Benjamonster's TV

Welcome to my last Monday newsletter of 2024. This week, I am looking at my Top 10 Shows of 2024 plus the series finale of What We Do in the Shadows and thoughts on Laid, Accused and Silo . This newsletter will take a week off next week and then return on January 6 with my most anticipated shows of 2025 among other things! YEAR IN REVIEW: TOP 10 SHOWS OF 2024 Here it is, my Top 10 Shows of 2024. It was an interesting year for TV. There were some great shows as evidenced by this list, but there was a vacuum with the departure of shows like Succession and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel plus no new seasons of shows like The Last of Us, The White Lotus, Poker Face and more. The after-effects of the strike and general industry contraction meant less scripted shows. That was felt in the summer with slim pickings but the fall ramped back up and there's plenty coming in 2025. Even if the numbers are down from their peak, it's not like we are hurting for content! So, here are my Top 10 Shows...

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am sharing My Top 10 Episodes of 2024 plus thoughts on Netflix's No Good Deed and the series finale of Blue Bloods as well as  Shrinking and Silo ! YEAR IN REVIEW: TOP 10 EPISODES OF 2024 Continuing my Year in Review, this week I have my Top 10 Episodes of 2024. Last year was a banner year for individual episodes. All time great episodes: "Long, Long Time" from The Last of Us , "Connor's Wedding" from Succession , "Four Minutes" from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and "Forks" from The Bear made up the Top 4 and could have all been #1 this year. Despite the fact that none of this year's episodes top those four, there was still much to celebrate! 10.  Mr. & Mrs. Smith "First Date" (Prime Video, February 2) The first episode of Mr. & Mrs. Smith really set the tone for what kind of show it was going be. It was a big-budget, action-filled spy show as we expected but what we didn...

Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This week, I am looking at my Top 12 Performances of 2024 and the Somebody Somewhere finale. Plus, thoughts on Black Doves, What We Do in the Shadows, Shrinking, Abbott Elementary, Silo and Landman ! YEAR IN REVIEW: TOP 12 PERFORMANCES OF 2024 I am kicking off my three week Year in Review posts with my Top 12 Performances of the year. Why 12 instead of 10? Well, because I felt like my #11 and #12 really deserved to be on this list so why not list 12? Next week, I will take a look at my Top 10 Episodes and finish off with my Top 10 Shows of the year.  12. Kathy Bates, Matlock & Carrie Preston, Elsbeth The two CBS ladies of Thursday nights kick off this list in large part because of how they elevate their shows. These are really just average CBS procedurals but Bates and Preston keep them a cut above the rest with their quirky performances. That's especially true of Bates in her legal drama that is by the books despite the pilot twist. Preston som...

Welcome to a pretty quick newsletter - it was a very busy week! This week, I am looking at A Man on the Inside and a few brief thoughts on What We Do in the Shadows and Silo . The blog will be off next week but will return December 9 with the start of my end of year Top 10 lists! "A MAN ON THE INSIDE" It's always weird to write about Netflix shows on the blog because I'm sure many reading this have already binged the entire season of A Man on the Inside and I've only seen three episodes so far due to the aforementioned busy week. So I'll keep this review relatively short except to say that Mike Schur and Ted Danson have done it again. Schur's brand of comedy is one of my favorites and he rarely misses especially as a showrunner (some of his producing credits are less great). And Danson is just a TV icon at this point. The premise of A Man on the Inside : putting Danson undercover in a retirement home is about as perfect a setup for those two as there can b...

Welcome to my weekly newsletter! This week, I am looking at Landman, St. Denis Medical and the second season of Silo . Plus I have thoughts on Disclaimer, American Sports Story and more! "LANDMAN" Unlike many, there hasn't really been a Taylor Sheridan show I've enjoyed. I have never seen Yellowstone . I watched a whole season of 1923 and Tulsa King but didn't love either one. I didn't finish 1883 and never even tried Lioness. But I was drawn to Landman because I thought the premise was interesting and I was particularly intrigued by the all-star cast.  This is definitely a soapy drama but I quite enjoyed the first two episodes. It definitely feels a bit like a modern day Dallas meets Friday Night Lights . It's not as focused on the fabulously wealthy oil barons as Dallas was and gives more attention to the "boots on the ground" and of course it's not as endearing as Lights , but I feel like those two shows are at least starting points for th...

Welcome to my weekly newsletter. It was a quiet week for premieres and next week is even more quiet so I will take a week off from the newsletter next week and return on November 18! This week, I am looking at Season 2 of The Diplomat  and giving some quick thoughts on other shows. "THE DIPLOMAT" SEASON 2 The Diplomat returned for its second season this week. The season is a brisk six episodes. I've gotten to the first three of them. I'm sure many have finished the season but these thoughts are only on the first three episodes. I enjoyed the first season of The Diplomat , particularly the performances of Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell but I found myself not really remembering a lot about it by the time the second season rolled around. So I was glad for the lengthy "previously on" that Netflix gave us. But as it started to come back to me, I felt like the show spent much of the first two episodes sort of resetting the table from its explosive (pardon the pun) ...

