Category: TV

TV

Interview With The Vampire (2022)

Where to find it: Buy on Amazon, now on iPlayer
Length: Seven 50-minute episodes
Synopsis: Camp, gory gothic fun à la True Blood
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: writing, acting
What I don’t like about it: source material, season 2 a step down but still fun

Review:
Aging New Journalist Daniel Molloy travels to Dubai to re-do an interview with immortal vampire Louis De Pointe Du Lac, who tells the story of his afterlife through flashbacks. It’s a remarkably clever adaptation and is paced reasonably well.

Unfortunately it’s still Anne Rice – accursed grandmother of a million Twilights – and her flowery prose and unsettling obsession with young flesh make it to screen largely unscathed. Adds some good stuff around Louis being Black and a pimp in 1910s Storyville but criminally under-utilises its “birthplace of jazz” setting.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, gore, sex, sexual assault, racism, domestic abuse

Unprisoned (2023)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Eight 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: Heart-filled sitcom about a wounded healer
Recommendation rating: 4/5

What I like about it: psychological, fun, acting
What I don’t like about it: not the funniest

Review:
Paige (Kerry Washington) is raising her teenage son and has a career as a therapist/influencer when her father (Delroy Lindo) is paroled into her custody, bringing up many childhood traumas that Paige hasn’t worked through as much as she thought she had.

It’s very informed and well-acted, once an episode Paige’s inner child shows up to swearily tell her off and it’s always the highlight. Also explores the sorry state of America’s prison-industrial complex, healthcare system and employment security.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sex

Ted Lasso (2020)

Where to find it: Apple TV+
Length: 34 one-hour episodes
Synopsis: American football coach with winning personality takes over English football club with losing record
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: gentle, occasionally gets a chuckle
What I don’t like about it: unfunny, unrealistic, costs too much, inconsistent acting

Review:
This transatlantic comedy-drama is easygoing but bland, full of painfully performative writing and paper-thin liberal fantasy characters. Being an Apple product, it burns through needless millions and far too much of it takes place on iPhone screens.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

The Muppets Mayhem (2023)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Ten 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem get a family sitcom
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: puppets, consistent characters, funny enough
What I don’t like about it: not very funny, forced drama, musical numbers, tiresome cameos

Review:
We’re introduced to legendary touring band Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, who have never recorded an album, and Nora (Lilly Singh) who works for a failing record label. When Nora discovers an unfulfilled contract for a Mayhem album, she believes she can save the label, but corralling Muppets is never an easy task.

The script could have used a few more passes, there’s too much exposition about Nora’s dead dad and the endless cameos are mostly expendable. The musical numbers are horrific and it wasn’t a good idea to have screechy puppet voices cover “classic” rock songs as much as they did. Whether to watch this one depends how much you like the Muppets, I don’t regret it but I’d watch them file taxes.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): drug references

Rap Shit (2022)

Where to find it: No UK streaming
Length: Eight 30-minute episodes
Synopsis: Odd couple form a rap duo
Recommendation rating: 5/5

What I like about it: great comedy in first half, great drama in second; knows itself well
What I don’t like about it: Instagram gimmick feels forced (but is used less as the series goes)

Review:
Shawna is an independent conscious hip hop artist. She was briefly signed to a big-shot producer but after refusing to compromise her artistic vision for commercial success, she is now working in a Miami hotel and posting topical political raps to an Instagram audience of a dozen people. She reconnects with her old friend Mia, a confident beautician and dancer, and convinces her to start a rap duo after they drunkenly freestyle. The two are opposites in many ways: Mia is outgoing and likes dancing to popular rap with her friends in clubs, Shawna sits alone in her apartment ranting about how popular rap is vapid. They attempt to overcome this and find fame with the help of a hustling local pimp and Shawna’s sideline in credit card fraud.

The show is really funny and its biggest strength is that it doesn’t make a single concession for a broader audience: this is a show by and for Black women, not one line is wasted on awkward exposition and although I’m outside of that target audience, I found it much better for it. It has great satire on the rap game and its portrayal of chasing fame in that field seems cynically realistic (the show is loosely based on City Girls, who also consult).

Content notes (may contain spoilers): explicit sex, sex work, drugs

Inside Our Autistic Minds (2023)

Where to find it: BBC iPlayer
Length: Two 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: Autistic mission doc
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: autistic people
What I don’t like about it: not very informative, self-important host, inspiration porn

Review:
Chris Packham hosts this BBC documentary in which he meets four autistic people and helps them make a short film about their perspective, which they then show to their friends and family. Despite many encouragements to understand autistic people, it doesn’t do a great job of explaining us, preferring ambiguous statements about how we’re all different. Occasionally hilarious, such as using VFX to show autism as some kind of Iron Man-esque superpower, but more often manipulatively ‘uplifting’ or uncomfortably intrusive.

Mostly, the show and its host seem to have a higher evaluation of their importance than I do and spend most of the time talking down to the audience, assuming they will have many negative impressions of autistic people. Thankfully Packham, patron(ising) saint of autism, is here to realise for us that people who don’t speak are still people.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

A Spy Among Friends (2022)

Where to find it: itvX
Length: Six 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: Boring historical fiction about the Cambridge Five
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: occasional intriguing conversations, acting
What I don’t like about it: no plot, no pace, no interest

Review:
Like le Carré on sedatives, this imagining of historical MI5 investigations into Kim Philby starts out lost in the weeds and only gets less interesting as it goes. Damien Lewis and Guy Pearce are good but not good enough to carry six hours of slow British spy mystery.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, explosion

Mythic Quest (2020)

Where to find it: Apple TV+
Length: Thirty 30-minute episodes
Synopsis: Workplace comedy about a game developer
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: game industry satire, good characters and cast
What I don’t like about it: not very funny or great, can’t figure out its tone

Review:
Mythic Quest is a fictional MMORPG and this show follows the studio which creates it: self-obsessed creative lead Ian (pronounced like ‘iron’, Rob McElhenney), messy lead dev Poppy (Aussie newcomer Charlotte Nicdao), ineffectual producer David (David Hornsby), evil monetiser Brad (Danny Pudi), creative consultant C.W. (F. Murray Abraham), beleagured head of H.R. Carol (Naomi Ekperigin) and testers Dana (Imani Hakim) and Rachel (the multi-talented Ashly Burch), whose cute romance is a highlight.

The satirical workplace comedy is quite good, with some of the satire being so sharp that it’s a wonder they have Ubisoft’s help making this, but once per season they drop this format for a tangentially-related flashback drama episode. It’s a comfortable comedy if you’re in the market for one.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

The Patient (2022)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Ten 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: A psychotherapist is held hostage by a serial killer who demands to be cured
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: short episodes, good acting
What I don’t like about it: it’s bad in just about every way, never delivers on its premise

Review:
A grieving therapist (Steve Carell) is visited by a new patient (Domhnall Gleeson) who soon chains him up in his basement. The worst thing is it isn’t even psychologically interesting. It could have been better without the kidnapping; that kind of killed their ability to get any actual therapy done.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, the holocaust

Welcome to Chippendales (2022)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Eight 35-50 minute episodes
Synopsis: Decent drama about dancers
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: good acting (especially Bartlett)
What I don’t like about it: drags in the middle, doesn’t say much

Review:
Kumail Nanjiani stars as Steve Banerjee, yuppie founder of a Los Angeles club which became known for male exotic dancing, and Murray Bartlett is Nick De Noia, the never-satisfied choreographer who takes the brand to new heights and incurs Steve’s jealous wrath. It’s a moderately interesting story with plenty of sex, drugs and disco music pulling it along.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sex, drugs, violence