I've been hitting more revisits to series than new items of late, but think I want to make more of a theme piece of that rather than go on at length about that this week - especially as the press of other matters is steering me towards keeping it briefer.
The series largely focused on the traumatized nebbish Arthur Everest, whose life was hopelessly upended by the deadly play of superheroes and supervillains while he was a child -- they're real in his world. He grew to be an accountant who would go off his psych meds and get lost in what seemed to be elaborate conspiracy theories... until not only did a lead begin to pay off, but an impossible figure suddenly came into his life.
The show remains entertaining, in the end only disappointing for having been abandoned. An attempt by Tick creator Ben Edlund to find a new home for the series to continue failed, the actors' contracts expiring. The show never having gotten enough of a run for it to have been a real income gig for them, stretched as it was so thinly over three years. The gig economy of streaming-age tv finds people technically attached to series that by itself couldn't possibly pay the bills, made all the worse by the fickleness of the platforms running them, and whatever secret algorithms are used to decide what continues and what folds.
Still, they're there, waiting to be enjoyed, whether it's for the first time, or a revisit.
There are also three seasons of an excellent '90s cartoon version available over on Hulu, too. That was a fun run, as Edlund and co. landed the gig as part of what proved to be a last gasp of the old Saturday morning cartoon era, and some mercifully clueless Fox exec who thought he was buying a kids' cartoon.
In a very different vein, something that's somewhere on my weekend schedule is a documentary on Apple tv+ about actor Michael J. Fox, and how his Parkinson's diagnosis impacted his life. It's Still (2023 1h 35m) It was recommended by a generally reliable source, and all indications so far are that it's a good call.
Arriving on Hulu this Sunday (the 9th) is a comedy horror anime series based on a manga series about a young office drone, slowly being suffocated by a corporate career path, who comes to embrace a zombie apocalypse as an opportunity to live his life to the fullest as he works his way through a bucket list. It's Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead There's a live-action adaptation of the same source material coming to Netflix in August, btw. I'll talk about that when it's closer.
Returning next Thursday (the 13th) to FX for a two-episode start to its fifth season is the faux documentary supernatural comedy series What We Do In the Shadows.
Each week's episodes will be available on Hulu the following day.
Notes from 2025: The series is a mockumentary, following a group of vampires who are roommates, through their nightly lives. It spun out of a 2014 film of the same name, which is fun and worthwhile watching, but doesn't need to be seen before watching the series. No one is currently streaming the 2014 film as part of their subscription package, though it can be rented or bought online.
The series wrapped its sixth and final season December 16, 2024, so all 61 episodes are available on Hulu. While I would have happily continued to follow them through more seasons, I respect that they had the integrity to arrange an exit before they'd, inevitably, hit a point of treading water. Without spoiling things, they left it on a positive note. To say more would be to spoil it.)
One that slipped my mind -in part because I haven't gotten around to it yet, and only heard about it very recently - is an Australian comedy series that only ran for a pair of six-episode seasons back in 2011-'12. It's a dark premise, as a young market researcher comes to realize that one by one her former lovers are dying under unusual circumstances. She sets about trying to figure out what's happening and to stop the chain of deaths.
I couldn't find a commercial for it, so the only other video element I can offer is the opening credits. The series is available on Freevee, and Roku, so it seems one's going to be faced with commercial breaks, unless that doesn't apply for Roku. I've no experience with that one. Tubi currently only has the first season.
The series is called Laid.
I've no idea what development Hell it got lost in, and I suspect any agreement made at the time has likely expired by now, but NBC reportedly made arrangements to develop a U.S. version of the show back in 2011.
An 8-episode first season of an American version of the show arrived on Peacock this past December starring Stephanie Hsu. Here's the trailer for that:
That's it for this week. I still haven't gotten around to starting to watch either the new season of The Witcher, nor Delete, two of the series mentioned last week. I enjoyed the third episode of Hijack (Apple tv+), though my credulity's already being stretched, am looking forward to this week's installment of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime), and having mixed emotions about the new season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+) as I like much of the general spirit I keep feeling as if I'm expected to shut down some reasoning areas of the brain in order to enjoy it; there's something insulting lurking in there. (Note: I haven't watched this week's episode yet.)
We have some cool things coming later in the month, including the return of barely contained fury in a cowboy hat Waylon Givens in a new spin-off/geographically-shifted continuation of Justified, and the return of Futurama, but we'll get to those next week when they'll be more time-appropriate.
Take care, and let's aim to make it back here safely next Friday. - Mike
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