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The All-New TT: Television Time Mini Reviews

The thing is, Dune was written back when its familiar plot points hadn't been quite so deeply cut into the earth. If you adapt something that has heavily influenced a genre for 60 years, there will be a relative lack of surprises.
 
So, The Pitt (1st season currently streaming on Max) is easily the best medical drama I’ve ever seen. It does the “24” thing of having each episode cover a single hour of time, so that the whole season follows a group of doctors and nurses through one long shift in a Pittsburgh emergency room. The show does an amazingly sensitive, incisive job of looking at issues in U.S. culture today through a medical lens. It’s got its share of interpersonal drama among the hospital employees, but all of the characters are thoroughly professional, and they never put their own issues ahead of taking care of patients. I give it my highest recommendation, although I’d almost advise you to wait a few weeks until all of the episodes have dropped before you start watching. The direction and the performances create a powerful sense of urgency, and you are not going to want to wait a week between one episode of this show and the next.
 
I started watching the original Addams Family, which, inexplicably, showed up under “Horror TV” on Prime

It holds up astonishingly well, especially for a sitcom of that vintage. Due largely, but not entirely, to John Aston’s performance as Gomez. Dude absolutely sells *absolutely everything* in every scene.
 
Season 2 of Pokerface has been noticeably worse, in my opinion. The first was wildy uneven, yet had some really good episodes that evened out the lesser ones. S2 has been reliably mediocre.

A core problem with Pokerface is that episodes don’t have time to cook an entire story. It has the Columbo formula of showing you the setup to the crime, but in addition, it then shows Charlie’s part in the plot. After the dual setup, it usually ends up with Charlie talking to the killer maybe twice and solving the actual case in less than twenty minutes with her magic lie detector power and sloppy writing. Columbo often had feature length episodes, so we had plenty of time for every step of the story to get the room to breathe. Pokerface is around the same length as a network show, with an extra act shoved in.
 
I thought the Gator cop one was bad, but I liked most of the other episodes, and the elementary school one from this week was extremely good. I do agree that the show would benefit from longer episodes though.
 
I've been watching a Columbo episode every Sunday this year (I call it Columbo Sundays) and also watching Poker Face. With Columbo you know what you're getting, in almost every episode an upper class jerk in LA murders someone for financial reasons and Columbo doggedly investigates them until he gets a confession. Poker Face has a lot more diversity in its potential location, the nature of the crime, and the structure of the story which makes it more exciting to watch. You get an occasional dud like the Florida episode, but I think I slightly prefer the riskier approach to Columbo's reliability. As far as pacing, sometimes Poker Face does short change the actual investigative parts in favor of the other things it's doing with the story, but I don't think that's a bad thing. They're similar shows, but Columbo is a pure detective story that revels in the small details while Poker Face is broader.
 
Patrick said:
I thought the Gator cop one was bad, but I liked most of the other episodes, and the elementary school one from this week was extremely good. I do agree that the show would benefit from longer episodes though.
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Yeah, the school episode was really good.
 
Adrenaline said:
With Columbo you know what you're getting, in almost every episode an upper class jerk in LA murders someone for financial reasons and Columbo doggedly investigates them until he gets a confession.
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How is it we never got a Columbo/Scooby-Doo crossover? Taking out rich/greedy jerks should bring them into each other's orbit so easily.
 
Ok, the big twist of the season(?) finale of Poker Face was bullshit. The Iguana was obviously originally going to have assumed Charlie’s friend’s identity, with the cinnamon allergy being something the assassin could not have known about at such short notice and the thing that outs them. It would negate so much of the shaky writing. Namely, the assassin beating Charlie’s magical lie detector ability, which is so powerful it works over the phone, by trying really, really hard. Sure, it would have been wacky, but remember, the previous episode started with a portable vacuum bag that turns bodies into soup and Mission Impossible level prosthetics. Wacky was already invited to the wedding.
 
