TV #41 of 2022: Bob’s Burgers, season 7 Here’s my original review of this season from when it aired in 2017: “There are typically few real surprises this late into a show’s run, and although this particular show is still making me laugh, I’d probably be okay if it got canceled. I’ve always loved how …
Tag Archives: TV aired in 2017
TV Review: Scandal, season 6
TV #15 of 2022: Scandal, season 6 This penultimate outing starts with a bang, and winds up structuring its entire year a bit like a whodunnit mystery. For a while, the show is almost hypnotically-recursive, returning Rashomon-like to Election Night again and again, each time filling in yet another person’s perspective along with some additional …
TV Review: Broadchurch, season 3
TV #64 of 2021: Broadchurch, season 3 This last run of Broadchurch is its strongest yet, although it’s a bit of a departure in two key ways. First, the central case is a rape, which of necessity entails a different sort of investigation than the child murder of previous seasons. And second, an entirely new …
TV Review: The Americans, season 5
TV #58 of 2021: The Americans, season 5 I feel torn about this penultimate stretch of The Americans, which in general is serving its deep-cover protagonists quite well. Their share of the story is richer than it was in the previous year, and sees the operatives drawing closer together and experiencing ever more remorse and …
TV Review: Star Wars Rebels, season 3
TV #53 of 2021: Star Wars Rebels, season 3 Another mixed bag of a season. The best element is clearly the villainous Grand Admiral Thrawn, making his long-overdue introduction into proper Star Wars canon a full quarter-century after first appearing in the 1991 novel Heir to the Empire. I actually haven’t read any of the …
TV Review: Kim’s Convenience, season 2
TV #3 of 2021: Kim’s Convenience, season 2 A slight improvement over the first year of this Canadian sitcom, both by making Appa a bit less caustically opinionated and by finally introducing some plot developments at the end of the season that speak to exciting shake-ups ahead. For now, though, it’s a lot of status …
TV Review: The Good Fight, season 1
TV #48 of 2020: The Good Fight, season 1 So far this streaming spinoff sequel isn’t quite hitting the heights of its network forebear, but at least it picks the franchise back up after the dull plotting and inconsistent character work that plagued the end of The Good Wife. My biggest complaint about this first …
TV Review: Better Call Saul, season 3
TV #7 of 2020: Better Call Saul, season 3 My original review from 2018: “At this point, I’m almost ready to declare Better Call Saul the superior program to its parent show Breaking Bad. (It helps that there doesn’t seem to be the same toxic fandom around it, with people mistaking a critique of harmful …
TV Review: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, season 2
TV #50 of 2018: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, season 2 Not as tight a story as the first season, but I like that it immediately pushes forward new character-driven plots, especially for Paula, and that the status quo continues to get shaken up as the season progresses. And of course, the songs are as clever and catchy …
TV Review: Fargo, season 3
TV #47 of 2018: Fargo, season 3 This show has always been in danger of substituting style for substance, given that its essential MO is to just remix the themes, characters, and events of the original Coen brothers movie. And while the first two seasons largely managed to chart their own strong courses of midwestern …
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