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
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 mouse thriller. A show with Matthew Rhys and Claire Danes in the lead roles is going to have a baseline of being pretty solid but I do wish the material served these two actors better. That's not to say that everything is bad. There is some solid tension, some solid suspense and some solid performances. But it just doesn't come together for me, at least through three episodes. I got to the end of the third episode and thought to myself "what really has happened so far?" Yes, I know there are plot points I could discuss but for a story to truly move forward, the characters have to get from one place to another and Rhys and Danes are basically in the same place they were when the first episode began. And that's because the show is bloated so there's no narrative momentum to really push the plot forward.
I will watch the remaining episodes even if it feels like a slog because I'm curious enough to see where it's going to go but after a lot of my most anticipated shows of the fall (The Lowdown, Death by Lightning and Pluribus to name a few) have turned out to be good, this one feels like it's going to fall on the disappointing side.
Landman returned for a second season yesterday on Paramount+ and I always find a second season interesting of a show that sort of became something different once the audience got its hands on it. Landman was presented as another Taylor Sheridan show, one that was a bit self-serious like many Sheridan shows. But over the course of the first season, it seemed like the show was being embraced for its completely crazy elements, much of that attributed to Ali Larter. Obviously I think the show knew what it was doing to some extent in the first season or they wouldn't have given Larter the lines and stories they did. But I was curious to see how much they would lean into it as a reaction to the audience heading into the second season.
The answer is that the show feels mostly the same. It's nice to have the show back so soon. More and more streaming shows being on a regular schedule is definitely a good thing! The second season premiere didn't feel like a huge step up or huge step down. Demi Moore has a bigger part, and delivered a killer speech in the premiere. The series also added Sam Elliott to the cast. But it's the same show. The dinner scenes are as outrageous as ever (though this one may have topped any dinner scene from the first season). The drama is so overwrought and yet it's so watchable. I am not a Taylor Sheridan fan in general but there's something about Landman that I just can't quit.
LAST WEEK ON...
After last week's premiere had a lot of people talking, I was readily anticipating this week's episode. I can't think of the last time I was so curious to see what an episode would be like after the first two episodes last week were vastly different from each other. If I was a bit hesitant on where the show was going in the second episode, I was much more sold on it after this week's episode, which was a phenomenal showcase for Rhea Seehorn (seems like a lot of episodes are going to be). The first episode explained the "what," the second episode dabbled a bit into the "why" and this week seemed to be addressing the "how." It spent a lot of time explaining the rules of this world but it wasn't done in an expository way, it was done through fascinating scenes (like the grocery store one) and some great dialogue between Seehorn's Carol and two members of the hive mind (her drinking conversation with Karolina Wydra's Zosia and then the hospital chat with the DHL guy (Robert Bailey Jr.) at the end). On one hand, it's fun to see this show settle in a bit and on the other hand, I feel like each episode is going to keep being very different and I am here for that.
TOP 25 SHOWS SINCE 2000
Friday Night Lights is the only multi-year drama series that I have watched all the way through twice in my life, and I'll probably do it again someday. This show was so much more than a "football show." It was thoughtful exploration of community, adolescence, marriage and so much more. I have commented multiple times how the famously great pilot feels like we were just dropped into this little Texas town but it wasn't just the pilot that felt this way. The show made Dillon and its inhabitants so real and so authentic. Aside from a poorly considered murder plot in season two (that was saved by the writer's strike), the show navigated high school students getting older better than most shows by completely changing the show for the fourth and fifth seasons and still yielding great results. The show was anchored by one of TV's best marriages between Kyle Chandler's Eric and Connie Britton's Tami, but the entire ensemble and the characters that came and went were fantastic. I have spent over a decade recommending this to anyone whether they are football fans or not, and I plan to keep doing it. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
PILOT RE-REVIEW
This season, I am traveling back in time to the 2010-11 season, the first season I did this blog. I will be re-reviewing the pilots from that season, at least as many as I can find!
Original Review: Click Here!
What I Think Now: Mike & Molly was a pilot that was at war with itself. On one hand, there was a very sweet love story between the title characters and there was some crackling chemistry between them in the pilot. Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy had several genuine moments that had self-deprecating humor mixed with heart. Reno Wilson fit into this plot well as the wisecracking best friend. On the other hand, you had Molly's home life. Swoosie Kurtz and Katy Mixon seemed to be appearing in a completely different show. One that was filled with drug and sex jokes. Sometimes the difference was jarring. You had Swoosie Kurtz say a line about "lesbo clubs" and "beefy girls" followed immediately by the soft jazz theme song that had so much class. I know a common complaint when this pilot aired was how often they made fat jokes and yes, they were relying on those quite a bit. I think it was clear they wouldn't keep doing fat jokes all the time and they were trying to establish the premise. But the fat jokes were less of a problem than the home life for Molly which Melissa McCarthy tried valiantly to save. The main scenes worked, but the side scenes didn't so the whole thing felt quite disjointed.
What Happened to the Show: Mike & Molly premiered on CBS's prized Monday night lineup and went on to have a healthy six season run where it was mostly used as a utility player that could be plugged into any timeslot necessary. Initially airing after Two and a Half Men, it survived the Charlie Sheen meltdown in 2011 that led to half a season of a repeat lead-in. The summer after Mike & Molly's first season, Melissa McCarthy broke through in a big way with the breakout role in the blockbuster movie Bridesmaids. That fall, she was a surprise winner for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy for Mike & Molly at the Emmys. There was (probably correct) speculation that voters were rewarding her as much for Bridesmaids as they were for Mike & Molly. Despite McCarthy turning into a big movie star, she loyally stayed with the series through the end of her contract. It quietly left the air in May 2016 and has had a so-so afterlife. Though he didn't become a movie star, Gardell went on to another CBS comedy success in Bob Hearts Abishola, which ran from 2019 to 2024.
COMING UP
Things will be much quieter as far as premieres between now and the new year with typically one big premiere at most each week. This week, that premiere is the second season of A Man on the Inside on Netflix. The Ted Danson/Mike Schur comedy got strong notices when it premiered last November but it was eclipsed in the awards conversation by later premieres. Also premiering this week is The Legend of Vox Machina offshoot The Mighty Nein on Prime Video and the thriller The Assassin on AMC+.
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