Previewing The Chi: Season Three

It is not every day when the lead of a show gets fired. Though we may see it happen more often after three high profile cases in recent memory with Lethal Weapon and Roseanne getting the boot from her own show as co-worker are less likely to put up with a lead that does not respect their co-stars. The third was Jason Mitchell who was posed to be the next big thing but was booted from The Chi after allegations from multiple people on the show. One of his accusers also has left the show.

That is not the only trimming to the cast as Reg was killed off at the end of the last season and Detective Cruz is completely absent, at least in the first couple episodes. Still, the cast is still big enough that those loses are not missed, really, Mitchell’s storylines were always the least interesting. The three young boys were always the most interesting and they continue to be as the third season goes on as they embark on a new chapter in their lives at a new, mostly white, school.

The third season starts with two life events on the opposite end of the spectrum happening on the same day. It is probably not too hard to guess who is involved in one of them. By the second episode, we are introduced to a mystery that at the very least takes up half the season. But as reminiscent of the first season mystery of who killed Coogie, it really does not take up a big chunk of the time and seems a bit gratuitous. But after some cast shake up, it is good to see The Chi remains consistent.

The Chi airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.

Previewing We Are Freestyle Love Supreme

Sometimes it seems like some celebrities just enter the public consciousness just fully formed with a blank slate before then. Lin Manuel Miranda just arrived as the Hamilton dude. Sure the theaters nerds probably remember him from In the Heights but there was a time Miranda was on stage even before that production. But his first off Broadway show was not even a musical but an improve comedy hip-hop show. And the thing about Freestyle Love Supreme, Miranda was not even the founder of the troupe or even the main star, but just a guy in the show.

But Lin-Manuel is definitely the reason there is a documentary called We Are Freestyle Love Supreme about the show even though watching it, you can easily forget he was a part of the group. And it is not like the other members went on to be big stars. Christopher Jackson, the original George Washington in Hamilton was a late addition and so was Utkarsh Ambudkar whom you may have seen in a few things including being one of the Treblemakers in Pitch Perfect but has not had that breakout moment yet. Miranda also mentions in the doc that he met Daveed Diggs through the show but never elaborates on the story. The others members are just college buddies that recruited Miranda because of their mutual love of hip-hop.

The documentary does devolves a little into Behind the Music tropes of having darker moments. There are hints of jealousy when Hamilton takes up a lot of three of the member’s time (director Thomas Kail being the third), the leader of the group moves to the west coast after getting married, and things get the darkest when Ambudkar tells the tale of hard drinking ruined his shot of being Aaron Burr in the original run of Hamilton. As Miranda says early in the doc quoting Orsen Wells, ”If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story. “

But the story of Freestyle Love Supreme does not stop there; instead the group gets back together for a string of shows in 2019. Besides those small bumps, the documentary is overwhelmingly positive and the love the guys have for each other and performing. Improv shows can usually be a tough watch and comedy-hip-hop improv is downright cringy especially with a name like Freestyle Love Supreme, but the love these guys have for each other and for their show may be worth checking out if they ever do another reunion show down the line, and not just because Lin-Manuel Miranda would likely show up.

We Are Freestyle Love Supreme premieres tomorrow on Hulu.

Previewing Billions: Season Five

Did Billions tease us just how the show will end during the season four finale when Taylor said, “They’re both lined up to destroy each other. At the right moment, when both of their guns are raised, I’ll step out of the way and let it happen.” The first two seasons saw the U.S. District Attorney Chuck Rhodes and Hedge Fund manager Bobby Axelrod tried to bring each other down even through mutual assured destruction. They called a truce when their respective protégées tried to stop this war because they were losing site of everything else.

At the end of season four, the duo got Chuck’s protégé Brian Connerty to break the law in attempt to bring him down (which is ironic considering Connerty’s biggest gripe against Chuck was that he was willing to break the law to bring down Axe). While Axe’s protégé had to come back to his company after Axe crushed the fledgling new shop. Now with those problems vanquished, it is time to turn their sight back at each other and Chuck fires the first shot when asking Taylor to be a mole, who, as seen by the quote has plans of her own.

Axe on the other hand starts the new season acting like the truce is still going on. Granted he is too blind to see Chuck’s behind the scenes scheming because he has a new antagonist on the scene as he enters the Deca Club (for ten billion dollar club, although I am not sure how they distinguish between that and the ten million dollar club, or just billion because that is ten digits, I may have went with the Hendeca Club myself, but I digress). He is joined in the club by Corey Stoll (The Strain) who is the current face of the Deca Club who seems to be as worthy of an advisory as Chuck Rhodes.

Also popping up this season is Julianna Margulies (The Hot Zone) as a professor at the college Chuck decides to teach a class at. Sure it is a little weird that the sitting Attorney General of the state is teaching law, but hey, not the weirdest thing I have ever seen on television. Frank Grillo (The Purge: Election Year) also shows up as an aloof painter who finds himself in the middle of a feud between Axe and Stoll. Granted both guest stars seem to be brought in to help further separate the Rhodes marriage that was severely fractured last season. Granted the most interested guest stars are the random actors that are brought into a storyline involving Wags.

Will Taylor actually end this season standing over the bodies of Chuck and Axe? Sure, it will be a while until we find out because the Caronapocalypse delayed production so only the first seven episodes will air in this run with the last five will return (hopefully) this fall. It is teased, but five seasons in, it is hard to think anyone but Chuck or Axe will be the ones to bring down Chuck and/or Axe. The best Taylor can do is like she suggests, just step to the side when the guns do go off.

Billions airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime.

