Adjacent-entertainment surfing
Every so often—and by that I really mean every so infrequently—I update readers on my telly viewing. It’s only fair to do this because these days I seem to spend more time watching televised/streamed/downloaded serial entertainment than movies. This may be a trend. Even film stalwarts Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s revamped, post-BBC, monetized podcast is now accommodating “cinema-adjacent” content in their reviews because the line has gotten so blurry when it comes to cinematic universes and the big-screen/small-screen divergence. So without further ado, here is a quick, stream-of-consciousness rundown of what’s been playing in our front room.
• Succession: The last time I did this, I had only gotten started on this must-see critics’ favorite. There’s no question that I’ll watch it to the end, but it’s just as well they’re wrapping it up this season. The narrative was just going in repetitive circles until… well, until that thing happened lately. Now, it’s really interesting. I can buy that this is King Lear in a contemporary corporation, but people who see it as any kind of accurate portrayal of the privileged and wealthy are misguided. The truth is obvious. The personalities, attitudes, dynamics, demographics and potty mouths of the insufferable Roy kids are much more typical of a Hollywood writers’ room than of the seats of power.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: As a die-hard Tolkien fan, I had to watch this. I didn’t bother with the Game of Thrones prequel. I had had enough of that world and, like a lot of people, I had a bad taste in my mouth after the rushed, incongruously optimistic end of Game of Thrones. I enjoyed The Rings of Power just fine. No, it wasn’t Peter Jackson, but it was good enough. Inevitably, bits and themes of the movies got recycled, and certain liberties were taken with the source texts, but it was still pretty entertaining. And I still can’t get over how much Morfydd Clark looks like a young Cate Blanchett.
• Star Trek: Picard: My viewing window for all the Star Trek stuff out there is pretty small because the Missus can only take so much of it. I have given Discovery and Strange New Worlds a go, but the only new series I’ve managed to carve out serious time for is Picard. Because Patrick Stewart. The first two seasons made interesting and noble efforts at carving new narrative territory for Jean-Luc (including a strange extended exploration of the character’s very-long-ago childhood trauma), but the third and presumably final season just gives us the fan service we always really wanted. The band’s back together, and all is well. Except for Wesley Crusher, but they managed to squeeze him in at the end of the previous season.
• 1899: One of my and my kid’s favorite series of the past few years was the twisty, elaborate, sprawling German sci-fi adventure Dark, so we were thrilled when the same team came up with this new series. Where Dark was all about mind-boggling time travel, 1899 was about mind-boggling virtual reality. And while the earlier series was emphatically German, the new one had a large international cast with all the characters all speaking in their own languages like some shipboard Tower of Babel. As with Dark, the end of first season set things up to really take off in the next one. Sadly (sniff, sigh, whimper), Netflix (boo!) did not pick it up for more episodes.
• Yellowstone: As with Succession, I was pressured into watching this by the media, social and otherwise. I heard it was Red America’s new favorite series/franchise. Really? Okay. The setup is familiar to anyone who grew up on Bonanza, The Virginian, The Big Valley and/or Dallas. A family lives on some land which they love a lot and defend and fight over, but this being the 2020s the family’s pretty much run its course. As with Succession, there’s really no one to root for, and the Duttons seem strangely accident-prone, unlucky and self-destructive. Kevin Costner does make a dandy (if cynical) patriarch, though. One season down and several more (plus the spinoffs) to go.
• Murder in Provence & Hotel Portofino: We’re suckers for non-challenging stories set in beautiful locations, and these ITV series filled the bill just fine. The former is basically Murder, She Wrote in the South of France with Roger Allam in the Angela Lansbury role. The latter is set in the eponymous corner of the Italian Riviera in the 1920s with Natascha McElhone as a free-thinking hotel proprietor in an era of stuffy British tourists and rising Fascism.
• Ted Lasso & Shrinking: These two Apple+ dramedies (which share overlapping writers) are quirky and fun. The former is great for the old British/American cross-cultural humor, and even makes English soccer entertaining for non-lifelong fans. Shrinking is the real standout, though. The premise sounds well worn (grieving dad and daughter try to fix their lives and, oh yeah, he’s a psychiatrist and his life’s a mess), but the many Southern California characters are so real, imperfect but likeable that it just warms your heart. And it’s got Harrison Ford doing that really funny Harrison Ford thing!
• Bad Sisters: Another Apple+ series, it’s an Irish whodunnit that starts out with the victim’s funeral and fills in the gaps over 10 episodes. Lots of female bonding, toxic masculinity punished, and houses with beautiful views of the Irish Sea. And yes, the sisters—led by the ubiquitous Sharon Horgan, one of the producers and writers who adapted it from the Belgian series Clan—really are bad.
• Hacks: More female bonding here with the wonderful Jean Smart playing sort of an amalgam of Lucille Ball, Debbie Reynolds and maybe a bit of Joan Rivers added for good measure. She’s a great character who gets tested when thrown together with Hannah Einbinder’s young, socio-politically conscious comedy writer (is that a contradiction in terms?), who’s not interested in old school. The verbal clashes are amazing to behold and pretty well balanced. Lots of fun show business references and surprisingly touching. The second season seemed to wrap things up pretty neatly, but apparently there’s a third one on the way. Good. (Still doesn’t make up for 1899.)
-S.L., 13 March 2023
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