Just a quick not to say that I'm driving down from Portland to the Bay and won't be able to answer any of these great comments until Friday, but keep them coming if you have thoughts. -- TG
I don’t think I am going to watch Adolescence. I was behind on podcasts and I just listened to one that discussed this show and played a clip from it. It’s like nope. I found a mere discussion and 20 second clip immediately had me on edge. It just stinks that “great shows” are on topics I just can’t do. I am well aware of the issues it addresses so it’s a skip.
I just have to be patient that everything will come together for me on a “great show” eventually.
Lynn, I feel you. I only watched because I think it was pretty clear that had I not, I'd be leaving out a pretty substantial series. Did I enjoy watching it -- and as I mentioned above, I watched ALL FOUR in one night up in Portland -- no, I did not. It's painful. It's raw. It leaves a lot of room for people to question their own parenting. It's also great, but I say do not worry and pass it on by. But hey, you need to watch "Families Like Ours." That one you can do. (Unless you watched already -- we got a super late start leaving Portland on Thursday and I arrived roughly 12 hours later here in the Bay, so my brain is still catching up. But yes, that one, if you haven't. That's a great series you can do.
We need a Tim Goodman rating of in the car scenes on every show- Dept Q- Bad, Adolescence- good. Having a great season that ended well then extending it illogically to a season 2 is a pet peeve. Big little lies comes to mind. When I saw Season 2 of Bad Sisters- I went ugh they killed him , terrible idea. But it was still pretty entertaining . We will see on another season of Hammy.
I think the question Colin is this: ARE there worse car scenes than those in "Dept. Q," particularly the last one? I mean, that's now a high bar. I was against the idea of Bad Sisters 2 but everyone has said it's actually good so I'll get around to it. But there's ZERO chance I'd watch another "Your Friends & Neighbors." I mean, I laid it out in the comment I made above, but the series literally -- yes, LITERALLY -- takes an earnest path about enlightenment that viewers can believe (precisely because, as written, the SHOW believes this), and then in the last two minutes says, "Yeah, forget that shit, let's run it back." Ugh. Out.
P.S. I’ve finally gotten around to watching Ansura and while I was a bit impatient with it in the beginning, I’ve definitely come around. I just never expected this thorough, thoughtful meditation/exploration of marriage, infidelity, family, sibling rivalry, parenthood, childhood, old age, you know, the whole ball of wax (although I’m sure you, Tim, have probably touched on all this) It’s lovely.
I have felt vindicated in the comments that I was clearly not the only one who struggled with the pacing of the first two episodes -- I do fear the Asura lost a lot of potential viewers in those two hours. But wow, as you note, it really blossoms. And then, when viewed in its totality, those first two episodes are excellent! What a strange construction. But such a lovely series.
How does 'The Witch 2' hold up to the first? I didn't know about the end of credits scene and haven't yet gotten to the second one. It's a whole new cast, if I remember correctly.
The titles are misleading because... again, I think something gets lost in translation. Like, I think the literal translation is "older woman with evil special powers" and often used in relation to fairy tales. Which is totally a witch, with room for interpretation? But, to me, it reminded me of a Korean version of 'Hanna' (2011).
It's funny that the translation has an older woman element when both girls are so young. I think you're totally nailing that it's like "Hanna." That is so spot on. What I liked best about the first one is what I mentioned -- it wasn't anything at all that I expected. And it had what I think is a great twist and how she was so good when it played out. Here, the girl is a clone -- I guess they are all clones? (that bit is confusing to me because I can't figure out who the "mommy" voice is). I did like the second one as well. It's essentially the same film (he says, kind of laughing) with this Witch being much less emotive and perhaps even more powerful (?) but she doesn't have that hidden reveal of the first one. Still, I enjoyed it. Also the woman from "Hyperknife" and "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" shows up in a side role -- and she doesn't let me down by being a fabulous yeller, which I love so much.
It's strange to me that they buried the scene in the credits. Especially because on streamers those credits are usually immediately cut off and onto something else. But yeah, you should watch that movie and that hidden scene. Because I think once you do it makes a third movie more intriguing, if they are actually doing one.
