224 Best TV Shows Similar to Game of Thrones (Page 11)

Thank goodness for Shonda Rhimes, not only for having the clout to bring a beloved historical romance to a major streaming service but for recognizing what’s been missing from historical television drama: Fun. And Bridgerton is fun, bursting at the seams with romantic tropes, six-packs, friendship, and scandal.  Continue Reading →

It’s the season finale of The Mandalorian Season 2, and I hope we’re all prepared to feel our feelings. Last time, Mando and the Grogu Rescue Crew (Boba Fett, Fennec Shand, and Cara Dune) sprung former Imperial sharpshooter Migs Mayfeld (Bill Burr) so he could help them get access to the Imperial intranet and get the coordinates for Moff Gideon’s light cruiser. The mission was a success, though not without its problems, as Mando (Pedro Pascal) was forced to use the terminal instead of Mayfeld, necessitating the second-ever removal of his helmet since taking the Creed. They got the intel and headed out (sans a released Mayfeld) to face off against Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) and get back that little green guy.  Continue Reading →

The bones of “Terra Firma Pt. II'' are good. The core of the episode pays off Emperor Georgiou’s (Michelle Yeoh) return engagement with the Mirror Universe with conviction. She chooses to keep Mirror Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) alive, attempting to break her daughter toward the Emperor’s new way of thinking rather than dispose of her. She decides to save Saru (Doug Jones) and shares the truth about the Vahar’ai with him rather than letting him die. She moves, slowly but firmly, toward peace and diplomatic solutions in lieu of total and merciless domination. Continue Reading →

When I saw that Netflix made all ten hour-long episodes of its new ballet show, Tiny Pretty Things, available to review, I was intimidated. Even during a global pandemic, ten hours of uninterrupted solo TV time can be hard to come by on short notice. Luckily, Tiny Pretty Things was built to be binged. Fast-paced and drama-filled, the story whisks viewers away from their own lives and plunges them into a grim, seedy world of backroom dealings, sexual blackmail, Machiavellian schemes, and, finally, ballet.  Continue Reading →

This review was written jointly by Spool staff writers Beau North and Megan Sunday. Continue Reading →

With the announcement last month that Amazon Prime Video's The Expanse will end after season six, it's bittersweet for many fans (including myself) to see the true end of the show in front of us. Still, it's a miracle we got three more seasons of the show at all, considering Amazon's hail-Mary save after Syfy's cancelation of the show post-season 3. Season 4 (the first after its move to Amazon) was an ambitious, if slightly slower and atonal, adventure; if the first three episodes of season 5 are any indicator, The Expanse is back to what it does best, expanding its scope while getting more personal than ever. Continue Reading →

Netflix's latest overstuffed fantasy adaptation is a challenge for viewers' time & patience. Visiting the source material before watching an adaptation can be a difficult decision to make. On the one hand, going into a viewing experience as fresh and free of expectations as possible typically feels like the best-case scenario. On the other hand, some level of awareness can make it easier to follow the early installments of, say, a six-episode Netflix series. To be a little less opaque, not being familiar with The Letter for the King’s source material -- the Dutch 60’s fantasy novel De brief voor de Koning -- makes the early goings of the Netflix series a bit of a slog. The first episode of newcomer showrunner Will Davies’s effort in particular feels very nearly inert. Too many characters are introduced with little clarity on their back story, and there's too much switching from location to location without giving us a true feel for the world. It's so much setup to achieve so little connection with the audience. However, as Tiuri (Amir Wilson) begins to undergo the trials of becoming a knight more in earnest in episode 2, the world starts to take shape. More important, the show starts to develop a personality. In addition to finally separating Tiuri out as our lead, the supporting characters snap into relief. We see the mix of nobility, arrogant callousness, and underhandedness of Tiuri’s adopted father and namesake Sir Tiuri the Valiant (David Wenham). Sir Fantumar’s (Omid Djalili) thirst for power and disgust for others starts to reveal itself. Additionally, characters who ultimately do not figure stronger into the narrative become easier to spot. Continue Reading →

David Simon and Ed Burns' adaptation of the Philip Roth novel paints a harrowing picture of an alternate America that feels all too prescient. HBO’s latest miniseries imagines a world where renowned pilot, isolationist, and anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh runs for president and defeats FDR in 1940. What follows is a rise in anti-Semitic hate and fascism throughout America. And as you watch the series, you’d be forgiven for thinking this a pretty in-your-face way to address the Trump administration. That might be true, but the series is based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name which was released more than 15 years ago in 2004. If anything, Roth’s The Plot Against America has been frustratingly, dishearteningly prescient. It’s no wonder showrunners David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire) were drawn to it. The show follows the Levin family (originally the Roths in the novel) as they deal with the shifting political tide and how it strains their family bonds. Father Herman (Morgan Spector) is an outspoken liberal who finds Lindbergh distasteful and disgusting. Wife Bess (Zoe Kazan) frets constantly for the safety of her family, remembering all too well how isolating it was to be the only Jewish girl in her class growing up.  Michele K. Short/HBO Cousin Alvin shares Herman’s political leanings, but is determined to act, eventually signing up for the Canadian army in order to “kill Nazis.” Meanwhile, impressionable young Sandy (Caleb Malis) grapples with his hero Lindbergh’s politics while his little brother Phillip (Azhy Robertson) tries to make sense of it all. Things are only further complicated when Bess’s sister Evelyn (Winona Ryder) falls for Rabbi Bengelsdorf (John Turturro), a staunch Lindbergh supporter.  Continue Reading →

