My really good friend recommend this show to me a year ago, when the first season dropped on Netflix, so I told him I will add this to my ever growing list of shows to watch. And to be fair, I’ve kind of forgotten about it, until couple of weeks ago, the second season dropped and he’d remind me to watch it (again). And I thought, why not? Quarantine isn’t over yet, “only” 20 episodes, should be pretty good…

I need to be honest, the first season of Dead to Me didn’t convince me 100%, as I really liked the leads (both Christina Applegate & Linda Cardellini are amazing) and I liked the story, but the “twists” were predictable and I was expecting bit more, mainly from Netflix. But, I am a completionist, and I saw the potential this show had, so I continued watching season two.

I was glad to see the season two got better, but also, more unbelievable as we go on, where everything is super connected, where you might wonder, are we watching a TV show, where there are only 10 people on this planet? The reason I was wondering that was the main and sides characters keep bumping into each others lives, and are super connected to each other too.

Beware, SPOILERS are coming!

For example, of course the guy who gets killed at the end of season one (Steve, played brilliantly by James Marsden) had IDENTICAL twin brother never mentioned on the show prior, named Ben. I honestly don’t think the fact he had a brother, let alone a twin brother, was mentioned once in the first season, so that kind of felt “soap opery” (that’s 100% an expression, no need to Google that) even though I liked where they went with his character as they made him the complete opposite of Steve. Or another “coincidence”, of course Judy’s love interest’s ex is the police detective who knows how crazy Judy is… I mean at some point I would love to see some new characters on this show, that have NO relations to any of our current characters, as I am worried that in season three we would discover Judy and Jen are actually sister from Jen’s dad’s side or something like that.

That’d be my main complain about this show – I don’t know whether it’s intentional or not, but it does feel like a soap opera at times, where it’s too schemey (definitely a valid word, trust me). Luckily, the script and performances usually bring it back to some sort of quality level, where you forgive them and just go along.

Now, the positives – as I already mentioned, both Christina and Linda are acting their asses off in this, where it’s great to see both of them being the leads, seeing them fierce, funny, emotional, vulnerable… Both of them bring it each episode and they have great chemistry between together, where it feels like they might be friends in real life. Both of those characters also feel real, where Jen is the tough “no bullshit” business woman/mom that just tries to keep everything together, whereas Judy is the tender, always forgiving person, who just wants to please/help everybody around her, whether they deserve it or not. But they are much more than that, as you’ll see throughout the first two seasons.

I also really liked the script, where it’s kind of comedy, kind of drama (something that’s basically normalised on Netflix at this point, and more and more TV shows are adopting this) that knows how to say things and when. For example, I really liked how the show treated Judy’s relationship with the new character Michelle. Nobody stopped and questioned Judy “Oh, so you are into girls now?” or something like that, mainly Jen was just happy, that Judy is happy.

My rating after the first season would have been around 3.5*, as I thought the show was good, but had a huge room for an improvement. After the second season, I’m more intrigued about this story and I do think the second season was slightly better, so I’m going to go with a strong 4*, where I hope season 3 (if they actually do it, which I hope they will) would raise the bar even higher. The elements are there and if they manage to end (season 3 or 4) on a high note, it might potentially be a cult classic at some point.

That’s all for this one! Did you see it? What did you think about it? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

The only thing I’ve wanted from Brooklyn Nine-Nine is to be a funny TV show, where I can watch it, laugh and and not worry about anything for at least 20 minutes. This show not only delivers on that from season one, but it gives you much, much more.

Let me just stop here and clarify something – it’s rare nowadays for a comedy TV show to hit it out of the park from the beginning, but Brooklyn Nine-Nine delivered from the very first episode and it didn’t stop till now. And I can give you some examples – one of my favourites from the last couple of years, Parks and Recreation, which I praise as one of the best comedy shows of our generation, didn’t have the best first season, because the show took some time figuring out plenty of things as it went on, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The same could be said for the American version of The Office – for the record, I still haven’t seen a single episode from that TV show, but I have seen the original one and from what I’ve heard, the “great” stuff doesn’t really come in until season 3, as that’s where the American one goes its own way. BTW I promise I’ll fix this, I know The Office is great, just there isn’t enough time, but bear with me. 😉

But let’s go back to this one – there are two things Brooklyn Nine-Nine truly differentiates itself from other comedy shows that are on right now, one is fairly obvious, and the other is not that obvious.

