Random TV Show Thoughts

[mnkykungfu]

The Big O (1999 + 2003)
This is a Japanese animated series that ran for 2 seasons of 13 episodes each. What looks at first blush like any other kids' cartoon designed to sell toys, the show quickly reveals itself as a heightened, artistic blend of genre films like Crime Noir, Sci-Fi, and Mystery. Often, it's a pastiche of the legendary Batman: The Animated Series, Gigantor, and the '60s James Bond films.

In something similar to Dark City, the story takes place in a city where nobody seems to truly remember who they are, or indeed, anything from more than 40 years ago. It has an anachronistic blend of technology, with retro-futurism of the '60s allowing for cars with rocket launchers, androids, and video phones, but the city itself has an art deco-inspired design, cars and clothes more fitting to the '30s or '40s in the US, and an emphasis on slinky jazz, '60s surf rock, and an often old-fashioned standing on manners, politeness, and ceremony in speaking. Fans of The Prisoner or The Saint will find style elements to love.

The early episodes quite often feature the standard Giant Robo confrontations of Japanese mecha shows though, making for an odd Eastern TV injection into what is otherwise a very Western-influenced production. Indeed, most of this seemed to go over the head of Japanese audiences, who didn't love the show. It was revived for a 2nd season to air on "Toonami" since it was more popular in Western countries. For this season, writer Chiaki J. Konaka took charge.

The show had been conceived and written originally by Kazuyoshi Katayama who'd directed Appleseed and Doomed Megalopolis, but many of the style elements were drawn up by famed director Keiichi Sato. The first season is their vision, and while occasionally a bit silly, it's very cool and a lot of fun. However, as Konaka took over, he started adding in many more philosophical elements, ultimately turning the series into something more akin to his Serial Experiments: Lain, questioning the nature of reality itself.

It's honestly an unhappy marriage. While I adore Lain, Konaka's ideas are at odds with the earlier characterizations on the show, turning every minor character into someone with deep significance to reality as we know it. The show ends up seeming like a failed copycat of Neon Genesis Evangelion, but one with poorly-realized religious elements and an ending that is less psychological than simply undercooked. He tries to take the series' ample use of English words like "negotiator" and redefine them in Japanese, and it just comes off like a show with an identity crisis...one that's unfortunately never resolved.

I now understand why this show has kind of been lost to time and swept under the rug, despite it being in constant rotation the first couple years when it came out. The core ideas and presentation is amazing though...it's ripe for a remake.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022)
Netflix appears to have dove all-in on pursuing anime, both distributing classics and financing new series. For me, a lot of new stuff falls firmly into "shonen" tropes, which is to say that it's squarely aimed at empowerment fantasies for male pre-teens, with a boy protagonist who progressively defeats all comers episode after episode but where the plot barely inches forward and the characters rarely have any meaningful development. See your Dragonballs, your Inuyashas, your Narutos, and virtually every beloved series some boy grew up with, worshipped, and absolutely would not rewatch as an adult.

I initially thought this spin-off series from the recent videogame would be more like this, but early positive reviews made me double-think. Firstly, it seems to <ahem> run the edge between shonen anime and "seinen" anime, which is essentially targeted at an older crowd. The easy telltales of the genre (nudity, violence, swearing) are all present, but the question remained if it was also a more mature, deeper story? I'd have to say that from watching the first episode, you immediately know that it is. Edgerunners announces itself for what it's going to be right at the start: an epic tragedy set in a dystopian techno-future that we seem very much on track for.

Is it possible that this is TOO punk and TOO cyber? The Western music used liberally in the credits and throughout was at times too loud and jarring for my old ass, though I was totally grooving to it at others. The film also takes the "rebel against all authority" punk DIY ethos and pushes it to the max, leading to the same wanton destruction as in the real-life punk scene. The series is primarily concerned with examining the effects of cyberization though, in a world where people get addicted to body modification, where flesh is a disposable commodity but technology has value. Education, healthcare, and government are all privatized and driven to that late-stage capitalism nightmarish conclusion. But all this is presented with graffiti-inspired, wildly-splashed visuals which sacrifice physics and logic for emotional content.

