Andrea Maderna

I watched The Strain more or less while it was being released and I had a lot of fun with it, but for some reason I never watched the final season. A few weeks ago, for some reason, I watched it. And I had a lot of fun with it. It’s got a nice B movie vibe, it’s competently made, there’s always a lot of momentum in the narration, there’s at least a couple of great episodes in every season, I liked the characters (Vasiliy Fet is amazing and I don’t understand how Kevin Durand doesn’t have a better career as the “co-starring” charismatic guy), the apocalyptic melodrama vibe is entertaining. The finale works and does what it has to do. Also, in season 4, that kind of second tier Paul Bettany, Quinlan, has got a line that’s very on the nose, like the whole show, but for some reason stayed with me: “Whipping yourself won’t make you stronger, it will only distract you”. So I had fun and I also found some meaning in it: what more should I ask for?

Poker Face is Natasha Lyonne doing her version of Columbo, with the mannerisms, the “wait, one more thing”, the chilled attitude and the fact that we know the culprit before she/he does. Plus, there’s the usual Lyonne vibe, a pseudo-superpower that makes things more bizarre, and an A-Team-like setup in which se has been framed and she roams around the USA helping people. Also, she kinda is like the comicbook Mickey Mouse, solving crimes while not being a cop. All of this is in a show that starts relatively “tame” but slowly becomes visually and structurally more and more ambitious, with some many homages to different kinds of detective stories and meta elements. It was created by Rian Johnson and it’s lovely.

What a wonderful season. Episode three is out of this world but the whole season is incredible, every character has got a moment of glory, there’ amazing people coming from the bench (look at James Cromwell scoring 20 and dishing 13 assists in the funeral episode), it’s got a perfect, inevitable, smart, on point ending. This is one of the best shows of the last few years and one of the best shows ever.

The end of season 1 worried me, I feared they were gonna continue adding mysteries and questions without ever giving answers and ultimately end up boring me to hell. I was wrong. Season 2 keeps the tempo going, finds a strong direction for the story, continues playing smartly on the balance between mental health issues and actual fantastical elements (even though they clearly are pushing towards a more horrorish kind of storytelling) and it kinda finds a strong ending that ties everything up. There’s still a lot to tell, of course, but this could be a series finale. So I want to go on, because I have fun spending time with these crazy characters and those amazing actresses (and Elijah Wood!).

I know a few people didn’t like this season and I do understand its highs are not as high as those frome the previous two but I wonder if it’s also a matter of too much hype. Because I kinda got what I wanted from it: a few more hours with characters I love, one or two beautifule episodes (Amsterdam!), lots of laughs, some strong emotions and a lot of good work on ancillary characters (which is what matters: as Ted says, he wasn’t the point).

This is Going to Hurt is a Buffy spin-off centered on the life of an obstetrician who works in public health. I mean, it's not really a Buffy spin-off but it kinda is: everyboyd always has got a pointy answer to everything, all characters are in a constant battle for who's more sarcastic, the show tackles hard themes in an effortless way, there's a constant silly vibe that makes all the thematic heavyness quite tolerable, characters and actors are all irresistible, when it wants to punch you in the guts it's devastating and the main character's mother is a vampire.

Season 2 does almost everything season 1 did. It's violent, dark, filled with charismatic characters and faces (but not Joe Cole, Joe Cole is terrible), with so many plot twists and double/triple reversals that kinda get to a ridiculous point but keeps it fun until the end. The "almost" is because Gareth Evans didn't direct a single episode and because of that there isn't a single action scene on par with those two or three amazing action scenes we saw in season 1. Is the rest enough? I'm not sure.

Unpopular opinion: this is the best of the first three seasons. It finally knows what it is and what it wants to be. It's where the mix between having a storyline but also being the center of the Filoniverse works best. It's where Mando being someone who ends up as a witness to stuff much greater than him, where he contributes but he's not the main character, also works best. Also, the "greater" stuff is finally something relevant to him and not to the Skywalker family. Plus, for the first time, the more standalone episodes didn't bore me to hell. It's a simple, fun show, much better than the other two recent "classical Star Wars" shows.

Also: I kinda binged in a few days, which probably helped me with the slower parts and made me appreciate more the horizontal plot, which basically has got 5 minutes per episodes.

Also: if this season came out a year ago, the third episode would have been such a fascinating, ambitious, smart "bottle episode". But in 2023 it's the Wish version of Andor. Maybe it's better if Filoni and Favreau stick to blasters and sabers.

I’m in love with Hugo Blick since The Honourable Woman came out so of course I was super excited about him making a western centered on Emily Blunt. And what a beauty it is. A revisionist western that shoots in all directions, mixing melodrama, adventure, some very silly stuff, tragedy, humor, grandeur, while showing some amazing vistas, incredibles skies and a very strong cast of actors. Emily Blunt, Chaske Spencer e Rafe Spall are astonishing and everybody else is so good too.

