Category Archives: Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review Blog

television reviews

Binge Watching – Now Officially Sanctioned: House of Cards

Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review Blog, Politics and Culture, ,

Of course once everything started to be streamed and put on DVD, people began to binge-watch television series, but it wasn’t how those episodic episodes were designed. You were supposed to be subscribing to HBO, and spending every Sunday with the Sopranos, and then once they went on hiatus, waiting patiently (or impatiently) for the next season to start.

These days many folks don’t bother with the premium channels and simply rent entire seasons on DVD a year or so later. Some shows like those on AMC are available for instant download the day after they are shown, and almost everything can be found illegally somewhere on the Internet – not that I’m advocating that.

I somehow didn’t get around to watching Breaking Bad for years, but began a Netflix-binge that brought me up to date in three lost days. Lost was a series I’d watched on and off for a season or two. Then I heard it had gotten better. Time travel was involved. The whole thing was up on Hulu, and I was off. I watched four seasons of Dexter over a weekend once. It’s nothing to be proud of. It is no more boast-worthy than a weekend of compulsive masturbation or cookie-eating.

Netflix has upped the ante by releasing all 13 episodes of the first season of House of Cards at once. It’s an all you can watch buffet.  I just spent the last two days watching the totality, which comes out to probably just under eleven hours that no doubt could have been better spent.

It certainly wasn’t the worst thing to watch. I’m now curious about the British series on which it was based – which is also available on Netflix. But it wasn’t riveting either. The pace seemed somehow “British” a lot of talking, less on the action. Still it’s not the worst accompaniment to online mahjong or scrabble.

Kevin Spacey’s portrayal of Francis Underwood is undermined by the device of having his character often speak directly to the audience, revealing his true intentions. We should have been able to work out for ourselves when he is lying. Like the old joke about lawyers, it would be whenever his lips his are moving.

Continue reading Binge Watching – Now Officially Sanctioned: House of Cards →

Smash Death Watch — Now on Life Support

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I just speed through New Guy’s songs. Is this because I am one of those olds they keep talking about who won’t appreciate them? Or is it that these songs are kind of boring? Also was that the same Gummer-girl on The Good Wife or a different one? And why don’t I like either of them? Is it them? Or does their presence remind me that there’s nepotism everywhere and life is unfair? Or are they both just a little too affected and actressy?

Of course nothing made sense because it never does. Once again we were told a whole bunch of stuff that we never knew before. Suddenly, Marilyn’s mother is vitally important to Julia. Is this a character played by an actor whom we’ve never seen? Does she have a number we’ve never heard? Again we are being asked to care about something being cut, but we have no way of knowing other than Julia’s whining about it, why we should.

When will the idiots writing this ever learn? Continue reading Smash Death Watch — Now on Life Support →

Deception Finds Its Groove

Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review Blog,

Apologies for this being the 3rd television review in a week, but we haven’t gone to the opera or a movie lately, and the news is just too depressing. What else could I write about?

  • How we are now sending people to jail for life for pre-crime?
  • This depressing tale of post-partum psychosis?
  • The budget stalemate in which the Republicans continue to try to push through the same plan for destruction of the safety-net (specifically medicare) that cost them the presidential election?
  • The selection of a new pope, who at least was never a member of Hitler Youth, but believes marriage equality is Satan’s plan, and may have aided and abetted a fascist junta?

It’s enough to keep someone awake at night, which is exactly when I do most of my television watching.

Deception is one of those shows I probably would never watch on television if I watched television on television. I’m still not sure why the television machines haven’t gone the way of landlines, except it may have something to do with sports.

Because I watch online, my television decisions are usually spontaneous and most watching happens during bouts of insomnia. (That is except for a few programs I run to as soon as they are available, and a few I binge-watch.)

At first, Deception seemed like it was trying to be two or a dozen things at once, the first being a soap about the foibles of the very rich (which didn’t work out so well for Dirty Rotten Money, although I wish it had because of Donald Sutherland, the late Jill Clayburgh and Peter Krause). It’s also an old-fashioned whodunit, a thriller involving industrial espionage, and maybe some kind of commentary on race and/or class that might not have been intentional. Continue reading Deception Finds Its Groove →

Smash Death Watch — It Gets Worse

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It wasn’t like I actually sat down and watched. I was multi-tasking.

Here were just a few terrible moments:

  • Julia’s telling Tom (and the audience) that they are depressed, and this is the Chinese restaurant they go to when depressed, and this is what they order when they are depressed, and here they are again because – depressed. Does Tom have Alzheimer’s? Is that why Julia must tell him all this? Or is this yet again a sign of the writers’ laziness and contempt for an audience they think is too stupid to get it?
  • Julia’s “Oh my God,” at the news Jerry was paying Ellis. Has Grace just stopped trying?
  • The very special lesson that honesty is the best policy. Ivy tells Terry the truth about his performance and instead of firing her, the egomaniacal bully thanks her and changes his ways. And they all lived happily ever after.
  • New Guy saying he was going to “get high and go to work,” because heaven forbid we should forget that he uses DRUGS, or he should actually have to do any acting to show us that aspect of the character.

The list could go on and on. At this point almost every moment is bad, and not in a good way. Feel free to chime in if you think I missed any of the worst.

I Won’t Watch (Girls), Don’t Ask Me

Kay Gardella Memorial TV Review Blog, Politics and Culture, , , , ,

A friend suggested I blog about HBO’s Girls. But I can’t watch it. I saw the first couple of minutes of the pilot, and it was painful. I’m tempted to do a Sara Benincasa- style review  without having seen it, but I’m no Sara Benincasa, and besides it would take viewing more clips or reading more about it than I can handle.

I have my reasons:

1. Williamsburg – I lived there in the 80’s. When I moved into my floor-through apartment on Bedford between North 11th and North 12th, I think the rent was $250 a month, and the other tenants saw my arrival as a sign of end times. I was the pilot-fish of gentrification. These were days when you might go to a party at a loft and the fire department would show up to shut the whole thing down (true story). When whacky clubs opened for a day or two or neighborhood bars were occasionally taken over by large goth drag queens and various performance artists. Back then the arrival of Kasia’s – a place you could actual get a bite to eat – was a big deal indeed, and I frequently stopped by a tiny bakery between North 7th and North 8th for a danish or bagel in the mornings, and there were always the same old Italian and Polish regulars. There was some weird chemical plant across the street, and if I get cancer someday it will be from that.  Greenpoint and Williamsburg had the highest concentration of toxic material storage in the City, plus oil spills. Every once in a while the streets would flood bright yellow and there was a smell that even with the windows closed would seep from your nose onto your taste buds.

Despite its being America’s Bhopul, by 1990, I already felt out of place, supplanted by the younger more beautiful people moving in.

Continue reading I Won’t Watch (Girls), Don’t Ask Me →