It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.
The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever.
Nearly there. Not quite, but nearly. Elsewhere this week, I’ve reviewed Travelers (Canada: Showcase; UK: Netflix), Shoot The Messenger (Canada: CBC) and Eyewitness (US: USA) and passed third-episode verdicts on Frequency (US: The CW; UK: Netflix), No Tomorrow (US: The CW), Westworld (US: HBO; Sky Atlantic) and Timeless (US: NBC; UK: E4).
I’ve started watching Graves (US: Epix), so I’ll be putting a review together of the first couple of episodes of that tomorrow and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (US: BBC; UK: Netflix), Chance (US: Hulu) and Channel Zero (US: Syfy; UK: 5*) won’t be far behind it. A third-episode verdict on Insecure (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic) will be in among the mix, too.
Regulars readers will realise that I still haven’t watched Deep Water (Australia: SBS; UK: BBC Four), StartUp (US: Crackle) or Divorce (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic). I really will watch Deep Water one day and I might still give StartUp a go, but I think I’ll have to leave Divorce to you guys to discover for yourselves, since TBH, I don’t like the sound of it. Just the title. No.
Crisis in Six Scenes (Amazon), Haters Back Off (Netflix) and Easy (Netflix)? Never heard of them. Don’t know what you’re talking about.
I’ve had no time to watch last night’s Son of Zorn or Eyewitness, but after the jump, the regulars: Ash vs Evil Dead, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Doctor Doctor, The Exorcist, Falling Water, The Flash, High Maintenance, Hyde and Seek, Impastor, Kim’s Convenience, Lethal Weapon, Lucifer, The Secret Daughter, Supergirl, Westworld and You’re The Worst. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to continue watching all of those, though, so this might be the last week for some of them and it’ll definitely be the last week for at least one. You’ll find out which after the jump.
Shows I’m watching but not recommending
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (US: The CW; UK: Sky 1)
2×2 – Justice Society of America
Mountains of daftness, but the arrival of the JSA is great, we have Victor Garber singing and best of all, Rory’s buggered off leaving Sara in charge.
Reviews: First episode; fourth episode
Doctor Doctor (Australia: Nine)
1×6
Managing to get stronger now we’re in episode six – who knew it took so long for egocentric coke users to rehabilitate? – and some top Royal Pains style action, but as with 800 words, it’s meandering around and not really heading in any particular direction.
Reviews: First episode; third episode
The Exorcist (US: Fox; UK: Syfy)
1×5 – Through My Most Grievous Fault
I came back for the real-time exorcism. I gave up after 10 minutes because it was blinking silly. I was almost laughing when I was simply feeling a bit queasy.
Reviews: First episode; third episode
Falling Water (US: USA)
1×2 – Calling The Vasty Deep
A surprising improvement on the first episode, this had some properly fun and even disturbing surreal twisting of reality, dreams and even time (apparently), with a plot so bonkers you genuinely couldn’t tell which bits were dreams and which bit were ‘reality’. None of the three narratives are meeting up yet, though, which is a shame, and Lizzie Brocheré is still as close to a blank piece of paper as a human being can be, but a far more promising a continuation from the pilot than I thought it would be.
Review: First episode
Hyde and Seek (Australia: Nine)
1×3
Continuing the pyrotechnics and the fun, our intrepid duo in the newly formed anti-terrorist team head off to the Northern Territories where they get to know each other a little better, mock each other’s countries a bit and find out about Emma Hamilton’s spy past. Not 100% plausible, but still bundles of fun.
Review: First two episodes
Impastor (US: TV Land)
2×4 – Sins of The Past-or (1)
Show creator Christopher Vane scripted what feels like a minor reboot story, which has the potential to end a few storylines and perhaps send the show in a new direction. I’ll stick with part two at least to see if the new direction is funnier than the show has been o flate.
Review: First episode
Kim’s Convenience (Canada: CBC)
1×3 – Ddom Ching
As with the first couple of episodes, plenty of fun when Mr Kim himself is around, less fun when it’s the rest of the family. But still a reasonable number of laughs and enough to keep me watching.