It's a wild series but it tells a complete story in just a handful of episodes. I'd be interested to see a follow-up with different characters in the same world, which I think might be the intention. Worth checking out for Sci-Fi lovers or the anime-curious.

 

[Jrzag42]

every beloved series some boy grew up with, worshipped, and absolutely would not rewatch as an adult

I know way too many people who never grew out of Dragonball, either continuing to keep up with the newer stuff or just rewatching the older stuff. I very quickly lost interest in most shonen stuff, but I still go back to Dragonball on occasion. All I mean to say is, don't underestimate people's interest in revisiting garbage from their childhood.

 

[mnkykungfu]

I know way too many people who never grew out of Dragonball, either continuing to keep up with the newer stuff or just rewatching the older stuff. I very quickly lost interest in most shonen stuff, but I still go back to Dragonball on occasion. All I mean to say is, don't underestimate people's interest in revisiting garbage from their childhood.

Hmmm...okay, maybe I overstated that. A good friend actually owns a comics and toys store, so I for sure have met many 25-year-olds with One Piece key chains and Trigun T-shirts...I'm aware the shonen love stays strong. But I had always assumed it was kind of like for people in my generation who love Thundercats or Voltron...we may get the tattoo or buy the merch, but nobody's rewatching the TV episodes and calling them great stories. Most people gave up actually WATCHING Transformers cartoons, and I thought Dragonball and other shonen was similar....

 

[mnkykungfu]

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012-2019)
I had the same initial reaction to this show's concept that apparently most networks did, which is that it sounded stupid, indulgent, and strained. Time proved us all wrong as Jerry Seinfeld's avante garde interview show won multiple PGA awards, was nominated for Emmys year after year, and outlasted the platform it was on (Crackle) and migrated to Netflix, where I eventually caught up with it.

The show has a two-fold high-concept approach that, like Seinfeld's comedy, is deceptively simple. Firstly, he felt that he'd never want to do a talk show because you're stuck in a studio, stuck in promotional patter, and comedians in front of audiences just fall into doing an act and it's hard to get them being genuine. So this show strips away all that. The second "fold" is that Seinfeld gets to indulge in a love of cars by finding rare and classic cars that fit the personality or style of each of his guests, which is what he picks them up in to go drive to someplace for coffee, which is often also a place that fits them. Who doesn't want to know what kind of car they would be??

For whatever reason, Netflix completely rearranged the episode order and packaged them in different "seasons", which I'm disregarding here. It ends up with weird aspects like where Jerry is talking with some guests about how influential Garry Shandling was to them and about how his death affected them, meanwhile his episode with Garry Shandling is coming up later. I found that the episodes that work best were the ones where Jerry is just hanging out with his celebrity friends... you can see both of them light up and just really delight in spending time together. There's nothing like watching people who constantly crack each other up. The ones with less-funny people or people he knows less-well are hit or miss. I'll recommend a "starter pack" of episodes to check out, most of which are about 15 minutes long, more or less:

