Tag: television

Categories
reviews

Top 5 Shows of 2023

Despite having written nearly 90,000 words of a new novel (still in progress), developing two hobbies (playing ukulele and drawing zen tangles), working as both a teacher and administrator, cooking the majority of my family’s meals, and watching literally every Celtics game for the first time in as long as I can remember, I still somehow found time to watch over 50 television shows this year.

Some of them I watched with just my pre-teen kiddo. We’d cuddle up on the couch for an hour or so after dinner while my wife did laundry or chatted with her sisters or mother on the phone. Together, the kiddo and I watched newer shows such as One Piece, Sweet Tooth, and Upload, but I also introduced them to some of the older sitcoms, such as Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place, and Superstore. For the record, of that list, the kiddo’s favorite was (officially) The Good Place.

Others I watched with the wife after the kiddo went to bed. We generally try to watch two shows at once: an hour-long drama (or dramedy) with a half-hour “mindless” sitcom to serve as a chaser. What usually happens is that, with the kiddo getting older and staying up later, my wife is too tired to watch an hour-long show after the kid finally stays in bed, so we watch an episode or two of the mindless show (e.g., Schitt’s Creek) and then she calls it a night while I complain about her going to bed too early.

At that point, I usually put on an hour-long fantasy or sci-fi show that my wife would never watch, such as Rings of Power or The Witcher, watch at least one too many episodes, and then follow her upstairs where hopefully my snoring isn’t too bad for the night. 

While I (or we) watched over 50 shows this year, not all of those shows were released in 2023. For this list, I’ve limited myself to just this year’s shows, including new seasons from older shows, which means the final season of Succession qualified despite its first season being released in 2018. 

Now, from these myriad experiences, ranging from family-friendly tales to blood-curdling violence, came compelling stories, memorable characters, and inspiring worlds. But among these, a few stood out, not just for their captivating storytelling but also for their resonance: something about each of them stuck with me long after the credits had rolled and my TV had moved on to something else.

After much deliberation, I’m excited to share the creme de la creme: the five shows that left an indelible mark on me, the ones that truly defined my viewing experience in 2023. 

5. The Last of Us

HBO
(Season 1)

The video game for The Last of Us was released in 2013. It won multiple Game of the Year awards and broke records for sales. Despite being 10 years old, it is still considered one of the best video games of all time.

A lot of that success had to do with the relationship between the player character, a Texas smuggler named Joel, and his charge, a teenage girl named Ellie whom the player is responsible for escorting across the United States. One reviewer called the game “the most riveting, emotionally resonant story-driven epic of this console generation.” Another added, “We’re so invested in the characters that moments of suspense and danger, of which there are many, are given an extra urgency.”

Although I did not play the game myself, HBO’s decision to make The Last of Us their next prestige show struck me as apt. The game’s reputation made it a promising candidate for a high-caliber adaptation.

Like the game itself, the success of the TV show depends on the relationship between its main characters. Joel is played by the Internet’s favorite daddy, Pedro Pascal. A stoic yet cynical survivor barely hanging on after the death of his daughter, Joel resents having to babysit some annoying teenage kid while avoiding the post-apocalyptic horrors of a zombified United States. 

Ellie, meanwhile, is played perfectly by Bella Ramsay, who first wowed audiences as Lady Lyanna Mormont of Bear Island on Game of Thrones. Ellie is just as strong-willed as Lady Lyanna but she’s more sensitive and less sure of her place in the world. Despite growing up without a mother or father and spending the entirety of her life in a world where humans are not the apex predator, she maintains a teenager’s sense of humor, develops friendships, and remains open to others, making her a perfect foil for Joel’s wizened ways.

If the television show only had the strength of that relationship going for it, it might still appear on most “best of the year” lists, but the creators of The Last of Us (which includes the original game creator) went further, writing one of the best television episodes anyone has ever seen.

