MILLER!

BROADCHURCH – (UK)

David Tennant stars fresh off his run as Doctor Who from 2013 for three seasons ending in 2017. There are quite a few cross over players from Dr. Who (mostly from the the Davies/Moffat eras) and they’re given a breath of fresh air with room for acting depth they would never get the chance to show under the Dr. Who banner. Broadchurch is as far from the silliness of Dr. Who as you can get. The first season is near perfection, laying out the story of the murder of an 11 year old boy and the impact it has on the family and the small fictional community of Broadchurch, Dorset. It leans into fresh perspectives without falling into too many familiar tropes. We’re given compelling character traits that unfold into their own small mysteries for the viewer to solve. The main plot and mystery wrap up in a way that is not obvious, yet not obtusely obscure in its conclusion. Season 1 stands on its own, you could easily stop after the close of season 1 and remain satisfied you’ve watched some of writer Chris Chibnal’s finest work. Dr. Who fans will recognize that name as well, while he was show runner for an era of Dr. Who I didn’t really care for, he was also a writer under both Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat during their tenure heading Dr. Who. He can clearly write, and he shows us his talent here.
Season 2 falls off pretty hard, yet I did not struggle to get through the season. While season 3 picks up, it is not to the heights of quality set in season 1. I think it’s worth a watch for the whole series. 

The second of 2 facebook posts:

UK SHOWS I LIKED THAT I THINK SOME PEOPLE MIGHT NOT HAVE SEEN

Folks liked the last post I made about TV shows. Thank you for the comments and likes and DMs.

I said I would write a list for UK shows, so here it is.

I’m not gonna write about some of the most obvious stuff here like Dr. Who, Are You Being Served, Faulty Towers, AbFab, ETC. I’m going to try to limit this to newer stuff, or stuff that might have flown below most folks radars (most folks who are reading this anyways).

This list was really hard to write, there are so many shows I’ve decided to split it up into a couple of posts, the second will come later.

Happy Valley

This might be one of the best television shows ever made. What is even wilder is that there is a 7 year gap between the second and third season, and the show does not miss a beat. On the surface another police drama. Wonderfully woven under that surface is a powerful family story and the heavy emotional tolls we bring with us no matter where we try to run. And that one death. Look, I’m not macabre, I just love when a show is honest, and sometimes a character has to die to maintain that honesty, and the way they die is a part of that too. Death is sometimes a surprise, and shocking, and painful and this show will remind you of that.

Every line and every scene in this show has a purpose and a direction and a tone, even with that 7 year gap. It really is a credit to the writer and showrunner Sally Wainwright (Last Tango in Halifax) and the star Sarah Lancashire. When Sally Wainwright first conceived the show she had Lancashire in mind for the lead. It’s 3 seasons of a British show, so only 18 episodes. That’s less than the number of Battlestar Galactica episodes you binged on your first day of COVID lockdown.

If you need something similar, the closest you’ll get is Blue Lights, which is OK, nowhere near as good.

8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown

Cats does Countdown is the result of an accidental pairing of two TV shows to make one of the best things to have ever been accidentally discovered. I love British comedy panel shows. 8 out of 10 Cats is one of my favorites. It’s a comedy panel game show that is supposed to focus on guessing the results of surveys about current pop culture news in England. It is almost always completely off the rails. Countdown is a show in the vein of Quiz Show where England’s smartest compete switching between rounds of word puzzles and number puzzles. It is also one of Britain’s longest running game shows.