S1- E1: Larry David, a '52 VW Beetle. David is much less surly than his on-screen persona, but he's absolutely just as quirky and hung up, and Jerry calls him on it for a whole afternoon. It's very funny.
S2- E1: Sarah Silverman, a '69 Jaguar E-Type Series 2. This turned me around on Silverman, whose standup I'd always found just amounted to "hey I'm a hot girl but I can be dumb and disgusting, too, dig it?" She's genuinely really witty and funny here.
S3- E2: Patton Oswalt, an '81 DMC DeLorean, which of course, broke down. I don't find Oswalt that funny, but he's such a well-informed geek, and he and Jerry have some really interesting observational humor here. (Jason Alexander probably would've been my pick for this season, but Netflix doesn't have the episode for some reason!)
S4- E5: Jon Stewart, a '68 AMC AMX after an initial prank choice. Stewart is both wryly funny and poignantly observant, as always. Jerry is appropriately full of worshipful admiration.
A lot of guests I wasn't interested in for S5, so I'm choosing two from S6...
E1: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a '64 Aston Martin DB5. They just absolutely adore each other, and it's so lovely to see. And funny, of course. The behind-the-scenes stories flow freely!
E6: Stephen Colbert, a '64 Morgan +4. This is such an interesting one because it's right when it had been announced that Colbert was taking over as the host of The Late Show, but he was still bearded and technically unemployed. He's very candid and has great observations about the biz.
S7- E4: Garry Shandling, a '79 Porsche 930 Turbo. In the balance of "that's so funny" vs "that's so true", I've always found Shandling to be more true than funny, which is the same for his protege Judd Apatow since Shandling's passing. But he's one of Jerry's oldest friends and mentors, and this is his last appearance before dying a few months later. It's quite a touching episode.
S8- E6: John Oliver, a '59 Triumph TR3. Capping off the Daily Show trilogy, Oliver is the funniest of the lot. Jerry usually shies away from getting too serious or political in these conversations, but here he does both and yet it's a high-comedy episode.
S9- E5: Christoph Waltz, a '57 BMW 507 Series II. I'm actually going to recommend avoiding this one, the worst of any episode I watched. Occasionally, Jerry used the show to meet people he thought might be really funny and to find out about them. Here is a case where it turns out Waltz is astoundingly humorless, and has just acted some funny roles. The episode almost veers into awkward cringe-comedy as you see Jerry increasingly straining to make it interesting.
S10- E11: Alec Baldwin, a '74 BMW 3.0 CS coupe. There are a lot of good episodes this season, but I'm going to recommend this one since it turns out that Baldwin and Jerry are actually good friends and get along so well. This is his 2nd episode, and the first one may actually be funnier, but you can't go wrong watching these guys ham it up together.
S11- E2: Seth Rogen, a '76 Dodge Royal Monaco Sedan. This is like the opposite of the Waltz episode, where Jerry meets someone almost more out of curiosity than admiration, but the guest turns out to be wonderfully funny. Rogen clearly has so much admiration for Jerry, and is straining not to fan out and get overly nervous. The episode becomes kind of cruelly funny as Jerry starts having a bit of fun with this and putting Rogen on the spot...at one point, Rogen is sweating profusely and pleading with him "Why are you doing this to me, Jerry?!" It's a great end to the show's run.

 

[mnkykungfu]

OZARK (2017-2022) : a.k.a. A Great Case Study in How Useless and Misleading Rotten Tomatoes Can Be

Ever just finish watching a show out of spite? Ozark is like a budget Breaking Bad but harder to believe... I've gotten to where I feel like my time is too precious to invest in a series that doesn't "stick the landing", so to speak. Sure, TV can be a fluffy bit of zoning out, but there is just far too much well made stuff out there to settle for sinking tens of hours into something that's a very mixed bag. So I get resentful when I watch a show like Ozark that I was led to believe was really good.

Ozark has a great premise and a strong initial cast, and the first season that explored both of these was some great television. Jason Bateman plays a guy who seems like an incredibly dull, milquetoast financial advisor in Chicago. He's got two normal kids, a partner in his small company who is way more fun than him, and his big dilemma seems to be that he found out his wife has long since checked out of their marriage and has been having an affair. Bateman is not only very likeable as this downtrodden sap, but he also directs the hell out of several episodes in this first season. That becomes important when the real drama kicks in...

Turns out the little firm has been a perfect cover to launder Mexican cartel money, but Bateman's partner got greedy and so now he has to talk his way out of his entire family getting disappeared. His solution is to propose MORE money, an expansion into the Ozarks. This necessitates moving his whole family there from Chicago, which they all hate, and then trying to live up to the outlandish promises he's made to the cartel. The first episode features some graphic death, so you know that the whole rest of the season could totally go there. Great performances by Laura Linney as his wife and Julia Garner (coming off The Americans) as a local Ozarks girl who's too smart to be fooled by him and too spunky to get out of the way.

