Monday, March 18, 2024

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: March 18, 2024

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week I am looking at recent premieres Manhunt, The Girls on the Bus and Apples Never Fall!

MANHUNT
I checked out the first two episodes of Apple TV+'s Manhunt, a series about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. There were some things I really liked about the show and I definitely plan to keep watching but it suffers a bit from the things that plague so many Apple TV+ shows: it is a beautiful production design wrapped around a show that's lacking a heart and a soul. The period work here is great and meticulous, but the depth of so many shows on the streamer is just lacking. It reminded me a bit of The New Look in that way though Manhunt is stronger than that show.

Monday, March 11, 2024

NO NEWSLETTER THIS WEEK!

No Monday newsletter this week. Between some busy things going on for me and not much in terms of current shows I'm watching, it was a quiet week so I won't have a newsletter today. It will return next Monday though with a look at several shows premiering this week!

Monday, March 4, 2024

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: March 4, 2024

Welcome to my Monday newsletter. This week, I am looking at new series The Regime, Elsbeth and Shogun!

THE REGIME
I don't know if this is sort of an expectations game but I didn't have high hopes for The Regime after seeing some mixed to negative reviews in the last couple days. But then I think this show exceeded my expectations, at least by a little bit. I agree with the consensus that Kate Winslet is far and away the best part of this show. The acclaimed actress, last seen on TV in HBO's gripping Mare of Easttown, is fully committed to this role and she gives the show more gravitas than it probably deserves. The supporting cast isn't developed all that much in the first episode aside from Matthias Schoenaerts, who is solid but not doing anything special like Winslet.

Monday, February 26, 2024

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: February 26, 2024

Welcome to a pretty short newsletter. This week, I am looking at the new season of Will Trent, the latest episode of Abbott Elementary and the end of Mr. & Mrs. Smith along with thoughts on Expats, some recent renewals and the SAG Awards!

WILL TRENT SEASON 2
I didn't stick with Will Trent in its first season even though I liked the couple episodes I watched. But I felt like it continued to get decent buzz by broadcast TV standards so I gave it another shot as Season Two kicked off. I'm not sure if there's a better chance of me sticking around long-term but I do think it's a pretty good example of the show it's trying to be. I think by broadcast procedural standards, it's quite solid. It has some quirky characters and styles and does just enough things well and different to be a cut above some of the more bland network entries.

Monday, February 19, 2024

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: February 19, 2024

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am looking at Apple TV+'s new drama The New Look, the season finale of True Detective: Night Country, the latest episode of Abbott Elementary and more!

THE NEW LOOK
For the first ten years on this blog, I mostly focused on broadcast shows. I watched a few cable and streaming shows but I watched broadcast with regularity. Over time, I started to have less patience for the shows that were doing something I'd see hundreds of times. Things like generic procedural dramas became less and less interesting unless they really offered something different. And I sometimes looked back at the shows I liked in the beginning of my blog days and thought "I can't believe how much I liked [any number of early 2010s procedural]" as my tastes evolved and sharpened.

Monday, February 12, 2024

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: February 12, 2024

Welcome to my Monday newsletter. Today, I am looking at the third season premiere of Abbott Elementary, the latest episodes of True Detective: Night Country and Feud: Capote vs. the Swans and more!

ABBOTT ELEMENTARY "Career Day" (Season Premiere)
Abbott Elementary returned for its third season in fine form with a double episode focused on "Career Day" and picking up midway through the school year. While the real reason was the writer's strike of course, the show chose to not do the beginning of the school year and keep it in the real time of the school calendar. That allowed the show to make some narrative choices that I think have set up the third season well. Janine is now working for the district and the show used flashbacks to give us a brief look at how things have evolved between Gregory and Janine since the second season finale. There was also a very clever explanation of why the camera crew has been absent with a cold open that featured the most direct references to the crew.

Monday, February 5, 2024

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: February 5, 2024

Welcome to my Monday newsletter. This week, I am looking at Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, the latest episode of True Detective: Night Country and more!

