THERE'S TOO MUCH TV - Roundup October/November 2024

“What are you watching?” is pretty much the automatic question I get when I tell people what I do for a living. Usually I lie to people so I don’t get into a massive debate about the police while I’m trying to hang out. But to you, dear patron, I shall never lie!

We’re back! I took October to get back into things—there was some family health stuff—but here we are and let’s talk about TV! Here’s everything I’ve been watching over the last two months!

FROM (Season 3) — MGM+/Amazon Prime
CW: violence, disturbing images

FROM is the least predictable show I’ve ever seen. It’s a difficult show to describe, because it’s almost like the show is all about flushing out the premise and figuring out what exactly this place is. For the uninitiated, FROM is about a group of people who have ended up in some kind of purgatory place. They were all brought here unwillingly, none of them can leave, and every night they are hunted by creepy smiling monsters that rip you to shreds. There’s a lot of other craziness going on: ghosts haunt a bunch of characters, there might be some time travel going on, and some kind of lurking evil that seems to be directing the monsters.

I’ve always preferred supernatural or paranormal horror to more realistic or grounded entries in the genre, because I find the inability to understand exactly what is happening to be far more terrifying as a viewer. FROM embraces the what-the-fuckery of its horror premise and is able to get you to enjoy being confused, which is good, because I have the sneaking suspicion we’ll never get all of the answers to the mysteries the show has introduced. 

Side note: one of the absolute best and most realistic depictions of a police officer I’ve ever seen on TV. I’ll be making a lil skippy about that, although it’ll have some spoilers…

The Sopranos (Seasons 1-2) — Max
CW: violence, nudity, misogyny, homophobia, racism

At times this year, I’ve found myself wondering if watching hundreds of hours of terrible cop shows has sapped my love of television. When I fall in love with a show it’s rarely as deeply as I used to, and I’ve noticed that my enjoyment of the average episode of TV has definitely waned this year. Some of that, to be sure, stems from dealing with my dad’s death this year and the burnout of trying to do ever expanding videos on the same timeline I used to. But I’ve found myself wondering if I just don’t have the same passion for television that I used to.

No, it’s not me who changed—it was TV!

Because—breaking news everybody—The Sopranos still fucking slaps. This is not my first rodeo with the show, but it is my first rewatch in some years, and I find myself glued to the screen for every episode. It’s hard to find things to say about the show that haven’t been said before, whether it’s James Gandolfini’s mesmerizing performance, the complicated and flawed characters, or the show’s inspection of learned vs. innate evil.

But what stands out to me most on this rewatch is how consistently funny the show is. It reminds me more of Succession than Breaking Bad or The Shield in its ability to seamlessly weave comedy next to tragedy and brutality. I’m sure this had something to do with the fandom falling in love with Tony, but I think it also humanizes the 

The Penguin (Season 1) — Max
CW: violence, language

I didn’t expect to like this as much as I did, but I was pretty into Colin Ferrell’s Tony Soprano impression. It was definitely a contributing factor for me rewatching The Sopranos.

This new Matt Reeves vision of Gotham is really immersive, to the point that I often forgot I was watching something Batman-related, instead of an IP-independent crime thriller. The focus seems less on filling out the world with name drops and cameos from characters fans will recognize from the comic books, and more about making the world feel lived-in and tactile. The near constant rain doesn’t feel like a purely aesthetic touch when an entire borough of the city has recently been flooded and forgotten by the powers that be.

I also really appreciated how the show portrayed its central character, conning us into thinking he might be less evil than his contemporary gangsters, before erasing any kind of moral ambiguity at all. Usually that’s the kind of hard morality the MCU saves for its anarchist characters!

English Teacher (Season 1) — FX/Hulu
CW: n/a

English Teacher is easily my favorite new comedy this year. It exemplifies what it feels like to have conversations about transness, guns, and other hot button culture war issues online in a way that feels incredibly fresh for traditional TV. It’s like a more adult oriented version of Abbott Elementary, trying to make sense of Gen Z from a millennial perspective, with a lot of self-awareness. I knew it was a show tailor made for me when there was a Red Scare Podcast joke in the first episode.

It’s a more insular show than Abbott, in that it’s unlikely to reach a mass audience. It’s on FX/Hulu, not ABC. It is highly political and doesn’t try to pretend that it’s neutral on topics. But for little ol’ terminally online me? It’s perfect.

Dexter (Seasons 1-4) — Max
CW: blood, gore, violence, nudity

Despite having spent so much time writing about the Difficult Men™ era of TV and about the representation of police on TV, I’d somehow avoided ever watching an episode of Dexter. 

I’ll save my notes about forensics and the overall police perspective of the show when I do my massive video on forensics in 2025, but I want to take a minute to really shoutout that first season of Dexter. As much as the show has become bogged down in Dexter’s morality and vigilantism, I really enjoyed the queer overtones of that first season.

He’s a man who has to hide who he is to his friends and family because they wouldn’t understand him. His girlfriend is “perfect” for him because she is sexually traumatized and doesn’t want to have sex. He can only reveal his true self at night, once he’s captured his (usually) male victim, and has them lying on a table with him looming over them. All he wants to do is go play with dolls with the Ice Truck Killer, another man who is living a life as closeted as his. I really wish they’d kept this angle going.

Arcane (Season 2) — Netflix
CW: cartoon violence

First things first, I haven’t finished this season yet. It’s called “savoring.”

I do think this season has lost some of the socio-political punch that made the show so smart on multiple viewings though. There’s much less to be said for the repression of the undercity, even as a police crackdown is in effect. In general, the show seems less interested in the complexities of the haves and the have-nots and more interested in the mystical lore of Hextech and magic.

I think a lot of the show’s progressive depictions of gender have also fallen out of the spotlight. While we see Vi wrapping her chest and characters are explicitly queer, it feels more like a minor detail than it did in the first season, when characters felt like they were explicitly challenging gender norms. There’s no real pushing of the envelope this season, riding on the established dynamics they wrote in that first season.

But that’s not to say that this season isn’t enjoyable. It’s basically Across the Spiderverse for the small screen—absolutely groundbreaking in its visual style and use of mixed media animation. 

The only legitimate gripe I have with the season is that it has the most obnoxious soundtrack on TV.

What We Do in the Shadows (Season 6) — FX/Hulu
CW: violence, language

I never know what to say about shows like this—ones that I enjoy and laugh at, but that aren’t all that interesting in the scope of TV at large. I don’t think WWDITS has much to say about big themes. I don’t think it has much interest in discussing popular topics like English Teacher or Abbott Elementary. But I do think it’s hilarious and I love hanging out with every episode.

Perhaps the lack of commentary is part of the reason the show is so easy to love—it offers an escape from reality in so many ways. An episode of What We Do in the Shadows isn’t going to remind you of anything you’ve seen in the news or talk about any social issues your friends are talking about. Everything about the show is delightfully divorced from reality, something I think is best exemplified by its use of visual effects. They thrive in the uncanny valley, real enough so as not to distract, but unreal enough to always be fun and campy.

I do worry we won’t get shows like this anymore, that last 6 seasons and allow the cast to develop a rapport and for the characters to become developed enough that we can watch them interact and say “oh that’s so Laszlo” or “oh that’s so Nandor.” So let’s enjoy it while we can.