Benjamonster's TV

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am kicking off my Year in Review with my Top 10 Performances of the Year. Plus a check in on Pluribus , my #1 show of my Top 25 Shows Since 2000 and a look back at No Ordinary Family ! YEAR IN REVIEW TOP 10 PERFORMANCES OF THE YEAR I'm kicking off a three week Year in Review with the Top 10 Performances of the Year. Next week will be my Top 10 Episodes followed by my last post for 2025 - my Top 10 Shows of 2025. Enjoy! 10. The Guest Stars of  The Studio I wasn't as high on The Studio as many because I found it inconsistent but I struggle to think of a show that had as high a batting average of guest stars. Even the "killer of the week" shows like Poker Face and Elsbeth rise and fall a bit based on their guest. But pretty much everyone, including many known more for being behind the camera, rocked it on The Studio . Who was my favorite? Probably Zoe Kravitz, with a completely unhinged performance. But I also have a lot of l...

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am looking at the second season of A Man on the Inside plus the finales of The Morning Show and Murdaugh: Death in the Family and the latest episode of Pluribus . Also, I'm continuing my Top 25 Shows Since 2000 with #2 and doing a pilot re-review of Raising Hope ! The blog will be taking a break next week and return on December 8! WHAT'S NEW A MAN ON THE INSIDE SEASON 2 I really enjoyed the first season of A Man on the Inside . Premiering late in 2024, it finished high on my end of year list and there seemed to be solid buzz for the show. By the time the Emmy Awards season rolled around, it seemed to be a little bit forgotten which I guess isn't too surprising. It was a really charming show but not necessarily one that stays with you. So now we're back for the second season and a new mystery, this time set on a college campus instead of a retirement home with Ted Danson's real life wife Mary Steenburgen joining the cast....

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am looking at The Beast in Me and the second season of Landman plus the latest episodes of Pluribus . Also, I am continuing my Top 25 Shows Since 2000 with #3 and doing a pilot re-review of Mike & Molly ! WHAT'S NEW THE BEAST IN ME A very rare occurrence happened last week with Netflix's Death by Lightning . I (along with many others) made the comment that it felt too short. At a mere four episodes, it needed probably two more to really tell its story. Most of the time, in the prestige TV era, limited series are too long in terms of episodes. Because limited series are close-ended by nature, there are many series that pad the story with more episodes than needed. That happened again this week with The Beast in Me. While I only have watched three episodes of the eight episode Netflix series, I can already tell they probably should have given two of their episodes to Death by Lightning . There are things to like in this cat and mo...

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am looking at new shows Pluribus, Death by Lightning and Stumbled plus the season finale of The Lowdown and the latest episode of The Morning Show . Also, I'm continuing my Top 25 Shows Since 2000 with #4 and taking a look back at the short-lived My Generation ! WHAT'S NEW PLURIBUS The highly anticipated Pluribus debuted on Friday with its first two episodes. The show, which is Vince Gilligan's first show since Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul , was shrouded in secrecy up through its premiere and already has a lot of fans and glowing critical reviews. I wasn't sure what I would think even though I loved Breaking Bad (I started Saul and couldn't get into it but want to give it another try sometime). The reason I wasn't sure was because there were some sci-fi descriptors even though most previews called it "genre-bending."  Well, genre-bending is definitely the right word for it as the first two episodes wer...

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am looking at I Love LA plus the season finales of Only Murders in the Building and Chad Powers as well as the latest episodes of The Lowdown and The Chair Company . Plus, I am continuing my Top 25 Shows Since 2000 with #5 and doing a pilot re-review of Undercovers ! WHAT'S NEW I LOVE LA Shows about friends in their 20s navigating a big city and the love and life of that decade have been a staple on TV since Friends burst onto the scene in the 1990s. It's been interesting to be a kid watching that happen on Friends to seeing those types of characters as my contemporaries on New Girl to now feeling much older than the characters on shows like Adults and I Love LA , which premiered last night on HBO. I Love LA had the serendipitous timing of premiering the day after the Dodgers (which use Randy Newman's famous "I Love LA" song as their victory theme) won the World Series. I'm not very familiar with Rachel Sennott and...

Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am looking at It: Welcome to Derry and the second season of Nobody Wants This . Plus the latest episodes of Abbott Elementary , Only Murders in the Building and The Lowdown . I'm also continuing my Top 25 Shows Since 2000 with #6 and doing a Pilot Re-Review on the short lived Lone Star ! WHAT'S NEW IT: WELCOME TO DERRY I watched the It movie recently for the first time partly because I knew this show was coming. I was very mixed on the movie and it truthfully made me less interested for the show. But I still went in with an open mind especially because I was intrigued by the early 60s setting. After watching the pilot, I'm not sure if this is a show I'm going to stick with. Horror is a tough sell for me in general, especially when tied to the supernatural. I need some sort of thriller element that will make it feel more real to me and so when a woman was giving birth to some bat like demon in the first couple minutes of the ...