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 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 Danny DeVito, from 1992's Batman Returns (Danny's Roofing Company). Between the purple car and suit, the use of Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" and the nearly cartoonish elements of the style of Cristin Milioti's Sofia Falcone, the show still retains a bit of camp even though its set in a deadly serious mob underworld. I'm not sure the pilot completely struck the right tone with that but it wasn't a wild miss and it mostly worked for me.
The strongest elements are definitely Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti. Farrell is nearly unrecognizable and fully committed to the character. But the star of this show might be Milioti. Once she appeared, the action picked up and the show got a lot more interesting. She has an interesting dynamic with Farrell but was plenty strong in her own right. I was much less interested in Penguin's personal version of Robin with the homeless teen turned chauffeur, Vic (Rhenzy Feliz) that dominated the first part of the show before Milioti showed up. I felt like Milioti loosened everything up for the show and it started to have a lot more fun once she was there.
So I'm in on The Penguin for now. I like a good Batman story, at least for awhile. And I always appreciate the noir production elements of shows and movies in the Gotham universe. This was about what I expected which is good enough for me to keep watching.
Coming more than three years after her breakout in WandaVision, Kathryn Hahn is back in the Marvel universe with Agatha All Along. If you've read this blog before, you know I'm not a Marvel guy but I did enjoy WandaVision and its takes on classic sitcoms. Agatha All Along starts down the same road as the first half of the first episode is a straight-up parody of a prestige crime procedural, most notably Mare of Easttown (it was not lost on me that Hahn lost the Emmy to Mare's Julianne Nicholson). From the cop banter to the chase of the perp cutting to the interrogation room, it was all there. I'm glad Disney+ dropped two episodes at once of Agatha because while I enjoyed the parody, that first episode gave me no sense of what the show is going to be. Even once things broke from the parody, it was still an awful lot of exposition to get Agatha to the place the show wants her to be for the series. The second episode got a lot closer with the introduction of a lot of the supporting characters. The exposition doesn't stop, to be sure, but at least its with the actual cast of the series and not wrapped up in a police procedural.
Still, this show brings to mind the expression "a day late and a dollar short." This feels like a relic of the wild streaming war days when Disney+ was pumping out show after show to increasingly diminished results. WandaVision captured the zeitgeist and even got Emmy nominations but by the time they got to Secret Invasion, everyone seemed pretty much over the Marvel shows on Disney+. The streamer seems to have nearly abandoned live action scripted shows at this point but they were too far down the road with Agatha (and its many other title incarnations).
Kathryn Hahn is definitely trying her hardest to make this work and she nearly succeeds. She's inherently likable in this role and she seems to be having a lot of fun. The supporting cast is a murderer's row of great actresses including Patti LuPone, Aubrey Plaza, Sasheer Zameeta, Debra Jo Rupp and more. Plaza went toe to toe with Hahn in the first episode and seems like an interesting character while LuPone had some nice moments in the second episode. But the group of supporting actors hasn't quite gelled yet and I'm just struggling to see the point of this show. I did really like the song used in the second episode.
Finally, this series is likely the final one to use the iconic Bewitched house from the Warner Bros. Ranch backlot as it has since been demolished. But it's fitting it should go out with a show about a witch.
CBS has been promoting its reboot of Matlock to death recently. I was a little concerned that I'm aging into the CBS demographic when the music of my youth (Britney Spears "Oops I Did It Again") was being used in the promo. But perhaps it was used due to the show not quite being what you think. I will honor Kathy Bates' wishes in the promo at the end of the episode and not spoil the twist except to say that I don't know if it was all that necessary but I'm also not opposed to it. I tend to like shows that are episodic with some larger overarching stories so I'm on board with where this show is going.
It's no surprise that the reason to watch Matlock is Kathy Bates. Bates is a pro in everything she's in. From her hit movies to being the best part of the otherwise forgettable Harry's Law, Bates is always a compelling figure onscreen and she certainly is here. Playing the "dotty old lady" who actually has her wits very much about her is a good use of Bates at her age (76). She seems no less spry than she did on Harry's Law a decade ago.
I didn't find the case of the week all that interesting but I do think the supporting cast is promising. I think Jason Ritter is always likable on screen, even when he is in less than stellar projects (anyone remember Kevin (Probably) Saves the World? Skye P. Marshall also had some strong scenes in the first episode. I was a little less enamored with the two other associates (David Del Rio & Leah Lewis) but we'll see. And I think Beau Bridges is also a reliable presence. For anyone who still watches TV in a linear fashion, this will be a good match with Elsbeth on Thursday nights. I plan to keep watching the show and will be interesting what they do with the part I didn't talk about here.
The Ryan Murphy world brought us two shows this past week that both could have been seasons of American Crime Story. American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez premiered on FX with its first two episodes on Tuesday while Netflix dropped the entire season of Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story on Thursday. I watched both Sports episodes and the first two episodes of Monsters. We have been on a run with these kinds of shows ever since The People vs. OJ Simpson burst onto the scene to critical and viewer love in 2016. It's been diminishing returns ever since even with some that have been more enjoyable than others. This is actually the second attempt at the Menendez story after an early copycat, Law & Order: True Crime in 2017.
I think Monsters is a better version of the Menendez story so far than the NBC version (which admittedly I don't remember much). Its strengths are thanks in large part to strong performances from Cooper Koch & Nichols Chavez as the brothers. But the series begs the question if any of it is necessary and if they really have enough story to make a nine episode season. The OJ arrest and trial was the Trial of the Century. It had so much to say about race in America in the mid 1990s and the trial and story became so much bigger than one man accused of murder. But so many of these other stories, while salacious, seem like they'd be better off as Lifetime movies or Dateline specials. There's no larger cultural statements to make and so going down rabbit trails of other characters to fill a whole season of episodes feels wholly unnecessary.
