THERE'S TOO MUCH TV - Roundup April 2023

“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!

I’ll keep spoilers to a minimum unless otherwise marked. These are ordered by how much I’m interested in talking about them, to you, right now, in this post.

Yellowjackets (Season 2) — Showtime
CW: violence, cannibalism!

We got cannibalized, finally! Yellowjackets’ second season started off a little scatterbrained, as the writers attempted to juggle their massive cast of characters and story threads and timelines. So far, they’ve mostly opted for the approach of touching base with each of these every single episode, and that hasn’t totally worked. Episodes have felt like they’re rushing, trying to hit every little thing, instead of going for a more paced style a-la Lost (each episode focuses on a specific character) or Station Eleven (each episode focused on one timeline). I think I would have opted for one of those, HOWEVER, I do really like where all the stories are entering the back half of the season. The current day plots have all become more interesting, the additions of Elijah Wood and Lauren Ambrose to the cast have been exceptional, and the way they’re slow-rolling the supernatural aspects are perfect. It’s always better to leave those things mysterious as long as possible, and the show understands that. I’m hoping that with some time to coalesce, this show is going to make the leap from an interesting premise to a truly great TV show that so many series struggle to make in their second season.

Succession (Season 4) — HBO
CW: language, cringe

Every episode of Succession’s fourth season has been excellent, and yet I can’t help but feel that the show has taken its foot off the gas after its unmatched second and third seasons. Perhaps this is because the bar is so high for Succession. The peaks that the show reaches on nearly every episode would be the greatest episode for most other series. When a major character left the show earlier this season and my friends called it the greatest episode of the show, I felt compelled to go through the whole list and push back, because this show truly is all bangers all the time. That being said, we’re only halfway through this final season and the ink here is hardly dry. While all of the character work and acting from each of the main three has been incredible, I’ve found myself most interested in Tom’s storyline. He’s truly been an outsider this season, having attached himself to a losing horse and grasping at any salvation he can find. He understands the game and is perhaps more honest about it than any other character, as evidenced by his incredible scene with Shiv in the most recent episode.

BEEF (Season 1) — Netflix
CW: violence, language, disgusting actor behavior

You’re unlikely to encounter a more wild ride in a single season of TV this year than BEEF, the Netflix show that takes the premise of road rage gone overboard and dives into the reasons why these people are so angry and why they can’t let anything go. It’s a character study at its finest, and both of our characters are largely despicable, but we get such a complete view of their interior lives that you can’t help but understand where they’re coming from with their horrifically bad decisions. I’d be remiss not to mention the resurfaced podcast comments of David Choe, who plays a secondary character on the show, where he brags about sexual assault. It’s disgusting, he is disgusting, and frankly the way Ali Wong and Steven Yeun have defended him is disgusting. He has not “put in the work,” as he continually files DMCA takedown notices whenever clips of the podcast surface as he tries to scrub it from the internet. With all that in mind, I still enjoyed the show, one of the best originals that Netflix has released in some time.

Dave (Season 3) — FX/Hulu
CW: sexual language

The thing that has always interested me most about Dave, Lil Dicky’s show about himself, is its complicated relationship with his narcissism. Dave is well-aware of his narcissistic tendencies, and much of the show is about making fun of it and commenting on it. But that can’t change the fact that the show is ultimately an exercise in narcissism, regardless of how self-aware it is. And in the tension between those two ideas lies the most interesting parts of Dave. Still, I fear that Dave will always live in the shadow of Atlanta, as a comedy about a rapper that airs on FX/Hulu. The most recent episode “Storm” felt very reminiscent of Atlanta’s “Teddy Perkins,” both drawing on the idea of being trapped in a house with truly surreal and bizarre characters that we don’t understand. And that kinda sucks, because there’s only one “Teddy Perkins.” I’m not sure it’s Dave’s fault that it’s compared to Atlanta, but it’s hard to ignore the parallels at times.

Ted Lasso (Season 3) — AppleTV+
CW: n/a

While I liked Ted Lasso’s second season, most people found it to be a bit boring, what with its lack of a central antagonist or conflict. My issues with it were a bit more rooted in some of the trope work the show explored, particularly as it pertained to racial stereogypes with Dani Rojas and Nate. I think that the show has continued to improve upon those and while Dani remains a punchline (although a delightful one), it’s impossible to not recognize how sincerely the show is trying, even when it’s uneven. A recent episode about a character’s sexuality certainly felt written by a straight man, but it still was a worthy topic to explore and I enjoy how much the show tries to expand and be as inclusive as it can be. The show feels like Ted himself in that it means well, it holds space for others, but still can suffer from a narrow white, cishet perspective as it attempts to connect to people.