Television reviews...
Sep. 27th, 2019 11:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWatched some of the television series that I'd taped this week. What follows are television reviews..
1. New Amsterdam -- which is a returning favorite. And ...I've mixed feelings about. While I'm extraordinarily pleased that they did NOT kill off my two favorite female characters, Freema Ayga aka Helen Sharpe (ex-Martha Jones on Doctor Who, and an actress I adore) and Dr. Bloom, I found who they did kill off very cliche, and I sort of predictable. Not to mention an easy and somewhat lazy writing choice.
That said, I like where the characters are this season. We've moved away from the lead character's problems of last year, which was juggling his marriage, cancer, and being a work-a-holic. Not to mention his wife's pregnancy. This year it's juggling his newborn baby, his job as hospital administrator, and the loss of his wife. Last year -- he was afraid he was going to die, this year he's dealing with the unexpected loss of his beloved wife -- which opens him up to another romance with someone else and gets rid of a character that the writers had no clue what to do with and was a weakness.
New Amsterdam has some of the same weaknesses that ER did, which is a tendency to slide into hyperbole and hospital melodrama (not soap opera, melodrama, two different things). And some of it is...well so contrived it blows suspension of disbelief. Although so far Amsterdam is still within the realm of believability.
It also has some great actors and characters.
2. The Unicorn
Disappointed. I love Walter Goggins. But this is yet another obnoxious sex comedy. The set up is a guy who lost his wife to cancer a year ago, and now his idiotic and somewhat obnoxious friends are pressuring him to date again and have sex -- to move on. (Did I forget to mention, he has two young daughters, is a soccer referee, works for a landscaping company, and has to do everything around the house? And up until this year, had been living off of all the casseroles and things people had provided? Also he's a lousy cook? And has a dog?) But because he's a widower and somewhat attractive -- he's considered a hot property? (Seriously in what universe would single women want to date a recent widower with two young daughters? I wouldn't. I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. I'm admittedly picky, I've been told that.)
Goggins is, unfortunately, the only good thing in it. And his charm is not enough to save the cliche and silly writing. It's a sitcom, so as a result, everything is a bit over the top. The friends are a touch too obnoxious and too nosy, and too in your face.
Goggins: "What do I tell my kids?"
Friend: Lie to them.
Goggins: What? I can't lie to my kids!
Friends: Why not? We do, all the time.
Eyeroll.
I don't know what Wade (the role Goggins plays) ever did to deserve these people as friends. You really can't pick your friends any more than you can pick your relatives?
I was bored and frustrated with it. Because I'd heard great things. The critics had adored it. (Are the critics deeply stoned? Or has watching too much television driven them insane?) And co-worker's wife liked it (she also likes Fleabag, so ...there is that. Some people like sex comedies, I find them irritating.)
Just about every joke in this is about dating and sex. Even one about catching a teen boy coping a feel of his teenage daughter's breast.
Anyhow, I've decided not to continue with it. Sorry, Goggins. Even your charm can't save it.
3. Perfect Harmony -- this is the comedy with Bradley Whitford (from West Wing) as a curmudgeonly ex-Columbia music professor who recently lost his wife. They moved back to her home-town, where she wanted to live out the last two weeks of her life. And he ends up, reluctantly, becoming the choir director of a tiny and rather inadequate church choir.
Weirdly, this one was entertaining. It had gotten negative reviews or mixed. Yet, I enjoyed it quite a bit. (Says something about how much I agree with television critics in this day and age, doesn't it?) Yes, it's a bit on the cliche side in places, but not necessarily in a bad way. And yes, it makes fun of those redneck Southerners, put in a charming way. It's basically your formulaic fish-out-of-water story. But it is enjoyable and the quirky characters are likable (unlike the Unicorn in which they really weren't).
Anyhow, Whitford's character drunkenly disrupts a choir practice trying to get them to sing right -- impresses them enough that after he passes out and then comes too, they convince him or rather press him into helping them. The first episode is rather a 20 minute movie. I was impressed. It was like watching a short movie, with fifteen minutes of commercials. They literally compressed an entire year in twenty minutes.
We get the whole trajectory of him being persuaded to help them win a contest, deciding to do it out spite, running from it, being coaxed back, having the choir get annoyed with him and fire him, then changing their mind. And then he leaves again, only to show up at the final -- and discover how great they are and get his sign - so he stays.
It's not great. But I laughed. Smiled. And found it charming. So, I'll keep it for now. (It probably helped that I saw it after The Unicorn.) Plus we have music. Music is always a good thing.
