TV Reviews: Never Have I Ever, Seasons 1-3, Netflix, and The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022), Amazon Studios.

You may have noticed that it's been a little slow the last week here at The Memory Cache blog. There's a reason for that (well, several reasons), but the main one is that I've been putting most of my creative time and energy into my music lately. That happens sometimes! There are only so many hours in the day, have you noticed?  The good news though is that I will be releasing several new singles (with videos) in the very near future. I'll have more news about that soon.

In the meantime, today I thought I'd do short reviews of two lightweight but entertaining series with similar themes and scenarios, one each from Netflix and Amazon Studios.

Netflix's offering, Never Have I Ever, is now in its third season. The story is centered on a brilliant but socially insecure teenage girl, Devi Vishwakumar (played charmingly by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). 

Devi is the daughter of a successful East Indian immigrant family in California. She is trying to figure out high school, romance and sex, and how to be popular and socially successful in a typical American school, while surrounded at home with all the influences, expectations and strict rules for girls of her family's traditional Indian culture. 

But that's not quite all of it. At the same time she's dealing with all her own teenage insecurities, family problems, new desires and her drive to succeed in school and with her friends, she's also trying to navigate the psychological devastation of her father's unexpected recent death, and the void it's left in her life, as well as that of her physician mother.  

With all that apparent heaviness, it might seem that this show might be depressing or serious, but in fact, it's anything but that. This is definitely intended as a situational comedy. It depicts the real and common teenage adjustment problems of bright girls from immigrant families in their teenage years, but with a soft touch, and plenty of amusing humor and sensitivity.  The episodes are only a half hour each, so it's easy light entertainment. Recommended.

Amazon's series The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022), tells the story of Belly (real name Isabella Chung, played by Lola Tung), an Asian-American girl who returns at age 15 (going on 16) with her mother and older brother to the lovely summer home of a wealthy white family with whom they have been sharing summer vacations since Belly's early childhood. 

The backstory on this "melded family" is that the two mothers have been best friends since college, and both are now having marital issues with their respective husbands. More important to Belly, though, is that for the first time, she is seeing her two "older brothers" in the other family with a romantic eye, at the same time they are noticing her as a blossoming young woman instead of just a sort of fondly regarded kid sister or cousin.  

This sets up a love triangle situation (fairly innocent in terms of any actual behavior other than kissing) which somewhat taxed my credulity, since most kids I have known who grew up in these kinds of close family/friend situations tend to look elsewhere for romance. But still, I'll concede it's not impossible.

Along with the main romantic story line of Belly and the two brothers in the other family, there are a number of other family and young adult challenges, including how the children deal with their parents' breakups, the differences in outlook between the middle class Asian family and their rich friends (and their community), an adult extra-marital affair or two in the mix, Belly's involvement in an upper class social "coming out" process at the behest of her mother's friend, and the threat of a potentially fatal disease to one of the parents, with its emotional impacts on the family members.  In other words, there is plenty of grist for the drama mill.

This 7-part series, which apparently has been renewed for a second season, is more earnest and less comedic than Never Have I Ever, but still tells a watchable story of families and their teenagers' early strivings and romantic longings, in the context of friendships that cross both class and racial lines in modern America. It's not serious drama, but it is a reasonable entertainment if you enjoy watching family stories aimed at young adult audiences and situations. Recommended.

TV Review: The Rings of Power (Lord of the Rings), Season 1. Amazon Prime.

There isn’t really enough of this new television series available to do a proper review yet: the long-awaited prequel story from Amazon Studios, which takes place a thousand or more years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy trilogy The Lord of the Rings, was just launched on the 1st of September, with only the first two episodes available so far. New episodes will appear every Friday through the end of the first season.

Still, I wanted to share my first impressions and some information about the show immediately. I believe this is likely to become an immensely popular series, because it appears to be far above the standard of much of the new programming I’ve watched lately, and it brings new content to one of the greatest and most popular intellectual properties of our times.

The Rings of Power is not exactly based on a book or book series – instead, it is loosely based on the notes and appendices the author, J.R.R. Tolkien, included in The Lord of the Rings, and other writings, in which he sketched out the elaborate histories of ancient peoples, wars, cultures, languages and characters in his imaginary world of Middle Earth.