In 2012, Channel 4 execs thought it would be a cool idea to convince the shows under their banner to do “mash-ups” of other shows on their network. They pitched the idea to do an episode of Countdown to the 8 out of 10 Cats crew. It was such a massive hit that Channel 4 ordered the full series. It is now in its 14th year. There have been some amazing co-hosts, and some absolutely terrible guest stars. Jimmy Carr (no relation to Alan Carr) hosts and Sean Lock absolutely shines. Jon Richardson is great as well, at the same time Jimmy Carr and Sean Lock together is one of those once in a lifetime pairings. Jimmy Carr recently said that Sean Lock was the funniest person he’d ever met or worked with. Sean Lock was brilliant and wild, it is joyous to watch him work alongside Jimmy Carr somehow playing the straight man here. The production team is barely in control of anything, especially when Joel Wilkinson makes one of his many, many appearances, and you feel like you are getting a glimpse under the hood on how brilliant comedy is made. There is something wonderfully peanut butter and chocolate about the mash-up of 8 out of 10 Cats does Countdown. It carries on well enough after the too soon passing of the great Sean Lock, it will also never be the same without him. The silver lining to his death is that it sparked a resurgence and burst of great attention to both 8 out of 10 Cats and Cats Does Countdown.

Ghosts

There is an American version of this show starring an Australian— It’s ok. The British version threads a needle the American version doesn’t. It’s smart, yet not arrogant. It has moments of beauty that are not overpowered. It is funny without making fun of itself or stooping to an easy punchline. It also doesn’t center on a single cast member to move the story. There is no need to carry a significant explanation to the plot either.

Oh right. The plot. So basically a young couple moves to an ancient estate in England that is a part of an inheritance. After an accident, one of the cast members can now see the ghosts who inhabit the premises. Those ghosts are bound to the area where they’ve died, some having died 10,000 or more years ago, until for a myriad of reasons finally ascend to another plain of existence… and so comedy ensues?

It is funny. Kiell Smith-Bynoe is great. Charlotte Ritchie, from Fresh Meat, Siblings. Lolly Adefope (Plebs, Everyone Else Burns, Miracle Workers). If you’ve seen a few British shows you will recognize Simon Farnaby. He’s one of those actors that pops up in everything, he was amazing in Detectorists. Laurence Rickard is the true gem in this show. Unrecognizable in his brilliant performance, he is also part of the writing troupe (Them There) responsible for this show. I hope with the selling of the show to American television we get more and more of his and the troupe’s work.

Detectorists

This is on my top ten of all time shows. From the first note of the amazing theme song (a favorite of any TV show theme, written and performed by Scrotal Recall/Lovesick star and amazing talent Johnny Flynn) to the very last episode; I am always left wanting more of every minute of this show. Metal detectors are the tools used by detectorists, don’t worry, they will remind you. There is a theme in the shows on this list where they don’t make fun of their subject matter, that would be the cheap joke to make. Does Detectorists make fun of the people that use metal detectors? Yes, does it make fun of them for detecting? No. In fact, by the time the series ends even the most cynical about the hobby will be turned. Toby Jones is incredible, as always, delivering a performance full of nuance in a character with a deep and complicated backstory that would fall flat with lesser actors. Mackenzie Crook also stars, he was also the show creator and writer, and is equally brilliant. His writing is spot-on, and his portrayal of the character is both hilarious and heartfelt. When Crook talked about returning to write a 75-minute Christmas special five years after the show’s finale, he expressed genuine excitement about discovering what his characters would be up to next. It’s clear that Detectorists is a deeply loved work of art, and one of the best examples of “slice of life” storytelling in a series.

Big Boys

A standout series created by and written by Jack Rooke who is quickly becoming known for blending the raw reality of life and grief with the comedy of everyday struggles. Jon Pointing (of Plebs and other credits) might seem a little one-dimensional at first, but as the series unfolds, we see almost unending depth and layers of his performance that perfectly complement the incredibly intimate and personal story Jack Rooke brings us. Everyone should have noticed his work here and I hope that means we see more than the dumb blonde shtick he might sometimes be typecast with.

The series follows two young men (the titular Big Boys) entering their first year of college. One is a slightly older, non-traditional student who’s just starting after taking time off to care for his grandmother. The other is a young man who took a gap year after his father’s death and is grappling with coming out. Both are dealing with their own personal struggles while trying to navigate university life, facing a delayed coming-of-age experience.

