Hey now, a whole lot of shows wrapped up their seasons in April. I always thought May was the classic time to wrap things up. Not so, I guess! Anyway, here are a whole lot of reactions to a whole lot of television.
The Walking Dead: Season 6
Season 6 of The Walking Dead consisted of the eight episodes that aired last fall and the eight that aired this spring. It wasn't great. The show is much better overall than it was in its first two or three seasons, wherein nothing of any consequence ever seemed to happen, but that doesn't mean The Walking Dead has figured everything out. Not by a long shot! The first chunk of the season took place across what was ostensibly only two days or so. That's cool in theory, but the pacing was awkward. The second half saw our protagonist group turn into straight up bad guys in the purest sense of the term - if they weren't already - which would be an interesting arc (think Walter White!) if the show had any investment in the idea. And then between the infamous non-death last fall and the far worse cop out the show ended on this spring, it's just kind of difficult to trust that these writers know what they're doing. I already gave up on The Walking Dead once, but if I do it again - or maybe I should say when I do it again, since this show seems poised to run for fifteen seasons - I don't know if I'll ever give it a third chance. It just isn't very good!
Documentary Now!: Season 1
I missed this on IFC last year but caught up on Netflix in a matter of days. The mockumentary format has been done to death at this point, but Fred Armisen and Bill Hader churned out seven very specific spoofs in a way that breathed new life into the genre. (Or is it more of a format than a genre?) For me, these were completely hit or miss. I think the same was true for both Sweeney and Trevor. Between the three of us, I don't know if there was one episode we all loved - but I also don't think there was one that we all hated. Bright side, there's something here for everyone - maybe? (And yet there's nothing here for everyone.) I'll be back for a second look when Season 2 airs.
And Then There Were None: Season 1
It feels strange to call this three-hour miniseries event a television show - let alone to append it with "Season 1" as if a second season is even feasible - but here I go anyway. This British production first aired in America in March on - wait for it - Lifetime! It's a pretty straightforward adaption of Agatha Christie's world-famous murder mystery by the same name. I liked it just fine! Most of the performances were solid and the idea that the story is set in a big British mansion just ten years after the end of Downton Abbey should give you a partial idea of what you're in for. This isn't must-see by any stretch and I'll likely forget about it soon enough, but it's also a very easy watch if you're looking for a quick three-episode series and you've already seen Black Mirror.
American Crime Story: Season 1
This was so much better than it ha any right to be. When news broke that Ryan Murphy was going to do a show on FX about the O.J. Simpson trial, I was with everyone else in picturing a horrible campy mess of a melodrama that made light of a double homicide and fell completely off the rails by the fifth episode anyway. But we were all wrong! And very happily wrong, at that. Even Ryan Murphy couldn't fuck this up - though he certainly tried, shining way too bright a light on the 1994 Kardashian kids who had absolutely nothing to do with the case or the hype surrounding it. There were a number of brilliant performances in this miniseries. There was also whatever the hell John Travolta was doing. Somewhat ironically, it seemed like the biggest names - Travolta, Gooding, Schwimmer - gave the worst performances. I was only seven when the O.J. verdict came down, and as such I'd completely missed all the intricacies of the trial and the media coverage and the racial divide. Holy shit, you couldn't make this stuff up. Maybe that's why Ryan Murphy couldn't botch this - there was already a batshit insane story and he didn't have to make it any crazier. Or, maybe he was just completely hands off with the development process on this one. Regardless, this was excellent. Will lightning strike twice? Eh. The next season of American Crime Story is going to be about Hurricane Katrina. So, yeah - I'm not holding my breath.
Trailer Park Boys: Season 10
Ugh. There's a chance I burned through this series way too quickly, watching nine seasons in two or three months' time last fall, and maybe I'm just sick as hell of this show and these characters. But... yeesh, this was a bad season of Trailer Park Boys. Unfunny, stale, even kind of depressing - the show began in 2000 with a no-name cast and every single actor who's still alive today has nothing else to do but keep squeezing paychecks out of the turd this show has become. The three main actors bought the rights to the show from the series creator a few years ago, and that's what prompted a Netflix revival. I didn't notice a discernible dip in quality between Season 7 (2007, original creator) and Season 8 (2014, actors at the helm) but this was just terrible. It had its moments, as any ten-episode season of comedic television will, but I can't stress enough how out-of-touch this felt. Not helping my opinion? A few days after Season 10 came out, the actor who plays Bubbles - easily the show's breakout character, its heart and soul, and the only real reason to watch the show in the first place - was arrested on domestic assault charges, prompting the immediate resignation of another main character. These guys play total assholes on a TV show set in a depressing trailer park, but maybe they really are just total assholes who want nothing more than to smoke weed and drink liquor in an actual trailer park. Gah! This sucked.
Animals: Season 1
Back-to-back garbage TV shows. I'm sorry everyone! Animals is a (crudely) animated show that imagines what it'd be like if all the animals in New York had human-like interactions and conversations with one another. The best part about the show was how many recognizable and talented actors it managed to bring out across its ten episodes. The worst part was just how inessential it all was. Ten episodes, twenty-five minutes each or more - that's over four hours of cartoon animals making conversation with each other. Usually it was funny enough, but it was all so clearly improvised and meaningless and who-gives-a-shit. I'm not saying I won't be back for Season 2, but if I am, Animals will likely remain little more than background noise while I do laundry or cook dinner or even just fuck around on my phone or laptop. There's a reason HBO aired this on Friday nights at 11:30!