Season 2 is an expansion from the first season, getting involved with more criminals, and politicians (bigger criminals) and deeper into the cartel workings. The only issue is that the story is going SO big SO quick that it just starts becoming kind of difficult to feel like no matter what crazy situation comes, there are no stakes. Whatever preposterous time limit and demand is made of Bateman's dude, or his wife, they find some way to pull it off, often with lots of people around them ending up dead but never their family. This is a big issue when more characters are introduced in Seasons 3 and 4 that are blatantly there to get in the way and then be killed off. There's no real stakes for the central cast, who all have plot armor throughout the seasons. How much tension is there in someone getting beat up when we've already seen a man thrown off a skyscraper (and land)? What is a tense verbal threat when you've already seen someone waterboarded? There's just nowhere to go in the last two seasons.

Looking at Rotten Tomatoes (or MetaCritic), you'd think the show just got better and better, with the last 2 seasons finishing with much higher scores than the first 2. Heck, I was fooled. Articles on the ending of the show all seemed pleased (though I couldn't read in too much detail for fear of spoilers). But when you look carefully, there's 69 official reviews of S1, compared to 49 of S3. Metacritic counts 29 for S1 compared to 12 for S3. So how did those latter season scores rise so much? Well, everyone who didn't love the show stopped watching. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Most of the writing credits for the final two seasons are different writers than the first two. Chris Mundy, who didn't start the show but took over as showrunner, is the exception. The writing is a major letdown. S3 is just trash-- long, indulgent filler episodes. There’s also at least one HUGE event per season that is HORRIBLY written and relies on a character acting totally out-of-character and being completely incompetent. S2 was at least interesting because it took Laura Linney’s supporting character to Bateman’s complicated protagonist and really made her essentially an antagonist who shares the same bed as him. Interesting concept, except the next two seasons shift her from the antagonist of the series to the protagonist. They try to do a Breaking Bad and have you want to follow these supposedly-good people doing bad things, somehow staying sympathetic to them, but none of the main cast really do anything interesting enough or sympathetic enough to make you want to root for them.

Linney’s character is clearly the worst villain of all, and she’s not a particularly interesting one. She succeeds primarily out of making wild demands of everyone and then making wild promises, and the only reason any of this succeeds is because the writers engineer excuses for fate to work out. It doesn’t have any believability after season 2, you’re just watching because the actors are good. In Linney’s case, you’re just actively rooting against her and hoping she dies pretty much from the start because 1., it would make life SO much better and easier for literally every other character and 2. she deserves it. She’s a horrible person. While Bateman's character is initially sympathetic, it gradually becomes impossible to root for him after everything he puts up with and still just stays - no, becomes an even bigger - sap that rolls over. By the end, every character has done so many blatantly stupid things that you just figure everyone has death coming to them and they deserve it.

Hard pass on Ozark. Despite a strong finale where Bateman returns with some showy directing, it's ultimately a series where the cosmetics are the only thing keeping it going. It actively dares an audience to stay invested in it the longer it goes, and the more it relies on tropes like having conversations with dead people and "oh, just one more thing...". Oh, and the fun of watching Bateman play against type wears off fairly quick, too.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Willow (2022 Disney+ series)
The first two episodes dropped and I've got to say that so far: meh. Joanne Whaley (formerly Kilmer) and Warwick Davis return as guest stars amongst a new ensemble that is reminiscent of the way Eternals was cast. Disney definitely has their marching orders. To me, this feels very Young Adult novel adaptation. Lots of hackey writing like "you can't go beyond X, it's deadly there!" and then after an initial conflict, they spend the next three days traveling peacefully. "We have to protect person X at all costs, they're the key to everything!" then let them spend the night outside camp, unguarded. There's really no justification for why this group of people should be on the quest in the first place instead of the kingdom's peak warriors besides 'every Fantasy novel has the thief, the warrior, the princess, the fop, the mage, etc, etc".