Amazon's adaptation of the Roberto Saviano novel is far too passive and jumbled to capture your interest. “Look at cocaine and all you see is powder. Look through cocaine and you see the world,” says the tagline to Roberto Saviano’s book, ZeroZeroZero. Now an eight-part mini-series on Amazon Prime, the show promises the same. It purports to be the whole picture of the cocaine trade from the Italian buyers to the Mexican sellers to the American brokers. We follow the effects of a single shipment of cocaine on the lives of people spread across multiple continents. Unfortunately, showrunners Stefano Sollima, Leonardo Fasoli, and Mauricio Katz’s attempt is unwieldy and unfocused. Reviews of the source material reported similar issues, with Saviano’s narrative often lacking, well... narrative structure. You’d hope that the show would seek to correct this by streamlining Saviano’s many interviews into a cohesive picture, but it ends up replicating them instead. It does simplify the cast of characters, however. We focus mainly on three sets of people: the tumultuous relationship between an Italian mobster grandson (Giuseppe De Domenico) and his grandfather (Adriano Chiaramida) who plan to buy the cocaine shipment; the American brother (Dane DeHaan) and sister (Andrea Riseborough) brokering the deal; and the Mexican soldier turned narco (Harold Torres) doing the selling.  Continue Reading →

FX's true crime documentary examines one man's obsessive search for the truth about his birth father. Is there more to belonging than being told you belong? Is there truly a feeling that we are out of place, out of sync, out of favor with those who surround us? Or is it a lie that gets repeated so often it becomes true? For Gary Stewart of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, these questions are what drive him beyond a simple desire to know and to belong. FX’s new four-part documentary miniseries, The Most Dangerous Animal of All, explores Stewart’s quest for understanding and the fallout of his obsession.  Told in a quiet, confessional style, Stewart stares directly into the camera, his voice occasionally choking with emotion. Abandoned as a baby, Stewart’s trust issues are understandably deep-rooted—and they’re as much a part of his identity as the color of his eyes. Despite being adopted at three months old into a loving family who raised him with strong values, he struggled with the feelings of being unloved, of not belonging anywhere and to anyone. He even has a string of broken marriages to prove it.  One thing that series creators Ross M. Dinerstein and Kief Davidson make clear from the beginning is that identity is a slippery concept. Do our genetics determine who we are or does our environment? Would Gary Stewart have been a more stable adult if he’d never discovered that his birth parents were once a sensational news story, or would the wound of not knowing where he comes from continue to fester?  Continue Reading →

Ralph’s stubbornness becomes a liability, and Jack finds a sympathetic ear in a disappointingly below par episode. Warning: don’t read until you’ve seen the episode! At what point does folding one’s arms and refusing to give in start to become actively harmful? Ralph’s noble pursuit of truth and logic despite the increasing weirdness of the Peterson case is now hindering the investigation, while Glory’s refusal to pull up stakes and leave town is causing her needless pain. Both of them are unwittingly setting up a veritable banquet for the The Grief Eater in “In the Pines, In the Pines,” a shorter than normal episode written by mystery author Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island) that feels a bit like filler. It’s the morning after Holly’s disastrous presentation, and no one really knows what to do next. Though Ralph (Ben Mendelsohn) told Yunis (Yul Vazquez) that he was going to return to “real police shit” in the ongoing investigation, he mostly just wanders around his house in a troubled fog. Jeannie (Mare Winningham) is so shaken by the discovery that her nighttime visitor was real that she’s gotten rid of the chair it was sitting in, to which Ralph reacts to his with his usual, slightly condescending harrumphing. It’s unclear at this point if Ralph is troubled because he thinks there might be some truth to what Holly’s saying, or because the only person left on his side is Howard (Bill Camp), who, being the Maitland Family’s attorney, is technically his adversary. Continue Reading →

Jim Carrey returns as a kids' show host who stubbornly continues to choose goodness, no matter what life throws at him. Kidding picks up right where it left off in season one, with reality literally crashing in on Jeff Pickles (Jim Carrey). Season two follows the ever-moving cycle of conflict in Jeff’s life and psyche. Though no longer listed as a director for the series, Michel Gondry’s cool, icy tone (with plenty of gliding single takes) is still present. In this season, it's former Weeds showrunner Dave Holstein’s delightfully twisted sense of humor that gets to shine. The series fully embraces the absurdity of its circumstances and brings more laughs. Not to say the show is any lighter. Like Weeds, it brings the menace this season. It’s 2020; everyone's into ax play. When we last left Enlightened PBS Children’s Entertainer Jeff Pickles, things were going from bad to worse in every aspect of his life. His show was on permanent hiatus; his marriage, torn apart by the death of his son Phil, is in tatters; family estranged, and his identity is being pulled apart. All he had was the hope found in the felt-fantasy land of Picklebarrel Falls.  Carrey remains a consistent highlight throughout this season, making appropriate choices when conveying Jeff’s conflicted ethics. Jeff ticks and the wheels turn in his brain; it’s part of what makes him feel human. As the show embraces the comedy chops of its main cast, flashes of “Classic Carrey” are present and we can see that Carrey hasn’t lost his goofiness at all and that everything being acted for us is a choice. Continue Reading →