Matchbox

This may be the best new show on TV this year. You can't take your eyes off Arquette, who's perfect in the lead role. High Desert is a quirky, funny ride and you never quite know where it's going next. Yes, there's a mystery/crime element but the main draws are the characters and the setting. This show feels a little different than anything else on TV right now. Here's hoping it gets a few more seasons.

Simply one of the best works of TV or film that I've seen in the past five years. Absolutely loved it.

Well, there's ten hours of my life I'll never get back. I just finished watching season one of Westworld and, as Shakespeare almost wrote, it's a lot of sound and fury and slick HBO production values signifying nothing. The show doesn't really succeed as highbrow TV-as-literature because it doesn't seem to have anything significant to say about the human condition. (You know, what it means to be a *real* person living in the *real* world.) Instead, it churns out lots of half-baked head nods to concepts like consciousness, the nature of reality and violent patriarchy without ever really saying much. Yes, it does obliquely raise a few interesting questions but ultimately comes off as so much intellectual ****. As for characterization, another necessary ingredient of quality fiction, well, not so much. Where are the authentic, three-dimensional people, shaded with good and evil, with whom we can connect? While I was somewhat invested in a few characters early on, by the end, the show didn't really provide me with any character I could empathize with or ultimately cared much about. I think the show's creators made a fatal mistake in expecting the audience to view the robots, rather than the humans, as the protagonists; these are "characters" who cannot die, age or become ill and who may or may not actually have free will or the capacity to love. Yet we are to identify with them? OK, so the show doesn't live up to its artistic pretensions as "serious" TV. But unfortunately, it doesn't really excel at being fun escapist popcorn entertainment either (think Cinemax rather than HBO). And that's because the show is too slow, too repetitive, too numbingly violent, too lacking in consequences, often with plot points that feel like moving chess pieces around the board for no good reason. Yes, there are some exciting bits and some genuinely fun plot twists and answers to mysteries (as well as some real let-downs, like "the maze"), but where the season ultimately takes us, with the robot uprising we all knew MUST be coming before we even started watching the show, is too little pay-off for the time spent on the meandering (and at times, confusing) road there. In the end, I don't hate Westworld. Some (though not all) of the performances are quite good and the production values are sumptuous. The show is a real spectacle. But I am disappointed by it. It offered a premise that seemed to be brimming with potential (even more so than The Man in the High Castle, another show I abandoned after an unfulfilling first season). But in the end, Westworld turned out to be a clinical, meaningless, postmodern meta-ode to nihilism. Yawn.

After an uneven third season, Masters of Sex ends strong with season 4. I dislike when networks cancel long-running series after a season has been filmed rather than before, to allow the writers to wrap things up well, but despite the fact that Showtime didn't announce the cancellation of MoS until after the finale aired, the last few episodes did a good job of wrapping up story lines and concluding the most interesting chapters in the personal and professional lives of the two lead characters. The addition of two new clinicians to the practice in season 4 added a great spark and the overall pacing felt much better. Season 1 remains the high point for the series but season 4 at least returned to the very high quality of season 2. Definitely worth watching!

I enjoyed season 1 of Bosch but, after watching the first half of season 2, I have to say I'm disappointed with it so far. Half the screen time is devoted to plot threads that seemingly have nothing at all to do with Bosch, with the Deputy Police Chief's son (a minor character I didn't even remember from season 1) emerging as a major character with his own plot line. Meanwhile, what is supposedly the central plot line, Bosch's investigation of a murder with possible ties to Las Vegas mobsters, plods along. It's missing the tight suspense that season 1 had with its two investigations and also lacking the emotional chemistry to make me care that much about the personal lives of these characters. Bosch season 2 is still well produced, well shot and well acted. It's not a bad show by any means but it seems like it's trying to shift from a taut police mystery/suspense to a broader-focused cop drama. Maybe the latter half of season 2 will be better...

Having watched the first four episodes of Roadies, I have to say it's really growing on me. There's nothing else quite like it on TV today. It's a music-themed dramedy that has a lightness and sweetness about it that, honestly, is a welcome antidote to the other (much darker) high-production-value hourlong shows on premium cable and streaming. Is it cutting-edge highbrow fare? No. It's it cynical and gritty? No. But it doesn't strive to be any of those things. Instead, it's a strong group of actors portraying a makeshift family devoted to music, telling breezy, sentimental, funny stories each week. I'll take that.

Having worked in the US hedge fund industry for well over a decade, I viewed previews for Billions with an ambivalent eye. But I watched the premiere last night and was definitely impressed. Many are calling this drama "soapy" -- but I'd just say that it's theatrical, intense and a whole lot of fun. Do the characters, dialog and background music all come across at times as over-the-top? Sure, but that feels like the right fit here for a show swimming in the excesses of money and power. And, as someone who has visited a number of hedge fund offices and interacted a lot with hedge fund managers and their staff, I'd say the characters, lingo and plot points of this first episode ring true -- it's all grounded enough in reality for this to work as a legit drama (likely thanks to the input of Andrew Ross Sorkin). No, this isn't arthouse cinema verite or indie mumblecore; it's not supposed to be. And some critics are panning it for "not saying anything important about its subject matter," i.e. not giving us a PC morality lesson about the evils of capitalism straight out of an Occupy Wall Street rally. No, as in real life, the leading characters are all shaded mixtures of good and bad and the writers (hopefully) do not have an agenda they're trying to push. I'll definitely be watching to see if the rest of this season is as good as the pilot. Excellent acting across the board, glossy production values and a well-paced tightly written script. This show goes down easy. 9 out of 10.