The original film, though it took awhile to find its audience, was great at world-building, and built a few, specific characters for you to get emotionally invested in. You essentially had a nuevo-Luke, Han, and Leia, with the comedy duo of droids tagging along. But these basic types were subverted in the original film: it was great about deflating expectations for how a grand fantasy should be told, playing with tropes and sometimes letting you have the big moments, sometimes not, but always aware.

This new series so far shows little of that. It doesn't play with tropes, it just follows along with them while saying "but this time it's the girl who's going to X". There's no world-building beyond what was already established, no reason for anyone to look like, dress like, or talk like they do. Language is contemporary but mixed between countries and cultures willy-nilly, whether American or faux-formal or RP British or not. Obligatory, aimless callbacks to the first film abound already, not serving any goal besides that DiCaprio meme.

The production so far isn't cheap, and the performers are fairly good, but the whole thing to me feels like Disney tossing their hat in the ring for a Fantasy IP they can cash in on. House of the Dragon, Rings of Power, The Witcher, His Dark Materials, Shadow and Bone, The Shannara Chronicles...even Marvel is trying to introduce The Black Knight, which I have a feeling will end up being another Disney+ show after the reception of Eternals. Studios have all decided that there's a market for Fantasy, so like always happens, they're spending a few years flooding the market with whatever they've got until the public gets burned out from trying so much sub-par "content" and then the studios decide people don't like Fantasy and stop making any for another 15 years. The boom & bust cycle that's been going since "sword & sandal" epics. Really we just want something that you take the time to do really well. I'm not convinced Willow is it.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

I've never seen the original Willow movie; I was too young to see it in theaters and for some reason never rented it on VHS even though it should have been right up my alley (my favorite movies as a kid were The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, and Return of the Jedi). Without any nostalgia attached to it, I don't think I'll watch the movie now, or the sequel series.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

I've never seen the original Willow movie; I was too young to see it in theaters and for some reason never rented it on VHS even though it should have been right up my alley (my favorite movies as a kid were The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, and Return of the Jedi). Without any nostalgia attached to it, I don't think I'll watch the movie now, or the sequel series.

I’m in the same boat except I was too old for it. I was a senior in high school when the movie came out. And, at the time, I didn’t think that traditional fantasy was something I’d like. I was thinking of watching the series with my son as we miss having our weekly Andor watching together but he doesn’t seem interested and it doesn’t sound particularly up my alley.

On another note, I am enjoying 1899 on Netflix. I think Dark (same writers/showrunners) is one of the best things to ever come out of Netflix. I’m halfway though the eight episode season. So far I don’t find it nearly as good as Dark, but I’ll reserve final judgement at least until after this season concludes. I’ve stayed completely spoiler free so I’m not even sure if it’s a self-contained limited series or if this is merely the first season.

 

[mnkykungfu]

I've never seen the original Willow movie; I was too young to see it in theaters and for some reason never rented it on VHS even though it should have been right up my alley (my favorite movies as a kid were The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, and Return of the Jedi). Without any nostalgia attached to it, I don't think I'll watch the movie now, or the sequel series.

Based on what you say, I'd think the original Willow movie will offer a lot for you to love. It's very much got those magical moments of whimsy and fun, mixed with darkness. The toughest part is simply that a little person with no real skills other than a kind heart is the central protagonist, and he's holding a baby for most of the film. It's definitely not a typical fantasy epic in that way. But the performances are great and it's quite funny.

The new series isn't horrible, but it's sure that showrunner Jonathan Kasdan is no Lawrence Kasdan. I'm probably going to wait until all the episodes are out, then I'll circle back around and give it a second chance. (Btw - anyone looking to scratch the same family-accessible Fantasy itch, I'd offer up Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or if you're game to try something animated, The Legend of Korra).