Previewing Normal People

When Hulu first announced an adaptation of Sally Rooney’s book Normal People, my first thought was cool, this kind of sounds like an Irish version of another literary adaptation they had just done, Looking for Alaska. The show based on the John Greene novel was a quintessential teen based television show by Josh Schwartz, the guy who pretty much invented the new millennium teen drama. That show started with a car crash before transitioning into The Killers’ All These Things I’ve Done and never let up with zippy dialogue, loud songs, and always something to catch your eye.

Normal People, it turns out, is the furthest thing from Looking for Alaska as you can get. Teen drama is about the only thing the two shows have in common. Where Looking for Alaska starts with a big set piece and a great pop song, Normal People just starts. The start is so subdued, a couple minutes into it I had to look to make sure I clicked the first episode to play. There are no big pop songs, or really songs at all in the series premiere except what sort of sounds like a muffled Chvrches song during a party. Music is used very sparingly throughout the season, there is not a proper montage set to music until the fifth episode. Then when you think they are going to do more traditional television music scene with Carly Rae Jepsen or Selena Gomez, those songs only last for maybe five seconds.

Instead the show starts what looks like in the middle of a school day. Maybe it was the first time Marianne (who could pass as a younger Anne Hathaway) catches the eye of Connell or maybe vice versa. He is a jock while she is a nerdy girl with an attitude, though still plenty pretty, this is not an absurd She’s All That story. Of course that was another flashy blockbuster teen movie; Normal People is much more of the indie film version of a television show. All the character are very subdued and quit except for Marianne’s bother that seems like he is antagonist from a Nicholas Sparks movie, but he is even in maybe five scenes throughout the season.

Normal People, for twelve half hour or less episodes, follow Marianne and Connell as they come in and out of each other’s lives over the course of maybe four years. Roles get reversed as the characters transition to college with Marianne, with a more flattering haircut, is now the popular one with Connell, no longer the sports star but a struggling writer is having troubles fitting in.

Oh, and then there is the sex. Lots and lots of sex. Half of the second episode is pretty much just the first sexual encounter. Sometime awkward, sometimes kinky when one of them starts dabbling in BDSM, but always a little too real. They do tease what I thought was going to tease what I though was going to be a Chekov’s threesome but clearly one of the leads is just not as adventurous as the other, which probably leads to them to drift apart.

While never flashy, Normal People is at the very least always compelling. They play with the limited time length very well, twelves half hour episodes does seem to work a lot better than had they tried six hour length episodes because any longer and I feel like I may had been tempted to peak at my phone. I liked it better when the characters left their native county to go to Italy and elsewhere but it is always at its best when the two main character are together.

All episodes of Normal People are available on Hulu starting today.

Previewing Penny Dreadful: City of Angels

Penny Dreadful had one of the weirdest flex in the history of television; they announced the show would be ending simply by putting a “The End” title card of what ended up being the series finale. No long march to the end, they just killed off Eva Green and before you start to wonder where the show would do without its lead, they just said peace out. Kind of wish more shows did that.

Four years later, the creator John Logan (writer of Gladiator) apparently wants to play in that playbook again but instead of a full reboot, he is making what he call a spiritual sequel. Where the original features a team up of a bunch of 19th century Victorian monsters, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels features characters from Mexica folklore set in the 1930’s. But where pretty much everyone in the original cast was a monster of some sort, only two members of the show are supernatural (or so far in the episodes I have seen, we did not learn Josh Hartnett was the Wolfman until the season one finale) and one of those is not even in the main cast.

Instead the show mostly focuses on the first Mexican-American detective on the Los Angeles police force plated by Daniel Zovatto (It Follows). It helps that with his haircut he can pass as just tan for those that are ignorant. But most of his family is still very weary of the cops so he is stuck between two worlds. Pulling him to the other side of the tracks is the only person on the force willing to be his partner, Nathan Lane (Joe vs. the Volcano) who happens to be the only Jewish cop in LA.

Making this divide worse is Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell) as the dark goddess Magda who is a shape shifter (okay, they just put the actress in different wigs, though she does have a few other tricks up her sleeve) who is whispering in ears on both sides to speed up a race war. One of her biggest marks is an American first Nazi played by Rory Kinnear (Frankenstein’s monster in the original; feel free to think that after the event of the first show, he traveled to Germany only to later show up in Los Angeles). On the other side she is shacking up with some dude named “Fly Rico” and their scenes together just seem to ripped from West Side Story. Though Dormer’s explanation of how she is Hispanic is pretty convoluted.

I do kind of miss the folklore elements of the original as much of that takes a back seat to the historical crime cases that are featured here. Though none have supernatural elements, it feels like thirties crime in Los Angeles have been well documented. Dormer’s mythical counterpoint, Santa Muerte (Lorenza Izzo, The Green Inferno), the angel who takes souls up to heaven, is only listed as a guest star and is not as interested in involving herself in the lives of humans. Though there is still time for other supernatural beings to come forward. There are some religious characters introduced in the second episode that seem like prime candidates. But I do like the idea of Penry Dreadful turning into an anthology featuring different folklore. Maybe future series can delve into Native American, African, Japanese, the possible stories are endless.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.

Previewing Little Fires Everywhere

One thing that struck me while watching Little Fires Everywhere is the first shot of the series is that of one pretty forking big fire. Okay so it explained by the Fire Marshall that the big fire was started with little fires everywhere and accelerant. But of course being a television show, little fires everywhere is quite obvious a metaphor for probably a few different things. And is not just that someone burned down this house, they did it with someone inside. Then we promptly flash back four months where we are introduced to two very different families.

