This was cited in most places I looked as the best show I wasn't watching on 2015, so finally halfway between its debut and sophomore seasons I decided to catch up with Mr. Robot. It's pretty good! I don't think it's the best thing on tv, and I won't push it on anyone, but I did for the most part find it smart and entertaining. It's the story of a young and cynical hacker, Elliot, played brilliantly by Rami Malek, drawn into an Anonymous-style activist group known as fsociety, led by Christian Slater's mysterious "Mr. Robot". The group plans on bringing an end to world debt by hacking the global bank that just happens to be a client of Elliot's cyber-security day job, so he provides a unique opportunity to fsociety to complete the task. It's a little by-the-numbers for the first half of the season, hitting all of the expected counter-culture beats you'd expect- Elliot does a lot of drugs! He casually sleeps around! He hallucinates! But dammit he's an amazing hacker! The back half of the season really cranks things up though with some really well done twists. I'm not really sure where season two will go, but I'm excited to be along for the ride.
What a comeback! Downton Abbey was a show that was really good for two seasons, then turned to crap for a few more, but finally wrapped itself up in a very satisfying way. This was the type of show where you knew everyone would eventually get a happy ending, and they basically did- new couples and job opportunities seemed to pop up out of nowhere in season six. Hell, even a suicide attempt late in the season somehow results in yet another happy ending. It may be a little too saccharine to be realistic, but I was smiling the whole way through Downton's sixth season and just loved the series finale, which is far more than I can say about the previous two seasons. Well done, Julian Fellowes.
Same old Always Sunny. This show continues to make me laugh with every episode, although its hard for many episodes to stand out this late in the series considering how well-worn all of this territory is. For that reason, I think the most memorable from this season for me would be ones that really switch up either the setting or the format of the show. This divides pretty neatly for me, as the season seemed like half experimental, more memorable episodes (Being Frank, Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs, The Gang Hits the Slopes, and the two-parter on a cruise ship, The Gang Goes to Hell), while the other five episodes I already can barely recall basic plot points.
After the uneven debut of Man Seeking Woman, I wasn't sure if I'd stick around for season two, but I'm glad I did, because the show seemed to improve a lot. It's a show that commits itself to bizarre ideas and storylines, centering around a sad-sack protagonist Josh just trying to make sense out of the world of dating. To give you an idea as to what this show is all about, here's the three-act plot that takes place in this past season's premier- Act 1, Josh has a new girlfriend who he's spending all of his time with, and his good friend Mike suddenly starts acting like a unionized employee, demanding better benefits and treatment from Josh. Act 2 sees Josh taking a weekend trip with his girlfriend to meet her friends at a house in the woods, and he feels left out when a chainsaw-wielding serial killer starts tearing all of the friends apart except for him. Finally in Act 3, Josh breaks up with his girlfriend and returns to Mike, who insists they need to pay more attention to their child- a kid who has never been, and will never be mentioned again on the show outside of the last five minutes of this episode. It's a show that loves breaking rules of logic just because it can, and in its second season it was a lot funnier doing it. Season 3 seems unlikely at this point, but I'd be back if it happens.
Yeah, I'm not just covering the scripted television I watch on the Blog anymore. Here's the first ever season-long spin-off of American Ninja Warrior, a summer guilty pleasure show that gets me pumped up and makes me think I could compete against a bunch of trained athletes in an obstacle course. This spin-off is Team Ninja Warrior, where a few dozen teams of two men and one woman compete against each other tournament-style in a series of obstacle course races. While the team course has a much lower level of difficulty than the individual courses as they actually want people to finish, it could be more exciting at times watching the come-from-behind victories that happen in man vs. man that you just don't get from man vs course. Still though, I think I prefer the original- the tremendous difficulty of the course, and the near-constant failure of contestants to complete even the easiest challenge stroke my ego even more- "I could totally do that. These guys all suck."
