Idiot Boxing: Arrested Development Rewatch + Season 5 Review

A poster for the original - and still the best - season.

This didn't go the way I was hoping.

Like a fair number of people back in 2004, I was oh-so-slightly late to the Arrested Development party. I distinctly remember seeing the preview commercials on Fox, before the show aired in fall of 2003, but ignored it as probably another Fox misfire. Several months into the show's first season, though, more than a few TV-loving friends were passionately recommending the show to me. Before I knew it, the first season had wrapped up, but I was able to snap up the DVD collection immediately upon its release and catch up. No sooner had I fallen in love with the show than there were whispers about its potential cancellation. As it has done with more than one great show (Firefly, for example), Fox completely fumbled a true TV gem, let it sputter, and then die after a mere two-and-a-half seasons.

The show was given a second life in 2013 when, seven years after its cancellation, a long-hoped for fourth season was released by Netflix. The show then went dormant yet again. When I noticed that a fifth season was just released earlier this year, my wife and I decided to go back and give the series a full rewatch.

The First Four Seasons, 2003 to 2013

My feelings about this show's progression seem to reflect the general opinion about them: absolute brilliance that lost a fair amount of its luster in the third and fourth seasons.

The first two seasons of the show were, and still are, some of the greatest TV comedy of all time. The sharpness of the writing and the truly unique structure and feel of the entire show have not lost a bit of their magic since the initial run between 2003 and 2005. As during my original viewing, I found the writing and the cast so outstanding that I found myself changing my mind about which character was the best several times. The entire cast was so locked into what the writers were going for that it's still astounding to this day.

The cancellation-shortened third season was obviously where a few cracks started to show. As with nearly every "zany" TV show, there seems to be an imperceptible, razor-thin line that separates "hilariously zany" from "silly and unfunny." Most of the third season stays on the right side of that line, but most of the entire Little Britain storyline was simply too goofy, despite Charlize Theron's solid comedic performance at Rita. Thankfully, that particular arc ran its course by the middle of the season. Unfortunately, the masterminds at Fox decided to completely cancel the show shortly after that - a fact which the brilliant writers on the show hilariously worked into the show's plot.

The show's resurrection on Netflix seven years later in 2013 was a mixed bag. My wife and I watched it almost immediately upon its full release at that time, and apparently felt similar to much of the viewing public: while still bearing a decent amount of the original run's humor, and managing to bring back every single member of the original main cast, the structure of the season was bafflingly convoluted, spinning multiple overlapping stories that often doubled back over on another and never hitting a real stride in terms of clear narrative. Netflix recently did a "Remix" version of this season, which I had hoped would re-edit the season into a more coherent form, but I was disappointed to find that it was at least as frustrating, leaning far too heavily on an insane amount of Ron Howard's narrative exposition to try and keep the various story threads together. The real shame is that, when the tale settles down from its dizzying structure, it's still pretty damn funny. The characters and actors are usually still great, and the dialogue is often as sharp as it ever was. But this season is often an exercise in frustration, with the muddled organization just getting in the way of what have always been the show's real strengths.

I can respect the writers' swinging for the fences and trying something new with this season, but it seems that their reach exceeded their grasp here. It's a bit baffling, given that they could have used the 7-year gap to do so much more than just try to clumsily fill in all of the characters' backstories in the intervening years. It seems like it was a perfect opportunity to re-introduce the family into a completely new scenario. In the first two-and-a-half seasons, the greater arc revolved around George Senior's treason/embezzlement scam. Why not whip up a completely new scandal or dilemma around which to have the narcissistic and greedy Bluth family orbit and stumble? This is the type of thing that I was hoping for when hearing about a fifth season:

Tobias Funke - always the butt of a million jokes - continues
to roam far beyond the "funny" line and into the realm of
idiotically ridiculous. Other elements of the show follow suit.

Season 5 (2018)

Not wanting to let a classic-but-short-lived-show go out on a flat note, Netflix returned five years after the letdown 4th season to bring back the Bluth family, with every single primary cast member from the original seasons joining in. The tale basically picks up very shortly after the 4th season ended, with the various Bluth family members scrambling to claim or plunder any assets they can in the wake of Lucille Austero's supposed death. We see a continuation of the weird friction between Michael and George-Michael, and the typically selfish and idiotic schemes by their family members. Many of these seem to revolve around and come back to a new setting - a beach-side home once owned by Michael and his long-dead wife.

Full disclosure now - my wife and I didn't even make it through the modest 8-episode season. Five episodes in, we simply abandoned it in order to watch other, more reliably entertaining shows. That should probably tell you all you need to know. But if you're curious as to why...

It all boils down to the show shockingly continuing the weakest elements of the 3rd and 4th seasons. The writers and show runners seemed unable to ratchet back the dizzying pace and zaniness to that oh-so-difficult-to-master balance found in the first two seasons. Yes, there are funny moments in season 5, but they are surprisingly few and far between, given the immensely talented cast. The contrivances were just too far-fetched most times, with too many oddities stacking on top of each other, thus dampening any comedic effect. But I guess this is the fate of virtually every "silly" TV comedy. When the initial premise and general tone of the humor is so very zany from the jump, the only direction it can go is "zanier." And that wears itself out each and every time, with the over-the-top oddities being the "too much salt" that spoils the dish. Such seems to be the case with Arrested Development.

At least we'll always have those first two magical seasons. 

Idiot Boxing (2017): Ballers, season 3; Insecure season 2

Ballers, season 3 (2017)

Striking out in a somewhat bolder direction, the show feels similar to the plight that its protagonist, Spencer Strasmore, undergoes during this third season - perhaps reaching for more than it can handle but ultimately staying within its lane.

At the end of the second season, NFL star-turned aspiring financial advisor Strasmore had to rely on a last-ditch safety line from some of his own clients in the form of a multi-million dollar loan. The loan was so that he could buy the company that hired him, run it his own way, and avoid certain other obligations. He was also outed as having played an unknowing part in several fellow players' losing millions of dollars through misguided investments. This third season sees Spencer getting some of his footing back, though he is still under the pressure of debt to his own clients. Despite this, he decides to swing for the fences and try to orchestrate a deal that will move an NFL team to Las Vegas, a move certain to upset many owners of other NFL teams. This invloves juggling even larger egos than the ones he is accustomed to dealing with, and some of his own demons and skeletons threaten to torpedo the deal throughout the process.

I enjoyed this season, and would even say that it's the best of the series so far. I was skeptical at first, when the first few episodes features some shaky scripting and even a few cheap-looking visuals. And Steve Guttenburg (yes, he's still around) shows up to completely overplay his role as an unctuous and smug Las Vegas casino owner. But the second and final thirds of the season hummed along nicely, with some enjoyably tense moments to go along with the several good laughs that each episode provided. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has found himself a nearly perfect role, which can showcase his not inconsiderable acting abilities. And there were some new supporting cast members, such as Steven Weber, who turned in some solid little performances.

One thing that seems a bit odd about this season is that the stories of the secondary characters have become rather fragmented from Spencer's. That wouldn't necessarily be terrible if they were a bit more interesting. As it is, though, Ricky Jarett's romantic life isn't nearly as compelling as his battles with possible CTE; and Charles's attempts to find a life in football after this retirement can feel a bit forced and oversimplified at times. I hope future seasons either integrate these guys' stories better with the main one, make them more engaging, or just abandon them altogether. There is also the odd little question of what, exactly, happened to the hot young prospect Travis Mack, who was a significat part of season two's story arc? A strange omission from this season.

The ultimate test of whether I enjoyed a show is simply whether I will be tuning in for the next season. With Ballers, it's a definite "yes." It has its flaws, to be sure, but it's still a fun sports show that focuses on the equally fascinating world behind what happens between the lines.


