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!
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.
Poppa's House stars father and son combo Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr. I haven't been a big fan of either over the years but Wayans Jr. has grown on me after I finally gave Happy Endings another chance this past summer. I've never been a fan of the senior Wayans and that didn't change here. He's doing the same shtick he's done for decades and I've never found it funny. The whole pilot was basically cueing up applause and "woo" moments from the audience. Sure, both Wayans Sr. and Wayans Jr. are big presences so it didn't feel as stale as some network sitcoms do but it certainly wasn't well done. It was poor material executed poorly.
There were two final season premieres in the past week. Last night, HBO had the third and final season premiere of Somebody Somewhere. I was mixed on the first season but the show grew on me in its second season. It's a really sweet slice-of-life comedy that has a distinct voice and joyful spirit. The premiere continued to be all of those things. It really feels like a throwback to the 2010s autobiographical shows like Louie, Better Things, Atlanta and others. There seem to have fallen out of favor with networks. I get it because they are sort of niche. But it's too bad to see another one coming to an end.
While the shows are broadly just about life, the final season does seem to be pointing in a direction of loneliness for Bridget Everett's Sam. Everett does a really nice job of mixing inner pain with a joking, not so serious outer facade. All the characters feel very real and lived in but none more so than Everett. Her very realistic portrayal is a lot harder than it seems. I would argue that she's actually even more effective than Pamela Adlon was in Better Things. Adlon might have been the better writer who had the better supporting cast but Everett is the heart and soul of Somebody Somewhere. Building the final season around her loneliness (if that's indeed what they are doing) would be a great way to build around the show's greatest strength.
What We Do in the Shadows was a show I didn't discover until its third season. Even when I was discovering lots of shows during the COVID shutdown and even when friends told me about it, I was convinced I wouldn't be in to a "vampire" show. Well I was very wrong. It has been one of the most consistently uproarious shows over the last several years. I felt like it was a show that could have just run forever like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia but alas, it will be ending after six seasons. FX premiered the first three episodes of the final season last Monday. I wish they just did one a week to stretch the final season out longer because I just want to spend time with these characters.
I thought the first episode was the strongest of the three. The concept of a fifth vampire who had just been sleeping the whole time was a good one and it was used as a good catalyst to setting up the final season as well as the new dynamic with Guillermo not in the house. That dynamic permeated through the first three episodes. I thought the second episode was the weakest, it just didn't completely work for me. The third episode had a lot of funny moments with the hypnotism and Mark Proksch was full of great Colin Robinson moments. I'm glad that Matt Berry got an Emmy nomination this past year but Proksch and Kayvan Novak are equally deserving.
The first three episodes also had more direct dealings with the camera, something that seems to be a hallmark of final seasons of mockumentaries. But unlike a clunky approach to it (hello, The Office), there were very funny acknowledgment of the cameras. I'm looking forward to the rest of the final season and wish it was going on much longer.
SCRIPTED PREMIERES THIS WEEK
Halloween week is pretty quiet as far as premieres go. Monday has the 21st (!) season premiere of American Dad! It is the last TBS scripted show standing. Thursday has the biggest premiere of the week with the six episode second season of Netflix's The Diplomat. The show has already been renewed for a third season. It's a little surprising the second season is only six episodes. Also premiering on Thursday is the lighthearted holiday-themed The Mistletoe Murders on Hallmark+.
ODDS & ENDS
- I gave Apple TV+'s Before a brief attempt because I like Billy Crystal but the show wasn't for me. I just don't really have any interest in the gray-hued self-serious Apple TV drama that has a supernatural kid and other weird happenings. Those are all things I don't like even if I like Crystal. So I didn't even finish the first episode. The joys of not doing this professionally!
- It was another strong Abbott Elementary episode as the fourth season is off to a really good start. I think the show has done a really nice job with the Ava (Janelle James) character. She was a hoot in the first season but then started to become a caricature in the second season. Since then, I feel like it has leveled out and the show does a good job with giving her hilarious lines but also giving her some really competent and caring moments. This week's episode was a great example of that with the new computers because she actually does fight for her faculty and students when push comes to shove. Now, I think the show needs to work on stopping Barbara and Mr. Johnson from turning into caricatures because I think they're trending in that direction. Also, the Melissa-guinea pig plot was really ridiculous and fun.
- One of the things I love most about Elsbeth is the weekly guest star. As mentioned last week, there have been many great ones already including Nathan Lane in the second season premiere. But the downside of that? If we get a guest star I don't like, it's a rough episode for me. And that happened this week with the incredibly irritating Rob Riggle.
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