After setting up the series’ world, plot, and relationships in the first two episodes, they chose to depart from their main characters for virtually all of Episode Three, focusing instead on the love story between two minor characters. The only possible comparison for the episode is the first ten minutes of the movie Up, in that both tell a completely heartwarming and heartbreaking tale of true love. 

A clip from Episode 3 of The Last of Us

If audiences had come to The Last of Us for the intense, zombie-filled action, they were now sticking around for the profound, character-based drama.

And that’s why it claims the fifth spot on my list.

4. The Diplomat

Netflix
(Season 1)

The Diplomat was surprisingly good. I enjoy Kerri Russell as an actress, but for some reason, I didn’t have high expectations for this one. Probably because I’m such a fan of The West Wing that I expect every other show about government officials to pale in comparison.

The Diplomat is definitely not The West Wing. For one, it does not have the self-righteousness of Aaron Sorkin behind it, nor does it have his hyper-paced, too-witty-by-half method of dialogue writing, nor his genius at developing thematic ties between the A, B, and (sometimes) C plots in each episode.

Instead, it has feminist sensuality and sexuality, realpolitik foreign strategizing, and Tom Clancy-style plotting, with the twists, turns, double-crosses, and personal and political intrigue you’d expect in any spy thriller where the protagonists and antagonists are all sexually attracted to one another.

Kerri Russell absolutely nails this character. She’s a brilliant, self-conscious, self-doubting, self-sabotaging political ingenue who is manipulating and being manipulated by all the men around her. Every episode increases the audience’s interest in her and her story, and the season ends perfectly, providing answers to all the major questions while opening a bunch more for the second season.

I, for one, can’t wait.

3. Jury Duty

Amazon
(Season 1)

Watching this semi-reality series gave me similar feelings to watching the first season of Ted Lasso. In a year during which so much about the world has sucked, Jury Duty was a surprising reminder of goodness.

If you’re not familiar with the show, Jury Duty is a reality series in the vein of The Truman Show. All of the people in the show are actors, except for one, who has no idea he’s on television. He believes he’s serving on a real jury that is being filmed for a documentary on what it’s like to serve on a jury. He has no idea that everyone — the other jurors, the lawyers, the defendant, the judge, the bailiff, everyone — is in on the joke.

What starts as a crazy little conceit becomes an incredible examination of kindness and humanity. The real person they are “pranking” turns out to be way kinder and more tolerant than the producers could have imagined, which makes the show way better than they could have predicted.

The show has been nominated for 19 awards so far, including an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy, and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best New Scripted Series. It was also the winner of the Television Critics Association Award for Outstanding Achievement in Reality Programming and the American Film Institute’s TV Program of the Year.

I can’t recommend this one enough. Some of the scenes are laugh-out-loud funny, while the final episode, where they reveal all, is so sweet and heartwarming that you’ll tear up from pure joy.

This is such a good show. It’s so good that the audience should rightly boycott any capitalist attempt at Season Two.

2. The Bear

Hulu
(Season 2)

S2:E6 of Hulu’s The Bear has gone down in history as “the perfect episode,” and history isn’t wrong. It is a perfect blend of form and content, an overlong depiction of dynamic anxiety, family tensions, mental instability, emotional manipulation, hyper-efficient characterization, and flat-out jaw-dropping performances.

Some have tried to criticize the episode for its stunt casting. If every member of the “stunt” cast hadn’t slayed when it was their time onscreen, then maybe the criticism would hold water. But Jon Bernthal? Killed it. Gillian Jacobs? Assassinated it. John Mulaney? Murdered it. Sarah Paulson? Destroyed it. Jamie Lee Curtis? Massacred it. Bob Odenkirk? Annihilated it.

The episode wasn’t an example of stunt casting; it was an example of perfect casting.

Episode Six, “Fishes,” was of such high quality that if every other episode of The Bear sucked this season, the show might still make my Top 5. But then they followed it with another incredible episode, “Forks,” which was great on its own but also served as the absolutely perfect (and absolutely necessary) chaser to the walking panic attack that was “Fishes.”

