|
Post by otherscott on Jan 17, 2023 14:15:08 GMT -8
I meant more the inverse - HBO and particularly the HBO Sunday night spot still has the clout to get moody miniseries noticed where pretty much every other network or streamer does not have that capability. Or at least I'm backtracking to that stance. I don't think Apple TV+ is a particularly weak streaming service from a hype perspective.
Number 7: The Bear I don't think I have all that much to say about The Bear that hasn't already been said. The directoral style and the ability to capture chaos in a way that really conveys to the viewer is the biggest strength, but there is decent character work here as well. That being said, this might be the Season 2 I'm worried most about because as people adapt to watching the show and it's rhythms, it is really going to live and die on that character work, it can't keep just doing episodes like "Review" and still get that same feeling every time. I think there's a lot of capability there, but I'm interested to see if they can really bore down into the depths and complexities of these people in a way that feels fresh and interesting.
Number 6: Atlanta What is it with FX shows and penultimate seasons? Justified is probably the best example of one that feels particularly poor, but The Americans was lower quality than the seasons surrounding it, Season 6 of The Shield wasn't anything special beyond its first couple episodes. As Jeremy said in his top 10, Season 4 really does hit the heights of the first 2 seasons and feel very much of a piece with the things that made Atlanta special. Unfortunately with both seasons coming out in the same year, I have to evaluate them together (well I guess I don't HAVE to) and I don't think Season 3 would get anywhere near my top 10. Just a little too meandering, the standalones were hit and miss (though did produce the best episode of the season) and the episodes including the main characters didn't feel on a level with the other seasons either.
Season 4 is really strong though, almost every episode worked for me on some level (except for the Goofy movie one). This is a top tier show belonging in a top 20-30 of all time list and I'm glad it had a great send off.
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Jan 18, 2023 11:11:05 GMT -8
You didn't like The Goof Who Sat By The Door? Geez, that might be the best episode of comedy television I saw all year. But, I mean, the main characters of the show weren't featured in it, so I suppose I could see a disconnect of sorts for some viewers.
Anyways, I think my least favourite episode of Season 4 of Atlanta was the one with Earn's meddlesome auntie. To the best of my recollection, it just felt more literal than the show generally is.
|
|
|
Post by otherscott on Jan 18, 2023 14:25:36 GMT -8
Personally I just didn't get it, maybe I've become a dumber TV viewer over the years.
Number 5: Better Call Saul This is the third time Better Call Saul has been in this spot on my list and it's never been higher. This season cut out all the non-Jimmy stuff that's never worked very well for me on the show, but the Jimmy stuff was mostly good but other than that middle stretch and the finale, most of the things we've seen before.
I think Better Call Saul is a very good show, Jimmy and Kim are extremely interesting, especially Kim, and it's incredible that Gilligan and company were able to build this type of depth in a crooked lawyer for a comic relief character, and the show generally just became better over the years as they found the voice and the angle they were coming at with the Jimmy stuff. This season also had a built in Breaking Bad section in the middle where the show was able to ratchet up the tensions and remind you how good this crew is at doing that type of television.
Ultimately it sometimes feels like I'm insulting Better Call Saul by only putting it as a perennial middle of the top 10 show, terrific but not always reaching the heights of Breaking Bad, but I'm not, this is a great show with great character work and the character of Kim is a tremendous addition to this universe. If Gilligan wants to go back to this world I will not complain.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Jan 18, 2023 14:33:03 GMT -8
Agreed with J.C.; I found "The Goof Who Sat by the Door" to be both a terrific sendup the BTS documentary format and an excellent satire on how different people perceive cinema. Perhaps my favorite Atlanta episode other than "Teddy Perkins." (I recommended it to a friend who counts A Goofy Movie as one of her childhood favorites, even though she's never watched Atlanta; not sure what she thought of it.)
And the episode with Earn's auntie was really the only dud of S4; every other episode was at least above-average. Great final season.
