Last month I squeezed eight months of television into a single post and said I would turn it into a monthly series. So here is the first one that actually covers a month: September.
It was a short list. Three shows, two of them from Apple TV, and one spinoff of a show I don’t like. I also closed the last post saying I wanted to venture beyond the United States more often. Three American productions later, you can see how that is going.
Black Bird
In this six-episode limited series, Jimmy Keene, a drug dealer facing ten years in prison, gets an offer from the FBI: go into the prison that holds suspected serial killer Larry Hall, earn his trust, and get him to confess. If he pulls it off, he walks.
Technical details: An English language limited series released on Apple TV, developed by Dennis Lehane from the book In with the Devil by James Keene and Hillel Levin.
I’ve been watching a lot of Apple TV lately, and it’s no accident. The quality is exceptional and the whole thing has the vibe of old HBO, the one I was praising last month when I talked about Deadwood. Black Bird goes on the same pile. It’s really good and I loved it.
Paul Walter Hauser plays Larry Hall, and it’s one of the best performances I’ve seen this year. I saw that he won the Emmy for it. Well deserved. The other thing I have to mention is the cinematography, which is on another level.
The downside is the ending. This is my first true-crime series, so I understand the rule of the genre: the ending is whatever happened, and reality is under no obligation to deliver a good last episode. I get it. It still weighs on the series for me. If this had been an original concept, with the writers free to close the story the way it was asking to be closed, it could have been a perfect series.
Verdict: Almost perfect television, held back only because reality didn’t hire a better writer for the finale.
Severance - Season 2
The second season picks up after the first season’s finale, with Mark and his team back on the severed floor and Lumon offering its own version of what happened. As the innies deal with what they saw outside, the company’s secrets get stranger and closer to home.
Technical details: An English language series released on Apple TV, produced by Red Hour Productions and Fifth Season.
Once I finished the first season I was incredibly anxious to watch the second, and my God, the perfection continues.
Everything I said last month still holds. The difference is that the plot develops much better here, and Lumon, that corporate nightmare, is even creepier than before. Acting, directing, cinematography: everything gets an A+.
And then there is Tramell Tillman as Milchick. His performance rivals Paul Walter Hauser’s Larry Hall, the one I praised a few paragraphs ago. My God, he is so good. He has an Emmy for this role too, which means I spent September watching supporting actors earn their trophies.
Verdict: The best thing on television got better, and the worst office on television got worse.
Stuart Fails to Save the Universe - Season 1
In the first season, comic book store owner Stuart Bloom breaks a device built by Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard and sets off a multiverse armageddon. Together with Denise, Bert, and Kripke, he has to fix reality while running into alternate versions of himself and the people he knows.
Technical details: An English language series released on HBO Max, produced by Chuck Lorre Productions and Warner Bros. Television.
This is the one I watched weekly with my wife.
I don’t like The Big Bang Theory. One day I should write an article about it. And before anyone asks, I watched a lot of it back in the day, which is exactly why I don’t like it. I wouldn’t dislike it this much without having seen it.
But this series really surprised me. The humor is pure nonsense, the characters are captivating, and at around twenty minutes an episode it’s short enough to leave you wanting more. The script is truly surprising and the writing has quality. Here lies the power of creativity that hasn’t died yet.
The intro deserves a paragraph of its own. Chuck Lorre was unhappy that streaming taught everybody to skip the opening credits, so the idea was a title sequence “that you could skip but you shouldn’t.” Every episode has a different one. It’s animated, it talks straight to the viewer, it opens by telling you not to skip with an arrow pointing at the skip button, and it ends with a spoiler for the episode you are about to watch. Danny Elfman wrote the theme and rearranged it for each of the ten episodes. That is innovation, in the one part of a show nobody was paying attention to anymore.
My concern is what comes next. The show was already renewed for a second season in August. If it turns into a real hit, that is exactly when the corporate types at Warner decide they have to put their hands on it and screw it up somehow. Just like WB always did.
Verdict: Proof that creativity isn’t dead yet. Now we wait to see how long Warner lets it live.
Three shows and not a single dud. That doesn’t happen often, so I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.
That’s all, folks. See you next month.