Dominic West and Lily Collins Star in the BBC's 'Les Miserables'

In case anyone was clamoring for a non-musical version of Les Mis, here it is. What looks like a ravishing production for the BBC is going to air in the UK over Christmas and here sometime next year on PBS for Masterpiece Theatre. Hey, these period dramas are like catnip for me, so I’m in.

REVIEW: "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" Season 1

I was reluctant to watch Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, knowing that it came from Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, or the creator of Riverdale, one of the worst shows I currently watch on TV. Riverdale is sort of a love-to-hate-it show for me, but I can only tolerate one of those, so if Sabrina was going to be in that vein, I was out. But…I’m happy to say that while it is weird and gothic and horror adjacent at many points, unlike Riverdale, this is much more of a show whose subject matter warrants that kind of nuttiness, and Netflix is a platform that allows it to go to bloody and gruesome places that the CW wouldn’t, and as such, it’s much more fitting for Sacasa’s dark and gory sensibilities.

Kiernan Shipka of Mad Men stars as Sabrina Spellman, teen witch whose upcoming 16th birthday will culminate in a “dark baptism,” the event that will officially induct her into the Dark Lord’s (Satan) graces as a loyal servant. As we know from past TV shows and the Archie comics, she lives with her aunts, witches Hilda (Lucy Davis) and Zelda (Mirando Otto), goes to Greendale High and has her dumb devoted boyfriend Harvey (Ross Lynch) to follow her around like a clueless puppy while she works her magic at odd times.

But unlike the innocent, harmless magic of the old comics, these occult practices are now hardcore and very violent. The witch world is also extremely patriarchal, which imbues the show with a kind of feminist bent at times, but it keeps sliding back and forth on which message it wants to endorse. The good things about the show are plentiful- there’s the cast, which is perfectly game and up to all the tonal changes, Otto and Davis in particular as the appealing aunts and Chance Perdomo as Cousin Ambrose, who lives in the Spellman manor/mortuary in this version. The manor itself is also something of a character in this, as an enormous, haunted looking, multichambered maze that daunts no one inside it, as the sunny Sabrina considers it home without thinking twice about it. And unlike a lot of problematic Netflix genre shows, this one sees the value in the standalone episode- there are ongoing arcs and mythology, but this one more or less follows the Buffy template of “Sabrina goes to witch school,” “Sabrina fights a dream demon,” “a Spellman family Thanksgiving,” etc.

A dark new ‘Sabrina’ still sees poor Harvey as bamboozled as ever

Despite the good things though, there are some contradictory underpinnings in the premise. One is the question of why Sabrina wants to be a witch at all. Part of the appeal of the original concept was the idea of magic and witchcraft as fun- an influence on those original comics from early 60’s fantasy sitcoms like Bewitched and The Munsters, etc. In this, everything is pretty horrific and Sabrina spends most of her time defeating bad witches and saving her friends from the evils of the Dark Lord and his minions. She doesn’t want to be part of murder or cannibalism or ritual sacrifice or bloodshed and yet this stuff seems to be the religious foundation of everything about the witch world as we see it, in every episode. She seems to hate everything about it, yet it never occurs to her to not want to participate in it, which is kind of strange, especially as the episodes go on. If the show wants to be dark, I think Sabrina herself has to have an inherent dark side to her as well, she can’t just still be the sunny, happy teen from past versions of this material.

The other issue is her annoying human friends. In the grand tradition of all versions of Harvey Kinkle, he remains an utterly clueless dolt, a human bore that Sabrina spends way too much time preoccupied with. He fulfills the usually female role of “love interest kept in the dark about the hero’s secret identity,” but there’s kind of a reason that stereotype is being retired lately. Her other friends Roz and Susie are equally uninteresting and Sabrina’s eagerness to protect her human friends isn’t really justified by their personalities. But there’s a lot of plot going on on this show, so even if some characters are boring, the cast is big enough to rotate through frequently enough that we don’t have to hang out with anyone too long (Harvey excluded, unfortunately).