I watched the first three episodes back then in 2021 and - maybe because I’m particularly attuned with Barry Jenkins' aesthetics - I immediately loved them but for some reason (maybe I didn’t want to watch something so depressing?) I left it at that. Recently I probably decided I wanted to watch something so depressing and I binged the rest of the series. And, well, wow. I can’t think of many other TV shows so well put together, with such a pure cinematic sense. Sure, there are some, but not many. Plus, the actors are all great, the bizarre narrative structure keeps it fresh until the end and sure, you have to like the frankly pompous narration style of Barry Jenkins but I like it, so…

A weak season, with the usual bunch of great ideas but also some others that don’t really work. The sum of all the parts is still watchable and entertaining but quite far from greatness.

Fleishman is in Trouble has got everything. The actors are great and perfectly cast, it’s visually ambitious and there’s such rich writing, that tackles midlife crisis, couples in troubles, abuses, nevrosis, bad healthcare, classwar, parenthood, small hypocrisies, trauma, being unable to communicate and everything else you could think of. It’s maybe a bit stretched here and there but when it works it’s amazing and that penultimate episode is out of this world.

I think this is even better than season 1, because it’s about more things, it goes deeper and the balance between farce and pure drama is more finely tuned. And even though once again the murder mystery is not the point, this time it also gets quite thrilling when it wants to. The cast is amazing, Meghann Fahy is so much better than anyone else but everybody is great and Jennifer Coolidge is the best version of Jennifer Coolidge that Jennifer Coolidge ever played.

We approached Bad Sisters because we love Sharon Horgan and we weren’t disappointed. I never watched the original Belgian show but this one is good, funny, modern, cynical and with a nice ending that ties everything up. Even though here and there I though it was taking too much time to make things happen and I’m not sure the balancing act between drama and comedy always works. The choice to announce a second season puzzles me but I guess we’ll see what they do.

I started watching it with my wife because we were both intrigued but after two episodes she gave up because the horror-ish elements disturbed her. I didn’t touch it for something like ten months, then I decided I wanted to go on but the third and fourth episodes bored me to hell. I started to feel like they were filling it with ideas, questions and mysteries with the intention of dragging them for season after season. Then I heard they already planned five seasons and I died inside. But I tried episode 5 and it was fun. So I persisted and I actually really enjoyed the rest of the season, particularly the really, really good final two episodes. So, It was good. I loved all the actresses, I loved the Nineties soundtrack, I enjoyed the genre mish-mash, but it still kinda gave me the feeling that it’s one of those shows I will not be eagerly waiting for year after year and I will end up losing track of. I guess we’ll see.

I'm not sure if it is better than season one but I’m sure it's got that sense of confidence based on acquired knowledge of what you are doing, the characters, the setting, everything. They know what they are doing, they are confident, they are effective. What a good show.

It continues to be extremely consistent, entertaining and full of ideas.

I watched the first three episodes and it was like looking into the abyss that haunts my soul.

I was watching the first episode, I found it dull, childishly written, incapable of giving depth to story and characters... after 30 minutes I gave up.

A bit boring but it's fine.

I wanted to believe because back then I loved the comicbook but this show is nothing more than a decent thing I would have watched ten years ago but is not enough in today's TV landscape. I still wanted to go on watching it but then they canceled it and so #solong

It's visually amazing but I watched three episodes and I found it sooo boring.

I watched the first episode and it surprised me in how it was able to (mostly) avoid the easy trashyness it could have gotten into. I also liked the choice of de-masking Master Chief, if only because it would make people angry, even though I see Pablo Schreiber and I think Pornstache. I never watched episode two.

Better than I feared, I guess.

Gary Oldman said he's ready for retirement and he will only act in Slow Horses until it ends. And that's it: he's old, he's got other things to do. I agree, especially because I twenty years younger and I've been feeling the same way for ten years already. And anyway, it's a good way to go out: he's amazing, the show is ambitious (that first sequence!), tense, entertaining, and the whole cast is pitch perfect. Great fun.

Andor is the best Star Wars "thing" that.

Bluey's third season (or at leats the part already available on Disney+) confirms and underlines what I already knew: it's the best show on TV. I already said I everything I had to say when I wrote about it after watching the first two seasons so I got nothing else to add besides bonjour pavlova!

By now I put Big Mouth in the same "relax zone" Rick and Morty is. I'm always there for them because I love the shows, I love the characters, I love they intelligent way they tackle certain themes, but also because there's always a couple of great episodes and they don't take too much of my time. At the same time though, I feel their best years are long gone and maybe they should end before things start to go really bad.

Industry does something that i love: 85% of the time I have no fucking idea of what they are doing or talking about and still I find it riveting like my life depended on it. Or my cat's life, at least. The cast is amazing, so full of new faces and/or old faces that do something completely unexpected. The soundtrack, production design, costumes, everything is impeccable. And the direction is really ambitious, with stuff like "Let's shoot this stock exchange operation like if it was a bank heist directed by Michael Mann". Season 1 is all about explaining the context, season 2 is about the charactes and what they have inside. I have no idea what they are going to do with season 3 but the premise is really good and I can't wait.