Insecure, season 2 (2017)

Just one of a several awkward run-ins that Issa has with her
ex, Lawrence. Both of them have some exciting and bumpy
experiences back in the world of singles dating.

An impressive sophomore effort for this dramedy, made stronger with a greater emphasis on the "comedy" component.

I mostly enjoyed the first season of Insecure, though as I stated in my review, my enthusiasm waned a bit by season's end. That first season saw a shift in tone, with it starting off around 80/20 skewing towards comedy over drama, but being more like 50/50 by the latter half of the season. By the end, the laughs were far fewer, as we were simply watching Issa's personal life with her longtime boyfriend Lawrence come crashing down.

The second season picks up not long after the first ended. Issa is still struggling to find her place and fulfilment at her job as a social worker, but she has now officially declared herself a free, single woman. As such, she throws herself back into the current-stricken waters of millenial dating, complete with its many pitfalls. This of course leads to plenty of awkward and hilarious hook ups and near-misses, making for great comedy fodder. At work, she and her closest co-worker, Frieda, face the challenge of bringing their after-school program to a high school where the African-American vice principal is all too happy to exclude non-African Americans from the extra help. Not to be out-dysfunctioned, Issa's best friend Molly is experiencing plenty of occupational and romantic difficulties of her own.

For my money, the strength of the show is almost completely in the comedic elements. Show creator Issa Rae and her fellow writers have a great sense of comic set-ups and dialogue, and Rae herself is an outstanding comedic actress, both in her delivery and her physical humor. A bit of an issue that I had with the first season was how the comedy/drama balance went from being around 80/20 in the favor of comedy in the beginning to being about 50/50 by the final few episodes. This second season, however, struck a balance that was more consistent and satisfying throughout, with the trend generally skewing towards the humorous from season's beginning to end. I will admit that, as a guy who is about to turn 42 years old, my frustration with the dramatic elements are quite possibly due to my age. When one looks back at twenty-somethings bungling their personal lives by making short-

Issa with her closest girl friends. A particularly fun standout
was Kelli (second from the right). She's mostly a comic
presence, but her attitude and lack of filter are hilarious.

sighted and selfish decisions, it can be a bit tedious. However, were I watching this show while I was myself the age of the characters, I would probably be more riveted and curious. As it is, though, I sometimes just shake my head at the predictably negative outcomes of the their decisions. There are also a few reactions and decisions that simply come off as strange or inexplicable (to both me and my wife, with whom I've watched every episode). My hunch is that these little enigmas are either due to the age difference, cultural differences between my white, Texan self and the Los Angeles African-Americans whom the show focuses on, or likely a combination of both. Whatever the case, there was nothing so puzzling that it affected my enjoyment of the show.

It would seem that HBO has once again done the smart thing by keeping this show limited to an efficient season of a tidy 8 episodes, each being between 25 and 30 minutes. The lack of extraneous plot or weak jokes is evident in the brisk story pacing and the crisp jokes and dialogue, where they were clearly able to avoid any lame filler. Issa Rae, her writers, and cast members seem to have more places to go with these characters, and I'm looking forward to future seasons.

Idiot Boxing: Breaking Bad full rewatch (2008-2013)

I was relatively late to the Breaking Bad phenomenon. Of course I had heard about it's popularity and critical accolades during its initial rise to prominence back around 2010. But it wasn't until the series was nearly wrapped up in 2013 that I started playing catch up by working through the entire series. As most people, I found it thoroughly engaging, entertaining, and highly original. I enjoyed it enough to know that, at some point in the future, I would likely rewatch the entire series again.

Well, after three excellent seasons of the spinoff prequel Better Call Saul and recently channel surfing my way into one of the more memorable scenes from Breaking Bad earlier this year, the time came. Thanks to the marvel of modern streaming, the entire five-season, 62-episode series is sitting right there in Netflix just begging to be binged. So binge I did, not being completely sure of just how much I would enjoy the entire (roughly 46-and-a-half hour) ride on a second time.

In short, the show was even better the second time.

It speaks highly of a story, whether in literature or other media, when it is still compelling after you know the key plot points and the ultimate outcomes for the characters. Breaking Bad is a prime example of this. The first time I watched the series, it took about two seasons before I realized that Walter White was not some sort of sympathetic anti-hero who would eventually see the light. Rather, he was a warped, angry, vicious monster buried deep within the exterior of an impotent suburban schlub. Over the course of the series, he makes one decision after another which peels back another layer of the sad sack exterior to reveal a person dying to be "the man," but almost never wanting to admit his selfish urges to others or even himself. Though White commits some rather heinous acts in the first season, one could somewhat justify them as acting out of desperation. However, as the story progresses and White thrusts himself deeper into the world of mass production and distribution of the lethally addictive drug crystal meth, it becomes clearer that it is all just the means through which he hopes to upstage everyone whom he feels has slighted or underestimated him over the course of his adult life. These gradual revelations are compelling to watch, even as unsavory as they are.

One consistently compelling aspect of the show was its constant focus on problem solving - a theme as old as human storytelling itself. And Breaking Bad was masterful at it. Still, this was only window dressing compared to the deeper narrative at work. The tale of Walter White himself can be seen as rollicking, eerily dark and violent American tragedy. In classic Greek tragedy fashion, White is a man possessed of true genius-level talent - in science and chemistry, to be precise. It is quite clear that he could have been, and in fact at one time nearly was, a force for exceptional good in the world. And yet, for reasons we can infer related to White's own pride, he turned his back on a chance to have a career filled with tremendous rewards, both intellectual and financial. When the show essentially picks up nearly two decades later, we eventually gets hints and clues as to how much of Walter's humanity still exists, in contrast with the bitter, vengeful, selfish, and extremely dangerous creature we see revealed. While there are plenty of moments during the course of the show when it is easy to see Walter as a thoroughly corrupted force of pure evil, there are also just enough moments when the little that is left of his compassion show through. These moments keep Walter from ever becoming a one-dimensional villain, and the story is that much stronger for it.

Jesse and Hank, two of the best-formed and best-acted
characters you're likely to find in any TV show. Actors Aaron
Paul and Dean Norris brought every bit of intensity, tragedy,
and comedy to life through these dynamic forces in the show.

While the focus on the protagonist carries much of the show's powerful story, any successful 60-plus episode drama needs compelling secondary and tertiary characters, and Breaking Bad has them in spades. On this second viewing of the series, I had a much greater appreciation for Jesse Pinkman's story arc, along with Aaron Paul's ability to bring it to life. While Pinkman is, along with virtually every other character, a damaged person, he is arguably the most well-rounded and sympathetic of a varyingly bad lot. His journey from being a burned-out, slacker druggy into and through the world of deadly-serious, top-level illegal drug manufacturing is as carefully told as Walter White's. It is eminently fascinating to see Jesse try to navigate just who he is, who he wants to be, and how he deals with some of the despicable acts he performs at the behest of the vastly more capable and domineering figures around him. In an odd way, he emerges as the closest thing to a real soul that the series has, and it is through Jesse that disturbed protagonist Walter White's story meets its complex and poetic conclusion. Almost on par with Jesse is Walter's brother-in-law Hank, whose character and story arc I appreciated even more this time through the series. Beyond Pinkman and Hank, the show boasts a treasure trove of other brilliant, if terrifying and warped, characters. Whether it was ice-cold drug kingpin Gustavo Fring, dead-eyed security expert Mike Ehrmentrout, sleazebag lawyer Saul Goodman, or any of the many other colorful players, by its third season the show is teeming with people whom you are dying to see again.