Aaron Hernandez has a little bit more to say about the culture at large and the role football plays in it even though it also feels like it will probably be a little padded (football pun not intended). But it is covering a longer period of time so the first two episodes, focused on Hernandez's early life and then collegiate career at Florida, both felt like solid entries and not unnecessary episodes. It was definitely the better of the two shows even though the production value of the football scenes was laughably bad at times. Josh Andres Rivera is solid in the lead role while the second episode had a standout performance by Tony Yazbeck as Urban Meyer. Neither show is going to be close to The People vs. OJ Simpson but I think they're both average to above average entries in the true crime dramatization world.
High Potential is a breezy new procedural that is part of a growing subset of network dramas. After years of the brooding, Dick Wolf-type procedurals, this year's crop of new network dramas seems much lighter (Matlock included). While they still seem pretty uninspired, more shows seem to be following the Will Trent and Elsbeth path of not taking themselves too seriously. It's nice to see because I don't need my network dramas to be too dour. There are plenty of better streaming shows that can do that. I appreciate a case of the week show being fun and light.
The premise is preposterous: a "high potential intellectual" (Kaitlin Olson) who can't get her life together and is trying to make ends meet for her family ends up helping solve a crime thanks to noticing some errors in the investigation while cleaning the police precinct at night. Yep, that's what the premise of the show is. I know it sounds made up. From there, it follows all the procedural tropes (some of which were parodied in Agatha) - the know it all lead character solving the case amidst pure idiocy and incompetency from everyone else, the lead character knowing no boundaries, the wise superior who wants to give her a chance, the banter as they chase leads in the investigation, the skeptical co-workers coming around to her even as they tell her things like "don't touch anything" at the crime scene. It's all there.
But so is Olson and she is responsible for a lot of the fun and lightness of the show. The recent Emmy nominee for her guest work on Hacks elevates the show a little higher than it probably deserves. Olson is great at playing a harried mess who has it a little more together than it might appear (she did that on Hacks and the underrated The Mick). This role seems like it was tailored completely to her strengths. The supporting cast is serviceable. I don't know if I'll find this as fun as Elsbeth without some more compelling cases or guest stars but Olson is enough of a reason for me to give it another week or two.
SCRIPTED PREMIERES THIS WEEK
The Premiere Week of the broadcast season used to be the biggest week in the TV calendar. While broadcast is not what it once was and the calendar is more spread out even if it was, there's still a lot of premieres this week on broadcast plus some other high profile premieres. Tonight has the premiere of Brilliant Minds on NBC. The Zachary Quinto-led medical drama gets the post-Voice slot for this fall. Also tonight is the final season premiere of 9-1-1: Lone Star on FOX to lead into the timeslot premiere of Rescue: HI-Surf. Tuesday has the premiere of murder mystery Murder in a Small Town on FOX, which is a Canadian co-production. Wednesday has the return of the reliable Chicago shows on NBC: the 10th season of Chicago Med, the 13th (!) season of Chicago Fire and the 12th season of Chicago PD. Also premiering on Wednesday night is Grotesquerie on FX. The series, which includes Niecy Nash-Betts and Travis Kelce among others, seems like it could have been a new season of American Horror Story but is its own show. Wednesday night also has the premiere of Everybody Still Hates Chris on Comedy Central, an animated spinoff of the one-time UPN show. On Thursday, Netflix has the premiere of the romantic comedy Nobody Wants This starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody. Thursday night has a trio of ABC premieres: the 8th season premiere of 9-1-1 and the incredible 21st season premiere of Grey's Anatomy surround the premiere of the new Ryan Murphy procedural Doctor Odyssey that seems to fit the preposterous but fun procedural vibe of 9-1-1. Finally, the 50th season of Saturday Night Live kicks off on Saturday with host Jean Smart and musical guest Jelly Roll. The week ends with the return of animation domination on FOX; The Simpsons (Season 36!), Bob's Burgers (Season 15) and Krapopolis (Season 2). Also premiering Sunday night is the second season of The Walking Dead: Darryl Dixon on AMC.
ODDS & ENDS
- I watched the first two episodes of the second season of Frasier. The revival is pretty much the same as the first season. Kelsey Grammer remains solid but the supporting cast lets his down and pales in comparison to the original cast. I also was super annoyed by the second episode because it takes place on Valentine's Day and yet the "outside" on the sets look green and like the middle of May. This show takes place in Boston. There would not be lush green bushes outside. It's not a big deal but it's an example of laziness in production and the original Frasier was never lazy in its production value, especially by 90s sitcom standards.
- Another week, another stellar episode from English Teacher. The show decided to explore the world of the constant fear of school shootings coming just weeks after another high profile shooting. FX was wise to not pull this episode for sensitivity reasons. Even though it was funny as always, it was also thoughtful about the topic.
- I'm still enjoying Bad Monkey but my fears about the plot are coming to pass. Although I can get frustrated with case of the week shows sometimes, this is a show that I think could have stood to be that type of show. Or perhaps one that did multi-episode arcs but covered a few different cases over the course of the first season. Despite the great vibes of the show and the truly fantastic cast performances, there just isn't enough story to stretch over ten episodes. I hope it gets renewed and maybe they make it more episodic for the second season.
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