I watched Adolescence right away, in two nights, because it was so riveting. I also worried that the one-shot format would seem gimmicky, but like you, I found it ratcheted up the intimacy, particularly in the scenes set in the family's home. Even the episode set in Jamie's school (a mind-boggling feat of choreography) managed to keep this mood going while also depicting the chaos of a middle school.
What can I say about the cast that hasn't been said yet? After watching Peter Morgan fumble Erin Doherty in The Crown by not including anything about the attempted kidnapping of Princess Anne, it's so gratifying to see her getting material like this (and, presumably, A Thousand Blows, which I haven't watched yet).
I have more to say, but it would need to get spoilery, so maybe a Box Set someday?
You know, reader Paul (should that be Reader Paul) planted a seed about posts dedicated to spoilers. I know that's normally the land -- at least on Substack -- of the Chat, but I almost always just feel like a Chat demands my being chained to the computer or phone to answer all replies, while I don't feel like that for here on normal comments. I try to get to all comments immediately but even a day or so later I feel like people see them and nobody feels like they took off time for work for the Chat and I didn't answer. So, yeah, maybe a series of spoiler posts could be coming.
As for Doherty, it's worth watching the pilot to A Thousand Blows just to see her come right out of the gate into a swaggering, bad ass, old school female gangster. And I do mean old school. I feel like she looked at that role and said YES let me slay with this. I'm nowhere finished with that series because other stuff is better, but the pilot will give you a real sense that it's actually built around her, mostly.
Tip of the hat to you and Michael. I can't add anything to what the two of you have already said about Adolescence. Mind blowingly intense and well done.
I too am done with YFAN, if there is a second season.
In our house we're not much into the kick-ass action genre. When we need a break after a super serious drama, we go for comedy. Most recently that would be Sarah Silverman's Post Mortem. Funny, but also quite touching.
Oh, I love funny too. Comedy is a great salve for troubled times, but -- speaking of funny -- despite agreeing on almost everything else, KB and I have VERY different tastes in filmed comedy. Very. Whenever it works for the both of us, it's a real wonder and no one is more surprised by us. But normally she just stares at me when I'm dying laughing and I do the same to her. But we definitely agree on female killers and bad asses.
Well the most obvious example is that she doesn't think any part of Monty Python is funny.
More textured, is that if she thinks a part of something very broad -- "Cunk On Earth" let's say -- is funny, the gimmick quickly becomes less funny for her very quickly. She's kind of over it after about four laughs.
And then the ones that are the most funny to me is when she sends me something she found online and I get it and don't understand why she sent it. I'm honestly thinking, what is this? And why are you sending it to me? "It's funny!" Or she'll just be dying laughing and I am looking at the source and thinking, "Is there more? Is this what you meant to show me?"
I watched adolescence over two nights when it first came out and yeah, it was incredibly intense, and I too marveled at the technical wizardry of the single shot filming. It’s wonderful when it’s not used as a gimmick, but actually an integral part of telling the story. There are great behind the scenes articles about how they pulled it off if anyone’s interested in exploring it further. I’m a junkie myself for that kind of thing. Tim and Michael wrote so eloquently about the show, I don’t have anything to add except I very much agree with their assessment.
It took me a while to work my way through "Adolescence," not because it wasn't riveting, but because each episode was just so frickin' intense. Each required a bit of time to digest, think about and come to terms with. I'm not a binge-viewer anyway, usually watching shows in the time-honored one-episode-per-week schedule I grew up with back in the Pleistocene ... but it took me two months to watch these four episodes.
I I think the "one-take" strategy works in every way for this show -- not as a "look at me" gimmick, but for the same reason I let two weeks go between episodes: the viewer needs those long shots of nothing much happening as the actors moved down a hall or from one room to another, just to absorb (and cool down from) the intensity ofeach previous scene.
