TV reviews

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

Servant
Streaming TV

Third-episode verdict: Servant (Apple TV+)

2 December 2019 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Available on Apple TV+

Some horrors are universal. Some horrors aren’t. And you can probably tell a lot about someone not just from what they’re frightened of, but also from what they think others will be frightened of.

Some of the most important classic horror movies are illustrative of this. Godzilla was about Japanese fear of atomic weapons. Alien has an obvious fear of rape, with various crypto-rape scenes throughout, but it also features the (male) fear of childbirth. The Stepford Wives has some obvious female fears about conformity and marriage. John Carpenter’s The Thing embodies the fear of other people, as well as the fear of isolation.

The Exorcist has some very obvious religious concerns about the nature of evil and secularism. But it’s very important to the movie’s creators that it’s a universal concern. Yes, it’s about a movie star, but the movie is at pains to make her just another concerned mother living in a house who could be living just down the round from you. Indeed, she could be you. What would you do if your child behaved like that?

However, not all horror need aim for empathy. Indeed, you may get a vicarious thrill from watching people suffer. How else to explain the popularity of Saw, for example?

Servant

Very specific horror

Apple TV+’s latest series is Servant, a horror series exec produced and occasionally directed by M Night Shyamalan (Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense, Glass) and written by Tony Basgallop (Outcast). And it’s a legitimate question to ask about it: whose fears are being targeted by this, are we supposed to care about the characters or enjoy their suffering, and what can we tell about the creators from the horrors they’ve chosen?

Set in Philadelphia, the show asks to be worried about Toby Kebbell (War Horse) and Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under), whose baby died a year previously. TV journalist Ambrose had a complete mental breakdown but her therapist suggested a good coping mechanism would be to give her a realistic baby-like doll to care for temporarily – something ‘bon vivant’ Kebell reluctantly agrees to.

However, it’s when Ambrose decides to hire an odd, quietly Bible-bashing nanny (Nell Tiger Free) to look after the doll that Kebbell begins to think that maybe it’s not such a good idea, something with which Ambrose’s brother Rupert Grint (Harry Potter, Snatch) also concurs. But it’s when Free takes it all seriously and treats the doll like a real baby that he begins to think it’s really not such a good idea at all.

And then, one day, he finds it’s a real baby. WTF?

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US TV

What have you been watching? Including Mad About You

28 November 2019 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

Plan Coeur
Netflix’s Plan cœur

This week’s reviews

Yep, Thursday again. Thought I’d have a proper day off yesterday. Schedule therefore screwed, even if I am now somewhat refreshed.

This week, even though I didn’t manage to Orange Thursday after all, I did at least get around to reviewing season two of Netflix’s Plan cœur (The Hookup Plan) for Boxset Monday. Otherwise, that was it – work was a bit mad, plus it turned out that Amazon’s release of The Feed was US only. Duh.

But fingers crossed, it’ll be easier next week.

Servant
Apple TV+’s Servant

What’s coming this week

Barring miracles, there won’t be an Orange Thursday today, but there will be next week, you’ll be happy to hear. I really will be covering The Fear of God, as well as The Philadelphia Experiment (no, not that one). Or maybe something else. But that’s the baseline.

It being Thanksgiving in the US today, and with Christmas just round the corner, it’s going to be a bit quiet TV-wise for the next few days, though, but Apple has just released the first three episodes of Servant, so that’ll be this week’s Boxset Monday. Fingers crossed.

Mr InBetween
Mr InBetween

The regulars

After the jump, we’ll be talking about the latest episodes of the regulars: Dollface, Evil, The Mandalorian, Mr Robot, Silicon Valley, Stumptown, Titans, Treadstone and Watchmen, as well as the season finale of Mr InBetween and two episodes of For All Mankind, seeing as Apple put a new one out today, a day early.

However, one of those is now just so bad, I can’t be bothered to watch it any more. Can you guess which?

On top of that, we’ll also be discussing the first episode of Spectrum’s revival of Mad About You. The new Will & Grace it is not.

See you in a mo.

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Plan Coeur
Streaming TV

Boxset Monday: Plan cœur (The Hookup Plan) (season 2) (Netflix)

25 November 2019 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Available on Netflix

What happens after romance? It’s an important question, not just for relationships in general but for the genre itself, too. The general narrative thrust of a romance is boy/girl/other meets boy/girl/other, will they won’t they, they do! End of story (give or take an additional separation period when they’re apart and then realise they’re incomplete without one another).

So what to do when it’s sequel time? You break them up and then start again. Or add a baby.

The first season of Netflix’s French rom-com Plan cœur (The Hookup Plan) tried to subvert this well know trope, as well as a few others. It saw Zita Hanrot playing a nearly 30-something woman stuck in an uninspiring job and still hung up on her ex-boyfriend two years after their breakup. Her friends, hoping to help her break out of her rut and find some confidence, decide to hire a male escort (Marc Ruchmann) to take her on a few dates. Except, of course, she falls in love with him. And maybe he with her?

