Watchlist is an irregularly scheduled series of posts featuring reviews and observations on streaming TV series I’m watching.
Yikes … I started this new category almost a year ago about the return of one of my favorite all-time TV shows—Justified—and then never wrote another post. I even designed my own, spiffy, little logo! So here we are … because I like to watch and I watch a lot! Here are some recent shows alongside some observations about the streaming world from my own personal Watchlist.
The streaming world is changing and I’m sometimes confused as to where I want to spend my money. Everything is moving to ad-supported platforms at a cheaper cost and some of it is tolerable (MAX … so far), and some of it is horrible (Prime and Hulu). MAX shows an ad upfront and proclaims the product’s sponsorship of the show you’re about to watch, and after one ad, you’re ad-free for the duration of the show (not true if you’re watching any of the Discovery/Food Network shows, though … they seem to have ad breaks throughout). Prime just arbitrarily inserts ads, seemingly mid-sentence and no longer allows you to fast-forward through any show for any reason (I may go back to the $2.99/month ad-free tier on this one, because robbing me of my right to fast-forward is very’ annoying). Netflix raised their prices yet again from $11.99 to $15.99/month for their lowest ad-free tier, and $6.99 for ads; $9.00 difference is a no-brainer. I’m currently not watching a lot on Netflix (the five-episode “starter” of the final season of Cobra Kai, a show I’ve liked in the past, is so horribly bad and amateurish, it just seems like a money-grab until they get to the real meat of the story). Apple TV + remains an oasis of good programming and I’m eagerly awaiting the return of Slow Horses, Silo, and Severance, plus some of their movies have been great, in my humble opinion (although The Instigators with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck was a definite MEH for me). I’m totally willing to spend the $9.99/month for this service.
The Bosch-verse
I’m fascinated by the fact that Prime has a dedicated Bosch channel that continues to show the series, season-by-season, episode-by-episode, around the clock. I sometimes just turn that on and watch whatever episode happens to be on. I caught season 6’s explosive (literally) episode the other night and thoroughly enjoyed it once again. (Once? I’ve seen it like four times now!) And I’m eagerly looking forward to the third season of Bosch: Legacy and the introduction of Reneé Ballard to the Bosch-verse, starring Maggie Q, in the as-yet-untitled Ballard series, which is filming right now. I was a bit befuddled about the casting at first—Maggie Q is not the Ballard in my mind (she’s more Mary Elizabeth Winstead to me)—but then I went back and re-read The Late Show, Michael Connelly’s introductory Ballard novel from 2017, and oh, yeah … it makes sense, since Ballard is Asian and Hawaiian. The fact that Titus Welliver’s Bosch will also be a part of this show makes it even better. Now if we could just get Mickey Haller and The Lincoln Lawyer off Netflix and out of the hands of David E. Kelly and send him into the Bosch-verse where he belongs, I’d be a happy camper.
Speaking of David E. Kelly …
Presumed Innocent • Apple TV+ • 8 Episodes
God, I hated this show, but I saw it through to the end, mainly because I wanted to see if and how they changed the ending from the original Scott Turow book and the Harrison Ford-starring movie from 1990. They did change it (don’t worry, I won’t tell you how), but it was a long slog to get to it. My main problem with this David E. Kelly produced series is there isn’t a likable character in the bunch, save for Bill Camp’s Raymond Horgan. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Rusty Sabach, a state’s attorney who is accused of murdering his colleague and lover Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve), and he certainly comes off as an angry, obsessive creep. Everyone in his family is a suspect, including his wife, played by Ruth Negga and his son and daughter. Negga’s character also goes the unlikable route by picking this particular moment in time—with her husband fighting for his life—to have an affair with the hunky bartender she just met. The usually great Peter Sarsgarrd plays the prosecuting attorney—also a creep—and his boss, Nico Della Guardia, played by O-T Fagbenie, gives the most annoying and weird performance ever. I cannot imagine any director or a producer of David E. Kelly’s stature thinking this guy’s off-kilter diction and delivery was spot-on and usable. By the end of this series—which bizarrely has been renewed for a second season (Presumed Innocent Again, I assume), I wanted them to throw the whole cast in jail for lousy acting. I’ll be skipping season 2. As Gyllenhaal says at the end of season 1, “We will never speak of this again.”