Despite the issues with it, I do like the show quite a bit. The attempt at mixing humor and horror is very Buffy-like and the appreciation for episodic plots mixed with longer arcs is such a nice change of pace from the draggy Marvel shows on this platform. Also, thanks to seasons of just ten episodes (a good number), this won’t have to cycle through endless nuttiness (again, see Riverdale), as it wraps up before you can get tired of it. Kiernan Shipka brings an eager, likable sweetness to this role that’s such a shift from her cold, icy, Sally Draper days that it makes me think she’s a real talent at still a very young age. These new Sabrina adventures pay tribute to all that have come before while embracing an entirely new tone and style of its own, and I would strongly suggest giving it a try. Especially if you’re really into the occult. It delivers on that score in ways you’re probably not expecting. I wasn’t.

Grade: A-

The Spellman women are back and witchier than ever

REVIEW: "Bodyguard" Season 1

What are the makings of a great government conspiracy thriller? You’ve got to have sex, murder, action, ludicrous plot twists and some crazy good suspense, right? Well, every single element is here in Jed Mercurio’s Bodyguard (picked up by Netflix after becoming one of the BBC’s biggest hits in more than a decade) and as such it joins the ranks of 24 and Homeland when they were at their absolute peaks. This is some very exciting and addictive television.

The impossibly dreamy (really) Richard Madden stars as David Budd, an army vet and cop who’s riddled with PTSD from tours in Afghanistan that he refuses to receive treatment for, and who now works as head of security detail to a cabinet minister in the UK government. Keeley Hawes plays Julia Montague, the Home Secretary and conservative MP that he’s charged with protecting after thwarting a terrorist attack on a train to London (a highly intense, suspenseful sequence that opens the first 25 minutes of the show at the highest possible anxiety level). Even though David has frequent PTS episodes and his marriage is in shambles, he’s kind of a superhero bodyguard, at one point driving a car backwards through the streets of London directly into incoming sniper fire so he can go after the shooter himself. No wonder Julia can’t resist him (also, like I said, he’s played by a smoldering, blue-eyed Scot for whom this entire series works as an audition to be the next James Bond- seriously people, look no further).

Richard Madden shines in a breakthrough role- have we found our next Bond?

Their steamy affair takes on new weight as an intricate government conspiracy unfolds to target Julia for her political views and ambitions, but who’s really after her and why? I don’t want to give away any spoilers (this show is only six episodes and the plot twists are abundant), but let’s just say if anything happens to this bodyguard’s principal (and lover) he’s going to go Dirty Harry on your ass to find out what’s going on, rules and PTSD be damned. The action scenes are fantastic in this series, expertly directed and thrilling in every moment, and while plausibility may take a bit of a hit in certain spaces, it’s so entertaining and gripping that I never cared a whit if something was realistic or not.

This was obviously conceived as a complete story that ends where it’s supposed to and reveals all the answers in satisfying fashion, but Madden is so charismatic and has such a good screen presence that it’s quite easy to imagine another season with a new conspiracy for him to unravel, new threats to take down, etc. That’s because David Budd, (unlike say Homeland’s Carrie Mathison), is actually good at what he does despite his mental health issues, and though his fitness for duty is understandably disputed, believe me, you’d want this guy protecting you. It’s a total star-making performance and the best kind of roller coaster ride of a season. 

Grade: A

‘Bodyguard’ has everything you want in a conspiracy thriller

Final Season of 'You're the Worst' Gets a Trailer

Yay! This show has always been an underrated little gem and its final season is officially bowing on January 9th. Looks like Jimmy and Gretchen will finally tie the knot, but in their own, unsentimental, twisted way of course. Can’t wait.

REVIEW: "Elite" Season 1

As a longtime watcher of teen shows, if you tell me that a new one is essentially Skins meets Gossip Girl, that pretty much guarantees that I’ll at least be giving it a shot. And this new Spanish teen drama Elite, is exactly that. So much so that as someone who watched both those other shows, I’d really like to know if the creators of this one did too, because all the elements are in there, with a bit of Big Little Lies thrown in for good measure.

Skins was the UK teen show known for its hard core drug use and teenage sex scenes, while Gossip Girl was all about the rich private school kids manipulating everything and everyone around them while centering every episode around some sort of lavish event catering to the extremely wealthy. This show does both of those things, and you know what, it does them pretty well. It’s addictive, it’s juicy, it’s got sex, murder, drug use, parties, everything you want in a teen show for the most part. And it does a pretty good job establishing its own characters too, with a cast of able, attractive twenty-somethings who all get meaty, soapy storylines.

