For a Sunday, this is a little low. I’ll grant you that. The only show I’ve been watching was Dear Edward. The other 4 are my first episodes of their series/season.

5) Perry Mason (HBo MAX)

English Audio Description?: Yes

Starting off Season 2. I know we are just getting started, and this season is all about establishing new characters, and the plot going forward, but it still somehow felt slow. It also feels like Matthew Rhys takes a step back at the top of the season, putting perry in the background so that this story can be told. I thought for an episode that wasn’t even an hour, it felt like a lifetime.

episode Grade: B

4) Hello Tomorrow (Apple plus)

English Audio Description?: Yes

Billy Crudup’s futuristic show reminds me a little of Downsizing meets Pleasantville with a futuristic touch. I don’t know if that makes any sense. I wasn’t really pulled in, and Hello Tomorrow almost had the converse problem of Perry Mason, where I wasn’t as sure about the ensemble, but I knew who billy Crudup was playing. Weird.

Episode Grade: B+

3) The Consultant (Amazon)

English Audio Description?: Yes

I’m intrigued. This show is so much weirder and unsettling than I thought it would be. If you haven’t started The Consultant, I don’t know what to tell you. After only one episode, I don’t even know if I’d recommend it, but as a TV Pilot, it presented me with an Oscar’s slap to the face I wasn’t expecting. It’s so bizarre, I feel like i have to peek down the rabbit hole and see what’s there. If i don’t like it, I’ll run for the door.

Episode Grade: A-

2) Shrinking (Apple Plus)

English Audio Description?: Yes

A pretty perfect pilot. It introduces you to a host of characters that you get to know over the course of the first half hour. It’s well paced, and it gives you all the information you need, and sets the tone perfectly. However, I had to take a point away, for how the pilot ends. I’m gonna need someone to explain to me how that guy showed up at a high school girls soccer game. Like, what the fuck? They already established he has no kids. Why was he there? Pasadena has 139K as a population, so it’s not like it’s that easy to track someone down. Plus, it’s also kind of in that area where it falls under the “metro” area of another city, so perhaps more traffic. And if he was a creature of habit, Segal wasn’t been attending these games. So, he wouldn’t know to look there. If he was following them, I’m sure the other guy he was with would have noticed. It’s like they wrote this fantastic new pilot, and then someone came in and took a dump on the script before shooting. The next episode better establish that the character who has these amazing tracking skills is some CIA operative. The show was doing so good. So so good. Dammit.

Episode Grade: A-

1) Dear Edward (Apple Plus)

English Audio Description?: Yes

I have been given the authority to pass the torch officially. The “This is us” successor torch is going to Dear Edward. It should have gone to Council Of Dads, but NBC was drunk and cancelled that. So, instead, it appears Apple has the show that is both uplifting and emotional, with an ensemble cast just trying to figure out life. Edward and that jacket though.

Episode Grade: A