REVIEW: "Silicon Valley" Season 5 / "Barry" Season 1

SILICON VALLEY Season 5

The guys are finally on the verge of making it after all

The latest season of Silicon Valley was fun, frothy, and particularly smooth considering it was the first without TJ Miller’s Erlich, who was abandoned in a drug den in China last year. There’s a subplot about Jin Yang trying to declare him dead to take over his share of the company and the house in the first few episodes, but since Erlich’s plots were often disconnected from the rest of the guys anyway, we don’t really miss him much at all. The rest of the gang is in top form, especially Zach Woods as Jared, who probably has a bit more screentime this season (never a bad thing), and Thomas Middleditch continues to evolve Richard into more of a douche as he tries to expand Pied Piper’s payroll. Basically, the show doesn’t miss a beat, is as funny as ever and the best part about this season is no more constant failure! Yep, as the season ties itself up, the Pied Piper crew (including Monica, who finally ditches robotic Laurie to join the guys officially) gets a handle on their new cryptocurrency plan, the company is officially launched, and would you believe it, finally, finally looks to be headed in a successful direction, as Richard outsmarts Gavin Belson for once. Richard’s dream of a new, decentralized internet is on track to actually take off in the finale, which he promptly responds to in nauseous disbelief after all these years. The happy ending leaves you with a warm and fuzzy feeling, and also the idea that the series may be winding down soon, since I’m not sure how much longer it can run if the aim is for the guys to actually make it in the valley. But that could be a good thing as well, since everything must end some time, and I know that creators Mike Judge and Alec Berg think it’s funnier for the guys to struggle rather than succeed. So Season 6 may be the last, but it could also be a natural, logical time for the story to come to an end, and I wouldn’t be mad about it all. If so, this show might manage to become one of the few comedies never to have a down season.

Grade: B+

BARRY Season 1

Bill Hader's 'Barry' is a dark, wild ride

SNL’s Bill Hader comes to HBO with a radical new show that had a pretty flawless first eight episodes, sort of a successor to Breaking Bad as a dark comedy with spurts of violent bloodshed. Barry is a professional hitman who inadvertently stumbles into an acting class in Los Angeles (led by the hilarious Henry Winkler) and spontaneously decides, hey, I think I want to be an actor! The problem is leaving his deadly day job behind, which he realizes is a lot harder to do than he expected. The tonal shifts on this show are pretty wild, veering from the soft comedy of Barry’s terrible improv classmates to his surreal daydreams about sunny domesticated life to the bloody gang warfare of his tangles with Russian and Bolivian mobsters. But with a supremely talented cast, jokes that work and suspenseful, genuinely dark plot twists that challenge the audience over its acceptance of the unquestionably murderous main character, I would say this is one of the best new shows of the year and I can’t wait to see where it goes in a second season. The episodes are just a half hour in length, which adds to the season flying by in a breeze, and once again leaves some viewers questioning whether it’s a comedy or a drama, but as I always say to people who are confused about this- WHY can’t it be both? Rules are meant to be broken, people, and this show does that beautifully.

Grade: A

Kimmy and Titus Go to Work in 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt' Season 4 Trailer

I'm still sad that this is the show's last season (the ever busy Tina Fey is moving on to bigger and better things, like her Tony nominated Mean Girls show on Broadway), but I will be enjoying it for all it's worth. In the new trailer, it looks like Kimmy faces the MeToo movement and white privilege as she learns how to be an adult. The first six episodes drop on May 30th, while the last six will come out sometime in the fall.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Returns in 2019 With More 'Cosmos'

Oooh. I enjoyed 2014's reboot of Carl Sagan's original Cosmos documentary series quite a bit, and now the sequel show, Cosmos: Possible Worlds will be premiering on Fox and National Geographic sometime next year. I'll definitely have it marked on my calendar.