As if a great narrative and characters aren't enough to make for a great show, Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan clearly put a premium on using the medium of film to great visual effect. As we've also seen with this show's prequel series Better Call Saul, every episode features at least one segment of purely visual storytelling. These are often done with some of the most consistently excellent opening scenes in TV show history, with nearly every one coming at you from a different visual and narrative angle and asking you to figure out just what the initially bizarre or cryptic images are telling you about the greater story. It is easy to find shows that overuse dialogue and exposition to tell their stories these days, but it is far more difficult to find shows that have the patience and respect for their viewers to use the moving picture to engage the audience in the ways that Breaking Bad did from the very start, with a tidy-whitey-clad Walter White barreling along a deserted desert road in a shoddy RV, wearing a gas mask. That's the kind of imagery that begs one to keep watching to see just what the hell is happening, and the show maintained that approach to storytelling for its entire run. Nearly every episode starts with a trippy, puzzling sequence of imagery, sans dialogue, that begs you to sort it out and pulls you into that chapter like any great opening line of a well-written story.

Just one of the many vibrant and initially enigmatic images
seen in an episode's opening sequence. Such intros became
a hallmark of the show, and acted almost as primers to get
us viewers' brains warmed up.

These days, if you ask people who watch TV what the best shows of the 21st century are, chances are that Breaking Bad will be, along with The Sopranos and The Wire, among their top five. After working my way through the entire series again, I can certainly see why. While someone could nitpick here and there, the show was the work of meticulous story craft and visual tale-telling. Although it is a serious commitment to watch nearly 50 hours of an entire series, I won't be surprised if, some years down the line, I fire it all up again for a third go-round. I simply cannot come up with higher praise than that.

On a more general side note, I'm thrilled to be in a time when certain networks in the U.S., most notably HBO, AMC, and FX, have finally figured out that the greatest shows do not need to run in indefinite perpetuity, until the profits start to sag. When one looks at what most people consider the very best TV shows of this "Golden Age of Television," one notices how they had a relatively short lifespan: roughly fifty to sixty episodes. That's all. And now we're even seeing shows like Fargo, which is constructed into mostly stand-alone seasons comprised of a tight, expertly crafted ten episodes. We TV viewers are in a great spot if more networks continue to follow the example set out by shows like Breaking Bad and its brethren. 

Idiot Boxing: Black Mirror, season 1 (2011-2012); GLOW, season 1 (2017)

Bing - the central character in the second episode of the first
season. Bing is one of seemingly thousands or perhaps
millions of young people literally trapped within a massive,
endless network of  reality Internet shows and advertisements.

Black Mirror, season 1 (2011-2012)

The Twilight Zone grew up into a really, truly frightening adult of the 21st century.

The speculative fiction TV anthology series from the BBC seems to have only one central them - how could modern technology negatively impact human society? It's a basic notion which has driven speculative fiction for well over a century, dating back even to H.G. Wells, if not earlier. However, it has been a while since an actual TV show has tackled the subject in such a way. Each show (the seasons range thus far from three to six episodes) is a completely self-contained story that incorporates some aspect of modern technology, often social media, and imagines how it could exacerbate our absolute worst human impulses. As with the very best speculative fiction, it is far too often frighteningly easy to see how we are closer to these alternative realities or possible futures than we might like to believe.

This first season comes out of the gate charging hard. The story centers around the British Prime Minister getting coerced, through a kidnapping of a royal family member, into having sex with a pig on live television. What seems almost comical at first rapidly develops into a look at the nasty side of vindictive voyeurism. The second episode, in an even more "alternative reality" plunge, presents a world in which legions of young people are imprisoned and forced to power and support a range of online advertisements, avatars, and celebrity. They do this my spending most of their waking hours on stationary bicycles which provide electricity - electricity which in turn powers the non-stop assault of online reality shows and advertisements to which these slaves are bombarded. The only way to possibly escape their drudgery is to build up enough points, obtained through work, to buy a chance to try out on a reality show and become an online star, as rated by other viewers. If this seems frighteningly close to current reality, that is exactly as it should be. The third focuses on a couple who live in a future where our very memories are retained by devices embedded behind out ears. While this might initially sound brilliant, we quickly see how the inability to forget some of what we see and hear can actually be devastating.

This show is very much the kind of speculative fiction that we need right now. It will not surprise me if, in ten or twenty years, some of these episodes are cited in the same ways that George Orwell's 1984 has been cited as being terrifyingly prescient for its time. The three stories presented here are highly unnerving, and they are meant to be. I doubt that I will ever binge watch this show, as there is too much to absorb and the themes demand far more time than the 10 seconds it takes for Netflix to autoplay into the next episode. Still, I'm totally on board with this series.

GLOW, season 1 (2017)

A solid first season for this retro, feminist jam.

Those of my generation are likely to remember GLOW - the acronym for the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling league that existed between 1986 and 1990. While I never watched the taped-for-TV shows when they originally aired, I was aware of it and even knew a few names of the bigger stars. This Netflix series takes the general story of GLOW's creation to tell the story of fourteen young women who, in mid-1980s Los Angeles, sign on to become performers in this novel idea of a show focused on female wrestlers who adopt characters and put on fighting shows like the then immensely popular World Wrestling Federation. This first season focuses mostly on Ruth (Alison Brie), a struggling actress just trying to break into the business, and her friend Debbie (Betty Gilpin), who was a soap opera semi-star who has stepped away from acting in order to raise her newborn child. These two have a massive falling out when Ruth sleeps with Debbie's husband, sending both of their lives into no small amount of turmoil. An odd form of salvation emerges in a newly-conceived ladies' professional wrestling TV show, dreamed up and overseen by a run-down B-movie director (Marc Maron). Ruth, Debbie, and a dozen other social misfits join the cast, attempting to learn how to wrestle, create memorable wrestling personas, and deal with various personal demons.

The show is a lot of fun, even if it doesn't always hit with every gag or attempt at poignancy. Still, there's more than enough to make it compelling. The dramas with the wrestlers is, while often comic, genuine enough to add some depth. And issues that at first seem glossed over or ignored, such as the racial and ethnic stereotyping of the wrestling characters, do get addressed eventually, if incompletely. As with so many "sports" movies, we get the fun of watching people attempt to learn something with which they have no experience. Seeing the inner workings of professional wrestling can be a fascinating eye-opener to viewers like me, who have a passing knowledge of the skill demanded by pro wrestling, without knowing exactly how the pros master such a deceptively taxing and physically punishing job.

A lot of the comic weight comes from the veteran pro, Marc Maron. His turn as the beaten down director Sam Sylvia is award-winning stuff. Anyone who knows a little bit about the angsty comic knows that this character wasn't a tremendous stretch for him, but he absolutely nails it with every cynical glance and snide observation. While Sylvia is not the main attraction, he steals nearly every scene he's in. This is not the lessen what Brie, Gilpin, and the supporting players contribute. They're all excellent, offering hints at some deeper story lines to come in any potential future seasons.

I was happy with where this rookie season ended up, and I'll look forward to what the talented creators and cast do for an encore, should they be given the chance. 

Idiot Boxing: Better Call Saul, season 3 (2017); Fargo, season 3 (2017)

Better Call Saul, season 3 (2017)

Slippin' Jimmy just keeps on slippin'. And it's a pretty captivating journey.

In the third season of the prequel series to Breaking Bad, Jimmy McGill (later Saul Goodman) is in full defense mode against his older brother, Chuck. In the previous season, the two brothers were engaged in warfare in the form of Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) sabotaging one of Chuck's big cases so that his girlfriend, Kim, could score the case for herself. This act of underhandedness escalated into Chuck suffering a nasty concussion and Jimmy getting arrested for breaking and entering Chuck's home. As Jimmy fights for his legal career, his acquaintance Mike Ehrmentraut gets a bit deeper into a local turf war between powerful drug distributors from south of the border but who have staked claims in this part of Albuquerque.

