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Tag Archives: Season Reviews
After Its Season 3 Finale, Westworld May Be Unfixable
If I could make only one rule for Westworld, it would be this — no more twists. The series is addicted to pulling the rug out from under its audience, trying to make fans say “whoa”, or otherwise recontextualizing everything the audience has seen so far. That approach completely undermines the show’s attempts to tell stories, establish character, and convey meaning. As I discussed on the Serial Fanaticist Podcast, when everything the audience sees is merely a setup for some later subversion, none of it matters, and all the audience at home can do is wait for the punchline.
HBO’s Watchmen Watches Over Trump’s America
More than 30 years after the globe-shaping events of the original Watchmen comic, the ripple effects can still be felt. Adrian “Ozymandias” Veidt is in seclusion somewhere far away and presumed dead. A group of Rorschach-imitating, conspiracy-touting white supremicists threaten the peace and the police at every turn. And the law enforcement officers of Tulsa, Oklahoma have donned capes, cowls, and masks in response, with some even assuming the secret identities that can come with them.
Posted in Other Prestige Dramas, Television
Tagged Damon Lindelof, HBO, Season Reviews, Watchmen
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It’s Always Sunny Keeps Us Guessing In Its Record-Tying 14th Season
The Gang is back in action after one of their best and most ambitious seasons. As It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia ties The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet’s record for longest-running live action sitcom, it’s remarkable that the show is not only this good as it begins its fourteenth season, but how it’s managed to evolve and stay relevant. Season 14 doesn’t have the same cliffhanger to resolve or Dennis-shaped hole to fill like the last one did, but it does have to follow up last season’s jaw-dropping finale, which set a new bar for what It’s Always Sunny is capable of.
Veronica Mars Shows No Rust on Its Mystery Machine in Season 4
Veronica Mars is back and up to her old tricks! Five years after the events of the movie, Veronica’s settled in and made a new life for herself in Neptune. She’s working with her dad, living with Logan, and as the season’s cold open firmly establishes, she still knows her way around a locked door and a listening device.
But those skills are put to the test when a bomb at a seaside motel takes out a unique mix of libertine Spring Breakers and the exasperated people who serve them. The explosion’s victims include a standard party girl and a humble hotel owner, a lecherous douchebro and a nerd with dangerous family ties, as well as a true crime-loving pizza delivery man and the younger brother of a US congressman. From there, the season spins out its clues, connections, and potential motives with more than enough possibilities to fuel its central mystery.
Veep Kicks Off Its Seventh and Final Season in Familiar Fashion
It’s time for a “New Selina Now,” as America’s favorite foul-mouthed ex-Vice President (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) makes her bid to stay in the Oval Office for a term longer than the average celebrity marriage. Along the way, she has to combat some new foes and familiar faces, including the deplorable extraordinaire himself, Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons). Her old staff is along for the ride, with their mercenary schemes and acid-tongued repartee still out in full force. As Veep kicks off its seventh and final season, it promises a heap of the show’s usual pointed political pugilism, as Selina and company rumble through Iowa and New Hampshire in an effort to woo voters and sate their own egos and ambitions.
Posted in Other Sitcoms, Television
Tagged Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Season Reviews, Veep
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Why The Haunting of Hill House Succeeds Where So Many Other Netflix Shows Fail
Every prestige-ish drama has to have a mystery box. Whether the cultural influence comes from J.J. Abrams or Game of Thrones or the other forces that prompt studios and creators to play follow the leader, no season of television, particularly genre television, can seem to get by without some burning mystery that you’ll have to wait till the season finale to see resolved.
The Haunting of Hill House is no exception. As I discussed on The Serial Fanaticist podcast, the horror series from writer/director Mike Flanagan actually has two mystery boxes. The series gradually ladles out the story of the Crain family — two young parents and their five children — in both the past and the present, offering parallel mysteries in both timeframes. And its puzzles and scares are each centered around the titular haunted house.
Posted in Other Prestige Dramas, Television
Tagged Haunted Houses, Horror, Netflix, Season Reviews, The Haunting of Hill House
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Castle Rock’s First Season Offers the Same Old Tiresome Excesses of High Class Genre Fare
CAUTION: This article contains major spoilers for Castle Rock.
