James Donald Forbes McCann’s weekly TV reviews, as published by The Adelaide Review.
“Yesterday afternoon, this reviewer encountered a friend at a pub and discovered that she, too, had watched Derry Girls. Thereafter, both this reviewer and his interlocutor, without ceasing, for perhaps twenty minutes, spoke entirely in sentences beginning with the words ‘remember that bit when’.”
“And yet, overblown, under-funded, poorly-acted B-movie garbage though Tidelands is, one must concede that it is, also, without question, an outstanding piece of overblown, under-funded, poorly-acted B-movie garbage.”
“Is there another public figure, besides Brand, who has so rapidly descended from widespread appreciation to ubiquitous disdain, without a sexual abuse scandal in-between?”
“Yes, the producers are flogging a dead horse, but the horse is twitching in a very lifelike and compelling fashion.”
“There’s not enough space in this review to gush over all the wonderful performances, so let it simply be known that there are many, many performances worth gushing over here.
Stranger Things 2: The AV Club’s Bogus Journey is a massive, expensive, fantastic and flawed diamond. Despite a few missteps it remains, like its predecessor, the single best reason to take out a Netflix subscription.”
“If you do manage to get through the entirety of The Meyerowitz Stories, there are consolations.”
“This review is loaded with spoilers that will ruin The Good Place if you haven’t already watched the first season. For your own sake, no matter how excited you are to read another Stream Time review, make sure you’ve watched season one before embarking past this disclaimer.”
“The first two episodes set the series up to be a turgid, low-concept bastardisation of Gene Roddenberry’s vision. If you’re going to watch Discovery (and it is by no means certain that anybody should) then skip the introduction and jump straight into episode three, the latest episode at time of publication. There, there are signs that Discovery might be, if not great Star Trek, okay TV.”
“Clearly, Koenig has built up a roster of very impressive and talented friends. On the other hand, how good a friend could any of them have been, truly, if not a single one sat down with Ezra and asked him to abandon Neo Yokio.”
“It’s not hard to figure out why the baby boomers love Jerry Seinfeld, because they’ll tell you, repeatedly, throughout his shows. ‘It’s so true! I really do eat all the cookies!’ The millennials agree, but in a philosophical sense and with an existential zeal. ‘It’s so true! Nothing means anything! The cookies are all we have!’ Notably, the two audiences laugh hard at alternating punchlines.”
“For centuries, Vikings raped and pillaged their way across Christendom. The old stereotype of a Scandinavian (a hulking, bloodthirsty Pagan who’ll kill you and everybody you love) is the polar opposite of the contemporary stereotype (a soft-spoken bureaucrat who loves arthouse cinema). The delicious comic conceit at the heart of Norsemen is to tell the tale of barbaric Vikings, but to give those Vikings the manners and concerns of modern day, namby-pamby Norwegians.”
“The highlight of the film comes when a fellow who can neither see nor hear — and has had to walk into the ocean with two aids and a cane — succeeds in popping up on his board. If you can stifle tears, you are a coarser person than I.”
“It would be great if The Tick could, like it’s eponymous parasite, suck the mediocrity out of the genre. At the moment, however, it just kind of sucks.”
“The Other Guy is different to its predecessors, however, in that it is better. Critics have noted that the show is especially indebted to Josh Thomas’ Please Like Me — and, indeed, there are many similarities. But where Please Like Me, and so many other millennial comedies succumb to ennui and introspection, The Other Guy is bold throughout. It is also, occasionally, very funny indeed. Go watch it on Stan at your earliest convenience.”
“The bad guys come out on top; not despite their moral failings, but because of them. It is, effectively, spiritual pornography. The wretched protagonist gets what he wants, and we viewers are expected to enjoy it as voyeurs. There is no pretence that either the characters, or the audience, are improved in any dimension as a result.”
