poptransmission

Category: TV

  • Netflix’s A Nearly Normal Family: A Murder in the Swedish Suburbs

    Netflix continues to provide an array of compelling international programming. I love hearing the different languages (I would never dream of watching a foreign film dubbed in English) and exotic locales. Sweden is the setting for Netflix’s new limited series, A Nearly Normal Family. The Sandells – Adam, a local priest, Ulrika, a local attorney,…

  • True Detective: Night Country – A Spooky Chill in Dark Alaska

    In 2014, True Detective offered a fresh take on crime dramas. It was a swampy thriller, set in voodoo-land Louisiana, starring mismatched detectives played by Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. It was HBO’s highest-rated debut since Six Feet Under, 13 years earlier. The second season in 2015, starring Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams, moved to…

  • Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2023 Induction Ceremony

    The Rock Hall continued moving on from old white guys to a more diverse group of artists and musical styles, exemplified no better than this year’s headline inductee, Missy Elliott (on the heels of last year’s Dolly Parton). Here’s a complete list of the 2023 inductees: For the first time, the Induction Ceremony was livestreamed…

  • All the Light We Cannot See: An Uneven Adaptation of the Best-Selling Novel

    Here we go again…a favorite novel gets the greenlight from Netflix. A time for anticipation and possible disappointment. If the novel in question is the Pulitzer Prize winning, enormously popular, All the Light We Cannot See those feelings are heightened. How will the tone balance human hope and desire with the misery and fear of…

  • You Betcha, Fargo is Back for Season 5

    (This was an early review of the first two episodes of the new season of Fargo. Fargo airs on FX Tuesday nights at 10:00 p.m. and is available to stream on Hulu the following day.) “This is a true story.” Fargo is back to the Midwest after a detour to Kansas City. There’s something about…

  • The Gilded Age: Old Money V. New Money in NYC

    The Gilded Age: a term coined by Mark Twain, to refer to the period between Reconstruction and the Progressive Era (1877-1900). A time of serious social problems masked by a thin gold gilding of economic expansion. A pejorative phrase for materialistic excess combined with extreme poverty. The TV series focuses on the privileged wealthy, and…

  • Israeli TV Crime Thrillers: More International Intrigue from Netflix

    German, French, Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Russian, Japanese, South Korean. I’ve really enjoyed the polyglot of languages on Netflix programming. (Some Americans would add the U.K. and Ireland to the list of countries whose TV programming requires subtitles.) Netflix has made international programs accessible and easy for many who previously might have shied away…

  • The Diplomat: Netflix’s Surprisingly Delicious Political Drama

    Career diplomat, Kate Wyler (Keri Russell, The Americans), reluctantly accepts reassignment to the U.K. as U.S. ambassador. Her husband Hal (Rufus Sewell, The Man in the High Castle), also a diplomat, accompanies her to London. He’s got swagger, a high profile, and a penchant for the limelight. Their roles have reversed; she’s driving the relocation…

  • Dark Winds: AMC’s Crime Drama Set on the Navajo Nation is Back for Season Two

    “Backup. What backup? We have 50 tribal officers for over 27,000 square miles.” That captures the isolation of the Navajo Nation in 1971, the setting for AMC’s crime thriller, Dark Winds. The series is based on the Leaphorn and Chee books by Tony Hillerman. Zahn McClarnon (Longmire, Fargo #2) stars as Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. It’s…

  • Justified: City Primeval: Marshal Givens is Back, This Time in the Big City

    Reboots continue to be the go-to for many a television studio. You name it – comedy, drama, reality, animated – no genre is safe from revisiting the well of a hit TV show. Night Court, Dexter, Beavis and Butthead, Will & Grace, and Party Down, just to name a handful, have been brought back to…

  • A Small Light: Another Remarkable Untold Saga of WWII

    I’ve marveled in previous posts about the number of unknown and unbelievable stories from our history. World War II is particularly full of heroic human accomplishments (see one example in a previous post Operation Mincemeat: Netflix’s Absurd, Extraordinary, and True WWII Drama). We all know the basics of Anne Frank’s life during wartime thanks to…

  • Black Mirror: The Dystopian Anthology Returns for Season Six

    I was late to Black Mirror, Netflix’s anthology based on the Twilight Zone. My wife and I caught up on the show during the pandemic. It launched in 2011 on the British network Channel 4 and ran for two three-episode seasons. (I’ll stick to calling them “seasons,” not the confusing term “series,” that Netflix uses.)…