When the first season of Netflix’s Daredevil came out, it felt like the series fulfilled an unmet need. The show had its problems, even in its promising first year, but it did things differently than other live action superhero shows at the time. The series had something on its mind. It had production values and grimy visuals and creatively-staged fights. It was far from flawless, but its quick success made it seem like the herald of a new phase of genre television, one that aimed for something a little deeper, a little darker, and a little realer than what we’d had before.
Well maybe it’s time to send that herald back from whence it came. As I discussed on The Serial Fanatacist podcast, Castle Rock doesn’t directly borrow much, if anything, from Daredevil, but it’s part of the same wave of prestige-aping, navel-gazing genre shows whose reach far exceeds their grasp. While briefly novel, this sort of take on geek-approved material has worn out its welcome amid the onslaught of shows that know enough to gesticulate toward deeper themes and move the camera around in faux-portentous montages, but never really master the trade, let alone the depth of character or storytelling that could make those badges of seriousness legitimately meaningful.
Posted in Other Prestige Dramas, Television
Tagged Castle Rock, Genre Television, Horror, Season Reviews, Stephen King
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Season 2 of Westworld Had Bigger Challenges Than Before, But Couldn’t Overcome Them in “The Passenger”
Season 1 of Westworld had an easier task than Season 2 did. The first season of the show, as Clementine might put it, didn’t have much of a rind on it. All of its mysteries, all of its characters, all of its ideas, were completely new. The audience was starting from square one, and the show was able to spoon feed details and reveal important facts bit-by-bit until the shocking twists burst out. The first season also had a clearer trajectory for its season-length mega arc, with early hints that there was something amiss with the hosts, building to a full blown revolt at the end.
But as I discussed on the Serial Fanaticist Podcast, Season 2 had no such luxuries. Despite the introduction of a handful of new characters, when the second season rolled around, Westworld’s major figures had become known quantities. How the park worked, the contours of this artificial world, was no longer as burning a question after ten episodes’ worth of worldbuilding. And the path from business as usual in Westworld to all hell breaking loose proved a much clearer and more direct path than Season 2’s disparate collections of characters who each want different things, and are all marauding around the park in a far less unified fashion.
Posted in Other Prestige Dramas, Television
Tagged Akecheta, Episode Reviews, Season Reviews, Westworld, Westworld S02E10, Westworld Season 2
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ReBoot: The Guardian Code Earns Its Fan Backlash
I’m old enough to be able to remember when The Simpsons first started using Comic Book Guy — the portly, surly, and above all opinionated proprietor of Springfield’s local comic shop — as a stand-in so the show could poke fun at its die hard fans. The reaction was as swift and negative as you’d expect, with series’s biggest devotees (often its biggest critics) taking great offense, not only at being cast as schlubby lowlifes, but at having their concerns dismissed as pointless, nerdy nitpickery.
So it felt like deja vu when ReBoot: The Guardian Code — the 2018 revival of the groundbreaking 1994 computer-animated television show, ReBoot — depicted the hardcore fans of the original series in nearly the exact same way and received the same sort of response.
Posted in Other Animated Shows, Television
Tagged Computer Animation, Fan Backlash, ReBoot, ReBoot: The Guardian Code, Revivals, Season Reviews
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Archer’s “Danger Island” Proves the Show Can Work Anywhere
Another season. Another reboot. The powers that be behind Archer have figured out that the motley collection of personalities the show’s crafted over the past eight years are now officially commedia dell’arte characters — distinct enough to be recognizable but malleable enough that you can plop them into any variety of new stories and situations and trust that they’ll fit right in.
Enter “Archer: Danger Island”, the show’s latest seasonal refresh. Season 9 offers a new backdrop for our favorite band of former secret agents/private detectives/drug runners/noir gumshoes/astronauts/submariners/alcoholics — a Casablanca-esque, French-occupied island in the South Pacific named Mitimotu. The action takes place in 1939, with references to the looming war and a winking vibe that tracks with the characteristically wide-ranging cultural pastiche of an “American abroad” island adventure.
Posted in Other Animated Shows, Television
Tagged Archer, Archer Season 9, Season Reviews, Sterling Archer
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