Big Boys was canceled twice—clearly by someone who never watched it, or maybe by some TV executive who is secretly a bigot. It certainly wasn’t canceled for lack of quality. In fact, it’s one of the best things to come out of Channel 4. Like so many great shows that get cut short, it had to wrap things up unexpectedly at the end of Season 2 after being informed they were to be cancelled, but Big Boys faced this challenge head-on and delivered an incredible season finale. Or so they thought. The end of season 2 should serve as a textbook example for any show potentially forced into a premature conclusion. It was so good in fact that it played a part in the reversal of that cancellation. So we got a third, stellar season. This last season really lands the theme of juxtaposing joy and pain. One of the best lines I’ve ever heard about losing someone too soon comes from the last episode of Season 3. It buttons up nicely while not diminishing the quality ending of Season 2.

Misfits

Misfits is a sci-fi-ish show from way back in 2009 about a group of young adults who gain unique superpowers after a freak electrical storm while on community service. It got a lot of completely baseless comparisons to the American show Heroes from the same era. If you’re looking for what Heroes should have been, this is it. While Heroes struggled with a messy storyline and never quite nailed its execution past the first season, Misfits manages to craft clear, engaging story arcs across each season, despite a revolving door of actors.

Where Heroes watered down the themes of being an underdog and the classism inherent in superhero stories, Misfits fully embraces those ideas, often with a sharp political edge.

This show also launched the career of some of England’s best dramatic talents. You’ll recognize a lot of faces, too many to list and all too good in this show to single any one out.

The first three seasons are definitely the best, but after some encouragement from my friend Josh, I went back to finish the series, and while it’s a bit messy at times, it’s definitely worth it. Plus, it’s one of the few shows on this list that offers a substantial number of episodes for hardcore bingers.

Sex Education

Lookit here, if you have netflix and you haven’t seen Sex Education then you should cancel your netflix account because you aren’t getting your money’s worth, they were promoting this show pretty hard for a while, and in true American streaming fashion were claiming credit for producing the show.

Netflix sells it as a “British teen sex comedy” to which I would respond with a laughing ‘fuck you buddy. In fact I think this series stands as some kind of metaphor of how poorly older folks have treated Gen Z as a whole. Writing them off as lazy simpleton sex obsessed crybabies when in reality they face the harshest childhood possible, come through it with amazing poise and dignity and emotional maturity, and out the other side with more compassion than the best of my generation or the boomers before me. This show is a showcase of exactly that. How both vulnerable and messy life is for them, while also showing the rest of us how to treat each other and find ways to live the best life possible out of what remains of the shit world we are left with. Joel Wilkinson is magically hilarious in his guest appearances. Ncuti Gatwa is great here, I hope he can recover from that disastrous season of Dr. Who, or that he realizes he can do better, because they are wasting his talent. Connor Swindells also shines. Aimee Lou Wood nails a transformative performance through the series. Look for her new series Daddy Issues, which is also great.

WHAT I WATCHED IN 2024 THAT I FELT COMPELLED TO WRITE ABOUT:

I started this blog from a post I made from facebook. I just wanted to share some of my favorite things I’d watched during 2024 to help me get past the huge gut punch/throat gulp of having another Trump presidency. Sorry. That’s the last time I’ll bring it up I swear. We’re here for a trip away from all that.
Below is my original facebook post from January 6 (I know, I know, it’s just a coincidence). I’ve left it as is. I know there have been updates, changes, cancellations, etc. that I wasn’t aware of when I wrote the original post. I also wanted to present it unedited, mostly cause I didn’t know where to start this blog.

Some notes: Sometimes I will list that I have re-watched something. My intention is to present that I might have found new insight, or something new to present about the show. I may very well write about a show that I previously wrote about in order to share more. In that instance I will label the entry as a re-watch.

US/UK/AUS/NZ/ETC. There are plenty of shows that are made in other countries. If I found that show from a source that is outside the normal viewing channels for a US audience I’ll label it as such. If it is easily accessible to US audiences through US vendors I most likely won’t label the originating country. My intention with that designation is to help folks find where to watch the show while also not advertising any services.

