Obliterated
SimilarFlorida Man, Lupin,
Watch afterAhsoka, Gen V, Reacher,
Star Trek: Picard The Wheel of Time, True Detective,
Netflix’s action-comedy is deadly short on both.
There’s something undeniably attractive about the premise of Obliterated. A highly skilled team of soldiers, spies, bomb experts, and tech geniuses stop on nuclear bomb detonation in the heart of Las Vegas and fully celebrate their victory. And by fully celebrate, we mean FULLY. Drugs, alcohol, exotic animals, hundreds of guests, plenty of sex toys, and so on. Then they wake in the morning to find their mission wasn’t as successful as they thought, and now they have no choice but to try and save the day in various stages of loaded and hungover.
Sadly, miles exist between premise and execution. Think the difference between visiting the Bellagio in Vegas and the Tropicana in Atlantic City. Then double it. Maybe triple it. Put it another way, Obliterated is bad. Very bad. Continue Reading →
Our Flag Means Death
NetworkHBO Max, Max,
Similar'Allo 'Allo!, A Fortunate Life, A Respectable Trade,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Cigarette Girl, Dancing on the Edge, Flower Boy Next Door, Jack the Ripper, Oh, Doctor Beeching!,
Pride and Prejudice Seijuu Sentai Gingaman,
Sherlock Holmes The Alienist, The Gangster Chronicles,
It’s always the surprise hit quirky shows with the most to live up to in their second season. A bad sophomore outing, especially after quickly gaining a cult following, could make or break, say, the plucky little pirate romance known as Our Flag Means Death Season 2. Luckily, David Jenkins, Taika Waititi, et al. keep things fresh and fun without reinventing (or stealing) the wheel. Continue Reading →
Justified: City Primeval
NetworkFX,
Similar2Moons: The Series,
Agatha Christie's Poirot Akashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor, Alias Grace, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Around the World in 80 Days, Dexter, Fearless, Game of Thrones, Gossip Girl, Helltown, Jewels, M*A*S*H, Mr. Mercedes, No Escape,
Planet of the Apes Pride and Prejudice Sám vojak v poli, Santa Evita,
Sherlock Holmes Star and Sky: Star in My Mind, Tales from the Neverending Story, The Alienist, The Buccaneers, The Family Game, The Lost World, The Moon Embracing the Sun, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Word of Honor, Wycliffe,
How does anyone justify a revival? The original Justified gave viewers a conclusion in the first 30 minutes and an epilogue with the last 16. It gave Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) a fitting third act, living in Miami as a part-time dad to his daughter and finally enjoying freedom from the town he worked so hard to escape. So how does a creative team go from “we dug coal together?” to that nearly happy ending to a brand-new Givens tale? The simple answer is to head north. Continue Reading →
Up Here
There’s a subset of “Will they or won’t they?” stories that are perhaps best described as “They will, then they won’t, then they will again, then they won’t again, and so on.” There are certainly fans of this kind of story. Arguably the most popular sitcom of the past 40 years, Friends, had Ross and Rachel bouncing together and apart repeatedly. Hulu’s new musical series Up Here is the latest example of that rom-com subset of a subset. Continue Reading →