Well, I had to squeeze Lightyear in here as well, so, 5 shows is it for this day.

1) Shining Girls (Apple Plus)

English Audio Description?: Yes

I cannot stress my love for this show. I was actually having moments in this 7th episode where I was so personally invested in fictitious characters that I was doing that whole “talking to them through the TV”. I really wanted Kirby to slap the shit out of Marcus. I mean, she went out on a limb and trusted this guy, who basically thinks she’s nuts and got her fired, and then tried to act like the caring husband. no dude, you’re a possessive asshole with a limited mind, and you can’t help Kirby at all, so you think it’s easier to just try and stop it. And the fact that her boss bought into it, fuck her too. Of course, a major character met their end at the end of the episode, while another now shares the dual realities life that Kirby is now experiencing. I’m so invested in this show.

Episode Grade: A

2) All Rise (OWN)

English Audio Description? No

Nothing really came close to Shining Girls today. But All Rise attempted a return to normalcy, by pitting Lola’s husband and the FBI against Mark, because her husband thought it might be a good idea to use information he overheard while swinging by to talk to Lola about their personal drama to his own advantage, and saw nothing wrong with it. Luckily, Lola did, and kind of told the FBI to take a hike.

Episode Grade: B+

3) Westworld (HBo/HBo MAX)

English Audio Description?: Yes

After last weeks too weird to be enjoyable shitfest featuring Charlotte’s return, we went back to Dolores (or whatever she’s calling herself temporarily) and she has sort of an awakening of sorts courtesy of a brief run in with Teddy (who has never been more awake). Meanwhile, William is struggling to prove his usefulness as “the outlier” keeps causing hosts to kill themselves, and he can’t seem to figure out how to stop it.

Episode Grade: B

4) The Summer I Turned Pretty (Amazon)

English Audio Description Available?: Yes

Do people like this? Is this going to get another season? Am I wasting my time? If I’m being honest, and three episodes deep, it’s always been just about the same level of “blah”. Like, it’s OK. The cast is likable enough. But I think of all the shows exactly like this one that aired on The WB, The CW, Freeform, MTV, or any of the streaming platforms, that throws together a good looking young cast and gives them a simple premise. Frequently, they are also wealthy, because for some reason, we like to watch kids with more money than us mope about and become alcoholics. Is it bad? No. But considering the axes that Amazon has been dropping, I couldn’t imagine they looked at this and said… we need more of this. Then again, Netflix keeps picking up shows like this, so maybe this is Amazon’s answer to Outer Banks?

Episode Grade: B-

5) The Pentavorate (Netflix)

English Audio Description?: Yes

I was fully into this thing at the beginning, but as the show advanced, it became clear to me that Mike Myers wasn’t going to stick the landing, and I was right. Landing was actually really rough. not a total crash, but nothing memorable. Over the course of the shows run, there were a few good jokes. his humor is not fully lost. But, I miss the guy who really knew how to make people laugh through Wayne’s World, Austin Powers, and Shrek. Not all of those featured him as a writer, but he was funniest back then.

Episode Grade: C+, Series Grade: B