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
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 her brand of comedy, but I think there were enough things in this pilot to keep me watching. It felt a little chaotic and I was wishing it was more consistently funny but, as I've said for 15 years on this blog, comedy pilots are hard to get right. So much of the enjoyment in TV comedy is us knowing the characters and you can only get to know them so well in a half hour pilot. But I think this show did a good job of establishing time and characters (though Odessa A'Zion comes on a little strong).
This reminded me a lot of Adults, which premiered on FX earlier this year. I ended up enjoying that show but I do feel a step removed from the humor that defines the show. I am closing in on 40 with a family and so the single life of people in their 20s is harder to connect to. However, a good show doesn't have to personally connect with me for me to enjoy it so I wonder if I'm giving my disconnect a bit too much of a pass. With Adults, I thought it got funnier as it went along so we'll see if that happens with I Love LA too.
LAST WEEK ON...
I think I'm probably in the minority on this but this was my favorite season of Only Murders in the Building since the first season and I have a few theories on why. One is that the guest stars felt better integrated to the plot. There were tons of famous names as always but I felt like they organically fit into the plot better (especially compared to last season). But perhaps more importantly, the show seemed to rediscover simplicity. Yes, the plot was a little convoluted as any season-long murder mystery is going to be. But the show didn't try to explore too much in the lives of the characters on top of that. The character development we saw fit organically to the plot. And it seemed to be having more fun again. I didn't like the finale as much as the penultimate episode but I thought the loose ends tied together nicely. I'm a bit skeptical of the show heading to London for its just renewed sixth season, but we'll see!
Chad Powers (Season Finale)
I dropped off watching this show after the first three episodes but caught up this past week because there were only three more episodes to finish off the season. I was looking forward to this show but man, I really did not care for it. The show did not work on any level starting with the major problems with the Chad Powers character and Glen Powell's performance. The show never managed to make the character likable, even when he was doing a good thing he came off as creepy. I found myself wanting him to be caught and revealed much more than I wanted the ending we got. The only episode I liked was the fourth one, which featured a madcap rush to get back to the hotel in disguise before curfew. But one decently good episode did not save this mess. If there's a second season, I won't be watching.
The Lowdown
I know that The Lowdown has submitted as a drama for the winter awards but all season, I've wondered if it belongs in comedy thanks in large part to the glorious chaos of Ethan Hawke in the lead role. I don't wonder about that anymore after this past week's penultimate episode. While it still had some comedic moments (mostly thanks to Hawke and Michael Hitchcock), it was also very chilling at times. The late Graham Greene was the center of a very tense scene and the white supremacy church scenes gave a lot of unsettling feelings (though it felt a bit of a stretch that someone in that congregation wouldn't shoot Lee dead immediately when he pulled out a gun). While the meandering journey has been a super fun ride, the show is proving it has a lot to say about America in 2025 as it rounds third base to head home for the season finale. I've grown to love this show and am said to see the first season coming to an end this week.
The Chair Company
I've been souring more on The Chair Company each week. After watching the movie Friendship earlier this year and now watching this show, I'm starting to think that Tim Robinson is a real small dose guy for me. Although there are elements I've found funny and I do think the show is stylish, it's just starting to wear on me. I feel like the mash-up of a 70s style thriller and a cringe comedy doe snot quite work as an ongoing series even though it seemed promising in the pilot. I'm going to see it through so we'll see if I come around with the resolution to the story but this is slipping for me in my interest level.
TOP 25 SHOWS SINCE 2000
I was very late to the Breaking Bad train. I watched it years after its original run so I was a bit skeptical going in but I ended my viewing of the show with a definite understanding of why it's considered one of the best of all time. Many shows get a little rough as they get up there in years but Breaking Bad was the reverse. The show famously had a general idea of what it planned to be but boxed themselves in holes that they didn't know how they would get out of. I wish more shows would do that because they were responding to the performances, the writing, the fan reception. They were growing and changing with the show and that's how it should be. And as a result, we have a show that is still finding its way the first couple seasons before becoming one of the most propulsive thrillers of all time in its later years. From the brilliant performances of Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul to the incredibly clever world it built, this show is as good as advertised.
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: The thing that struck me the most while watching this pilot again was how sleek network drama pilots used to be. There was a lot of money poured into this pilot and you can tell. The money used to be there for networks to do big budget pilots and this was just one of many examples. But all the glitz and glamour can't save the pilot from being a run of the mill spy story that we've seen a million times before. The most obvious inspirations for this show seem to be Hart to Hart or Mr. & Mrs. Smith and the show tries to capture the sexy fun of those properties, but it mostly falls flat. A few lingering glances between stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Boris Kodjoe and some whispering, double entendre dialogue is not an excuse for actual chemistry and heat. The actors are partly to blame but the writing (which includes JJ Abrams) is more to blame. Mbatha-Raw and Kodjoe look good together but they don't have any actual chemistry (despite what I said in 2010) and the whole show falls apart because of that. It's all style and no substance. I had forgotten Ben Schwartz was in this show and it's a little weird seeing him in his Jean-Ralphio era in a different role. Gerald McRaney is solid as always but not given much to do in the pilot.
What Happened to the Show: J.J. Abrams was a pretty big name for TV shows in 2010 so this show got a lot of pre-premiere attention for being the first pilot directed by Abrams since Lost in 2004 (incidentally, he's yet to direct for TV again and didn't write again for TV until Duster just a few months ago). It also was notable for having two black leads, which was still sadly rare on network TV in 2010. NBC was trying to rebuild in their post-The Jay Leno Show season and launched a lot of new shows in Fall 2010. Undercovers was given the 8pm Wednesday lead-off slot to lead into Law & Order: SVU. Many anticipated at least a strong premiere but that didn't happen. The premiere numbers were surprisingly soft and it only dropped from there. The show was cancelled on November 4 after airing just seven episodes. Of course, Kodjoe and Mbatha-Raw have had plenty of work since then and TV has continued to try the sexy spy drama time and time again to mixed success at best.
COMING UP
The calendar has turned to November and it's a very busy week of premieres. On Monday, Paramount+ has the binge drop of Crutch, a spinoff of the CBS comedy The Neighborhood. The Neighborhood has been a long-running success for CBS but I'm not sure the audience will follow it over to Paramount+. Also premiering on Monday is the second season of St. Denis Medical on NBC. On Tuesday, Hulu has the premiere of its new Ryan Murphy legal drama All's Fair. The trailer has gotten a lot of attention, perhaps thanks to the presence of Kim Kardashian. Thursday has two limited series premieres. Netflix has Death By Lightning, a four episode limited series about the assassination of James Garfield while Peacock has the Sarah Snook missing child series All Her Fault. One of the more anticipated new fall shows arrives on Friday with Apple TV's Pluribus, Vince Gilligan's follow-up to Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul starring Saul alum Rhea Seehorn. Also premiering on Friday is the NBC comedy block featuring the second season of Happy's Place and the new cheerleading comedy Stumble while Starz has the third season of Power Book IV: Force and Hallmark has the second season of Mistletoe Murders.
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