It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
Previously on TMINE
Look at that. I reviewed some tele. It’s almost like this is a TV blog or something. This week, I’ve let you know all about One Lane Bridge (New Zealand: TVNZ1) and Defending Jacob (Apple TV+). But that’s not all I’ve watched…
Rashida Jones and Kenya Barris in Netflix’s #blackAF
Next on TMINE
Coming up after the jump, I’ll be reviewing The Secrets She Keeps (Australia: Ten; UK: BBC Four) and Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (US: Showtime; UK: Sky Atlantic). But there’s more TV on the way this week – as usual, though, Covid-19 rules apply to the following new shows: I have every intention of watching all of them, but might not be able to, for one reason or another.
In the US, HBO will be giving us skating show Betty but that’s about it. However, on the streaming services, Netflix will be offering us Summertime, Almost Happy, Hollywood, and Into The Night, while Apple TV+ gives us its first UK show, Trying. Meanwhile, Amazon has Upload for us.
I’ve also just noticed that Amazon now has season 3 of Baron Noir (France: Canal+). I’d love to watch that but you can only rent or buy it, and I’m cheap. You might not be, though.
I’m going to try at least one of those, I reckon. Maybe more. How about you?
The regulars
After the jump, it’s the usual regulars: For Life, Mystery Road, What We Do In The Shadows and Westworld. See you in a mo!
Defending Jacob is one of those shows that you can only imagine is intended more as a statement piece than as a draw for your fledging streaming service. A ‘prestige TV’ mini-series adaptation of William Landay’s novel of the same name, with an all star cast that includes Chris Evans (Captain America), Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey, Good Behavior) and JK Simmons (Counterpart, Whiplash), it’s a solid meat-and-two-veg legal drama that provides a perfectly reasonable number of thrills without anything remarkable ever happening.
As such, it feels more like Apple saying: “This is a high-quality, but unchallenging show for what we imagine are normal people. Don’t worry, guys – it’s all going to be good stuff here, but it’s not all going to be liberal stuff like The Morning Show, challenging stuff like Servant or amazing, mind-blowing stuff like See… What do you mean See was awful?”
The clue is in the title
The first three episodes, partly told in flashback through grand jury proceedings, see Evans playing an assistant district attorney in a small town. Together with his charity worker wife (Dockery), they’re raising their perfectly normal if socially awkward son Jacob (Jaeden Martell) in reasonable harmony, going through all the same sorts of issues as anyone else raising a teenage boy in a small American town.
Then the whole community is shocked when someone in Jacob’s year is found murdered. Evans is assigned the case, and quickly hones in on a local sex criminal (Daniel Henshall) as a prime suspect.
However, soon, there are whisperings among the kids of Jacob’s year that maybe it was Evans’ son who was responsible. Before you know it, evidence is starting to mount up against Jacob, forcing Evans to have to… well, you can guess from the title.
