Welcome to a busy Monday newsletter. This week, I am looking at three big premieres - Frasier, Lessons in Chemistry and The Fall of the House of Usher. I also look at the latest episode of The Morning Show, the return of Saturday Night Live and more!
"FRASIER" RETURNS
If Frasier was a brand new show in 2023, and not a revival, there is no chance it would have been a multi-camera sitcom. It came from a veteran multi-camera creative team and originally premiered in an era where single camera comedies were few and far-between. But even then, it had a different sensibility than a lot of the "live studio audience" shows. With its high-brow humor and theatrical sensibility, it always felt like the upper class of its genre that eventually moved into the single camera realm. It would be even more of an outlier now with the multi-camera comedies getting dumber and dumber as the years go on.
The revival of Frasier, which premiered this past Thursday on Paramount+ with two episodes, seems to be sort of stuck. On the one hand, it still has some sophisticated elements. There's some university humor and there's still an awful lot of snobbery. Kelsey Grammer is still doing his thing and seems very comfortable slipping back into the iconic role after nearly two decades away. But the show also feels like it has dumbed itself down a bit to pander more to a studio audience with some dumb jokes that felt like it would have been beneath the original NBC sitcom (or maybe that cast just sold it better). The series always had traditional joke setups but it was also very clever. There's a reason it won the Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy Award for five straight seasons. The standard sitcommery at times in this revival felt glaring not only because comedies have evolved so much but also because it felt a bit "beneath" Frasier.
I still do give the revival of Frasier some credit because it's not stuck too much in the past. A lot of that could be due to the fact that there is no David Hyde Pierce (who opted not to participate) or John Mahoney (who passed away). As a result, the show basically surrounded Grammer with an entirely different cast in a different setting (a return to Boston) while still allowing him to clearly be the character we have known since he first appeared on Cheers in 1984. Because of that, it dabbles much less in nostalgia and re-creating favorite bits and dynamics than other revivals have. The supporting cast ranges from strong (Jack Cutmore-Scott as Frasier's son, Freddy) to serviceable (Nicholas Lyndhurst as stuffy professor Alan Cornwall) with the notable exception being Anders Keith as Niles and Daphne's grown-up soon. He needs to dial it back about 50% or more.
Overall, I would put this in the upper tier of both reboots/revivals as well as recent multi-camera comedies. That doesn't mean it is great because it's not like reboots/revivals or recent multi-camera sitcoms are setting the world on fire. It just means it is a pretty good version of what it is trying to be. I would say it maybe slightly exceeded my expectations? I do plan to keep watching so I'll probably check in again on this show before the season is over.
APPLE GIVES US A LESSON IN "CHEMISTRY"
Apple TV+ had the premiere of the limited series Lessons in Chemistry this past Friday with two episodes. The series is the definition of prestige television. It's based on a bestselling 2022 novel by Bonnie Garmus. It stars an Oscar winning actress (Brie Larson) and it is an opulent period piece with no expense spared.
I watched both episodes and I would say that I liked it for the most part but there was a little something that felt just a little bit empty about it. All the pieces were there but I just didn't feel much of anything watching it. Larson is strong in this as is Lewis Pullman, a complete clone of his father Bill. They have strong, dare I say, chemistry with each other. Aja Naomi King is giving an interesting performance too that I'm sure will become more prominent as the series continues. The series also has impeccable production design with a detailed 1950s world and very pleasing aesthetics.
I think part of where I struggled with this one was some of the chemistry stuff. Chemistry has never been remotely interesting to me (I failed my Chemistry state test in high school). So, I can feel my eyes glazing over anytime they use big words to talk about anything chemistry-related the way they did when I was sitting in my high school Chemistry class. But I also think the show treads over sex and race politics we have seen time and time again in period dramas in the peak TV era. It's not that it's not well done, because it is. It's just that it has a "been there, done that" feel to it.
That said, I do plan to watch the rest of the series because there were enough things I liked. I didn't know about the twist in episode two and I won't spoil it for those who haven't read the book but I'm curious how that propels the rest of the series. I'm sure I'll have more to say on this one in future weeks!
