So, here's a surprise. Television is getting to be serious competition for the movies. I mean it. With its ability to deliver long term projects that build a story to exciting and new climaxes and with its seemingly uncensored moves, especially in cable, it seems to be giving the old movie theater a serious run for the money.
And with Matthew McConaughey and the like getting into the game, it seems like now is as good a time as we have ever had watching television here in the good old United States of America.
True Detectives was brilliant and got robbed at the Emmy's. Matthew, you did an incredible job.
Shows of note you may not be watching:
Legends is just kick-ass. The story of an FBI undercover agent, (undercover operative identities are called "legends" in the business, it seems), who looses his identity and maybe his mind in the process, we see a man out of control, becoming one with whatever identity the flavor of the day is. He is lost to his wife and his child and, due to a strange series of events, he may not even be who he thinks he is when he's NOT undercover. And we're just a few episodes in, so I anticipate that this series is just going to get better. Sean Bean, from Game of Thrones is superb as Martin Odum, an FBI agent who may be more, or less, than even HE thinks he is.
Suits just completed season 5 in great fashion with its usual flare and dynamic attitude. Don't miss an episode of this one, folks. Like Boston Legal, an earlier incarnation of a smart lawyer sitcom, this show brims with wit and wisdom and cleverness. It centers around the bromance of Mike Ross, a kid who DIDN'T graduate from Harvard, but who has an eidetic memory (where he can remember not only what he has seen perfectly, when he saw it and under what conditions, but can ALSO give what he remembers actual context in any given situation) and Harvey Specter, a Harvard educated legal badass who slaps his opponents about verbally and, when it requires it, in other ways as well. Smart and sexy, this drama hits the nail on the head and has one of the catchiest theme songs ever recorded.
The Blacklist has several key things going for it. The immediate thing that comes to my mind is, of course, James Spader, who I have followed throughout his career from Sex, Lies and Videotape to Stargate to television where he continues to shine. The story of a man on the top of the FBI most wanted list who turns himself in for his own purposes, this show is often very close to campy, but manages to rise above it at the last minute, mostly due to the delivery of a James Spader line or two. We are left with many threads to tie up at the end of this past season, not the least of which surrounding the connection Raymond Reddington (Spader) has with the FBI agent he insisted to surrender to, Liz Keen. In a dizzying spiral of events, we are left with all sorts of details about Liz and Reddington which hint at a much larger, more tangible past, but are left with only clues by the end of the season.
Under the Dome is very entertaining which is more than I can say for a number of the Steven King projects that have been produced over the years. Brian K Vaughan being involved hasn't hurt and executive producer Steven Spielberg hasn't hurt either. My only real complaint about the series is that there just seems to be an awful lot that happens in a VERY short amount of time to these people. I mean, you get the sense that weeks have passed in their timeline and then someone mentions that they have been under the dome for only three days. Little strange.
But the acting is good, the writing crisp and the special effects are not hokey. There are moments when I feel that we are being led down a path Twin Peaks suffered from, where the series just ran on and on, but so far, it seems to be entertaining enough to watch to the end. And did I mention: Brian K Vaughan?
More television stuff to come…
And with Matthew McConaughey and the like getting into the game, it seems like now is as good a time as we have ever had watching television here in the good old United States of America.
True Detectives was brilliant and got robbed at the Emmy's. Matthew, you did an incredible job.
Shows of note you may not be watching:
Legends is just kick-ass. The story of an FBI undercover agent, (undercover operative identities are called "legends" in the business, it seems), who looses his identity and maybe his mind in the process, we see a man out of control, becoming one with whatever identity the flavor of the day is. He is lost to his wife and his child and, due to a strange series of events, he may not even be who he thinks he is when he's NOT undercover. And we're just a few episodes in, so I anticipate that this series is just going to get better. Sean Bean, from Game of Thrones is superb as Martin Odum, an FBI agent who may be more, or less, than even HE thinks he is.
Suits just completed season 5 in great fashion with its usual flare and dynamic attitude. Don't miss an episode of this one, folks. Like Boston Legal, an earlier incarnation of a smart lawyer sitcom, this show brims with wit and wisdom and cleverness. It centers around the bromance of Mike Ross, a kid who DIDN'T graduate from Harvard, but who has an eidetic memory (where he can remember not only what he has seen perfectly, when he saw it and under what conditions, but can ALSO give what he remembers actual context in any given situation) and Harvey Specter, a Harvard educated legal badass who slaps his opponents about verbally and, when it requires it, in other ways as well. Smart and sexy, this drama hits the nail on the head and has one of the catchiest theme songs ever recorded.
The Blacklist has several key things going for it. The immediate thing that comes to my mind is, of course, James Spader, who I have followed throughout his career from Sex, Lies and Videotape to Stargate to television where he continues to shine. The story of a man on the top of the FBI most wanted list who turns himself in for his own purposes, this show is often very close to campy, but manages to rise above it at the last minute, mostly due to the delivery of a James Spader line or two. We are left with many threads to tie up at the end of this past season, not the least of which surrounding the connection Raymond Reddington (Spader) has with the FBI agent he insisted to surrender to, Liz Keen. In a dizzying spiral of events, we are left with all sorts of details about Liz and Reddington which hint at a much larger, more tangible past, but are left with only clues by the end of the season.
Under the Dome is very entertaining which is more than I can say for a number of the Steven King projects that have been produced over the years. Brian K Vaughan being involved hasn't hurt and executive producer Steven Spielberg hasn't hurt either. My only real complaint about the series is that there just seems to be an awful lot that happens in a VERY short amount of time to these people. I mean, you get the sense that weeks have passed in their timeline and then someone mentions that they have been under the dome for only three days. Little strange.
But the acting is good, the writing crisp and the special effects are not hokey. There are moments when I feel that we are being led down a path Twin Peaks suffered from, where the series just ran on and on, but so far, it seems to be entertaining enough to watch to the end. And did I mention: Brian K Vaughan?
More television stuff to come…