Of course, then there was Episode 4, “Honeydew,” when we spent the episode in Copenhagen, learning more about Marcus and his journey to become a master dessert maker with the help of one of Carmy’s friends.

Between those three episodes, The Bear lived up to the expectations created by its amazing first season. The other episodes didn’t approach the greatness of 6, 7, and 4, but they held their own, leaving me excited (and anxious) for the next season.

1. Shrinking

Apple
(Season 1)

With Harrison Ford, Jason Segel, Jessica Williams, Christa Miller, Ted McGinley, Lukita Maxwell, and Luke Tennie all playing their roles perfectly, and the writing room firing on all cylinders for each episode, there is simply not a bad or boring moment in the first season of Apple TV+’s Shrinking.

The premise is solid: a grieving, widower therapist (Jason Segel), after living the last year very selfishly, starts telling his patients exactly what they need to do in their lives.

But the joy of the show is in the way the characters talk to one another. Segel’s teenage daughter relates to everyone in a properly precocious way. His new patient/friend, a veteran with PTSD, becomes his tenant and establishes a cozy relationship with his daughter, putting her in her place while also respecting her for the young woman she’s becoming. While Segel’s character became selfish and nihilistic in the wake of his wife’s death, his neighbor took over parenting his daughter, judging him at each step, while her husband supports her and everyone else in all the best ways. Meanwhile, Segal’s mentor (Harrison Ford) struggles with Parkinson’s Disease and being an emotionally unattached boomer, while his colleague (Jessica Williams) struggles with being incredible around all these hurting white men.

If you haven’t seen it, watch the clip below. Each line is a surprise, and the scene just keeps getting better and better with each new bit of dialogue.

I’m naming this one my favorite show of the year for all the reasons above, plus the fact that it has Jason Segel. I’m such a huge fan of this guy — from Freaks & Geeks to Undeclared to The End of the Tour to Forgetting Sarah Marshall to The Muppets to How I Met Your Mother, not to mention Jeff, Who Lives At Home — that to see him do well in a show he stars in, created, and writes for just makes me happy.

But more importantly, this show stuck out because of the simplicity of its story. In a year when so many shows were high concept, shows such as Rings of Power, The Witcher, Silo, Ahsoka, Secret Invasion, and Mrs. Davis, it was refreshing to watch a high-quality show about a group of realistic characters, all of whom struggle with humble but serious issues: a dead wife and mother, retirement, disease, long-term relationships, and love. It’s hilarious, poignant, and relatable, and each episode hits on all cylinders. Simply put, it was the best show of the year.

Each series in my Top Five this year brought something unique to the table, whether it was the emotional depth and stunning visuals of fantasy epics, the laugh-out-loud moments in family comedies, or the poignant storytelling in character-driven dramas. These shows not only entertained but also challenged and moved me, providing a rich tapestry of experiences that resonated with my family and me in different yet profound ways.

As we look forward to another year of exceptional TV, these shows will remain benchmarks of excellence, creativity, and the possibilities of what can be achieved on the small screen.

Categories
reviews

Dark Cheers

After my daughter goes to bed, my wife and I sit in the living room and watch a grown-up show. We’re usually watching two at a time: a half-hour comedy and an hour-long drama. Most nights, we watch the comedy both before and after the drama (though truth be told, my wife usually doomscrolls throughout the comedy).

Lately, we’ve been in a rut with our comedy choice. We enjoy Superstore, a very network-y sitcom in the tradition of The Office set at a Walmart-style superstore. Unfortunately, Superstore’s network only releases a new episode every once in a while, so it doesn’t serve the needs of our nightly television ritual.

