It's summer, so TV is shit, yes?
Well... according to your schedules you've got a big bunch of stuff out there and on its way. Better Call Saul wraps up, as does Stranger Things also in two segments. While the Walking Dead kicks the bucket after a three 8-part series. There's the third series of the astoundingly good For All Mankind and the utterly jaw-dropping The Boys; some shit from Sky TV called The Midwich Cuckoos, more Westworld, meh and Ms Marvel from Marvel. Some of these things I won't be watching, because I've either been influenced far too much by the reviews or I don't watch; the others are, have and will be devoured as and when, ennit?
Let's work our way through the ones we're reviewing then, eh?
There's something not quite right about Stranger Things and it has never felt more like 'we're making this up as we go along' than this first part of the final series. It's had more money thrown at it and it shows with bigger set pieces and more countries and locations being used, but it's all really happening in Hawkins, Indiana and with the main cast all outside of this, doing their own interlinked things, that will all gel together at the end, we hope, it feels a little like it's been done to simply eke out the story.
There seems to be too much of some characters and not enough of others and in the end it feels like there's too much pondering and borderline slapstick/stoner comedy and not enough actual story. That's not to say it isn't great TV, because it clearly does tick many boxes, but when things become as huge as ST is then you need to make the story to suit and I think the denouement at the end of the first part of the final season was a little too contrived.
There are also too many villains - from the reborn #1 to old monsters to the US Army - it all starts to feel as though the writers are juggling kittens. I don't expect a fantastic conclusion, but I kind of expect something to either end this cycle or leave just enough hanging about for series 5 or maybe a Netflix feature film or two?
Other points that stick out for me are the way some of the characters have devolved while others are exactly the same and very few of them seem to have got much [mentally] older, even though they're all now young adults. The fact the main antagonist is somehow bigger than the last big bad but has dwelt in his shadow for at least three previous seasons - things like that bother the nerd in me. There's also Matthew Modine's 'Papa', Paul Reiser's 'good guy' and Hopper's relevance that bother me as well. In fact there's a lot I struggle with as whether certain aspects are there because the writers have no real memories or idea of what it must have been like living in the rural Midwest of the USA in the mid-1980s - they should maybe have read some Stephen King books rather than pilfered his films.
It makes me sound as though I don't enjoy it. I do, I just found I'm not enjoying the final season as much as I would have hoped and that might be down to me.
***
The Boys seems to have winkled its way into TV folklore with little fanfare and a lot of word of mouth. The antithesis of Marvel's MCU or whatever DC is calling theirs at the moment, The Boys is vicious, foul-mouthed and extremely corporate rather than the almost utopian idea that gaslights its way through most other superhero films and TV. It's also extremely dull in places, full of some really meh plotlines, but is underpinned by two things - the idea that a bunch of unpowered nutters can despatch superheroes with the right weaponry and whether or not Homelander is going to go full on Miracleman (a comics reference that many of you will get and arguably opens that plagiarism question again that constantly revolves around that particular corner of comicbook mythos).
It revels in bad taste; exploding bodies, heads, penises are every where. The word 'cunt' is used as often as 'and' yet there's a sweetness to it that underpins the entire series. It is one of those shows that has actually got better by virtue of letting much of the supporting cast simply drift back into being faces in the background. It was like they were balancing too many ideas by the time they did season 2, so they've upscaled while scaling back. It's clear that while there might be a series villain, the actual main problem is Homelander and how to kill him before he loses what tenuous grasp on reality he still has.
We could probably have done with rewatching the first two series before embarking on the first three episodes of the new stuff, because some of the lesser plotlines are still going on and I'd forgotten most of them. I've noticed that Karl Urban has been working on his English accent, which now sounds more English than some bizarre hybrid of cartoon English, Antipodean and Transatlantic.
I expect this will never cease to have jaw-dropping moments but at least it has something else to balance it out.
***
Ms Marvel has arrived and... well... I'm not sure what to make of it based on the first episode. I think I'm right that it's aimed at teenagers ostensibly, but there's enough other stuff to keep 60-year-old gits mildly interested.
