What's To Watch? - Jan 20 - Missions

 

Still one more weekday to go in it, but it's been a wearing week for me. I'm already tired, and am hoping to somehow manage to both accomplish some things during this final (paid) work day of the week, and to make it to the weekend with more of a remaining charge than what I'll need to make dinner.

    A couple quick notes: Tuesday night NBC launched their revival of Night Court, airing the first two episodes. (I caught them the following day over on Peacock.) The only alumnus from the original series is John Laroquette, reprising his role as attorney Dan Fielding. He appears to have stepped almost effortlessly back into the role, while also folding in some character development from the years between then and now; they didn't belabor it, but we learn that in the years between he'd loved and ultimately lost, and that his air of disdain for humanity, which used to be based in shallowness, is now used as a protective armor.
     Melissa Rauch (best known from her long run as Bernadette on The Big Bang Theory) plays Abby Stone, the daughter of the late Harold T. Stone - played in the original series by the late Harry Anderson. (Fortunately she's using her natural voice for this role.) Now a judge like her father, she's landed the job of presiding over the night sessions for the Manhattan Criminal Court. She arrives to find it a dispirited place, and immediately sets about trying to instill some of the verve and humanity her father strove for. Bringing Dan Fielding back into the fold, albeit this time to take the role of public defender, becomes one of her first orders of business.
     I found the first two episodes encouraging enough to want to see how the season plays out. As I inwardly winced at most of the new characters, I remember how long it took for those in the original run of the series to find their footing, and how it churned through several short-term cast members until good fits came into play. Anyway, that's Tuesday nights on NBC.

     Also, HBO got off to a solid start with the premier of The Last of Us (part of last Friday's piece) this past Sunday. A post-apocalyptic scenario, in which the world has been devastated by 20 years of a parasitic, fungal plague. Based on the quality of the first episode, and the general reception, they appear to have another success on their hands. Aside from exploring their world, the developing interplay between main characters Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) will be of particular interest.    

     Just arrived yesterday on Netflix was something I'd forgotten was coming: Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre. An anime series adapting tales by horror manga creator Junji Ito. It's parceled out in 12 episodes, some of which contain two tales, adapting 20 of his stories.
     The official trailer is a bit disjointed, combined with the musical accompaniment, almost makes me think the person who put the trailer together was having a stroke. It's unnecessarily confusing, but it'll at least give you some preview visuals. As ever, with Netflix you'll have various language and captioning options.

     It's an anthology, so there's no firm spot to start, and the tales aren't connected.
     I've so far only watched the first one, The Strange Hizikuri Siblings: The Seance, one I wasn't familiar with from manga, and it's overall an uninspiring start. Much more an awkward comedy than anything else. Hopefully most of the remaining selections will be better.
     Happily, moving on to the second installment - which has two, separate tales, The Story of the Mysterious Tunnel, and Ice Cream Truck, an image from the latter's this week's header image. With these I saw more of what I'd expected heading into this. It was my hope that the bulk remaining would do the same -- and so far that's more often the case than not.
     I'm avoiding binging, instead breaking the viewing up with other activities including probably watching some other things. It's an anthology of what are (ideally) a series of nightmares, and each should be taken discretely. There will be several where it'll be especially clear that they're not in any way approaching complete stories, but really are snippets of nightmares.

     Generally trying to look forward, for new items, it's often the case that some things slip by me with respect to this weekly column. I simply don't look in a particular direction one week, or something doesn't catch my attention based on the promotional bits, and time runs out.

     A couple items that are already over on Amazon Prime went past unnoticed by me in the first half of the month.
    Filmed entirely in Scotland, a six-part science fiction/eco-horror thriller landed on Amazon back on the 6th.
     Just as the crew aboard an oil rig in the North Sea is due to be rotated to the mainland, a peculiar, dense fog rolls in and cuts off all communication with the outside world. All six episodes appeared on the 6th, so it's all there. Episode run times range from 47 to 55 minutes. It's The Rig.

    (This isn't to be confused with a 2010 monster movie of the same name, also set aboard an oil rig.)
     I haven't watched it yet, and so far people have considerately been trying to avoid spoiling things, so it's unclear how pinned down matters are by the time the credits roll on episode 6, but the idea of a season two appears to at least be in question.
 