Reece Witherspoon spent a quarter century being a huge movie star but all of the sudden she has become the new queen of prestige television with what you can essentially call the Reece Witherspoon Book Club. Three years ago she turned Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies into an HBO smash hit. Last year she launch Apple+ with The Morning Show based Brian Stelter book. And now she is adapting the Celeste Ng book Little Fires Everywhere for Hulu.

Like Big Little Lies, Reece’s character in Little Fires Everywhere can best be described as grown up Tracy Flick. Again she is playing a very type-A personality trying to exude a very specific persona to the world, you know, the kind of person who weighs herself to the tenth but only has sex on certain day and does not even break that rule if it is just a little past midnight. But there is where the comparisons to her other show ends (well, okay, Joshua Jackson as her husband is as ineffectual as Adam Scott except for maybe one scene in a court room late in the season). The show, is set in 1997 mixed middle class Shaker Height, Ohio, and is really just two woman dealing with their families instead of the super-rich lives of five (six if you count Meryl Streep).

The other woman is played by Kerry Washington who is new to Shaker and needs a new place to stay with her and her teenaged child. A chance run in with Reece, who gets introduced with an Annie Lennox song, gives Kerry, who gets introduced with an Erikah Badu song, a place to stay and a new job. Needless to say there would be no show if these two strong willed women got along, but Reece’s trying so hard not to be perceived as racist, well, comes off as a little racist. Then Kerry is not very good at letting micro-aggressions go.

With only two families at the heart of the story, some of the heavy lifting is left to the five children in the two families and where Little Fires Everywhere fails to live up to Big Little Lies is that these kids are no Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, or Zoey Kravitz. The best of the bunch is Reece’s youngest of four who is just shooting daggers for the first couple episodes (and gets thrown under the bus by her siblings during the opening moments) but kind of just disappears before trotting down the hallway to 2Pac in the penultimate episode (the last of which I saw so I not sure how the season ends) in one of the show's more entertaining moments. While Reece’s two boys took me a couple episodes to tell apart. Then her eldest is trying way too hard to playing a mimi-Reese.

One person who actually does a good job playing mini-Reese is AnnaSophia Robb who shares an episode with The Chi’s Tiffany Boone who plays a younger Kerry in duel flashbacks. Robb’s performance makes me wonder why she only seems to be cast in Hulu award bait for other actors (like last year’s The Act). Please Hollywood, how about giving Robb her own show again instead of wasting her on bit parts. But this was a weird episode just because it also features Veronica Mars’ Alona Tal, Cloak and Dagger’s Aubrey Joseph, Grey Anatomy’s Jesse Williams, and Tomorrowland’s Britt Robertson all of which are in two scenes or less. Kind of a waste for actors whom I at least can recognize. I cannot imagine they will show up in the one episode I have yet to watch.

Despite opening up with arson, this really is not much of a whodunit. Reece’s youngest is an early suspect, but by the time you give episode seven, there really are not that many subjects. Really it is kind of obvious early on it will be kind of silly if it turns out to be someone else. The show actually turns into a court battle which actually is a bigger mystery of how the court will rule. But unless there are some big moments in the final episode Little Fires Everywhere will just turn out to be another in a long list of shows striving to be prestige TV that ends up being a solid B at best.

Three episodes of Little Fires Everywhere premiere tomorrow on Hulu with a new episode premiering every Wednesday after that.

Previewing Into the Dark: Crawlers

During its first season, the first five episodes Into the Dark went with the very obvious holidays before the first curveball came in March with an Ides of March themed episode. The second season started with the five same holidays but we finally get a deviation this month as the anthology goes with the more obvious March holiday this time around with a St. Patrick Day themed episode with an even bigger surprise being that they managed to do one without involving leprechauns.

Instead this installment Crawlers features, well, not exactly anything that crawls or at least we do not see them crawl. This episode stars Giorgia Whigham who played the snarky teenager in the second season of The Punisher. Adding that kind of character to that kind of show could have easily ruined that show, but Whigham added much needed levity to the heavy show and actually improved it.

Whigham plays a drug dealing townie that is making plenty of money off of college students during the most inebriated day of the year in this small college town. But she is also a conspiracy theorist who thinks the moon landing was faked, Paull McCartney was replaced by a body double, and apparently so was Avril Lavigne (after a quick Google search it turns out stupid people on the internet think this). Oh, and tying into the theme of the episode, she also thinks St. Patrick was an alien.

She also thinks there is more to a meteorite that crashed near the quiet college four decades ago then the CIA would leave her to believe. Of course she would be right otherwise there would be no movie. Unfortunately the rest of the cast is not as compelling as her. Same for the script as I feel like I have seen the small town has to fight back from invaders movie before and done much better. But Whigham does make Crawlers watchable and they wisely also made her the narrator so even when she is not on screen, she still is around to may a wry comment on things. Now hopefully she can find something that can better use her talents.

Into the Dark Season Two Power Ranking:

1. Uncanny Annie (October)
2. A Nasty Piece of Work (December)
3. Crawlers (March)
4. Pilgrim (November)
5. My Valentine (February)
6. Midnight Kiss (December)

Into the Dark: Crawlers premieres tomorrow exclusively on Hulu.

Previewing Utopia Falls

John Landgraf of FX coined the term “Peak TV” when he counted 400 scripted television shows that year and since then it has only gotten peakier and will explode even more this year with the launch of HBO Max, Peacock, and something called Quibi which apparently you will only be able to watch on your phone. I do not think anyone even bothers to count how many shows are being aired anymore (the best I could find is 1400+). So with so many different options, there are shows for every little niche you can think of.

