So, someone involved in this TV series either spent way too much time at film school, or has delusions that they can be Quentin Tarantino if they just get some good mood music. I didn’t know much about the show when I went to watch it, something to do with dirty cops, and there wasn’t much in the description that led me to see it as anything but CANCELLATION material. Once I got into it, and saw that it was about a cop who doubles as a hitman, I thought it might have some potential.
Except here’s the thing. The episode I watched was 90 minutes long, and has about five minutes of actual action in it. It was ridiculous. The opening scene to set the mood for the show was almost 5 minutes of people staring out the road saying very little. There’s some random conversation about the one cop and his messed up view of marriage, and when he gets killed about ten minutes in, there’s no real loss. A stop for a shakedown before that runs about 4-5 minutes long, and could have been edited to about 20 seconds without any loss. The whole episode could have been 10 minutes long and you wouldn’t have lost much.
On top of that, the main character who is supposedly being “slowly dragged” into the crime business is an LA sheriff named Martin, played by Miles Teller. Teller has a weird history of roles…Willard in Footloose (the one who can’t dance but loves to fight), Reed in the Fantastic Four, Peter in Divergent+Insurgent. Usually he has some sort of dynamic range, even if it isn’t Oscar-worthy. Here, from start to finish, he’s a robot. It’s like he’s on super-strength Valium. There is NO emotion for almost the entire episode. Why do I care about anything with him? I don’t.
Almost every interaction with every character is him staring at people and them staring back. Conversations that have about 10 seconds of content run 3 minutes. With EVERYONE he meets. It’s like film school masturbation, and the worst show I have seen in years.
I’m going with CANCELLATION, I’m not even going to review the other characters and actors.
I tripped over a reference to a “new” show called Special, and I didn’t really know much about it. Something about a main character who was disabled and gay, and that was about it. Then I watched the first few minutes of it in passing, just to get a feel for it, and the initial truth of the show hit me hard.
I had heard of the creator, Ryan O’Connell, previously but I didn’t realize it was the same person. He has cerebral palsy and has written some pretty raw posts over the years about his life with CP, being gay, just day to day stuff, and some of the posts went viral. I had read some pieces here and there, generally knew about him more so than knew his story, but it was apparently one of his viral pieces that caught the eye of Jim Parsons (Big Bang Theory) and they agreed to a show on a miniscule budget and fifteen-minute episode format to talk about Ryan’s semi-auto-biographical idea.
So the premise is based on Ryan’s life, where he was hit by a car and injured, but relatively minor as car accidents go. However, afterwards, he moved to New York and made all these new friends and acquaintances, and rather than tell them he had CP, he told them he was injured in the car accident. In short, he changed his narrative from disabled to injured. And he liked that people didn’t treat him like a disabled person anymore. So he kept it up for awhile, before eventually writing a blog post as part of preparation for a book arc where he “came out of the disabled closet”.
In the show, Episode 1 has him being hit by a car and then starting a job at a blogging magazine site as an intern. He’s excited to be there, but hasn’t told them he’s disabled. Through a series of slight miscommunications, they come to understand that he was in an accident and his CP-like symptoms are the result. He goes from disabled to injured, which feels great to him, so he doesn’t correct them.
I’d love to tell you the acting is amazing, but well, they had no budget so Ryan O’Connell is acting as himself with no acting experience. He’s pretty good though. There are lots of small characters — a mom, his boss, some coworkers, a physio-therapist, etc. — and they are okay, but about the same feel as you might get from an amateur theatre. Yet I’m hooked.
Hooked for an entirely personal reason, all of which is summed up by a quote from Ryan’s character before the accident, reflecting on the nature of having mild CP:
I’m not able-bodied enough to be hanging in the mainstream world but I’m not disabled enough to be hanging out with the cool DP crowd.
I’ve used that paradigm (without the judgement) to describe my own son’s condition as he also has mild CP. For him, it shows up in things like amateur sports programs. His coordination and body movements are not good enough for running and moving to do regular soccer, for example, or hockey/skating lessons, or swimming…his body has too much tone in it, plus he has twists in his legs. He also has limited strength in his upper body. But, equally, he doesn’t need much accommodation. So he is usually way more functional than any of the other people in “disabled sports” groups. He has no impediment for speech or cognitive limitations, just physical coordination, and so like Ryan’s example, he’s in limbo between the two worlds. It’s hard to find opportunities for him for certain things, camp activities at times, for instance because he can’t quite do the regular group thing but he doesn’t need a spot in the disabled group. Not to mention that we don’t necessarily want him taking a spot from someone who really needs that type of spot (there are often limited numbers of spaces available). Yet there aren’t in-between groups for “mildly affected”.