This show continues to impress and amaze me on many levels. Primarily, it is that, like Breaking Bad, the protagonist is simply not a good person. However, unlike the show which spawned in, Better Call Saul's primary character does have some redeemable qualities. Jimmy is quite loyal, extremely hard-working, and has goals that are admirable in their modesty. He basically just wants to make a decent living, have a nice girlfriend, and get along with his brother. His problem is that he is a natural-born con-man who can't seem to help but look for angles and shortcuts. For as many tough spots as his cleverness and charisma get him out of, his disrespect for hard-and-fast rules just send him right back down towards the turf. In this particular season, his relationship with his brother Chuck deteriorates even further, as the incidents that ended the second season continue to fester and spawn deeper, darker problems.

Mike and Gus Fring - two of the strongest characters from
Breaking Bad, who also have more screen time in this season.
It's a double-edged sword, offering plenty to fans of the
earlier series but taking a bit of Saul's autonomy away.

This might have been the best season yet. Admittedly, it starts to lean even more on one's knowledge and presumed appreciation for Breaking Bad, more of whose characters appear and start to have gradually more prominent roles, regardless of Saul's direct involvement. This is the first season in which is really and truly has evolved into a prequel series for that hit show, rather than be a series almost exclusively about the back stories of two of the more fascinating supporting characters. Part of me feels that it does devalue the title character a bit, but fortunately the diminishment is minimal. It also helps to know that it is ultimately building a stronger bridge to span the distance between this series and the original.

I was late to the Breaking Bad party, only watching it once the final season had come out back in 2013. I figured that I'd rewatch the series again at some point, but it hadn't arrived yet. This latest season of Better Call Saul, though, now has me ready to go back and binge watch the entire 60-odd episode series. That's how good show creator and runner Zack Gilligan is at doing something original and engaging in modern television drama.

Nikki and Ray. These two seem to be the primary villains in
this season, but eventually become much more endearing.
Far from innocent, to be sure, but endearing.

Fargo, season 3 (2017)

Make it three-for-three for Noah Hawley. This third season was another brilliant one for this show about which I was quite skeptical back when its existence was announced. Though I would rank it the third best of the first seasons, it still features many of the strengths that make this underdog series a singular success.

This season takes place mostly in 2011, five years after most of the events of the first season and roughly 33 years after the flashback second season. It concerns a string of murders surrounding a pair of brothers - Emmett and Ray Stussy - who have a long-standing if often unspoken fued over older brother Emmett's immense success as a parking lot mogul in the greater Minnesota area. Things grow infinitely more complicated when a shady and manipulative character, V. M. Varga, turns up as a sinister source of dark funds for one of Emmett's capitalist ventures. The skulduggery commences, with a humble but capable and dedicated local police chief, Gloria Burgle, trying to suss out who's to blame for the carnage.

The broad strokes and general tone of the series are very much in keeping with the first two seasons. There is a darkness looming over or lurking underneath much of the story, despite the sometimes pleasant settings or ostensibly polite and goofy characters. The three primary archetypes laid out by the movie and maintained through the first couple of seasons still holds true: an overly ambitious loser, a thoroughly vicious villain, and a steadfast cop. In this season, all three versions are strong incarnations of these types, and each is a curious variant of what has come before. Ray Stussy's relationship with his ex-con girlfriend Nikki has a welcome touch of genuine sweetness to it. Yes, Ray is a helpless loser, but unlike Jerry Lundergaard, Lester Nygaard, or Peggy Blumquist, he is not completely self-absorbed, as evidenced by his dedication to Nikki. The villain, Varga, is clearly the "dedicated psycho," as one friend put it, though one that is a fascinating commentary on modern greed and intellect. And Gloria Burgle at first seems similar to Fracis Mcdormond's legendary Marge Gunderson, but we soon see how her character represents something more than just a skilled female smashing her head against a glass ceiling. These similar types, tones, and themes have become the welcome connection between the three seasons, aside from the fact that they do take place in the same fictionalized version of the Dakota regions.

V.M. Varga. Don't let the unassuming appearance fool you.
This guy is as dangerous and twisted as any of the other
maniacs and murderers who have populated the Fargo series.

Beyond the familiar elements, though, is a gripping crime and thriller tale. As with the previous two seasons, things get a bit bloody early in the proceedings and only get more gruesome and tense as the season unfolds. There are plenty of great sequences and moments. One that comes to mind is episode 8, with Nikki and an old familiar face fleeing into the frozen woods from a trio of ruthless assassins. It takes up the first 15 to 20 minutes of that episode, and it is as brilliant and brutal as anything that the series has given us. This and plenty of other moments, both familiar and utterly odd, create yet another distinctive tale revolving around human vices put into overdrive and situations gone horribly wrong.

Now that I've fully caught up on the entire series (which I did over the course of around two months), it won't be long before I go back for a complete re-watch. The prospect of plunging back into the dark, twisted, and often amusing world of these characters is still exciting, despite the roughly 25 hours of running time for the entire series. And that's about as high a praise as I can offer any show. 

Idiot Boxing: Brockmire, season 1 (2017); Archer, season 8 (2017)

Brockmire, season 1 (2017)

I wasn't completely sure that the concept behind this show would carry an entire season, but it fortunately proved me wrong. Credit to Hank Azaria and the writers for taking a funny little short sketch and expanding into a larger world and narrative that maintains it humor well beyond its humble origins on Funny or Die.

Brockmire follows the titular baseball announcer attempting a comeback after an all-time great fall from fame. The show opens with this very fall: it's 2007 and Kent Brockmire is doing play-by-play for the Kansas City Royals, where he has done the job for many years. As usual, he is imbibing alcohol during his broadcast, but unlike previous ones, this time Brockmire confesses to the entire listening audience that he had just earlier that day walked in on his wife having an orgy. This triggers a full-blown, on-the-air, profanity-laden meltdown that leads to Brockmire's dismissal and eventual departure from the United States altogether. Flash forward to 2017. Brockmire arrives in a fictionalized version of Morristown, Pennsylvania, where he has been offered a gig as the public address announcer for the Morristown Frackers, a bottom of the barrel minor league team in an impoverished, burned out town of no consequence. Although he wants to try to work his way back to the big leagues, Brockmire still carries with him virtually every vice known to mankind.

The show is a great vehicle for "man of a million voices" Hank Azaria, probably best known for his over-a-dozen characters on the Simpsons (including Moe, Apu, Chief Wiggum, and tons of others), delivers that classic, smooth-as-silk and overly polished pipes of the classic baseball broadcasters in the vein of Vin Scully. Hearing that American-as-apple-pie voice delivering some of the degenerate and self-reviling existential musings of a broken man is just as funny as you think it might be. There are a few moments when the show almost veers too far into depression to make a successful turn back, but it always manages to end on humorous notes.

At the end of a long, beer-soaked baseball/drinking game,
Jules, Brockmire, and Charles celebrate a big win.

If Azaria and the Brockmire character were all there was to the show, it would probably wear thin pretty quickly. Fortunately, the supporting cast and characters are almost equally entertaining. Amanda Peet plays Jules James, the owner of the Frackers who is desperate to keep the pathetic team alive as one of the few emotional buoys in the failed town. Jules is nearly as depraved as Brockmire, able to keep up with his immense appetites for booze and sex, making them quite the pair. Then there's Charles, the goofy, nerdy, millennial kid who assists Brockmire in the booth (and who knows and cares little about baseball). The play between the two is often gold.