Togetherness: Season 2
In its second season, Togetherness did something truly unique among modern television shows - something I don't think I've seen a show do in years. It got canceled! Seriously, nothing gets canceled anymore, particularly nothing that's on cable that's already been renewed once. The showrunners thought Togetherness would last for several more seasons and they had planned out, roughly, several small-scale stories to tell about the group of people at the show's center. But honestly? Maybe the show was better off lasting just two seasons. The first one focused on a marriage in really rough shape and a budding "opposites attract" type of relationship between Amanda Peet and Steve Zissis. Both stories ended unhappily. The second season dealt largely with the four characters coping with a now-broken marriage and it ended rather happily for everyone. What was left to do or say here? Put these people back through hardship and heartache by showing us three more years of ensuing break-ups and meltdowns? I liked Togetherness just fine, but this isn't a loss I'll be lamenting at any point in the future near or distant.
Catastrophe: Season 2
One of the hottest trends on TV right now is to focus on relationship issues through the lens of the half-hour format. It makes sense. Spending nearly an hour at a time with two people struggling to live together, trust each other, move forward in harmony - it's too much! But that's still subject matter worth exploring on television, so people have learned to repackage it into more of a comedy format. Just look at Togetherness, Married, Love, and You're the Worst for four prime examples of this trend from the past couple of years. The tone may vary from show to show, and each has a unique balance of wit and bleakness and levity, but they're all loosely dealing with the same part of the human experience. In that respect, a show like Catastrophe is a refreshing change of pace. In the broadest sense, you could throw it in the same pile as all those other shows, but where those series are all happy to wallow in the drama for various amounts of time, Catastrophe is more of a straight-up comedy where the two leads occasionally legitimately despise each other but thanks to the tone of the show you know everything's (probably) gonna be fine. If anything it's a bit unrealistic - Rob and Sharon will be in the middle of a big argument about their parents or their future or bad sex or something, legitimately yelling at each other, and still they'll be cracking one-liner after one-liner. It's a funny show! And an easy one to get into. And since there are only six episodes per season, it's an easy one to binge. I can't call it essential television, but I like it plenty - and that's enough, right?
Girls: Season 5
Great season. I've seen and heard a lot of chatter from critics suggesting this is the year Girls "grew up" but I don't think that's really what happened. Instead I just think the show found compelling stories and struggles for most of its characters but was otherwise the same show it's always been: a borderline-satirical depiction of New York millennials making questionable decisions and struggling in general. Maybe what made the fifth season stronger than the previous two or three was its ability to recognize and in some ways specifically suggest that aimlessness in the city loses its charm and appeal as you gradually slip away from twenty and closer to thirty. For the most part, these characters are still making questionable decisions and living selfishly, but they're also feeling the weight and anxiety of those life choices. Next season will be Girls' last and I'm excited to see where Lena Dunham and company take these characters before sending them off. After attracting way too much attention for all the wrong reasons in its first two seasons (Lena Dunham's body, the racial makeup of the cast), Girls has quietly been one of the most consistent shows on TV for years now, and I'm glad this fifth season brought the show back into the limelight a little bit.
Kind of conflicted here. On one hand, this is definitely one of the best dramas on television today - tense, gripping, character-driven, immaculately directed. On the other hand, it's a little bit slow and low-stakes, no? Like, we know that Saul and Mike and most of the main antagonists are going to survive the series since we've seen them all pop up in Breaking Bad. And there's only such an extent to which an audience can be expected to care about, I dunno, eldercare lawsuits. It's tough - this is so clearly inferior to Breaking Bad, and yet it's still possibly the best show on TV so far in 2016. Kind of emblematic of the general rut TV has been in lately, I think.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Season 3
I don't have a ton to say here. This is an enjoyable ensemble-based comedy with an easy tone and plenty of great jokes. It's a poor man's Parks and Recreation, like if Parks and Recreation never pulled on your heartstrings and only had one breakout character. (Andre Braugher's Captain Holt is legitimately approaching Ron Swanson levels of greatness three years in, but give me Andy, April, Tom Haverford, and Leslie Knope ahead of any second character here.) Still, any comparison to Parks and Recreation is a good comparison. It doesn't seem like Brooklyn Nine-Nine will ever reach must-see TV status, but as far as comfort food sitcoms go, this one's alright!
Broad City: Season 3
Take this with a grain of salt - this is the show's third season and all - but I couldn't shake the feeling several times this season that Broad City was getting just a little bit complacent and repetitive. There was an episode about halfway in, in particular, where Abbi and Ilana spend some time in the suburbs, that just felt completely stale and predictable. Fortunately, the second half really felt like it picked up some steam and by the time Season 3 was winding down I was back to thinking it was clever, funny, and unlike anything else on TV (or at least better than everything else like it). One day, without a doubt, this will be as gray and tired as Workaholics. Until then - and probably even once that happens - I'm all in.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Season 2
This is good enough to look forward to every year, but it's not an outstanding show by any stretch. If anything, it fills the unique hole left behind by 30 Rock - and still it's a pretty different show from 30 Rock. I like it! Don't love it. But that's good enough, right?
And that's how April went down.
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