September 3, 2015

Stan's TV Dump: Summer 2015

Summer traditionally presents a lull in the TV calendar, but it seems like I watched more TV this summer than I have in a long time. Most of it was streamed on Netflix or Amazon Prime, which probably explains a lot of the sheer volume here. Anyway, here are a bunch of seasons of television that I've gotten around to checking out.


Orange is the New Black: Season 3
This is one of the most widely watched and discussed shows out there at this point, so there's very little I feel any need to say about it. I really enjoyed Season 3. I actually think it was my favorite season yet. And with big changes coming in Season 4, Orange is the New Black is showing no signs of growing stale or slowing down.


Bob's Burgers: Season 4
I'm guessing that in a few weeks when Season 6 debuts, Netflix will begin streaming Season 5. And from there it's only a short time until I'm all caught up and watching live. As far as Season 4 goes, I'm not convinced it was noticeably better than Season 3. That's fine - it was easily just as good - but it does mean the show has hit a plateau of sorts. Will Season 5 prove me wrong? Will Season 6? Time will tell!


Black Mirror: Season 1
I finally got into this show - or miniseries, I guess - and holy shit, was it something. There've been two seasons so far, each just three episodes long, and a Christmas special too because the British love watching their favorite TV shows during Christmastime, months after seasons - sorry, series - have otherwise concluded. Anyway, this one's been described repeatedly as a Twilight Zone for the 21st century. That's apt, but I've seen The Twlight Zone, and this show goes so much deeper and gets so much darker than that one ever did. It's speculative science fiction, I guess, as each episode considers some sort of advanced technology and some of the possible repercussions it could have. The tone of the episodes varies, and ranges from dark comedy (terrorists have demanded that the Prime Minister has to livestream himself having sex with a pig!) to bleakly dystopian (in the near future, people pedal bikes for electrical power all day long, occupying themselves with bland cell-phone-style games and TV shows). Just great stuff.


Black Mirror: Season 2
Most people preferred the second season of Black Mirror tot he first one. I actually think I disagree, but it's silly to even make such comparisons; each season is just a set of three unrelated and independent episodes, and if anything it makes sense just to rank them all individually. Having said that, the second season contains the darkest and most messed up episode of the series to date - the quintessential Black Mirror episode, if you will - and if you're looking for an episode to try out, consider "White Bear." That one still haunts me, months after seeing it - though so do most Black Mirror episodes, to be honest.


Catastrophe: Season 1
Here's an easy little low stakes six-episode comedy from Amazon Prime. It stars Rob Delaney - yes, from Twitter! - and Sharon Horgan. They hook up a whole bunch during a one-week business trip, and all of a sudden, hey, presto, Sharon's pregnant. They opt to keep the baby and, furthermore, get married, and the series largely features them just breaking this news to people and preparing for an impromptu life together. It's all funny enough, but it's over before you know it, like so many other Britcoms. (Is that still a term people use?) I'll likely be back for Season 2, but more out of convenience than enthusiasm.



Other Space: Season 1
I would have had no idea this existed if I hadn't been inundated with promos while watching Community on Yahoo. But you know what? I loved it. It's a low-budget no-stakes sci-fi sitcom where six people and two robots are lost in space. It's goofy and light-hearted but not intentionally campy or anything. For whatever reason, Other Space just hit me in all the right ways. Give it a shot! There's been no word on a Season 2 pick up, but I'm holding out hope.


Alpha House: Season 1
I have a coworker who was absolutely raving about this show. She has a good sense of humor and a decent taste in books and movies, so I figured, hey, why not check it out? Meh. The premise is that four Republican congressmen co-inhabit the same house while they're in DC. For me, the humor was just a little broad and lazy. Republicans are such low-hanging fruit right now, and in the four main characters here we've got four pretty flat stereotypes. There's the utterly incompetent boob, the morally bankrupt guy, the suave young maverick, and then John Goodman as the moderate and well-meaning one who doesn't understand how his own party became so messed up so quickly. The show grew on me slowly, and by the end of the first season I could say I didn't dislike it, but that's no ringing endorsement. Season 2 has been out for some time; we'll see if I get around to it.


Bojack Horseman: Season 2
Over the course of its first season, Bojack Horseman went from being a so-so adult cartoon on Netflix to an oddly touching and pretty solid show. Here in Season 2, it's become one of the best thigns on television. Few shows are as consistently funny or clever, and still it's deep and profound and willing to explore what it is to be depressed or directionless or lonely. It's just so good, and the sooner I stop gushing about it, the sooner you can go watch it!