A couple of months ago, when the country was still under Trumpian rule, and after Vermont’s governor declared a ban on multi-household gatherings, and while I was sinking into a temporary depression due to not being able to hug extended family members during the holidays, it began to feel like making my way in the world today was taking everything I had, and the idea of taking a break from all my worries, sure would’ve helped a lot. I just wanted to get away, so I went to a place where I already knew everybody’s names.

My wife and I are now on Season 6 of Cheers. If the next episode of Superstore isn’t available, we hang out for a half-hour with Sam, Carla, Norm, Cliff, and the rest of the gang. For six seasons now, the folks at Cheers have mostly held up their end of our bargain. They don’t make us think too much, they make us laugh, and if we get distracted by a conversation or zone-out while doomscrolling on our phones, we miss absolutely nothing in the series’ longer narrative.

Sure, the show can be problematic. In the first ten episodes of the first season, Dianne Chambers is sexually assaulted about half a dozen times, and after at least one incident, she apologizes for it; after another incident, Sam convinces her it was her fault. So that’s not cool.

Sam, of course, is just generally problematic. His character, a former relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox who had to quit the game due to his alcoholism, is a lecherous man-whore (who is now on the wagon). He cannot look at an attractive female without feeling the compulsion to sexually harass her. In the earlier seasons, when he is not just the bartender but also the owner of Cheers, he targets the majority of his harassment on one of his female employees, the aforementioned Dianne, an academic dilettante who, after five seasons of constant harassment, will eventually agree to marry her abuser before abandoning him at the proverbial altar for a longshot’s chance at literary success.

Homophobia regularly rears its head as well. One episode, originally aired in January 1983, focuses on one of Sam’s former teammates who writes a memoir in which he comes out as gay. Sam’s eventual acceptance of his friend’s sexuality stirs fears among the bar’s regulars that Cheers will transform into a gay bar. Tensions come to a boil when Norm and the others stage a walkout after Sam accepts two gay patrons, rejecting his regular customers’ call to discriminate.

This balance between demonstrating blue-collar ignorance while also exposing it to the audience highlights the quality of the show. While Cheers remains in its value-system a very 1980s television show, it should be congratulated for attempting to stay on the forward-leaning edge of those values.

Another episode plays on the gang’s homophobia while also teaching the audience that fathers who reject their sons for coming out of the closet are making a terrible decision. It does this through the dimwitted bartender, Coach Ernie Pantusso, a paternal friend from Sam’s pitching days who holds a record for getting hit in the head with the most baseballs.

A customer asks for advice after meeting his son’s new boyfriend (and here’s the kicker: the boyfriend is black!), and Coach tells him, “If you’re that unhappy about it, just throw him out and tell him you never want to see him again.”

“I can’t do that,” the customer says, “I love him too much…oh, I see what you’re saying.”

“You do?” Coach asks incredulously.

“If I can’t accept the kid the way he is,” the customer continues, “I’ll lose him.”

“Boy,” Coach says, “that’s good.”

“Well, when you put it that way, what choice do I have? Thanks, Coach!”

Sure, Coach suggested it is acceptable for a father to reject his son for being gay, but the episode recognizes the shallowness of fathers who choose this path.

Outside of the sexual assaults, harassments, and homophobia, all of which are continuously played for laughs and all of which remain highly problematic, the series walks this line between cultural progress and cultural regression. But it does so in a casual and winking way, keeping its political implications light and its characters’ relationships steady. This makes it easier for two highly-stressed teachers and parents to wind themselves down for the night.

Once our minds and our worries have settled, we turn to our current hour-long drama: the German Netflix series, Dark.

If you haven’t watched Dark, you absolutely should. It’s one of those puzzle narratives where you’re constantly wondering how events and characters are related and constantly questioning the nature of what comes first, the cause or the effect. It compares (favorably) to the experience of watching Lost (except Dark’s creators aren’t creating mysteries on a whim).