A new group of mean teens is ready to start some drama

I’m not surprised it’s already been renewed for a second season at Netflix, because this is the kind of show that a lot of people (mostly fans of at least one of those other shows I mentioned) will gravitate towards and become very quickly hooked on. The difference of course is that this show is from Spain, so with a Spanish-speaking cast, that does gives it something of a different kind of feeling than those others, but only so much, as all the elements of the classic soap are still in play. As for the set-up, three teens from a public school whose roof caved in get treated with scholarships to attend the richest, most elite private school in the country, and of course, walk into all kinds of conflicts with the shit-stirring, class biased, privileged teens who make their lives hell. 

There’s no real central antagonist here, as the large ensemble cast of nine share about equal screentime. There’s a crime being led up to in flashback mode (the Big Little Lies conceit I mentioned earlier), so over the eight episodes we get the lead-in to that along with the swapping of romantic partners and interludes, etc. Thankfully the actors all deliver here (never was the case with the Gossip Girl cast), and every plot thread is actually interesting, so I never got bored, hoping they’d get back to a character I’d rather spend more time with. But my favorites are probably Guzman (Miguel Bernardeau, below), the ringleader and seeming head jerk of the rich kids who turns out to quickly have much more depth than is let on, and Carla (Ester Exposito), who is slowly revealed as an ice cold master manipulator (I always gravitate towards the bad guys on these kinds of shows for some reason). Here’s the bottom line- if you like teen dramas, you will like this show, I guarantee it. It’s fun, crazy addictive and loads better than Riverdale. Check it out.

Grade: B+

Guzman and Nadia get close

New 'Outlander' Trailer Shows a Big Spoiler

If you don’t want any spoilers for the new season, don’t watch this one, but I don’t know how you might not have at least guessed this was going to happen if you actually watch the show (it’s at the end of the trailer and it involves Brianna). Besides that, the new season’s getting closer! Jamie and Claire come in contact with Native Americans and slavery in colonial America this season, about eight years before the Revolution. Outlander was already renewed for seasons five AND six, so barring the actors quitting the show or something, we are going to get to that revolution onscreen (it actually started in Book 7, so this is the beginning of a long build-up).

REVIEW: "Succession" Season 1

Shows about power hungry, obscenely wealthy family dynasties full of squabbling relatives is somewhat familiar territory to me by now- I wasn’t sure how interested I was in watching one vaguely based on or inspired by the Murdoch clan, especially in this climate. A bunch of rich assholes jockeying for power as they trample all over the rest of us didn’t particularly sound all that appealing. But…HBO’s Succession is created by The Thick of It writer-producer Jesse Armstrong, who knows how to insert enough comedy to make fools out of these assholes, and also produced by Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, so I gave it a shot.

I’m glad I did, because in the end, this show is compelling enough to warrant further consideration, and the actors do a good enough job to make you feel invested in their characters by the season’s end, even if it takes a little while to get there. Brian Cox stars as Logan Roy, a media tycoon whose four adult children and heirs spend their time squabbling and vying for power within the company he built and which now owns just about everything- like I said, it’s very Murdoch-esque. Cox is one of the best parts about the show, effortlessly convincing as the dominant, tyrannical, almost frightening patriarch who verbally and mentally abuses his kids while playing them against each other and remaining in the seat of power at the ripe old age of 80, not content to drive off into the sunset and give his weak sons control of the family business.

A father-son battle for the ages

The sons are led by Jeremy Strong as Kendall, the former addict out of rehab who desperately wants to prove his worth and take over the company from Dad, but his pathetic, waffling nature prevents his stepping up to the plate as he continually fails in his behind the scenes corporate wrangling (he’s kind of like the Jared Kushner of the family). Kieran Culkin is the talentless youngest son Roman, who whines and smirks and pretends to side with his brother but fears his father and is an incompetent coward at his core, Alan Ruck is Logan’s oldest son Connor from his first marriage (he’s on wife number three now of course), who lives off his inheritance on a ranch in New Mexico and stays out of the business while enjoying the spoils of it, and Sarah Snook is the daughter Siobhan, resentful of her dad’s favoritism towards his sons and spites him by working in politics on the other side of the aisle from his moneyed interests.

