Stan's TV Dump: January/February 2016

I tried doing one of these per season last year, and it caught up with me by year's end. So in the spirit of smaller and more frequent dumps, here's all the TV I digested during the first two months of the year. (Ugh. Sorry.)

Making a Murderer: Season 1

My biggest takeaway from watching Making a Murderer and then experiencing the online reaction to it is that I'm a completely gullible doofus. Even halfway through this documentary, I was just thinking, "there's no WAY this guy did any of this!" And then after reading, oh, five paragraphs' worth of "evidence against Steven Avery that the Netflix series didn't show," I immediately shifted gears to, "well OF COURSE he did this!" I'm a sheep, goddammit! But yeah, whether or not Avery is guilty of murder, there's been a gross miscarriage of justice against him - and more so against his poor nephew, the true tragic figure of the miniseries. But you already knew that!

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret: Season 3

Still waiting for Sweeney to catch up here. I think we might be the only two people in the world who watched this show the first time around, which would make me the only person in the world who saw Season 3. (This obviously isn't true.) First of all - the way Season 2 ended left this show with no real possible way to make a third season. I won't spoil how or why - beyond mentioning that it ends in a nuclear apocalypse - but when this series wrapped a few years ago, there was just no feasible way to bring it back. And yet, here we are - it's back! I'm still not sure how I feel about this third season. It was incredibly clever in a number of ways and it made references and callbacks to the first two seasons so obscure that it made Arrested Development look like The Big Bang Theory. But am I any richer for the experience after seeing this weird resurrection-reboot than I was after two seasons? Probably not. How do you judge a show of such high quality but such low impact? Whatever - that's a bridge to cross later.

Sherlock: Season 1

So much hype preceded this, and I can see why - but honestly? I wasn't blown away. This was good. It might have been great. But it was supposed to be one of the greatest things on television this decade, and frankly, it wasn't! More thoughts to come...

Daredevil: Season 1

Here's another one people were just going apeshit over. It was alright! Like, grittier and darker than most of what I've come to expect from Marvel, but nothing close to that "elite TV" pantheon. Season 2 is out in a few weeks, and second seasons are almost always where the truly great shows establish that they are, you know, truly great. So we'll see.

Angie Tribeca: Season 1

I can't remember the last time I watched something on TBS - the answer may be "never before." But when I heard Steve and Nancy Carrell were involved in a Police Squad-style cop spoof, I was interested. And when I heard TBS was airing the entire first season in a binge-a-thon one night - a cable network copying the streaming model - I decided I was in. And I liked this show, and I'll be back for Season 2. But, man - this is a TOUGH binge. The bread and butter here are ridiculously stupid puns, visual gags, and blatant trope lampshading. Watching one episode will make you shake your head and roll your eyes more than anything else out there. (There are laughs, too. Plenty!) But yeah - I think it took me nearly a week to get through the ten episodes in Season 1, and that just isn't what I expected. Oh, and anti-kudos to TBS for just straight up lying about when Season 2 would premiere. They kept saying that after the Season 1 marathon, Season 2 would premiere the following week and run weekly on Monday nights. Not true! Season 1, in fact, has been replaying in that time slot - and Season 2 might not even come out this year at all. I didn't know you could be so openly dishonest about your scheduling. No big deal, but wow!

Sex House: Season 1

This barely qualifies as television, but Sweeney reminded me of its existence a month ago and since it's sixty minutes long in total, I figured I'd check it out. It's a YouTube series made by the Onion in which six people hang out in a house and are encouraged to have sex. By the third episode or so (of ten), it's clear that Sex House isn't just a spoof on The Real World or Jersey Shore or whatever, but a dark and twisted reality show nightmare that explores what happens when the "house" isn't, for instance, safe. Or stocked with food. What this turns into is a surreal look at six people slowly going insane and hallucinating and begging the production teams for basic human rights. It's nothing you need to see, but it's something I'm glad I saw. Damn, remember when the Onion made TV shows and web series?

The 100: Season 1

There's been some buzz around this CW show, so when I found it on Netflix one day in January I decided to give it a courtesy watch. Meh. Not great. The premise is simple and super Hunger Games-y, because of course it is; in the future, the earth has become uninhabitable due to nuclear fallout (maybe?) and humanity now lives in a space station orbiting the earth. A hundred teenage delinquents from this "ark" are sent back to the surface of the earth in order to find out if it's safe yet. And, wouldn't you know it, it turns out there have been some other people living down here the whole time! This quickly became a true "background" show that I would put on while browsing the Internet or playing a video game, so I can't pretend I followed the plot and could give you an honest assessment of the show, but I'll at least say that it defies certain expectations and breaks certain rules you'd normally expect from a show like this one. People say it gets really good in the second season. I'm not done with that one yet, but stay tuned.

Sherlock: Season 2

This was better than the first season of Sherlock. But let's back up - what's a season of Sherlock? A season of Sherlock consists of three episodes, each of them ninety minutes long and capable of standing alone as a little movie of sorts. That's unique among TV shows, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Through six episodes of the show now, I don't think one of them has held my interest all the way through without me pausing to check how much time was remaining at least once. Cumberbatch is great as Sherlock Holmes and the series really shines brightest when it shows his mind at work solving something. Martin Freeman is also great as Watson - he's got that mix of patience, depression, and self-deprecation that made him the heart and soul of the original Office. But when it comes down to it, Sherlock struggles to hold my interest beyond scenes within episodes. Maybe that's on me - so many people love this show, after all - but for my money, if I'm going to watch a British show where seasons consist of three stand-alone episodes, give me Black Mirror every time.

Love: Season 1

I guess this was inevitable - a Judd Apatow rom-com stretched out so long it becomes a TV show. The leads here are two deeply flawed people - good people, probably, deep down, but capable of being very shitty. Gillian Jacobs is Mickey, a manipulative addict who can't be counted on to come through in the clutch for anyone she knows. Paul Rust is Gus, your standard nerdy "nice guy" who gets by on self-pity and cute jokes, but who turns into a real asshole once things finally start going right for him. The pair, of course, find each other and court each other and get upset with each other and use each other and complement each other. What isn't clear is whether or not they love each other - but, hey, this is only Season 1. Why jump the gun? The show's vibe was that of a less quirky You're the Worst, which is a compliment. But also, do we need another You're the Worst? Do we need more Apatow in the zeitgeist? I've used this word a lot lately, probably smugly, but Love so far is - you guessed it - nonessential. (But, hey, it's fun enough and objectively well made - so go right ahead, if this is your thing.)

That concludes my post for January and February. I'm not sure whether or not March will earn its own post or if I won't be back until the end of April. Later!