Like I said, sometimes there's some un-scripted reality show trash that Katie and I keep on the DVR because you need some background noise television that's not asking for any real investment of your interest. Dual Survival is one of those shows. The premise is that two survival experts with differing styles are dropped into the wilderness with a few pieces of equipment that a hiker might have; they then have to survive a couple nights and find their way to civilization. The survival parts are rarely all that interesting- how many times can a guy struggle to make fire in the rain and stay compelling? What Dual Survival has going for it is its two hosts instead of one, unlike Survivorman and Man vs Wild. And let me tell you, there is a shitload of behind-the-scenes drama on this show because of this. For the first two seasons, the hosts were Dave, and army vet, and the hippy-dippy shoeless Cody. They didn't get along great, and after the second season it was discovered that Dave had been falsifying his military records, so he got replaced with the even more stern marine sniper Joe. Then in the middle of season four, Cody and Joe had a huge blow-up argument on camera in the middle of an episode, and hippie Cody walked off the set, never to return, still not wearing any shoes. I mean, this episode took place in a tundra, but he still was wearing shorts and no shoes! He got replaced with Matt, seemingly the most normal guy who's ever been on the show, despite the fact that he looks like he hasn't been inside a building of any kind for the last ten years. Joe and Matt got along great, finishing off the fourth season and cruising through the fifth. Then in the middle of season six, Joe went psycho and allegedly killed a dog on set, which prompted the series' cancellation. And yet Discovery brought it back again for a seventh season! Unbelievable! They brought in two completely new hosts for the first time ever, and while Bill the redneck fit the stereotype well, Grady the generic army man made no impression on me. Or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, this was probably the worst season of the show and I won't care if it's cancelled (I didn't the first time either), but if it does come back for season eight, I'll be watching. What else am I going to do, update my DVR?!!
Peep Show Series 2
I said I'd keep rolling with this show, and I did, since it only took like 2.5 hours to get through another season. It's funny and worth a watch if you can get over the heavy British accents and slightly dated references, and of course the first-person view that turns some off- to me it never gets in the way, but I understand how it could. Anyway this season again focused on both of the roommates looking for love- the neurotic Mark still desperately trying to win the heart of his coworker Sophie, while the cooler Jeremy ends up married to a beautiful American girl. Still they both fuck it up completely, which is always fun to watch. I'll give a similarly short post for season 3 next month, I'm sure.
Idiotsitter Season 1
I'm a fan of Jillian Bell's character in Workaholics- as a naïve, caring and friendly person she shouldn't fit in with the main characters' antics, but episodes where she plays a large role tend to be better in my opinion. So when she moved to her own show, I decided to give it a shot. Unfortunately, it's just not any good. The premise of Idiotsitter is that Bell plays the horrible and stupid daughter of a seemingly just as stupid but extremely rich man, who has hired a desperate college grad (Charlotte Newhouse) to get his daughter to pass her G.E.D. That makes it sound like it could be something in the vain of an updated Billy Madison, yet Idiotsitter has no intentions of seeing its characters improve and triumph in the end, as very little is taught over the course of the year and the two ladies mostly just bicker. Bell's pleasant, likeable character from Workaholics is replaced with a complete dumbass who I would want to watch fail, if the show was more entertaining. It wasn't, so I'm done here even if this comes back for a season two.
Workaholics Season 6
Speaking of disappointment and Workaholics, Workaholics really needs to end soon. Or at least take a nice long break. I'm committed to this show after so many years of watching, but what felt new and exciting in its first couple seasons is stale and boring here in its sixth. No new ground was broken, no new character traits were explored- unlike Sunny, a show that's pushing deeper and getting more experimental to keep things fresh (although its not always successful), Workaholics is content to deliver the same old shit. In nearly every episode I thought "ok seems like we're about done" and then there turned out to be another five minutes left. And I mean, Jillian was barely a part of this season due to her commitment to Idiotsitter. I shouldn't be expecting much from a dumb slapstick stoner comedy, but I would love for Comedy Central to give it an end date already to fulfill both my desire for completion, as well as my desire to not have to watch much of this show anymore.