And, honestly as a parent, we can’t relate. Something he has taken to pointing out at times — “You don’t understand”. He’s right, we don’t, not exactly. We can intellectually picture the issues, but we haven’t lived it. But when I heard Ryan O’Connell say those words above, it was like a small #TruthBomb going off in my heart. With lots of questions.
Will my son feel the same way? We don’t think our son is gay, but I don’t think he would know yet (he has no interest in anything in that area), but either way, will he feel some of the same romantic and sexual isolation that Ryan talks about? What else don’t we understand?
Yes, it’s a comedy, not a documentary. There are some funny bits, including him talking to his PT about dating, and joking that he thinks it’s funny that the PT thinks he has enough self-esteem to be on Grindr. With some relatively dark self-effacing humour about what his gay disabled profile would say.
I don’t know if the subject matter would appeal to everyone. But it resonated with me, and I am attracted to his style of writing. I’ve recently ordered his book too, apparently somewhat overlapping with the series in places. So I’ll read that when the series is done.
I would have predicted CANCELLATION before seeing the show, but afterwards, I’m going to go with RENEWAL based on the rawness in the first episode.
Shrill is a Hulu series about Annie, an overweight woman who, as the show promises, “wants to change her life without changing her body.” It basically doubles as a half-hour fat shaming show where she refuses to be shamed.
So here’s the thing. I’m overweight too. And I love people who want to embrace themselves, their true beings, etc. But a show that drags out every fat shaming stereotype, puts it on steroids, and dresses it up for humour doesn’t “burst the fat shaming bubble”, it just makes it seem ridiculous.
And, quite frankly, Annie is a mess. She’s passive with her job, avoids confrontation with everyone, seems to like her boyfriend mostly because she likes having one, and while somehow being self-aware and loving herself, her giant “I’m okay” moment is that she gets pregnant and has an abortion. There are lots of reactions that studies have shown after an abortion. Suddenly figuring out who you are is not a common one. She bounces back the next day, new dress, new girl, taking control of her life.
Annie is played by Aidy Bryant, and it feels like one long SNL skit that has no end. She’s okay, but no real presence for most of the episode because she is so passive. Her boyfriend Ryan, played by Luka Jones, is more of a plot device than a presence. Annie’s parents are played by Julia Sweeney and Daniel Stern, and I was disappointed Daniel didn’t have more to do…the voice of Dilbert, the narrator of The Wonder Years, and the best friend in City Slickers, and he has a minute or two of screentime.
The only real scene that works in the whole episode is a dramatic moment in the middle. Annie is having a conversation (in the middle of a rummage sale) with her best friend and roommate Fran. And Annie is having her moment where she is basically confronting her life, her weight and her pregnancy, and Fran has a reality check conversation with her that basically tells her she’s worthwhile as a person and deserves everything she wants and dreams. Annie is almost watchable, but Fran is awesome. Played by Lolly Adefope, Fran has the best scene and lines of the EP. Too bad it went for light-hearted comedy everywhere else, because this scene worked.
Based on the premise, I would have predicted CANCELLATION. After watching, I would leave it there. Except it’s Hulu and they like shows showing they’re socially relevant, and it’s already been renewed. I hope it went somewhere better than FAT PERSON MAKES GOOD.
Russian Doll made my list of premieres to try, and all I really knew about it was about a day being repeated. Based on that premise, it’s almost a lock to be cancelled. Almost every show that has tried it has made it less than one season, even if they went with death, or a repeat of the day for other reasons.
For this one, the character is named Nadia and it’s her 36th birthday. Nadia is a software engineer, single, and way beyond cynical. A 2-pack a day smoker, her biggest contribution to the day is sleeping with a married-but-separated yuppie type, if deep-minded Yuppies were still a thing. Mainly she’s just missing her cat. Fast-forward through her short night, nothing amazing happening other than getting laid, and then she is out on the street. She sees her missing cat across the road, runs to get her, and a cab mows her down. Yep, she’s dead. Except she’s not because it resets back to her being in the bathroom at the party earlier in the night. She doesn’t remember everything, but she has a profound sense of deja vu for some of the night. She makes different choices, ends up almost getting creamed by the same taxi (her ex saves her) and she finds her cat. At the end of the night, the cat vanishes in her arms, she falls in the river and drowns, and wakes up again in the bathroom, this time spitting out the water from the river.
