Category: TV

(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: 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…

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…

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…

“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…

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…

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…

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.)…

(This is a re-post from 2021 to recognize Never Have I Ever’s fourth and final season which Netflix just released on June 8th. It’s a cute, satisfying show if you haven’t checked it out yet. Season four is ten episodes, each running about 30 minutes. As with some other high school shows (Sex Education, for…

“The following is based on a true story. No names have been changed to protect the innocent because nearly everyone was found guilty.” Then as you see a band of misfits failing to gain entry through a locked door, “There were four Watergate break-in attempts. This was number two.” So, begins HBO’s tale of the…

Some of you have probably seen this series starring Christina Applegate (Married with Children) as Jen Harding and Linda Cardellini (ER) as Judy Hale. For those of you who haven’t, Dead to Me is uneven at times, but the compelling and endearing lead women make it all worthwhile. They’re confounding and irresistible. James Mardsen (Robot…