TV reviews

A complete archive of The Medium is Not Enough’s reviews of TV programmes since 2005

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 1

Third-episode verdict: Westworld (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic)

18 October 2016 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

In the US: Sundays, 9pm, HBO
In the UK: Tuesdays, 9pm, Sky Atlantic

I think I’ve shot my bolt on Westworld. It is, of course, really, really easy to be scathing about something. You can pick at the acting, direction, writing, music, and more. 

But when something’s really good, it’s surprisingly hard to say much except “That’s good. And so’s that. And yes, that is, too.”

So it is with Westworld, HBO’s new adaptation of Michael Crichton’s movie of the same name. Pretty much all I needed to say about it I said when I reviewed the first episode. Okay, episode two was a bit of a time-waster that didn’t advance the show’s plot much at all and which felt like it had mysteriously dropped into the series from the movie. But episode three brought everything back on track to being just really, really good.

What I would perhaps add is that as well as looking at questions such as “What is it to be conscious?”, “How different does a consciousness have to be from ours and still be a consciousness?”, “How is consciousness created?” and “If something seems human but we know it isn’t human, how should we treat it?”, the show has now added some new, equally fascinating questions.

One of its hallmarks is now scenes in which the creators of the androids and gynoids in this futuristic theme park sit down and talk with their creations’ deepest levels of consciousness. These started out as simply plot devices to explore the characters and to hint that bad things are happening at the park. But now they have become something more – conversations between creator and created that have almost religious overtones, almost as if God wanted to know what it was like to be mortal and drew some of His creations out of the universe to interview them and find out.

There is a snake in this Garden of Eden, however, and that’s Arnold. Arnold has the potential to destroy Westworld, turning a fascinating musing on the nature of free will, empathy, thought and emotion into a simple clash between Good and Evil. I do hope that’s not where the show is going.

But at this stage, Westworld is getting a double thumbs up from me. It’s smart, poignant, well acted, beautifully made and just a top piece of television.

Barrometer rating: 1
Would it be better with a female lead? N/A
TMINE’s prediction: It’s a limited series so a one-off, but given its ratings, it could well come back for a second season

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: Timeless (US: NBC; UK: E4)

18 October 2016 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

In the US: Mondays, 10/9c, NBC
In the UK: Acquired by E4

The biggest problem with the first episode of NBC’s new sci-fi show Timeless was that it just wasn’t fun. A time travel adventure in which a historian, an engineer and a soldier gamely head off each week into the past to stop Goran Višnjić from changing history for the better (he claims) should have been a laugh, particularly with our very own Paterson Joseph being the owner of said time machine. 

But it wasn’t. It was dreary. It had a dreary choice of destination – the Hindenburg disaster. Thanks to the presence of her dying mum, its heroine (Abigail Spencer) was more a tragic figure than a fangirl let loose in a comic shop when all the boys have been sent packing. Ex-Delta soldier (Matt Lanter) was more male model than special forces operative, and he was just as tragic as Spencer thanks to his pining for his dead wife.

The one potential comic piece of comic relief, engineer/time travel pilot Malcolm Barrett, basically had to endure being black in the American past, something he quite rightly pointed out before they went was never going to be fun whenever they ended up, but in actuality meant he wasn’t just the token black guy – he was the token black guy representing all black people ever. That’s gotta suck.

Worst of all was the fact that Team Spencer were busily trying to preserve history as recorded, right down to making sure everyone who died stays dead, even if that means burning to death horribly in a fiery balloon accident. Bit of a downer, no?

As always, though, there’s a reason why TMINE always waits for at least three episodes before passing final verdict: shows can evolve and get better as producers work out what’s wrong and fix it. And while Timeless still isn’t the new Doctor Who or even the new Quantum Leap, it’s certainly becoming a lot more entertaining. Episode two took us to see the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, episode three took us to Las Vegas in the 60s to watch atomic bomb tests and I can see from the schedule that episode four is going to involve the plucky Americans teaming up with Ian Fleming to fight the Nazis during World War Two. Now that’s a bit more fun than the Hindenburg Disaster, now isn’t it?