The first reason is the cast – which is obvious. You need people who have great chemistry together, mainly in a comedy genre, and this cast is spot on. You truly believe them that they care about each other, sometimes they drive each other crazy, but at the end of the day, they are there for each other. Plus, this TV show is the perfect example of what I was writing about in my Roxanne review – part of the reason this comedy show works so well, is because there should be only one truly funny character/comedian from our perspective – Jake. All people around him play it (semi)seriously, I’ve never got the feeling like some other actors would be “competing” with him, they all have a role to play, but all of them play them so well, that’s what makes them funny. You could argue the rest of the cast have the harder task of being “accidentally” funny, where they don’t realise that. And that’s what makes this show so great.

The other reason is the occasional serious episode – whether they are dealing with racial issues, LGBTQ+ issues etc. – they always nail those episodes, and that’s not a small feat. When you decide “Hey, let’s shift gears in this comedy show for a bit, and address <insert uncomfortable, yet pressing topic, that should definitely be discussed here> issue” you always are running a risk of either alienating some of your audience, or worse yet, not handling/addressing the issue properly and therefore falling on your face. Brooklyn Nine-Nine doesn’t do these episode regularly, I think you could probably count them on one reasonably healthy hand, but when they do them, it’s something that hits you, in the best possible way. I applaud their writing team for taking risks doing those episodes and nailing them.

What I also admire is the fact that the show continues being great after getting cancelled, and getting picked up by another station almost immediately, after their loyal fans have launched online campaign to save Brooklyn Nine-Nine (originally this show was produced by Fox, from season 6 it’s been produced by NBC) – there is always certain degree of worries – will the new station do everything “correctly” by the writers, will they give them the freedom/resources they need…? In this case, you almost couldn’t tell it’s been produced by a different TV station for the past two seasons (the only reason I’m saying almost is NBC shifted the airing calendar, so the show is not running over Halloween, where as the loyal fans know, is when the famous “Halloween Heists” are taking place, so they had to be creative about that, but so far, they’ve managed well) and that’s definitely a plus for a regular viewer like me.

The show has been renewed for season 8 so far, so all I can hope for is they will deliver yet another great season, and if they need to end it (and I think they should end it after season 9, because, well, see the title of this show is Brooklyn 99, so it would be… you know what, forget it..) I can only hope they will finish on a great note. This show would definitely deserve to end while it’s still on top of the game.

NINE-NINE!

That’s all for this one? Do you like Brooklyn Nine-Nine? What’s your favourite episode? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Need to start this review with a confession – back in 2014, when this spin-off was announced, I was one of those people that went “I mean… I liked Saul, but can we move on from that world? Can’t Vince Gilligan (the brains behind this TV show and of course Breaking Bad) just create something new?” Good thing nobody really listens to me, as I’d been proved wrong with each new season of this amazing show and honestly, this is one of few instances, where me being wrong is great and I am really glad I was.

Because this show is almost pure miracle – the way it’s shot, the way it’s planned, all those amazing details (strongly recommend visiting subreddit for this TV show to see how many details you can put into a scene/episode, where I’ve missed plenty myself) and the slow-burn, almost Vince’s staple by now.

From now on, the review might contain spoilers from seasons 1 – 5!

People tend to remember only the great action pieces from Breaking Bad, or bad-ass one-liners, and often forget that the first two seasons or so were not that action packed, but were building up, really slowly, towards something great. And this TV show isn’t any different. Vince has done it again.

The first 2 seasons of this TV show I was saying something along the lines “it’s a great TV show, with excellent camera work, but it’s still expendable, we know what’s going to happen after all!” After the final episode of season 5, I need to correct myself. This is excellent TV show with stunning camera work, I have no idea what (exactly) will happen later on in its final season (yep, season 6 will officially be the final one) and I actually care about these characters.