The family dynamics are what make the show interesting, as the siblings alternately seem to hate and love their dad, and each other, everyone capable of nasty broadsides and vicious exchanges (this is from a Thick of It/Veep writer after all) that turn on a dime as they always congregate back together at an extravagant gathering (each episode seems to center on some kind of party or gala or PR event, recalling oddly enough, shows like Gossip Girl- I guess this really is how the extremely wealthy spend their time). At first it seems abrasive, but there’s enough of a weird bond in this family to eventually pull you into these character’s lives, especially as the stakes in the corporate warfare and father-son battle escalate as the season builds. And the very Veep-like dialogue infuses this with enough humor to be entertaining at all times, making it something of a dark comedy in places. Even if the show starts out a bit slow and you wonder when it will kick into high gear, I’d say stick with this first season til the end, when the epic finale brings everything full circle and ensured I’d be coming back for the next season at least. 

Grade: B+ 

The Roy kids vye for control of the family business

REVIEW: "Better Call Saul" Season 4

The sweetness of the so-called “slow burn” is debatable. I’ve gone back and forth over the years from loving it to hating it to tolerating it, and everything in between, but rarely have I ever seen it work as deliciously well as it does on Better Call Saul, whose entire run so far has been that slow, sweet burn from Jimmy McGill to Saul Goodman, not as drastic a transformation as his infamous successor’s journey from Walter White to Heisenberg, but more bittersweet and heartbreaking, as Bob Odenkirk’s well-meaning Jimmy is ever more slowly (and over a much longer period of time) pushed by circumstances to get back at the world that’s spurned him over and over again. 

Better Call Saul is two stories, of course, or arguably even three. There’s the origin story of Jimmy, his tragic, nearly Shakespearean battle with his brother Chuck (Michael McKean), his relationship with girlfriend Kim (Rhea Seehorn) and his struggle to maintain his law license. Then there’s the parallel story of Mike (Jonathan Banks), whose origins were explained in the first season, and whose employment with Gus Fring (the brilliant Giancarlo Esposito), ties the world of the show into the cartel and the inevitable link to its sequel series Breaking Bad. And I would say that there’s a third story in here, lingering on the fringes, which involves the black and white flash forward that begins every season and which, adding it all together, is telling us the story of “Gene” in Omaha, Nebraska- a post Breaking Bad world that I suspect the show will catch up with eventually, perhaps long enough to spend an entire season in. 

Mike and Gus get closer to the meth lab this season

The great balancing act of this show is the way it plays with time and takes us between all these stories, placing us deep in the hearts and minds of so many characters in ways that even Breaking Bad didn’t. As a result, we feel that we know Jimmy, Kim, Mike, Chuck, and Gus intimately, we understand their motives and can empathize with their actions, even as we see the desolate directions they’re heading in. There’s a bleakness to this season in particular, as it begins with the death of Chuck and the broken piece of Jimmy he takes with him. He’s seemingly unscarred by his brother’s death, and despite Kim’s efforts to bring a bit of feeling out of him, by season’s end we’re given the impression that that part of him is gone forever, as the echoes of Saul Goodman inch their way in to take over his damaged psyche ever more.

One of the great mysteries of Saul is in the character of Kim Wexler, who as far as we know, did not exist on Breaking Bad, which means there’s an omnipresent question about what happens to her (or doesn’t) before then. The timeline of the show hits 2004 this season, still four years away from Walter White’s entrance into the underworld, so plenty of time for lots of things to happen, and the options are expanded this year, as Kim drifts towards her own dalliance with darkness, as she longs to pull off the con with Jimmy and grows bored and disillusioned with her banking job. That’s one of the bigger surprises of the season, as we realize that Jimmy’s transformation into Saul could very possibly be aided and abetted by her rather than hindered, and we wait to find out more. What heart there is on the show comes from the relationship between these two, and what the end result of this relationship leads to- or does it end at all? Is Kim alive and well all through Breaking Bad, hidden from view as Saul keeps her out of the spotlight? Can she possibly come back in the black and white coda world to help Jimmy/Saul out of his final jam? These questions permeate the season and the series, as we ponder and theorize and see if we can guess at Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan’s end game.

