Category: TV Series

Genre: TV Series       

Grade: B+

Notable People: Will Forte, Siobhan Cullen, Robyn Cara, David Wilmot, Chris Walley, Created by: Jez Scharf

Title: Bodkin

Grade: Gilbert Power, an American podcaster, travels to Bodkin, an Irish coastal town, to investigate a cold case involving the disappearance of three people during a Samhaim celebration several decades prior. He is joined by Dublin-born “Dove” Maloney, an investigative journalist in London who is sent on assignment after the death of her source, a government whistleblower and Emmy, an aspiring journalist. This show started out clearly as a very back comedy, but morphed into something else that I had trouble following. On the other hand, JB seemed to really like it…might be our age difference and associated cognitive capabilities. We watched the seven episodes over quite a long period of time (as watching a dozen at a time) and this one might be better served to more or less binging-to keep up with the characters and plot twists. Very nice ensemble cast. One and done.

Genre: TV Series                            

Grade: A

Notable People: Jeremy Renner, Dianne Wiest, Hugh Dillon, Tobi Bamtefa, Taylor Handley, Emma Laird, Alden Gillen, Created by: Taylor Sheridan and Hugh Dillon

Title: The Mayor of Kingstown

Grade: Double WOW- the third season somehow topped the first two for intensity and darkness. Role of a lifetime for Jeremy Renner (his walk alone is worth the price of admission) and it just got better as the season went on. You can’t get grittier than this. Lots of violence and stuff to make you wonder about our shared morality -so not for everyone. But, extremely well done. The writers on this show (including the ubiquitous Taylor Sheridan) are outstanding and the ensemble cast around The Mayor, magnificent. Shockingly, three seems to be a season 4 in the works. Great television!!!

Genre: TV Series         

Grade: A-/B+

Notable People: Katja Riemann, Elisa Schlott, Anna Marie Muhe, Vanessa Loibl, Hans Wagner, Directed by: Elmar Fischer

Title: Our Miracle Years

Review: In a politically, morally and economically devastated country, three sisters of an industrialist Wolff family in post-war Germany reinvent themselves and set the course for their future. Potent drama that tells the often neglected story of the German experience following the war; centered around the aftereffects of the Nuremberg trials on former Nazis and the split of the country into two conflicting states. Extremely well-acted and poignant, and a powerful study of the rise of woman-power in Europe after the war. Riemann is brilliant the widow of a disgraced company director who commits suicide after being nailed as a Nazi collaborator-  really powerful role. Very authentic production and will keep you riveted around the shadows of our shared, but limited, knowledge of this time and place, though waned a bit at the end of the second (and clearly final) season. Original German production was interestingly called “Our WONDERFUL Years”.

Genre: TV Series        

Grade: A

Notable People: Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Booker T. Jones, Steve Cropper, Isaac Hayes, Jim Stewart, Al Bell; Created and Directed by: Jamila Wignot

Title: Stax: Soulsville, USA

Review: n 1960s Memphis, an audacious set of interracial collaborators dared to make their own music on their own terms, forming Stax Records, one of America’s most influential creators of Black music. This amazing four-part documentary follows the arc and ultimate fizzle of Stax; its fight to represent true American Black music, made for Black people and to be different than Motown in its quest for white audience. We see the underbelly of its ultimate demise in its failure to overcome the challenge of the giant white American music hierarchy: ultimately run over by Columbia records and burnt to the ground. But along the way, this extraordinary small town record label founded by bet brother Jim Stewart and sister Estelle Axton (ergo ST-AX) became the holy ground of soul music with Sam and Dave, Otis, Rufus and Carla Thomas, the Staples, the Bar-Kays and finally, their savior, the Black Messiah- Isaac Hayes. Told by the surviving principles in blunt and no-holds bard fashion, it is a compelling story of race, extraordinary creativity and the most unusual of integrated companies in southern America. And, it hovers around the enormously prescient Booker T. and the MG’S- America’s greatest interracial band. Eye opening.

Genre: TV Series         

Grade: B

Notable People: Theo James, Kaya Scodelario, Daniel Ings, Giancarlo Esposito, Created by: Guy Ritchie

Title: The Gentleman

Review: created by cutting edge director Guy Ritchie for Netflix, it is a spin-off of Ritchie’s 2019 film of the same name

Edward Horniman (the wonderfully deadpan James) has unexpectedly inherited a massive, regal estate and the title of Duke of Halstead at the reading of the last will and testament of his deceased father. He learns that the land has become part of a weed growing empire run by enchantress, and deadly, Susie Glass (Scodelario). He must navigate a wacked out, semi-sophisticated and bourgeois world of eclectic and dangerous characters with sordid agendas, while to keep his eccentric family, and himself, alive. Amusing, but on the dull side- though the legendary refined menace of Esposito makes it worth it when he is on camera (not enough). Seems an unlikely renewal to me.