    The actors and and visuals are getting most of the praise, and the writers have helped them deliver fairly fleshed-out, three-dimensional characters once they get the chance.
     It's ultimately and repeatedly an allegory for environmental issues, which seems a natural enough fit for something set aboard an oil rig here in the 21st century. If being preached to on such issues will annoy you, then this is less likely to entertain on the balance.
     I'm likely to give it a look soon even just on the mechanics of the premise (a group isolated and besieged by something that's at least initially inexplicable) and the cast, forewarned not to expect the threat to be an intricately-designed plot device, but instead is just a threat that works as it does because that's how it works -- end of explanation.
     In for a late addition to the piece (also in blue, down below), So I thought I'd add that I'm on the final episode of the series/season, and have found it much better and more solid than some of the casual reviews had indicated. Consequently, I removed some of the notes about it possibly being better categorized as supernatural than science fiction; I'm guessing the complainers simply haven't kept up with science concerning plant and fungal communications systems.
     The Scottish accents give me added reason to be glad I watch everything with captions - certainly some actors are clearer than others - though I know they still went easy on us by avoiding regional slang.

     Back around the third week of February, 2020, less than a month before "pandemic" started to have real-world, contemporary weight for most of us, a 10-episode series about Nazi-hunters in 1977, landed on Amazon Prime. While the characters were drawn from various real-world Nazi-hunters, it's a work of fiction. The characters here, at best, started as patchwork composites of some actual hunters, and sets them running up against a global conspiracy for the rise of a Fourth Reich. Having a cast with chops, one of the big selling points is that one of the leads is Al Pachino, taking his first "television" series role. When he was getting started the hard line of advice was that if one wanted to be a serious movie actor they had to avoid working in television. Looking back, he had on several occasions regretted some of the opportunities that caused him to miss, so this role was an attempt to try it. Here he plays Meyer Offerman, a Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor and philanthropist, who recruits and leads the team of Nazi-hunters.
     Part of the concept of the series is that this mission is seen as sufficiently important that some rules of morality, and any laws that might impede them in their work, are suspended in favor of going after a greater evil.
     I recall the mixed, less-than-explosive viewer reaction at the time -- it having hit roughly a month before so many of us started to get into binge-streaming as a lockdown pass-time. Following whatever combination of metrics Amazon did at the time, the series was given a second season order roughly six months after the first appeared. Jump ahead to January 13, 2023, and an 8-episode second (and final) season arrived, with the conspiracy bigger than ever.

     So, if you're game for it, there's now a total of 18 episodes, presumably intended as a reasonably full story, waiting for you. While I've no idea how big each actor's parts are in it, I'm encouraged to see shots of familiar faces, such as Saul Rubinek, Carol Kane and John Noble.
     Here's the trailer for the first season, from back in 2020. The series is Hunters:

     Landing today on Hulu is a 2022 action crime thriller. Freddy, badly wounded, betrayed by his father, he is on the run with a bag full of cash. Trying to get to safety, he ends up on a dirty bus, where he meets a mysterious girl and a strange man. Colson Baker (aka rapper, singer, songwriter, actor Machine Gun Kelly) plays Freddy, and Kevin Bacon plays his father.  That's nearly as much as I know about it other than what the trailer lays out for One Way (2022  R  1h 35m)

      Coming up on the eve of next week's column - on Thursday the 26th - a new rumple-clothed detective series will be arriving on Peacock. Starring Natasha Lyonne (star of Netflix's, time-looping Russian Doll) and created by Rian Johnson (who among other things has had such success with the detective Benoit Blanc mysteries Knives Out and Glass Onion), the new series is called Poker Face. It'll be launching with four episodes, followed by a new one each week to run for a ten-episode first season.
     It's its own series with its own character, but the structure is oddly in the mold of Columbo, with a generally unassuming, unthreatening-looking, disheveled main character who everyone else immediately discounts, but who is both perspicacious and possibly the smartest person in the room. It's also mostly in the mold of that storied detective because it employs the howcatchem plot structure, where we see the crime committed, including the perpetrator, and then we watch the cat & mouse moves as our main character gets involved and can't help noticing that things are not quite as clear and settled as nearly everyone else thinks they are.
     She's not a detective by profession, but a casino worker with a deep talent for cutting through the bullshit and knowing when someone's lying - a talent also responsible for putting her on the run, which is the bookend plot for at least the first season of the series. So, the itinerant observer finds herself inadvertently rolling through a series of mysteries - because unprincipled opportunists and nefarious characters are to be found everywhere - and we get to come along.
     Again, it's Poker Face, with the first four episodes dropping next Thursday on Peacock.