Dark also has the metaphysical weirdness of Twin Peaks. The difference is that Twin Peaks has an incredible sense of humor about it, while Dark offers very little in the way of laughter. You won’t find odes to coffee or pie in Dark, nor any absurd detectives whose deafness requires them to scream their words at the top of their lungs. But you will recognize the sense of dread that underlies the entire town and the way every character has a secret or three to hide.

As mentioned, the series is German, so we watch every episode with English subtitles. This can be offputting for some people, and if that includes you, my only recommendation is to get over it, because the series is worth it.

The subtitles offer an added benefit: because you have to read the television screen, doomscrolling on your phone means missing some highly important piece of information, forcing you to put your phone down. For those who find themselves unable to watch a show without having a phone in their face, this hour of respite will do wonders for your mental health (it’d be better if you walked in nature for an hour, but it’s better than nothing).

The series centers on the German town of Winden in the aftermath of a child’s disappearance. The town contains a soon-to-be-decommissioned nuclear-power plant and an elaborate cave system, and some suspect that both are somehow involved in the disappearance. A wide variety of narrative puzzles ensue.

Dark begs to be binged, but I recommend taking your time with it, limiting yourself to just one episode per session. The puzzles are so numerous that if you let them wind and unwind by watching three or four episodes at a time, you’ll miss the pleasure of working them over in your mind.

At the end of every episode, I look at my wife say, “Want to watch one more?” and thankfully, she has the discipline to say, “No. I’m enjoying it just one episode at a time.” Because she has that discipline, I’m enjoying it too.

We still have about 10 episodes to go in Dark, but the previous 16 episodes give me faith that the whole series will live up to its promises (and a friend has assured me it will). I’ll be thankful when it does.

Categories
reviews

Escape to Inner-City L.A.

There is no bigger first-world problem right now than choosing the next incredible TV series to watch with your life partner. For the past several years, I’d been trying to convince my wife to give HBO’s Game of Thrones a chance, but she would only answer me with a dismissive, “Dragons,” and we’d have to move on to finding something else.

But then, for whatever reason, a couple of months ago, she relented, and by the end of the first episode, she was hooked. Cue a wonderful couple of months as she not only dug in to the world of Westeros, but she dug in so hard that by the end of watching Season Three, she was spending her last waking moments reading the first book in George R.R. Martin’s incredible fantasy series.

But then, a few weeks ago, that most dreaded moment arrived: the credits rolled on the series’ final aired episode, and it was time for us to choose something new.

Our requirement was simple: the series had to take place in an alternative world. At this point in the year, the daily news was dominated not only by President Trump’s horribleness, but the increasingly plain-faced racism, misogynism, homophobia, and xenophobia of America’s mainstream culture.

In Georgia, white men engaged in “textbook voter suppression…aimed at silencing the voting power of communities of color in the state.” In Vermont, our only black female lawmaker was threatened and harassed so often and so forcefully that she resigned her seat in the State House out of fear for her family. In Massachusetts, a ballot initiative tried to rob transgender individuals of their equal rights, while in Washington D.C., President Trump vowed to erase legal protections for people whose gender didn’t match their physical sex at birth. In Florida, a deranged supporter of the President mailed pipe bombs to his leader’s various critics. Throughout the country, angry white men continued to terrorize the nation with mass shootings, rendering even more public spaces unsafe. And all over the globe, the hope of preventing the worst effects of the extinction-level event that is human-caused global climate change decreased with every news report.

It’s no wonder we wanted to escape reality for an hour or so each day.

Unfortunately, we were not able to land on anything that hooked us as joyfully as Game of Thrones had. We tried The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a Netflix series that takes place in an alternative version of the world of Archie comics (it’s a darker version of Sabrina The Teenage Witch).  We watched the first three episodes, and while we both found the world-building relatively interesting, the series is obviously intended for a teenage audience, and it couldn’t hold our interest for long.

Prior to starting Game of Thrones, we had watched a few episodes AMC’s new series, Lodge 49, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately, we’d been spoiled by HBO Go, Netflix, and a Hulu Plus account that skips commercials, so watching Lodge 49 with commercials on AMC’s Apple TV app was too much for both of us, and we decided not to finish it.

