Way to not stick the landing.

Repetitive and boring.

11×4 was one of the best episodes of the series, and one of the best hours of TV in 2018. Skip the rest.

My first thought was to say that the show didn’t quite live up to its premise. But since its premise was basically “Bladerunner Clone,” I’d say it landed pretty close. It was an enjoyable watch, with somewhat predictable moves, and a pretty weak finish. It used the slow burn to pretty good effect, as it gradually leaked backstory for this character who’d been frozen for 250 years, until connecting it all in a long, well-constructed flashback episode pretty deep into the season (the strongest episode of the bunch.) After it was slow-burnt, though, it kinda clumsily stumbled through the rest of the present-day plot in a disappointing way. Two particular nits I’d like to pick: First, our protagonist, played with a Deckard-like stoicism by a capable Joel Kinnaman, was an Asian man resurrected in a ripped white guy “sleeve”. This was a sci-fi excused whitewashing, especially noticeable whenever he is referred to as Takeshi, and I would’ve loved to have seen the roles reversed instead. Especially since Will Yun Lee, the actor who plays him in flashback, had a great presence, and would’ve made a great Asian leading man in a non-martial-arts show. Second, apparently 50 years from now, we will not only colonize other worlds, but also develop the technology to move our consciousness between bodies. Then 250 years after that, so little will have changed that if you’d been sleeping that whole time you will have no trouble at all getting up to speed and you’ll somehow still understand all the technical lingo, and be able to conduct a murder investigation involving those technologies expertly. Dumb.

Another Black Mirror type anthology series. From what I’ve read, these are pretty loosely based on the original Philip K. Dick stories, but I haven’t read them. As an anthology series, I’m mostly just going to judge this by averaging them out, since I can’t look at the overall story or character arcs. It’s 10 little movies, some were bad, some were good. Some had awesome cameos, some had wasted cameos. My favorite episodes: The Commuter. Felt this had the best executed thesis without going too heavy on the sci-fi. Autofac: A dystopia about an Amazon-like company run amok is aired on Amazon? Kinda funny. Impossible Planet: Cute, strong characters, understated. Safe & Sound: Really tense and interesting episode that was nearly ruined by the last 60 seconds because they thought the audience was dumb and didn’t understand what happened.

Let’s start with the bad: The title. The constant barrage of 90’s references and era-specific chart toppers. (If you want to do a great era-specific soundtrack, see Halt and Catch Fire as an example.) The creepy courting rituals of boy and man alike. The sidekick nerds with half the believability or likeability of the Freeks and Geeks trio. The “bully” drama nerds? I don’t think that’s a thing.

Despite many wrinkles around the edges, the core of the show felt very moving and authentic, especially due to the two strong child lead actors. You had to feel for the sad inevitability of the situation, and were drawn in by these young characters trying to figure out who they are. I’m not sure exactly what the target audience was supposed to be, since this was exactly when I was in high school, but it didn’t exactly feel like a show for adults. I mean, It was good, but a lot of the characters were pretty broad, and they were clearly making an effort to avoid adult language to get a younger rating. I guess younger viewers are meant to go “what is a VHS tape?” and laugh?

At times brilliant and cutting and hilarious, I just wish it had found some kind of consistency in the back half. I think it suffered most from trying to draw out a 12-episode villain arc. While this version of the classic comic and awesome 90s cartoon tended to be darker at times, it still never felt like there were real stakes, and playing out that story over such a long stretch seemed to be trying to imbue it with a heft that was never really there. The cartoon would offer us wild and hilarious new villains each episode like Chairface Chippendale, El Seed, or a Tick clone made of boogers, which threw new twists at our heroes to figure out wacky schemes to counter them. 12 episodes with The Terror and Ms. Lint seriously exhausted them of any humor or interest. On the plus side, the forces of good had a surprising amount of depth and growth. The live-action iteration wisely made Arthur the well-rounded protagonist, whereas the titular Tick mostly followed cluelessly, with the occasional accidental moment of inspiration. His sister Dot, mostly a punchline in the 90s cartoon, takes a very active role and drives the narrative in surprising ways despite being the only super friend without any “super” powers. Overkill, the Punisher parody, was not only surprisingly funny with his extreme lack of emotional awareness, but also gets the chance to grow in the company of our motley crew as well. And last, but not least, is Danger Boat, voiced by the luminous Alan Tudyk, in my favorite inanimate character of the past year. I would have loved if they’d played his brilliant turn a bit more seriously instead of as jokingly as they did, but it was a really unique angle that I loved a lot. Yeah, I’m being vague, I don’t want to ruin it, now piss off.

A not-terrible show that got canned right as it was coming to a decent conclusion.

The two episodes to close out the season in 2018 didn’t do much to change my overall opinion of the first season. They did close out the arc in a pretty compelling and satisfying way, but the show really sucks at action, and it needed a good action setpiece to finish off the season of this SUPERHERO show. I’m still curious where they’re going to go with the central conflict, which seems to be veering dramatically away from the contract of the comics, which was kids vs parents. In making the parents inhabit more of a three-dimensional, gray role, it would be sacrificing the most interesting selling point of the original material.

Season 2 expanded the mythology a bit, though the action issues remained.

While still suffering from a few too many themes drawn out well past their point of interest, the final stretch of the Saviors arc was by far the most interesting and compelling and surprisingly hopeful. Ironically, it was Carl who lifted up this last handful of episodes, and really pushed a number of characters in interesting ways, and brought back some of the humanity that had been lacking recently on the show. Even our time spent with The Saviors was much more compelling with some dissension in the ranks, and political machinations that were totally believable given the dire situations at the Sanctuary. Throw in some cool revelations on Jadis and the trash people, and a couple of very surprising twists in the finale, and you’ve got the most entertaining zombie half-season in quite a while.

