So far this year I’ve watched 26 seasons’ worth of TV series from start to finish (there’s more than a few that I abandoned after one or two episodes). (I’ve also watched 105 films so far. Where do I find the time? Don’t ask.) Of those 26, there are 7 that I can strongly recommend.
Shogun
This seems to have exceeded everyone’s expectations, not just mine. I read the book and watched the original mini-series so long ago that I barely remember them. The original Richard Chamberlain-led series in 1980 was really good for its time, but it would never get made now. There’s justifiably little tolerance for the white savior narrative any more and so for much of this new series, the John Blackthorne character is an observer on the sidelines rather than the catalyst for action.
The basic story remains the same. Around the year 1600, a European ship with an English navigator makes it to the shores of Japan at the beginning of what might turn out to be a civil war, with two lords battling for the title of “Shogun,” the real rulers of Japan. It’s fiction but the main characters (including “John Blackthorne”) are based on historical figures and at least some of the major plot points are based on real events.
It’s always great to see veteran actors Hiroyuki Sanada (in the role originated by Toshiro Mifune) and Tadanobu Asano in meaty roles in western film. But, surprise! It’s relative newcomer Anna Sawai who is the revelation. She has actually been in stuff I’ve watched before but in small roles that never registered with me. After this, I doubt I’ll be able to forget her again.
The trailer barely hints at the scope and emotional power of the series, but I defy anyone to watch this scene and not want to see more.
That’s from Episode 9, Crimson Sky, they should just give the Emmy to Sawai now and be done with it. The episode is directed by Frederick E.O. Toye. He’s worked exclusively in TV for the past 20 years, he’s never won an Emmy (he was nominated for an episode of Westworld) and he sure as fuck deserves a win this year.
Shogun was meant to be a limited series but was so successful that there will be a second season. While they’ve basically covered Clavell’s entire book in this season, there’s certainly enough history that they might continue in the same vein. Let’s hope that they don’t run into the same issues that Game of Thrones ran into once they got past Martin’s books, with the quality noticeably declining in subsequent seasons.
Ripley
No, not Sigourney Weaver in the Alien series. That’s a xenomorph of a different color.
This particular Ripley comes to us via 5 novels written by Patrician Highsmith. The Ripley character has been portrayed by many different actors in film and TV, including Alain Delon (Purple Noon), Dennis Hopper (The American Friend), Matt Damon (The Talented Mr. Ripley), and John Malkovich (Ripley’s Game). The character and story have also inspired or influenced other films, most recently Saltburn.
In this series, which sticks pretty close to the plot of the book, Tom Ripley is a low level con man in New York in the late 1950s, barely scraping by. For some reason a shipping magnate thinks Ripley knows his son and hires him to go to Italy to try to convince his son to return to the U.S. Ripley meets the son and becomes envious of his lifestyle and, well, if you don’t already know the story, just watch the frigging show, ok?
All 8 episodes of the limited series were written and directed by one person, Steven Zaillian. He hasn’t directed much, just 3 films and 1 previous mini-series. But as a writer? The Irishman, Moneyball, American Gangster, and Schindler’s List (he won an Academy Award for that, and was nominated 4 other times).
I have to mention the sumptuous black and white photography, courtesy of Robert Elswit, a frequent collaborator of P.T. Anderson, winning an Oscar for his work on There Will Be Blood.
Topping it all off is a strong performance from Andrew Scott in the title role. I haven’t seen all of the previous Ripley adaptations but this is lightyears better than the Damon and Malkovich films, and I can’t imagine that the ones I haven’t seen could top this either.
Once upon a time, specifically pre-pandemic, Netflix was giving us prestige TV to rival the best of HBO. Between the pandemic and the writers’ strike, it seemed as if Netflix was leaning in too hard on unscripted reality shows and mediocre action films. Maybe Netflix is finding its footing again. In fact, three of the top seven shows I’ve liked the most so far this year were all on Netflix.
Hacks season 3
In theory, I don’t think anyone would have expected me to like a comedy series about a 65+ year old comedian who finds relevance and a younger audience when she hires a 20-something lesbian writer - even I do have a tendency to like this industry insider sort of thing.
Then again, it stars Jean Smart, who has been so good in so many things over the course of her career, most recently ranging from Mare of Easttown to Watchmen. Relative newcomer Hannah Einbinder proves to be every bit her equal. (Her mother is Laraine Newman, from the original SNL cast, but she’s no nepo baby, she’s really good.)
In the third season, comedian Deborah Vance (Smart) sees an opportunity to host a late night talk show. The fact that she’s female and over sixty would seem to work against her, but she goes all out to get the job. It’s funny, it’s relevant, and just when you think it’s going to be all sunshine and lollipops it can go quite dark, as it did in season 3’s final episode.
