The 10-episode first season is a flattening, often maddening watch, only occasionally rising above generic familiarities to deliver something trenchant or specific about its otherwise generically dysfunctional family.
The show is very bad, to be clear. It’s bad at being suspenseful, it’s bad at providing emotional investment and it’s bad at being memorable. It feels cynical and uninterested in itself. It provides the bare minimum of every element, digs no further, then loudly insists it’s providing a service.
It's Edgar Wright meets 30 Rock. It's bold but calm, terrifying but comforting, sad but silly, satirical but empathetic — and it's all of these things served to you by chefs who trust you, because you trust them.
Schmigadoon! takes the mini-arc of a scene-into-song — words no longer suffice so one must explode into song — and expands it out into beautiful, staggering, slow-motion detail. It's a triumph of craft, character, and courage. It's a show I can't recommend enough, a strange bird I hope never stops singing.
Lupin Part 2 feels at some level like it's always running forward at the breathless pace I appreciated about the first part. But if you look close enough, as the end-of-episode twists keep imploring us to do, it starts to feel like a treadmill, a "one step forward, two steps back" storytelling crutch. ... Ultimately, these two impulses — sparkly plot fun and deeper character pathos — fuse together and result in a final episode that easily impresses as one of the best of the still-young series.
It's jam-packed with invention in performance, craft, structure, songwriting, and raw comedic power. It will fling you on a journey while staying exactly where you are. Just like these characters.
Girls5eva, just like its characters, does its best to give us the monster hooks we’re used to while poking at the boxes constraining said hooks, coming up with a somewhat mixed but somewhat appealing result. Less Taylor Swift’s evermore, more Taylor Swift’s Reputation.
At times it’s wildly serious and complicated, at times it’s unintentionally silly and simplistic. And all of the times, it’s addictive, gripping, unique, and jaw-dropping television.
The Great North is comfort viewing of the highest caliber, a glass of the same hot beverage before seeing the same friends at the same place, feeling lovingly ensconced by it all.
