.  It's an uncomfortable pattern.  While it's not necessarily mocking any culture, and there is the sense of trying to develop a character, it never seems the right thing to do, particularly inexcusable for 2010.  Likewise the amount of fat jokes and sight gags about Ricky Jarvis seem like they should have ended with Fat Bastard in Austin Powers.  And then there's the weird references to trans people, in a way that seems to be meant to be inclusive, but is edited with comedic timing to be a punchline.  This stuff has aged poorly and in much faster time than most KitH sketches.

There's plenty of silliness and a lot of conceptual comedy within Death Comes to Town but it does tend to be overshadowed by the sheer lack of laugh-out-loud comedy within.  Besides their post-Brain Candy

disbanding, this is a real low point for the troupe.  Not embarrassingly bad, but certainly not meeting up to expectations (even when they're low).

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And if this wasn't a long enough post already, we ploughed through I Love That For You with reckless abandon.  I didn't want to.  I put it off for some time.  I mean, I liked Vanessa Bayer as an SNL cast member and have enjoyed her in her cameos in other things like Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but the setup for this series felt just...too...cringey for me to want to sit through.

Created by Bayer (and Jeremy Beiler), the story of I Love That For You finds Bayer as Joanna Gold, a lifelong fan of the SVC home shopping network.  She would watch religiously as a child while going through chemotherapy for leukaemia, and as a remarkably awkward adult, she seems her most comfortable and confident selling people seemingly worthless things.  She's always had a manipulative streak in her, but it's not malicious so much as a coping mechanism for her trauma.  She finally gets her shot at an open casting call for SVC and absolutely nails the audition.  She's elated to find she's gotten the job, only to blow it on her first on-air showcase.  As she's getting fired she blurts out that she has cancer, and there are dollarsigns in  network owner Patricia's eyes.  Joanna is suddely the new "it-girl" at the network, to the delight of some, like her idol Jackie (Molly Shannon) and to the chagrin of others she's displacing, like the preening, self-obsessed Beth Ann (Ayden Mayeri).

The show then has to deal with Joanna going deeper and deeper into her lie, and what should be unbearably cringe is somehow, in Bayer's hands, nearly effortlessly watchable and just straight up amusing.  Bayer has always been fantastic at being uncomfortably awkward in her performance without being cringe about it.  She does this by way of acknowledging she's aware of her own awkwardness, and Bayers one of the few people who can do this with just a look, but she's also equally clever at delivering lines that highlight how aware she is of her own social ineptitude.  Even within the show, this winds up endearing Joanna to her colleagues more than alienating her, but it never lets her off the hook for her lying, and she knows she's not capable of keeping it up forever.  It's more of an "I'm in too deep, and I don't know how to get out" kind of situation.

I enjoyed the show, even though I found the whole cancer-ploy of Joanna really held the show back from being a proper workplace sitcom.  It's a time bomb just waiting to go off, and so you can't ever rest or rely upon the dynamics as they're set up.  When the bomb goes off in the penultimate episode you have to wonder how the show could possibly set up a second season given what the fallout *should* be.  Yet, it does its thing, and finds a way, and things are perhaps more awkward for Joanna than ever as the season closes out.

The show struggles with it's shopping network within the show.  It doesn't know whether it should be lampooning hope shopping channels and the products they sell, or if it should be earnestly presenting something possible, something real.  It often wavers between the two in a gentle fashion, and it never feels comfortable.  When the hosts start being goofy or unprofessional on camera (and they all do it), it really diminishes what Joanna initially got fired for and thus betrays the whole crux of this first season.  At the same time, when the sales pitches are completely po-faced, it's not very engaging and I want them to move faster through those parts.

There's a solid supporting cast, topped by Jennifer Lewis as the no-nonsense Patricia is credibly intimidating but gets the best through-line in the show, and Punam Patel as show producer Beena develops into a complete scene stealer with both her micro- and macro-agressions (and her beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog who's always at her side).

It was a pleasant surprise of pleasantness, especially give to how easily it could have been full-bore cringe.