I feel like I’d do a huge disservice to this show if I didn’t write about 2 people that shine the most (and let me say, pick two standouts from this show is hard, as everybody is on their A+ game) but two people that aren’t talked about as much – Rhea Seehorn and “newcomer” Tony Dalton.

Let me start with Rhea – if she doesn’t get AT LEAST nominated for every major TV award next year, you know they can’t be trusted. She truly evolved throughout the TV show from a character I didn’t really care about (again, we know she wasn’t in Breaking Bad) to the character I’m most interested in. I am really curious what her fate will be. Kim started as opposite of Jimmy, where she was usually as straight as an arrow, but Jimmy and the stress of everything got to her, to the point it’s her, not “slippin’ Jimmy”, who’s scheming and who’s planning other’s people “misfortunes”. Huge, huge props to Rhea, she’s truly excellent in this role, I hope I get to see her in more movies after Better Call Saul will end.

Tony Dalton might’ve come in later on (end of season 4) but what a presence! To an extent, his villain is really similar to Gus Fring – calm, collected, but always paying attention to everything that’s happening around him. But the difference between him and Gus, he’s unpredictable. He reminds me of a snake, elegant, moving slow and when you see him, you don’t know how he’s going to react, what to expect. And this is what makes him so entertaining. The confrontation between him, Kim & Jimmy at the end of episode 9 of this season, is definitely highlight of the show, because that scene feels like it’s going on for 30 minutes in the best way possible, that’s how tense it is.

So, to answer my question from the excerpt (“Can a show that has IMDb rating 8.7 be still underrated? You’re goddamn right!”) yes. I honestly feel this should be much higher, as this is prime example of the golden age of television I was writing about the other day. Is it better than Breaking Bad? I am not quite sure, to be honest, but I feel like it doesn’t have to be, because this is its own league. We live in a world where it DOESN’T have to better than anything, because it’s excellent on its own. And not every prequel can say that.

While watching the season’s 5 finale, something occurred to me. Maybe the reason I really like this, is the main characters still fell like normal people, who are doing abnormal things, whereas Breaking Bad at this point had Walter White in full on Heisenberg mode (normal people doing almost god like things). Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with that, it was entertaining as hell, but it made Breaking Bad slightly less accessible, as I don’t know anything about that kind of life. But I can imagine living Jimmy’s live, living in the shadow of a brother, who’s much better at everything to the point you feel like you need to re-brand yourself with a new name. And checking into a hotel because you’re scared for your life and wonder whether it was a great idea to get into a bed with the cartel also feels like something normal person would’ve done.

I seriously can’t wait for the last season and Vince, I promise you this – whatever your next project will be, I’ll follow you. You’ve earned my undying respect and I can’t wait what else you’ll come up with.

That’s it for Better Call Saul? Do you like it as much as I do? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

This review is based on the first 10 seasons of South Park, minor spoilers might be involved.

South Park has always been one of those TV shows I’ve heard about, later when YouTube was a thing saw a clip or two from it, but never fully watched it from the very start.

I’ve decide to fix it (long before COVID-19, but sure is great having more time than even on your hands… god, I miss outside world) and started to watch it from the very first episode.

Let me tell you, except the graphics, and some references, you wouldn’t have known the first episodes are over 20 years old now. The show is as topical now as ever, it’s clever, but most importantly, it’s genuinely funny!

Unlike Family Guy this show doesn’t rely on pop-culture references as much and when they do use them, it’s usually something as big as Lords of the Rings mania, Nintendo Wii, World of Warcraft etc. which even if you haven’t played/watched it, you still kind of know what it is.

Another, and the most major difference between those two shows (and let’s face it, it wouldn’t be fair to compare South Park to The Simpsons as they are not allowed, or wanting to be as edgy/dark/pushing the limits of what can/can’t be shown on TV, so I will leave everyone’s favorite yellow family out of this) their episodes/story lines might seem random/bizarre at first glance, but usually there is always something behind them, especially in later episodes.

South Park has established themselves as the “fair” TV show. They will mock you no matter what, and that’s something I admire – no matter if the creators/writers believe in something or not, they are more than willing to make fun of it and even if sometimes they do have the need to “explain” the lesson little too on the nose (mainly in first couple of seasons), it never goes overboard into preachy territory.