There should be no chance this gets renewed, yet according to the ‘net, it is. How can you make this work past a single season, or even a single couple of episodes? I love these shows, and they are almost impossible to get right for the masses. I love when Star Trek does it, Stargate did an amazing version, Groundhog Day was fun if we could just get rid of Andie McDowell (how does he never try killing her?), Taye Diggs had some game going on in Day Break trying to solve his own frame up. But they don’t last. Loops are fun until you break them, but you have to have a goal that explains either the loop or the ending. And hopefully there’s something about the character that is interesting to watch. I’m not sure Nadia is it. Not that it matters, the premise of time loops is compelling for me and I’ll watch a train wreck if it attempts it.
Nadia is played by Nathasha Lyonne and I’m not thrilled for the first half of EP1. It seems like she’s trying to do a stand-up routine for half the interactions she has. Trying out lines that go nowhere, riffing off other people trying to be funny, but not really succeeding. More neurotic than anything. I haven’t seen her in Orange is the New Black or Portlandia, but she’s not a huge draw for me. After her death and rebirth, she’s a little less annoying in the second half.
For the rest of the characters. nobody stands out. She has two good friends in the apartment, nothing special to add. In the first half of the episode, the guy she f***s seems okay; her ex in the second half is a bit of a d-bag. And I have no idea what’s going on with her recognizing a random homeless guy.
The show’s a bit weird, but I’ll watch it to see where it leads, if anywhere. And if I hadn’t cheated and seen that it was renewed, I’d be predicting cancellation.
I knew absolutely nothing about the show Riviera before watching it, and imagine my surprise to see three decent-sized names — Julia Stiles, Anthony Lapaglia, and Lena Olin — as the stars. That alone would give me enough insight to predict RENEWAL sight unseen. I’d certainly have to give it a fighting chance. Except what I didn’t know is that the show is from 2017 and is already on SEASON 3! Umm…I’m a little behind the times.
But I watched the first episode without knowing that status. Julia and Anthony are fabulously rich, or at least Anthony is. Jet-setting, art purchases, yachts, homes in Cote d’Azur. High finance people flying here and there. Actively managing their wealth. Then the wife goes to NYC to buy a painting, and she wants to know if she can go above $30M for the painting or not, while he goes to a late-night meeting with some people on a yacht that then explodes. The wife wants to know what happened, and the search begins. I ignored the family drama.
Julia plays Georgina Clios, former security officer and mistress of Constantine Clios and now his wife. They are madly in love, but with a sense of insecurity, almost desperation at times between them. Julia is hit and miss for me. I liked her for part of the Bourne series, but not all, and a few movies here and there. She’s pretty stoic, and it’s actually interesting to see her as a full-fledged woman, not a girl-bordering-on-womanhood character. She’s a force to be reckoned with. She’s pretty fragile for EP1, having just found out her husband is dead, and understandably so, not that she is completely convinced of it at times.
Anthony plays Constantine, and it is hard to get a handle on his character, a bit slippery. He loves his wife, yet keeps a love nest with pictures of her everywhere in it (is it really a love nest?). He is distracted while talking to her on the phone just before the explosion, staring at a beautiful young woman. Seems like a slimeball, but appearances might be deceiving. He certainly had secrets of some kind. Not a lot of screentime, but memorable.
Lena Olin is disappointing as the ex-wife. She is supportive, but has her own agenda and seems more like a cliché than anything. Quite disappointing that is all she is given to do.
The only other real character of note is a police detective, played by Amr Waked. He was okay in the movie Lucy, and he is okay here, but a weird vibe — he is incredibly intense about the investigation, with no explanation of why. Beyond him, there are several family members who might have decent roles in the show, hard to tell. Mostly Constantine’s kids, and the son of the yacht owner who claims the explosion was murder.
Up until about the three-quarter mark, I was thinking “Meh”. But once Georgina starts investigating, the show picks up, and it makes me curious where it might go. I find it hard to decide if I want to continue or not, but I think I will.
