The Too Much TV Roundup- July 14th
Well, for those who follow my roundups (which I know, is everybody, including Obama), you might notice that I rarely score shows as low as I do movies. That’s because, I don’t watch shows I don’t like. That’s dumb. But every once in a while, either a show gets worse and then it’s the last episode before I quit, or the pilot is terrible.
This was one of those days.
1) Breeders (FX)
English Audio Description Available?: No
Breaking a personal rule of mine, i am putting a show without audio description on the top of my list. Quite frankly, Breeders is the most underrated show on television. I don’t know people who watch this, it didn’t get any nominations, but my pick for the second year in a row for Best Actor is Martin Freeman. Even without finishing the season, his work of deftly being what every scene needs from him, which is generally completely different, and complex and nuanced, while also being darkly hilarious is a rarity in this landscape. His reaction to his new boss trying to turn his job into a clickbait factory, starts off as a respectable conversation, but quickly and instantaneously turns on its head when the new boss suggests that Paul’s inflexibility is the reason he’s never been promoted. In that quick moment, he responds calling his boss a shithouse. Which leads to an entire HR conversation where his boss accuses him of bullying, to which Paul’s logical response is that he can’t bully his boss. Yet, the show pushes it anyway. His frustration becomes our frustration, because we see how inane it is for someone to not understand how the power dynamic works, and Paul really doe not want to apologize. But the show as a whole probably had the most humanizing moment when Ava, frustrated obviously with a lot this season, admits to her dad that she loves her mom, but she doesn’t like her. The exact reasons for this haven’t been explored yet, but with what Paul just went through with Luke, I can’t imagine this will bode well for our family of Breeders.
Episode Grade: A
2) Night Sky (Amazon)
English Audio Description Available?: Yes
in the 4th episode, not too much happened. The main thing was Jude had something stolen from him by the girl from the nursing home, and when he sets out to find her and get it back, he winds up at a bar where he asks for help, but actually never received it. That was probably my biggest problem with the episode, was that the bartender said she’d help and took the business card only to never be seen or heard from again. Meanwhile, the neighbor turns out to be a dumbass, so it’s fine that he found the bunker, because he winds up thinking it’s a sex dungeon. It’s probably good that he didn’t win his race. The best moment of the episode came from a small, but poignant moment by JK Simmons where he slides into a truth about himself that he loves his wife today just as much as the day they met, but he’s afraid the same isn’t true for her. His heartbreaking confession sandwiched between drinks and games of pool says all we need to know about Franklin’s state of mind, and gives a bigger question mark to why Amazon so quickly gave up on this show.
Episode Grade: A-
3) DB Cooper: Where Are you? (Netflix)
English Audio Description Available?: Yes
Starting the first episode of this docuseries about the infamous escape of DB Cooper and the years long attempt to locate him, and the pop culture phenomenon surrounding his disappearance was interesting.
Episode Grade: A-
4) The Chase (ABC/Hulu)
English Audio Description Available?: Yes
I like it more when the chaser wins. Especially when it’s James. I hate seeing James lose.
Episode Grade: B+
5) We Own This City (HBO/HBO MAX)
English Audio Description Available?: Yes
In the 5th episode, Jon Bernthal continues to make us wonder how he was passed over for an Emmy nomination, and the series sits mostly in flashbacks coming out of interviews. It’s not my favorite series, but it’s OK. I know some people loved this.
Episode Grade: B
6) Pistol (Hulu)
English Audio Description Available?: No
Entering the danger zone. I felt like this episode wasn’t as interesting as the pilot, and didn’t accomplish much. For a limited series, every episode counts. This one just felt like, how did he get the name Johnny Rotten? What was song writing like for the group? How did they really get going? It wasn’t as interesting as it could have been, plus it lacks audio description. It’s in the danger zone, for me.
Episode Grade: C+
7) Resident Evil (Netflix)
English Audio Description Available: Yes
Dear Paul W.S. Anderson, I’m sorry. Sincerely, on behalf of everyone, me.
I don’t know what is happening at Netflix. I don’t know why they released this show like this, who they hired to make this shit, and why it is this bad. It CANNOT be that hard to make a competent resident Evil story on a screen. it just can’t. The films at times came close, and at least were mostly fun. This is not even fun. The most entertaining scene has nothing to do with Resident Evil, and just featured Lance Reddick defending his daughter in a parent/teacher type conference against two other parents of the opposing kid. He’s terrifying in those few moments, but he never raises his voice. It’s all about Lance Reddick being the master of his craft, and understanding how to deliver a line. If the series revolved around him and not his daughters, we’d be fine. But sadly, Jade is in charge. Time hopping doesn’t help anything, having villains who just enter a room and kill every human in it was stupid, and I hated pretty much everything about this pilot except Lance Reddick.
I will be watching one more. I don’t usually do that for a show I rank this low, but because of the franchise name, and as a gift to Lance, I will go for one more. I didn’t walk into this hoping it would be hot garbage. i want this to b as good as it can be. It just was made with a lot of incompetence.
Episode Grade: D+
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