The producers – Eric Kripke (Supernatural) and Shawn Ryan (The Unit, The Shield), in case you were wondering – are also making the central team themselves a bit more fun, although they’ve haven’t bothered giving Barrett and Lanter any real character traits or background other than “comic black history spokesperson” and “inept soldier widower”. Time changes, Spencer’s life changes, but theirs seem to stay resolutely the same and butterfly effect-proof.

Barrett may continually get the short end of the stick for being black wherever he ends up, albeit in different ways each time, but he now sometimes manages to use his second class status for the better. Lanter seems to have trouble even holding a gun, but he’s now getting some occasionally amusing lines.

Perhaps the show’s main selling point is that just like Doctor Who when that started, Timeless is trying its level best to make history come alive – through history’s own supporting cast. You already know Lincoln, you’ve seen Daniel Day Lewis do a good performance as Lincoln, so yet another Lincoln wouldn’t have much impact. But what must it have been like to have been Lincoln’s son? Or JFK’s mistress? Or a black soldier from the North during the Civil War? While the fact Timeless actually allows its time travellers to change history, even quite significantly, means that the narrative can never be trusted to tell historical fact, it’s still fun to have Spencer sit down and essentially interview this supporting cast like a GCSE History empathy essay come to life.

After three episodes Timeless has crafted a formula for itself that’s popcorn-tastic but enjoyable nonsense. Its action scenes are weak, its historical detail weak, its story arc weak and its humour – you guessed it – weak. But it’s now getting a certain confidence up that makes it a reasonably entertaining view. It might even make the kiddies who watch it start to enjoy history. 

If you need to waste an hour a week on amiable, people-centred, historical sci-fi nonsense, Timeless is worth a try. 

Barrometer rating: 3
Would it be better with a female lead? N/A
TMINE’s prediction: Will probably last about as long as Revolution

What have you been watching? Including Supergirl, Halt and Catch Fire and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow

17 October 2016 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

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. 

We’re now nearing mid-Fall season/mid-Spring season (delete according to the hemisphere of your choice), which means there’s few new shows heading our way, except in the topsy space-time continuum that is the Internet, where blink and you’ll miss another new show arriving of a Friday. That means I’ve nearly caught up with the backlog.

This week, I should have reviews of Graves (US: Epix), Eyewitness (US: USA), Divorce (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic), Shoot The Messenger (Canada: CBC), and maybe Deep Water (Australia: SBS; UK: BBC Four), too.

I’ll also be passing third-episode verdicts on Westworld (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic), Frequency (US: The CW; UK: Netflix), No Tomorrow (US: The CW), Timeless (US: NBC) and maybe Hyde & Seek (Australia: Nine).

Outside gambles: reviews of Crisis in Six Scenes (Amazon), Goliath (Amazon), Easy (Netflix), Haters Back Off (Netflix), Offseason (Amazon) and El Marginal (Marginal) (Netflix).

Elsewhere, I’ve already reviewed a whole bunch of Australian shows – Hyde & Seek (Nine), Rosehaven (ABC), The Wrong Girl (Ten) and The Secret Daughter (Seven) – as well as Kim’s Convenience (Canada: CBC) and American Housewife (US: ABC); I’ve also passed a third-episode verdict on This Is Us (US: NBC; UK: Channel 4). 

That means that after the jump, I’ll be looking at the latest episodes of Ash vs Evil Dead, Designated Survivor, Doctor Doctor, The Exorcist, The Flash, Frequency, High Maintenance, Impastor, Insecure, Lethal Weapon, Lucifer, No Tomorrow, Son of Zorn, Speechless, Timeless and You’re The Worst. I’ll also be looking at the season finale of Halt and Catch Fire, as well as the return of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl.

