Time for another reminder that "Peak TV" doesn't mean that the best TV series out there are better than ever before, but rather, the idea that so much "at least pretty good" TV is out there, being made about subjects and stories you'd never have imagined could sustain TV shows, airing on networks you never watch.
I've been trying and quickly abandoning new shows all year. The textbook example for me is Taboo on FX. A period drama, starring Tom Hardy, about a man seeking vengeance in Napoleonic times, it had all the hallmarks of the "prestige TV" of yesteryear. I mean, take that exact show, debut it anywhere from 2005 to 2012 instead of 2017, and you very well might have had a legitimate contender for "best show on TV." I'm sure it's a good show in a vacuum. But I watched two or three episodes of it, and I just could not find a shit to give. It's not dissimilar to how I feel about the two dozen superhero movies that have come out in the last, oh, four years. "Cool. Great. Don't care anymore!"
This one, this TNT melodrama about a group of middle-aged women who run a nail salon in Florida and get caught up in Dixie Mafia politics and turf wars after a botched murder attempt - I stuck with this one! And I stuck with it not because it was particularly great, high-quality television (although it was, at the very least, pretty good and entertaining television) but because it was an interesting departure from anything else I'd ever really seen. There are elements of Justified here, but you can't really call this "Justified in Florida with manicurists." There are shades of, like, Ryan Murphy silliness and camp, but only barely - this isn't a show that winks at you or needs you to understand that it doesn't take itself 100% seriously. It began life as a half-hour for HBO before ending up as an hour-long on TNT, and that kind of sort of shows, because at no point while you're watching it can you think, "this is nothing like a half-hour on HBO might be."
The cast is great. The writing's nothing special, but the actors (and the production) sell the hell out of it. We got Niecy Nash at the center of it all, and folks, she is just fantastic here. We got Judy Reyes quietly playing a lesbian bouncer-enforcer. We got Harold Perrineau here too, playing someone somewhere on the autistic spectrum in such a convincing and excellent manner. We got Dean Norris - Dean fuckin' Norris, y'all! - taking a turn as the big bad, a bisexual crime boss who goes by "Uncle Daddy" and chews the ever-loving hell out of every aspect of this whole shenanigan, all Dixie-accented growling and glaring, living the most hedonistic life as he does things like, say, lounge on a poolside divan in a floral kimono outside his mansion, watching synchronized swimming routines with an adult beverage in one hand.
It's good! I genuinely liked it, and I like that I genuinely liked it. Certainly doesn't hurt that it was a summer Sunday-nighter - just not a whole lot else on - but I'll be back next year for a second season for sure.
The cast is great. The writing's nothing special, but the actors (and the production) sell the hell out of it. We got Niecy Nash at the center of it all, and folks, she is just fantastic here. We got Judy Reyes quietly playing a lesbian bouncer-enforcer. We got Harold Perrineau here too, playing someone somewhere on the autistic spectrum in such a convincing and excellent manner. We got Dean Norris - Dean fuckin' Norris, y'all! - taking a turn as the big bad, a bisexual crime boss who goes by "Uncle Daddy" and chews the ever-loving hell out of every aspect of this whole shenanigan, all Dixie-accented growling and glaring, living the most hedonistic life as he does things like, say, lounge on a poolside divan in a floral kimono outside his mansion, watching synchronized swimming routines with an adult beverage in one hand.
It's good! I genuinely liked it, and I like that I genuinely liked it. Certainly doesn't hurt that it was a summer Sunday-nighter - just not a whole lot else on - but I'll be back next year for a second season for sure.
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