     I'm looking forward to this one. Barring something upsetting my Thursday night that week, I'll at least dive into the first episode and likely start next week's piece here with some comments and a reminder to check it out.
     Comcast Xfinity customers have free access to Peacock, being able to log in using their account info. Others who are interested in seeing the material behind their paywall, are left to choose between a $4.99/month plan with ads, or $9.99/month for ad-free access. So far it doesn't seem to have been one of the more vigorously-successful streaming platforms. Their hope is that shows like this will start to gain them some notice, while others are worried that this show, which would almost certainly be a huge hit on Netflix, will pass by largely unnoticed on Peacock. If it appears to be living up to its promise, I'll want to do my small part to spread the word.
     I did start to do more of an exhaustive search on what Peacock offers, checking loads of it off for the My List selections there. It includes an interesting mix of series for nostalgia viewing, depending on one's age, of course. There were items I don't recall seeing there the previous time I'd started to take such a tour, such as The Six Million Dollar Man and Kolchak the Night Stalker (though they don't have either of the tv movies that launched it.) Both of Hitchcock's '50s/'60s series are there, the 7-season, half-hour Presents and the three seasons of Hour. Dick Van Dike Show, Sliders, Space: 1999, the first three seasons of The Carol Burnett Show, Death Note (anime), Grimm, Modern Family, The Weird Al Show, Longmire, Highlander (the series, and the first movie over with the movies), That Girl, Family Affair, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Columbo (and the 1968 Prescription: Murder tv movie that kicked it off, though that's over in the movie section), and a great deal more. Like killer rat movies? They have both Willard (1971) and Ben (1972) - the latter with the title track from the then 14 year-old Michael Jackson, which was his first no.1 single as a solo artist.
     TV and movie sections are each sub-categorized by genre, to help sort through them. Swing through the Documentary section, too, for an interesting array of subjects.
     Budget and ad-tolerance will play into whether to go with or without the ads, but there's a great deal there to look through. You can start by signing up for it as a free site, and leisurely look through its listings to see what's there, much of which you'll be able to watch with commercial breaks. The rest will be marked with a blue feather, letting you know those are behind their pay wall. It may be one of those things where you can scope it out, then decide once or more each year to splurge on it for a month, binging on things that have accumulated since you were last there, then cancel the paid sub until the next time you want to indulge. It's likely at least worth checking out at that level.

     Oh, briefly looking much farther off, and less certainly, into the year, Sony is shopping the pilot for a half hour, syndicated show hosted by Craig Ferguson. Coming out of Whisper North, it's being shopped as Channel Surf with Craig Ferguson. It's said to feature Ferguson and his friends as they "review the shocking, surprising and hilarious moments of the week’s shows.”
     This sounds to me like a new version of The Soup, where Joel McHale would do much the same thing with clips from various shows from the previous week. (That show had risen from the narrower grave of long-running Talk Soup, which had the more limited focus of mostly daytime talk shows.)
     Not ideally what I'm looking for in a return of Craig, but I'll take it. Indications are he'll even be working some puppet fun into it. It at least has a better chance of entertaining me than the tv game show route he went for a couple stretches since he ended his still-missed Late Late Show run in 2014.

     It's an uncharacteristically waaaaay late addition, but AMC's airing of things makes this a now or miss it item: They're running their AMC+, 8-part spaghetti western from last year That Dirty Black Bag. Last year they were annoyingly sneaky about it, airing the first episode on AMC but then only making the remainder available to AMC+ subscribers. Now they're running it from the start, Tuesday nights at 11pm, on AMC.
     Starring Dominic Cooper (who played the lead in their excellent Preacher series, and who a broader audience knows as Howard Stark in some of the Marvel movies) as Arthur McCoy, the sheriff of a town overrun by bandits and bounty hunters, and rife with bloody vendettas. McCoy is trying to transcend his troubled past by bringing law to a lawless frontier, which will not be easy with seemingly everyone being well used to getting by on nerve, brutality and firearms. The titular bag is a sack used by Red Bill, an infamous bounty hunter known for decapitating his prey and just bringing the head in to collect the bounty. Here's the series trailer:

 
     As certain as ever that I'm overlooking too much, that's all the time I have for this week. Also as ever, I hope this finds you holding on and finding some fun. Until next week! - Mike