Adults: I just caught up with this comedy after getting loads of recommendations. I thought it was going to be Friends-lite, and it sort of started off that way but then it becomes its own thing, and it’s great. Sweet and funny, with a mix of the odd curly-toes cringy laugh, but also a lot that comes from character, interspersed with the occasional mic-drop funny. I love the development of characters especially in season 2, where they all have their moments . As each episode is just over 20 minutes I ended up binging it in just a few evenings. I’m assuming they are aiming for a season 3 but it would be ok if it ended where it is I think (
TV series streaming on Disney+)
Colin from Accounts: People have been recommending this Australian romcom/drama to me for years, and I finally got around to watching it. It’s an intelligent, sharp, and emotionally satisfying story named after Colin, the dog that brings our two protagonists together. Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall are the writers and also play the leads, but I love the supporting characters, who are often cartoonish and are used to give us more basic laughs but sometimes have their moment to step into full 3D. This has a mix of deep stuff and stupid, pretty basic comedy mixed together and it works really well. Another bonus is the half hour format which makes sure there’s not a lot of fat or faff.
(TV series streaming on iplayer)
Ann Droid: With Diane Morgan as 'Linda' the home care robot, and Sue Johnston as Sue, an independent older woman having to adjust to accepting some help, with the addition of Paul Ready as Sue's whiny, incompetent adult son, this had a lot of potential, and it mostly delivered I think. Sue has fainted 'due to low blood pressure' she says, but it counts as 'a fall', so she can't go home without support. As her son has other ideas beyond looking after his mum, he hires a budget-priced, refurbished robot to provide care and company. It's all delivered in the guise of a warm family sitcom, each episode a snappy twenty-something minutes, but there's a lot of social commentary, snark and sharpness sitting just under the surface. There are some obvious jokes in there that are telegraphed a mile off, but in most cases as soon as it gets too sugary, there is a pull back to something much sharper. All performances are great as you would expect from this cast, and even if the side characters, including Paul Ready's Michael, are sometimes a bit cookie cutter, overall it delivered a pretty damning summary of the state of our care services, late stage capitalism and has a few wry thoughts about how well AI will deal with human emotions. Alongside that it also has some simple but effective thoughts about grief and loneliness, and allows us to conceive a world in which technology might also be good, alongside the bad and with some important questions - just how well will a robot work outside of internet range for example?
(TV series streaming on iplayer)
Ted Lasso (season 4): I have approached this new season with caution, on the basis that I thought that the series had reached a perfect ending with the final episode of series 3. My fear is that this season, which is almost certainly driven by financial projections, is at best, a waste of time, and at worst, spoils the legacy of what has come before (see
Sex Education). So, what is the premise of this season? Nothing much has actually changed except that Richmond is now fielding a women's team that everybody thinks is a financial disaster waiting to happen. Cue Ted being invited back as coach. I found the first episode a bit toe-curling, as it was one of those away location 'bottle episodes', and it all felt a bit odd to me. But once back on UK soil, on home ground, it started to click, taking the opportunity to aim at some pretty obvious open goals around misogyny and the associated under-investment in women's sports. We have a new misery-guts now that Roy Kent has turned out to be a softie, this time with Assistant Coach Alice (Tanya Reynolds) stepping into those grumpy boots. This extra series still probably isn't necessary, but I am enjoying it as a little bonus anyway, and each episode so far is charming me a little more, so I am going to choose to Believe, for now at least.
(TV series, streaming on AppleTV)
The Undeclared War (Season 2): I enjoyed the first series of this tense cyber-attack thriller with Simon Pegg as Daniel Patrick, the head techy at GCHQ fighting off challenges from whoever is behind the attacks, hindered by his management and the government. It wasn't that original but it moved fast and had suitably gobbledegooky techy dialogue that was just convincing enough not to have me huffing at the screen. That was back in 2022, and I am not sure why there was such a long delay, but anyway, it has returned, pretty much carrying straight on from before. There is a fab opening one-shot with Pegg walking and talking his way through the whole piece right up to the first advert break (on streaming anyway, dunno if it was the same on live tv). And it looks pretty expensive all the way through, although there aren't that many locations, they are all beautifully shot, developing a great sense of claustrophobia. The techy side of the plot seemed even more nonsensical than before - even I could see this was nonsense, even though I was going along with it. The main problem though is that the plot seems even thinner than before. Although there is a new tech mystery to unravel, this series focuses heavily on Danny's home life and friendships. It was good to see Siân Brooke doing something different from her usual supporting roles, but the plot was a bit obvious, and I was longing for something to surprise me - sadly there were no surprises, it just turned out as we all expected really. It was .... ok....
