It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
July 4th continued to wipe out viewing last week, so not a lot of new shows for me to look at. As promised, I did manage to review the second season of Netflix’s GLOW and after the jump, I’ll be looking at HBO’s new limited series, Sharp Objects.
I’ll be reviewing The Outpost (US: The CW; UK: Syfy) in the next few days and I’ve made a start on Netflix’s first Indian original, Sacred Games, which is like an odd religious combination of The Game, GoodFellas and Narcos, but as I’m only a few episodes in, I’ll leave commenting on it until next week when hopefully I’ll have watched the whole thing.
I even had a little time to watch some fourth season iZombie on Netflix out of the corner of my eye as Lovely Wife binged it. It’s basically still the same, isn’t it, bar there being a lot more zombies than there were in season one? Still, it was fun to see the now traditional “lead foreign actor gets to use his/her real accent” episode of the show (cf Chuck, Bionic Woman, House), in which Rose McIver got to speak in Kiwi.
Given there was no Condor last week (July 4th, yadda, yadda), that means the only regulars I’ll have to talk about after the jump are Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger and Shooter. Gosh. Maybe I should take up reading books instead. Or is that too radical? The most I’ve managed recently is Winnie the Pooh…
TV shows
TMINE recommends has all the TV shows TMINE has ever recommended and TV Reviews A-Z lists every TV show ever reviewed here
New shows
Sharp Objects (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic)
Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) limited series based on her debut novel that sees newspaper reporter Amy Adams returning to her crappy home town to investigate the disappearance of two girls, potentially at the hands of a serial killer. As well as an uppity, out-of-town detective (Chris Messina), she has to deal with her mother (Patricia Clarkson) and her memories, particularly those of some Very Very Tragic things that happened when she was a kid. Is everything related – in all senses of the word?
The show’s production values are excellent, as is the acting. Direction is often sublime and manages to mix memory with reality constantly, so you’re never quite sure what’s happening now and what’s happening then. Filmed in Georgia, it is also very good at depicting a poor Southern town that’s on the verge of collapse.
But ultimately, all of that is a lot of very nice gloss on a particularly dusty, not especially exciting story about yet another haunted, damaged Flynn protagonist. It’s also got at most a passing acquaintanceship with journalism, with our Amy running around town with notepad and pen, her damaged iPhone never once called on to record a conversation or even send an email to her editor (Miguel Sandoval).
Still, maybe it gets better. The final image of the first episode was intriguing…
Recommended shows
Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger (US: Freeform: UK: Amazon)
1×6 – Funhouse Mirrors
And cue the massive plot dump! All the supernatural fun is finally revealed in one Tarot-reading glob, even if our heroes don’t get to hear any of it, which is a nifty way of relieving viewer frustration without suddenly ramming the show in a completely different, highly forced direction.
In combination with some cool superpowers, some cool undercover work and Cloak finally finding his mojo, that finally earns the show a promotion to the recommended list.
Reviews: Initial review
Shooter (US: USA; UK: Netflix)
3×3 – Sins of the Father
Top points to the show for finally referencing Simon & Simon after so many guest appearances by Gerald McRaney. Interesting that they’ve now split the good guys into two teams, with Ryan Phillippe paired off with a nerd so that he can be a bit more alpha. However, I’m not sure that given he’s based in the middle of nowhere, constantly having the teams flying around the country then meeting up at his home really shouts “Covert undercover anti-conspiracy squad!” Plenty of exciting gun fights and actual fights, too, which is pleasing.
Episode reviews: Initial review, Verdict
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjucwWY3oys