Genre: TV Series     

Grade: B+/A-

Notable People: Lize Feryn, Wietse Tanghe, Matthieu Sys, Barbara Serafian, Wim Opbreauk, Sven Mattke, Created by: Jan Matthys

Title: In Flanders fields

Review: Ten part 2014 gritty mini-series on BBC/PBS (who are clearly the new kings of drama) telling the story of the Boesman family living under German occupation in Ghent, Belgium during the first world war. Flanders Fields is a common English name of the World War I battlefields in Belgium and France. The battle scenes can be an assault on the senses- as this “war to end all wars certainly was”. The horrors of the gas attacks are well portrayed as is the brutal lack of regard the Germans had for those they conquered. The story is told thru the lens of a successful doctor, his wife and their three adult (ish) children; all of whom become intricately involved in the war. No happy endings here- but very well done drama with no lack of surprises.  

Genre: TV Series      

Grade: A++

Notable People: Steve Carell, Domhnall Gleeson, Linda Emond, David Alan Grier, Created by: Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg

Title: Astrid

Review: I don’t give this rating lightly. In one of the more remarkable performances in recent memory, Steve Carrel transforms himself into the symbolic ghost of famed analyst and Auschwitz survivor, Viktor Frankl (“don’t wake me up if I am having a nightmare- the reality is much worse”), to treat a serial killer patient how is holding him hostage. Intrigued? You should be. This is a 20-minute show (until the last cataclysmic episode)- that feels like you have watched it for two hours. Darkness and intensity do not come close to describe it. This show was suggested to me by my old friend, Bruce, a renowned analytic practitioner in his own right, and I’m deeply grateful to him for the experience. Both carrel and Gleeson, as the tormented serial killer who wants to get better, are riveting. Their relationship is riveting; the mother living upstairs is riveting. Pure art. A one and done unfortunately, but the ten episodes are transformative. The end music of Leonard singing “You Want it Darker” (his last recording) with an orthodox Jewish choral backing and a Cantor is beyond fitting.

Genre: TV Series  

Grade: A-

Notable People: Sara Mortensen, Lola Deweare, Created by: Laurent Burtin, Alexandre de Seguins

Title: Astrid

Review: For my money, PBS is on top of the streaming world for all kinds of wonderful drama series-although you have to like sub- titles for many of them. This is a new one, about a young woman deeply on the spectrum, who becomes unlikely friends with a very tough police officer (Deweare- Think the Zaftig one from Cagney and Lacey) and becomes an asset to the Parisian police crime fight team with her striking memory and deductive abilities. Mortensen is brilliant in the title role, incredibly nuanced, and charming- hard not to wonder if the actor herself is on the spectrum, she is so dead on. Pants a nice picture of the capabilities of people with autism and their potential and value-and it quietly funny while featuring good murder mysteries. Cast is flawless. Definitely a returner for at last two more seasons.

Genre: TV Series

Grade: B+/A-

Notable People: Jeff Daniels, L. Warren Young, Tom Pelphrey, Diane Lane, Lucy Liu, William Jackson, Ami Ameen, Created by: David E. Kelley

Title: A Man in Full

Review: another vehicle for Jeff Daniels shining star (from the great Tom Wolfe novel in a series co-produced by The Obamas); fresh off the gritty northeast coal country of American Rust, into this role as the “60 Minute Man”, a college football icon, turned ruthless businessman, living in a traditional good ol’ boy, southern power frenzy, while the world is shifting away from him. Daniel’s is spectacular and the cast formidable, though mostly not very likeable. Indefatigable Charley Croker’s business and political interests collide when the Atlanta real estate tycoon defends his empire from those wanting to capitalize on his sudden bankruptcy and fall from grace. The story, of lies, deceit and greed is set against an undertone of racial tension and social injustice, with an all-star cast of African –American actors. Pelphrey is despicable as the man with a giant inferiority complex trying to bring the great tycoon down, and Ladd is perfectly radiant as Charlies’ ex-wife. Young steels the show as the corporate lawyer turned reluctant desperate defense attorney as he searches to find his moral compass. Limited six-episode series that was intensely enough. Won’t be back.  

Genre: TV Series       

Grade: B+/A-

Notable People: Jeff Daniels, Maura Tierney, Alex Nuestaedtner, Created by: Dan Futtermen

Title: American Rust

Review: Third season not as rich as the first two for this dark and foreboding drama set in the far reaches of Western Pennsylvania coal country. Daniels is his usual amazing self (he is everywhere these days) as the lonely and depressed Police Chief, now returned to his former life as a Pittsburgh Detective. The critics really did not like this show, for reasons I can’t really understand. It is a bit slow moving, and, at times, a bit predictable. But, Daniels is a tour de force (as always) in a complicated role and the supporting cast is really good. The cinematography brilliantly captures the area’s fade and despair, and the music is dead on. Nuestaedtner shines as confused former town football hero, stuck in his home town and charged with murder. The move to Amazon from ShowTime allowed for ease of binge watching. Anything with Jeff Daniels is worth watching. Season finale suggested this would be it for this show, but it has been picked up by Amazon affiliate, Freevee, for another season. Daniels plays and sings the great country blues title song at the finale.