Welcome to my Monday newsletter. This week, I am looking at All the Light We Cannot See, Black Cake, The Morning Show, Lessons in Chemistry and more!
"ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE" IS A MISFIRE
All the Light We Cannot See has been savaged by critics, many of whom are fans of the book and feel the four part Netflix adaptation, which was released this past week, is seriously misguided. I didn't read the book and was looking forward to this show (especially before the reviews started coming out).
I'm not sure I have the vitriol for the limited series that some do but I certainly didn't think it was great. The four part series feels like it goes on for eternity with each episode being more of a chore to watch than the last. I actually didn't really dislike the first episode. I thought there were enough intriguing elements to keep watching, most notably the visual flair and a strong lead performance from Aria Mia Loberti, a blind actress playing a blind character.
But the show started to meander even in the first episode and that meandering intensified with each passing episode. Sometimes we were dealing with cartoonishly villainous Nazis while other times it seemed to play like an epic World War II romance. Despite only being four parts, they seemed to put an awful lot of effort into creating unnecessarily dramatic cliffhangers. It's not a weekly show, this was a four episode Netflix limited series so there was no need for the cliffhangers because each episode seemed to exert a lot of energy building to those moments.
Much has already been said about Mark Ruffalo's misguided accent and he was pretty forgettable in this show. Then again, so was Hugh Laurie, so it was a waste of some talented performers. Only Loberti could salvage some of the scenes but even then, she was only doing what she could with the material. This has such the feel of a show that wanted to be prestige TV without actually putting the work in. But despite all these negative statements, I felt like it was more harmlessly unnecessary than offensively bad. Maybe if I had read the book, I would have the latter position.
A BIT OF "BLACK CAKE"
I watched a little bit of Black Cake on Hulu but I'm not giving a full review as I gave up on the show pretty quickly. I watched two full episodes but my attention was wandering during both of them, especially the second episode. There were too many time jumps, way too much exposition and a surprisingly cheap feel to the show. This was one of those shows where it might have worked as a two hour movie but the padding they had to add to turn the idea into an episode series meant they lost complete focus of the story by having to flesh out things that had no business being fleshed out. So I'm out on this one. I'm also out on Paramount+'s Lawmen: Bass Reeves because I couldn't even finish the first episode without losing interest.
"THE MORNING SHOW" EMBRACES THE CRAZY
The penultimate episode of the third season of The Morning Show did not fix all the ills of the show and the season, but it was pretty darn entertaining. And I think that was in large part because it seemed to embrace its ridiculousness, most notably in a completely unhinged performance by Billy Crudup that finally made it feel like the show was "in on the joke" that the show is a soapy melodrama not to be taken seriously. Now, I don't think the show is going to suddenly stop trying to be self-important all the time but boy, was it fun to hear Jennifer Aniston's Alex call out Billy Crudup's Cory for his theatrical monologues. It made me feel like the show actually does recognize in some small way what it has become and decided to embrace it.
We finally got a scene between Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon (the lack of shared screen time between the two leads has started to get some internet conspiracy theorists going). But that moment didn't really feel earned because the two have been apart for so much this season. So, the idea of Bradley and Alex confiding in each other with such sensitive information really was a stretch given the two characters have been in completely different stories all season. And I will give credit where it is due. Despite my hatred for all things with Reese Witherspoon's stories, the scene between her and Julianna Margulies was pretty well-played and believable. Her resignation was a little forced though and the idea that everyone would be watching it live - once again, the show sometimes acts like it's 1993 and not 2023. Finally, Jon Hamm got some substantial work and got to show a sinister side I've been waiting to see all season.
So the show heads into its third season finale in the best shape it's been in all season. It is still wacky, don't get me wrong, but I was very engaged in the episode and not just in a hate-watching mode. But once again, this series is called The Morning Show and the latest episode had exactly zero minutes on the fictional Morning Show. Oh well. I do look forward to seeing the season finale this week.
CHECK-IN ON "LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY"
Lessons in Chemistry seems to be settling into the thrust of the story but it took a long time to get there. The fifth episode, which aired this past week, hardly looks anything like the first episode. But the interesting thing is I liked both versions of the show to an extent. The early episodes had the delightful, ahem, chemistry between Brie Larson and Lewis Pullman while the show is now finding its groove with Larson's Elizabeth Zott now a TV cooking show host and mom to Madeline (played by a strong young actress, Alice Halsey).
The in-between part that dealt a bit with Elizabeth's post-partum depression and grief over the loss of Pullman's Calvin was the weakest part of the season so far. I realize it had to get from Point A to Point B but the journey wasn't all that smooth. I think this is one of the issues with limited series, especially those based on books. An ongoing series could take its time getting to the meat of the series while actually giving the necessary time to character development along the way while a movie could trim the fat and jump from Point A to Point B quickly. Sometimes limited series are stuck in-between and I think that was the case here for much of the third and fourth episode.
SCRIPTED PREMIERES THIS WEEK
There are a couple pretty busy weeks in November for premieres and this is one of them. On Wednesday, Apple TV+ premieres The Buccaneers, a show that seems to be trying to appeal to fans of shows like Bridgerton and Sandition. Wednesday also has the second season premiere of The Santa Clauses on Disney+. That was a surprise renewal after last winter's run. Thursday has the delayed second season premiere of Rap Sh!t on Max, a show that didn't have a lot of buzz. It seems like it would really have to break out to get a third season. On Friday, Apple TV+ has the fourth season premiere of one of its original shows, the very underrated For All Mankind. It joins Servant as the only Apple TV+ originals so far to air a fourth season (The Morning Show has been renewed for a fourth season). Friday also has the streaming premiere of The Curse, a highly anticipated and sort of mysterious show starring Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone. It will premiere on Paramount+ Friday before a linear premiere on Showtime on Sunday night. Sunday also has the premiere of Beacon 23 on MGM+. The series, which stars Lena Headley, was originally slated for both AMC and Spectrum before landing at MGM+.
THOUGHT TO END TODAY
With the SAG-AFTRA strike seemingly nearing its end (although it has had more twists than many thriller shows I've seen), networks seem to be firming up plans for 2024. This week alone we got the news that the broadcast networks are looking at 10-13 episode orders for the current season, Paramount is prepping for the end of Yellowstone and two new sequels (1944 and the horribly titled 2024) and pretty much all of HBO's big guns (The White Lotus, Euphoria, The Last of Us and the It series Welcome to Derry) won't arrive until 2025. It'll be a weird year in 2024 but hopefully that gives a chance for some new shows to break out like they did in the odd COVID years of 2020-21 when old favorites were getting delayed.
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