This lack of a specific and well-known plot is probably an advantage for the producers and writers, and the viewers as well, in that unlike Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which were beloved and well-known books, read by millions of readers over generations before they were successfully made into movies, this series is more of a blank slate in terms of the stories to be told.

Of course, we do have an expectation about the quality of the TV shows, and what their look and feel should be, based on Peter Jackson’s fabulous Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movie trilogies. This new TV show does not disappoint in that respect at all. The first two episodes feature gorgeous mythical landscapes, ancient maps, and high-definition scenes of the characters, costumes and settings, looking very similar to the fantasy world that Jackson created for his two series.

On the other hand, there are some subtle differences – it’s an earlier time in Middle Earth history. The races, their homes and their wardrobes are not identical (for example, the proto-Hobbits are called Harfoots), and most noticeably, this series is more inclusive and diverse than the Jackson movies in terms of the actors and characters, a welcome improvement that reflects the changing times and improved opportunities for minority performers since Jackson’s movies were made.

One similarity to the movies is the numerous parallel stories to be followed, as we constantly switch back and forth from one to another. There are also a few familiar characters, most notably Galadriel, the Elven Queen of the Lord of the Rings stories (played so brilliantly by Cate Blanchett in the Jackson films). Galadriel is also present, and clearly a central figure, in this earlier epic too (elves being more or less immortal, or at least very long-lived). We see her here at a younger age (played by Morfydd Clark), as a warrior and Elf leader, obsessively following the trail of the missing Dark Lord Sauron, even while her fellow elves want to believe he has passed away.

But as with Lord of the Rings, there are many other races, characters and stories to be told too, and battles to be fought, as the dark shadow of Sauron’s evil begins to fall across Middle Earth in this earlier age. And we know in advance there are rings of power to be forged, rings that will become so important in the later stories with which we are more familiar.

One of the interesting things I have read out about the making of this show, which is noteworthy from an entertainment business standpoint, is that it is being made with the personal financial backing of Jeff Bezos. He has ordered five seasons, because he is apparently a huge fan of Tolkien’s stories, and perhaps also because he’s looking for his own multimedia fictional universe property for Amazon to control, like the worlds of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Marvel and DC comics that are owned by other studios. One positive aspect of his involvement is that there’s little risk the show will fail too soon for lack of ratings, or for poor quality due to lack of production resources – it would appear we’re going to get five well-produced seasons, whether it’s hugely popular or not.  

But I doubt that’s much of a risk. I’m reasonably confident, based on what I’ve seen so far, that this series is headed for greatness. I've been told that not everyone is a dedicated fan of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, so if you’re not, this might not be your cup of tea. But if you are – watch this show. Highly recommended.

TV Review: Dark Winds (2022). AMC+.

I just finished watching the first season of this very good new mystery series, based on the Tony Hillerman series of novels and characters, and co-produced by George R.R. Martin (of Game of Thrones fame) and Robert Redford.

The story takes place in the early 1970s, on a Navajo reservation in the Southwest. The tribal police chief, Joe Leaphorn (convincingly played by Zahn McClarnon, who also played tribal police chief Matthias in Longmire), is trying to solve several crimes on the reservation which he suspects may be linked, with the help of a new deputy, Jim Chee (Kiowa Gordon), and Joe's more experienced female deputy, Bernadette Manuelito (Jessica Matten).

What stands out about this series is the way it weaves together traditional crime story elements with many culturally and historically relevant factors for the time and place. For example, there is a Native American militant group involved in a deadly armored car robbery in a nearby town, which is being tracked by a cynical and shady FBI agent as well as by the Navajo police. This leads to the usual jurisdictional conflicts, very true to life, between tribal authorities, the federal government and the FBI.

There is murder on the reservation too. There are Navajo traditional spiritual beliefs to be considered, and perhaps even some black magic, along with rural poverty, discrimination and the lives blighted by it, that all must be factored into the process of solving the crimes. And there is the lingering aftermath of an explosion at a uranium mine on the reservation that took several native workers’ lives, and the unresolved mysteries surrounding that community trauma.