The structure of the show is solid, as well. Almost every episode is a flashback to a period during Brockmire's dark decade - the 10 year period between 2007 and 2017, when he was off the grid calling oddball sporting events in foreign countries. While also hilarious, these manage to flesh out the character a little more. And rather than just be eight episodes of Brockmire spewing raunchy observations, which would get somewhat tired, there is an actual arc to the season. Human drama is hardly the point of the show, but it does offer a welcome touch of depth.

Final verdict is that the wife and I liked it (and the wife isn't always on board with shows about sports and the disgusting characters who populate the world of sports). Thanks to some sharp writing and all-in performances by the cast, I'm looking forward to the second season, already scheduled for next year.


Archer, season 8 (2017)

The theme of season 8 draws deep from the vast well of
noir tales from the '40s and '50s. 

After playing catchup on this series by binging the first seven seasons over the course of a few months, this was the first season that I watched as it aired. For the most part, I wasn't disappointed.

Being subtitled "Dreamland", season 8 picks up directly after the cliffhanger ending of season 7, and we now have Sterling in a coma. Using the brilliant device from the classic 1980s British crime TV series The Singing Detective, this season takes place almost completely inside Sterling's mind, wherein he plays a version of himself in the Los Angeles of late 1940s noir cinema. Instead of a spy, he is a private detective and World War II veteran who tries to track down the killers of his partner, Woodhouse (who in his real life was his horribly abused butler). The other regular characters of the show are now altered versions of themselves, each now occupying a role typical of the noir films and novels. Cyril is now a stuffy, crooked cop, Lana is an undercover U.S. Treasury agent, Pam (who is, hilariously, a man in Archer's coma dream), and all of the other characters see similar shifts, including Malory as a crime lord known conveniently as "Mother."

The show features all of the lightning-quick zingers and depravity of the previous seven seasons, but there are so many extra layers to be enjoyed for fans of noir fiction. True to the genre, there is an overly complicated plot, made only the more complex by the various characters' bungling and idiocy. A little off-beat spice is added by including Kruger as a former Nazi scientist conducting his typically insane experiments, perhaps as a tip of the cap to the emerging popularity of the science-fiction genre in the late 1940s.

The real-world Pam, known only as Poovey in Archer's
coma dream, is now a male cop. It's one of the better
alternative takes on what is one of my favorite characters
in the show's entire run. 

I will say that this season was perhaps not quite as thoroughly satisfying as some of its predecessors. Part of this is due to the season's brevity - only eight episodes as opposed to the normal 13 or even 10 of seasons one through seven. There are also a few gags and sequences that don't quite hit, which is a little surprising given the smaller number of episodes. The expected trade-off of a shorter season is that the writing will be even tighter than more protracted seasons, but such is not quite the case here.

The only other minor disappointment for me with this season was that it did not end with the typical lead-in to the next season. Given the atypical, fantasy nature of this arc, I was fully expecting to get at least a quick teaser for what season nine might have in store. Alas, it was not to be. I suppose we fans of the show will simply have to wait and guess at what direction the show will take next. Regardless, I'll be ready and eager for it. 

Idiot Boxing: Fargo, seasons 1 and 2 (2014, 2015)

After being blown away by the recent FX series Legion (see my review here), I had to know what creative mind was responsible for it. Turns out that mind belongs to Noah Hawley, whose surprisingly short writing resume included the FX television series Fargo - a show that I had heard rave reviews about but hadn't gotten around to watching. However, with my desire for more of Hawley's work well and truly stoked, I snapped up the series and watched them in fairly short order. My thoughts:

And so it begins. Lester (left) inadvertently meets Lorne Malvo
and somewhat unwittingly sends him along a brutal path that
doesn't end until dozens are dead.

Season 1 (2014)


An amazing and surprising series that seems to do the impossible: take an iconic, singular film and adapt it into an original story that both emulates the spirit and some elements of the original movie and uses the TV mini-series format to perfectly tell a longer and deeper tale.

The story mostly takes place in and around Bimidji, Minnesota, where impotent insurance salesman Lester Nygaard (Martin Freeman) somewhat unintentionally kicks off a spree of violence and murder which belies the otherwise sleepy little town. After the middle-aged Lester is bullied by an old high school nemesis, he meets a mysterious drifter in the hospital - Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton) - who decides to exact murderous revenge on Nygaard's tormentor. This leads to several unintended murders which eventually pull into their vortex local police officers, including Deputy Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman). Though rather quiet and unassuming, Solverson has an excellent mind for police work, as well as a staunch willingness to do what is right. Unfortunately, she is taken none to seriously by most of her fellow officers. Although she often penetrates through the murky layers covering up the dark deeds in her town, she is fighting a constant uphill battle to track down Malvo and the other people involved in the carnage.

Firstly, the story itself is the stuff of outstanding noir cinema. The murders are dark and disturbing, cutting into not only the obviously repugnant violence inherent in them, but also the shadowy human desires and weaknesses that cause them. And true to classic noir, there are more twists and turns than could possibly exist in reality. When handled correctly though, as they are in Fargo, these complexities create an engaging portrait of good people attempting to reckon with horrendous villains and atrocities. Elements to the story which may at first seem superfluous or included for mere shock value almost always have a place in the larger tale, and these places are revealed as the episodes unfold.

A few more of the oddball and compelling hardcases running
around the Minnesota countryside in this story.

On top of the framework of the ripping crime story is the characters. True to the film which inspired it, Fargo includes an eminently memorable cast of characters. While there are several ways in which this first TV show season draws from the film, perhaps the deftest way is the creation and handling of these characters. Lester Nygaard is a clear echo of Jerry Lundegaard, both being weak-willed sad sacks whose selfish and foolish decisions unleash hell upon those around them. Deputy Solverson is also another version of Marge Gunderson, the deceptively expert female police officer who ultimately tracks down the vicious criminals in the center of the story. There is also Lorne Malvo, who is arguably a darker, more fleshed-out and frighteningly intelligent version of the stoic, homicidal maniac Gaear Grimsrud. Malvo in particular is quite something, played with award-winning intensity by Billy Bob Thornton. Not unlike Heath Ledger's Joker character in The Dark Knight, Malvo is a self-avowed agent of chaos whose entire existence is predicated upon ignoring the rules of empathetic society. He sees himself as a predator who is well within his rights to take whatever he wants from whomever he wants, including life itself. He even delights in sowing little seeds of discord, simply to break people out of what he sees as idiotic patterns of socially prescribed behavior. It's a character and performance that keeps you itching for him to show up again, just to see exactly what he's going to do, even if some of those things are unspeakably horrible.

One other aspect of the film absorbed into this show was the pace and tone. Making no bones about mimicking the Coen brothers' knack for such things, writer and director Noah Hawley decided not to mess with a good and unique thing, giving us plenty of slow and careful scenes displaying the lonely winter landscapes of Minnesota. The show even uses parts of the original soundtrack, with its eerie, lonely strings moaning along, occasionally punctuated with short, quirky percussive instruments. It creates an oddly playful sense, which actually fits the entire show, as dark as it often gets.

Obviously, I found this first season tremendous. Tremendous enough to dive right into the second season...


Season 2 (2015)

In an interesting and somewhat bold narrative move, season 2 takes us backwards in time to 27 years before the events depicted in season one. We go to 1979, when Molly Solverson's father and grandfather found themselves in the middle of a shocking outbreak of violence in their normally quiet little Minnesota town.