Jules Roberts

It’s Pretty Woman in reverse, of course. The prostitute falls in love with the client and decides to put their former career behind them. But as well as the sex-swap, Plan cœur (The Hookup Plan) also managed to make it a female buddy-buddy dramedy, with the addition of her two friends – the raucous Sabrina Ouazani and the pregnant Joséphine Draï – as well as their boyfriends/fiancés.

And (spoiler alert) the first season didn’t end with everyone getting together. True, there were mini-resolutions, but ultimately, the show decided instead to avoid the usual resolution in favour of a cliffhanger.

Interesting choice, hey?

Yet for some reason, the show squanders that bounty in the second season – and largely can’t even be described as a rom-com or even a romance or a comedy… until its final episode.

Continue reading “Boxset Monday: Plan cœur (The Hookup Plan) (season 2) (Netflix)”
Dollface
US TV

What have you been watching? Including Dollface

21 November 2019 Rob Buckley 12 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

The Laundromat
The Laundromat

This week’s reviews

Last week, I reserved the right to relocate WHYBW to Thursday. I was wise. As you can see. Work has been busy.

That didn’t stop me reviewing The Laundromat for Orange Thursday, and The Mandalorian (Disney+), though, but it did mean I’ve not discussed the second season of Netflix’s Plan Cœur (The Hookup Plan) as I’d hoped and I’ll only be discussing the first three episodes of Hulu (US)’s Dollface after the jump, rather than all 10.

The Exorcist
The Exorcist

What’s coming this week

Orange Thursday, tomorrow (I know), will take in The Fear of God: 25 Years of the Exorcist (1999) – gods willing – and maybe another movie if I manage to watch one tonight.

Work’s a little busy again Monday and Tuesday, but fingers crossed I’ll be able to talk about Plan Cœur. Or something else: Amazon has The Feed coming, and Netflix has Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings, but there’s no way on Earth I’m watching that. Spectrum’s Mad About You revival has six episodes for our delectation, but we’ll maybe see about watching that. It is Spectrum, after all.

Total Control
Total Control

The regulars

After the jump, as well as Dollface, we’ll be talking about the regulars (pretending for a moment that there was no TV on last night that I could have watched): Evil, For All Mankind, Mr InBetween, Mr Robot, Silicon Valley, Titans and Watchmen. Stumptown took another break last week, you’ll notice.

We also have two season finales to consider – Engrenages (Spiral) and Total Control – and there’s another Star Trek: Short Trek to mull over, too.

See you in a mo.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Dollface”
The Mandalorian
Streaming TV

Review: The Mandalorian 1×1-1×2 (Disney+)

18 November 2019 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

In the US: Fridays, Disney+
In the UK: Available on Disney+ from March

I’m not sure what’s more interesting: the fact that all the giant US media mega corporations are starting their own streaming services, most of which will inevitably end in closure in a couple of years’ time; or what shows they’re choosing to launch their networks with – and when.

Apple has recently given us Apple TV+. With the likes of See and For All Mankind, it’s a combination of extremely good-looking, under-specced, American-centric TV shows that Apple assumes will be so desirable, everyone will just want them. WarnerBros is launching HBO Max soon, but only in territories where it can’t make money more easily by simply selling the shows to existing networks. CBS and NBC are launching or have already launched streaming services in the US, with no plans of launching them anywhere else.

And now we have Disney+. That’s coming out in phases, with the US first, the rest of the world next year, with the UK getting its bite in March.

What’s on it so far? Pretty much everything that Disney has ever made – the older stuff carrying a warning that it might be culturally insensitive. It’s done that by removing pretty much everything that it’s ever made from other services, including Netflix, in case you were wondering where it had all gone to.

But in terms of new shows, it’s going to be a while before much shows up. Because mock Apple for its four new TV shows all you like, Disney+ has a glorious one new show – one for adults, anyway, and I personally would never have counted High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, simply because of the number of colons in its title.

Naturally, it’s starting with one of its existing franchises. Yes, it’s a Star Wars show.

The Mandalorian

Not a manatee

Time was when three Star Wars movies was enough. Then we had six – and wished we still only had three. Now we’re on our way to nine movies in the main storyline, the three new ones wiping most of the bad taste of the prequels away, and two others – Rogue One and Solo – just sort of sitting there, hoping you’ll watch them because they have Star Wars in the title.

The Mandalorian sort of sits in the latter camp. Written by Jon Favreau (Iron Man), The Mandalorian is set five years after Return of the Jedi and ostensibly stars Pedro Pascal as a ‘Mandalorian’, a sort of religious bounty hunter who dresses a bit like Boba Fett, but isn’t.

I say ostensibly, because he never takes his helmet off so it might as well be Michael Crawford under there – which is odd because his boss is played by noted film director Werner Herzog, a man you’d normally hire to play a part purely because of his voice, not because of how he looks.

Herzog hires the Mandalorian via Weathers to go and kill a specific target on a desert planet that definitely isn’t Tatooine but might as well be. Off he trots and after bumping into another bounty hunter (voiced by Taika Waititi this time), he finds his target isn’t quite what he thought and ends up protecting him/she/it.

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