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. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.
It’s actually Saturday evening and I’m writing this
To make sure you’ve all got something to read (if you want) on Monday, when I’m away
Because I had a bit too much work to do on Friday, when I should have written this
So that means I haven’t seen this week’s episodes of The Bridge. Otherwise, though, I’m up-to-date with both the new and old shows that are generous enough to air only an episode a week. I’m now about four episodes into The Man In The High Castle, which is fine but stringing things out a bit and – odd accusation though this may seem – painting the Nazis out as more evil than they were, yet missing out on some of their greater evils. I’m also about 10 minutes into Kung Fu Killer, as GYAD recommended (turns out Netflix did have it, as well as Ip Man 2), but I’ll hold off commenting on that until I’ve seen the whole thing (interesting so far, though).
Elsewhere, I’ve already reviewed Telenovela (US: NBC) and previewed The Expanse (US: Syfy), so after the jump, a look at the latest episodes of Arrow, Ash vs Evil Dead, Bron/Broen (The Bridge), Doctor Who, The Flash, Legends, Supergirl and You’re The Worst.
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. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.
December’s here, Christmas is nearly upon us and a lot of series are coming to the end of their current seasons or have had their mid-season finales. The only new shows hitting our screens now are either trying to get in under the wire by box-setting us or are mere previews for shows that will get their full runs next year. Cases in point are South of Hell (US: WE tv) and Superstore (US: NBC), which I reviewed earlier this week.
That means that after the jump, given I’ve already passed a third-episode verdict on Into The Badlands (US: AMC; UK: Amazon Instant Video), I’ll only be looking at Arrow, Bron/Broen (The Bridge), Doctor Who, The Flash, Grandfathered, Legends, Supergirl and You’re The Worst. I’ve made a start on The Man In The High Castle but I’ve only got a couple of episodes in, so I’ll save them up for a full review next week or the week after. Some time before Christmas anyway.
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. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.
I’m starting to lag a bit, as you may have noticed by the fact I’m writing this on a Saturday. It hasn’t helped that Netflix put out all of Marvel’s Jessica Jones yesterday, at the same time that Amazon Instant Video decided to do the same with The Man In The High Castle, both of which I’ll hopefully be reviewing in full next week. I was also still having to deal with the second half of the first season of Master of None.
So although I managed to review Into The Badlands(US: AMC; UK: Amazon Instant Video) this week, I’ve yet to get round to either Chicago Med – a hospital spin-off from Chicago PD which itself was a spin-off from Chicago Fire– and Crackle’s auction house drama The Art of More. Hopefully, I’ll get round to them on Monday, but on the strengths of the reviews of The Art of More and the strengths of both Chicago Fire and Chicago PD, I can’t imagine they’ll be shows worth sticking with.
All the same, and despite the fact a few shows are coming to an end anyway as December looms on the horizon, I think it’s time to make some room in my schedule by deleting a few programmes from my list, since The Bridge/Bron/Broen is returning to the UK tonight, guaranteeing I have two more hours of viewing every week to get through. And I haven’t even tried The Last Panthers on Sky Atlantic yet.
So I don’t think I can be bothered to watch the second episode of Donny!, and I think The Last Kingdomand The Beautiful Lie can be dropped without the world ending – Heaven knows I’ve been patient enough with them, as they’ve taken a long time to not do a huge amount so far.
I passed a third-episode verdict on the marginally improving Agent X this week, but I don’t think it really merits a second chance in this time-constrained time, despite the presence of Sharon Stone. I’m also going to give further episodes of Blood and Water a miss, since although it’s quite a brief show and it’s started to find its feet this week by turning into a sort of ‘Chinese-Canadian Detective meets In Treatment‘, with whole episodes just multi-lingual, three-handed interrogation scenes at the police station, the actual crime being investigated just isn’t that interesting.
I’ll let you know what happens with Ash Vs Evil Dead once I’ve watched the latest ep. Supergirl would be off the viewing list by now if it weren’t for the fact I’m watching it my wife so we can mock its atrocious dialogue and plotting. Grandfathered is just too variable but hits highs enough and is charming enough that I might stick with it for a while. Blindspot‘s on Mondays – that’s probably the only reason I’m watching it now.
But I’ll be reviewing the lastest episodes of them and Arrow, Doctor Who, The Flash, Limitless, Master of None, The Player, and You’re The Worst after the jump, so we can talk more about them there.
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. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.