 

[Jrzag42]

I stumbled across The Offer on DVD at Walmart. It looked neat, so I got it (along with Evangelion). I'm 3 episodes in, and I'm quite enjoying it. I see that it's not the best reviewed show, I didn't read why. If it's because of it not being entirely accurate, then that's really not something that bothers me. I enjoy learning about the time period and getting a general idea of what happened, while also being entertained; I can read up about what really happened later. If the mediocre reviews are due to it generally being poorly made, then I don't know what to say, we all know I have bad tastes sometimes.
Going in, I knew absolutely nothing about the making of The Godfather, so this stuff is all new and fascinating to me.
I keep thinking that I recognize the actors. Upon looking it up, I know the main guy from Top Gun Maverick, and another guy is Ozymandius from Watchmen. The funniest thing though, the guy playing Coppola, a swore I'd seen him before, and it turns out that I have...in that shitty movie Fanboys. Then the rest of the cast I absolutely have not seen before despite looking familliar.
Initially I was turned off by the aspect ratio, it has no reason to look so cinematic! But I've gotten used to it.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Archer (2009 - Season 13 now playing)
If you have been living under a Comedy/Animation/Overall Excellence rock, Archer is an animated show for adults that is a satire of James Bond + The Office. "Sterling Archer" is the Bond analogue, arguably the most capable spy in the world, working at an independent espionage agency headed up by his literal mother. He can't be bothered to even remember the correct name of her secretary, a seemingly-buttoned-up woman who adores him. The 'tech guy' of the place is literally a mad scientist, equally as interested in making incredibly destructive gadgets as in exploring the limits of orgasmatrons and the sexual proclivities of dolphins and A.I. waifus. Where it departs from Bond is in the long-running antagonism for Sterling with the company's HR manager, the accountant, the operations coordinator (think: guy in the chair), and rival agents --especially his ex, a Lara Croft homage whom he works with.

Previous seasons saw Archer have Bond-esque misadventures all over the world, in space, under the sea, with cyborgs, Nazi clones, Yakuza fight clubs, and savage islands. There are a number of running gags early on that capitalize on the juxtaposition between the banality of office work as it applies to the insanity of these espionage missions. How to expense a Persian rug used to roll up a dead hooker in a sting gone wrong? Appropriate medical coverage for an agent who took a desk job but still somehow manages to get shot by Archer almost weekly? What to do when you can't afford an extraction on a mission because you already used up the monthly expense budget when you bought that seaplane and immediately crashed it into a Filipino drug harem and took over as warlord? (Worth it.)

The current season is in an interesting position because Archer had a long, meandering journey for awhile there... after a mission gone wrong, Archer was shot and ended up in a coma. The next several seasons were feverish coma dreams that recast the main players of the show in different roles in a different genre each time. One season was Film Noir, another Sci-Fi, another Adventure-Fantasy, and so on. After getting out of the coma, Archer found himself in a completely different agency, one where his skills were no longer what they used to be. The team had to scramble just to stay afloat in a changing espionage world, and just when they seemed to be recovering...main cast member Jessica Walter passed away. They had to find a way to tastefully write Mother off the show. I think they succeeded, but that has left this season as one where the identity of both the agency and the show itself needs to be redefined.

Season 13 takes the same tact as Wakanda Forever, deciding not to recast an iconic role, but instead show the effect of that character's absence. It's a short season of only 8 episodes, but it is essentially the series getting "back to basics". After 12 years of character evolution, the experiences of each of the main cast have to be incorporated into each story, and I think this season does a great job providing just enough expositional reminders in order to make all this accessible. At the same time, it moves forward and finds new aspects to explore with Pam (the HR manager), Cheryl (the neurotic secretary), and of course Archer, who's trying to grow up and deal with the "retirement" of his mother...but typically in very unhelpful ways. Really, though, this season belongs to Lana, his ex who he kinda sorta has a child with. This is about her character evolution and it's a really gratifying journey. You wouldn't expect a show with so many disgusting sex jokes, dismemberments, and cold-hearted betrayals to actually have heartfelt character development, but that's what makes this series one of the greats.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

