3 Best TV Shows Similar to Blood Blockade Battlefront
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As metaphors for one’s tweens and early teens, a superpower that changes your body, often without your control or knowledge, and leaves you questioning who you truly are at any given moment isn’t exactly subtle. But when it comes to chronicling the travails of middle school, perhaps subtlety isn’t the best way to approach the problem anyway. It’s the metaphor Ben (Lucian-River Chauhan) finds himself living as a seventh grader in Me. At school, he’s the new kid, an easy target for Jason (Brock Duncan), the bully who positively bristles with overcompensation. At home, he’s a visitor trying to become a resident as he and his mom, Elizabeth (Dilshad Vadsaria), move in with his stepdad Phil (Kyle Howard) and older stepsister Max (Abigail Pniowsky). His father is nowhere to be seen and quickly dismissed when mentioned. Max’s mom is a constant presence, even if it is usually just by mention. Then, one morning, Ben wakes up looking like Max’s friend (Jeremiah Friedlander). Like the mutants of Marvel’s X-Men, his superpower has kicked in just as adolescence is gearing up. "What do you mean, we aren't allowed to say cap?" demanded Kyle Howard and Dilshad Vadsaria. (AppleTV+) That bit might resemble the lives of Cyclops of Jean Grey, but in most other ways, Me feels a lot more like a junior version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the Gen Alpha set. Like Buffy’s Slayer mantel, Ben’s shapeshifting abilities become a gateway to a far stranger and more dangerous world existing just under the surface of his new home. And just like that series, Me plays best when it focuses on the growing pains of adolescence. Continue Reading →
WondLa
There’s no honest way to say WondLa looks ugly or uninteresting. The environs, in particular, make wonderful use of gentle pastels broken by sharp primary colors to create a world both beautiful and utterly alien (no pun intended) to our protagonist, Eva (Jeanine Mason). But visually attractive isn’t the same as unique or arresting. Sadly, once one begins to scratch the show’s surface, it reveals many all-too-familiar elements. Sometimes, it is just a general sense of the thing. At others, it is nearly one-to-one. For example, Eva’s first otherworldly ally, Otto (Brad Garrett), is a furry talkative sibling to Raya and The Last Dragon’s Tuk Tuk. Similar design elements are typically easy to accept for this critic, provided the story utilizing them offers enough to chew on. It is here that WondLa truly stumbles. A collection of other “coming of age” and “humanity’s end” stories’ greatest hits, the series never offers something fresh enough to get its audience to sit up and take notice. A collection of strong voice work, including Teri Hatcher—who has proven herself a real voice talent asset over the years—is further hamstrung because the voices come from mostly thinly sketched characters. Sarah Hollis and Jeanine Mason love your new look. (AppleTV+) In some unnumbered future year, Eva is the only child living in a vast underground bunker known as a Sanctuary. Her only true companionship is a robot surrogate parent, Muthr, who sees to the child’s physical—and, with time, inevitably—emotional needs. When Eva turns six, she—and the audience—learns she is part of a program to “save” humans from themselves. Under the direction of Cadmus Pryde (Alan Tudyk in a rare straightforward voice performance), the dwindling human populace built an array of Sanctuaries. In each, a robot raised children until the planet healed from the various environmental catastrophes and violent conflicts people visited upon it. When the Earth is ready and the children properly trained, they will be released to the surface to re-establish society and maybe treat each other and their planet right this time. Continue Reading →
Slow Horses
The AppleTV+ spy series retains its humor but gives viewers its most tightly plotted effort yet. Slow Horses Season 3 reiterates how the series differs from so many other TV shows. While critics frequently discuss film as a director’s medium, television tends to be more showrunner—and thus writer—driven. While Horses indeed derives many of its pleasures from the writers—the returning trio of Will Smith, Jonny Stockwood, and Mark Denton once again man the pens—each season’s unique tone owes to its single director. James Hawes made the series’ debut season a workplace comedy where the occasional gun battle might break out. Season 2 darkened or ditched much of the comedy for a bleaker, higher action affair under the direction of Jeremy Lovering. In Slow Horses Season 3, Saul Metzstein doesn’t push the team back into the offices. If anything, Slough House appears even less than in Season 2. However, he does re-up some of the mismatched colleagues’ humor, particularly when it comes to the team’s most recent additions, gambling addict Marcus (Kadiff Kirwan) and drug addict Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards). He also further deepens the emotional stakes with a light touch, adding depth to ever-growing complications. Continue Reading →