The first of the mid-mid season shows made their way on to our screens/Internet connections this week. Elsewhere, I’ve reviewed the first episodes of Agent X (US: TNT), Donny! (US: USA) and Blood and Water (Canada: Omni). However, they’re not the only new shows that have started this week:
Master of None (Netflix) Aziz Ansari’s best known from Parks & Recreation, but here he’s playing a thinly disguised version of himself – Dev, a small-time Indian actor living in New York and trying to get his break in a business that’s still not ready to accept Indian actors as anything except taxi drivers, doctors and convenience-store clerks, and then only with Indian accents. This is something that Ansari has one or two opinions about, which he shares with his other Indian friends, as well as his Asian friend and black lesbian friend.
It would be tempting to assume this is basically Ansari’s version of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but actually, it’s far more reasoned, genteel, likable Curb Your Enthusiasm, with each episode almost self-contained and exploring not just discrimination against Indians by the media, but a different facet of modern life, during all of which Ansari tries to be reasonably respectful and thoughtful in extremis. The first episode looks at kids and parenthood, with Ansari discovering that being the fun uncle only works for an hour or so, and that a full afternoon looking after kids is more than he can bear. However, of the six episodes I’ve watched so far, it’s actually the least funny.
Fortunately, things pick up after that, with some genuinely amusing episodes, particularly one that sees Colin Salmon doing a ‘Patrick Stewart on Extras‘, and Parents, which is a spot-on look at the relationships between older parents and young adults, particularly first-generation immigrant adults. Guest stars including Claire Danes, H Jon Benjamin and Noah Emmerich also give the show a greater pedigree than you’d otherwise have thought.
While Ansari’s squeaky voice gets annoying after a while, this is the first Netflix comedy so far that’s been worthy of the name, and I’ll be trying to watch the rest of it as soon as I’ve finished writing this.
Flesh and Bone (US: Starz) Short version: Showgirls meets Whiplash at the ballet Long version: A surprisingly loving, beautifully shot, eight-part mini-series about an abused young woman (Sarah Hay from Black Swan) who runs away from home to make it big at the ballet. Her talent is spotted by the head choreographer (Ben Daniels), who decides to make her a star, but he has very strict training methods.
All of which is lovely and beautifully done, with some excellent acting, and even though I’m absolutely not a ballet person, some of the dancing was absolutely stunning and even moving. However, so far, the long version doesn’t sound Starz enough, does it?
So first add in copious nudity, sex and drug-taking, lots of mean girl scenes, maybe a hint of lesbianism. Then have new girl ballerina equivocating about whether to moonlight with another ballerina as a stripper to make ends meet. Then add in some truly hilariously bad scenes, such as when the choreographer is vigorously bumming another bloke over his desk while repeating to himself things like “I am the master of all I survey.”
I think I would have watched this were it not for that kind of epic stupidity and excess that tend to dog Starz shows. But I doubt I’ll get much further with it now.
I’ve passed a third-episode verdict on Supergirl (US: CBS; UK: Sky1) elsewhere, so after the jump, a look at the latest episodes of Arrow, Ash vs Evil Dead, The Beautiful Lie, Blindspot, Doctor Who, The Flash, Grandfathered, The Last Kingdom, Limitless, The Player and You’re The Worst. But first, a movie:
Spectre (2015) (at cinemas now) I actually saw this last week but completely forget to include it in my round-up. That should give you a clue as to what I thought about it.
As the name suggests, this introduces old Bond’s eventual arch-enemy Spectre to us, except here it turns out that it’s been Spectre orchestrating everything from Casino Royale onwards, for all kinds of pointless personal reasons involving Bond. Meanwhile, Andrew Scott (Moriarty in Sherlock) is a new surveillance-obsessed bigwig intent on unifying MI5 and MI6 and getting rid of the 00 section in the process.
It’s fine. Nothing great bar Craig and a marvellous four-minute long pseudo-tracking shot at the beginning, but fine, although there are parts of it that will make you feel like a great big chunk of story has been removed. It’s more or less the same structurally and thematically as Skyfall. There’s one age-appropriate Bond girl (Monica Bellucci), one age-inappropriate Bond girl (Léa Seydoux), a baddie who finally looks like he can take on this muscled incarnation of Bond (Dave Bautista), and Christoph Waltz does a homeopathically weak version of his usual routine, as the head of Spectre. I would give you the name of his character, but you can guess it.
Spectre‘s basically the conclusion of the Daniel Craig James Bond series, which has been setting up all the aspects of the Bond character from the previous films, just so that he can retire now it’s all been set up. Of the four Craig movies, it’s probably the second or third best, and like the previous Logan-Mendes Skyfall, it actually seems to enjoy the sexist and hokey aspects of the old series that it’s trying to reintroduce, despite the pains Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace took to try to make Craig’s Bond a modern hero.
