A Dystopian Future Awaits in Full Trailer for HBO's 'Fahrenheit 451'

This looks really good. Can't think of a more timely story right now and I'm almost ready to declare this the best filmed version of the novel just by the trailer (there hasn't been a definitive version of this to my mind). Be sure to tune in May 11th at 8pm.

'Legion' is Back Tonight

Woo-hoo! TV's nuttiest show returns for a similarly surreal and bizarre experience, according to the all the early word so far. As a recap, check out this first look at the new season, which catches you up on everything that happened last year:

REVIEW: "Jessica Jones" Season 2

It was one of my favorite shows of 2015, and it took so long in coming back that it’s even more disappointing that the second season of Jessica Jones turned out to be as dismal as it was. Perhaps losing both Kilgrave and Luke Cage was a blow the show simply could not sustain.

The driving force of the first season of Marvel’s noir-esque Netflix series was Jessica Jones’s battle against her former abductor and rapist Kilgrave (David Tennant), who rapidly ascended the throne of the very best onscreen Marvel villain (in movies or television), and without his presence in the second season, it’s undeniable that the show lost a significant amount of focus. Jessica (Krysten Ritter) is still a hardboiled, hard drinking PI, but her bitterness and anger seems to lack concentration. In Kilgrave’s absence a new villain has to be formed, and the backflips the show does to forge a meaningful identity and relationship to Jessica for this season’s antagonist (Janet McTeer) strains credulity and really wears itself thin by the time the climactic part of the season rolls around. Story beats regarding Ritter and McTeer’s relationship repeat themselves multiple times over the course of the last 4-5 episodes, to the point where I was genuinely wondering if I had accidentally rewound the tracking order.

What Trish Walker does this season is certainly not heroic

Then there’s Trish. Oh, Trish. Jessica’s best friend and wannabe sidekick (played by Aussie Rachael Taylor, still struggling mightily with an American accent) suffered a brutal character assassination this year in terms of a writers room that clearly despises her, or perhaps was simply battling itself regarding a plan to turn her into a half-baked villain of sorts. At least, I hope that was the intention, because that’s the only way Trish’s actions throughout the season even make a smidge of sense. Trish antagonizes and bothers Jessica about her past, is revealed as having a hidden agenda, ruins another addict’s life and then bizarrely decides to ruin Jessica’s life even further, for absolutely no apparent reason, and for an outcome for herself that seemed intended to reveal a new hero's origin. Umm, are you kidding me? Trish Walker is so beyond dead to me that I never want to see her again, much less root for her to get what she wants.

So, did anything work this season? Well, even though Geri Hogarth’s terminal illness subplot was severely disconnected from the rest of the show, Carrie-Anne Moss played it convincingly and managed to turn her diabolical lawyer into a somewhat sympathetic figure, and there was one flashback episode to Jessica and Trish’s past that revealed an interesting backstory, but I honestly can’t pinpoint much else here. Ritter is still a capable and compelling antiheroine, but saddled with too many miserable and repulsive supporting characters this season (including a totally bland and anti-charismatic love interest in the new super named Oscar- for the love of god, please don’t bring that guy and his annoying kid back).

This season was a real bummer. Let’s hope the next one figures out some way to right itself.

Grade: D+

Complicated mommy issues

'The Handmaid's Tale' Moves Past the Book in Season 2 Trailer

Finally, we have a full trailer for the new season of The Handmaid's Tale, which is now free to make up its own storylines. It still looks pretty similar to last season, but now June is (presumably) free and on the run. The show premieres on April 25th, so still about a month away.

Superheroes Come to Freeform with 'Cloak & Dagger'

Looks like I'm going to be watching a show on Freeform this summer! One of Marvel's lesser known properties, Cloak & Dagger, about two teen runaways whose superpowers depend on their literal connection to each other, has come to the network formerly known as ABC Family, and the premiere is Jun 7th, for a first season of 10 episodes. The pilot got some very good reaction out of SXSW last week, so I'm kind of looking forward to this one.

Trailer for Final Season of 'The Americans' is Here

Yay! One of my favorite shows of the decade is ending its run this year, and it looks like they're getting close to the end of the Cold War onscreen as well. Oddly, the show now feels newly relevant- as we see America and the Soviet Union's relationship thaw in this final season, it feels all too sadly prophetic when you look at what's happening right now in the real world. I'll be sad when this one is over, but I can't wait for the season to start. March 28th, everyone. Mark your calendars.

REVIEW: Carey Mulligan in 'Collateral'

Collateral is a BBC miniseries now streaming on Netflix starring Carey Mulligan, and all four hour long episodes are written by David Hare, who previously wrote The Hours and The Reader. It’s a complicated procedural drama about a pizza delivery man who was murdered on a street corner, the cops who investigate the murder, the politics that play into the reaction to the murder, and the conspiracy surrounding his death that unfolds over time.

There’s actually even more to it than that. There are a lot of moving pieces in this series, and you don’t really start to catch up or tie any threads together until the final hour, so this requires you to really stick with it, assuming you don’t lose interest first. I have to admit, I’m normally into all kinds of crime procedurals, but this one was a bit of a challenge. When trying to tie this whole political conspiracy together, it wants to be comparative to a David Simon series (think The Wire), but it doesn’t quite measure up. Even on Simon’s shows, there are characters whose personal dramas require audience investment, and this one tries to do that as well, but the characters aren’t all that compelling.

Collateral stars Carey Mulligan, but the truth is that she’s part of a large ensemble cast and her Detective Kip Giaspie doesn’t quite take over as the lead until the final hour. Investing in a lot of extraneous characters besides her tough, smart cop feels a bit pointless and no other performance stands out much except perhaps John Simm (above), as a disillusioned Labor party MP. There’s a storyline involving a female priest (Nicola Walker) that felt particularly irrelevant to the proceedings overall, with no real payoff. It could be that the length of the series doesn’t allow for in depth character growth or for the audience to get involved enough in these people’s lives, but some measure of attachment is necessary in these types of shows, even if the central mystery is the selling point. Even Giaspie herself remains something of a cipher (I think the only thing we know about her is that she sympathizes with immigrants and that remains her one personality trait throughout the show).

I don’t know if this is intended to be an ongoing series or a one off, but I can’t say that I’m all that interested either way. There are some timely messages about the current immigration politics in Britain, it touches on sexual harassment and the effect of trauma on damaged lives and it does do one thing that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen onscreen before, and that’s to explore the psychology of a female killer, which is rare and interesting. But overall, I’d say next time (if there is one) give the actors some juicier characters to work with. 

Grade: B-

The Shadow King is Back in 'Legion' Season 2

Finally, a trailer for the second season of Legion! This trippy show is premiering on April 3rd, so if you haven't caught up I'd highly recommend it. It's nothing like any other superhero show, trust me. And it's only eight episodes, so you've got plenty of time before the new season starts.

Carey Mulligan Stars in BBC Miniseries 'Collateral'

This miniseries is currently airing on the BBC in the UK, but all four episodes will drop on Netflix on March 9th. For my money, British shows are better at these topical procedural dramas, but I wonder if that's just because the setting makes it less familiar to me and therefore more interesting than the usual cop shows over here. I'll be checking it out for sure. 

Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon in a New 'Fahrenheit 451'

This looks interesting. The only version of the classic novel I've ever seen was the 1960's Francois Truffaut one with Julie Christie, and it wasn't that great. This already looks like a big improvement, and with talent like this, including 99 Homes director Ramin Bahrani, how could it not be? No premiere date yet, but it's coming out in the spring, so I'll keep an eye out.