There is much that is unexpected this week – a show finally made it from the Backlist to actual official watching! And also unexpectedly, I did not enjoy it. Plus a potentially fresh take on Star Wars, and a show I knew nothing about until a social media post! Let’s get going!
A Man on the Inside
A Man on the Inside is on Netflix
So something has finally properly jumped from the Televigion Backlist to main event! Well done ! It is about a character played by Ted Danson who takes a job as an amateur assistant to a private investigator looking into a case of jewellery theft in an old people’s home by posing as a new resident. It is also based on a 2020 documentary, called The Mole Agent.
This show came very highly recommended from friends, from various sources on social media, and has some very glowing reviews from the Guardian and on Screenrant.
Of course, it is also from creator Michael Schur who has an incredible pedigree of well-loved shows, although admittedly none would be on my list of top shows ever, and some I have more serious issues with1. That sentence sounds ominious doesn’t it.
Yeesh, that first episode. It was full of horribly clunking exposition in multiple scenes. Ted Danson cannot help but be watchable and charming, but the poor writing was very obvious in the mouths of his daughter and her husband, and the Private Investigator. It really didn’t feel like it hung together, and needed at least one more polish for me. I actually watched this with the Televigion Mum and the Televigion Wife and both rolled their eyes at my description partway through that it was a comedy. None of us laughed, and there were possibly two smiles between us in half an hour.
I wondered if it was trying to be Only Murders in the Building.
Given how well regarded it seemed to be though, I thought I would watch episode 2, in case the first episode was an anomaly and just bedding in. But no.
The long sequence where Ted Danson’s son-in-law is describing the escapades of his three children on a trampoline was so very boring and hard to follow, and not at all funny. This made me wonder if the whole thing is overwritten? It feels like there is no-one in the writing team saying “is this boring?” or “where are the jokes?”. It also feels quite worthy, and thinks it might be important or different, which is also how I eventually felt about The Good Place. As ever, this is subjective, but if me, my mum and my wife, who cover quite a wide groundwork of preference and opinion are really not into something, I don’t think it can be completely ignored.
Overall it feels unhoned – baggy and loose, particularly juxtaposed with the visual attempts to do interesting split screen montage like a spy thriller. The mystery is boring, and the comedy is weak. It’s strange to be on the opposite side to the accepted view.
Sorry Ted Danson, I still love you.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is on Disney+
As I think I have previously mentioned, I have morphed from an ardent and committed fan to an aware but careful viewer of Star Wars2. I’ll usually wait to hear some sort of consensus of where on the landscape a new series falls, tempered with my own interests in the mythology. The Acolyte sounded very intriguing but had me bored within an episode and a bit. Andor is some of the best TV in years. It’s a spectrum.
I was very wary when Skeleton Crew opened with a very generic blaster fight between lots of unindentified humans and aliens I didn’t care about3, but then immediately after the title card, I was much more interested. We got to meet one of the four young leads, a character called Wim, playing with Jedi action figures in his stylish bedroom. And not just playing, but very naturalistically being a young boy. The whole design of the house, the street and the world felt fresh and new, seemingly based on a futurist 1950s in the Star Wars universe. This felt in the same spirit as Andor. I was hopeful Skeleton Crew was another show that could find a new vein of interest in a Star Wars universe desiccated by overexposure.
And then suddenly there was a pitcher of blue milk, and we’re back to the fan-service and self-referencing. But in actual fact, though it veers between pretty good and a bit rubbish, Skeleton Crew definitely falls on the positive side of the Star Wars spectrum for me.
Although I’ve seen rumblings of uncertainty over Neel, I was very impressed that they are committing to a child main character of a non-human species in what appeared to be an animatronic mask4. Even if it has been enhanced by CGI, it feels physical and I’m impressed.
The lead girl Fern is not quite as natural. The first scene between Wim and Fern outside the school office was a bit stilted, but that is likely poor direction given that both actors are better elsewhere. The fourth lead KB hasn’t had as much to do, but I’m sure we’ll get to know her.
As with Neel, I love what feels like genuine tooted physicality in the show, not another blue-screen untethered to reality fest. The ship they discover feels incredibly mechanical as it wakes up, full of primary coloured buttons and pistons and fun adventure. I think it is trying to be a family action adventure from the 1980s, and I like it.
It had some very funny moments, including Wim and Neel falling down a slope that was perfectly silly, and headphones dropping down from a pilot’s seat as a clue that the whole discovered ship was upside down.
And at the end of episode one, the four children are zooming off into the Star Wars universe! That’s a pretty decent statement of intent, and a fun if occasionally stilted opening episode. I will certainly be watching more.
Jentry Chau vs The Underworld
Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld is on Netflix
My original third watch for this week was a Christmas rom-com recommended to me by loyal contributor and first-rate family member GauntletGirl, but I’m saving that for next week with other festive treats.
This was a show I found completely out of the BlueSky5. I follow Jack Bernhardt on there, originally thanks to the briefest of crossovers when we were both sketch acts at the Edinburgh Fringe, and I saw the following recommendation
I didn’t know the lead writer of this show, James Hamilton, but on the basis of the episode of this I’ve watched, I will be following what he does from now on. The same goes for the showrunner Echo Wu, though it is her first show. It’s a show full of energy and humour and with a vibrant and not over explained mythology, apparently “blending elements of Chinese mythology6 and Texan culture7“.
It has fun and inventive vocal performances, and properly kinetic animation. The cut from the streets outside in Seoul, where the series beings, to inside the apartment and the corresponding change in colour palette was arresting. It showed me it cared about colour and definition of place.
Yes, as a pilot it’s all very expected in terms of plot points (16th birthday, mentor sacrificed, troubled past with uncontrolled powers) but the wit and style carries it through. And Mr Cheng is delightfully horrible as the antagonist in episode 1, and most likely beyond.
I haven’t had a good animation to dive into for a while! It is very welcome.
Expected Ending
I’m pleased with the range of what we’ve discussed this week, and that it is still possible to find things you don’t expect. Next week will be fairly traditional for this time of year, with much Christmas festivity, and I have plans for some deeper dives over the festive period.
Today is also the day that the Christmas Radio Times is out, so I imagine we’ll dissect that a little next time too. Do any of you still circle everything you want to watch, make a chronological list in a notebook and carry it everywhere you go? Yeah, I thought so.
The Televigion Backlist
- LAST CHANCE Barry (Now/Sky TV)
- LAST CHANCE Last Man on Earth (Disney+)
Footnotes
- A writer on Saturday Night Live, then on The US Office, co-created Parks and Recreation, co-created Brooklyn Nine-Nine and created The Good Place. SNL is obviously just an excellent training ground not to be judged, I loved The Office but his input is hard to gauge/separate, but Parks and Recreation never quite got me to care enough, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is good but disposable, and The Good Place often opted for clever rather than funny after it did its perfect switcheroo at the end of season 1. ↩︎
- And also of the Marvel Cinetelevisual Smörgåsbord, with more current interest thanks to the wonders of Agatha All Along. ↩︎
- Who is that sequence for? Are there genuinely Star Wars fans who need to see a blaster and some recognisable alien species or they’ll switch off immediately? ↩︎
- I have since read that it is a mix of the child actor, an adult in an animatronic mask and performance capture. Even more impressive. ↩︎
- I assume most people know this might be the big new thing in social media, particularly since Twitter X-ited reality. BlueSky is in fact quite like Twitter of 15 years ago. ↩︎
- This is an interesting interview with the showrunner Echo Wu and lead actress Ali Wong, whose stand up special I enjoyed when I could still watch stand up. ↩︎
- Here’s another one. ↩︎
Televigion 