Having spent 40 years working on set, it's no surprise that I'm dazzled by the technical achievement of this show -- the logistical difficulites in getting each episode down in one shot are jaw-dropping -- but equally impressive (if not more so) are the stunning performances by each actor, who not only had to "bring it" with the sustained focus of a live theatrical performance, but do that while working in real locations, always bearing in mind where the cameras were and what they were doing at every moment. Each participant had to be damn near perfect the whole time -- one miscue by a camera assistant or operator, or by any of the actors, and the whole thing runs off the rails -- so imagine the pressure on those involved in the final ten minutes of each episode. In that sense, I'm reminded of a "closer" in baseball, coming in to nail down the win in the 9th inning: the three toughest outs of a game, where one slightly errant pitch can sink all the previous work by the entire team.
The actors are simply magnificent in this show. I usually found working with young actors to be problematic -- most hadn't yet acquired the acting chops to deliver a nuanced, fully rounded performance, and were one-trick ponies ... but this kid Owen Cooper blew it out of the water: he was astonishing, as were all the others, delivering some of the most authentic, wrenching performances I've ever seen on the small screen. They were all great in this show, rising to the occasion and then some.
As for "Friends and Neighbors" ... yeah, fun but certainly not compelling, which is fine. It beats the hell out of anything the increasingly irrrelevant broadcast networks have to offer, and sometimes "fun" is just fine. As we used to say on set: "Hey, we're not curing cancer here - we're just making TV."
Overall there was a jaundiced view toward everything: loyalties, friendships, material success, crime…you name it. It was very difficult to root for anyone, in particular - the protagonist. Jon Hamm’s deplorable villain sheriff in Fargo was at least…interesting.
Generating a convincing pathway toward empathy for a criminal is half the work television writers typical pull off. Not here. The problem? Too smug. Laughable conclusion. Beware. Stinker. Done.
Great observation about the voice over and the intentionality that falsely projects.
If only this puppy was “John from Cincinnati” bad, it might be redeemable…or at least be interesting to perform a postmortem exam on. But this isn’t just that the tone is off, or the inverting of story conventions that they couldn’t consistently nail down. OK, well a lot of it was that, and also some casting that widely missed the target.
I’ll confess that I would watch a spinoff featuring the pawn broker’s backstory.
The most maddening thing about it is that we are led to believe, in the voice overs, BY THE ACTUAL CHARACTER, that he's learned the hard way some valuable life lessons. I mean, they are doing this sincerely. Then when they have extracted him from doom, the series says, "Nope." Which is failure.
I’ve been a paid subscriber for several months, but every time I get a notification that there’s a new post, I come read it, and every single time, at the end it says it’s a free post and I should subscribe to see all the great stuff I’m paying for behind the paywall. And though it clearly shows the checked box confirming that I’m a subscriber, there’s no info that I can see to find all that great stuff. Help?
Hi Brian and thank you for being a paid subscriber. It’s kind of funny that you mention the “free” posts since last night I realized I hadn’t done one of those in about five weeks and decided to make this one free. Normally it’s about 4-1 paid. OK, now the important thing: I think you may be reading every post via email only (which is fine; many people do). However, all of the archives are on the actual Substack site, which for my purposes is: timgoodman.substack.com (and they are also on the app, which you can download if you’re interested via the site or one of the many posts that have that button at the bottom).
The desktop site is very clean and user friendly and your paid subscription accesses all the previous posts. I find that the more enjoyable way to read but the email “newsletters” are the gateway.
One of the problems with being a subscriber here is that sometimes less-than-par TV shows get bumped down the queue and replaced with new recommendations that are, well, better.
I've lost the list, but shows like "Families Like Ours" (and "Dept Q" and "Caught"), and sometimes less highbrow-but-entertaining shows (looking at you, "The Waterfront") push shows like "Your Friends & Neighbors" so far down the queue that I'm not sure I'll get to them.
This is a good problem though, right? Ha. I have to look into Caught. As for YF&N, there are very entertaining moments to it, but the premise is flawed because you wonder where it will go. Which is why I was so excited that it looked like it was going to pull a shocker and be a limited series, with belief restored. Unfortunately, no. That said, there are worse ways to spend an hour but there are also a TON of better ways to do that.
Just a quick not to say that I'm driving down from Portland to the Bay and won't be able to answer any of these great comments until Friday, but keep them coming if you have thoughts. -- TG
I don’t think I am going to watch Adolescence. I was behind on podcasts and I just listened to one that discussed this show and played a clip from it. It’s like nope. I found a mere discussion and 20 second clip immediately had me on edge. It just stinks that “great shows” are on topics I just can’t do. I am well aware of the issues it addresses so it’s a skip.
