What's To Watch? - April 21-27 - Just Time for a Blitz

 

     Too much else on my plate at the moment, on the entertainment side it's likely going to be about as much as I can spare just to keep up with the shows I'm following. Most of the new(er) item's I'll touch on farther below I probably won't find the time and/or focus for this weekend or into next week.
 

    This Wednesday saw the season finale for The Mandalorian over on Disney+. With a minorly flawed but nonetheless welcome in tone close-out for the season. Some people are complaining, but some people seem to live to complain. While I chafed a little at some of the staging, I think I needed happy resolutions enough to see the decisions favorably. We're left in a good place for the start of season four, which has already been written and is currently well into pre-production.
     Thursday saw the series finale for Star Trek: Picard, mostly bringing some characters' stories to a close -- or close enough to that to do, should this be the last we see of them -- and doing a little set-up for the continuing adventures of others. The universe Gene Roddenberry and others set in motion roughly seventeen years ago has always been, at it heart, aspirational in the best sense, looking to a brighter, better future. It's mostly just the demands of an entertainment medium that press it to be so routinely about threats.
     I'll have new episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Power arriving on Amazon Prime today, which I'll likely get to fairly soon as I'm in the groove on both of those.

      There'll be more Barry on HBO this Sunday -- though I've yet to get to the two season-opener episodes of that from this past Sunday, despite this being a show I really enjoy. Some of the delay's due to distractions and stresses in my life, while some of it's likely me not wanting to rush into the final season for that show. Also, I don't have anyone I've been talking with who's up to date on that, so it's easier to let those pile up over on HBO Max.
     I'll likely be trying to make the time to at least begin the multi-episode launch of Mrs. Davis over on Peacock. That's another of the new series I mentioned last week, which will have new episodes each Thursday.
     While I have been enjoying it in its own, different, way, I've let the two most recent episodes of Bob Odenkirk's Lucky Hank (AMC) build up on my DVR, with another one coming Sunday. The press of limited DVR space will likely see me getting to those this weekend, in a view 'em or lose 'em move.
     Speaking of Odenkirk, I'll once again note that the final season of Better Call Saul was finally added to Netflix on Tuesday. It's a solid series - I'm still taken by how it went from a series announcement post-Breaking Bad that they would be doing this prequel series, prompting a puzzled "Why?", to being nearly essential television.

     Anyway, for the first of the new to me items:
     This Tuesday Amazon Prime saw the arrival of a comedy special by comedian and comedic performer & vocalist Alex Borstein, whose work I've enjoyed since the late '90s and MAD tv, who among other thing's been the voice of Lois Griffin on Family Guy for (::gasp:: ::choke::) 24 years?! She's also been great fun as the lead character's manager in another Amazon Prime favorite, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. In a slightly odd connection to that show, this stand-up special is set in the fictional Wolford Theater, a burlesque house. I'm just guessing it was a case of some smart cookie seeing and seizing an opportunity.
     It's Alex Borstein: Corsets and Clownsuits (It has a 16+ audience advisory, for language and sexual topics. 1hr 21m)

     I watched the opening of it, and intend to get back to it. I'm a little uncertain how completely candid it is, though in general it appears to be. In what I've seen she's already touched on her 20 year marriage, ending in divorce, her ethnic background, that she's a hemophiliac, and draws clear political lines as someone who finds herself in her early 50s with fewer rights than she once had. I'll watch the rest of it and then maybe take a little time to see if she fictionalized aspects of her life to make for better stand-up material -- for all the difference that'll make.
    Prime confused me a bit by posting this as "Episode 1." I suppose I'll have a clearer view if more are expected to be coming quickly once I've seen the end of this one.

     The remainder's the blitz portion of this post. New or new to me items I've watched none of as yet, selected because I saw they were there, and went for a little variety. For the most part I currently know little more of each than whats in these trailers.
     Just arrived on Netflix is an eight-part political thriller series starring Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell. It's The Diplomat

     In standard Netflix fashion, all 8 episodes are in place, and there's been no announcement so far about a nod for a second season.

     Also new to Netflix is a Spanish horror comedy period piece (set in 1998) about a trio of women who chain-smoke, and investigate paranormal phenomena when they're not taking shots at each other - the ghost-hunting is nearly the only thing they have in common. This trailer's in Spanish, with English subtitles, though with Netflix one can easily choose it to be dubbed into English. Suitably enough, it's titled Phenomena (2023 TV-MA  1h 34m)

     Also on Netflix, a six-part series intended to be a tutorial, as financial expert Ramit Sethi works with various people across the U.S. "to help them achieve their richest lives." It's How To Get Rich

     Also recently-arrived on Netflix is an attempted psychological thriller from 2017, starring Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson, in a cast that includes J.K. Simmons, Val Kilmer, and Chloe Sevigny. Critically panned and considered a box office failure, this adaptation of the 2007 novel of the same name by Jo Nesbø, has likely drawn a great deal of early Netflix attention due to the cast. It's The Snowman.

     Director Tomas Alfredson's claim is that the film's shortcomings were due to an extremely rushed production schedule. There was virtually no time to plan the production, as the money dictated a sudden start to filming, and location filming was not only rushed, they were working with partial scripts. The result was that roughly 10-15% of the script was never shot, leading to a patchwork that couldn't be properly fixed in editing. Also, many of Val Kilmer's scenes were drastically affected by his treatments for throat cancer, his tongue so badly swollen that they didn't try to get him to really speak. His lines were dubbed in post-production.

     Back over on Amazon Prime - and also on YouTube, if you either don't mind the commercial breaks or are a YouTube subscriber - there's a documentary from a few years back that focuses on the makeup developed for The Planet of the Apes back in 1968. It's Making Apes: The Artists Who Changed Film (2019  1h 27m). This is the link to the full video over on YouTube

     That's all I have for this week, and definitely more than I'll be getting around to watching.
     If I've handled things well - and that's a sizeable If - I'll be in a better mental state by the time we get back together next Friday. Take care, and wish me luck, or clarity and resolve. - Mike