Here are my first impression: Iman Vellani is actually really likeable as Kamala Kham; I never watched Ugly Betty, but I get the impression that casting a pretty, but not stunningly attractive girl in the role is a bit of a winner. Except, I don't really know any 16-year-old Jersey City teenage Muslims or who or what she is likely to hang around with or do; so it's educational, after a fashion.
Does it convey reasonably enough the hassle a young Muslim gets in a mixed faith school? - Possibly, but it could also be down to the fact she's a geek who actually wishes she was a superhero and somehow - I'm sure we'll discover the origins of the magic bangle - becomes one. It's cliched in that just about every TV show (and Marvel) with teenagers in it seems to have them as the outsiders or misfits and this is exactly the same. Even down to the person with a massive crush on her, but she doesn't really see it, maybe because of her culture or possibly because she's a bit of a young 16.
He - Bruno - is an interesting character; looks like Dougie Howser's younger brother, is something of a tech genius, also a loner and superhero fan and he's so in love with Kamala he'd walk 30 miles over broken glass to put matchsticks in her shit. It's quite sweet and as true to shit like that as you will ever see on TV. This kid - Matt Lintz - may well prove to be a future film star.
Ms Marvel does a very good job of making the life of a 16-y-o Muslim girl seem as miserable as possible, with well-placed but horribly suspicious parents (well, mother), who, it has to be noted, seem far too old to have two teenage children, given their culture. I felt uncomfortable with Marisa Tomei as Aunt May and she's a spring chicken compared to Kamala's folks. They also seem as culturally bereft as you might image grandparents who are adjusting to the USA not people who have been there many years.
What we saw of her powers was not enough to convince me this works; to be fair they seem lame and while I'm not familiar with the comic version, apparently they're slightly different from those. I expect episode two will address what she can do, but in terms of conventional superhero I'm struggling to see how she'll fair.
Overall, I found it okay. Far more enjoyable than I expected, but I'm more interested to see more than I was with Moon Knight. Oh, and the mid credit scene - which made a change - was intriguing, but only in a "what new 'agency' are we meeting this time?"
Then episode #2 came along and I spent much of it disliking my age and inability to understand any of the pop culture references, but I did start to quite like the show, even if it feels like an Asian Am-Dram music-less Bollywood film. It still feels like it's aimed at a specific age group but one gets the impression it's going to go off in directions least expected - I hope I'm not proved wrong.
***
A quick foray into films to ask the question: what the fuck happened to the Fantastic Beasts franchise?
The first one was, on hindsight, very entertaining and full of Potter-esque charm. The second one was darker, but still felt like it was going somewhere until the last half an hour when it started to lose me a little. The third part of the trilogy was just an abject mess; a complete and utter load of tripe. Replacing Johnny Depp might have been a necessity at the time, but Mads Mickelson is one of the most one-toned actors I've ever seen and he did nothing as Grindewald and there wasn't even some magical explanation as to why he'd changed his face. Ezra Miller seemed fat and wasted - literally and metaphorically. Eddie Redmayne was not used enough and it was just a mess from start to finish. It's a bit tragic really.
***
Over the last couple of years, if I had to say what 'my favourite TV show is' then it probably would be For All Mankind. I actually got a shiver of excitement when I knew it was back. It's a remarkable show in many ways because each season takes place 10 years after the previous one concludes. It's also science fiction in that it's an alternative history of the world based on the premise that the USSR beat the USA to the moon. Essentially, FAM is a soap opera following the lives of a group of individuals all linked to NASA and the USAF, but it's a massive idea that allows the show to play with small things.
From the word go it hooks you in; not with astounding and in-yer-face SF action, but examining the lives of the families of the people chosen to be the next faces of the space program - normal families thrust into a weird new world of space travel as the Space Race doesn't grind to a halt, but instead accelerates. The lives of the Baldwin and Stevens families are centre stage, but so is that of the bewildering Margot Madison (played brilliantly by Wrenn Schmidt), a truly oddball in a very square series. She works her way up to being the Director of NASA (by season 3) and is the cog that allows all the other wheels to circle.
What is especially good about the series is that none of the stars were that well known before this; many had been around but as supporting characters, so one shouldn't be too surprised when main cast members die, but every single death in the first two series felt important and the tragedies that befell those who were left behind. By the finale of season 2 you're praying it doesn't play out the way it does, but it does in a gut-wrenchingly cruel way, reminding us that this is not a story with many personal happy endings.