I just have to be patient that everything will come together for me on a “great show” eventually.
Lynn, I feel you. I only watched because I think it was pretty clear that had I not, I'd be leaving out a pretty substantial series. Did I enjoy watching it -- and as I mentioned above, I watched ALL FOUR in one night up in Portland -- no, I did not. It's painful. It's raw. It leaves a lot of room for people to question their own parenting. It's also great, but I say do not worry and pass it on by. But hey, you need to watch "Families Like Ours." That one you can do. (Unless you watched already -- we got a super late start leaving Portland on Thursday and I arrived roughly 12 hours later here in the Bay, so my brain is still catching up. But yes, that one, if you haven't. That's a great series you can do.
We need a Tim Goodman rating of in the car scenes on every show- Dept Q- Bad, Adolescence- good. Having a great season that ended well then extending it illogically to a season 2 is a pet peeve. Big little lies comes to mind. When I saw Season 2 of Bad Sisters- I went ugh they killed him , terrible idea. But it was still pretty entertaining . We will see on another season of Hammy.
I think the question Colin is this: ARE there worse car scenes than those in "Dept. Q," particularly the last one? I mean, that's now a high bar. I was against the idea of Bad Sisters 2 but everyone has said it's actually good so I'll get around to it. But there's ZERO chance I'd watch another "Your Friends & Neighbors." I mean, I laid it out in the comment I made above, but the series literally -- yes, LITERALLY -- takes an earnest path about enlightenment that viewers can believe (precisely because, as written, the SHOW believes this), and then in the last two minutes says, "Yeah, forget that shit, let's run it back." Ugh. Out.
I’m 4 eps away from the end . Hmmm
illogical end
P.S. I’ve finally gotten around to watching Ansura and while I was a bit impatient with it in the beginning, I’ve definitely come around. I just never expected this thorough, thoughtful meditation/exploration of marriage, infidelity, family, sibling rivalry, parenthood, childhood, old age, you know, the whole ball of wax (although I’m sure you, Tim, have probably touched on all this) It’s lovely.
I have felt vindicated in the comments that I was clearly not the only one who struggled with the pacing of the first two episodes -- I do fear the Asura lost a lot of potential viewers in those two hours. But wow, as you note, it really blossoms. And then, when viewed in its totality, those first two episodes are excellent! What a strange construction. But such a lovely series.
How does 'The Witch 2' hold up to the first? I didn't know about the end of credits scene and haven't yet gotten to the second one. It's a whole new cast, if I remember correctly.
The titles are misleading because... again, I think something gets lost in translation. Like, I think the literal translation is "older woman with evil special powers" and often used in relation to fairy tales. Which is totally a witch, with room for interpretation? But, to me, it reminded me of a Korean version of 'Hanna' (2011).
It's funny that the translation has an older woman element when both girls are so young. I think you're totally nailing that it's like "Hanna." That is so spot on. What I liked best about the first one is what I mentioned -- it wasn't anything at all that I expected. And it had what I think is a great twist and how she was so good when it played out. Here, the girl is a clone -- I guess they are all clones? (that bit is confusing to me because I can't figure out who the "mommy" voice is). I did like the second one as well. It's essentially the same film (he says, kind of laughing) with this Witch being much less emotive and perhaps even more powerful (?) but she doesn't have that hidden reveal of the first one. Still, I enjoyed it. Also the woman from "Hyperknife" and "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" shows up in a side role -- and she doesn't let me down by being a fabulous yeller, which I love so much.
It's strange to me that they buried the scene in the credits. Especially because on streamers those credits are usually immediately cut off and onto something else. But yeah, you should watch that movie and that hidden scene. Because I think once you do it makes a third movie more intriguing, if they are actually doing one.
I watched Adolescence right away, in two nights, because it was so riveting. I also worried that the one-shot format would seem gimmicky, but like you, I found it ratcheted up the intimacy, particularly in the scenes set in the family's home. Even the episode set in Jamie's school (a mind-boggling feat of choreography) managed to keep this mood going while also depicting the chaos of a middle school.