It took me a couple of episodes to warm up to this series, but then I began to really appreciate the authentic characters, the complex plot, the growing suspense and the sensitive portrayals of native life and family dynamics. I also thought the show created convincingly realistic challenges for Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito to face in trying to solve these crimes, and provide good law enforcement and social justice for their people, in the harsh and often hostile environment of the reservation. 

From what I can find on the internet, it appears that this series has been continued for at least another season. I look forward to more episodes of this entertaining new mystery show from AMC+ whenever it returns for that new season.  Recommended.

TV Review: The Gilded Age, Season 1 (HBO Max). 2022.

The Gilded Age in American history is generally considered to be the period starting a few years after the end of the Civil War (~1870) and ending with the turn of the 20th century (~1900). Perhaps because the U.S. was not involved in any dramatic foreign wars (other than the Indian Wars in the West) until the very end of this period, it’s a time that perhaps has had somewhat less attention from historians, readers and movie watchers than many other periods in U.S. history.

Despite that relative lack of focus on the era, though, many transformational changes were sweeping the country at that time. During the Gilded Age, a national network of railroads was being built across the continent; telegraph lines were being laid, to link every part of the continent with instantaneous communications; oil was being discovered and extracted for the first time; and astounding new technological innovations and scientific discoveries like electric lighting were arriving almost daily.

During this time period, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, as new factories were built, powered by coal and then oil, and filled with new kinds of iron and steel machines of mass production.  At the same time, new emigrant populations from Europe and China, as well as freed blacks from the post-Confederacy South poured into northern cities, looking for work and opportunity in those factories, and making homes in crowded urban tenement neighborhoods.

This is the setting for Julian Fellowes' newest series (this time on HBO Max), The Gilded Age, which he has begun to produce after completing the massively popular Downtown Abbey show.

The Gilded Age is superficially similar to Downton Abbey, in that it focuses on the “upstairs / downstairs” lives of extremely rich families and their household staff in an age of opulence and highly concentrated wealth. But there the similarities mostly end, because unlike the relative backwater of Downton Abbey’s rural British aristocratic world of the early 20th century, The Gilded Age takes place in the 1880s, in the urban bustle and commotion of a dynamic and fast-changing New York City. And rather than a single household full of characters for us to follow, in The Gilded Age, we have two.

One is the city home of two elderly sisters who are exemplars of the “blue blood/old money” class, in terms of their family history, social standing and strict social standards (played by Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon).

The other is a gorgeously ornate and huge new house across the street, built by a prototypical newly wealthy industrialist of the era (Morgan Spector) for his even more ruthless social-climbing wife (Carrie Coon). The wife is determined to be accepted into New York high society, despite the constant snubs and obstacles put in her way by the many “Grande Dames” of the blue blood world.

This is the war of social standing and acceptance at the heart of the series: old Yankee wealth and exclusivity, threatened by and resisting the social incursions of a powerful new class of super-rich titans of business (and their wives), who have the money and the determination to overcome their conservative predecessors’ resistance to their social overtures, regardless of their personal roots or family origins.

Into this heated high society war zone come several other key characters. There is a single young woman of “good breeding”, education and modern ideas (Louisa Jacobson), but who lacks independent wealth or prospects, and comes to live as a dependent of her two elderly aunts in the aunt’s mansion after the death of her father.

There is also an educated young black woman (Denee Benton), who becomes the senior aunt’s personal assistant and a successful journalist, despite constant instances of racism, sexism and reflexive resistance (even from her own family) to her attempts at a career and independence in the white male-dominated world of 1880s New York.

There are plenty of other characters with minor roles too, including the son and daughter of the industrialist and his wife, a nephew in the aunts’ household who is socially aspiring but also a closeted gay man, a number of high society figures, and several of the house staff in each house who are drawn into events and the intrigues between the two households and the larger New York high society world.

Will the young lady find an appropriate match (but also true love!) under her aunts’ watchful eyes? Will the young black woman manage to succeed as a writer despite all the social prejudices arrayed against her? Will the industrialists’ driven wife manage to get anyone from high society to show up for her magnificent parties? And will the industrialist force all the blue blood businessmen to bow to the strength of his will, and to the power of his fortune?

