Tag: 3

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):

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

Harley Quinn (2019)

Where to find it: Amazon
Length: Thirty seven 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: Superhero shitposting, starring everyone’s favourite Halloween costume
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: DC Comics gags, gets better as it goes, voices
What I don’t like about it: adolescent animation ultra-violence and coarse jokes, stinks of male feminism

Review:
In this cartoon, Harley Quinn (Kaley Cuoco) decides she’s been fucked over by the Joker for the last time and strikes out on her own, personally and professionally. She forms her own crime squad consisting of best friend Poison Ivy (Lake Bell), King Shark (Ron Funches), grandiose thesp Clayface (Alan Tudyk at full ham) and misogynist Doctor Psycho (Tony Hale), largely replaced in later seasons by talking plant Frank (J.B. Smoove). It’s an impressive cast and they do fun work, especially when the material works as it largely does when they’re dunking on Jordan Peterson guys or some of DC Comics’ sillier Silver Age villains.

Unfortunately, much of the material doesn’t work, such as whenever romance, plot or anything other than jokes are included. It contains many gratuitous bloodsoaked action sequences and many of the jokes, especially in early seasons, betray a core problem: Warner wanted a show primarily about the friendship between Harley and Ivy and they handed it to three people named Dean, Justin and Patrick. The show gets a lot of mileage out of Quinn’s coarseness when it’s really only funny to teenage boys and those who share their mindset.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence and blood, sexual references and swear words, lots of death

Slumberkins (2022)

Where to find it: Apple TV+
Length: Twenty 10-minute episodes
Synopsis: Toddler TV
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: puppets, focus on emotional learning
What I don’t like about it: weird mix of animation styles

Review:
The latest product of Apple’s partnership with the Jim Henson company finds a welcome return to their adorable puppet work in this adaptation of the popular childrens books. Each episode features at least one of the main cast (Bigfoot, Fox, Sloth, Unicorn and Yak) as they explore and play with their friends and families. As is inevitable at every stage of life, their social interactions bring them hurt feelings before they demonstrate a helpful ritual of taking a moment to examine their feelings, decide on a course of action and repeat a reassuring, rhyming mantra. The emotional lessons seem very valuable and generally applicable and the project is, overall, a worthy effort.

Unfortunately the show, combining green-screen muppets with flat animation and occasional full-body puppets for long shots, is disconcerting for adult eyes. Individually, the puppetry and the backgrounds are bright and pretty but they don’t so much combine as clash.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): one episode is about asking to use the toilet – they say poop a lot

Reboot (2022)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Eight 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: It’s a sitcom about a sitcom
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: good cast, relatively inoffensive
What I don’t like about it: missable, forgets its premise

Review:
A fictional early-2000s sitcom is revived (not rebooted, as the title suggests) and this sitcom follows the behind-the-scenes production. Has a similar tone to the creator’s earlier Modern Family but the setting is bound to limit its appeal to those who can tolerate television about making television.

As an aside, I believe you can judge how confident a show is in its own pilot using a metric I call “Time to Tits”. Essentially, if a show has little else to offer, it will offer nipples as early as possible. I hope Judy Greer was paid well for providing this, just over ten minutes into the pilot.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sexual references and brief nudity

I Hate You (2022)

Where to find it: All 4
Length: Six 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: Flatmate frienemies fuck with each other for fun
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: absurd humour, fun acting
What I don’t like about it: fast pace seems forced and annoying at first

Review:
Britcom mainstay Robert Popper’s latest sitcom finds two young women living together in London. Becca (Melissa Saint) and Charlie (Tanya Roberts) both work assistant jobs that they hate and spend the rest of their time nihilistically dicking around and amusing themselves at the expense of each other and anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. They clearly have a love for one another but express it through pranking and teasing.

Panned by the papers, this show certainly isn’t unmissable but it’s a little better than the aging journalistic establishment give it credit for and, after weathering the first couple of episodes, its awkward absurdity made me laugh several times.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

Clark (2022)

Where to find it: Netflix
Length: Six 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: Swedish crime biography
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: characterful editing, acting, can be funny
What I don’t like about it: glorifying, annoying

Review:
Based on the self-aggrandising autobiography of Clark Olofsson, a Swedish career criminal, this series follows his rakish exploits with some interesting (if eventually tiring) editing techniques and a great performance from Bill Skarsgård.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): loads of sex, some violence

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)

Where to find it: Netflix
Length: Two hours
Synopsis: He made another antifascist fairy tale
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: visually stunning, some clever scenes
What I don’t like about it: generally miserable, target-audience confusion, tonal whiplash, songs

Review:
This career-defining passion project for del Toro is definitely a well-crafted stop-motion animation but is alienatingly hard to connect with. Certain scenes seem very unsuitable for children, while others – especially a “poop and fart” song – seem entirely unsuitable for adults. Like all his works, it’s a beautiful masterpiece that I had no fun with and am in no rush to watch again.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, war, grief, peril

Ms. Marvel (2022)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Six 45-minute episodes
Synopsis: Superfan turns superhero
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: characterful, funny, good acting
What I don’t like about it: second half is too Marvel-y

Review:
This show has a winsome charm and a very fun lead. There’s a lot of fun had in the editing of the pilot that sadly (but predictably) isn’t sustained further in the series and it definitely lulls in the second half as the CGI action is turned up to 11. This is the most fun I’ve had watching a Marvel product since The Avengers but it would be better if all the character weren’t replaced by garden-variety comic book action at the half-way point.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

The Resort (2022)

Where to find it: NowTV
Length: Eight 35-minute episodes
Synopsis: Struggling couple dive headlong into a mystery
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: casting, acting, occasionally funny or interesting
What I don’t like about it: pointless, ridiculous

Review:
Emma and Noah are married and enjoying a vacation in southeast Mexico, even though they don’t seem to enjoy each other’s company. Emma finds an old phone in the jungle and digs around in it, becoming captivated by the unsolved disappearance of the teen who dropped it.

They know how to build a mystery but the one they picked is so convoluted and unnecessary that I assumed they were playing some kind of alternate-reality game. Not so and it does give some payoff, it just leaves you wondering why you bothered. It says nothing new about its well-trod themes and is largely a waste of time and quite a lot of effort.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, dental surgery, sex, loss and grief