It's the end of the 1970s, and the United States is in a massive and violent transition period. The specter of the lost "conflict" in Vietnam hovers over many of the men and women who served in that horribly misguided war. Liberation movements abound, and large-scale corporatization is looming on the near horizon. Amid these larger forces, in Luverne, North Dakota, aspiring feminist and more-than-a-little delusional beautician Peggy Blumquist runs into a man stumbling out of a Waffle Hut. Rather than stop, Peggy continues to drive all the way home with the unconscious man on her hood. At home, her husband Ed, the local butcher, discovers the body and is attacked by the still-living hit-and-run victim. Ed kills the man in self-defense, but what neither he nor Peggy yet know is that the man is Rye Gerhadt - the youngest of the three Gerhardt brothers - key members of the most powerful crime family in the Fargo, North Dakota area. Rye's death sets in motion an ever-escalating sequence of violence and pursuit that pits the Gerhardts, local and state police, and an encroaching Kansas City crime syndicate all against each other in the otherwise quiet region of the American North.

This sophomore season is arguably better than the first, which is saying something. While there are a few general themes and character types that are similar to the first season, this prequel season is very much its own tale, with its own rhythms, beats, twists, and larger themes that stand very much on their own. Sure, knowing and seeing the little connections between this season and the previous one can provide some fun little Easter eggs for viewers, but they are far from essential to any of the relevant aspects of the tale. True to the Coen Brothers' cinema spirit, this season takes a mundane setting and sometime rather common and simple people and thrusts it all into a dark, twisted world of violence and brutality that somehow seems, at alternate moments, out of place and right at home. The sparse and frigid landscapes of the Dakotas and Minnesota convey the rugged individualist spirit required to survive in such regions, and this carries through to many of the characters, weak and strong alike. The linguistic and behavioral quirks are right in keeping with the original movie, though the ten-episode format allows for a larger exploration of those cultural oddities.

Mike Milligan and his eerily silent, twin hatchet men - the
Kitchen brothers. Bokeem Woodbine turns in one of several
excellent performances in this season. 

As with the first season, the storytelling is perfectly tight. In short order, we are introduced to several characters who are compelling for their strengths, weaknesses, grand ambitions, or lack thereof. Virtually everyone turns in excellent performances, though I found the standouts to be Patrick Wilson as Lou Solverson (father to season one's understated yet brilliant herione, Molly), Kirsten Dunst as Peggy, and Bokeem Woodbine as Kansas City crime syndicate enforcer Mike Milligan. Wilson in particular was a breath of fresh air in many ways. Up to the point, we hadn't really seen a completely assured, competent, and steady police officer character. While the character's daughter, Molly, would later become just as capable a detective and officer as her father, the Molly of season one is still fighting a massive uphill battle against patriarchal gender biases and her relative youth, leading to a bit of uncertainty and tentativeness. In season two, Lou is a seasoned police officer and combat veteran from Vietnam. He calls things as he sees them and doesn't balk at doing the right thing, even when it leads into the heart of danger. But he is merely the standout among many strong, fascinating characters whose interactions make so many scenes in this season thoroughly gripping.

One other note on this season - it became clear just how well creator Noah Hawley is integrating certain little homages to the Coen Brothers' work - not just the original Fargo, but even their other movies. Without ever feeling unoriginal or forced, each of the first two seasons has a handful of moments - they might be brief lines of dialogue, a general character type, the framing of certain shots, or some other aspect of the narrative - that are clearly tips of the cap to other films like Miller's Crossing, Raising Arizona, or other Coen masterpieces. It's far from the most important thing, but astute fans of their films will notice and appreciate them.

It's hard to watch these first two seasons and, when added to the number of fantastic TV shows released in the last decade, not agree with the notion that this truly is a "Golden Age" of television. I've already jumped into season 3, and expect equally amazing things from show runner Hawley. 

Idiot Boxing: Legion, season 1 (2017); Archer, seasons 1 through 7 (2010-2016)

Legion, season 1 (2017)

Show runner: Noah Hawley

Take note, MCU and DCEU overlords - the bar just got raised. A lot.

The superhero movie and TV show industry has shown no signs of slowing down, still expanding a good 12 years after Batman Begins exploded and nine years after Iron Man officially kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I am still greatly entertained by many of these movies and shows, even the ones which I feel have obvious shortcomings. Being well-versed in many of these offerings, I had come to expect only so much from them.

Then came Legion. This eight-episode series on the FX network blew me away. Yes, it's a "superhero" TV show, but it is so unlike any of the others that I am almost shocked that it got the green light to be produced. The show takes as its subject David Haller, a lesser-known character who first appeared in the New Mutants comic books, a series that sprung off of the far better-known X-Men comic books. The series takes place presumably in the 1970s, based on the general aesthetic, and we begin with David in a psychiatric institution. Seeing much of life from his perspective, we find David to be a troubled man who hears voices, often sees surreal shifts in reality, and is clearly unstable. He falls in a love with a beautiful fellow patient who refuses to be touched by any other person. As the 8-episode series unfolds, we learn that David is, in fact, a wildly powerful mutant with powers that are difficult to describe or define. David also appears to be the object of extreme interest a fear from a secretive agency and some sort of resistance group. However, he is also afflicted with a very real schizophrenia and possibly paranoid delusions. This makes great fun of determining just what is reality and what is in David's addled brain. It also gives us the novel offering of a superhero show featuring a disturbed and extremely complex protagonist.

The "demon with the yellow eyes" becomes a recurring,
mysterious, and horrifying presence through the series. Its
identity and nature are just two of several layered and
nuanced plot elements in this excellent show.

On top of the great tale and storytelling of the show, Legion uses fantastic visuals. The costumes and sets are carefully selected and curated, and the cinematography is as expert as you'll find on any TV show, network or otherwise. This is in greatest evidence when considering that the show spans a variety of visual tones, from the peaceful and verdant setting of a forested secret base to the claustrophobia of the stifling Clockworks mental institution to the dark and horrific scenes playing out in David's mind ,and sometimes manifesting itself upon others' reality.

As if the story and visuals weren't enough, the acting is incredible. Leading man Dan Stevens is pitch-perfect as the unbalanced David Haller. The role requires Stevens to be convincing as a sweet, meek victim just as much as a menacing force of wicked, unstoppable power, as well as several other equally disparate personas. He pulls them all off amazingly well. The supporting cast is just as strong, with all bringing their strong, odd, and/or enigmatic characters to full life. By this point, any fan of the fantastic superhero genre of movies and shows is very familiar with the typical archetypes and story lines, but Legion lays waste to much of it, and the cast is as large a part of it as anything else.

This show was so impressive to me that I'm now tracking down all other shows that Noah Hawley has written, which has led me to Fargo. I'm several episodes into the first season currently, and it has not disappointed me one bit. My only hope now is that the heads of the larger-scale superhero movies and TV shows take away a few lesson from Legion - namely, that you can tell a challenging, original story about superheroes with every bit of skill, creativity, and sophistication as the finest shows and movies in any genre.

Archer, seasons 1 through 7 (2010-2016)

I was definitely late to the party on this show. Despite Netlflix's algorithms always predicting a near-5 star rating for me on this series, I just never fired it up and gave it a shot. When the mood finally hit me about a year ago, though, it only took one episode to reel me in. Since then, I've steadily worked my way through all seven previous complete seasons (the eighth kicked off several weeks ago).

Basically, Archer is a cartoon parody of machismo-driven spy and action shows and movies from the last 50-odd years. An insanely hilarious one, at that. From the very first scenes of the very first episode, the rapid-fire, jaw-droppingly inappropriate gags come fast and furious. It takes less than 60 seconds to establish that the title character, Sterling Archer, is a narcissistic, self-obsessed slave to his countless vices while also being a maddeningly effective spy. The agency he works for - initially named ISIS but eventually altered for obvious reasons - is headed by his own mother and staffed by an odd crew who each have deep and hilariously disturbing personality defects of their own. Whether it's the HR rep who spends her free time brawling in illegal fight clubs and racing in underground drift gangs or the stuffy accountant who has a titanic sexual addiction, by the middle of the second season, each one develops into a well-formed and uproariously depraved personality.