What fascinates me about this show is how fresh it feels, even after 10 seasons I’ve seen so far – I could probably count the number of “boring” episodes on fingers of one hand of very unlucky woodworker. And some topics they decided to cover over those 10 seasons are (unfortunately) as relevant today as they were back then (race, politicians, abortion issues, women’s issues, religion, the list goes on and on) and that’s why this is the perfect TV show, which won’t age as badly as others.

I also need to take my hat off before the creators, as I am not sure how they got away with some episodes being aired at all (and I’m not talking about the prophet Muhammad episodes) like Satan having his birthday party on Earth, bringing back three notorious serial killers to get him a cake, and of course, they kill PLENTY of people in the most graphic way possible. Just an example.

My favorite episodes so far: Starvin’ Marvin, Cartman’s Mom Is a Dirty Slut, Conjoined Fetus Lady, Spookyfish, Sexual Harassment Panda, Starvin’ Marvin in Space, Timmy 2000, Cartman Joins NAMBLA, Scott Tenorman Must Die, Red Hot Catholic Love, Free Hat, A Ladder to Heaven, The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring to the Two Towers, Casa Bonita, All About Mormons, The Passion of the Jew, Douche and Turd, Woodland Critter Christmas, The Death of Eric Cartman, Trapped in the Closet, Make Love, Not Warcraft, Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy

That’s all for this one, I might do a part two once I’m finished with the entirety of South Park. Do you like South Park or do you think it’s overrated? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke

Rated and reviewed after watching the entirety of the first season.

Jeff Goldblum has had an interesting carrier – from being in one of the biggest/most influential movies of all time (not talking about Cats & Dogs, but yes, he’s there) – Jurassic Park – to being mostly supporting actor throughout the years and, speculatively, if it wasn’t for Thor: Ragnarok it might’ve stayed like that.

We are now living in the age of Jeff, THE JEFF and that’s just a fact. It seems that now, more and more people are discovering his weirdness and can actually relate to him, in some sort of fascinating way. Which to me is all kinds of strange, as he is by all accounts unconventional dude and pretty comfortable with that.

And Disney was really clever to notice that and take advantage of it. And it seems to have paid off. Or did it?

Look, I wasn’t part of the discussions, but I am pretty certain even the biggest optimist at Disney didn’t think “Let’s give the JEFF a TV show, that will definitely draw crowds of people!” But they did it anyway as they knew, that it will never be the main selling point of Disney+. Jeff Goldblum will always be a side dish, supporting actor. And for any other actors, that’d be an insult. But not for him. Because his entire life, he’s perfected his art of being the best supporting actor there could be, to maintain his status of “every movie I’m in, I’ll make sure I do my very best and support everybody around me to the best of my abilities”.

That is why The World According to Jeff Goldblum worked for me. It is a show where Jeff takes you throughout USA to learn about denim, coffee, BBQ, swimming pools, etc., but it never becomes boring or tedious, because of him and his enthusiasm for… everything. You can tell he’s one of those people who live by the saying “every day is a gift and you should enjoy it” and it never comes across as fake or scripted. And I believe that is why more and more people do relate to Jeff nowadays, because of his authenticity.

The fact each episode is roughly 30 minutes helps this show massively as it’s not dragging on, and on a occasion where the main topic of the episode might not be as interesting (Jewelry) you still end up watching it, because there is something about Jeff and his way of presenting a TV show that in almost any other “hands” would be mainly about THAT celebrity doing things. As much as it sounds weird, this doesn’t feel like that at all. Jeff is just so down to earth, with almost no ego, you soon forget he’s an actor and could be doing movies instead of this “tiny” show, but he doesn’t see it that way, and neither should you.

By asking “is THIS particular TV show worth paying for yet ANOTHER streaming service?”, you are doing a disservice to yourself. Because it’s a wrong question to ask. This is a superb side dish, something extra you didn’t expect, like when in a restaurant you get a complimentary fries – that’s awesome!

This is it for me – really solid, side dish, where I’m more than curious for its second season and where will Jeff Goldblum take us next.

That’s it for this one, what did you think? Do you like the Goldblum-mania, or do you wish it would stop already? Let me know!

Until next time,

Luke