The TV thread

I don’t know why I’ve stuck with it (maybe because I’ve run out of my go-tos), but I’ve been watching Night Agent. As pure action goes, it isn’t bad. But that’s about it. The story is a little convoluted and some of the twists are predictable. But I need to see it out.

 

We just started Mr. Robot. Somehow I'd never even looked at it. Knew it had a lot of good press, just never got there. Interesting, well written, cast is great... but lord is it bleak. Gonna hang with it, but the wife isn't convinced it's worth the angst.

 

It's really good, very well acted, very good use of music. It is bleak, for sure, but it's worth sticking through for the five seasons.

 

It's definitely a bleak, modern day noir with a lot of mind fuck elements to it. I liked it overall, but it has some ups and downs in quality over its run, and I definitely understand if its not entirely everyone else's thing.

 

Mrs. Neutral understands why I like it, but I suspect this isn't one that we'll grind through together.

 

At Ep 5 of Hijack, really appreciate Elba but this ep crept towards farcical.

 

I just found out the other day that the guy who plays Fak in The Bear is an actual celebrity chef from Toronto. He's also the show's executive producer.

 

Yellowstone will move networks — or add a network, not sure which — this fall.

A lot of other strike-induced changes as well.

https://people.com/cbs-announces-yellowstone-broadcast-debut-revised-fall-2023-programming-7562230

 

My wife and I have been binging All American lately. We don't normally watch CW shows, but as I understand it, this one is par for the course. The drama and the football in the first season is pretty good, but the show then does its best to drag the premise as much as it can. I would have been pissed watching this in real time, since they tease a championship game at the end of season 3, and don't tell you the results until season 4. It's also "old school" in that there are roughly 20 episodes per season, 5 seasons and counting, hour long each. It's an OK show, but doesn't really have much to say after the first few seasons. (There are attempts at journalism and NIL related storylines in S4, S5, but they're bad, and the show's football action gets more backgrounded as time goes on.)

 

Felt the same way -- not much football, more real life high school drama. I have met the producer -- Carter Paysinger. He was the coach at Beverly Hills for a long time and later a couple of other schools on the Westside, including Santa Monica now. This is about his brother, Spencer (duh!) Paysinger, who grew up in South Central but attended Beverly Hills.
My daughter told me I was getting too picky in my critiques -- Crenshaw would never play Malibu in football -- and I knew the nicknames didn't match reality. Beverly never had lights on its field and the scoreboard said UNI, which they probably filmed at University High, which is pretty close to Beverly. Pretty shady that they can drive from Beverly to Crenshaw in a few minutes.
I also watched the sequel -- All American Homecoming -- about the HBCU in Atlanta that Simone, the one who had the baby, attended. Both are light watching.

 

If e6/7 of The Bear aren't the best things I'll see on TV this year, please direct me to those other shows right now.

 

That Always Sunny was dumb beyond belief.