US TV

An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.

Lupin
Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Lupin – part two and Loki

21 June 2021 Rob Buckley Post a comment

TMINE has been busy/stuck under something heavy for the past few weeks, which means it’s hideously behind on its viewing. A whole bunch of new shows arrived last week, and I’ve not had a chance to watch any of them: Republic of Sarah (US: The CW), Whitstable Pearl (US: Acorn), Kevin Can F**k Himself (US: AMC), The Unusual Suspects (Australia: SBS) are all looking at me, shiftily, waiting for me to grace them with my attention. I’ve not even caught the first episode of the new season of Evil (US: CBS).

But that’s okay. I’m going to put the effort in this week. And I really, really, really hope to review them as well. Ooh.

Instead, my viewing has mainly consisted of Mythic Quest (Apple TV+), La Haine (1995), Fleabag, Superman & Lois (US: The CW), Loki (Disney+) and the whole of part two of Lupin (Netflix) – I could actually review a whole boxset on a Monday like I used to! If I had the time. Sorry. Things will settle down again soon, I promise.

Mythic Quest has been pretty decent, but none of the subsequent episodes have quite lived up to the delights of the 70s flashback episode, even the two-hander between William Hurt and F Murray Abraham a couple of weeks ago (although that was pretty great).

Superman & Lois, meanwhile, has been nothing but magnificent. I am now going to officially declare this the best superhero show I’ve ever watched (although there are some very close runners-up to that title, to be fair). Everything is just so well done and it’s great that they can really mess around with the Superman mythos as much as they like since it’s so far along in the character’s story now.

Loki is the latest spin-off Disney+ Marvel spin-off from the MCU, explaining what happened to Loki after Avengers: Endgame when he gets hold of the Tesseract thanks to some bad time travelling cock-ups by the Avengers. He’s soon intercepted by an agency dedicated to keeping the timelines intact who want to recruit him to stop… him. Yes, another Loki is going around messing with the the timelines.

If I hadn’t already seen Legion (US: FX), I’d probably be blown away by Loki since it is visually magnificent in more or less the exact same way Legion was. The visuals – and the timey-wimey plot, particularly the arrival of (spoiler) (spoiler alert) Lady Loki or is it the Enchantress? in episode two – are what make the show, since it’s really quite a talky affair that largely relies on Tom Hiddleston’s massive charisma to get by otherwise. It could do with more than that, for sure, but that’s enough to keep me going and I’ll happily watch the rest of it, since it’s certainly better than Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

La Haine (1995) wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. A French classic set on a Paris banlieue, where a few youthful inhabitants get hold of a policeman’s gun after it’s dropped in a riot and events unfold from there. But despite that premise and the film’s name (‘The Hate’), it’s actually a pretty funny, hopeful affair about people finding a way through life, even in a crappy environment like a banlieue, while it simultaneously dissects racism, police brutality and more. Equally, it’s amazing to see the likes of Vincent Cassel and Saïd Taghmaoui back when they were young unknowns.

That’s on the BFI Player, at least, and probably elsewhere, too.

Fleabag, which is currently on Amazon Prime, as part of a National Theatre collection of plays – the National Theatre now has its own app, BTW – is a pretty dark affair. The source of the TV show, it’s a really interesting, not especially funny look at lack of intimacy leads to lack of self-worth and ultimately self-destruction, particularly for women.

The second set of episodes of the first season of Lupin were solidly decent. After a slightly shaky start, the show started to pick up again reverting to our gentleman thief doing more hijinks and capers in a very well executed way. There are some very clever reveals, too, and I did enjoy the various references to Lupin stories – and the fact that copyright being laxer then, Lupid could meet Sherlock Holmes…

Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Debris, Mythic Quest and Jupiter’s Legacy

24 May 2021 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

It’s been a slow couple of weeks for TMINE. Basically, just the regulars and not much new TV or movies. Which is shame, because the cinemas are open now! Just nothing on I want to watch yet. But I will!

The regulars are, as you will recall: Debris (US: NBC); Mythic Quest (Apple TV+); and Jupiter’s Legacy (Netflix). Debris has been solidly decent, with the usual blend of nasty alien tech, conspiracies and unpleasantly weird things happening to people. I’m not sure about the SAS guy, but maybe I’m judging him badly. I should also point out it’s been nice to see Erica from Being Erica again, too. Doesn’t time fly?

