It's Not CT. It's HBO

I laughed at California for years because of how often it seemed to intertwine acting and politics (Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Eastwood, etc). But it looks like celebrity politicians have now found their way to our coast. Things will only get weirder from here, I imagine.

Well, so much for Governor Miranda (she'll still be on the November ballot as the WFP candidate, but that's a definite long-shot).

Maybe NY politics can return to being boring!

Oh, wait - that Keith Hernandez lady...

The entire Salazar controversy was just too ridiculous for words. Lying about her religion (and immigration status, and economic background, etc.) would have torpedoed a candidate in more ordinary times. But she's clearly no longer a conservative, and the media has touted her as another Ocasio-Cortez, and that was apparently enough to let voters overlook her flaws. It probably also helps that her district wasn't heavily Jewish (or at least, doesn't have a lot of Jewish Democrats).

I feel like the network restrictions imposed on Person of Interest might have played to Jonathan Nolan's strengths more. It had some weak episodes, but also well developed characters and episodes that were simply phenomenal-Westworld might not produce anything as bland as "Mission Creep", but it will probably never produce "The Devil's Share". 

Sharp Objects is a very solid show. It starts very slow and kind of builds over the first 6 episodes, each episode deepening your understanding of the people involved and drawing you in. Without even realizing it you become more and more invested in the people and the story, even though they aren't the most sympathetic of characters.

If I had any complaints, it's more about the Southern Gothic format than the show itself. The show does such a good job tying an individual story to "this could be any small town" in the first few episodes, and then just lets things get very weird and horrific and almost fantastical in the last couple episodes, which sort of undermines the strengths the show had up to that that point. Which isn't to say the last couple episodes are bad, they are very engaging and effective in portraying the horror of the situation, it just changed how I felt about the overall product and probably lessened my enjoyment of the whole.

I hate spending more time on complaints than actual positives for good shows. This was a very good slow burn show that was right up my alley. Marti Noxon continues to be terrific and once again justifies her position as my favourite Buffy writer.

Deadwood S1 is really two different shows with a very clear dividing point. Each of those shows has pretty much opposite strengths and weaknesses.

Episodes 1-4 prominently feature Keith Carradine as Wild Bill Hickok, and the show has lots of narrative momentum and a propulsive plot. It's an exciting watch. The main weakness becomes that you don't really have a good feel for the direction or what the show is trying to do except be an exciting and watchable Western. Then from episodes 5 onwards, the show starts to show you exactly what it is and what it's doing. The only problem is that for much of that stretch, it completely loses that narrative momentum that defined it in the early going.

The show is basically pulling a reverse Breaking Bad with Al Swearengen, by introducing him as a villain and then using external means to turn the audiences sympathies without actually changing who he is as a character. Which isn't to say that there's no character development here, but the season basically occurs over approximately 3 weeks to a month of time, so like in life that development is not going to be very clearly defined in that short period of time. The performance is terrific and it works wonders for the overall show, but the depth of it might not be as groundbreaking as it was at the time.

That being said the finale is terrific. It doesn't do much to retroactively lighten up the previous time spent in the show, as the main point of conflict in the finale is something that was introduced late and was maybe a D story up to that point, but it does produce an excellent and well structured episode.

Also, Doc Cochran is one of my new favourite characters.

I think the second last episode is pretty solid, but I think most of the episodes fall into the category of pretty solid. The antepenultimate episode with Mr. Wu was also very good.

It could be part of my problem is that I expected the overall show to have more of a throughline than it actually did. As you say, it just does what it wants whenever it wants, which can definitely be unpredictable but it’s also hard to find a real rhythm in the same way a show like Breaking Bad or even Mad Men can.

Keep in mind I’m not saying this isn’t a great show in any way, shape or form, but my initial experience is a little more middling than I would have expected. Probably due to expectations more than the show. I also felt similar about Sopranos S1 and came around eventually.