What can I say about the cast that hasn't been said yet? After watching Peter Morgan fumble Erin Doherty in The Crown by not including anything about the attempted kidnapping of Princess Anne, it's so gratifying to see her getting material like this (and, presumably, A Thousand Blows, which I haven't watched yet).
I have more to say, but it would need to get spoilery, so maybe a Box Set someday?
You know, reader Paul (should that be Reader Paul) planted a seed about posts dedicated to spoilers. I know that's normally the land -- at least on Substack -- of the Chat, but I almost always just feel like a Chat demands my being chained to the computer or phone to answer all replies, while I don't feel like that for here on normal comments. I try to get to all comments immediately but even a day or so later I feel like people see them and nobody feels like they took off time for work for the Chat and I didn't answer. So, yeah, maybe a series of spoiler posts could be coming.
As for Doherty, it's worth watching the pilot to A Thousand Blows just to see her come right out of the gate into a swaggering, bad ass, old school female gangster. And I do mean old school. I feel like she looked at that role and said YES let me slay with this. I'm nowhere finished with that series because other stuff is better, but the pilot will give you a real sense that it's actually built around her, mostly.
Tip of the hat to you and Michael. I can't add anything to what the two of you have already said about Adolescence. Mind blowingly intense and well done.
I too am done with YFAN, if there is a second season.
In our house we're not much into the kick-ass action genre. When we need a break after a super serious drama, we go for comedy. Most recently that would be Sarah Silverman's Post Mortem. Funny, but also quite touching.
Oh, I love funny too. Comedy is a great salve for troubled times, but -- speaking of funny -- despite agreeing on almost everything else, KB and I have VERY different tastes in filmed comedy. Very. Whenever it works for the both of us, it's a real wonder and no one is more surprised by us. But normally she just stares at me when I'm dying laughing and I do the same to her. But we definitely agree on female killers and bad asses.
Interesting. Could you give us an example of something you find hilarious and she doesn’t, and vice versa?
Well the most obvious example is that she doesn't think any part of Monty Python is funny.
More textured, is that if she thinks a part of something very broad -- "Cunk On Earth" let's say -- is funny, the gimmick quickly becomes less funny for her very quickly. She's kind of over it after about four laughs.
And then the ones that are the most funny to me is when she sends me something she found online and I get it and don't understand why she sent it. I'm honestly thinking, what is this? And why are you sending it to me? "It's funny!" Or she'll just be dying laughing and I am looking at the source and thinking, "Is there more? Is this what you meant to show me?"
That last example, that’s definitely happened several times with me and my wife.
If this were a Seinfeld episode, not liking Monty Python would be a deal breaker.
Definitely laughed at that...and yet, here we are. I guess that's a good thing!
I watched adolescence over two nights when it first came out and yeah, it was incredibly intense, and I too marveled at the technical wizardry of the single shot filming. It’s wonderful when it’s not used as a gimmick, but actually an integral part of telling the story. There are great behind the scenes articles about how they pulled it off if anyone’s interested in exploring it further. I’m a junkie myself for that kind of thing. Tim and Michael wrote so eloquently about the show, I don’t have anything to add except I very much agree with their assessment.
I binged all four. Something is wrong with me.
It took me a while to work my way through "Adolescence," not because it wasn't riveting, but because each episode was just so frickin' intense. Each required a bit of time to digest, think about and come to terms with. I'm not a binge-viewer anyway, usually watching shows in the time-honored one-episode-per-week schedule I grew up with back in the Pleistocene ... but it took me two months to watch these four episodes.
I I think the "one-take" strategy works in every way for this show -- not as a "look at me" gimmick, but for the same reason I let two weeks go between episodes: the viewer needs those long shots of nothing much happening as the actors moved down a hall or from one room to another, just to absorb (and cool down from) the intensity ofeach previous scene.