REVIEW: "Little Women"

As a longtime Little Women enthusiast, I am always ready for any new adaptation of the classic saga of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. I’ve read the book multiple times and seen multiple screen versions (for my money, the Winona Ryder 90’s one remains the most cinematic and satisfying) but it is a story that can be retold endlessly, since every generation and every fan has their preferred version. So I was perfectly ready to be drawn into the world of the March sisters all over again with this new three episode BBC miniseries that aired over Christmas in the UK last year and is now premiering on PBS, fittingly enough on Mother’s Day. Unfortunately, there was something about this faithful, yet dry adaptation that fell flat in some important places. 

Exceedingly well cast and mostly well acted, the series boasts a fine and feisty heroine, played by Maya Hawke (daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman), who's making her screen debut and is a very appealing and appropriately independent Jo. Also best in show is Emily Watson, whose Marmee is authentic and world weary and who manages to effortlessly make the platitudes that come out of her mouth sound realistic and convey her as a wise, experienced, working class woman of the Civil War era. Dylan Baker brings some life into the usually thankless role of Robert March, father to the girls, while Michael Gambon and Angela Lansbury are classy British perfection as Old Man Lawrence and Aunt March, respectively. 

I think the biggest fault here lies in the casting of the other sisters, unfortunately. Willa Fitzgerald gives us a very stiff (and seemingly dim) Meg, whose romance with the tutor Brooks falls completely flat and uninteresting, while Kathryn Newton’s Amy comes across as entirely too modern for a 12-year-old in the 1860’s. In this Little Women, Amy isn’t just spoiled, but could be a rival to any of the sophisticated, manipulative schemers on Gossip Girl. It’s a bit off-putting. Also jarring is the decision to use Newton to play both young and adult Amy, the change in years accompanied only by a change in hairstyle. Past versions may have struggled with whether to recast Amy or not, but I think it’s essential in selling her eventual marriage to Laurie, which is always difficult for an audience to accept in the first place.

Jo and Laurie come closer in this one...but still no cigar

Speaking of Laurie, he’s one of the other bright spots in this series. Jonah Hauer-King is well cast and very likable, and the Jo/Laurie relationship, always the heart and heartbreak of the book in the eyes of tortured fans going on over a century and a half, is centered strongly here and rips your heart out in all the ways it’s meant to. This particular version plays it up even more passionately, emphasizing the closeness, tension, near misses and gasp, even kissing (!) that the book did, rendering the eventual conclusion to their will they/won’t dynamic even more frustrating. But seeing it play out this way made me wonder whether previous adaptations had it right in choosing to downplay the Jo/Laurie stuff slightly, so as not to simply crush the audience in disappointment that turns downright unsatisfying. As it is, writer Heidi Thomas seems to feel similarly, since Jo’s relationship with Professor Bhaer (who is not an older man in this series, but looks like just a young hunk with a beard) is trimmed to the bare minimum of existence, as is Laurie and Amy’s connection. 

Annes Elwy fares a little better as the fragile Beth, whom she plays as suffering under the weight of her fears, rather than the mousy saint she usually is, but her death scene isn’t nearly as effective somehow, since this Beth seems more resigned to her fate and indifferent about her life in general, making it harder to care about her. The pacing of the series is solid, the production design lovely, and the sense of time and place striking, especially considering it was filmed in Ireland, which must stand in for Civil War era New England. What also works is the decision over which episodic events to adapt from the book. You can always pick and choose if you want to distinguish one adaption of Little Women from another, but it amuses me how little any writer seems to care about adult Amy, who has far more things happen to her in the book than ever make it to the screen in any version. 

Part of that decision however, lies with the true meat of the story revolving around Jo and Laurie, which is unavoidable and yet always a bitter pill to swallow. Someday I’d like to see someone go ahead and do a modern day telling of the story perhaps just inspired by the characters, to allow for a better resolution to one of literature’s great unrequited romances. Or is that fan fiction? Maybe in a way, but everything’s inspired by something else, and I think we Jo and Laurie shippers have waited long enough, don’t you?