Jimmy pulls his biggest con yet in the fourth season finale

The Mike and Gus portions of the show line up more with direct prequel-land, as we find out exactly how Gus built his underground lab this season, and how Mike descends further into his role as hired hitman. The more Gus is present on the show, the more we remember how much we liked him on Breaking Bad, and the smooth professionalism between the two veteran criminals is inherently felt in their scenes together. I wondered if the show would miss something by the absence of Michael McKean’s somewhat diabolical Chuck (though he does show up in a flashback or two), but the strengthening of Jimmy and Kim’s dynamic makes up for it, as the air of waiting for it all to go horribly wrong and how imbues every frame of this story. Bob Odenkirk carries the show handily with humor and gravitas as Jimmy boils over in frustration and rage by season’s end, giving way to cynicism and amorality that will lead us right to Saul Goodman, as there can’t be too much story left to tell in the build-up. And then we see what happened afterwards. I can’t wait.

Grade: A

Robin Wright Takes Over 'House of Cards' in Final Season

I quit House of Cards years ago, after the third season and way before Kevin Spacey was fired for being a sexual predator last year, so I won’t be tuning in to the last eight episodes, but I have to admit it does give me a twinge of curiosity seeing Robin Wright’s Claire Underwood take over the lead role as the new president (Spacey’s character Frank was killed off). One of the things that always bugged me about this show was the fuzziness of the politics, to be honest- it seemed like it existed in some alternate universe where the parties and issues bear no resemblance to real world parallels. If Claire was a Democrat with the positions and policies of actual Democrats, I really wouldn’t mind seeing her wreak havoc on all the people who deserve her vengeance.

REVIEW: "UnREAL" Season 4

The fourth and final season of UnREAL was filmed a while back, right after the delayed third season, and then dumped sort of unceremoniously on Hulu just months after the third season aired on Lifetime. Despite the truncated ending of the show, the last season is pretty enjoyable, if notably darker and even more twisted than usual.

Rachel (Shiri Appleby) is still reeling from being told that she should be alone forever and comes back to Everlasting with a new blonde hairdo and ready to be the very best (re: worst) version of producer she can be, for a season that’s going to be about all stars and bringing in past contestants. The idea is pretty decent, since the show can only go through so many iterations of The Bachelor, and an all star season seems a good one to go out on. There’s a new male producer named Tommy, who wants to be Rachel’s partner in crime, but Rachel is set on finding herself a husband from the returning contestants in order to prove everyone wrong.

New producer Tommy shakes things up

Meanwhile Quinn and Chet are back together, but drama still ensues as Quinn finds herself pregnant from her one night stand with August, but despite the soap opera-ness of it all, Quinn and Chet are actually pretty stable this season, funnily enough. I think the show decided they liked Craig Bierko’s Chet too much to make him the sleaze he was at the beginning, so now he’s basically 100% committed to Quinn and apparently the perfect partner for her after all. But that stuff is a nice break from the darkness that engulfs Rachel this season, who throws herself into her evil side as she doesn’t even bother to try helping the contestants anymore and goes so far as to engineer a near-rape. It’s a shocking storyline that’s meant to provoke but perhaps goes too far, as there’s really no way to redeem or root for Rachel at ALL after she does something so horrible.

The all star season of Everlasting is pretty entertaining, as any pretense of romance is jettisoned for shock value and stupid reality TV stunts, with all the contestants in on the game and knowing how to maximize their airtime. I think I preferred the third season to this one, but any loose ends involving all of the main characters- Rachel, Quinn, Jay, Madison and Chet, are pretty much wrapped up in an untidy little bow, and even the Everlasting set gets a big dramatic sendoff in the series finale. All in all, I’m glad the show was at least able to go out on its own terms, even if the places it took the characters (really just Rachel, as Quinn, believe it or not, is often the most sympathetic character this season) was too morally questionable to be fun anymore at some points in these eight episodes. But all the drama, twists and all around nuttiness in the last couple of episodes kind of make up for the unpleasantness in the middle. It was never boring, that’s for sure.

Grade: B

Quinn and Rachel bow out for good as the show (and the show within the show) signs off