TV reviews

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

Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman
US TV

Review: Batwoman 1×1 (US: The CW; UK: E4)

7 October 2019 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

In the US: Sundays, 8pm, The CW
In the UK: Will air on E4 in 2020

Batman is a problem. At the cinemas, you can’t get rid of him. He’s everywhere. As soon as you think you’ve got rid of him, he’s back again. Four movies in the 80s and 90s. Three Christopher Nolan movies. Batman v Superman. Justice League. And now we’ve got Robert Pattinson about to suit up for The Batman.

That’s too much bat, man.

On TV, however, DC has been pretty strict, with zero TV versions of Batman allowed while there’s a Batman at the cinema (ie never). We’ve had 10 seasons of young Superman in Smallville and Supergirl‘s had her own Superman (Tyler Hoechlin); we’ve even got alternative reality and previous versions of Superman lined up for The CW’s annual superhero show crossover. But the sainted Bat hasn’t once shown up.

What we have been allowed is ersatz versions of Batman, ranging from Smallville‘s Adam Knight through to the comic book Batman knock-off himself, Green Arrow, in Arrow – the first season of which was itself a (very good) knock-off of Batman Begins.

And now we have Batwoman.

Batwoman
Ruby Rose in The CW’s Batwoman

Not Batman

Although there is a long and exciting discussion to be had about whether the most famous superheroines are merely female versions of superheroes, rather than characters in their own rights – cf She-Hulk, Spiderwoman, Supergirl, Miss Martian, Batgirl – the comic book Batwoman is at least a relatively different creature from playboy Bruce Wayne and his becowled alter-ego.

A former student of West Point who gets thrown out for being gay, she ends up stealing military weaponry to create her own Batman-style arsenal. Of course, it then turns out she’s Bruce Wayne’s cousin, but what you going to do?

On TV, not so much it seems. Because this is a Batwoman not at all confident she can escape the Bat’s shadow.

He’s such a problem, that man.

Continue reading “Review: Batwoman 1×1 (US: The CW; UK: E4)”
Magnum PI
Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Magnum PI

2 October 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

Godfather of Harlem
Giancarlo Esposito and Forest Whitaker in Epix’s Godfather of Harlem

This week’s reviews

Fall season is now well under way in the US and over the past week and a bit, I’ve been doing some pretty extensive coverage. However, since this is Peak TV™, this year, I’ve finally had to let my standards slip and only do full reviews for shows that actually look like I could watch them.

That means that since the previous WHYBW, I’ve managed to do proper reviews of Stumptown and Evil, as well as semi-reviews of The Unicorn, Carol’s Second Act, Perfect Harmony and Sunnyside.

Incidentally, I did try to watch Epix (US)’s period gangster drama Godfather of Harlem, as it stars Forest Whitaker, Giancarlo Esposito and Vincent D’Onofrio. However, it was after about 10 minutes of watching Whitaker get out of 1960s jail and return to Harlem that I realised that while the back projection was amusingly Hitchcockian, I was actually bored rigid.

Why? Oh yes. I remember. I hate gangster dramas and I actively dislike Forest Whitaker. Sorry, dude, but that performance was fine in Ghost Dog, but you can’t keep doing it.

Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman
Ruby Rose as Kate Kane/Batwoman © Jack Rowand/The CW

What’s coming this week

We’re about to enter phase two of Fall 2019, so the regular US broadcast networks are hurling a couple of new shows in our direction this week: Almost Family (Fox) and Batwoman (The CW). Netflix has Raising Dion coming our way on Friday and I’m going to try to play catch up with Hotel Beau Séjour on Walter Presents. We also have some returning regulars to look forward to, including the final season of Mr Robot.

All during one of my busiest work periods of the year. Oh well – I’ll do my best. But PeakTV™, hey?

Michael Sheen in Fox's Prodigal Son
Michael Sheen in Fox’s Prodigal Son

The regulars

Fortunately for my viewing schedule, a whole bunch of regulars are coming to an end, which means that after the jump, we’ll be talking about the season/series finales of כפולים (False Flag), Flateyjargátan (The Flatey Enigma) and Glitch.

However, week two of the Fall season means we have new shows in the viewing queue. In the past week, I’ve separated the potential wheat from the obvious chaff and confined my second-episode viewing to Emergence, Mixed-ish and Prodigal Son – will they last another week?

I’ll also be chatting about the latest episodes of Mr Inbetween and Titans, as well as the return of Magnum P.I. Meanwhile, my catch-up of Pennyworth continues with Cilla Black.

Surprise, surprise! Indeed, can guess which show is getting promoted to the regulars list?

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Magnum PI”
Carol's Second Act
US TV

Fall 2019 – part 2: The Unicorn, Carol’s Second Act, Perfect Harmony and Sunnyside

1 October 2019 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Normally, around this time this week, I’d be reviewing a boxset. I had selected Netflix’s The Politician for that singular pleasure, mainly because Walter was only getting round to presenting Hotel Beau Séjour on Sunday.