Slow Horses

Gary Oldman in a spy/espionage series where the spies are far from perfect at being spies. This show is great because it isn’t just some attempt at socially aggrandizing spies or trying to convince us that secret government agencies are cool. In fact it’s great at showing folks how uncool it is that secret government operations even exist, and also how ineffective they often are, and how they probably cause just as many problems as they claim to solve, and how (every once in a while) it turns out they might be a little necessary but are they worth the cost? There is no political message here, just a little grounded reality spy show.

English Teacher

The tagline says A high-school English teacher navigating the personal, political, and professional obstacles life throws his way. Why does it sound so unremarkable? In some kind of weird twist of fate I also think that unremarkable description is the perfect description of this amazing blend of cynical and grounded humor. I love when cynical humor is done right. English Teacher was a stand out this year for sure. Enrico Colantoni is in it. He is easily one of the best actors alive today. He’s been in TV shows where the skill gap between him and the other cast have been downright distracting. He is in this show and it is not distracting at all. This show has all the makings of becoming one of the greats. If it can survive being cancelled. That’s how good it is, it’s so good some asshole will probably try to cancel it.

Community

Re-watch, like maybe my third or fourth re-watch – I still know people who haven’t seen this show, I have so many different ways I would pitch this show. It is a pleasure to watch this cast at the top of their game and yet so close to the beginning of their upward trajectory. Much of this cast have become household names. Allison Brie, Donald Glover (Childish Gambino), Danny Pudi, Gillian Jacobs, Ken Jeong. Jim Rash is an amazing talent and it is almost kind of odd at how much his range and acting ability are on display during the series. It might also be a testament to how this show is more than a simple sitcom and at the same time, it is a fantastic sitcom. If you want to know what Jeff Winger ended up doing after leaving Greendale, you’ll be happy to know he is an animal control officer in Seattle now. https://g.co/kgs/RifsaL2

Hacks

This show is snuggling its way into my all time favorite shows-sheets. Hacks was created by Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky, and Paul Downs. You might remember those by-lines from Broad City. If you haven’t, you should watch Broad City. Jean Smart already has an amazing career, Designing Women was amazing (and at times wonderfully progressive). Her work on Frasier was above and beyond. Hannah Einbinder keeps pace right beside her, she is a talented comedian and writer in her own right, and she is spectacular in a cast of amazing and funny talent.

Somebody Somewhere

Well for f(*&s sake, HBO can’t help but cancel every single good thing they start. Somebody Somewhere has one of my favorite pilot episodes ever. There are 3 solid seasons with the 3rd having been released in October. It is a beautifully personal work of art with a cast that fits so well you’d think they all had a part in the writer’s room. I really appreciate how every time you think they might be heading towards some cynical trope, they just simply don’t. They keep the story honest to each character without ever smashing in some shortcut to our emotions. Bridget Everett, and Jeff Heller aren’t putting on a show so much as acting so well you would think you were meeting them for waffles later. And Murray Hill is in this. Murray Hill is my shit, Murray Hill is perfection. I feel endless joy that I am alive at the same time as Murray Hill, and also existential dread that something bad will happen to him. Whenever he shows up somewhere I’m ready to watch. We must do everything we can to protect Murray Hill. Did I do a good job describing the show? I don’t know. I’m not sorry. Murray Hill. Done. That’s all you should need. Next show. On with the list.

Int. Chinatown

Whoever cast Ronny Chieng for his part was on some meta level brilliant shit. All of us white folk are going to be talking about Ronny Chieng’s brilliantly belligerent performance when we talk about this show. For good reason, it’s really great. This show is a weird ride that plays to me really well. I like referential shows, not so much when they are specific, but when they are an homage that is also a little parody. I’m looking you right in the eyes Community, or the entire of the movie Be Kind Rewind. Charles Yu is the show runner, who also wrote the book this show is based off of. The only way they could mess this up is if they fire the show creator-slash-runner at the end of Season 3 ಠಿ_ಠ.
Yu received some amazing recognition for his novel, a National Book Award among many other accolades. TV folks will recognize his name from the fantastic Season 1 of Westworld and as the writer tapped by Taika Waititi to write his protracted Akira adaptation, which now looks more likely to happen as a TV series instead of a movie. So the lesson here is just watch everything Charles Yu puts his name on and you won’t go wrong. Int. Chinatown is fantastic work.