This show nails so many elements of great shows that it's somewhat astounding, given the pure comedic nature of the entire series. The most obvious strength is the comedy writing. The gags, dialogue, and voice acting are top-notch. The endless insults hurled around and between the mainstay characters never gets old. It's as if the writers are channeling the very best "roasting" comics in history and putting it right into their characters' very fiber. Even the timing, pauses and slow-burn visual gags almost always hit the mark, employing styles which at times are reminiscent of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Liberally peppered throughout the show are also many references to action, spy, and adventure TV shows and movies from the past. Some are as obvious as literally (not figuratively) having Burt Reynolds voice himself for an episode of the show in which his mere presence offers Archer a chance to revel in his hero's magnificence while babbling about lesser Reynold's films like Gator or Stick. Other references are extremely subtle visual or dialogue gags, some so subtle that I have no doubt that I've missed dozens of them over the course of the series.

Scenes such as this are commonplace among the crew of
Archer. Yes, their entire job is to keep America safe from
enemy spies and other ne'er-do-wells. Between their
countless indulgences and endless insults towards one another,
they occasionally manage to get it right once in a while. 

But the one element that probably keeps me coming back to the show so very frequently is the element that any dedicated fan of fantasy fiction adores: continuity. By the middle of the very first season, the show is clearly working with a loose arc in mind, with characters and events from past episodes recurring and impacting future shows. This continues through and across seasons and the entire series, so that by the fourth and fifth seasons, there are plenty of in-jokes that reference things from many episodes or even seasons prior. These are often horrible, degrading things, but can even be innocuous oddities like Sterling's quirky policing of people's grammar. This all creates a cohesion to Archer's world that makes it as much its own realm as Tolkien's Middle Earth. If Tolkien had been an obsessed junkie of James Bond and Burt Reynolds movies. And he had been an alcoholic, comedic genius.

Another feature of note is how a few seasons have adopted certain themes. Season five, known as "Archer Vice," sees the Isis crew get involved in the cocaine trade, offering the show plenty of opportunity to adopt and parody elements of the iconic 1980s show Miami Vice. The seventh season did something similar with L.A. detective crime shows, after Archer and the gang becoming a private detective agency. The currently-airing season is taking on noir tales of literature and movies from the 1940s and '50s. This is yet another way that the writers show their love and appreciation of some of the most notable genres in the history of American storytelling.

Captain Murphy, a character who appeared in the two-part
finale of season 4, titled "Sea Tunt." Voiced by Jon Hamm,
Murphy provided me with more than a few laugh-out-loud
moments through his megalomania.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the voice acting, which is brilliant. The eight mainstay voice actors fully inhabit their characters, depraved and fantastic as they may be. As with all of the very best cartoon shows, these voice actors' timing, rhythms, and reads become as much a part of the show as anything. Throughout the show's many seasons, there have also been many notable celebrities who have lent their voices to the insanity. Some have been single episode one-offs, such as Anthony Bourdain or Burt Reynolds, while others like Jon Hamm or David Cross will voice a character for several episodes. Christian Slater even plays a character who recurs over several seasons. While a few of them such as Bourdain are not as memorable as others, they're all fully immersed in the bungling, depraved world of Sterling Archer and his surrounding cast.

While Archer is certainly not high art by any means, it is a brilliant show for what it is. Spoofing spy and action movies has been done before, but not with this much gonzo zeal for flouting good taste and showing a real knowledge and passion for the genres being lampooned. Now that I'm all caught up on the first 7 seasons (not a tremendous commitment, relatively, given that each season is only 10 to 13 twenty-minute episodes), I've already dived into the currently-airing eighth season, which uses a device taken from the classic British miniseries The Singing Detective. Great start, to be sure. 

Idiot Boxing: Supernatural, season 12 Winter (2016); Insecure (2016)

This season doesn't waste any time getting intense, with Sam
getting abducted and tortured by a rather sadistic member of
the British Men of Letters.

Supernatural, season 12 Winter

This review covers the first 8 episodes of the season, which comprise the Winter portion.

So far, pretty damn good. After a few seasons that were decent but slightly paler shadows of the best seasons between 2006 and 2010, season 11 was a very solid return to form. Thus far, season 12 is mostly continuing that trend.

The previous season ended with Sam and Dean saving the world from being obliterated by The Darkness, an entity that was revealed as God's unknown but equally powerful sister. An added bonus is that God returned Sam and Dean's mother back to the land of living for them. The downside is that Lucifer was remained free and at large. This is bad enough, but on top of this large-scale issue is that Sam is taken captive by agents of the British chapter of the Men of Letters, which is a segment of the society with some rather extreme views on the way that "sloppy" American hunters go about their business.

This first part of the season has been pretty solid. The threat level is fairly high, with Lucifer hopping from body to body, seeking out one which will offer him enough power to cause the greatest amount of chaos and destruction. While I think the premise is strong and has been used to decent effect, it doesn't cover up the fact that Lucifer has already been the arch enemy in this series, many years ago. And back then, we had the benefit of the slow build up to his menace. Now, it does feel a little bit like a retread villain but without any particularly new or clever ideas. I like the notion that, without God as the focus of his rage, Lucifer is left as an unhinged mess of a being, but I'd like to see if the writers can do a little more to expand or explore the show's mythology from a different angle.

The episodes which don't focus on Lucifer have actually been the stronger ones, in my opinion. They have featured a several intriguing hunters, as well as some of the darkest monster-of-the-week episodes that I've seen in a while. The dialogue has remained pretty sharp, and they haven't been overusing Castiel or Crowley. For me, these strengths have made up for any lack of creativity in terms of the Lucifer storyline. I'm also hopeful that the British chapter of the Men of Letters will make a return appearance and become some part of the season's arc, as that looked like an element that has a certain amount of potential. We've been introduced to the sociopathic, stone-cold assassin Mr. Ketch and his high-tech monster-slaying tools, which was pretty awesome. More of that would certainly be welcome.

So it's off to a solid start, and I'll certainly be tuning in when the show kicks off again later in January.

Issa stands in front of a classroom of underprivileged kids.
Her discomfort is almost always present, and it provides much
of the humor of the show.

Insecure, season 1 (2016)

A debut season that started off brilliantly, but by season's end had started to shift its tone and focus in ways that I wasn't crazy about.

My wife had first heard about this show right around the time it came out. I also heard an interview with creator and star Issa Rae, and was also intrigued. The first season of the show was comprised of 10 thirty-minute episodes focused on Issa, an African-American woman in her late twenties, as she tries to navigate her somewhat rocky relationship with her boyfriend, her job as a social worker where she doesn't completely fit in with her coworkers, and relationships with other friends and associates in the Los Angeles area.

After the first episode, my wife and I loved it. The show was hilarious, well-written, and featured more than a few excellent comedic performances, not the least of which is the star Issa. The next couple of episodes were very similar, although a tad more personal drama started to creep into the narrative. Around the fourth and fifth episodes, the drama started to come far stronger, and it stayed until the very end of the season. It was this greater attention given to the personal drama that tempered my wife's and my enthusiasm a bit. Not that the drama isn't done well enough, but much of it hinges on relatively younger people (I'm 41 years old) making some rather immature, poor choices and dealing with the predictably harmful consequences of them. My wife explained to me that it bore a few shades of another hit HBO show - Girls - on which she gave up after only about one and half seasons due to an inability to watch people behave so horribly and irresponsibly. I completely understand why people of that age might gravitate towards such drama, but it's not for me. Fortunately, Insecure still had a solid amount of quality humor, even in the more emotionally raw episodes.