The Venture Bros. Season 6
Here's a show that's made it almost impossible to wear out its welcome, considering it just wrapped up a mere eight episode sixth season in its thirteenth year of existence. It's ridiculous how slowly The Venture Bros rolls out new episodes- the last season to air was three years ago! At the very least, there's a number of hour-long specials that have bridged the gap between seasons, and I believe at least one more is coming, because if there's one way to describe this sixth season of The Venture Bros, it's "unfinished." It's one of the more serialized seasons of the show, in which each episode naturally builds off of the last in a way the show hasn't quite stuck to before, and as always it's hilarious, but it builds up to a finale that doesn't wrap up even a single storyline. The Venture Bros worked well in its new setting, as Rusty and the gang move into his recently-deceased little brother's penthouse suite and lab, but the highlight of this season is the disgraced Monarch adopting a new alter-ego- the "Blue Morpho", a blatant Green Hornet rip-off, who needs to kill his way back to being Rusty Venture's arch-enemy. But as I said, there's no real pay-off here, so it's tough to give this season any sort of final judgment until the next special comes around- maybe early 2018?
Portlandia Season 6
I've caught a few episodes of Portlandia now and then and enjoyed it- the simultaneous vicious skewering and loving tribute to all things hipster in the Pacific Northwest made for a fun if inconsequential sketch comedy watch. It was also nice to see Fred Armisen be funny after years of shitting up Saturday Night Live. But watching a full season of Portlandia turned out to be a grind, as I enjoyed the early episodes but saw my interest decline heavily towards the end of the season. I guess I won't be back!
Black Mirror Series 1
Everything I've heard about Black Mirror made me really want to check it out- a bit of a British version of The Twilight Zone with rave reviews and hour-long episodes that can take their time to fully explore their bizarre concepts- and I did indeed love it. The season consists of three episodes, starting with a political drama, then a pair of speculative future episodes in which society lives underground, or technology is developed that allows us to retain and broadcast video of every memory in our lives. All three are episodes that will stick with you long after you've watched them, and Stan assures me that the best episode comes in season two, so I will definitely finish catching up with this series in April.
Sounds like we have some pretty similar takes across the board when it comes to stuff we both watched, with the possible exception of Always Sunny, which I'm growing just as tired of as Workaholics.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me that I need to get back into Peep Show... saw the first season at least ten years ago and liked it a lot, but never stuck around for more. But eight more seasons, six episodes each? Those are low stakes! I'm in.
Great list of shows. Out of all the shows on here that I might want to give a real shot is "Man Seeking Woman," but with everything else I'm trying to down, who knows when there will be time?
ReplyDelete"Black Mirror" is something I'm wondering if I should dive back into. I saw the first two eps and found it incredibly depressing. It was good. But I left the show feeling as though I should go and stick my head in the oven. And for that reason I backed out of it. However, as a die-hard lover of "The Twilight Zone," there's element to that show that keeps calling me back to finish it.
What say you? Is it worth it to push past the discomfort and embrace staring into that darkness again?
My two cents - stick with Black Mirror. The second episode is probably the most out-and-out depressing as far as taking place in a total dystopia. The next two episodes are what I'd consider the most "typical" Black Mirror episodes - nice little self-contained stories with a "be careful what you wish for" type of twist at the end. Then the fifth episode, White Bear, is the consensus best of the series. Definitely watch that one. Rounding things out is a fairly weak political episode but I wonder if it'll take on new impact what with the current political atmosphere. Then after you've finished the two seasons of the show, there's a 90-minute "Christmas special" (gotta love the Brits) - that's also pretty good. Anyway, yeah, I loved this show. Very much looking forward to the twelve(!) new episodes from Netflix later this year.
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