But watching Utopia Falls, a Canadian import coming to Hulu today, I have to ask, who exactly this show is for. Having watched every episode, the best I can describe this show is “Hunger Games meets Fame”; feel free to put that in your promos Hulu. I just do not know who would see that and think, cool, I have to watch them. At best, there may be a couple people who read that and think, what the fork, that sounds so stupid I have to watch to see if that is what the show really is.

But seriously, Utopia Falls takes place hundreds of years in a dystopian future where a city within a dome has been split up into four sections, Progress, Industry, Nature, and Reform (which seems to be the lowest rank). The dome is to protect them from the poisonous outside world that was turned into a wasteland from endless wars. Then for the past seventy-three years twenty-four exemplars from the sectors are chosen, but instead of a fight to the death, Hunger Games style, they compete in a talent competition, be it dance, singing, or playing a musical instrument. See, I told you, Hunger Games meets Fame. I was not joking.

Like any good dystopian future, everyone wears very boring clothing and hair styles but there has not been any civil unrest in five decades. Of course most of them have weird names but unlike other YA adaptation, these are just dumb, like Tempo, Apollo, Bohdi, Mags, and Sage and their last names are numbers. Then most everyone is hot and ambitiously ethnic with some weird parentage. The vaguely Asian chick has a black and white mother. The Latina has a redhead mother. If it is ever explained how the parentage does not make any biological sense, I missed it.

Though they are currently living in Utopia, as the title suggests, that will not last long. While celebrating their selection as an Exemplar, two happen upon a secret library outside the city limits which houses a library of media from present day that had been long lost. And really, there are very few things more entertaining that watching a bunch of people who clearly were hired for the dancing ability try to act like they have never heard hip-hop before. Oh, and did I mention, the Alexa of this library is voiced by the disembodied voice of Snoop Dogg?

So despite never hearing rap music before, one dude is able to spit verses an hour later. The Exemplars become so versed in modern music, before long they are debating Old School and New School. And yet the person that claims there was no good rap before N.W.A. (umm, I think someone got their old school/new school and East Coast/West Coast debates mixed up) starts rapping The Message less than five. So I really cannot call this show at all good with its paint by numbers dystopian YA trope presented with bad acting, yet I am kind of hoping it gets renewed.

All episodes of Utopia Falls are now streaming on Hulu.

Previewing Into the Dark: My Valentine

Like most of America, I did not see Jem and the Holograms but I could only imagine it may have been better as a horror film (hey, they repurposed Fantasy Island as one recently so why not). Maybe we will see what a potential Jem and the Hologram horror movie might look like with the latest Into the Dark installment, My Valentine.

The new episode stars Britt Baron (G.L.O.W.) as, well, Valentine, a musician performing for the first time since a really bad co-dependent relationship. Of course her first show back attracts said boyfriend… and his new girlfriend, who just so happens to be the spitting image of her because he took all her songs and looks (they both spot wigs that look like a mix of California Gurls era Katy Perry and Just Dance version of Lady Gaga, yet somehow more annoying looking) and turned it into Trezzure, the newest pop start with 21.9 million subscribers.

With it pop music sensibilities mixed with gratuitous violence, this is the weirdest episode of Into the Dark in a while. I am not going to say that is a good thing, but boy it is weird. I do appreciate they went in a different direction from last year’s Valentine’s Day episode, but did end up enjoying that one more. But for those that have been patiently waiting for any sign of a Into the Dark extended universe, I believe this is the first episode that actually references a previous installment (even though the episode ends with two music videos for mediocre songs, stick around for it in the credits).

Into the Dark Season Two Power Ranking:

1. Uncanny Annie (October)
2. A Nasty Piece of Work (December)
3. Pilgrim (November)
4. My Valentine (February)
4. Midnight Kiss (December)

Into the Dark: My Valentine premieres today on Hulu.

Previewing Homeland: The Final Season

It struck me as I am slowly working on my best of the decade list is how different my greatest shows of the decade would look if I just ranked shows on their first season. I would not have to deal with the trash fires that were the last couple season of Game of Thrones. Mr. Robot would be much higher. But the biggest benefactor would undoubtedly be Homeland which had one of the best debut season ever but then the third was one of the worst ever and has been bouncing back and forth between good and bad for the next five season. This is not a problem confined to this decade; Lost also had a great first season but ended up in the middle of my top 100.

So here we are at the final season of Homeland and for all the talk we have about sticking the landing, after eight season, I am just glad we will finally get a conclusion be it bad or good. I kind of hope it ends with Saul and Carrie retiring because, boy have they been through so much this decade. Fork, Carrie ended the last season spending 213 days in a Siberian prison without her bi-polar medication. And yet, twenty-three minutes into the premiere, Carrie is back behind enemy lines doing spy work for her country despite a failed polygraph which most spies are taught to pass and still recovering from being tortured. Granted it is an interesting juxtaposition from the first season where you wonder if the Russians turned Carrie like the Taliban turned Brody.

But hey, Saul needs her in Afghanistan for a week or two. He is close to bringing peace to the region if it not for a Pakistani general who is acting like he is the villain in an eighties action film. Also in the region is Max, Carrie’s wire tapper she hired whenever she did not want her bosses to know what she was doing. Apparently Saul hired him to in an official capacity to repair a functional listening devise near an enemy camp. Also back is Beau Bridges who I forgot was promoted to president after his superior resigned last season. And he seems to be at odds with his VP as his predecessor was with him. But in Homeland world why you actually can lose your job as president for gross incompetence, I wonder if he will last the season. Maybe by the end of the series, maybe Carrie or Saul will fail all the way to the White House.