It all makes for an entertaining costume drama and period piece, although I found it lacking in some of the charm and fun that made Downton Abbey so appealing and universally loved. More than anything else, none of the characters seemed all that endearing to me, unlike many of the very lovable characters (both upstairs and downstairs) in Downton Abbey. It also seemed somewhat slow-moving. 

But with that said, it’s a worthwhile TV series. It provides a well-imagined view into the social conflicts of the super-rich in an important but under-noticed period in American history, the era that set the stage for the rise of the United States to a position of global power in the 20th century. Recommended.

TV Review: Tehran, Seasons 1-2. Apple TV+.

This was a recent find we tried on the recommendation of several different friends. And what a fortunate discovery! This is definitely one of the best shows we’ve seen in recent months.

Tehran is a very intelligent Israeli spy thriller, with sub-titles, although much of the show is in English. The main character is Tamar (played superbly by Niv Sultan), a young woman Mossad agent and childhood Jewish refugee from Iran, who is on her first mission. 

Tamar is working with a small team of fellow agents and Iranian resistance figures in Tehran to take out the radar system protecting a new nuclear fuel refining installation, so that Israeli fighter-bombers can reach their target and destroy it before the fuel is loaded into the centrifuges.  Given the recent history of real-world Israeli relations with Iran, and their attempts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, this is a very believable plot.

Initially, Tamar’s main role in this dangerous operation seems to be as a super-hacker, whose job it is to break into Iran’s defense computer systems as part of the complex plan to destroy the nuclear site. But despite her computer programming brilliance, and the help of a young Iranian dissident hacker, things end up going sideways, and Tamar has to quickly go out on her own, and use the full range of her secret agent skills to stay alive and operational.

Meanwhile, on the other side, a canny older Iranian counter-espionage officer and his tough young sidekick are hunting for the Israeli team, especially Tamar, and are frequently one step ahead, or else just behind but on the trail of Tamar and her team at every step. In these characters, we see the personal and professional stresses they face in trying to do their jobs, in the context of the constant risks, politics and treachery within the authoritarian religious government and ideology they serve.

A whole cast of other Israeli agents, Iranian police and civilians, politicians, dissident young people, and innocent bystanders support the greater story throughout, as Tamar finds her way through an unending minefield of surveillance, betrayal, plot and counter-plot. It will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout each show.

This show is strongly reminiscent of Homeland, in its portrayal of a strong, incredibly bright and unorthodox young woman agent using every trick, skill, connection and plausible lie at her disposal to continue the mission against impossible odds. Highly recommended.

TV Review: The Crown. Seasons 1-4. (Netflix).

For those few who aren’t already aware of it, The Crown is Netflix’s recent somewhat fictionalized depiction of the reign of Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth II. 

Thus far, over the first four seasons, it has covered the period from her youth growing up during World War II during the reign of her father, the popular King George VI, through her ascension to the throne in 1952, her marriage to Prince Phillip, and many of her better-known personal and political experiences as the sovereign of Great Britain and head of the Royal Family from the early 1950s, through the 1960s and 1970s, and into the era of Margaret Thatcher and the young Princess Diana in the 1980s.

The actors in all the principal roles changed after season 2, in order to put older faces and personalities on screen that would better reflect the real-life characters as they aged and changed over time. However, what has been consistent is the quality of the actors in the leading roles, particularly Claire Foy and Matt Smith as the youthful Elizabeth and Phillip, and Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies as the middle-aged Queen and Prince, all of whom turn in impressively authentic and convincing performances.

It makes for fun entertainment, especially for those who just can’t get enough of the lives of English royalty, but there has been a growing uproar around the show's historical accuracy and perspective in season 4, perhaps because the plot timeline is moving closer to our own times, where many of us already have well-formed memories of some of the actual events, and opinions about the personalities from mass media and news coverage.

The portrayal of Prince Charles' behavior toward Diana and of his character, which is fairly odious in the show in season 4, has particularly come in for sharp protests. Many reviewers have now added their caveats that this series should not be taken at face value in terms of the truth of its presentation of the times, the events, the various personalities and their relationships. 

Nevertheless, if seen as art, interpretation and entertainment rather than a slavish portrayal of historical lives and events, it’s a very interesting and enjoyable series. Recommended.