MR. & MRS. SMITH
For the last couple years, my most highly anticipated new show of the year turned out to be a disappointment (The First Lady in 2022, Dear Edward in 2023). So between that track record and the fact that Prime Video had a late embargo and a binge model, I was very worried that my #1 for 2024, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, would follow in those footsteps. Well, I'm happy to report that not only did Mr. & Mrs. Smith not disappoint, I would say it actually exceeded expectations.

I've watched three episodes of the eight so far and the closest comparison I can make is Poker Face in the sense that it's a throwback case of the week feel but with the gloss and money of a prestige TV show. I really don't mind self-contained shows. TV has been thriving on that model for decades. The problem with so many broadcast shows nowadays is that they are so unambitious with low production values that it really doesn't feel worth my time. What both Poker Face and Mr. and Mrs. Smith did is put some gloss (high production values, great guest stars) on a tried and true TV formula and the results are episodes that are endlessly enjoyable because they're familiar in the best sense of the word. These are shows that could run for years or a decade even though they probably won't.

Monday, January 29, 2024

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: January 29, 2024

Welcome to my Monday Newsletter. This week, I am looking at the new limited series Expats, Masters of the Air and Griselda, the latest episode of True Detective: Night Country and more!

EXPATS
There were three big premieres this past week but none of them were super exciting to me personally. The one I enjoyed most though was Expats, a Prime Video limited series based on the 2016 novel The Expatriates. The series, set in an expatriate community in Hong Kong, follows the interconnected lives of three women (Nicole Kidman, Sarayu Blue, & Ji-young Yoo). 

The first two episodes were not perfect by any means but they interested me enough to definitely keep watching. I was frustrated in the first episode when the characters just kept talking around an event that was meant to be a secret from the audience. This isn't some mystery box show, I don't think it needed to keep what happened a secret until nearly the end of the second episode. And the very obvious vagueness in dialogue to keep the actual event a secret got irritating after awhile. It was wholly unnecessary. Obviously something happened to Kidman's son, obviously it had to do with Yoo's character. Why the need to keep it such a secret? I also wasn't convinced that a series that only has six episodes needed to spend an entire episode in a flashback. 

Monday, January 22, 2024

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: January 22, 2024

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! Today I am looking at Death and Other Details, the season finale of Fargo, the latest episode of True Detective: Night Country, the Emmys and more!

DEATH AND OTHER DETAILS
There's a whole lot of murder mysteries premiering in January on TV. One of the ones that interested me most going in was Death and Other Details, a dramedy set aboard a luxury cruise ship. After watching the first two episodes, which premiered on Hulu this past Tuesday, I'm still somewhat intrigued but my enthusiasm was dampened somewhat by two uneven episodes to kick off the series.

There's a strong cast here led by the Violett Beane and the great Mandy Patinkin along with strong supporting actors such as Jayne Atkinson and Jere Burns. When I put this show on my Most Anticipated list, I drew comparisons to The White Lotus because it's a murder mystery in a luxurious setting. But this certainly doesn't aim as high as Lotus and yet it takes itself more seriously. There's some odd tonal issues in the first two episodes. Sometimes it seems to want to be a super fun, unserious murder mystery. Other times, it seems to want to explore trauma and deeper issues. The former is much more enjoyable than the latter.

Monday, January 15, 2024

BENJAMONSTER NEWSLETTER: January 15, 2024

Happy Emmys Day! This week's Newsletter includes a review of True Detective: Night Country, a preview of the Drama categories at the Emmys, thoughts on the season finales of For All Mankind and The Curse, the latest episode of Fargo and more!

TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY
I actually haven't watched any of the True Detective seasons. It's always been on my list but as the reaction to the second and third season was more muted, I just never got around to it. So I can't comment at all on how the fourth installment, Night Country, compares to previous seasons. But I thought the first episode of Night Country was strong and I look forward to watching the rest of the season. The first episode does a great job with mood setting. It starts on the last day of daylight in Northern Alaska and then continues when Alaska is dark 24 hours a day (hence the "Night Country"). The feel of constant night seems to be a major part of this season given the name but it also helps tremendously with mood-setting.