Homeland airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime.

Previewing Kidding: Season Two

I know I spend a lot of time complaining bout how much I forget about a show’s previous season, but you would think a mild mannered children’s television host running over his wife’s boyfriend on Christmas Eve would have been pretty memorable. But there I was watching the previously on for the second season of Kidding and Mr. Pickles just ran over a dude… and that is where the season left off.

The first season of Kidding had to be the weirdest show in the history of television that was completely based in reality. It probably helped that Jim Carrey played his children’s show host in the vein of Mr. Rogers so straight that it got really weird. And then that character started to crack and shave what I guess you can call a reverse Mohawk into his head. Just as that grew back he gets another haircut early in season two, this one a little less funny, and he is not the only one who gets a haircut this season.

Another thing I forgot is last season also featured a speech by Mr. Pickle that was controversial enough to get his show pulled from the air for the first time in thirty years so not only is he losing his wife, he might also be losing his show. His sister’s divorce also complicates things as her husband wants half of everything, which includes half of the puppets she created for the show.

But not is all lost, we do get to see a full episode Mr. Pickle’s Puppet Time and much like G.L.O.W.’s show within a show, it is one of the best, and I would say in the case of Kidding, the best of its two season run so far. This episode features a special appearance of Pickara Grande, a pickle fairy played by Jim Carrey super-fan Ariana Grande. Really, this season is worth watching just for that. Although the season also features the second episode that I have seen in less than a month (the other being Mix’ish) that centers on the Challenger explosion. So yeah, that was also weird for different reason.

Kidding airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime with back-to-back episodes.

Previewing Project Blue Book: Season Two

My big problem with the first season of Project Blue Book was that it seemed like the real life version of The X-Files but where the X-Files could actually do aliens and bile monsters, Project Blue Book has to stay in the realm of reality. So they hinted at it and other weird stuff, but we never did, and likely never will get any real aliens or other weird stuff. But they do certainly push the bounds of what we think we see.

Although the second season does delve into two of the biggest mysteries involving UFO’s in America’s history, the two part season premiere dealing with Roswell, New Mexico where people believe a UFO crash landed at a ranch near the town. That is then followed up with an Area 51 episode where some claim the US government is hiding proof of alien life and a group actually planned on storming it last year except no one actually showed up. Although I really doubt the validity of that conspiracy theory now considering the guy who now knows all the country secrets has not let that slip yet but was quick to declassify the JFK assassination and told Russians Israeli state secrets in the Oval Office.

The Roswell episode involves someone claiming to have proof of an alien encounter and is going to share that information with the public which includes metal that was not made by men. Of course that brings to town the Project Blue Book duo to try and figure out what is really going on. It also turns out this is not the first time General Harding has been to the Arizona town which only deepens the conspiracy. But the end of the two episodes we do get an interesting theory as what could be behind the spike in UFO sightings. Although the show would be even more interesting if there was a bile monster every once in a while.

Project Blue Book airs Tuesdays at 10:00 on History.

Previewing New Order: Decades and Duran Duran: There’s Something You Should Know

Duran Duran and New Order were both synth heavy acts that released their first music in 1981 and coincidentally both released their last album in 2015 but really that is where the comparisons end. Musically they are completely different. Duran Duran used that new synthesizer sound to craft bright pop hits while New Order used the same instrument to make dark moody music after the death of their original band leader when the members were in the even moodier Joy Division. But both will be getting the documentary treatment tonight.

Naturally Duran Duran is the headliner with their eleven top ten Hot 100 singles (New Order just broke the top 40 twice and just barely both times). We get some interesting moments in There’s Something You Should Know like the four remaining members cram into their first “tour bus” and discus a many different topics. Then lead singer Simon le Bon goes back to church to listen, and critique a performance as a youth there.

But overall, this just feels like mostly a retread of their Behind the Music episode but without the iconic narrator. The stuff since that episode includes the Astronaut tour (who knew they even had an album of that name) which came eleven years after The Wedding Album and then they skip forward another eleven years to barely touch on their latest album, again, points if you remember Paper Gods. If you remember at all their Behind the Music episode, this new documentary is very skippable.

New Order shakes up their retrospective Decades a little by being part documentary, part concert film. The concert in question took part in 2018 and features a twelve piece synthesizer orchestra. The band explains the songs they picked were best suited for this type of setting so this was not a greatest hits concert. But I had to laugh when one of the band members said they would not be performing Blue Monday because the song could not get too musical considering there was a great orchestral version of the song which was recently used in the Wonder Woman 1984 trailer. So of the five songs featured in the film, Bizarre Love Triangle is the only one that casual fans like me will likely recognize but diehards will likely appreciate the band pulled out a Joy Division song which is something New Order rarely does considering how that band ended.

New Order: Decades airs tonight at 7:30 followed by Duran Duran: There’s Something You Should Know at 9:00, both on Showtime.

Previewing Marvel's Runaways: Season Three

Marvel Television has died. Long live Marvel Television. All of the signs were there after Marvel Entertainment mastermind Kevin Feige got a promotion in October taking over Jeff Loeb, who oversaw all the decade’s shows. Feige announced an ambitious slate of shows that would directly affect the MCU coming to Disney+. Then all the Loeb shows started to fall like flies. Agents Of SHIELD had already been announced for its final season coming next summer. Then Ghost Rider, which Hulu announced earlier that year, ended up not going forward. Then Cloak and Dagger was canceled, and finally, it announced Runaways would be airing its final season. Ironically, SHIELD, the first show set in the MCU may end up being the last to air too depending on when (or if) the other show Hulu ordered this year, Helstrom, gets released or is renewed for future seasons.