TV Review: The Good Fight, Seasons 1-5 (CBS TV series).

The story of high-powered lawyers in large firms in contemporary Chicago that began in The Good Wife continues, with the focus now on senior attorney Diane Lockhart (played by Christine Baranski), and two of her younger proteges. It begins right after the 2016 presidential election, with a Madoff-type Ponzi scheme scandal and the wreckage it leaves behind.

This series has been both attacked and praised for its overtly liberal sympathies and its portrayal of legal and social life in the Trump era. As with The Good Wife, many of the story lines, particularly with respect to the destabilizing effects of new technologies on personal and social lives, and on laws and the legal system, were up-to-the-minute with the show’s dramatic spin on breaking news stories in real life.

Both The Good Wife and The Good Fight are among the best legal drama series I've ever seen, with consistently interesting plots, engaging characters, fine writing and acting, plenty of outrageous dark humor, and "torn from the recent headlines" legal and ethical issues. Whether they will hold up over time as the social and political issues they explored fade from the news remains to be seen. Recommended.

TV Review: Virgin River, Seasons 1-3. Netflix.

This popular series was initially a promising discovery on Netflix. We saw Season 1, which was released on Netflix in 2019, early in 2020, and then saw Season 2 when it was released late in the same year. This series is based on a book series of the same name by Robyn Carr.

The premise for the show is that Mel Monroe, an attractive youngish nurse practitioner and midwife from Los Angeles with a tragic personal backstory (played appealingly by Alexandra Breckenridge), takes a one-year job in a remote northern California town, working with a curmudgeonly 72-year old doctor who has the only medical practice in town.

This doesn't turn out to be an easy adjustment for anyone, but in the course of her trying to fit into the rural community, we slowly find out a lot about her sad recent history, and why she came to Virgin River, as well as more about the assortment of various rural characters she encounters, works with, cares for and falls in love with. It was a very watchable and likeable “fish out of water” show for the first couple of seasons.

I found by the third season, though, that I had become deeply tired of it. The plot seemed increasingly outlandish, many of the characters’ behaviors and choices were overly-dramatic, and the plot situations thought up by the show’s writers seemed to be geared toward trying ever more desperately to drum up some excitement and emotional impact for viewers by creating a story where there really wasn’t any left.

In other words, it had turned into a true prime-time soap opera. At that point, I stopped watching it, although I understand that Netflix has agreed to future seasons 4 (dropping later this month) and 5 (sometime next year?), so I assume plenty of fans must still be enjoying it.

Based on that, I would cautiously recommend it, but only until you reach the point in the series where it starts to exceed your personal “jumping the shark” tolerance, and you've lost the ability to suspend disbelief about the increasingly ridiculous plot developments, and visceral dislike for at least some of the major characters you're presumably supposed to like and care about.

To me, it’s a particularly good example of the frequent situation where show producers should recognize after a few seasons (but often don’t) that they’ve mined a vein until it ran out, and it’s time to close the mine, before the whole thing collapses under its own weight.

TV Review: The Queen's Gambit (2020). Netflix.

This series we enjoyed might not need much introduction, since the few people in the U.S.A. who haven't seen it have at least heard plenty about it by now -- it was one of the most acclaimed TV shows of 2020.

The main character, Beth Harmon, is a sad, pathetic orphan child from a bad home (played by Annabeth Kelly as a 5-year old, and then Isla Johnston as a pre-teen), who ends up learning to play chess from the maintenance man in the orphanage. While there, she also picks up a wicked drug and alcohol problem.

The series then shows her meteoric rise to the top of the pro chess world, due to her mental brilliance and amazing recall abilities, along with her struggles to succeed under the burden of her psychological and dependency issues. As the character moves into her teenage years and young adulthood, the role is taken over and played brilliantly by Anya Taylor-Joy. 

Along the way, there are a number of important themes being explored through Beth's unusual experiences, including the loneliness of the top-level competitive chess player (or perhaps any type of high-achieving superstar), the struggle of a young woman to succeed and win in a completely male-dominated activity, and the toll and interrelationships between traumatic life experience, mental illness and substance abuse.