But unfortunately, watching all of last week’s remaining TV shows and playing catch-up with the regulars got the better of me, so I’ve not watched either. Guess which one will be next week’s Boxset Monday (assuming I don’t try Raising Dion instead), though?

Rather than dumping reviews of all those new shows on you tomorrow at the same time as discussing the usual regulars, including the season/series finales of כפולים (False Flag), Flateyjargátan (The Flatey Enigma) and Glitch, I thought I’d discuss them all now. Plus, just like last week, with a few exceptions, there’s honestly not been a great crop, so they’re not worth dealing with individually anyway.

So after the jump, I’ll be casting my eye over new, lacklustre arrivals The Unicorn, Carol’s Second Act, Perfect Harmony and Sunnyside.

See you in a mo.

Continue reading “Fall 2019 – part 2: The Unicorn, Carol’s Second Act, Perfect Harmony and Sunnyside”
Katja Herbers, Aasif Mandvi and Mike Colter in CBS's Evil
US TV

Review: Evil 1×1 (US: CBS)

27 September 2019 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

In the US: Thursdays, 10/9c, CBS
In the UK: Not yet acquired

Ever since The Exorcist and The Omen, there’s been a tried and trusted format for ‘sceptical investigations of demonic evil’. There’s a possession. Scientific sceptics turn up and throw cold water over the idea of possession. Various incidents occur that show them to be complete idiots. Everyone becomes Catholic.

TV and film since then have done little to change that format, particularly since audience’s are quite inclined to want to believe that kind of thing anyway. Plus it’s a lot harder to scare the crap out of people with tales of dripping taps and gas-emitting rocks inducing hallucinations.

All the same, after a while, it gets a bit dull. So kudos to the refreshingly entitled Evil for giving us a supernatural investigation series that manages to be scary as well as funny, and to more or less side with science against religion – all while pointing its finger at the true evil in this world: people, particularly people on 4Chan.

Evil

Evil eye

Created by CBS premier league team Robert and Michelle King (BrainDead, The Good Wife, The Good Fight), Evil sees Katja Herbers (Manhattan, Westworld) playing a forensic psychologist who usually testifies on behalf of the local district attorney. When she investigates one man claimed to be demonically possessed, has a suspicion he might be and so refuses to testify that he’s insane, the DA dumps her.

A single mum strapped for cash after a divorce and now jobless, she’s only too happy to take up sexy would-be priest Mike Coulter (The Good Wife, Marvel’s Luke Cage)’s offer of a job investigating such cases on behalf of the Catholic Church. There’s a backlog of about 500,000 complaints, you see, and they don’t need a believer to help winnow that pile down – they need someone who can spot the difference between a real possession and fakers, the deluded et al.

Together with technical expert Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show), Coulter and Herbers set out to separate the real from the unreal. Something Michael Emerson (Lost, Person of Interest, The Name of the Rose) doesn’t want to happen.

Because he’s evil.

Continue reading “Review: Evil 1×1 (US: CBS)”
Stumptown
US TV

Review: Stumptown 1×1 (US: ABC; UK: Alibi)

26 September 2019 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

In the US: Wednesdays, 10/9c, ABC
In the UK: Acquired by Alibi

Guys, I think private detective shows are coming back into fashion. They’d been left in the land of re-runs for a long time, with the occasional attempt to revive the format such as Terriers struggling to find an audience.

But then CBS resurrected Magnum PI, which was like a breath of fresh air in a market stuffed full of police procedurals. And now, a year on, we have Stumptown, ABC’s effort.

I wonder how long it’ll be before the other networks have a go, too, because like Magnum PI, Stumptown ain’t half bad.

Stumptown

Smuldering

Stumptown is an example of another reasonably rare phenomenon – an adaptation of a graphic novel that isn’t about superheroes or the supernatural. Instead, it takes Greg Rucka (Wonder Woman, Queen & Country)’s Stumptown characters and fleshes them out into a woke combination of comedy and drama.

Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother, Avengers Assemble, Captain America: Winter Soldier) plays Dex Parios, a former marine with PTSD who now spends most of her time drinking her invalidity benefit and gambling in the local Portland reservation’s casino. She also has a younger brother with Down Syndrome whom she cares for.

When she loses big time again at the casino, its owner – and Dex’s almost mother-in-law – Sue Lynn Blackbird (Tantoo Cardinal) offers to clear her debt in exchange for Dex using her Marine hunting powers to locate her missing granddaughter.

Naturally, it’s not quite as simple as all that, leading Dex to come into conflict – and something a bit more pleasant – with the local police (Almost Human’s Michael Ealy).

Continue reading “Review: Stumptown 1×1 (US: ABC; UK: Alibi)”