Obviously with ten year gaps between series, there's a slight confusion, because even with the aid of having recently watched earlier series, it sometimes feels there is the need to have a PowerPoint presentation to explain what has transpired. Yet, the writers deftly explain divorces, new partners, major life changes or promotions in a casual conversational way that does more than enough to fill in the gaps. Ed and Karen's divorce was signposted in season 2, so it came as no surprise; what did surprise was who Karen ended up marrying.
Season 3 kicked off in a really high profile way and it also appeared to tie up some plot threads that were left dangling at the end of season 1 which we never got near to in season 2 and while it is now 1992 and all of our heroes are in their 50s - the make-up is excellent - there is an enormous amount that links it all back to the first first episodes, making it feel like the writers actually have a plan and are able to stick with it. However, if ever there was a smoking gun in the opening scene it was when Margot casually complained about space tourism, which seemed to be a cue to get some of our primary players on a space station hotel orbiting the earth destined for tragedy...
It felt weird because while there have been major set pieces in this series, it has been more about the people and relationships than about the science fiction, but because of the accelerated space race, 1992 in many ways is more like what I expect 2042 will be like if our billionaires continue to play astronauts. Gary Hart is serving his second term as US President and the two candidates in the upcoming elections are Bill Clinton and Ellen Waverly, formerly of NASA's manor and a woman with far too many secrets in a world that technologically is far advanced than ours, but in terms of sexuality isn't.
There's a whole bunch of great characters and most of them are women, because equality is very much advanced and women hold positions of immense power, including the three people in charge of NASA. The Soviet Union still exists and China and Europe are both trying to get into the space race. However, this series is all about the race for Mars and how the USA can't afford not to win this time.
I cannot recommend this series enough. It's a proper sensible SF drama that can be watched pretty much by all ages - yes, there's some bad language, but there's little sex (no nudity at all) or violence. It's the kind of thing that by the end of the season you're second guessing what might be next and I'm already hoping that there's going to be a fourth and fifth seasons, just to see how far the writers feel they can push humanity.
***
One thing I can honestly say I rarely write about is British comedies. That's probably because I can't recall really enjoying one for about ten years - the glory days of fantastic sitcoms is long gone it seems. Yet, the wife watched the pilot of The Other One and persuaded me to watch the first series last year.
It is absolutely awful and I absolutely love it. When I say awful I don't mean the show itself, I mean the awful people who inhabit it, except the only really awful person is Cathy. Not Cat, the half sister she didn't know she had or her mother, who had a long running affair with Cath's father, or Cathy's mum, who is the bewildered victim of the entire idea. Maybe Marcus is just as awful, but Marcus is Cathy's on-off-on fiancée and he's just a despicable shit.
It is essentially about what happens when someone dies and leaves a library full of secrets and what happens when Cathy and her mum, Tess - two very middle class people, or snobs as we like to call them, discover their 'counterparts', Cat (also Cathy) and her mum, Marilyn - two of the most Chav-like people ever created for television. Cat, played brilliantly by Lauren Socha, is a revelation and something unique to marvel at and Marilyn played by Siobhan Finneran is so utterly and brilliantly mad she steals almost every scene she's in.
It's cringeworthy comedy, but in an almost loathsome way. You kind of want Cathy to fall on her arse because she's such a prig, while you want Cat to succeed despite her not really doing anything to deserve anything apart from being really likeable. I approached each episode thinking 'why do I watch this?' and soon remember why. It's actually genuinely funny, even if it's a tad OTT. Holly Walsh, who writes it, is always a welcome guest on QI because she's often surreal and extremely funny, this gets transferred in this comedy series.
***
We're an episode into Better Caul Saul so I'll avoid talking about that and I have something called The Shining Girls lined up.
Things we've seen recently include Love, Death & Robots season 3, which was lower in quality than season 2 which was poor in comparison to season 1.
We started watching the thing about people trapped in a town surrounded by vampire like creatures with the black guy from Lost in it, but it grew boring very quickly and we gave up after about 3 episodes.
With Dr Strange and the Monkeyverse of Jizzum available from next week, expect something about that soon.
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