Mythic Quest has been alternately great and not too bad. When it’s nasty, it’s very very nasty and funny; this week’s episode was a little too nice and undermined Danny Pudi’s character substantially, as well. Plus there’s something politically odd about a white male telling a gay female character she needs to stop blaming the world for all her problems – and for the episode basically to support him. It works with the characters, to be fair, but all the same… hmmm.

Jupiter’s Legacy ended pretty decently. The departure of Steven DeKnight midway through the season was pretty obvious, since the gore factor went down from ‘insane’ to ‘zero’ more or less instantly. But I did really enjoy the second half of the season, with its greater focus on the Great Depression and how the heroes got their powers – hadn’t realised that the show was going to be (spoiler alert) quite so literal, with Jupiter being not just the Roman god but the planet as well . Very weird watching the daughter from My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 being a drug-taking superheroine (or villainness), though. Would very much recommend to anyone who likes superheroes, though.

But what did you watch?

Without Remorse
Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Jupiter’s Legacy, Kung Fu, Mythic Quest and Without Remorse

10 May 2021 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

WHYBW is back to Mondays, so no new Debris to review this week. But I have been watching some new shows. It’s almost like old times, hey?

Kung Fu (US: The CW) isn’t so much a reboot or revival of the original 1970s show – or even Kung Fu: The Next Generation – as a complete reimagining, albeit with some similarities to the original. Set in modern times, it has a Chinese-American girl going on holiday to China, discovering it’s been organised as a marriage matchmaking by her mum, and does a Mulan – running of to join a local female-only Shaolin temple. After the temple gets burned down by an Evil Ex-Pupil and her Sifu killed, she heads off to the US and is reunited with her family. And is accompanied by the ghost/memory of her former master.

Sounds a bit familiar at least, to fans of the original, but there the similarities peter out, as our heroine firstly has to join forces with her (gay) brother, her Crazy Rich Asians computer hacker sister and the studly local youth centre T’ai Ch’i master to fight crime in San Francisco – particularly the gang boss who’s extorting her parents. Secondly, Evil Ex-Pupil is on the hunt for eight magic swords that will give her awesome magical powers, and our heroine might be the only one who can stop her – and might have magical powers herself.

It’s a slightly weird combo that actually just about works, although the kung fu is almost as bad as the original’s. The crime fighting and family relationships are more interesting than the magical side of things, which is just a bit bobbins. But the characters didn’t really engage me, so I won’t go past the first episode, I don’t think.

Jupiter’s Legacy (Netflix) is a massively more promising affair. Based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar, it’s a musing on… well, lots of things, TBH. It sees one generation of nearly immortal people given superpowers during the Great Depression having to deal with the fact in modern times that their kids have superpowers – and maybe different attitudes towards morality et al to them. Is killing always wrong, do they need a code to keep them in check, should they have intervened in World War 2 and stopped the Holocaust?

There are elements of Watchmen, The Boys and more in there, but this is very much its own beast. Its showrunner is Steven DeKnight, who was of course responsible for both season 1 of Daredevil (Netflix) and Spartacus, so you can probably tell this is a definite 18-certificate affair when it comes to the gore. As well as being pretty dark and as ‘realistic’ as something like this can be, though, it’s also pretty funny, has a great cast and has keep me interested for four episodes so far. I’ll let you know how the rest of it pans out.

Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet (Apple TV+) returned with a two-parter and was gloriously funny. The cast are the same but there has been some character movements – new pairings, some advances in relationships – but largely it’s the same show, mulling on the difficulties of creativity. It felt a bit more office comedy than before, with less on games per se, more on just general workplace difficulties. But the nastiness, smartness and general amusement were very much back in force.

Lastly, we have Amazon’s latest addition to its Tom Clancy collection, Without Remorse (2021), which is an origin story (set in modern times, nevertheless) for Clancy’s non-Jack Ryan anti-hero, John T Clark, that sees Michael B Jordan going from regular Navy SEAL-type to becoming a clandestine superman when his wife is predictably killed by Russian bad guys in retaliation for MBJ killing one of theirs, etc, etc.

Honestly, it was both dull and dark. Dark and dull. In that order. Very predictable, with everyone talking the talk and shooting the shot in a hope that all that manly super-efficiency at not having any emotions will compensate for not having any real personalities, characters or plot. This is despite again a decent cast, particularly, MBJ. You could see pretty much everything coming, right up to the creation of (spoiler alert) Rainbow Six right at the end, particularly as it was all shot like a video game.

But what did you watch?

