So it’s January 2022, and I haven’t done this in a while.
Yellowjackets
- Pretty Lost Little Cannibals is a decent elevator pitch, I’ve got to admit.
- I’ve only watched the first two eps and thus have little to say so far, but I’m engaged… I enjoy the sheer nastiness of Yellowjackets, I’m always curious about anything Christina Ricci does, and the show scored huge points with me by playing Liz Phair’s Supernova in the first fifteen minutes.
- I’ll be surprised if I don’t make it to the end of the season… it’s above-average, at the least
Resident Alien
- What Dexter would be like if the lead character had four arms and a more relatable world-view.
- Also, Sheriff Big Black is basically the “Surprise, motherfucker!” guy turned up to 11.
- “This is some bullshit.”
- I wish Alan Tudyk could be a star, but if he were, we probably wouldn’t get performances like this. He may never get one, but the man deserves an Emmy for his body of work as a whole, and for this show in particular… he’s doing stuff with his mouth and his gaze and his incredibly flexible voice that never ceases to elevate the material. (And the writing is quite good, even on the page.) Unlike anyone this side of Vincent D’Onofrio in Men In Black, Tudyk manages to convey some sense of what it would be like to wear a body like a mask.
- I’m only three eps in so I’m not gonna go overboard here, but… it’s very good. And the second season is starting soon.
Shadow and Bone
- Much like the next show on this list, S&B is “derivative” done right. There’s nothing new here, but that’s seldom a problem if the work is as highly polished and precise as this.
- The performances are sparkling and sharp, from one end of the cast to the other.
- Aside from the “Romeo & Juliet Go North of the Wall” bit, none of the subplots drag. Which is good, since there are a bunch of them.
- Every time S&B comes up in her Netflix recommendation list, Olivia Munn must glare at the TV and mutter something about “where the fuck was this role 15 years ago?!”
- I’m all-in for the second season. If they can continue to deliver a finely-crafted cover version of every fantasy story of the last forty years, I’ll be content.
Cobra Kai
- How? How does this continue to work, after four damned seasons? I laughed at the premise when I first heard it, and here’s the thing: it’s still laughable, four years later. The whole thing is ridiculous. But against all odds, it manages to not just be watchable… it’s satisfying.
- Granted, I am the bullseye in Cobra Kai‘s target market. I was a teenager in the ’80s, and I watched the original Karate Kid… Jesus, I don’t know. Dozens of times on HBO? I saw Karate Kid II in the cinema. (I left feeling like the concept was wearing thin, while my best friend ended up spending the next several years in taekwondo. So it was working for someone.) I skipped the later installments, but still… “Daniel-san”, “sweep the leg”, and “honk!” are all burned into my pop-cultural memory. (Along with Elisabeth Shue’s fine little ass.) If they couldn’t sell CK to me, they couldn’t sell it to anyone.
- The kids manage to (mostly) not suck, but it’s Zabka/Macchio/Kove/Griffith that make it sing. The writing gives them plenty of scenery to chew and callbacks to make —I finally watched Karate Kid III for the first time the other day, and Cobra Kai promptly rewarded me with Easter eggs galore— while expanding the forty year old, threadbare characters into complex, nuanced humans stuck in an openly absurd cycle of bullying and redemption.
- With that said… Peyton List is a pretty little thing. I could watch her stand around acting violently melancholic all day.
