THERE'S TOO MUCH TV - Roundup April 2022

“What are you watching?” is pretty much the automatic question I get when I tell people what I do for a living.

I don’t have time to do full conversations on everything I’m watching but here are some stray thoughts on everything I’ve watched in the last month. I’ve also been requested to include content warnings for shows that need them, so you can see those beneath each title!

Some mild spoilers for shows that are not in season 1.

April was crazy in terms of how many exciting shows came back or premiered so I haven’t gotten to everything yet or gotten through all the episodes that have dropped yet.

Abbott Elementary (Season 1)
CW: None, this show is pure

If you’ve been wondering where all the good sitcoms have gone, then you clearly haven’t watched Abbott Elementary. Set in a low-income public school in Philadelphia and spearheaded by the undying optimism of Janine Teagues, Abbott is very much in the vein of Parks and Recreation. It has a mockumentary format and lots of its characters fit into familiar typecasts. There’s the grizzled mentor with a heart of gold, the new guy trying to do the bare minimum to get by, the edgy teacher with a dark past, and the guy who means well but is completely insufferable. But what keeps Abbott fresh is its perspective, focusing on the challenges public school teachers and their students face and how they make do with what little they have. Think season 4 of The Wire but funny and not depressing. Stop putting on reruns of The Office or Parks and Recreation and try something new for a change. You’ll thank me.

Atlanta (Season 3)
CW: racism, blackface, drug use, general creepiness

Atlanta doesn’t seem to have had the same splash in season 3 on the cultural zeitgeist as in previous seasons, which is weird because this show is still excellent. I’d argue that it’s operating at the top of its game—always ambitiously pushing the envelope in terms of form. Some episodes feature no central characters. That’s okay because the show is about a place more than anything else, evidenced by the show’s title always appearing naturally in an environment. Except that all of the main characters aren’t even in Atlanta, they’re in Europe this season. So maybe it’s not about a place at all, but a tone. Every episode is a challenge to its audience and even an episode that some might say falls slightly flat in terms of execution is still the most exciting half-hour of TV to air that week. No other show is doing what Atlanta is doing or playing with the same concepts.

Barry (Season 3)
CW: violence

I’ll have a lot more to say about Barry this coming week in my video essay, but I’m happy to have the show back. I’m most interested to see what the show does with the developing dynamic between Sally and Barry. Barry seems to have given up on acting and, faced with the monster he’s always been, returned to a dark life of violence, convinced that he is beyond forgiveness. Meanwhile, Sally is living her best life, leading a TV show both on camera and behind the scenes. In some ways this is a reset for the two of them, Sally the real actor and Barry struggling to find purpose. Most importantly, I’m happy to see NoHo Hank living his best life and that the show has let him come out rather than just hinting at his sexuality.

Better Call Saul (Season 6)
CW: violence

Is Better Call Saul the most well-made TV show…of all time? I think the answer is yes. From the incredible editing montages to incredible staging and cinematography to the deepest roster of actors on TV (shoutout to Michael Mando who has long been excellent but unfortunately is behind Bob Odenkirk, Rhea Seehorn, Jonathan Banks, and Giancarlo Esposito on the callsheet)—Better Call Saul is operating at a level that is unprecedented in terms of filmmaking. It makes sense too, this is a production crew that has largely worked together for the past 14 years across Breaking Bad and now Saul, and their experience shows. If you’re behind on this show, please just get it together. It’s long since passed its predecessor in quality.

NBA Playoffs
CW: heartbreak, homicide, consumerism

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a huge basketball nerd, so late April through early June is one of my favorite times of year. I won’t bore you with the details of how the Celtics have weaponized Robert Williams to create the best defense in the league or how I think Luka Doncic provides far more matchup problems for Defensive Player of the Year candidate Mikal Bridges than the mainstream media seems to acknowledge.

But I do want to talk about commercials, because this is basically the only way I am exposed to them. Two advertising campaigns stand out. The first is the overwhelming onslaught of commercials from FTX and crypto.com trying to get people who don’t understand crytprocurrencies to buy in. That’s literally the pitch: crypto sounds confusing? Don’t worry just give us your money and we’ll make you rich. Thanks, I hate it. The other is #HeGetsUs, a $100 million campaign, that is trying to rebrand Jesus a victim of cancel culture. There’s so much to unpack there, if you are interested let me know because I would love an excuse to go down this rabbit hole.

Ozark (Season 4 Part 2)
CW: violence

I’ve only seen the first two episodes so I can’t speak to the ending of the show and I’ll have more to say next month, but I want to take this opportunity to address something that really bothers me about TV postmortems (and one we’ll see later this year when Better Call Saul ends): tweets like this. In our rush to see everything and fire out takes as quickly as possible (curse you binge format releases!), TV critics can often fall into including so many weird caveats that our statements ultimately lose all meaning. “Arguably underappreciated in the pantheon of modern TV” is such a nothing phrase. Are you arguing it? Underappreciated by whom? How is it appreciated now? How should it be appreciated? What is the pantheon of modern TV? Where do you even draw the line of modern TV? And on top of that, he gave himself a cop out with that “I’m still mulling the ending” line. Come on guys, say something or don’t say anything at all. Don’t be Kendall Roy.

Severance (Season 1)
CW: self-harm, class consciousness

Severance is slowly becoming an all-out phenomenon. I’m seeing comments and references to it in places that it has no business being and I’m honestly pumped. I think that this mostly has to do with the show’s message, one that is deeply resonant as people who just spent the last 2 years working from home are now facing a return to the office, and all of the messy work-life balance ideas that come with that. I’m working on a video about this very idea so it’ll be more fleshed out soon!

Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (Season 1)
CW: graphic sex and nudity, drug use, an offensive portrayal of the 17-time champion Celtics

Winning Time is a hyper-stylized show that turns real people who were part of the 1980s Lakers team that vaulted the NBA into unprecedented popularity and success into caricatures. It’s very obvious that the show is not historically accurate from the way characters break the fourth wall or how in one episode they go to Boston and are haunted by a ghostly Celtics leprechaun that laughs in empty hallways. This is why it’s so funny that Jerry West, a person the show has portrayed as a man who cannot let anything go, has threatened to go to the Supreme Court with a lawsuit to pull the show for defamation. This is so on-the-nose that I’m not sure it isn’t an elaborate marketing ploy.