I'll certainly tune in for the second season, but I'll be on my guard for an emphasis on relationships and dating woes, infidelity, and dramatic blowups between the characters. A dash of it can set up some good humor, but if it becomes a drama with some comedy sprinkled in, I may just give up on the show. 

Idiot Boxing: Supernatural, season 11 (2015-2016); Agents of SHIELD, season 4 Winter (2016)

Amara, a.k.a The Darkness, is the primary nemesis in season
11. She is not only an interesting revelation of the show's
mythology, but also as powerful an adversary as we've seen 
since Lucifer way back in the 4th and 5th seasons.

Supernatural, season 11 (2015-2016)

A bit behind on this particular show, but better late than never.

An amazingly satisfying return to form for a show that, for me, had lost some of its appeal in recent years.

Not long ago, I did a rather thorough rundown of the first 10 seasons of Supernatural. My general takeaway has been that the first five seasons of the show were clearly its "Golden Age," with none of the succeeding seasons ever quite approaching the quality of that first run. A few seasons since then have been solid, even good, but never quite putting it all together the way the show did several times between 2005 and 2010. So imagine my surprise when, after five seasons, the show comes back and rediscovers its glory. This is what season 11 did, amazingly.

Season 10 ended with Sam and Dean killing Death, releasing Dean from the mark of Cain, and consequently unleashing "The Darkness," a massively powerful entity so ancient that not even eons-old angels or demons know exactly what it is or wants. Uncovering its nature and motivation is a fairly novel and compelling arc for the season. While a very picky, high-brow viewer is likely to find the answers to these questions a bit underwhelming, I found them adequately satisfying for a TV show predicated a bit more on fun than on pretentious philosophizing or cosmology.

Even more than the overall "Darkness" story line was the strong, consistent return to what made the show great during its best years. Of the 23 episodes, there was not one that I thought was weak; this is something I could not say about most of the seasons after the fifth. Even episodes which weren't advancing the Darkness plot were solid "monster-of-the-week" episodes which are all but necessary for 23-episode network shows like Supernatural. And instead of offering us lame characters who are purely comic relief (i.e. Garth or the early episodes with Charlie in seasons 7 and 8), we get back to reliable, strong supporting characters who have grit. We get Sherriff Jody Mills again, always a solid character, and we even get a great flashback episode featuring Bobby and Rufus. We also see the addition of a few new, diverse, and capable hunters with the deaf Eileen and the gay couple Cesar and Jessy. In two separate but equally strong episodes, Sam and Dean join Eileen to hunt a banshee and Jessy hunt a type of monster we haven't seen before, both on revenge quests. It was nice to get some new hunter blood in the mix, as it put me in mind of the great early episodes with Gordon.

The main players in season 11. I was pleased with how Castiel
and Crowley were granted some of their old grit and gravity
to go with more carefully portioned humor. Heck, I even found
Rowena far more tolerable this season.

I was also happy to see the character balance take on portions more to my liking. I felt that in recent seasons, Castiel and Crowley were being leaned on too much. I certainly appreciate what they've brought to the show, especially Mark Shepperd's performance as Crowley. But I enjoyed them much more when their appearances were a bit more limited, and when Castiel was more tortured and Crowley more intensely evil. Between seasons 7 and 10, though, they started to get more and more screen time, and they were used more for humor than for the gravity which they could bring to situations. Season 11 still has them in some comical spots, to be sure, but they also see a return to some welcome drama.

I must confess that the show's budget constraints can tend to show through in this season. Certain sets, while effective enough, have started to grow a tad stale. I still love the Men of Letters headquarters. That can stay. But how many more times can we see Crowley or Rowena in a shoddy warehouse converted into a throne room? It was old a few seasons ago, and it's still old. I try to remind myself that this is not Game of Thrones, which has massively deep financial resources to dazzle us with a variety of lush sets and props. Still, I'd like to see if they can show some creativity and change it up a bit in the future. I will also say that there is still the unanswered question of whether Death is, truly, obliterated. I'm surprised that the season ended without at least a slight suggestion as to what has happened to the ultimate reaper. Perhaps I am biased, though, as the show's version of Death is always one which I liked, and the actor who plays him - Julian Richings - has great presence. I do hope he makes some sort of return.

So I'm back on board. For the first time in a few years, I'm actually watching the current season week-by-week, keeping up with the episodes shortly after they air. So far, I like what the current season is doing. The balance of dark terror and fun is still holding nicely. Very nice to see this fun and sometimes creepy show back on track.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 4, Winter (2016)

The Winter segment of the season comprises the first 8 episodes which complete a sort of mini-arc before the Winter break.

Not a bad start at all, although I'm beginning to wonder if the scale of the show is outstripping the things that have made it great in the past.

This season opens with Coulson back in the field, working with familiar comrades May, Mack, Simmons, and Fitz. All of them are working for the new director Jeffrey Mace, who is eventually revealed as an inhuman possessed of immense physical strength. He's also a peculiarly positive administrator who does actually seem to have SHIELD's interest at heart. Mace and the familiar field agents have several issues to deal with: Daisy has become a vigilante hunting down Watchdog members, and a mysterious and powerful creature known as "The Ghost Rider" is slaying gang members in the Los Angeles area.

There's a lot to like about the Winter segment. The iconic Ghost Rider character is handled well, combing the innate cool of the character's look with a compelling backstory that ties into not only other supernatural elements (conveniently just after Doctor Strange was released) but also the Dark/Zero Matter that was a key element in Agent Carter's second season. There are a few nice little narrative feints, which lead you to a few false assumptions before certain aspects of the show are revealed. I'm also glad that the Director Mace storyline is taking the show in an interesting direction. My only hope is that he's not revealed as some sort of inhuman saboteur, since we've already seen the "traitor" narrative play out in each of the show's first three seasons. It would nice if we got to see SHIELD deal with a threat that comes completely from outside of themselves for once.

The primary characters of the show are still strong enough. At this point, Simmons and Fitz are the best in terms of character, as they've shown the most evolution through the course of the show. And this evolution has felt quite organic. It helps that Iain DeCaestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge have done marvelous acting jobs. The others are all fine, although I don't see any real chemistry between Mack and Elena. The romantic relationship between the two seems forced, as the show has never really shown much natural magnetism between them. To me, Mack is a character which sometimes feels fragmented, with shifts in attitude that don't always show enough internal logic. He is sometimes written as a tortured soul, at other times as a hard-as-nails badass, and yet others as a bit of a teddy bear. Those don't completely synch to me. Still, he is often given the best lines, like "My ax is plenty sharp. And a shotgun." I'll ignore that his shotgun-ax is a laughably impractical weapon and just enjoy the funny.

The Ghost Rider plot wrapped up in satisfying fashion, and the setup for Aida becoming a new threat is now in place. With the only MCU film releasing during the remainder of season 4 being Guardians of the Galaxy 2 next May, I think we can assume that there will be no obvious tie-in between the show and the movie. So the show is all on its own. Aida seems like a new kind of threat, which is intriguing. As long as it doesn't follow the same lines as Age of Ultron, then I think we may be in for the most unique second half since season 1.

Note: Word is out that Agents of SHIELD is in danger of cancellation, due to gradually decreasing viewership. I hope it's not the case, but if ABC does give it the axe, I hope it lives on through some other network. Though it's not the greatest show, I've always enjoyed its place in the MCU and think that its merits far outweigh its weaknesses.