(TV Series, streaming on C4)
Silo: Season 3 is almost finished and it’s heading back into the books now, lining up for next season to be the last. Although I found some of this season frustrating, I do get the reasons for the changes, and overall it works well as a tv version because of the changes, and the penultimate episode really kicked things off in a big way. The writer of the books, Hugh Howey, is one of the exec producers and he has been pretty active on social media (Threads) in a way that’s unusual to see and it’s helped me to keep the faith. Honestly, this is great scifi. I love Colin Hanks as the Elon type tech bro, predicted in the books, although he is a bit too scary actually and I don’t want the rest of the books to come to pass thanks! This isn’t quite as original or weird as Severance but it's beautifully executed, intelligent telly. There's great literary analysis out there highlighting how this brings Plato's Cave to life, as well as being a scary future apocalypse narrative. Regardless of all that, it's a great watch and I highly recommend it and the books (
TV series streaming on AppleTV)
Widow's Bay: Everyone has been raving about this, so I thought I would give it a try. It's comedy-horror, with strong workplace comedy tendencies, and with Matthew Rhys as the sceptical mayor trying to modernise the island as a tourist attraction, it's surprisingly entertaining, even for someone like me who is rubbish at jump scares and creepiness. I am only a couple of episodes in, but it is properly and surprisingly funny, often coming out of a really strong character base, although they aren't averse to a cheap laugh if they can get one. I love Matthew Rhys's performance here in dealing with the long list of horror tropes which are thrown at him. I have seen his expression described as 'baffled dread' and that's pretty accurate - he manages to be cynical and terrified at the same time, which is actually pretty funny a lot of the time. I am going to stick at it, although the comedy doesn't outweigh the fact that I won't be able to watch it just before I go to bed!
(TV series, streaming on AppleTV)
Stuart fails to save the universe: I have just started watching this spin-off from The Big Bang Theory, featuring Stuart (Kevin Sussman) after he has accidentally triggered a multiverse Armageddon after breaking a device built by Sheldon and Leonard. Kripke and Bert are just some of the characters from TBBT brought forward as supporting characters, and others crop up too, not all the time, but enough to make me smile. Spin offs often aren't great, and during the first episode I was constantly hovering over the remote button to find something else, but by episode 2 I had started to get invested. This is nothing like TBBT, except for the characters, but I loved the geekiness of it all as they arrive in a new universe each week. It does miss sometimes with the comedy, which is a weird mix of broad physical and character stuff and obscure geeky in-jokes referencing long dead sci-fi stuff, some of which goes completely over my head. But I like that sort of thing so I guess I am here for the duration.
(TV series, streaming on NowTV)
Ludwig this cosy crime series is back and it’s still enjoyable with David Mitchell playing to type, and Anna Maxwell-Martin as his enthusiastic amateur sleuth friend and sister-in-law. It’s very formulaic but that doesn’t stop the storylines or the performances being engaging. Plus this series has Mark Bonar and that is a bonus I will never turn down.
(TV series on iplayer/bbc)Big Boys (2023) Sweet little coming of age story as Will (Isaac Krasner) learns some important things about himself in a camping trip with his cousin. Gentle and understated, with some really beautiful little moments. Although, it's not scared of highlighting some of the awfulness of being an adolescent not in control of your body or feelings, and the embarrasment of getting things wrong. (
Film, streaming on Amazon Prime)
Eternity: This is a sort of romcom fantasy where Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) has to choose between her first love who died young (Callum Turner) and her long term husband (Miles Teller) as her partner for eternity. It’s high concept and entertaining, and I did enjoy where it took us. The guardian angels played by Da'Vine Joy Randolph and John Early are a great double act but why did the men get their own guardian angels while Joan had to share? Entertaining and intelligent but maybe because it is high concept we didn't get a truly satisfying happy ending. (Film, streaming on AppleTV)
The Odyssey: I saw this at the very start of the month and it came laden with two challenges to start with - firstly the weight of so many critics all loving it, and secondly that it is so loooonnnngggg, and I am not a fan of long movies. Having said that, zipping through this multi decade story in a couple of hours probably wouldn't have worked either. I often feel I can appreciate Christopher Nolan's work without loving it, and that's a bit how I feel here. Fabulous cinematography - you can feel and see that no expense has been spared in almost every scene, and it does manage to zip us through the story with relative lucidity, despite some pretty clunky dialogue here and there. Matt Damon does a pretty good job with Odysseus, although so much is skimmed over we end up being left with a pretty standard action hero with a dark backstory and a tortured conscience who ascends into greatness after great struggle. There's been a fair bit of debate about the treatment of women in this version of the story, and I have to say I think I am on the side of the people who think the women had a pretty raw deal in this telling. Given the amount of recent academic and artistic interest in the women that have often really important roles to play in the whole story, they were given fairly short shrift really. Penelope got the best deal but I love Circe's story, and although she was given more screen time than some of the others, and Samantha Morton did a fab job with what she had, I still think she was done dirty, similarly Zendaya's Athena, and Charlize Theron's Calypso. I understand that to tell Odysseus's story in the time available, some things had to be cut, but it always seems to be the depth of the women characters where the axe fell (I got blocked on social media by saying that so maybe a bit of an unpopular view?!) Despite the squashing of the women, I enjoyed this bombastic version of the story, but I think there are other interesting versions to be told.
(Film at the cinema)
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