We’d heard that Netflix’s new miniseries, Maniac, was pretty good. Starring Jonah Hill and Emma Stone, the series takes place in an alternative near-future and involves seemingly schizophrenic hallucinations coupled with some kind of high-level conspiracy involving pharmaceuticals. We only watched the first episode, but that was enough to turn us off. Paranoia isn’t exactly escapist.

An article my wife found introduced us to The Best Shows of 2018 (So Far). We’d tried (or watched) many of the shows listed, but there were a few that were new to us. Amazon’s show, Forever, starring Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph, intrigued us both, and we watched the first few episodes. Each episode ends with a pretty big twist, so that kept us hooked for a little bit, but once the twists ended, so did our interest. What’s more, the alternative world introduced by the show wasn’t clever enough to keep us from looking at our phones. 

Then came our next television savior: Netflix’s On My Block.

Netflix's On My Block
Think Stranger Things meets Freaks & Geeks meets The Goonies meets a 21st century deconstruction of Other-ness.

Set in inner-city Los Angeles and following the coming-of-age crises of four high-school freshmen, plus two new members of their lifelong squad, the series isn’t exactly escapist. The lead female character (pictured above) has grown up without her mom and has fallen in love with one of her oldest friends, a young man (pictured at right) who has just been jumped into his brother’s gang. Additionally, one of the new members of the squad (not pictured) only joins them because her parents have been deported and she has no one else to turn to.

In other words, there are no dragons here.

But when you have characters this strong, escapism doesn’t matter. Each of the major characters in the series has something exceptional to offer.

My favorite was Jamal (pictured at left). Over the course of the first (and only) season (so far), Jamal’s character grows from being a kind of nerdy Chris Tucker to an obsessively-driven Sherlock Holmes wanna-be, cursing the sky as he follows the conspiracy-solving instructions of garden gnome.

What up, gnomie?

My second favorite character is Ruby’s Abuela (that’s her official name in the credits). A pot-smoking grandmother who tells her grandson that, back in the day, she was known as “a sure thing” by all the boys on the block, Ruby’s Abuela serves as a lighthearted elder who loves all of her grandson’s friends and doesn’t hesitate to give them the kind of wise advice they so desperately need. But she’s also not afraid to live her own life. One of my favorite scenes takes place during a quinceañera celebration, when Ruby walks in on his Abuela and a neighborhood priest ripping a bong hit and giggling their asses off in the bathroom.

The plot of the series is not as strong as Stranger Things. There is a Goonies-style mystery that drives Jamal’s narrative for a good part of the season, but the other characters deal with more mundane concerns. There’s a Friends-style “will they or won’t they” relationship plot for two of the characters; a Freaks & Geeks-style “how to exit the friend zone” plot; and several versions of the “Parental Abandonment” trope, with one character being raised by his gang-banging brother, another by her perenially-on-the-road truck-driving father (after her mother abandoned her), and another by her distant relatives (after her parents were deported).

As mundane as the various plots may be, the momentum of each episode is masterful, compelling you to binge the ten episodes of this half-hour coming-of-age dramedy as quickly as Netflix’s autoplay will allow. 

The season finale, which we watched last night, makes it completely worth it. As Alexis Gunderson wrote, “When the final credits hit, it’s clear that not one second of the season’s 10 short episodes was wasted: Every line was measured out, every background track meticulously calibrated, every initially jarring tonal shift set up precisely for a singular cumulative effect that lands in the season’s final moments like a punch to the chest.”

From the richness of its characters to the hilarious performances of its actors to the high quality of its writing, the series has everything you need to ignore the ignoramus in the White House as well as the daily horrors of America’s never-ending political news cycle. If you and your partner are searching for your next great binge-worthy series, I can’t recommend On My Block enough.