📺 Let's not bicker about caviar
Happy Thursday. If you’re in the middle of binge watching Jessica Jones or Daredevil, better finish quick (or plan to get a Disney+ subscription), because all Marvel shows on Netflix are heading there on March 16.
In today’s edition:
Mean Girls meets Lord of the Flies
If Aaron Sorkin wrote about French cinema
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a megalomaniac
Flailing 20-somethings
— Jenni Cullen and Jess Spoll
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Take your pick
We each choose a recent-ish show to review and feature every week.
If you liked the drama of Lost and the nostalgia of Stranger Things, try… Yellowjackets
Keywords: survival thriller, violence, drama, mystery
Watch if you like: Lost, Cruel Summer, The Wilds
Jess’s Rating: A+
Remember the excitement that you felt when you watched Lost for the first time? Watching the first season of Yellowjackets felt like that, but better. The show is centered around a high school girls’ soccer team that is headed to Nationals when their plane crashes and they are stranded in the wilderness. The story is told through the perspective of two timelines: after the plane crashes in 1996, and 25 years later when the remaining survivors are still dealing with the aftermath as middle-aged women.
The first episode made me wary — it’s pretty violent and, at times, brutally uncomfortable to watch. It gave me the impression that the show would be a purely distressing survival thriller that’s centered around the mystery teased in its opening scene. Keep watching. Over the course of the season the show becomes as much about the characters as the mystery, and it’s refreshing to see the portrayal of high school girls who haven’t been reduced to the typical tropes. The popular girl is charming but naïve, the weirdo is annoying but fearless. They’re unpredictable and you can’t figure out who to love and who to hate.
I have to include the disclaimer that this show, at times, made me physically ill. It’s gory and bloody and anxiety-producing. I’m the first person to hate gratuitous violence in tv shows, but it feels necessary to the plot here. And I’ll leave you with this — this is the best first season of television that I’ve seen in a long, long time.
Length: 1-hr runtime, 1 season / 10 episodes
Watch on: Showtime
If you’ve ever wondered how stars behave off camera, try… Call My Agent!
Keywords: French, comedy-drama, showbiz, ensemble cast
Watch if you like: Suits, Studio 60, Entourage
Jenni’s Rating: B+
Instead of focusing on the lives of glamorous actors, this showbiz comedy follows their talent agents — specifically those of the fictitious ASK firm in Paris, who are struggling to stay afloat now that their bigwig founder has passed away. In an attempt to keep their celebrity clients (played by real movie stars as versions of themselves) happy, the agents have to act far beyond their job titles — as personal assistants, babysitters, matchmakers, and shrinks. There’s a fair amount of manipulation and using others to get ahead in there as well...
The French title for this show, Dix Pour Cent (Ten Percent), is a nod to an agent’s commission, but one of the things that pulled me in so quickly is that you can tell the team at ASK aren’t just in it for the money. They believe in the art they’re helping to create. In the wake of more cynical shows like Succession or even House of Cards, this series lives somewhere closer to the idealistic world of The West Wing. It’s a show about people who love what they do, even if it makes them crazy. Amidst the wild demands of clients and drama in the agents’ family, work, and love lives, a through-line of loyalty and dignity in their craft prevails.
If you haven’t gathered it yet, this series is in French so, unless you’re fluent, you’ll need to watch with subtitles. You’ll get used to it quickly though, and I promise it’s worth it.
Length: ~1-hr runtime, 4 seasons / 24 episodes
Watch on: Netflix
We watched so you don’t have to
Where we feature a show that you may have been tempted to check out, but we’re here to tell you…it might not be worth it. 🤷♀️
Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber
Keywords: fictionalized documentary, drama, tech start-up
Similar to: The Social Network, Billions
Jess’s Rating: C-
It feels like TV is obsessed with docudramas about scammers and scummy people right now. We just got Inventing Anna last month, and shows about the crash of WeWork (WeCrashed) and fall of Elizabeth Holmes (The Dropout) premiere soon. This one follows the rise and fall of Uber’s founder and former CEO, Travis Kalanick.
I thought I’d give Super Pumped a chance because 1. I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt and 2. I don’t know much about the real story and thought it might be interesting. Maybe the tone will shift in subsequent episodes, but I felt like I was watching an ode to tech-bro culture. (To be fair, this is especially not appealing to me, as a former woman-in-tech). The show is obviously not designed to paint Kalanick in a positive light, but by focusing so intently on him and emphasizing how much of a typical Silicon Valley asshole he is, it feels like its own form of flattery.
I think Kalanick would watch this show and be pleased with how he’s portrayed, and he is probably just pleased in general that they made a show about him. Which is, I think, my whole issue with shows like these. Without a fresh perspective of their own, these shows feel like a bland regurgitation of facts at best, and a pedestal for their leading scummy people at worst.
— Jess
Length: 1-hr runtime, mini-series / 1 episode out so far with new episodes on Sundays
Watch on: Showtime
Previously On
Where we highlight shows that have long-since ended or been canceled, that are well-worth digging back up.
Please Like Me (2013 - 2016)
Keywords: charming, drama/comedy, depression, Australian
Watch if you like: Fleabag, Everything’s Gonna Be Ok, Crashing, Girls
Jenni’s Rating: A+
This review marks my fourth time watching this comedy (traumedy?) about mental illness, friendship, coming of age, and just...being alive in general. In the first minute of the pilot, the main character Josh is dumped by his girlfriend over the largest ice cream sundae you’ve ever seen. Shortly after, he kisses a boy for the first time and begins his new life as a 20-year-old gay man. At the end of the episode, he learns that his mother has attempted suicide.
Yikes, right? But Please Like Me portrays “laughing through the pain” and “deflecting with jokey bravado” better than any show I’ve ever seen. Explaining the premise can make the story sound heavy and dark, but I promise it’s equally silly and filled with color and life. Much of the series follows the same beautiful dance I loved so much in Fleabag — where shocking and dark scenes suddenly pivot to genuinely playful, and then, just when you’re laughing so much you think you can’t breathe, a moment of solemnity comes that truly takes your breath away.
Other notable elements: the ever-presence of delicious food (every episode is titled after a featured treat that Josh makes somewhere in the half-hour ep) and a genius title sequence that I will never skip.
Simply put, Please Like Me is the kind of show that makes you feel less alone. It has so much heart and continuously, earnestly forces the viewer accept the fact that not everything can be fixed...and that’s ok.
Length: ~30-min episodes, 4 seasons / 32 episodes
Watch on: Hulu
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Your shows, returned:
Top Chef, Season 19: Premieres March 3 on Bravo
Star Trek: Picard, Season 2: Premieres March 3 on Paramount+
The Problem with Jon Stewart, Season 1: Returns from hiatus March 3 on Apple TV+
Central Park, Season 3: Premieres March 4 on Apple TV+
Outlander, Season 6: Premieres March 6 on Starz
Transplant, Season 2: Premieres March 6 on NBC
Survivor, Season 42: Premieres March 9 on CBS
Kung Fu, Season 2: Premieres March 9 on The CW
The Last Kingdom, Season 5: Premieres March 9 on Netflix
The Flash, Season 8: Returns from hiatus March 9 on The CW
The Masked Singer, Season 7: Premieres March 9 on Fox
Good Trouble, Season 4: Premieres March 9 on Freeform