Has anyone watched s3 of Jack Ryan. I’m two episodes in and it seems about as smart as a season of 24 but with none of that show’s tension. Debating on whether to continue.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Harley Quinn (HBO Animated Series) - Season 1
The portrayal of Harley as an abused girlfriend has been baked into the character from the start, and her total devotion to the Joker was just more evidence of how truly insidious he was. For women especially I suppose, there could really be an urge to want to see this character break out of her cycle of abuse and co-dependency, and that seems to be what this series is about more than anything. It puts female empowerment first and foremost, and really no male characters are allowed to be anything other than villainous or kind of douchey goofballs. (Some possible arguments that the vaguely male anthropomorphic shark and lump of clay are better off than other "males".)

For me the problem then is that the overall tone of the series is absurdist comedy. It's hard to give much credence or weight to the philosophical issues when the explanation to every plot point and solution to every problem is to just have some bizarre comedy resolve it. Worse yet, for a show that makes jokes probably every 5 seconds, I chuckle consistently only once or twice per episode. I am just not on this same comedy wavelength.

The final issue is that for anyone who actually liked these DC comic characters, pretty much everyone is re-envisioned here. Not only new designs and new voice actors, but often totally different characterizations. They're often inspired by some aspect of a recent film/CW series portrayal, like Bane's goofy voice, but then they just run with that for comedy's sake. It's all pretty 1 or 2-dimensional, which is sad when the show wants to be about serious issues. Meanwhile you've got a "kids' show" like Young Justice telling complex, mature stories. This show is pretty hypocritical too in that it makes Harley and Ivy, the two protagonists, into these holier-than-thou feminist icons when their original portrayals very much used their sexuality to gain advantage over men. Ivy's whole central thing is about taking away agency from men. The show never addresses the messiness and culpability of this, so it doesn't really seem like a good faith argument for anything.

Basically, if you just think gore and swearing with comic characters is funny, then these girls get to do lots of comedy. For me, I gave it a season but it was a near-total miss.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Vice Principals (2016-'17)
I found out after watching that:
A. David Gordon Green, Jody Hill, and Danny McBride have all been friends since their days in a college dorm together.
B. They created this together, planning to essentially split it into two parts. Hill would direct the first "season" and Green the second, with McBride doing an episode here or there. McBride also seems to have been the head writer.

The three guys keep coming back together over their careers (with writer John Carcieri as well) to make oddball dark comedies like this. They've been kind of hit and miss for me, often within the same film or episode, like here. Sometimes the meanness and seriousness of the jokes takes them past being funny for me. Hill's directing in particular often takes big swings, which can make for some real shock laughs, but also big misses. For my part, I think S2 actually gets stronger and more even; it doesn’t quite have some of the highs of S1, but it doesn’t have any of the big lulls or lows.

Vice Principals is a little hard to get into at first, as you watch these two scheming, despicable losers fight over this impending position as Principal of a High School. What’s really amazing is how McBride's character seems just as hateable as Walton Goggins' uptight conniver at first, just in a different way. But over time he really turns it around and becomes more sympathetic. They toy with making Goggins seem more sympathetic too, but I think it’s a difference in the performances. McBride just has such a gift for being a kind of sad sack puppydog that you want to believe can turn around. Goggins on the other hand just always seems a bit oily, and you’re reluctant to trust him even when you know he’s probably in the right, or at least <ahem> justified. Maybe that’s something that makes S2 more enjoyable to watch also: that you don’t really have anyone to root for in S1 but S2 gives you that.

