What's To Watch? - July 14-20 - Try, Try Again

 

    Rolling into the middle of July already?! I hope you've each been able to avoid the worst of what your region's been dishing out in local weather, be it oppressive heat, violent storms, and/or flooding rains.

     The Screen Actors Guild has joined the picket lines the Writers have already been on since May, presumably adding to the pressure for whatever deal's to eventually come as the screen entertainment industry continues to wrestle with what the new normal will be.
     For now, though, we continue to have a great deal out there, new and old.

     As I roll into the weekend, I'll be happily getting around to seeing this week's return of What We Do In the Shadows (new Thursdays on FX, and Fridays on Hulu), and the final two episodes of this final season of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime).
     The covert war against shape-shifters hit the two thirds point with this week's fourth episode of Secret Invasion (Disney+), which I've been enjoying, and which will bear a rewatching. I'd be hopelessly lost in even a world of more conventional spycraft. Really, I'm not equipped to deal with people in the first place.
     Anyway, I'm also continuing to follow Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which has just hit the second season mid-point, and I wish I could say I was enjoying it more than I am. I hate the knee-jerk negativity one sees from supposed fans of so many shows/franchises these days, and have found myself leaning toward silence rather than becoming part of the razzing chorus. Still, the SNW writers have been disappointing me more than not this season. I'm repeatedly torn between wondering if they're simply not up to the task, are lazy, and/or if it's an insulting indication of what they think of their audience's intelligence. This week's episode (which I still haven't watched the final ten minutes of) was playing out as a c-list, meet the in-laws Vulcan sitcom, with a side of extra-dimensional alien

bureaucrats providing the "wacky" complications. Really, it's too easy to draw unfortunate parallels between this episode's structure and most episodes of Bewitched. This week's would be one of those where some misfire by Aunt Clara or Esmeralda did something to Darren, embarrassing antics in front of Very Official company ensued, and once the problem's fixed some half-assed explanation is offered and accepted, and it's a happy ending in need of a double martini chaser. My guess is that at least the final three episodes of of the season will lean in hard on dire drama and the Gorn threat, in the hopes that we'll just recall the lighter moments and comedic highlights of several of these episodes as contrast and leavening.
     I still haven't cracked the seal on the new partial season of The Witcher (Netflix).

      Next week one of the huge, annual, pop cultural events comes around, as Comic-Con International takes over San Diego. Originally focused more on comics, it and some recent posts reminded me that there's a profile piece on an illustrator and comics artist whose striking, clean-lined, retro look stays strong in memory. A feature-length documentary on the gone-too-soon artist Dave Stevens: Drawn To Perfection, is on Amazon Prime

     Back in May of last year I enjoyed the first, ten-episode season of The Lincoln Lawyer over on Netflix, as I noted at the time. Based on Michael Connelly's series of novels, the first season adapted his 2008 novel The Brass Verdict, while this new season is based on 2011's The Fifth Witness. (Another of Connelly's creations, and a distant blood relative to this one, is detective "Harry" Bosch, who had seven seasons over on Amazon Prime in Bosch, before continuing with a new phase of the character's life over on Freevee with Bosch: Legacy; the second season of that show's due sometime this fall.)
      The Lincoln Lawyer made a strong showing for the streamer, and a second season was greenlit that June. I'd lost sight of it along the way, so it was a small surprise when I saw the arrival of the second season was imminent.
     The first half (5 episodes) arrived last week on Netflix. The second half will appear August 3rd, as Netflix is trying to spread things out a little, aiming for the potential buzz of a mid-season cliffhanger.

      At the end of 2018 Netflix scored a success with the post-apocalyptic thriller Bird Box (2018  2h 4m). Set five years into an apocalypse where the threat was ultimately deadly on sight, bringing on a suicidal madness in most people, it brought us much of the story via flashbacks. It had had a limited theatrical run starting December 14th, then hit Netflix on the 21st, where the streamer claimed it became the most-watched film within its first 28 days. All this despite deservedly mixed reviews. As I recall, the film does have its moments, and the cast does provide some good turns, but it was an uneven experience. Most of the lasting appeal is owed to the core concept, with survivors needing to adapt to a world where the outside needs to be navigated blindfolded. The concept drew many people in, inviting them to imagine themselves dealing with the same rules.
      Bird Box Barcelona (2023  1h 51m) arrives on Netflix today. Mostly a sequel simply as a matter of film fact, it's a geographically-shifted spin-off, looking at other people navigating and coming up with their own interpretations of the same threat, but in Spain.

     Series are developed, can air and disappear all while our attentions are elsewhere. In a world of streaming entertainment, though, most of it sticks around one place or another, giving us an opportunity to discover it and then wonder why it didn't last longer.
     One such thing that so far shows much promise (although I immediately know that it only got two, ten-episode seasons in 2016-2017 before TNT pulled the plug) centered on a very smart, adaptable, skilled and troubled woman with a checkered past, family and addiction issues, and a knack for getting involved in other people's troubles. She's trying hard to be her best self, all the more so as she wants to regain custody of her son, but every day is packed with reminders that playing by other people's rules is a sucker's game. It's Good Behavior

     While very much a different character, and the show its own thing, there's a level of appeal here that's kin to Poker Face (Peacock).
     The two seasons are on Hulu and Max.

     That's it for me this week. Out in the real world I've so far disappointed myself again this week, and I need to pick myself up and try, try again, so I need to pick my battles with greater care.
     We've known here behind the scenes at the Consortium of Seven for a little longer that this fourth year of the group blog will be its last. Garbo, who pulled this all together and has worked at keeping it all going since we started in 2019, needs to refocus her energies on other projects, so we'll be shutting the C7 in October -- which is frighteningly sooner than I care to think. I'm trying to decide what I want to transition to with respect to blogging, once this blog's structure and part in its focus is gone. Anyway, that's for me to wrestle with. Take care, enjoy the weekend, and see you again next Friday. - Mike