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Jan 19, 2023 9:59:50 GMT -8
Funny note: these three black wrestling podcasters had an on-air conversation a while back about how The Goofy Movie is absolutely, subversively, about black culture, and they joked about Donald Glover and Co. somehow seeing a clip from their podcast, helping to inspire "The Goof Who Sat By The Door".
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Jan 19, 2023 18:08:55 GMT -8
The read of A Goofy Movie as a black film has actually been popping up around the Internet for a few years now; I assume Glover knew about a few of the theories and decided to build an episode around them. I doubt the Dinsey producers originally intended to racially code the film - they were too busy trying to cram as many '90s buzzwords and fashion statements as they could into an 80-minute timeframe - but it's an interesting read nonetheless. It probably helps that Goofy himself is kind of a blank slate of a character, easy to interpret in one way or another. During his "Everyman" period of the 1950s, in fact, he was arguably the whitest character in Disney's oeuvre. (Though Disney has mostly swept those 'toons under the rug these days.)
|
|
|
Post by otherscott on Jan 31, 2023 5:43:29 GMT -8
I got busy but I'm here now - let's speedrun through the rest of these.
4. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds There's part of me that misses the days where shows weren't quite so plot heavy, they had more of an episodic feel and was built around the characters. I appreciate so much that SNW is a character show first and foremost, where the main thrust of this season of the show is meeting each of the members of the crew and making you feel like you understand them and their motivations. There's nothing groundbreaking about this show in particular, but it's a nice reminder that it is possible to be able to tell longer form stories without suffering from always needing to keep the next thing in the plot moving, and I thought the character work on this is as good as anything I saw on TV. We're about character here at Critically Touched.
3. For All Mankind Probably my most controversial pick for the list this year to have this particularly season of the show up this high, but I don't feel a particular need to mount a strong defense. I care about the people in this show, such great groundwork had been laid for it, and this season was when most of the crows came home to roost. That made the season feel particularly tense and dramatic at various times, every week it was able to tug my emotions in new ways and every episode felt like an event.
That's the advantage of longer term shows, you can lay the groundwork for your characters early on, and then you can throw a season like this together (which would be a pretty bad first season) because you know you have that investment. I think the next season will be an issue keeping that investment with so much turnover.
2. The White Lotus Maybe the closest show to Mad Men since Mad Men? There's so much depth in the characters that are created in this show, and it's created in such a short amount of time. It makes the show feel like a Rorschach test at times, where in most of the conflicts no one is clearly in the right or in the wrong, and it really encourages discussion and points out to the viewer some of the preconceived notions they have about certain types of people and how much it influences the prism they see them through. Also it can be bitingly funny and has one of the most shocking moments I saw this year.
1. Severance Just an incredibly impressive show all around. Not only does it create a tremendous allegory about work/life balance, it also does some tremendous worldbuilding, is able to balance the tones of the serious/dramatic/emotional and clearly ridiculous as well as some of the best comedies, it does a great job building out these characters, and it has an intriguing addictive thriller plot. It does have a slight slow section in the back half which maybe keeps it from being the best debut season I've ever seen, but it's closer than ay show has gone in a long time.
Am I worried about season 2? After all, look what happened to Handmaid's Tale, Orphan Black, Killing Eve, etc. I'm really not worried. The shows has a strong premise which is sometimes an indicator that it's not built to last, but it has much more depth in its characters which makes me believe that the writing is just talented.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Jan 31, 2023 18:24:53 GMT -8
I think that even if you cut out the S3 finale of For All Mankind (which was easily among my least favorite TV episodes of 2022), the show wouldn't really be in contention for my Top 10 - and I say that as someone who really liked S2. The continued focus on the Stevens boys, as well as the sheer number of plot contrivances needed to keep the main characters from S1 relevant and together across multiple decades, really strained my investment. Considering the writers are still planning more time-jumps in future seasons, color me skeptical about the show's future.
Also, worth pointing out that FAM has now spanned 26 years from 1969 to 1995, all while keeping its original cast in ever-increasing layers of makeup. Meanwhile, The Crown has completely changed casts twice between a span from 1964 to 1991. I'm just saying.
|
|