Laid

US remake of a decent Australian show, the Australian took a dark turn towards the end in a way I didn’t like. It is a brilliant premise for a TV show. I feel like the US version made some better choices for the first season, even if at times it leaned a little into bubble gum pop. Don’t worry, it’s not some sort of Sex Lives of College Girls. There’s real adult work happening here. The cast is spectacular, Stephanie Hsu (Ms. Maisel, Joy Ride) is a massive talent and I hope this show can provide the vessel that shows everyone why she should be a household name. I think there are some directing/editing issues that the writing and acting do a decent job making up for. They make up for it enough for me anyways. I like this show.

Babylon 5

rewatch – I hadn’t watched this show since the 90s. And even then, it didn’t really hold my attention. Rewatching this now I found a deep appreciation that I’m surprised I didn’t find then. Babylon 5 is a more urgent and passionate version of Star Trek (which I love, and DS9 and TNG are my favorites). BB5’s message is clearly pointed, where Star Trek was a broader philosophy. I took a lot of comfort post elections watching BB5. It’s like a TV version of 90s second wave emo/hardcore (not that 3rd wave mallrat shit you think is emo, more like (https://youtu.be/q9vClfyaT1M?t=122). Political, angry, passionate, and often forced to go the DIY route to get the message out into the world. Seasons 1-4 are great, season 5 gets weird and is also unnecessary to the overarching plot of the series. Seasons 1-4 accomplish the message and tie up the story just fine. If you struggle with dated visuals you’ll struggle here. If you can get half way through season 1, you will sail through the rest. Just wish that Season 5 wasn’t so fu()*ing awkward bud.

19-2

rewatch – Speaking of Jared Kelso, before Shoresy (Letterkinney with a thinly veiled plot), before Letterkinny (what should have never been more than a youtube short, fight me) there was 19-2. A Canadian-made series about patrol police in Montreal. Which is a direct remake of a Quebecois series by the same show runner/director but for English speaking audiences.

Jared Kelso wasn’t the only star on the come-up here, Dan Petronivandtherestoftheletters, Laurence Leboeuf (Turbo Kid, Le Petite Rein), Benz Antione. I could just list a bunch of names and you aren’t even reading at this point are you?

Content/trigger warning goes without saying here, it’s a police drama, this show has violence and death and no one is spared from that in this show. With that in mind season 2 is one of the best season openers I’ve ever seen. It’s so well done that it is used in police training courses on the subject. You don’t really need to have ever seen a single episode to appreciate it, which really speaks to the quality of work here. At the same time, it is so much better having been through the first season. It really is worth going in blind to the episode; so if you can, avoid looking it up. The show peters off in quality towards the end of the series while still having a couple of notable moments, it is worth a watch to the end. For a lighter side of Canadian police TV see the fantastic comedy Pretty Hard Cases.

@fter Midnight

Ginger and I are Tomlinsonies (I don’t know what the Taylor Tomlinson version of swifties is called, TayToms? Whatever it is, we’re that). Taylor Tomlinson is such a fast comedian, super funny. I feel like just as I’m laughing at the first joke she will fire off three more punchlines on the same joke. Her talent isn’t just from written work, she’s just as fast with improv as well. Her guests are refreshing compared to other talk shows and the best part is, it’s not a talk show. Some of my favorite comedians/comedy writers make appearances on this show, Mariah Bamford, Murray Hill, Pete Holmes, Rhys Darby, Jim Rash, some of the better performers from the Drop Out universe (who aren’t making their 150th variation of a role playing game TV show). There’s even an episode with Josh Thomas (definitely check out Please Like Me, Everything’s Gonna Be OK). If I didn’t have you at Taylor Tomlinson hosts a sort of fake game show where the contestants are comedians, writers, and actors; then never mind, go back to hating laughing, and voting libertarian, and rioting on January 6 [sorry, definitely the last time, for real!], and watching episodes of Blue Bloods you shit-ass waist of couch.