Email Roundtable #54 – Orphan Black Once Again

/ Katie Man / Leave a comment

This week, Kerri and Katie attempt to discuss the first four episodes of season 4 of Orphan Black.

Kerri: Well, Katie, welcome back to Clone Club. While we’ve lost most of the Castor Clones this season (thank god, or whatever higher power you pray to as a Neolutionist – science, I guess?), we’ve gained some Leda clones, namely M.K., aka Mika, aka Veera Suominin. We’ve also made it to episode 4, “From Instinct to Rational Control”, in this fourth season and we’re veering toward what is likely to be the story arc of this year, that of the Brightborn project and a new nemesis in the form of the luminous and way too perfect looking, Evie Cho. I know you planned on doing some “research” before staring this Roundtable, Katie. With that additional knowledge in mind, would you like to give a general rundown of where we are in this sprawling story, if that’s even possible? Continue reading →

Bee Minus

/ GoldenAgeGuest / Leave a comment

Sadly, I have been neglectful of good ol’ narrative TV as of late. I have a buffet of season 3 of The Americans waiting for me so I have bright future of great episodic TV. But I do find those who do the daily grind of putting together TV shows to be very interesting and how I gobble up my free hours. News, sports, talk shows all rush and struggle to put on a show only to have it be carried off by the wind and then they must roll the boulder up the hill the next day. I always felt  it is unjust when the HBO talkshows would win Emmy Awards. As Dennis Miller, Chris Rock had to and John Oliver and Bill Maher have to, cobble together a half-hour every week for about half-a-year rather than their counterparts who have put together an hour every frickin’ night. Notwithstanding, the tremendous burden that the never-seen production staff have to put up with.

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The Reality Myth: life is not what it seems on unREAL

/ kwoloszyn / Leave a comment

I’ve made terrible TV mistakes in the past. I once wrote a very glowing essay on this very blog after the first episode of The Affair (I still stand by my thoughts about that first episode), essentially declaring that it would likely be the next-best, must-watch, prestige drama of the season. I’ve since stopped watching the show outright, realizing that what I thought was thoughtful, smart tricks in plotting and characterization was actually, maybe just not knowing who the characters were. And that any amount of shouting couldn’t cover up not so great writing. And so I’m usually a little slow to assert my opinion about a show, I’ll wait a few episodes before saying anything one way or another. This wasn’t the case while watching Lifetime’s drama unREAL (the show originally aired last summer and I’m just catching up with it now). After watching the first two episodes I was telling anyone who would listen that the show was brilliant and unique and my favourite new thing. And then I watched the rest of the season. That’s not to say I made a mistake about unREAL – in fact, my fondness for the first season still rivals some of my favourite new shows from last year – it just proved that, in many ways like the show it skewers, it wasn’t exactly what it seemed. Continue reading →

Be-League’rd

/ GoldenAgeGuest / 1 Comment

It struck me as quizzical as to where my monthly Shaw bill was. I’m ol’ school – l pay bills by writing cheques and buying stamps. But by some sort of a mix up my Shaw bills were emailed to me and that left me with a whopping sum after a few months. I did notice that I had not cancelled the streaming service “Shomi”. So, I did some password recovery and dialed it up.

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Channel Surfing #7 – Drinks Edition: Horace and Pete, The People Vs. OJ Simpson, Baskets, Broad City, Kevin Morby

/ kwoloszyn / 2 Comments

Sit Down and Have a Beer

We live in a curious age. An age where the extremely wealthy (and moderately creative) can cobble together vanity projects and drop them online, somewhat secretly, and get them out to an enormous audience. Recently, Louis CK went the Kanye route and corralled a group of his most famous actor friends, made a little show, and put it on his website. The result is Horace and Pete, a show that harkens back to the days of the multi-cam sitcom, most specifically Cheers (one of the first pleasures of the show is when you realize that they’ve done a lovely job paying homage to the Cheers set). The show stars CK as Horace and Steve Buscemi as Pete, owners of a family-run bar (called Horace and Pete’s) in Brooklyn. The bar has been passed down through the family for over 100 years, from fathers to sons all named either Horace or Pete. Alan Alda plays the curmudgeonly, spiky-tongued, racist, Uncle Pete, the bartender, who will only serve beer or straight alcohol, no mixed drinks. Edie Falco plays Horace’s sister, Sylvia, who is in a particularly a bad spot. There are a number of other actors you will immediately recognize and many other character actors that stop by for a drink (you’ll be pointing at the screen and saying, “that guy!” multiple times while watching).

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Oscar Autopsy

/ GoldenAgeGuest / Leave a comment

It is the night when Hollywood’s biggest stars come out to shine. I like that the juggernaut of film has to submit to its kid sister of television to get its pageant to the masses. This year I went full boar to take it in as one of the biggest nights on the television calendar. Snacks! Bubbly liquor! Extensive red carpet pre-show watching! So I was already committed to this monstrosity of tuxes and bouffants for hours before the telecast itself began. Continue reading →

Gillian Jacobs’ Face: the Heart of Love

/ Jane Walker / Leave a comment

love_0

WARNING SPOILERS in the last paragraph

Like most Judd Apatow offerings, Love is a mixed bag. Created by Apatow, Paul Rust, and Lesley Arfin the Netflix Original series stars Gillian Jacobs and Rust as star-crossed love interests Mickey and Gus. I binge-watched Love over a weekend and have piles and piles of notes on the show. The pilot is contrived, the pace is sluggish and Paul Rust (while comically effective) over-plays his hand when given material that’s emotional. However, none of that is what I want to talk about. Continue reading →