While a shake-up was definitely in order, Season 9 didn’t entirely deliver. It had its intriguing moments. It felt a bit like a cheap trick to have our characters become enemies during a time jump, just to give them unearned obstacles to overcome. If we’d been able to watch the characters make these turns naturally, it would have worked way better. Some unearned shocks, and the show is really a shell of its former self at this point.

Man, no series this year has made me jump between excitement and regret more than Star Trek: Discovery. They came crashing out of the gate in 2018 with a really fun and compelling mini-arc that ended in a hugely exciting if somewhat trope-y action setpiece unlike anything I’d seen in Trek TV before. Then they wrap up the season with a pathetic whimper. It’s a shame, because I really love these core characters, especially Saru, Tilly, and Stamets. Sonequa Martin-Green also really impressed me with her job helming this ship (metaphorical ship, sorry that was confusing) after her serviceable job at a fairly lame character on Walking Dead.

A clunky finish to a clunky show.

While there are still elements I am loving about the show, it is starting to feel like it’s running out of direction and propulsion. She’s navigating a tricky area now where she’s got awareness of her issues but can’t actually get better or there’s no show. So they have to dig to find narrative excuses to help her off the wagon, so to speak, and sometimes they work better than others. Sometimes of the songs feel perfunctory because they need songs in each episode, and sometimes they are brilliant. Trent, at one time my favorite “character” (he’s really more of an extended joke), finally was overplayed, although the “I’m Just a Boy In Love” number made me want to die in a good way.

2019 also included the top half of the final season, which really stumbled along with a new brand of aimlessness.

RIP. Sad to see this weird show go.

Lovely ending to an under-appreciated show.

Watched both S1 and S2 this year. S1 was better, but S2 had its strengths, including the radiant Carrie Coon.

I can’t give a full explanation for my rating without talking about the plot. It is definitely a story-focused show. I will say I loved the atmosphere: creepy, fun, scary, without being slasher scary or cheap. I enjoyed how it played around with expectations, and was constantly surprising me. It lulled for a couple episodes in the middle, but really dug back into my brain with an exceptional episode finally focusing on Sissy Spacek’s character. While I felt a little let down by the finale, there was a lot to chew on and appreciate in the journey leading there.

While I acknowledge that “British Hollywood” is a smaller pool such that it feels like you see the same actors in everything, but it was still neat to see three Doctor Who alums heading up this political crime drama. Sure, Carey Mulligan was only in one Doctor Who, but she was the star of an episode widely considered one of the best of the new series, so it counts. Plus Collateral ended up being a really interesting miniseries that ended up not being a whodunit, but an almost “The Wire”-like exploration of our institutions, most notably the government’s treatment of immigrants, but also touching on the church and law enforcement. Not all the threads felt satisfying in their ending or their execution, especially the Billie Piper and Nicola Walker plotlines. But Carey Mulligan was REALLY good, and her character really kicked ass. John Simm also gives a strong performance (I like almost all his work), but his character arc kinda fizzles a bit. One the whole, however, I found myself really drawn in by this very unusual and compelling thriller, and wished it was longer than the brief 4 hours it got.

Don’t care for horror, but loved this.

Not just another Dexter, though with clear influences. Bizarre concept that ends up working both for comedy and drama. Noho Hank.

Dove into this with an uncharacteristic lack of information. Saw the brief preview on the Netflix splash screen the day it dropped, was curious, and kicked it off. I’m not an impulsive person, and prefer at least 3 independent strong opinions on a show before I give it a spot in my precious TV real estate for the year. But I threw caution into the wind and binged this British gem in an evening. It certainly paralleled Dexter in its uneasy placement of trust in a self-proclaimed psychopath who enjoys killing animals and is ready to move on to larger prey. However, his intended prey is an assertive, strong-willed girl named Alyssa, who wobbles precariously close to Manic Pixie Dream Girl territory, but actually settles in as a second fully-formed protagonist with her own flaws, and really is the compelling life blood of the show. It’s a wild, enjoyable dark comedy that end up being very charming with a handful of strong characters and an exciting arc.

Could’ve been three episodes shorter. Noah is occasionally a bit distracting with his out-there-edness. Extremely strong finale.

Bojack got there first, but Brockmire still hits strong notes and gives the characters surprising depth.

Didn’t have the same emotional impact as S2, and they still aren’t getting anywhere with me trying to make Dale a sympathetic character.

The show known for redefining itself kept it going in spades in the back half of Season 2. While the frequent twists and turns of the story did a great job of keeping it from getting at all stale, I most enjoyed “Best Self”, which was a relatively uneventful but reflective episode that gave us a chance to figure themselves out a bit. I also liked that they kinda subverted our expectation of another massive subversion and gave us really a kind of prolonged reset at the end. The year ended with one of the wildest and most creative episode yet.

Powerful. Heartbreaking. Difficult. A storytelling achievement.

Still inconsistent. Still very high highs.

Facebook Watch?? Very raw and real and moving. Elizabeth Olsen is great.

That funeral episode, man.

Had nightmares about those frickin’ brine pits. The oceans are crazy, man.

Phoebe. Sandra. Jodie.

My reviews of The Americans are basically the same every year: when the story is focused, there’s nothing like it. The final season tightened the story, and focused on the most compelling part: country vs. family. And whatever is a stronger word than “stuck”, they did that with the landing. Keri Russell was seriously robbed of her Emmy. (As clearly was the show… fuck Game of Thrones.)