A Man in Full • Netflix • 6 Episodes
Another David E. Kelly production of a semi-legal nature concerns Charlie Croker, an Atlanta-based billionaire who owes one of his banks $800 million. A banker—Raymond Peepgrass (played by Tom Pelphrey)—decides he’s had enough of Charlie’s bombastic bluster and abuse and he and fellow banker Harry Zale (the great Bill Camp, once again) call in Croker’s loan and try and break him. A Man in Full has a wonderful cast, including Diane Lane as Croker’s ex-wife, Sarah Jones (always a fave, from Alcatraz through For All Mankind) as his current, much younger, “trophy” wife, Lucy Liu as a businesswoman central to part of the plot, and William Jackson Harper as the mayor of Atlanta, running for re-election, hopefully with Croker’s help. The series stars as the titular “Man,” Jeff Daniels as Charlie Croker, who not only chews up every piece of scenery he comes near, but also simultaneously throws up and shits out said scenery as he goes. Honestly, what is it about a Southern accent that makes actors so damn hammy? Even the normally restrained Diane Lane pours it on with her accent. Also in the show—and in what should have been a separate series on its own, because every time they cut to this plotline, it takes you out of Croker’s story entirely—is a subplot concering Jon Michael Hill (who was great as an NYPD detective in Elementary) as a man wrongly imprisoned, the victim of a smarmy judge (played by Anthony Heald). The only connection to the Croker story is Charlie’s lawyer (played by Ami Ameen), defending Hill’s character, who just happens to be married to Croker’s secretary (Chanté Adams). I at first hated this train wreck of a show, but it kind of grew on me, and I had to see how it ended … and it ends majorly weird. One might even use the terms gonzo or bizarro. It almost seemed like, “Hey … we only have the budget for six episodes, and we’re on #6, so let’s just stop here as quickly as we can—and as strangely as we can.” This series seemed to start as a straight drama but it sure as hell ended as a black comedy.
BritBox returns …
I had dropped BritBox as a monthly subscription but picked up a little two-month extension on Prime Day, since it was only 99-cents per month, primarily (yes, pun intended) to watch the new seasons of Grace and McDonald & Dodds, two series I’ve enjoyed—partly because of their locales, but mainly because of the actors and stories—in previous seasons. Both series are on season 4, and both share a short season format that includes three or four episodes that are 90-minutes each.
I love John Simm’s quietly intense, resolute DSI Roy Grace, who is a detective in Brighton, UK, a city I visited—and liked very much—a few years ago. Season four has Grace and his cohorts (it’s always great to see Craig Parkinson from Line of Duty as one of Grace’s underlings alongside the underappreciated Laura Elphistone as both Craig’s love interest and LoD alumnus) solving crimes in this seaside city. This season included four episodes (up from three in seasons 2 and 3), and finally resolves a long-running plot-thread for Grace, but most of the episodes are unrelated, except for the recurring copper characters.
McDonald & Dodds continued their crime-solving in Bath, UK, an incredibly picturesque British city that I loved visiting, also a few years back. This fourth season of the show seemed more serious than the other three; the show has always had kind of a light touch, the equivalent—to me, at least—of a cozy mystery novel series. I was kind of bothered by Talia Gouveia’s DCI Lauren McDonald this season; she seemed humorless and way too self-absorbed with fiance problems. But Jason Watkins’s DS Dodds (whose first name has apparently never been revealed!) is a national treasure, and I’ve enjoyed him in every British show I’ve watched in which he’s appeared, including Line of Duty, The Crown (as Prime Minister Harold Wilson), Hold the Sunset (with John Cleese), and as the voice of Alfred in the new Batman: Caped Crusader series.
I’m looking forward to the second series of Karen Pirie on BritBox, hopefully soon since filming recently wrapped, but I’m going to let my little two-month, cheapie foray back into UK TV expire for now. Nothing personal, BB … I’ll be back.
Other Shows …
Fallout was great world-building and I loved both Ella Purnell and the great Walton Goggins in it … Monarch: Legend of Monsters was the absolute best thing to come out of all those Godzilla and King Kong movies from WB and Legendary, and how about Anna Sawai, who was also incredible in Shogun, which unfortunately suffered a bit from a wooden, thugish portrayal by Cosmo Jarvis as the titular hero (hey … not everybody can be Richard Chamberlain!) … The Boys Season 4 was a messy, gross, exciting penultimate season … Masters of the Air was one of the most beautifully shot series I’ve ever seen and I loved the story and acting, although they sure glossed over D-Day and kind of shoe-horned in the Tuskegee Airmen … Hacks Season 3 was the best one yet, with Hannah Einbinder really coming into her own … Bodkin Season 1 with Will Forte and Siobhan Cullen as a podcaster and print journalist, respectively, was a hoot, but it’s hard to see where Season 2 will go, but I’ll be there for it … Could not for the life of me get into The Veil with the usually great Elizabeth Moss; only made it through the first episode and gave up … I thought Batman: Caped Crusader was wonderful and a worthy addition to the whole Batman Animated universe by Bruce Timm.
Currently watching: Bad Monkey with Vince Vaughn on Apple TV +
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