So the third season of Runaways will be its swan song. But at least it will go out with some fan service with something Marvel Television watchers hope for all the shows, a full-fledged crossover when Cloak and Dagger pop up in Southern California. Since SHIELD was last seen jumping back to the time of Peggy Carter, it will likely end with one last crossover too.

But before the Divine paring cross path with the Runaways, the group of teenaged heroes has to deal with some body snatching aliens. After their spaceship blew up, members of Jonah jumped into the bodies of people nearby. Jonah himself snatched Victor’s body. His wife snatched up Stacy’s body, while their daughter took up residence in Tina’s body. The end of the season left us wondering when the son ended up although it is pretty heavily implied it was Nico.

So the new season starts right where the last ended with the Runaways and Pride split up in various factions. Jonah and his family have captured Karolina, Chase, and Janet, keeping them in Victor’s simulator. Gert with Old Lace was captured by Dale after he realized something was wrong with his wife and takes them off the grid. A very pregnant Leslie is with the remaining Runaways Nico, Molly, and Alex as well as Xavin, a stowaway on Jonah’s ship who thinks she is betrothed to Karolina. The adult Wilders are in jail after their son set them up for murder while Robert is in the hospital after a confrontation from his daughter.

Cloak and Dagger are not the only new faces the Runaways run into this season. This season also sees the introduction of Morgan le Fay portrayed by Elizabeth Hurley (Bedazzled) who is a powerful sorcerer from the Dark Dimension. So a witch like the Minoru’s and from the place where Cloak can send people. So it is easy to see how everyone comes together.

This season is mostly split up into two parts, dealing with the aliens than with le Fay although the first part just seems too abruptly. There are actually a couple of surprising deaths along the way; someone actually kind of dies twice. They also up the comedy this season; Tina is much more entertaining as a bratty teenager than the button-uped CEO. Dale seems to have a break from reality. Pride never seemed too evil to be antagonist, but they made a much better comic relief this season.

But the highlight of the season, and probably the series, was when Cloak and Dagger show up. It does show just how much better the Freeform show did at casting because I was left hoping the duo shows up later in the MCU but am pretty ambivalent if we ever see the Runaways ever again. Each group up with two of the Runaways to rescue someone which leads to some interesting revelations like Dagger sees a pretty dark hope of one of the Runaways. Sadly the episode ends with the two groups saying it is likely they will cross paths again but unfortunately we the viewers know that is highly unlikely.

All episodes of Marvel’s Runaways are released on Hulu tomorrow.

Previewing Reprisal

Since the last time I wrote about a new Hulu Series we got two new streaming services each with their own rollout for shows. Disney+ is just going to make everyone wait a week for new episodes while Apple+ dropped every episode of Dickenson when they launched but for their more adult fare they are dolling those out weekly. Which I guess makes sense if you do not stick to the every week like regular television or all at once like Netflix.

Hulu’s roll-outs still seem perplexing. It seems like they had decided on releasing their comedies all at once but then they released Four Weddings and a Funeral weekly. They release most of their older skewing shows weekly, but two adult shows with deep mysteries this year they released all at once. It was hard to avoid Veronica Mars spoilers the weekend after its release and Reprisal comes with so many twist and turns the screeners came with a list of plot lines critics are not allowed to bring up in their reviews.

Much like Veronica Mars, Reprisal is a noir story, but where Veronica Mars was an interesting take of the dark noir storytelling in sunny southern California, Reprisal is a hard noir chalk full of femme fatales and plenty of other very stylized characters and a whole lot of poetic license that will drive the people who got mad that Jack Bauer never went to the bathroom or got stuck in Los Angeles traffic extremely crazy. I first though the show was set in the fifties as plenty of the characters looked like extras from Grease but then someone checks into a motel and is mad there is no cable (which probably did not show up in some hotels until the eighties) and then another character uses a flip-phone (from earlier this century). So I am not sure when this takes place, maybe in it takes place in some alternative universe where even the gangs are racial diverse.

Reprisal stars Abigail Spencer (Mad Men) as the femmest of femme fatales who starts the series being dragged across a field and left for dead by her brother. He is played by Rory Cochrane (Dazed and Confused) who is the leader of the Banished Brawlers (symbolized with an upside-down skull with spider legs coming out) whom he punishes his sister for going against the gang. A decade later she is married, going by a different name and he is a recluse who is rarely seen at the gang ran Go-Go.

Surprisingly Spencer is not plotting her revenge the whole time despite saying they would meet again was the last thing she says to her brother; it takes her husband’s death and a couple pieces falling into space for her to find her way back to her former life. She has actually been working for her husband’s catering business, which has its own run in with gangstas (the physical embodiment being Ron Perlman) that want their cut after the owner’s death but Spencer wants the inheritance to bankroll her revenge. The weakest part of the show is that storyline just disappears and by the time it pops back up again you only vaguely remains.

The second weakest is the bloated cast, twelve in the Hulu press release (yet only eleven get a character description, sorry W. Earl Brown, one of the more recognizable members thanks to his turn on Deadwood). Some of the others worth mentioning are Rodrigo Santoro (300) as the defacto leader of the Brawlers with the actual leader rarely showing up anymore. Mena Massoud is the new guy to the club given the menial job on the scout crew for the Brawlers, The 3 River Phoenixes. Massoud earlier this week lamented that he has not had one audition since his billion dollar grossing film Aladdin had been released. Well, if he feared being type casted, this role is far from a Disney prince as you can get. Plus the best part of the Hulu upfronts earlier this year was when Spencer started singing A Whole New World during the Reprisal presentation.