Grade: B-

These March sisters are oddly disconnected from each other

Luke Cage Meets Bushmaster in Season 2 Trailer

I thought Luke Cage's first season was sort of a mixed bag. There were things I liked (the setting, and Luke himself, since Mike Colter is a great screen presence) and things I didn't (I cannot stand him being paired up with Rosario Dawson's Claire- the two have negative chemistry and don't make sense together as a couple, plus the main villain in the end wasn't very interesting), so the second season has things it can definitely improve on. Misty Knight's back now with a bionic arm, and I heard that Iron Fist is going to show up. Alfre Woodard's character looks to still be causing trouble and a new villain named Bushmaster challenges Luke's invincibility somehow. Here's hoping it all comes together a lot better than Jessica Jones's second season did. 

'Arrested Development' Returns on May 29th

YAY!!! Still one of my all time favorite shows, AD will return on May 29th on Netflix for its fifth season, and I cannot WAIT! It's been a long five years since the divisive Season 4 (which I actually liked by the way, and which is now airing in a remix version on Netflix in case you want to watch it in chronological order and recut to 22-minute episode lengths), but now the Bluths are back together the way everybody wants them- that is, in the same rooms at the same time and all interacting the way they were meant to. Perfect.

REVIEW: "Homeland" Season 7

Homeland has been trying its very best in the last few years to follow the headlines in having stories that parallel current political threats, and they were caught flat-footed (like the rest of us) in anticipating the country electing a female president last season. But Elizabeth Keane (Elizabeth Marvel) was supposed to be the good guy. Oops.

So they were forced to do several storytelling backflips in the first half of this season to wrangle a domestic political crisis brought on by, you guessed it, Russian hackers. Luckily, once that story really got going (it isn’t really until about episode 7), the second half of the season suddenly kicks into high gear and becomes a solid, suspenseful political thriller with a wishful thinking conclusion that surmises how a clearheaded U.S. government might actually be able to get back at the Russians (have our own hackers somehow steal the oligarch’s fortunes) and solve our national crisis by having the terrible American president resign for the good of the country. Sigh. If only.

So all that was good, but boy does it take a long time getting there. The first half of this season was extremely slow and preoccupied with a failed insurrection started by an Alex Jones wannabe (last year’s Jake Weber), a really boring, really terrible storyline that thankfully, completely disappears after episode 5 (it’s actually so abrupt given how long they spent on it that I wondered if the writers realized in the midst of writing it just how bad it was and changed course). Meanwhile, Carrie is totally isolated from Saul and everyone else, hassled by her sister Maggie to get a job and attempting to figure out if Keane and her staff is good or evil all on her own, which takes her in some wild and wacky directions as she realizes she’s developed a tolerance for her longtime medication. Yep, we get some seriously Crazy Carrie this season, since it’s a rule that we always have to see Claire Danes go nuts at least once a year.

Who knows where the doomed President Keane would be if not for Hillary's loss

And then there’s Frannie. Poor, poor Frannie. When the decision was made way back in Season 3 to let Carrie have Brody’s baby in order to keep a sentimental connection to him on the show, I don’t think the producers realized how difficult it was going to be to write Carrie as a single mother while also having her attempt to save the world every season. So little Frannie’s been through a lot as a result and finally this year Carrie just gives up and lets Maggie take her off her hands. I never minded the idea of Carrie as a mom, but it’s not fun to watch her traumatize her child constantly due to her unfailingly horrendous decisions. I often forget that I’m supposed to think Carrie’s actually good at her job, because every move she makes inevitably makes everything worse (this season in particular might be worst of all).

