Welcome to my Monday Newsletter! Today I am looking at Palm Royale and 3 Body Problem plus the latest episodes of The Girls on the Bus, Manhunt and more!
Apple TV+ debuted its star-studded satire Palm Royale this past week and the response from critics has been decidedly mixed to negative. I would say I lean more on the positive side on this one. Of the three episodes that premiered, I thought the first and third worked well and the second one didn't as much. The story is set in 1969 and centers on Maxine Simmons (Kristen Wiig) trying to break into Palm Beach high society, littered with snooty women played by the likes of Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb, Julia Duffy and more.
The show is very visually strong from its stylish credits to its candy-coated fashion. There's definitely some Desperate Housewives vibes from a Mrs. Maisel era. The first episode was primarily a two-hander between Wiig and Bibb but they were both pretty strong throughout. Kristen Wiig is fully committed to making this show and her character work even when they really shouldn't. I was pretty good with the tone, which I thought was pretty consistent through the first three episodes. I do worry it will be too much of the same thing (a comedic type of Revenge with Wiig trying to infiltrate in different ways) but it also felt sort of episodic by the time we got to the third episode, which is a good thing.
On the flip side, very few actors seem to be playing the correct age. Kristen Wiig and Allison Janney are only 14 years apart in real life, but they're playing different generations here (Laura Dern, who is smack dab in the middle of the two actresses in real life, is also supposedly playing the younger generation). Along those same lines, Ricky Martin is probably about ten years too old to playing a pool boy type, and he's also not that great of an actor. Only the great Carol Burnett seems to be the same age as her character and I look forward to seeing more of her. Also, props to a show about snooty people getting one of the all-time best at playing snooty, Julia Duffy. She is excellent here ("could I trouble you for a quaalude?") This is also the first major role for Mindy Cohn of The Facts of Life in a long time.
I don't think I really needed the final montage at the end of the first episode that featured a bit of a flash forward. I'm also glad that it's a once a week show after this. I think that will be just enough for me each week because three episodes in one week can wear a bit with this highly stylized approach.
I think The Last of Us was not good for me and my understanding of shows I could like. Before HBO's video game adaptation, any sort of genre show was almost an immediate no for me. I wouldn't even try it, I just assumed it wouldn't be for me. Then I decided to give The Last of Us a try and I absolutely loved it. I started to think "maybe I've been too dismissive of genre shows." Since then, I feel like I've been open to trying more of them only to discover that The Last of Us seems to be the exception, not the rule.
Which brings us to 3 Body Problem. The new and highly anticipated Netflix series comes from Alexander Woo and Game of Thrones vets David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. I watched the first two episodes before tapping out. It's just way too much physics and way too much sci-fi for me. I can see the value of the show and I did enjoy some of the world-building. I thought the first episode had enough elements in it that made me want to watch a second but I ultimately decided it wasn't for me. There's a lot of wonky discussion, too many characters to keep track of and some really impressive effects mixed with some disappointing CGI looks. I'm not even going to get into much of a review, I'll leave this one to others who are far more well-versed in this type of storytelling.
I am not sure what show is going to frustrate me more in the next month and a half - Palm Royale or this show. And yet I like both of them enough to keep going. The third episode of The Girls on the Bus heads to Nevada in the fictional Democratic primary and features a Joe Biden-type character dying on the campaign trail and a Pete Buttigieg-type character stripping down in a fantasy of journalist Sadie McCarthy (Melissa Benoist). This show shares a lot of DNA with The Sex Lives of College Girls but so far it's not striking the tone as well as that show does. Or maybe the problem is it's striking the same tone is that show but said tone works much better on a college campus than a campaign trail. I continue to be annoyed by the writing for the young Lola character. She's a journalist, albeit a TikTok era one, and she thinks "pool" in campaign terms means throwing on a bikini and doesn't know what an embargo is? Again, this is Gen X writers trying to understand millennials and failing miserably. And yet, the show does captivate me to an extent. So I'll continue my love-hate relationship with this one.
I'm really starting to get into Manhunt now after its third episode. I think the production quality is top notch and there's a lot of interesting performances, particularly from Tobias Menzies, Anthony Boyle and especially Glenn Morshower as Andrew Johnson (his line to Menzies about explaining Reconstruction was such a funny moment in an understandably dour show). I find the beginnings of Reconstruction to be even more interesting than the actual manhunt but the show is doing a nice job of toggling between those two stories. The only part I didn't care for (aside from Josh Stewart, who I never like) was the scene that kicked off the Richmond sequence. The highly stylized start to that scene felt like it belonged in a different show. Other than that, this has been both enjoyable and educational!
SCRIPTED PREMIERES THIS WEEK
There's nothing as big as 3 Body Problem or Palm Royale but there are quite a few things coming at the end of the week. On Thursday, Hulu has the premiere of the Holocaust drama We Were the Lucky Ones while Prime Video debuts family drama The Baxters and the second season of American Rust, which aired Season 1 on Showtime then was picked up by Freevee after it's Showtime cancellation, and is now airing on Prime. Speaking of Showtime, Friday has the premiere of the Ewan McGregor limited series A Gentleman in Moscow, which is following the usual weirdness of Paramount+ and Showtime by debuting on the streamer on Friday and then on linear Showtime on Sunday night. Friday also has the premiere of Renegade Nell on Disney+, yet another attempt to make something hit that isn't Star Wars or Marvel. Finally on Sunday, AMC has the premiere of the Giancarlo Esposito drama Parish, which hasn't gotten much buzz to date.
ODDS & ENDS
- 9-1-1 is back, now on ABC, and I caught up with the first two episodes of the new season this week. It's as crazy as ever. I remember seeing a tweet to a picture of the zoo animals roaming the streets of LA for the fifth season with the caption "Never Change, 9-1-1." That's how I felt as the giant cruise ship was sinking into the ocean this past week. This show just fully embraces the zany and that's nice in a world of procedurals that take themselves too seriously.
- Abbott Elementary has continued to be on fire. This is a show that is so confident in what its doing and it has that rhythm of a third year sitcom where everyone knows their character and the dynamics between their characters. That's why you don't see this kind of chemistry often on streaming comedies. There's room to breathe and grow and by the time you've done nearly 50 episodes, everything is working well. Keegan Michael-Key was a funny addition to this week's episode, I hope we see more of him.
- I still haven't made it to Girls5Eva. Maybe this week!
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