1. New Amsterdam -- which is a returning favorite. And ...I've mixed feelings about. While I'm extraordinarily pleased that they did NOT kill off my two favorite female characters, Freema Ayga aka Helen Sharpe (ex-Martha Jones on Doctor Who, and an actress I adore) and Dr. Bloom, I found who they did kill off very cliche, and I sort of predictable. Not to mention an easy and somewhat lazy writing choice.
That said, I like where the characters are this season. We've moved away from the lead character's problems of last year, which was juggling his marriage, cancer, and being a work-a-holic. Not to mention his wife's pregnancy. This year it's juggling his newborn baby, his job as hospital administrator, and the loss of his wife. Last year -- he was afraid he was going to die, this year he's dealing with the unexpected loss of his beloved wife -- which opens him up to another romance with someone else and gets rid of a character that the writers had no clue what to do with and was a weakness.
New Amsterdam has some of the same weaknesses that ER did, which is a tendency to slide into hyperbole and hospital melodrama (not soap opera, melodrama, two different things). And some of it is...well so contrived it blows suspension of disbelief. Although so far Amsterdam is still within the realm of believability.
It also has some great actors and characters.
2. The Unicorn
Disappointed. I love Walter Goggins. But this is yet another obnoxious sex comedy. The set up is a guy who lost his wife to cancer a year ago, and now his idiotic and somewhat obnoxious friends are pressuring him to date again and have sex -- to move on. (Did I forget to mention, he has two young daughters, is a soccer referee, works for a landscaping company, and has to do everything around the house? And up until this year, had been living off of all the casseroles and things people had provided? Also he's a lousy cook? And has a dog?) But because he's a widower and somewhat attractive -- he's considered a hot property? (Seriously in what universe would single women want to date a recent widower with two young daughters? I wouldn't. I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. I'm admittedly picky, I've been told that.)
Goggins is, unfortunately, the only good thing in it. And his charm is not enough to save the cliche and silly writing. It's a sitcom, so as a result, everything is a bit over the top. The friends are a touch too obnoxious and too nosy, and too in your face.
Goggins: "What do I tell my kids?"
Friend: Lie to them.
Goggins: What? I can't lie to my kids!
Friends: Why not? We do, all the time.
Eyeroll.
I don't know what Wade (the role Goggins plays) ever did to deserve these people as friends. You really can't pick your friends any more than you can pick your relatives?
I was bored and frustrated with it. Because I'd heard great things. The critics had adored it. (Are the critics deeply stoned? Or has watching too much television driven them insane?) And co-worker's wife liked it (she also likes Fleabag, so ...there is that. Some people like sex comedies, I find them irritating.)
Just about every joke in this is about dating and sex. Even one about catching a teen boy coping a feel of his teenage daughter's breast.
Anyhow, I've decided not to continue with it. Sorry, Goggins. Even your charm can't save it.
3. Perfect Harmony -- this is the comedy with Bradley Whitford (from West Wing) as a curmudgeonly ex-Columbia music professor who recently lost his wife. They moved back to her home-town, where she wanted to live out the last two weeks of her life. And he ends up, reluctantly, becoming the choir director of a tiny and rather inadequate church choir.
Weirdly, this one was entertaining. It had gotten negative reviews or mixed. Yet, I enjoyed it quite a bit. (Says something about how much I agree with television critics in this day and age, doesn't it?) Yes, it's a bit on the cliche side in places, but not necessarily in a bad way. And yes, it makes fun of those redneck Southerners, put in a charming way. It's basically your formulaic fish-out-of-water story. But it is enjoyable and the quirky characters are likable (unlike the Unicorn in which they really weren't).
Anyhow, Whitford's character drunkenly disrupts a choir practice trying to get them to sing right -- impresses them enough that after he passes out and then comes too, they convince him or rather press him into helping them. The first episode is rather a 20 minute movie. I was impressed. It was like watching a short movie, with fifteen minutes of commercials. They literally compressed an entire year in twenty minutes.
We get the whole trajectory of him being persuaded to help them win a contest, deciding to do it out spite, running from it, being coaxed back, having the choir get annoyed with him and fire him, then changing their mind. And then he leaves again, only to show up at the final -- and discover how great they are and get his sign - so he stays.
It's not great. But I laughed. Smiled. And found it charming. So, I'll keep it for now. (It probably helped that I saw it after The Unicorn.) Plus we have music. Music is always a good thing.