I somewhat enjoyed the political parallels as Mandy Patinkin's Saul steps up as the fictional world’s version of a Robert Mueller type (even though he’s now the national security advisor who’s clearly not doing his designated job) and manages to solve everything and save the day in a much shorter amount of time (the beauty of fantasy) which kind of does make you wish we lived in Homeland’s reality rather than our own. And I liked the addition of James D’Arcy as another old CIA contact of Carrie’s who might be intended as a new Quinn (Rupert Friend’s much beloved character sadly perished for good last season). The ending is a cleaner wrap-up than usual for this show, which sets the table for another time jump and a final season set in Israel next time. The series has had an impressive run all things considered- never significantly depreciating in quality thanks to its ability to reset every year, but all good things must come to an end, and after all this time with Carrie and Saul, I’m in for one more go, but I’m also ready for it to be the last. 

Grade: B

Carrie and Saul plan another mission to save the country

'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt' to End With Season 4

Well, this sucks. Kimmy Schmidt is one of my favorite comedies, but it looks like this season, which premieres on May 30th, will be its last. The final season is split into two parts, so the first six episodes will show up at the end of the month, with the rest probably sometime in the fall. There's some speculation about wrapping things up with a movie, but who knows if stuff like that will actually happen. Sigh. It was crazy and fun while it lasted.

'Cloak & Dagger" Introduces the Divine Pairing

This new superhero show on Freeform looks pretty good, even though they're apparently messing quite a bit with the duo's comic book origin story (no prophecy or divine pairing was involved there). But still, it looks intriguing enough to me that I'll be tuning in on June 7th for the 2-hour premiere.

REVIEW: "UnREAL" Season 3

After a wildly uneven second season, UnREAL returned for its delayed third outing, which, thankfully, was a pretty good return to form. This time around it’s a version of The Bachelorette, with Caitlin Fitzgerald (making the TV rounds after Masters of Sex and Rectify) coming onboard as the “suitress” instead of the usual suitor, and a whole bunch of guys vying for her attention.

The second season veered off course with most of the criticism aimed at white female writers who were labeled as overreaching in trying to tackle racism head on and getting caught up in a trainwreck of storytelling decisions. This time I think the best move they made was letting the politics speak for itself (Fitzgerald’s Serena is a successful, perpetually single businesswoman and feminist who can’t get a guy to stick around, which Rachel and Quinn can’t help but feel in their respective guts), while simply refocusing on their main characters’ personal dramas. Rachel, Quinn, Chet, Jay, Madison, Jeremy, etc. That’s where the heart (if there is any on this hardhearted cynical show) is.

So with men competing to win Serena’s hand, the always unstable Rachel is tasked with producing the suitress, and this time she does her actual job the best we’ve seen her do so far, since she does identify with Serena’s plight and genuinely wants to help her pick a good guy, but as usual her personal behavior enters the fray, as she confronts her mother and deals with latent daddy issues, while interacting with the new in-house psychiatrist (Brandon Jay McLaren), and attempting to fend off Jeremy, who for some reason remains on the show despite his murderous and abusive actions last year (seriously, he’s the one weak link in the cast- can’t we get rid of him already?)

Making drama from reality tv

Meanwhile in Quinn-land, her empire is waiting to be built, which involves taking down network head Gary and manipulating various principles behind the scenes to do it, including a new character and fellow producing titan Fiona (Tracie Thoms), but her machinations eventually bring her back to the lovelorn Chet (Craig Bierko), who remains an affable doofus devoted to her until the end, which is ultimately rather sweet (again, if there can be anything resembling sweetness on a show like this).

Watching the behind the scenes antics of reality shows remains fun and engaging, although it still bugs me that Everlasting is filmed in real time, Big Brother-style, rather than pre-taped over a six to eight week period, as The Bachelor actually does it. Why can’t they do that again? But refocusing on the show within the show rather than trying to tackle too many hot topics at once is a huge improvement over last year, and perhaps the biggest one of all is with the pacing, which has been my pet peeve since the first season. Finally, it doesn’t feel like too many plot twists are happening every episode! Even the juiciest soaps need to take a breather once in a while. I think think one or two turns per week (rather than four or five) is enough to keep fun trash like this plenty fun enough.

Grade: B+

'Everlasting' finally gets a female suitor