I spend most of my media time on video games and movies. Movies end up being shorter time investments than TV shows. I hardly ever watch TV shows. But I watched not one but two new TV shows this week.

**
Wednesday Season 2 (Episode 1)
Tim Burton directs the first episode. Besides a short stop motion sequence, it doesn't feel that Burton-y to me. Wednesday feels like Harry Potter light. I don't think it would be out of place to be on the CW.

I'm sure I'll watch all the episodes because my sister likes it. But Wednesday is light disposable entertainment.

Rating (Out of 5): 📅📅1/2

**
Alien Earth 🌎 (Episode 1 & 2)
A TV series of one of my favorite franchises. Its rated M and has a Tool song playing over the closing credits. This TV show feels like it is made for me.

I didn't love it.

The central premise of the show is that there are 3 factions cyborgs, synthetics, and hybrids vying for superiority on Earth. To my knowledge cyborgs, humans with machine enhancements, are so far not part of the show. Synthetics are classic Alien franchise androids made by Weyland-Yutani (WY) Corp. Hybrids are androids that have a human consciousness transferred to them made by Prodigy Corp.

The driving action of the show is that a WY research ship with space creatures, including the titular Alien, crashes on Earth. It seems like an android intentionally sabatoges the ship and causes it to crash on earth. Prodigy Corp hybrids are sent into investigate the crash and find alien eggs on the ship.

The direction the show seems to be headed is androids vs hybrids with Aliens in the background pushing events forward.

I had a handful of problems with the show:

First, I think the vfx of the TV show do not match the vfx of the movies. It feels cheaper than the movies and the show suffers for the cheaper budget. The Star Wars shows that I've seen seem to have good to great vfx. I didn't think the Alien Earth recieved a similar budget as a Star Wars shows.

Second, I watched this on FX and there were multiple commercial breaks. The alien movies have an atmosphere of dread being in tight quarters with the deadly Xenomorphs. This dread is lessened in the TV show when there are commercial breaks. Maybe the show is better on Hulu if its played without commercials. I was suprised by how much commercial breaks damaged the atmosphere or tone of the show for me.

Third, I'm not sold on the direction of the show through 2 episodes. Its possible that the direction of the show grows on me, but I'm not sold on it yet.

If I were in charge of an alien TV show I would want a ship or a station with a crew that the alien attacks. I would have each episode feature a member of a crew and slowly reveal why and how the alien got loose. Thats not what this show is, but I think there could have been a very good TV show that adheres closer to the movies.

I didn't hate this show and I plan on watching the rest of it. However, Alien Earth is not the home run that I was hoping it would be. The reviews of the show seem very positive. Maybe critics have seen more of the show than I have and it improves.

Rating (out of 5): :alien: :alien: :alien:

p.s. There is also some Disney and Fox movies playing on monitors in the Alien show. Its gross cross promotion and really feels out of place to me.
 
Voncaster said:
Wednesday feels like Harry Potter light. I don't think it would be out of place to be on the CW.
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Wednesday is produced by Millar Gough Ink, with primary writing by Miles Millar. Millar wrote, directed, produced, and "created" Smallville. In a way, this is from the people that invented the CW.
 
Good to know my instincts were right. I enjoyed Riverdale.

There is a place for light entertainment; particularly if your going through hard times or don't want to think too hard after work. Which is to say that saying a show feels like it belongs on the CW is not necessarily a criticism. There is definitely room in my life for popcorn TV.
 
Yeah, I enjoy "CW shows", they're just their own brand of YA storytelling. Certain things always happen: characters will wind up in terrible situations thanks to white lies that seemed dumb when they were told, romances will be "will they/won't they" forever due to easily preventable issues, and, given a long enough run, literally everyone will have at least one heel/face turn for shock value at the end of an episode. Once you accept all that as being as inevitable as rain falling, you can have a good time.
 