This series has first-rate acting, scripting and plot, with what were apparently accurately staged versions of high-level competitive chess matches. Highly recommended.

TV Review: The Mandalorian. Seasons 1 & 2 (Disney+).

I watched the whole first season of Disney’s first venture in monetizing the Star Wars galaxy for streaming TV with only modest enthusiasm, but it improved steadily over the course of the second season.

The story takes place in a remote corner of the galaxy, after the destruction of the second Death Star, and the apparent death of the Sith Lord and Emperor Palpatine at the end of Return of the Jedi. It’s a lawless time – the New Republic is struggling to extend its well-intentioned reach, while the fractured forces of the evil Empire are still out there, and they’re up to no good.

Into this Wild West universe comes a lone ranger in shining metal armor, with a jet pack and a lot of other hi-tech weaponry. He is known only as “The Mandalorian” (a reference to his warrior  people and their beleaguered home planet), and he makes allies of convenience and a number of new enemies as he takes on a dangerous mission to save a small child of the Yoda species from mysterious forces.

There is plenty of Star Wars type action and scenery, and a whole new set of gritty characters, strange planets, and plot twists, with a surprise appearance by one of the major Star Wars characters at the end of season 2. Recommended.

TV Review: The Brokenwood Mysteries. All seasons (1-6). Amazon (Acorn).

This was a quirky but quite endearing mystery series, featuring a rumpled older detective inspector with a beater car and a love for American country music, along with his two young wise-cracking detective sidekicks (a woman and a man), and a delightfully oddball female Russian pathologist, who solve local murders in small town New Zealand.

I found by the final season that I was wearying of the story and the characters, which I find is not unusual with many TV series. Producers and writers don’t always know when it’s time to pull the plug on what was a very good idea when it started. With those reservations, recommended.

Miss Fisher's Mysteries. Seasons 1-3 (2012-2015). Amazon Prime (Acorn).

Although this popular Australian mystery series had an amateurish feel to it (or perhaps it was just done that way to deliberately mimic a much earlier movie-era style), it nevertheless featured the oddly charming if improbable story of an heiress and World War I survivor who returns from Europe to Melbourne in the 1920s, and decides to help the local constabulary solve murders and other crimes.

The wealthy Miss Phryne Fisher (played by Essie Davis) is beautiful, uninhibited and sexually liberated, a stylish dresser, a pilot, a horseback rider, a race car driver, an actress, a femme fatale, a mentor to young girls, an inspired crime-solver, and a heroine who's always ready with her signature gold-plated snub-nose revolver whenever things get dangerous. Is there anything she can't or won’t do, for the sheer thrill of it, while solving the mystery and catching the criminal?

It was corny and old-fashioned, but fun. I also saw the movie, Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears, released in 2020, which was essentially more of the same. Recommended.

TV Review: The Restaurant (from Sweden, Seasons 1-3). Sundance.

This series is the story of a multi-generational family and their employees and friends, beginning at the end of World War II and moving forward into the early 1970s, who work together and fight with each other in and about the family's fancy prestigious restaurant in Stockholm.

The Restaurant has sometimes been compared to Downton Abbey, for its themes of class conflict within personal relationships, intrigue and competition within families and friendships, and love and betrayal.

It’s pretty good entertainment, although some of the family members display really contemptible behavior toward each other (I guess that's what makes it good drama). With sub-titles (from the original Swedish). Recommended.

TV Review: Friday Night Lights, Seasons 1-5. Hulu.

This NBC TV series from 2006-2011 is based on a non-fiction book of the same name from the 1990s, and a 2004 film of the same name. For reasons unknown, this gem of a series slipped by me at the time it was originally broadcast, and then for the past decade on streaming TV.
 

Big oversight! This was one of the better series I've watched in the past several years, and there was a lot of it to binge (five seasons). At the center of the show is a recently-hired high school football coach at a public school with an elite football program in rural Texas (played by Kyle Chandler), and his wife (Connie Britton) and daughter (Aimee Teegarden). But it also features a very strong and diverse ensemble cast of supporting characters, including students, football team members, and local boosters, parents and personalities.