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week I am looking at Poppa's House , the third and final season of Somebody Somewhere and the sixth and final season of What We Do in the Shadows ! Plus, thoughts on Before, Abbott Elementary and Elsbeth ! "POPPA'S HOUSE" I always hold my breath when new multi-cam sitcoms appear on Broadcast TV because some of them are just so cringey and then I have to go on my regular rant about how the artform has died and lament how we can go from the format boasting shows like  Cheers  and  The Mary Tyler Moore Show  to being the lowest form of scripted TV. I was expecting to feel those feelings after watching  Happy's Place  and/or  Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage  but I didn't end up hating either one of those. Then I watched  Poppa's House  and well... you know what I want to say.

Welcome to a busy Monday newsletter! It's a comedy heavy week this week. I am looking at Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage , Happy's Place , Season 2 of Shrinking and the pairing of Matlock and Elsbeth . Plus thoughts on English Teacher, The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh, Agatha All Along, Abbott Elementary and Frasier ! "GEORGIE & MANDY'S FIRST MARRIAGE" Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage is the third series in the Big Bang universe. I never watched The Big Bang Theory but when it went from a raucous multi-cam sitcom to the single camera family sitcom, Young Sheldon , I was on board and watched the entire seven season run. I never loved the show but I liked it quite a bit at times. Now the show is shifting back to a multi-cam format with Montana Jordan and Emily Osment taking their Young Sheldon characters to their own show. Big Bang didn't share any actors so the format switch seemed fine but this is jarring because its characters we've seen in...

Welcome to my Monday newsletter. This week, I am looking at Disclaimer, the fourth season of Abbott Elementary and the end of the first season of Bad Monkey . Also I have some quick thoughts on English Teacher, Only Murders in the Building and American Sports Story ! "DISCLAIMER" Disclaimer is a new star-studded limited series on Apple TV+ and it comes from acclaimed filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron. In press for the show, Cuaron has committed the cardinal sin of calling it a "seven hour movie" which TV fans (including this one) hate to here. There's a reason TV is a different medium than movies. There needs to be an episodic nature to them even when they are serialized stories and there's a reason very few people want to watch a seven hour movie. I feel like when people like Cuaron (or others in the past including lots of Marvel people) say things like that, they truly feel like they are saying something that would be enticing to people but it has the exact opposit...

Welcome to a shorter Monday newsletter than the last two weeks. This week, I am looking at HBO's The Franchise and the second half of the season of Netflix's Nobody Wants This . Plus I have some thoughts on English Teacher, Only Murders in the Building and Agatha All Along . THE FRANCHISE HBO's new comedy The Franchise  debuted last night. The series comes from the acclaimed trio of Jon Brown, Armando Iannucci and Sam Mendes and is a behind-the-scenes satire of a troubled franchise superhero movie. I know this series was ordered in 2022 but I'm going to guess it was kicking around for a bit before that because this feels more like a 2019 premise for a TV show when the Marvel franchise was still flying high. Now it almost feels like kicking something while its down because both Marvel and DC have sputtered in film and TV in recent years. I'm not a big fan of superhero movies but I follow the industry enough to know the many things that have gone wrong in recent years...

Welcome to my Monday newsletter. Today I am looking at Nobody Wants This, Doctor Odyssey and Grotesquerie  plus I have a few thoughts on Saturday Night Live and a host of other new shows that premiered last week. NOBODY WANTS THIS It feels like we don't get too many true rom-coms on TV anymore but Nobody Wants This certainly fits into that category. Netflix's new series, starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, has the very rom-com plot of an agnostic podcaster who loves to talk about sex (Bell) who has a meet cute and then very quickly a relationship with a young, unconventional rabbi (Brody). In less capable hands, this would be a Hallmark movie with a whole bunch of eye rolls. But in the very capable hands of Bell and Brody, it's mostly a delight. It's always weird to talk about Netflix shows since they drop all at once and some people have surely finished the series. I've watched the first four episodes. The show is absolutely at its best when Bell and Brody are to...

Welcome to a VERY busy newsletter after a week full of big premieres. This week, I am looking at a flurry of new shows: The Penguin, Agatha All Along, Matlock, American Sports Story & Monsters and High Potential . Plus some brief thoughts on Frasier, English Teacher and Bad Monkey . Sorry in advance for the length! THE PENGUIN The Penguin was probably the highest profile launch of the many premieres in the past week. The HBO limited series follows Colin Farrell's portrayal of the famous Batman villain following the 2022 film The Batman . I didn't see The Batman but the days of a campy Burgess Meredith hobbling around making bird sounds are long gone. In case you haven't noticed, the Batman franchise has gotten a whole lot darker over the years. And this show shares way more DNA with  The Sopranos than the original Batman  show.  But that's not to say it's not without camp elements. And that's aside from the obvious nods to Meredith (Burgess Jewelry) and Dann...