MIKE FLANAGAN TAKES ON BIG PHARMA
Netflix dropped all eight episodes of The Fall of the House of Usher on Thursday. The series is the final Netflix offering from Mike Flanagan who has had a new horror show almost every October since The Haunting of Hill House in 2018. He has moved his overall deal with Amazon so we should expect an Amazon show next October pending the resolution of the SAG-AFTRA strike. I've been mixed at best with the Flanagan shows. The Haunting of Bly Manor was my favorite by far but others I haven't even finished.
I have only had a chance to watch two episodes of Usher and I'd say I'm mostly in on the show so far. I think the whole Dopesick meets Edgar Allen Poe meets Succession wrapped up in a horror show makes it something unique. It has a strong (and very large) cast with Bruce Greenwood (who replaced the fired Frank Langella) a stand-out. It also does a great job with the ambiance of the series. It's finding a nice mix between dark humor, biting commentary and jump scares.
I felt as though both the first two episodes were a longer than they needed to be though. Netflix seems to be the one streamer than still hasn't realized less is more when it comes to episode lengths. The first episode was just a little bit too much talking while the second episode felt like it needed to tighten things up in a big way. There was too much mood-setting. It appears each episode after the first one will focus on a different child of the titular family so we'll see if it gets repetitive or not because we know from the first five minutes of the first episode that they are going to die. But I did like seeing Flanagan not taking himself too seriously. I'm sure I'll have more to say after watching the rest of the series.
"THE MORNING SHOW" AND ITS DESPERATION
I stumbled onto an article this week from The Hollywood Reporter that had an interview with The Morning Show director Mimi Leder. She and producer Michael Ellenberg talked about this past week's episode, which featured a sex scene between Jennifer Aniston and Jon Hamm. They predicted it would "break the internet" and would be "highly viral." Not only did that not really happen but this is the problem with The Morning Show and what it is aiming for.
Do you think Jesse Armstrong really cared what the internet thought about his choices in the final season of Succession? Was Bill Hader excited to try to "break the internet" in Barry? Was Mike White writing The White Lotus with the intention of having a "highly viral" moment? The answer to all three of those questions is "of course not" because those auteurs worried first and foremost about their show and then let the chips fall where they may when it came to audience reception and social media engagement.
Maybe it was unartfully stated but that article on The Morning Show made it seem as though that series was more excited about a potential internet reaction to a hook-up between two very attractive stars than it was to telling a good story with their characters. And that's been the MO for the show since the beginning, even during its superior first season. It has always wanted to be a noisy show. It has always tried hard to be in the conversation. The Morning Show is like that high school kid who tries desperately to be cool while other kids, like the shows mentioned above, are just cool effortlessly.
Jennifer Aniston is the one of the two best parts of The Morning Show (Billy Crudup is the other). She has decent chemistry with Jon Hamm. I don't think I would have hooked them up so soon in the story but I could get on board if I felt like the show was moving their organically. This interview makes me think the people behind the show do not care as much about story as they should. Also, where the heck has Nicole Beharie been?
SCRIPTED SHOWS PREMIERING THIS WEEK
After three high profile premieres this past week, it's a much quieter week ahead with mostly returning shows. BET has the fifth season premiere of The Oval on Tuesday night. Thursday has the return of Wolf Like Me on Peacock for a second season. The renewal was a surprise as it didn't seem to make much of an impact in its first season. Thursday also has the premiere of the comedy Neon on Netflix. Friday has the premiere of the penultimate seventh season of Big Mouth on Netflix, the second season of Bosch: Legacy on Freevee and the third season of Upload on Prime Video.
THOUGHT TO END TODAY
Saturday Night Live returned on Saturday night thanks to the WGA strike ending and the SNL actors not impacted by the SAG-AFTRA strike. It was nice to have it back for its 49th season after the previous season was cut short. But this isn't a high point in the SNL history. I think it has two problems - one it can control and one it can't. The problem it can control is the writing. It feels like every sketch needs to spell out its joke or conceit in big, bold letters instead of giving the audience a little bit of credit. The problem it can't control is being relevant by the time Saturday night rolls around in a social media era. The first sketch after a solid stand-up routine by host Pete Davidson was about Taylor Swift at NFL games, a topic that has already stopped being funny on the internet for over a week. A cameo by Travis Kelce couldn't save that dud. The best bit of the night was Kenan Thompson as Deion Sanders on Weekend Update. Kenan remains a stealthy superstar as his continues his record-breaking run on the show.
No comments:
Post a Comment