John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s In L.A.
Where the fuck did this totally batshit crazy talk show come from? And why isn’t there more of it? Limited to just 6 episodes, all of which initially streamed live, what the hell was going on here?
Where to even start? This appeared to be an attempt at yet another late night talk show - scripted bits, yes; filmed segments, sure. But this also was a show that seemed to revel in chaos.Was it the choice of Richard Kind as the announcer/sidekick? The robot delivering soda to panelists? An episode with a panel that included David Letterman and seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones talking about earthquakes in L.A., with Los Lobos as the musical guest? Phone calls from viewers? What about when they chose two people from the audience seemingly at random to jump into limos and search all of L.A. for Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea?
Here’s a film segment with Fred Armisen hosting an “old punks focus group” that included members of X, Fear, the Minutemen, the Germs, the Cramps, and Johnny Ramone’s widow.
Whether you love or hate talk shows, this show had something for everyone. But perhaps that’s no surprise given that Mulaney’s previous non-stand-up special, John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch, turned the entire kid show genre on its head as well. (What do you mean you haven’t seen it? What’s wrong with you?)
And yes, in case you’re wondering, Richard Kind was in this as well. (There’s just something indefinably wonderful about Kind and anything he touches.)
The Curse
Nathan Fielder is known for making series that blur the line between fiction and reality. There was “Nathan For You” and the seriously twisted “The Rehearsal.” I watched “The Rehearsal” and I never had any idea what was scripted and what, if anything, wasn’t. This time out he collaborated with Benny Safdie (co-director of Uncut Gems and Good Times) and Emma Stone.
It’s a husband-and-wife, each with their own set of peculiar neuroses, putting together a reality show for HGTV, in which they are going to go into a depressed community and try to uplift it with some seriously bad ideas.
Maybe the less you know about it, the better. Would it help if I told you that Christopher Nolan called it “an incredible show … genuinely [having] no precedence"?
The 3 Body Problem season 1
Yes, I’m back to a Netflix series again. Based on the trilogy by Chinese author Liu Cixin (the first book in the series was the first novel by a mainland Chinese author to win the Hugo award), this had already been turned into a 30-episode series in China, and then the Game of Thrones producers got their hands on it.
I kept wanting this to be better than it was. And the mega-big-CGI-spectacle scene comes halfway through the season, making everything after it seem like an anticlimax. But I do keep thinking about it.
It seems to be going in so many directions at once in the first few episodes that it’s difficult to have any idea of what’s going on. But it does all come together in ways that are rewarding and maybe a little bit terrifying.
This scene might be a bit of a spoiler, but I like it quite a lot.
I suppose it’s more a tribute to Liu than the show runners, but I didn’t understand the bit about the pairs of Sophons connected on the quantum level until I read the Walter Isaacson biography of Albert Einstein.
Stax: Soulsville USA
This was a total surprise. A 4-part documentary series on the famed record label that cuts much deeper than anyone would reasonably expect. “Those with the power, they wanted Stax to be erased.” This doesn’t just go into the stories of Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Booker T, Isaac Hayes and how they made so many timeless records. It ties things directly to the racism of having a multi-racial label in the south in the 60s, the relationship with Martin Luther King, the bad business decisions that almost destroyed them.
Before I jump to some quick mentions of other shows I watched, let’s pause for a couple of moments.
Moment #1 - Martin Short guest-hosting for Jimmy Kimmel and bringing Jiminy Glick along. In the segment below we get to find out what Lorne Michaels probably smells like.
Speaking of Michaels, SNL had a pretty decent year and a lot of people agree that this sketch ranks up there with some of the best (just watching Heidi Gardner lose it so completely when she looks back at Mikey Day is worth the price of admission)(which is free, obviously, but still, well, anyway).
And now back to our regularly scheduled program:
Some Other Notable Series
The Bear season 3
If we’re going by past performance, season 3 of The Bear should have been in my top seven. Shit, it should have been #3. But despite the fact that season 3 was incredibly well-acted and well-directed, overall it was just wrong. (Note that I will probably completely change my mind by next week.)
This season was about the final preparations and opening weeks of the restaurant. The first episode, a montage that skips around in time, was a great way to kick off the new season; it certainly met my high expectations.