Welcome to my (one day late) newsletter1 This week, I am recapping the Emmy Awards plus sharing thoughts on How to Die Alone and more! EMMY AWARDS RECAP The Emmy Awards were held Sunday night and it was an interesting night with some predictable results and some big surprises. of course the surprise everyone is talking about is Hacks winning over The Bear . While there was backlash to The Bear 's third season and its continuous placement in the Comedy field, the win for Hacks was surprising because  The Bear won many awards earlier in the night including Lead Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Directing. But the overall prize went to Hacks , a show that's much more of a comedy coming off a delightful third season and also had a third win for Jean Smart as well as Writing. And even though voters were supposed to be voting for the second season of The Bear , it was clear from the series loss and Liza Colon Zayas' win that the third season was very much on the min...

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week has an Emmy Awards preview, thoughts on English Teacher and The Perfect Couple and more! EMMY AWARDS PREVIEW The Emmy Awards are this Sunday! Here's my look at what will win, should win and should have been nominated in the major categories. Among the series races, I think Shogun is the only lock. The other two frontrunners could be upset. The Bear seems likely to win especially if voters kept it in their heads that they were voting for Season 2. But if some voters take into account their dislike for Season 3, that could hurt the chances for The Bear and give a lane to Hacks to win. Meanwhile, in the Limited Series category, Baby Reindeer seems like too big a phenomenon to not win. But the offscreen controversies surrounding the show could hurt it. If that happens, it seems like the Emmy could go to either True Detective: Night Country or Fargo , or maybe even the very deserving Ripley .  Outstanding Comedy Series Will/Should Win: The Bear...

My Monday newsletter is back as we head into the fall! Today I am looking at my most anticipated fall shows, reviewing summer TV and sharing some thoughts on the newest season of Only Murders in the Building ! TOP 10 MOST ANTICIPATED NEW FALL SHOWS This fall feels a lot more like a normal fall after last year's strike-affected fall season. And after a rough summer of new TV (see more on that below), there are some really interesting shows coming over the next couple months! Here's a look at my Top 10 most anticipated new shows of the fall season! 10.  The Perfect Couple (Netflix, September 5) I'm a little leery of this one because I've grown tired of watching Nicole Kidman play wealthy white women with major first world problems. But I'm intrigued by the rest of the cast, which includes Liev Schreiber, Dakota Fanning and Meghann Fahy, the latter whom I absolutely loved on the second season of The White Lotus . It looks very soapy but also looks interesting enough fo...

I hope you enjoyed my month of awards! Here's a recap of all the awards, check below this post for each individual award post. This blog will be taking a hiatus in August but will return with my Weekly Newsletter on September 2! Past Recaps:  2023    2022     2021     2020 Outstanding Comedy Series: Hacks (Max) Outstanding Drama Series: The Bear (FX/Hulu) Outstanding Limited/Anthology Series: Ripley (Netflix) Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Jean Smart, Hacks (Max) Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series: Emma Stone, The Curse (Showtime) Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited/Anthology Series: Jodie Foster, True Detective: Night Country (HBO) Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series: Seth Rogen, Platonic (Apple TV+) Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series: Donald Glover, Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Prime Video) Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited/Anthology Series: Andrew Scott, Ripley (Netflix) Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Seri...

It's time for the final award - Outstanding Comedy Series! Past Awards in This Category:  2023     2022     2021     2020 This year's nominees are... ABBOTT ELEMENTARY (ABC) GHOSTS (CBS) HACKS (Max) NEVER HAVE I EVER (Netflix) PLATONIC (Apple TV+) THE RIGHTEOUS GEMSTONES (HBO) WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (FX) And the Winner Is...

Today's award is Outstanding Drama Series! Past Awards in This Category:  2023     2022     2021     2020 This year's nominees are... THE BEAR (FX/Hulu) THE CROWN (Netflix) THE CURSE (Showtime) ELSBETH (CBS) HIJACK (Apple TV+) MR. & MRS. SMITH (Prime Video) SILO (Apple TV+) And the Winner Is...

We are at the big three awards! Today's award is for Outstanding Limited/Anthology Series! Past Awards in This Category:  2023     2022     2021     2020 This year's nominees are... BABY REINDEER (Netflix) FARGO (FX) LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY (Apple TV+) MANHUNT (Apple TV+) RIPLEY (Netflix) TRUE DETECTIVE: NIGHT COUNTRY (HBO) And the Winner Is...

Today's award is Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series! Past Awards in This Category:  2023     2022     2021     2020 This year's nominees are... QUINTA BRUNSON as Janine Teagues in Abbott Elementary (ABC) ROSE BYRNE as Sylvia in Platonic (Apple TV+) HANNAH EINBINDER as Ava Daniels in Hacks (Max) EDI PATTERSON as Judy Gemstone in The Righteous Gemstones (HBO) NASIM PEDRAD as Chad in Chad (Roku) MAITREYI RAMAKRISHNAN as Devi in Never Have I Ever (Netflix) JEAN SMART as Deborah Vance in Hacks (Max) And the Winner Is...