Review: First two episodes
Lethal Weapon (US: Fox; UK: ITV)
1×5 – Spilt Milk
No new haircut this week, but the show does give us a fellow ex-Navy SEAL ‘lethal weapon’ for Riggs to chase after and see himself in. Pretty credibly done, though, with the usual pathos over Riggs’ widowerhood, but an utterly ludicrous stunt to end it all.
Review: First episode; third episode
Lucifer (US: Fox; UK: Amazon)
2×4 – Lady Parts
The girls go on a night out in an effort to find Lauren German’s personality and almost succeed. A lot more fun than the usual Lucifer episodes, if only because they aim for out and out comedy, rather than anything more sophisticated with the drama. Worth it for DB Woodside’s dad dancing alone.
Reviews: First episode; third episode
The Secret Daughter (Australia: Seven)
1×3 – Where Do I Belong?
Reasonably decent summer novel plotting, interspersed with almost horrifically long singing numbers that you can even buy after the show is finished. Enjoyable when no one’s singing, though.
Review: First two episodes
Supergirl (US: The CW; UK: Sky1)
2×2 – The Last Children of Krypton
More format changes, with Ian Gomez (Cougar Town) turning up to replace Callista Flockhart as Kara’s new boss. Also departing is Superman. Now originally, I thought it a genius move to have him show up, since the show had become so obsessed with him in its first season, it was actually harder not to show him by the end. Do it and get it out the way, I thought. But it turned out that Tyler Hoechlin and the show’s idea of the Superman character were so good, it’s now hard not to think about them now. Indeed, it’s a situation almost like season two of Daredevil when you felt The Punisher deserved his own seires and Netflix ended up giving him one – we want a Superman CW show with Tyler Hoechlin! Otherwise, though, a pretty standard Supergirl episode with Metallo and Cadmus showing us the big bad for now.
Reviews: First episode; third episode
The recommended list
Ash vs Evil Dead (US: Starz; UK: Virgin On Demand)
2×4 – DUI
Another Hercules/Xena reunion, with Joel Tobeck (The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Westside) aka ‘Strife’ showing up as Baal. Otherwise, the usual sickness and gore that are making this season such a treat.
Reviews: First episode; third episode
The Flash (US: The CW; UK: Sky 1)
3×3 – Magenta
I’d been wondering where Jessie and Dr Wells had got to, and this answered my question. Nice to see Jessie Quick turning into… Jessie Quick, but an otherwise terrible episode, with one of the worst big bad actresses the series has had so far.
Reviews: First episode; third episode
High Maintenance (US: HBO)
1×6 – Ex
An overdue promotion this week, but well deserved for one of the loveliest, best observed, character-based anthology shows on TV. The usual double gives us a surprisingly joyful yet also sad piece about a son whose mother has died and who’s become a shut-in hoarder – until the power of pot rescues him. Then we have the first story really looking at ‘the guy’ and his life, which if not quite as touching is as engaging at the human level as always.
Reviews: First episode; third episode
Westworld (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic)
1×4 – Dissonance Theory
Despite the weird appearance of the normally very good comics book writer Ed “Winter Soldier” Brubaker in the writing team this week, this felt as problematic as the second episode, with the story advancing at a slow pace, a bit of handwaving in the direction of an overall story plan and retreading of things we’ve already seen before, but without the interesting musings on consciousness. It was slow enough that I found myself wondering about the exact logistics of the park (how exactly do the guns work?) at times. We did find out about Arnold and Ed Harris, though, and we also saw the androids start to find religion, although not the normal one in such stories, which is potentially fascinating.
Review: First episode; third episode
You’re The Worst (US: FXX; UK: 5*)
3×8 – Genetically Inferior Beta Males
Thoroughly amusing episode as Jimmy becomes nice and gets to enjoy normal Los Angeles life without irony. The cucking, on the other, was just so wrong.
Review: First episode