What is fantastic about it is how real it is -- there's hardly a social issue or problem affecting American families, adults and kids (especially teenagers) that doesn't appear, all wrapped around a sports team drama. And those issues are just as contemporary and topical today as they were ten years go.

I also learned from reading an online story about the making of this series that the filming style was quite unusual, in that scripts were used only sparingly. The actors, steeped in their roles and their characters' identities, would usually be told the scene situation, and then would improvise their performances as they filmed. It led to a very moving and believable drama series, extremely well acted -- and thoroughly enjoyable. Highly recommended.

TV Review: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Season 1 (2022). Disney+.

The first two live-action streaming TV series that Disney launched, based on the Star Wars universe, were The Mandalorian (Seasons 1 and 2, so far), and The Book of Boba Fett (Season 1). Both stories are set in the Star Wars galaxy and timeline, but at least initially have little connection to any of the main plots and central characters of the eleven feature-length Star Wars movies that have been made.

Although there are aspects to both of these Disney TV series that will appeal to die-hard Star Wars enthusiasts, these first two Disney Star Wars TV shows have left me (as a dedicated Star Wars fan who has enjoyed all the big-screen films since the first one was released in 1977) feeling distinctly underwhelmed, and missing some of the vital appeal and magic of the movies.

This is all just background and prelude to the new (and third) Disney Star Wars live-action streaming TV series Obi-Wan Kenobi. And I am happy to say: “This is the droid (oops, I mean, the Star Wars TV show) you are looking for”. Thus far, I’ve only seen the first four of six episodes of Season 1 (and I do hope they make a bunch of seasons). But they have been extremely enjoyable, and fully worthy additions to the Star Wars canon.

To begin: having Ewan McGregor reprise his role as the (then-young) Obi-Wan Kenobi from the prequel trilogy is marvelous good fortune. He is appropriately aged in real life to be playing Obi-Wan as he is now, as his story resumes, ten years after he defeated Anakin Skywalker in The Revenge of the Sith, but then was forced to flee as a Jedi refugee from the Empire just to stay alive, and to guard the life of the hidden child Luke Skywalker on Tatooine.

McGregor is a wonderful actor, who captures perfectly the defeated, discouraged and isolated former hero he has become, now hiding out alone in a desert wasteland, with only a tiny spark of his former brilliance or his many talents visible. Watching him carve off and hide small bits of alien meat product every day for his trusty mount, at his dead-end meat-packing job on Tatooine, conveys better than any words how far he has fallen from the glory of his former Jedi Master days.

But there are plenty of new adventures awaiting Obi-Wan. He will have to confront new and old enemies, and he'll be drawn into unexpected events, and a dangerous plot initiated from the planet Alderaan, which will bring Luke’s hidden twin sister Leia into the story.

And the young Leia Organa (as played by Vivien Lyra Blair) is a delight – a petite, 10-year old girl with preternatural awareness of the adult world around her, a kind and generous spirit toward droids and other lesser beings, a wise guy mouth, and an irreverent, non-compliant attitude that is completely consistent with the young adult Carrie Fisher version of Princess Leia we have all come to know and love from the original trilogy.

I can’t say how this series will end, or whether we will have more seasons ahead to which we can look forward (I would assume so). But for now, it's looking good! If you love Star Wars, watch Obi-Wan Kenobi as soon as you can on Disney+ (new episodes each Wednesday). And May the Force Be With You.

TV Review: The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (2022), Netflix, and The Flight Attendant, Seasons 1-2, HBO Max.

The TV mini-series The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window, starring Kristen Bell, is remarkably similar in genre and concept to HBO’s TV series The Flight Attendant starring Kaley Cuoco, which just arrived on HBO Max for a second season.  

 

In both series, the plot centers on an attractive young woman protagonist, each with her own serious emotional problems and excessive drinking habits, stumbling into a murder mystery which in The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window may or may not have even happened, and in both cases may or may not have been done by the intoxicated leading lady herself, who then has to try desperately to clear herself and solve the mystery by playing amateur detective. 

 

Both Bell and Cuoco are gifted comedic actors, and both pull off their respective roles convincingly and amusingly.  This is no mean feat in either case, since they need somehow to convey their characters’ tortured souls, their drunken irreverence and silly but self-destructive misbehavior in absurd situations, and yet also cleverly manage to figure out “who dun it” from a baffling list of likely suspects and clues that would challenge a sober person, all at the same time.   

