I have a lot of great and important thoughts I’d like to share with you. But never mind that right now, let’s talk about TV.
Before we start, I’d like to say that, as an old fuck, it’s kind of weird to talk about TV when I actually watch very few shows on my actual TV. Moreover, while I still have cable, owing to a very generous deal given to me by Optimum Online, my cable box lies sadly unused, dormant and dust-covered.
Barry (HBO Max)
Barry is a show that just shouldn’t work at all. The setup, a tale of a hitman who wants to be an actor echoes all kinds of bad and dumb, Hollywood explorations of the “hitman” over the years. And yet, it’s maybe the best thing on TV right now.
In its thirds season, we find Bill Hader’s Barry Berkman facing an epic shitstorm as all of the bad things he did in seasons one and two are coming home to roost. Each episode cranks up the intensity a little bit more and the metaphorical explosion (not to be confused with last week’s actual explosion) is coming soon.
Barry violates one of my basic rules for TV watching. I don’t watch shows where all of the characters are terrible people. But the characters on Barry are so entertainingly terrible, I just can’t resist.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+)
The news Star Trek shows that have premiered on Paramount+ (Formerly CBS All Access) have been, to put it mildly, not very good. Whoever is in charge over there doesn’t seem to have any idea about what Star Trek is about or why people have loved it for over fifty years.
With that in mind, I wasn’t all that excited when yet another Trek show was announced from the solons at P+. “Strange New Worlds” was to be yet another prequel, covering the voyages of the starship Enterprise under its previous skipper, Captain Christopher Pike. I was going to skip it, but good reviews caused me to give it a go against my better judgment.
Three episodes in I can say that “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is, in a word, delightful.
Everything from the characters to the set design to the costumes just looks and feels right. Obviously you can’t make a show in 2022 that looks the cheap sets and costuming from 1966, but they manage to square the circle, creating a look that’s both modern and fits in with the TOS esthetic.
Anson Mount’s Pike is, in many ways, the proto-Kirk. He doesn’t have Shatner’s theatricality and bombast, be he’s got Kirk’s swagger, confidence and competence. You can certainly see how a young James Kirk, scheduled to appear next season, might model his theory of command after Pike.
More importantly, this new show is, for the most part, gloriously episodic. There’s no grand story arc. The universe in not in need of saving. Just like most of the Trek shows from the previous millennium, the Enterprise goes somewhere, finds a problem, solves it (mostly) and moves on. There’s some serialization of the the character beats between episodes, but the main stories are , so far, self contained.
The show has the typical weaknesses of a first season Trek show. A lot of the character work seems rote or undercooked. The main plots don’t generally seem all that well explored. Everyone seems way too comfortable defying Star Fleet regulations.
But it’s fun to watch, which is something I haven’t said about a Trek show in a long time.
Under The Banner Of Heaven (Hulu)
This series, based on the true crime book of the same same by Jon Krakauer is both a story of brutal murders and the hunt for the perpetrators as well as a deep dive into Mormon/LDS culture.
Detective Jeb Pyre, played by Spider-Man number 2, Andrew Garfield, investigates the murders, their connection to a very important, local, Mormon family and faces pushback from both the church and police hierarchies as they try to keep quiet the involvement of fundamentalist LDS factions.
The murder mystery is engaging, but the exploration of LDS culture and beliefs is even more. As presented by the show, Mormon culture is regressive, weird and creepy, but also strangely compelling.
We Own This City (HBO Max)
Like all good, white, liberals, I adore The Wire, David Simon’s series about crime, corruption and policing in Baltimore. In many ways, Simon’s “We Own This City”, a dramatization of the actual events surrounding the FBI’s takedown of Baltimore PD’s corrupt “Gun Trace Task Force” in 2017 feels like The Wire’s spiritual sequel.
It’s not just that a lot of Wire alums are cast. In some ways it feels like an apology for what might be called “copaganda” from the old show.
There’s a lot of jumping back and forth in time, which seems to be the thing all the kids are doing these days. I realize it’s a complex narrative and you need a lot of the back story to fully understand it, but I’m kind of tired of that kind of thing these days
Severance (Apple+)
This seems a bit of a cheat, since this show’s first season ended a couple weeks ago so I’m no longer actually watching it, but I wanted to drop a mention because I think it’s easily the best show of 2022 so far.
The topline premise is pretty straightforward. A process, called severance, has been invented, which allows people to “sever” their work and home memories. From the non-work (or “outie”) person’s perspective, they drive to work, get in an elevator to go down to the “severed floor” and then it’s eight hours later and they are going up in the elevator and going home.
From the work (or “innie”) perspective, they are always at work. They get in the elevator to go home, but an instant later, from their perspective, they are exiting the elevator, ready to start a new day.
The show is a super slow burn. Episodes go by with only the tiniest steps taken to move the plot. But it’s addictive.