Benjamonster's TV

Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This week, I am looking at Season 2 of The Night Agent and The Hunting Party plus giving thoughts on Severance, The Sex Lives of College Girls and Abbott Elementary . "THE NIGHT AGENT" SEASON 2 The first season of The Night Agent was a real pleasant surprise for me. It filled the 24- sized hole in my TV schedule and was very addicting with its propulsive plot and cliffhangers with insanely high stakes even as I readily acknowledged it was all a bit silly. But I really did like it a lot, so much so that I nominated it for Outstanding Drama Series in my 2023 Benjamonster Awards. The series returned for a second season this week with a bit of a "here we go again" vibe. I'm sure some people have already watched the entire second season but I am only three episodes in. It's still a good, old-fashioned action show but at least through three episodes, it is not working nearly as well as the first season for me. The first season case...

Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This week, I am looking at the second season of Severance and the documentary SNL 50: Beyond Saturday Night . Plus I have thoughts on The Pitt and Hollywood Squares .  "SEVERANCE" SEASON 2 Severance returned this week to much fanfare after a nearly three year break. I really enjoyed the first season of the show but I didn't remember a ton of the details, just the broad swaths and I was not about to rewatch the first season or even the finale because I just don't have the time. So I was very curious if I would feel confused or disoriented when the second season started. And the answer is... only in the ways I think I was supposed to. I think the show did a good job with bringing us back into the world after so much time off because the characters were a little disoriented too. So I felt like there was a conscious effort by the writers to sort of remind the viewers what was going on and not in a cheesy way, but in an organic way that mak...

Welcome to this week's newsletter! This week, I am looking at The Pitt, Shifting Gears and Doc plus thoughts on the Landman finale and the crossover episode of Abbott Elementary and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia . "THE PITT" I have to admit, I was a little skeptical of The Pitt going in. I thought it would be a serviceable medical drama but I also thought "what can a streaming version of a network procedural offer that a network can't besides some better production values and swearing a bit more often?" Well, at least with The Pitt , the answer is quite a bit. While the series is really just a traditional medical drama with the slight gimmick of being in real time (each episode is an hour in a 15 hour shift), the show feels better than anything a network can offer in this genre in 2025. It's apparent in both big and little things. The show has an incredible attention to detail. They take the time to show doctors getting a squirt of hand sanitizer...

Welcome to my Monday Newsletter! This week, I am looking at my Top 15 Most Anticipated Shows of 2025 plus a review of Going Dutch and thoughts on the Golden Globes and the Shrinking season finale. MY TOP 15 MOST ANTICIPATED SHOWS OF 2025 It's a new year so here's a look at my most anticipated shows of 2025! Some shows are dated and coming very soon. Others have much less information but here's my list based on what I know now.  Close Calls:  The Night Agent  Season 2 (Netflix, Jan 23),  Death by Lighting  (Netflix, TBD),  Mid-Century Modern  (Hulu, TBD),  The Artist  (The Network, TBD), The Hunting Party (NBC, Feb 3) 15.  The Four Seasons  (Netflix, TBD) Date Night  reunion alert! This project puts Steve Carell and Tina Fey together in a comedy based on the 1981 film starring Alan Alda and Carol Burnett. There is very little known about this show, which also stars Will Forte and Erika Henningsen and it's not even guaranteed a 2...