 

The amateur detective work and smart-alecky response to mysteries, violence and dire personal straits is familiar territory for Bell, whose acting stint as the girl sleuth Veronica Mars earlier in her career contained much of the same appeal as this new show.  I saw all the Veronica Mars TV seasons and the follow-on movie a few years ago, and thought it was an outstanding and entertaining series, with a very gutsy and appealing young heroine. 

 

For Cuoco, her long acting run as Penny, the sweet but clueless party girl next door in The Big Bang Theory, who had to constantly improvise, make up stories, tell little lies and use her sexy good looks and flirtation to get herself out of embarrassing situations with the socially inept but brilliant tech nerds across the hall, was similarly good preparation for her role here, as a different sweet but clueless party girl (and flight attendant) who finds herself in far more dangerous situations than Penny ever faced.

 

For some viewers, trying to combine comedy, murder, intrigue, psychological thriller and satire into one show might be all too much.  However, I think both these series are worth seeing just for the enjoyment of watching these two remarkably talented actors working their onscreen magic to get their characters out of impossible situations.  Recommended.

TV Review: Atypical. Netflix Series, Seasons 1-4.

Atypical is a charming and heart-warming family dramedy series about living with a cognitive/behavioral disability.  

At the center of the story is a bright high school senior with high-functioning autism.  He has a younger sister who’s a track star, a neurotic and over-involved mother, and a devoted father who had abandoned the family for a time years ago, when he was first trying to come to terms with his son's diagnosis, thereby causing ongoing trust issues in the marriage.  

Our young protagonist also has a few eccentric friends, and a community of people from school and work with whom he interacts as he tries to figure out how to carve out a positive role in life for himself despite his condition, and all the normal social things he doesn't understand.  

In the process, we see the hardships and stresses his situation creates for the people around him, but also the unexpected rewards the various characters realize from his often too-honest and unfiltered view of the world and their own actions.  Funny yet with a serious message, this was definitely one of the more enjoyable and worthwhile shows we saw in 2021.  Recommended.

TV Review: All Things Great and Small (2022). PBS, Seasons 1-2.

This series has been described as the "most soothing TV entertainment" out there.  It's not all that exciting, but it's a warmhearted series about decent, "salt of the earth" Yorkshire country people, living in a small rural English town in an earlier and simpler time.  

 

At the center of the story is a kindly young Scottish veterinarian learning his trade, while also learning about love, family and friendship.  

 

This is a remake of a popular English series from decades ago, which went to six or seven seasons.  Note:  the first two seasons of this series take place in 1937 and 1938.  The onset of World War II is coming next season (Season 3).  Recommended.

TV Review: Longmire. Netflix (originally A&E), Seasons 1-6.

This six-season TV show on Netflix was definitely one of our favorite pandemic "year 2" binges.   Set in a small town in modern Wyoming (in the first decade or so of the 2000s), it features Walt Longmire (Robert Taylor), a grizzled and recently widowed old-school Western Sheriff, solving crimes with the help of his small department of younger deputies and various local characters and friends.    

His deputies include Vic Moretti (Katee Sackhoff, who starred as Lt. Starbuck in the more recent Battlestar Galactica series from the SyFy Channel), and several young men with interesting personality traits, histories and quirks.   

Walt Longmire also has a best friend (played by the outstanding Lou Diamond Phillips), a Native American who owns the local watering hole, and acts as a social bridge to the local Indian reservations and their people.  Then there’s Walt’s young adult daughter Katie, recently graduated from law school, who is a bit at loose ends as to her career and future.    

Most episodes tell the story of a particular murder or other crime, but there are also long-running mysteries and unsolved crimes simmering in the background.  Full of wonderful who-dun-it stories, a lot of realistic plots about the fraught relations between rural white communities and their Indian neighbors, occasional gunfire and violent action, mild love interests and sex, and a very relatable cast of characters, with strong writing and scripts.   

This series is based on the (by now) 24-book set of Longmire mystery novels by Craig Johnson.  Highly recommended.