My partner has been watching Gossip Girl lately, and without even doing research on it I am 90% sure it aired on CW.
 
My wife and I finally watched every dang episode of Bob's Burgers. We started I think some time early this year and plowed straight through all 15+ seasons. That's a lot of burgs!

Anyway, good stuff, as the rest of the universe already knew. I think I'd bounced off it way back in the day because I really didn't like the character designs (and also I had yet to be inducted into the cult of H Jon Benjamin), but after a season or two of getting used to the style it's comfy.
 
It's a cozy sitcom. Usually the stakes are pretty low in a good way and most of the characters are pretty loveable (Gene is a lot, sometimes).
 
I generally like the show more the less it focuses on the kids overall.

Bob Linda and Teddy are what bring me back every week
 
For a long time I thought of Bob as an obligatory straight man, but it's become clear to me, especially on rewatches, what a truly amazing character he is. And H. Jon Benjamin is the show's voice acting MVP, in terms of the variety of hilarious supporting and one-off characters he voices.
 
One of the nice things about the show being on as long as it has is that they've used their time to include real character development over the years. You see that a lot in Bob, like zonetrope mentioned, and Louise and Tina have also evolved in meaningful ways. Gene and Linda are a little more one-note, but I think they've still got more depth now than in earlier seasons.

Teddy never changes, but that's why he's the show's secret weapon.
 
Apple TV was having a black Friday special, and as it's one of my favorite streaming services, I decided to take the bait. First up was season 5 of Slow Horses, which is one of my favorite shows right now. Unfortunately, I found this season to be really weak - probably their worst to date. It's especially noticeable after season 4, which is my favorite of the lot. S5 almost feels like a different show, partially in that the way it's shot looks different to my eyes, but mostly because it seems incredibly dumbed-down compared to the earlier seasons. I typically have a bit of trouble following along with the twistier storylines in Slow Horses, but this time around there was no such issue. It feels like every important plot point is reiterated about 15 times, and there aren't as many layers of nuance to unpick as you usually get with this show. It doesn't help that they made River an unlikeable dick this season AND it spends a big chunk of its run time on a truly insufferable Roddy Ho. Roddy's character works in small doses, but becomes pretty unbelievable in longer scenes IMO. Despite my gripes, it would be damn near impossible for this cast to turn out a complete dud of a season, so there are still some decent moments. I hope this isn't indicative of the direction they'll be taking with the (already filmed) season 6 and beyond, though.

After that came Silo, a show that even I couldn't explain to you why I watch. Well OK: it's a very low-stakes sci-fi show with great sets and a few strong actors, so I guess it's pretty easy to watch an episode or two when I want to enter the brain-off zone. But man, talk about a show where almost nothing happens in most episodes, and even when it does, it doesn't land with much weight. I'm about halfway through season 2 and all I can say is that it's a good thing for them that I need something to watch while ironing.

Finally, it somehow took me a week or so to remember that I could go back to watching Severance. The first season of this show ranks among my all-time favorites, and it ended with a real bombshell cliffhanger, but I was disappointed when they walked things back at the start of season 2 instead of plowing ahead at full speed. Thankfully, I've pushed through the first 2-3 episodes of place-setting and things are getting interesting again. Looking forward to seeing what this season has in store for me over the holidays.

Oh, and for a show that isn't on Apple TV, I watched the first season-and-a-bit of Mr Inbetween. It's an Australian show about a career criminal who is extremely chill (for the most part), despite the violent nature of his work. It's very funny and often quite touching, and the biggest reason I put it down is that I've been feeling tired lately and wasn't really in the mood for the more serious turns that it occasionally takes. Great one to watch with subtitles, let me tell ya.
 
I have been really enjoying Loot on Apple Tv. The premise is basically Maya Rudolph as MacKenzie Scott giving away all her divorce billions as a workplace sitcom. It's got Ron Funches! Needless to say, it is very broad.
 
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