One of those shows will be getting promoted to recommended. Cool, hey?

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Supergirl, Halt and Catch Fire and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow”

Sorry Australia: Hyde & Seek, Rosehaven, The Secret Daughter and The Wrong Girl

17 October 2016 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Sorry, Australia. And indeed fans of Australian TV. For ages, I’ve been promising to review all manner of new and exciting – and, it turns out, not so exciting – Australian TV shows. However, thanks to a deluge of US and Internet TV, I’ve being failing hopelessly.

This weekend, however, I made a massive effort to play catch up with all of them. I’ve not been 100% successful, since I’ve not yet started SBS’s Deep Water, but since that’s a four-part mini-series that’s already finished, I might as well watch all the episodes before letting you know what I think of it prior to its eventual BBC Four airing.

After the jump and to save myself a whole lot of time, mini-reviews of the first few episodes of all the other shows. Just to give you a tantalising preview of what I’m going to say, though:

  • Definitely watch: Hyde & Seek (Nine)
  • Probably watch: The Secret Daughter (Seven)
  • Maybe watch: The Wrong Girl (Ten)
  • Don’t watch: Rosehaven (ABC)

Continue reading “Sorry Australia: Hyde & Seek, Rosehaven, The Secret Daughter and The Wrong Girl”

Kim's Convenience
Canadian TV

Review: Kim’s Convenience 1×1-1×2 (Canada: CBC)

14 October 2016 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

In Canada: Tuesdays, 9/9.30NT, Canada

It’s not often that stage shows get turned into TV shows, but Canada works a little different to the US. Kim’s Convenience was a gentle comedy about a Korean-Canada convenience store owner and his family that won Best New Play at the Toronto Fringe Festival back in 2011. Now adapted by the play’s writer and starring most of the same cast, it’s become a 13-part CBC series.

Stereotypes abound, not just about Koreans but also about convenience store owners, and most of the show’s humour involves playing with those stereotypes. The first episode sees a Gay Pride parade going past Appo Kim (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee)’s shop and how he deals not only with gay customers but also accusations of homophobia. While Appo is indeed as you might expect ‘not quite sure about the gays’ (“where have they all come from? And what’s the difference between transgender and transsexual”), his response is not prejudice but to offer a 15% gay discount and to quiz transvestites about whether they simply like wearing women’s clothes or are sexually attracted to men – so he can decide whether they deserve the 15% discount.

Similarly, the photography-centric episode two, in which you expect him to be conservative about some art students’ naked shots instead reveals he’s a failed photographer himself and is more critical over the choice of model in the shots than the choice of subject matter. And then he gets into a competition with his arts school daughter Andrea Bang over who’s a better photographer.

That subversion of stereotypes continues with his wife (Jean Yoon)’s ongoing efforts to marry off Bang to a good, ‘cool, Christian Korean boy’, with Bang protesting that no such thing exists:

Meanwhile, Appo’s happy with anyone his daughter’s happy with, provided they know the date of Korean independence.

While most of the action takes place in the Kims’ shop, there’s also a couple of side stories. The first involves estranged son (Simu Liu), who works at a car rental shop where the manager (Nicole Power) has the hots for him.

The other involves Yoon’s volunteer work down the church, where she gets into the traditional passive-aggressive competition with other mothers over whose kids/lives are better. Except the show again tries to subvert stereotypes and everything works out far nicer than you’d expect.

It took about 15 minutes or so for the first actual laughs to turn up, I found, but after that, Kim’s Convenience because a lot better. It’s never riotously funny and often is at its best when it’s more of a sketch show, with brief scenes involved new customers to the shop, rather than when it’s dealing with its series arcs. But compared to the horrors of say Four In the Morning, it’s head and shoulders above the crowd.

Give it a try if you enjoy good-hearted shows and that rare thing indeed – a funny Canadian sitcom.