Author John Green provided the source material for Hulu’s Looking for Alaska, a story about a kid going to boarding school, falling in love and dealing with loss. It’s not clear who will be “lost”, but since it looks more like a mini-series than a series, I didn’t predict renewal or cancellation. It likely will be the narrator who is lost, so mini-series makes sense. Charlie Plummer plays the main character, Miles aka Pudge, and generally speaking, he’s a wallflower to whom nothing ever happens. His father went to a boarding academy (which seems way more like a summer camp), … Continue reading →

I’ve mentioned before that lots of shows want to introduce a mystery so they can be the next Lost. FaceBook Watch created a show this year called Limetown, and my notes from the launch notice say “Missing neuroscience community members”. Based on that, I predicted cancellation. So the basic premise is that a bunch of neuroscientists and their family moved to a remote compound with very little info about what it would focus on or what it was going to do. It had opening day speeches, and lots of talk about the dream. But then sometime later a 911 call … Continue reading →

EPIX put out a decent amount of new shows this year, and one of them is Godfather of Harlem. Shows like American Gangster and Hoodlum have used some of the same real-life characters before, so it’s not unfamiliar ground for many, but there’s no telling how close it is to the reality of the era. Based on the premise, I predicted cancellation. Ignoring the historical roots for a moment, the premise is a black crime boss returns from Alcatraz to his old neighbourhood in Harlem. According to the show, he went down on a narcotics bust that the mafia families … Continue reading →