The breakout star of the show is Madison Davenport (Sharp Objects) who seems like the only one having fun in this hard noir tale of revenge. She works at the Brawlers’ Go-Go, the awkwardly named Bang-a-Rang. She also has a little side hustle going on hoping to raise enough money to leave the place she grew up in. Of all the over-stylized moments in the show, her casually putting her shades on over a blood splattered face may be the most stylized. Really, for anyone into drinking games, drink whenever someone casually puts on the glasses walking away from something dramatic, make it a double if they are covered in someone else’s blood.

But Reprisal really answers the question of can something be too stylized? There are a lot of choices like Spencer’s voice or Santoro’s beard but sometimes I wished they spent more time developing a plot than developing a mood (two or three less episode could have made the season a little tighter). Still there are some great moments like a speech from Spencer about being underestimated during a Mexican Standoff, a great sequence set to Chicago's 25 or 6 to 4, and there is a random bored housewife that pops up to do something weird at just the right time. And, hey, if you need something dark to counteract all the holiday cheer coming the next couple weeks, you could do a lot worse than Reprisal.

All episodes of Reprisal premiere on Hulu today.

Previewing Into the Dark: A Nasty Piece of Work

Christmas horror movies are weird. This is supposed to be the most wonderful time of year (though why anyone would call a time which is sometimes thirty degrees and snowy “wonderful”) and yet some executives occasionally think movie goers want a little blood to offset the holiday cheer. Personally cranberry sauce is the only gooey red stuff I want to see in December. Yet the third Black Christmas is coming out on Friday the 13th and we are getting our second Christmas In the Dark episode.

Although A Nasty Piece of Work is one of those scripts that seem to be retrofitted to be holiday themed but really could have taken place any day of the year with a few minor tweaks. But as a holiday horror movie, a dark comedy tile this works better than a slasher bloodfest. A Nasty Piece of Work takes place at a firm that did not have a good year so no Christmas bonuses this year instead everyone will have to endure the shared sacrifice. But two promising executives do get an invite for a Christmas party where one will get a promotion while the other gets eliminated but you will be left wondering if they will be losing just their job.

Needless to say, the boss is the titular nasty piece of work who has some warped ways to determine who is the worthy employing. Or it could be his wife who may be even nastier than him. The respective wives of the employees also have some nastiness in them. Before long you will be left wondering what games are going on or if there is even a promotion to behave and these rich people are just getting their rocks off by all of this. I am not a big fan of being scared around Christmas but this may be close to a best case scenario for a December installment of Into the Dark.

Into the Dark Season Two Power Ranking:

1. Uncanny Annie (October)
2. A Nasty Piece of Work (December)
3. Pilgrim (November)

Into the Dark: A Nasty Piece of Work premieres tomorrow on Hulu.

Previewing Vikings: The Final Season

The one lasting memory of the last season of Vikings that stayed with me was that of Floki going into a cave and getting trapped when an earthquake blocked his exit. Now with most shows, I do not believe someone is truly dead until I see the body (and even then I am still sometimes suspicious) but being trapped in a cave on a barely populated island where no one knows where you are and your torch just went out seems is pretty dire.

There is no Floki in the two hour premiere but with Edge coming back to Kattergaurd, he is discussed. There is not even any Floki in the episodes I saw. There is not even any Iceland in the first couple episode. But there is one character that also seemed pretty dead the last time we saw them who pops up in one of the early episode (well two but one is very definitely a ghost). The bride that Ivar the Boneless turned on him and he strangled her in return shows up very alive… or at the very least the actress portrays someone who looks very much like his presumed dead wife.

Last season Ivar was ran out of Norway when his brothers banded together to exile. He takes to The Silk Road before taken in by a king he passes by. It is unclear what the new royal wants with Ivar but he does have roots in Norway and even knows the language. But I laugh at every time he or someone in his kingdom that they want to speak to Ivar in his language. But as someone who hates to read while watching television, I appreciate it.

Back in Norway, Bjorn is adjusting to his new life as ruler of Kattergaurd, but not all his brothers are thriving in the post Ivar rule. Bjorn’s mother Lagatha has moved to a small village to live out the rest of her peacefully, but that of course does not go all too well for the warrior. But the most interesting is Bjorn, now leader like his famous father. Will he be able to unite Norway like his father? Will he travel to foreign lands looking for better things like his father? Well this is the final season, so he has a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time.

Vikings airs Wednesday at 9:00 on History though it is taking Christmas Day off in three weeks.

Previewing Dollface

Whenever I see awards nominations where all the acting nominations come from the same movies/shows that are also nominated for the top prizes I wonder is that a bit of a cheat? I mean congratulations; the best script and best directors of a great piece of art were able to make you look like a competent actor. I contend that the best acting awards should go to people who appear in crap but still manage a great performance. Like Kat Dennings in 2 Broke Girls, such a horrible show but she made it watchable and will it through six season when had any other actress been cast it likely would have been the first show canceled. Seriously, put Phoebe Waller-Bridge in a British remake of 2 Broke Girls and see how it does.

But thankfully 2 Broke Girls was finally canceled so Dennings can go on to do bigger and better things. The bigger is reprising her role in the MCU as Natalie Portman’s snarky side kick. Though she has not been announce to return to the Thor franchise with Portman in Thor 4 but will pop up in the Disney+ WandaVision show. Um, yeah, okay, that should be… interesting. Then the better being Hulu’s latest comedy, Dollface.