Having spent 40 years working on set, it's no surprise that I'm dazzled by the technical achievement of this show -- the logistical difficulites in getting each episode down in one shot are jaw-dropping -- but equally impressive (if not more so) are the stunning performances by each actor, who not only had to "bring it" with the sustained focus of a live theatrical performance, but do that while working in real locations, always bearing in mind where the cameras were and what they were doing at every moment. Each participant had to be damn near perfect the whole time -- one miscue by a camera assistant or operator, or by any of the actors, and the whole thing runs off the rails -- so imagine the pressure on those involved in the final ten minutes of each episode. In that sense, I'm reminded of a "closer" in baseball, coming in to nail down the win in the 9th inning: the three toughest outs of a game, where one slightly errant pitch can sink all the previous work by the entire team.
The actors are simply magnificent in this show. I usually found working with young actors to be problematic -- most hadn't yet acquired the acting chops to deliver a nuanced, fully rounded performance, and were one-trick ponies ... but this kid Owen Cooper blew it out of the water: he was astonishing, as were all the others, delivering some of the most authentic, wrenching performances I've ever seen on the small screen. They were all great in this show, rising to the occasion and then some.
As for "Friends and Neighbors" ... yeah, fun but certainly not compelling, which is fine. It beats the hell out of anything the increasingly irrrelevant broadcast networks have to offer, and sometimes "fun" is just fine. As we used to say on set: "Hey, we're not curing cancer here - we're just making TV."
Onward, into the mist...
All of this. All of it.
"Your Friends & Neighbors" was a dud.
Overall there was a jaundiced view toward everything: loyalties, friendships, material success, crime…you name it. It was very difficult to root for anyone, in particular - the protagonist. Jon Hamm’s deplorable villain sheriff in Fargo was at least…interesting.
Generating a convincing pathway toward empathy for a criminal is half the work television writers typical pull off. Not here. The problem? Too smug. Laughable conclusion. Beware. Stinker. Done.
Great observation about the voice over and the intentionality that falsely projects.
If only this puppy was “John from Cincinnati” bad, it might be redeemable…or at least be interesting to perform a postmortem exam on. But this isn’t just that the tone is off, or the inverting of story conventions that they couldn’t consistently nail down. OK, well a lot of it was that, and also some casting that widely missed the target.
I’ll confess that I would watch a spinoff featuring the pawn broker’s backstory.
The most maddening thing about it is that we are led to believe, in the voice overs, BY THE ACTUAL CHARACTER, that he's learned the hard way some valuable life lessons. I mean, they are doing this sincerely. Then when they have extracted him from doom, the series says, "Nope." Which is failure.
I’ve been a paid subscriber for several months, but every time I get a notification that there’s a new post, I come read it, and every single time, at the end it says it’s a free post and I should subscribe to see all the great stuff I’m paying for behind the paywall. And though it clearly shows the checked box confirming that I’m a subscriber, there’s no info that I can see to find all that great stuff. Help?
Hi Brian and thank you for being a paid subscriber. It’s kind of funny that you mention the “free” posts since last night I realized I hadn’t done one of those in about five weeks and decided to make this one free. Normally it’s about 4-1 paid. OK, now the important thing: I think you may be reading every post via email only (which is fine; many people do). However, all of the archives are on the actual Substack site, which for my purposes is: timgoodman.substack.com (and they are also on the app, which you can download if you’re interested via the site or one of the many posts that have that button at the bottom).
The desktop site is very clean and user friendly and your paid subscription accesses all the previous posts. I find that the more enjoyable way to read but the email “newsletters” are the gateway.
Let me know if you encounter any issues.
One of the problems with being a subscriber here is that sometimes less-than-par TV shows get bumped down the queue and replaced with new recommendations that are, well, better.
I've lost the list, but shows like "Families Like Ours" (and "Dept Q" and "Caught"), and sometimes less highbrow-but-entertaining shows (looking at you, "The Waterfront") push shows like "Your Friends & Neighbors" so far down the queue that I'm not sure I'll get to them.
This is a good problem though, right? Ha. I have to look into Caught. As for YF&N, there are very entertaining moments to it, but the premise is flawed because you wonder where it will go. Which is why I was so excited that it looked like it was going to pull a shocker and be a limited series, with belief restored. Unfortunately, no. That said, there are worse ways to spend an hour but there are also a TON of better ways to do that.