I'm really glad I stuck with the series through the first part, as it ends with a bang. The second part picks up and again has a slightly rocky start but comes in strong with a series wrap-up that just makes this feel like one long film. It's definitely better to have divided it into these 25 minute episodes though, since it makes it very bingeable. The cast has lots of great supporting actors and fun comedic cameos, but everyone is smart enough to play it pretty straight and let McBride and Goggins be the ones chewing all the scenery. It works really well, and marks one of the higher points in the careers of everyone involved, I think.

 

[mnkykungfu]

The White Lotus Season 1 (2021)
This mostly got acclaim for its recent 2nd season featuring Aubrey Plaza, which is the whole reason I wanted to watch, but I decide to start with S1 as it's only 6 episodes. The conceit of the series is as an anthology, with each season apparently being based in a different White Lotus resort location, an international luxury hotel chain. This first season is in Hawaii, and the first episode is mostly introducing you to all the different main hotel guests and staff which will eventually have their stories intertwine.

The main hook of the show is I guess that it starts at the end, where you know there’s a dead body on the plane leaving the island, so you’re meant to wonder the whole time who it is. You assume it’s one of the main characters and so are watching the whole time for signs that a plotline could lead to someone’s death, which is fun enough, though the whole thing feels pretty low stakes as it’s a bunch of rich people on vacation. Even the ones who aren’t rich are kind of entitled and up their own asses to a certain extent. So you’re not really invested in hoping this person or that DOESN’T die, so much as hoping FOR this person or that to be the one who kicks it. It’s one of these kind of stories where all the characters are fleshed out in ways that feel so real and believable, and yet everyone is just varying degrees of unpleasant and unlikable.

It's got a wonderful cast who all play their roles to the hilt, though since you don't really like the characters, I don't know if that's the best idea. I kind of wished for someone like a Michael Keaton or a Margot Robbie, who can be playing villainous characters but still have such intense likeability that they come off as protagonists anyway. The closest we get I guess is Steve Zahn, who has gone underpraised his whole career. He's a bit selfish and neurotic here, but he's mostly just a well-meaning capital Dad. Besides that, the overall flow of the series is pretty high-quality, but the directors are a little too intent on making use of the location. There are just too many long nature shots and a really overbearing score of indigenous Hawaiian-inspired sounds. The series loses out on suspense in favor of being some kind of direct cinema documentary.

Overall, you can probably skip this season and go straight to the better-reviewed season 2. But if you've seen that and love it, I dunno, maybe come back and get a little extra serving with this one.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

I liked Season 1 better.
Also, for reference Season 1 has an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Season 2 has 93%, so they're both reviewed pretty solidly.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

I agree. I liked season one better, but I’m pretty lukewarm on the series as a whole.

 

[addiesin]

Harley Quinn (HBO Animated Series) - Season 1

I found it to be a sort of spiritual successor to Venture Bros and actually as a result, can appreciate that it doesn't hold back on the violence and language even if that stuff isn't a draw for me. It is extremely similar in tone, the big difference to me is more about licensing. Harley Quinn gets to use the real characters, Venture Bros often had to invent their own legally distinct parody versions of pop culture icons.

I think the men and women are pretty equally caricatured, though I admit that feels offset due to the only fleshed out personalities being Harley the lead and her best friend, both women. I don't see it as a problem though, to me the show feels like it's from Harley's perspective so things being somewhat warped is almost expected.

I agree it has trouble finding the heart though, or emotional weight beyond things like, oh man that character's dead? So my recommendation is like a mirror of yours, if you like animated comedy and can tolerate a show being edgy for no purpose other than to prove it's for adults, check it out.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^I can dig animated comedy, just didn't find Harley Quinn very funny. I don't do a ton of the Adult Swim stuff and didn't really love the bit of Venture Brothers that I saw either, so I guess that just goes to show how subjective it can be. But for me that show tries to do a lot more than just be funny, and that's where it gets really problematic.

And @asterixsmeagol I wasn't trying to say S1 of White Lotus was rated badly, just that S2 is where it seems to have really taken off for most people. Keep in mind too that Rotten Tomatoes is strictly a thumbs up/down system, and doesn't account for how much people like something.