Like their dramas, Hulu’s comedies up to this year have been sparse. They launched two in 2015 as well as continued The Mindy Project that all lasted at least three season but only one of them was airing as of last season. But like the dramas that upped their output this year, Hulu launched five new comedies. The first three, PEN15, Shrill, and Ramy were all critically but it seems like no one but critics actually watched (I was lukewarm to all of them). Then came Four Wedding and a Funeral which critics and audiences all agreed was unnecessary. But Hulu saved the best for last with Dollface.

The show starts off with Dennings getting dumped by her longtime boyfriend who gives her the titular name. Though the signs should have been there, seriously ladies, do not date a guy who names his pets after Entourage characters. The thing is, after spending five years with this guy, Dennings has to reconnect with the girl friends she neglected during the relationship.

The best friend is played by Brenda Song who in nearly a decade on the Disney Channel sitcoms learned to hone a finely tuned comedic timing. Then there is their mutual name dropping friend played by Shay Mitchell who in nearly a decade on Pretty Little Liars… did not. Really, she kind of kind of comes off as a middle class American who tries too hard to be Tahani Al-Jamil. The break out star of the show is Eshter Povisky (Alone Together) who joins the friend group because… um, to be with someone she does not share her name with, I guess. I am not sure how it happened but I am glad it did because she has the best lines and just knocks even one out of the park. Just when you think her description of whiskey was going to be the funniest part of the season, she attempts to have a threesome. Please comedy writers, just please start putting her in everything.

Dollface reminds me of the critically under watched FX show Man Seeking Woman in that it can be completely absurdist at times (granted Man Seeking Woman was absurdist at all times). Like after her breakup, Dennings has to pick her things up at the “Emotion Baggage Claim” before being picked up by a cat lady bus driver. I mean an actual lady with a cat head that talks to her. It is because the show is too weird that award show will likely overlook Kat Dennings again, but I will just appreciate she is on my television again.

All episodes of Dollface are on Hulu tomorrow.

Previewing Shameless: Season Ten

After being the most consistent show of the decade, Shameless ended with a big change as Fiona rode off into the sunset, heading south after a big payday leaving the rest of the Gallagher clan to fend for themselves. The shakeup was supposed to be bigger because after his character’s own happy ending, being reunited in jail with his one true love, Cameron Monaghan also announced his departure only to announce he was returning to the show a couple months later. Too bad they locked his character away for a pretty violent crime.

With no more Emmy Rossum we get what I believe is the very first update to the title sequence in the ten season history. So instead of getting to see Fiona urinate every week, we get to see Debbie urinate every week (it took me until the second episode to catch that). And instead of Debbie wrapping Liam in toilet paper, Liam is the one who wraps Frannie. Then instead watching Fiona fork the dude who left the show back in the first season but we still got to see his naked behind every week, Ian and Lip get busy in the Gallagher bathroom. Although they did not update all the scenes which leads to a very weird moment of seeing a very young Carl followed by a grown very naked Carl about a minute later.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same and Shameless is as consistent as ever. The new season even starts off with Fiona, sort of. Even without Fiona and Ian in prison, there are still five Gallaher’s livings in the house with another one on the way. Yep, Lip’s baby mama is now very pregnant but was worried about having a child with severe health problems in her family. But she is going to great lenths to make sure her kid comes out all right. Somehow Frank is still allowed to stay; I guess he is still recovering from the broken leg from last season. Luis Guzman is back as Frank’s lone friend but he may be worse off than Frank now.

Without Fiona around, Debbie has stepped up as head of the household, though she was kind of taking that role last season when Fiona was spiraling. But she is hording all the money Fiona left her but knowing her brothers and father, that may be the smartest decision. Micky got arrested to give Ian the fairytale ending, but months later, they are much more Married with Children inside a six by eight cell. Then there is Liam who is starting to embrace his black heritage. So Shameless is as shameless as ever.

Shameless airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime.

Previewing Back to Life

In a measure of full disclosure I have to mention I have never seen Fleabag. I do know that swept the Emmy’s earlier this year but in the overabundance of streaming site, Prime has just fallen by the waste side as an extra pay service even if just for a month to steam everything and cancel. I bring this up because in every mention of Back to Life, everyone also mentions Fleabag, the two shows even share a producer. But I did like Hulu’s This Way Up which also got many Fleabag comparisons.

Since Fleabag won all the Best Comedy awards and This Way Up was pretty funny, I was expecting Back to Life to be humorous, but, it is not very funny at all. And I am not entirely sure if it was really supposed to be (British humour can be to us Yanks sometimes). The lead actress gives herself hideous bang early on and there is a lady cop hamming it up later in the season, but the laughs are far and few in between.

The subject matter is pretty heavy as the show revolves around who spent half her life in prison; she spent eighteen years there after being locked up when she was eighteen. And that is not the least of her parents problems as mom has been hooking up with a much younger man and poppa is oblivious to it all. Oh, and this being a small town so no one forgets what she did.

Except us the audience does not really know. Considering she spent almost two decades behind, it clearly is something serious. So really, Back to Life is much less a comedy as it is a mystery and breadcrumbs of what exactly happen through each of the six episode, the show is just delivered in the comedy like twenty-five minutes installments. I wish I knew this going in because going in thinking it was a comedy, I came away feeling very underwhelmed.

Back to Life airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime. Or if you just want to watch the show as a two hour and thirty minute movie, Showtime is releasing all six episodes at midnight this Sunday On Demand or via the Showtime Anytime app.