Justice Society World War 2
US TV

What have you been watching? Including Justice Society: World War II and Debris

4 May 2021 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

It’s been a relatively quiet week or so for TMINE, with most of the regulars having departed for pastures new last week. Or something. But I did watch one TV show and a movie.

Debris was a two-parter of marvellousness. One of TMINE’s golden rules of sci-fi is that sooner or later, ever sci-fi show will do its own version of Groundhog Day and Debris tackled it in its usual surprising and sometimes nasty way – what if what you did in every version of the loop could affect the next loop, even if you couldn’t remember what happened the previous time? It was a real mind-blowing affair that almost gave us a new cast every loop, which was intriguing to see, particularly since some of the characters had been hinted at in previous episodes. Thoroughly enjoyable!

Meanwhile, I also caught another piece of alternative reality fun in the form of Justice Society: World War II, in which the Flash accidentally travels to an alternative World War II where Wonder Woman is leading the charge against the Nazis, aided by Steve Trevor, Hourman, another Flash, Black Canary and Hawkman. But no Superman. There he has to puzzle out how to get back to his own reality, help the Justice Society and maybe learn a little something that could help him in his own time. Except there’s another alternative reality super person or two who might help or hinder them all as well…

It’s actually the best of these animated DC movies I’ve seen so far. The animation is a bit less anime, a bit more Archer than normal. Wonder Woman – Stana Katic (Castle, Absentia) channelling her Israeli accent from Heroes again to do an almost perfect Gal Gadot impression – is the true heroine of the piece and more kick ass than you’ll ever have seen her, even in her own animated movies, but everyone gets their moment to shine. Black Canary’s moment is downright terrifying, in fact. You won’t be underestimating her again.

It’s also pretty gruesome, with various heroes getting killed in unpleasant ways, which was unexpected, making for a somewhat different movie from the one I was expecting. Yet there’s actually plenty of humour, too, so not a DC grim fest.

Those pluses are slightly countered, however, by the fact this feels a touch open-ended, with various moments never really explained, presumably because a sequel is planned.

If you like animated DC heroes, this is a refreshing change from the usual, but if you don’t, there’s nothing in the movie to really make you change your mind.

But what did you watch?

Mythic Quest
Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Mythic Quest

26 April 2021 Rob Buckley 11 Comments

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

Last week, WHYBW pulled a sickie, thanks to the Covid vaccination giving me possibly the worst illness I’ve had in years. I’m better now, but not looking forward to number two in July… Thankfully, invalidity still didn’t stop me from watching TV, so I’m up to date with pretty much everything.

Debris (US: NBC) has continued to be pleasantly unpleasant. Although each episode still ends with some heartwarming proof of the delights of human nature, it’s usually accompanied by something horribly unpleasant and some Fringe cast-offs, such as (spoiler alert) a telekinetic/telepathic girl ramming a relative’s head into some metal shards to stop him using his own mind-control to get our heroes to shoot themselves . There’s also lots of distrust and backstabbing, and the effects of the miraculous space debris seem largely to be settling down on things passing through other things – with suitably biologically unpleasant results.

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (Disney+) concluded with accompanying name change (no, no spoilers) in a slightly odd way, it has to be said. A magnificent speech and the bits in the Smithsonian were desperately moving, but the final half seemed more like an effort to set up about half a dozen spin-off shows and movies than a decent denouement. Plus for a show called The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, there really wasn’t much Winter Soldier this episode.

For All Mankind (Apple TV+) also had a very moving as well as exciting season finale. Lots of soapiness in the preceding episodes that was very draining and slowing of the plot, but how can you knock (spoiler alert) Moon War! and its own outer space version of the Cuban Missile Crisis but in the 80s? Plus props for references to Space: 1999. All in all, not as good a second season as the first and everything sort of petered out with various storylines, such as Molly’s medical condition, but I imagine season three will pick that up. All I can say is, thank God we’re into the 1990s now. I’m so sick of 80s nostalgia and period pieces.

Last up, we had the return of Mythic Quest (Apple TV+). Not 100% inspiring this one, which I think was written by one of the cast members and saw our heroes and heroines return to the office after a year of Covid for their annual pick-me-up LARP party, only for it to go disastrously wrong. Some good chuckles to be had nevertheless and some nicely cynical moments. Also surprisingly big budget, as we entered actual fantasy sequences towards with some solid effects, and with a surprise guest voiceover by Anthony Hopkins. But I’m hoping the series-proper is a little bit more focused on the bad behaviour and the niceties of game design than this ep was.

But what did you watch?