Sense8: Season 1
This one comes from the Wachowskis, and it's just all over the place. Eight people scattered around the world are connected, both mentally and emotionally. Over the course of the season they learn how to harness and control their ability to switch places with one another. (It makes about as much sense as it sounds like.) I didn't love this one, and it felt a lot like another Lost or Heroes ripoff - a distinct genre I thought we'd left well behind in the last decade. I'm not really looking forward to the second season, but this isn't bad enough for me to ditch yet; it's just nothing special.


Humans: Season 1
This one exceeded expectations. AMC hasn't boasted the best track record ever since the one-two punch of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, but Humans roped me in pretty quickly. The premise is tried, true, and even a bit stale by now; in the near future there are humanoid robots with artificial intelligence - but can they feel things? This was a slightly choppy season of television that managed to find some satisfying ways to explore that question and its many ramifications. I'm skeptical about whether this can turn into a truly great series, but it was enjoyable and easy to get into, at least in this first season.


The X-Files: Season 1
Throwback! Trev threw this on one night in the Cape, and while I only saw ten minutes or so before heading out, I figured it was high time for me to finally check out this old cult classic. The first season was twenty-four forty-five-minute episodes long - a nice reminder that TV shows were so much different back when the only way to see them was, well, live, and on television. There were plenty of great episodes and moments here in the first season, and the show's premise is established and built on right away. It's a little unbelievable how flat Scully and Mulder can be when it comes to their philosophical approaches to the unexplained cases they take on; Scully, the skeptic, remains dismissive of Mulder's crackpot theories even after facing down like twenty "monster or the week" cases. Mulder, on the other hand, jumps at the chance to apply a paranormal explanation to every missing persons case and there's a reason nobody else in the FBI takes him seriously. I guess that makes the two of them a great team! Oh, and it's crazy how much young Gillian Anderson is aping Jodie Foster's Silence of the Lambs performance here, but I guess there was only one acceptable way to depict a tough but feminine lady detective in 1993. Will I stick with this show? Tough to say. There are nine seasons, which is just an incredible time commitment, and frankly there are better, newer, shorter shows I could be spending my time on. Still, this is easy enough to throw on when I'm streaming Netflix while dicking around on my computer or DS, so why not?


Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp: Season 1
The most impressive thing about Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp is that it includes every last cast member from the original movie. It's just amazing that a collection this large of actors this famous could all make the time to appear in a one-off TV series - presumably for next to no compensation. It tells you everything you need to know about how much fun they had making the original movie, how much they like working together, or how much they felt they owed a debt to the move for helping to launch their respective careers. I mean, it's not a great movie. It's a cult classic, and I love it, and so do plenty of other people, but it's silly and lazy and amateurish and, tonally, it's all over the place. The same is true of this prequel miniseries, which uses everything from bad puns to elaborate in-jokes in order to earn some laughs. The end result is something to behold, but it's probably also only meant for the type of people who enjoyed this whole thing the first time around. Watch the movie, if you haven't. Then, if you enjoyed it, check out this four-hour prequel.


Another Period: Season 1
Here's a real low-stakes offering from Comedy Central. Natasha Leggero and Riki Lindhome came up with a simple premise - a reality series following an obscenely wealthy Newport family in 1900 - and ran with every possible joke you could make with that setup. It's basically Downton Abbey crossed with Keeping Up with the Kardashians, for whatever that's worth. I'm pretty lukewarm on the show. It's funny enough, and there are a lot of talented people involved in it, but I'm not sure I feel compelled to return for the second season next year.


True Detective: Season 2
More than enough digital ink has been spent bemoaning the highly anticipated follow-up to True Detective: Season 1, so I'll be brief. All the criticisms earn my belated and apathetic co-sign. The season was too long, it started out too slow, there was way too much going on but barely anything happening, and the show went over the top on more than one occasion in search of an emotional payoff it did not earn. Now, all of that being said, I don't think it was a genuinely terrible season of television. It had its moments, for one thing, and it didn't really overstay its welcome at eight episodes. Call it contrived, call it ridiculous, call it boring, and call it disappointing overall, but don't call it one of the worst things on television this year. If anything, its biggest failure was its inability to live up to the standards set by the first season, which had an entirely different story and cast and director. I'm tempted to say that if you took this season of television and aired it on FX or AMC under a different title entirely, people would have enjoyed it a great deal more.


Review: Season 1
I ignored Review last year, dismissing it prematurely as a silly little sketch comedy show with a unique gimmick, and boy did I miss out on something wonderful. There's a serialized and ongoing story in Review in which host Forrest MacNeil completely destroys his own life for the sake of authentically reviewing different life experiences. After a slow start, the first season takes a wonderfully dark turn in the third episode when Forrest is asked to review "getting divorced." Everything spirals downward from there in both completely expected and totally surprising ways and it all makes for wonderful television.

That'll do it for me, for now. September's here and lots more television is on its way.

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