But after that, they took a couple of tangents. An entire episode (directed by Ayo Edebiri) about Tina’s back story? Okay, I get that. But an entire episode devoted to Sugar in labor? Yes, I get that they wanted to bring back Jamie Lee Curtis and of course she delivers an Emmy-worthy performance, again. And, yes, Abby Elliott (Chris Elliott’s daughter!) is terrific. But if they wanted to distract from an almost unrelentingly intense series of episodes, having a woman in labor first stuck in traffic and then lying in a hospital bed with her psychotic mother sitting next to her didn’t help relieve any tension and, as well done as it was, it seemed out of place to me. When you only have 10 episodes per season, having two of those episodes being off-plot is at least 1 too many.
In a sense, it had me thinking of Handmaid’s Tale, in that I loved it for the first two seasons but the third season seemed more like torture porn. In season 3 of The Bear, is anyone happy? The Fak brothers maybe but any of the main characters? Not so much.
The season leaves us not with one, not with two, but with three cliff-hangers. When almost the entire season is devoted to those three storylines, not wrapping them up in the final episode is close to unforgivable. But yeah, unlike Handmaid’s Tale, I’ll be there when season 4 rolls around.
Curb Your Enthusiam season 12
I get it. This series has had some truly great episodes over its 25 year arc. This season didn’t feel as if it could stand up with the best. The situations seemed forced rather than natural. It wasn’t all bad. We got Bruce Springsteen, actually acting and being very fucking funny. And we got a series ending that finally fixed the way Seinfeld ended all those years ago. But season 12 was weak.
Tokyo Vice season 2
This series, based on the autobiography of an American who became a crime reporter for a Japanese newspaper in the 90s, has consistently been better than I was expecting. At first I didn’t like the fictionalized plot lines, but I put that behind me and enjoyed this. I’m sorry it was canceled. It deserved another season.
The Gentlemen
When I first heard that Guy Ritchie was doing an entire series based on his film of the same name (which I enjoyed), my first thought was, “what the actual fuck?” It turned out relatively okay. Nothing great here, but it passed the time and wasn’t annoying.
A few other things I watched
True Detective Night County - A return to form with a different showrunner? No.
A Murder at the End of the World - I liked it less and less with each episode. I made it to the end hoping it would get better. No.
Criminal Record - Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo, how could it be bad? They found a way.
Fallout - Completely enjoyable but coming in the wake of The Last of Us, perhaps my expectations were too high.
Sugar - Yeah, Colin Farrell obsessed with old films in what seemed like it was going to be a great film noir series. And then, a little more than halfway through, it made a left turn that might have been interesting but they should have taken it further.
Elsbeth - Carrie Preston was great as the ditsy lawyer in 14 episodes of The Good Wife and 5 episodes of The Good Fight, but giving her her own series, and turning her into an accidental detective solving a murder each week, simply proved that in some cases, a little is enough.
The Sympathizer - Yes, Robert Downey Jr exec produced with his wife and played four parts, which I suspect is the only reason why most people watched it.
And My 17 Favorite Movies So Far
I’m gonna just blast this out here, in no small part because I’m about to head back to China for most of July. These are listed in the order in which I watched them, maybe one or two surprises on the list? Most of these you’ll know, I’ll toss in trailers for the slightly more obscure choices.
Fast Charlie - underrated underseen Pierce Brosnan crime thing, can he please have the same kind of comeback that Hugh Grant’s been having these past few years?
American Fiction
The Iron Claw
The Zone of Interest
Poor Things
Dune Part 2
Drive Away Dolls
Thanksgiving
Snack Shack
The Origin of Evil
Civil War
Love Lies Bleeding
Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare
Godzilla Minus One
Furiosa
Immaculate - Sydney Sweeney is so much better than the film deserves
Hit Man
And some others:
The Fall Guy - I don’t understand why this failed at the box office.
Challengers - I didn’t get it.
Monkey Man - expected to like it a hell of a lot more than I did.
Wicked Little Letters - fun but very trivial
Knox Goes Away - can’t quite put my finger on why I didn’t like it, but I didn’t
The End We Start From - Jodie Comer is great but so what?
Ricky Stanicky - 90% garbage, 10% fabulous John Cena
Anatomy of a Fall - what did I miss?
May December - intriguing
The Beekeeper - what you expect from a Jason Statham film
How to Have Sex - not so much
American Star - Ian McShane but little else of note
In the Land of Saints and Sinners - unlike most recent Liam Neeson films, at least this one didn’t suck
Ghostbusters Frozen Empire - bad beyond belief
Last, with Ayo Edebiri back in The Bear, and thinking of Drive Away Dolls and Love Lies Bleeding, did you catch last year’s Bottoms yet?
Thanks for the Ripley mention - it's expertly done and probably wouldn't have run across it if I didn't see this post. Grazie!
Ha…we disagree on challengers…will you be visiting Hong Kong this trip?