What if TV weren't such a bummer?
Or even super topical?
Over at Glamour, my co-worker Jessica Radloff asked a relevant question: When Did Prestige TV Get This Grim? But frankly, it’s always been hard for me to watch many of the popular, critically-acclaimed dramas. I can handle the fantasy violence of Game of Thrones, but the real-life brutality depicted in Breaking Bad and The Wire leave me queasy. I couldn’t make it through the second season of The Sopranos, either. I’ve had The Leftovers on my list for ages. I know, I know, it’s worth it when you get to season two! I’ve heard! (I do think Six Feet Under is the only show with the ability to actually give a viewer clinical depression, but that’s a whole other thing.) Stop asking if I watch The Last of Us or Yellowjackets, they’re too scary.
(It’s not that I don’t like adult dramas, period. I’ve watched Mad Men, The West Wing, The Good Wife, Broadchurch, Halt and Catch Fire…)
Me having my own taste in television would all be well and good, except that the more solemn a show is, the more that people who are into it wear their viewership like a badge of honor. They don’t just recommend these shows, they preach about them and how they are So Important. If you care about rape culture, you have to watch I May Destroy You. Ditto stalking and Baby Reindeer. Ditto toxic masculinity and Adolescence.
If a show isn’t about Being Important, it’s about The Twists That Make You Feel Smart. “Are you caught up on White Lotus?” “Do you understand what’s happening on Severance?” “Andor somethingsomethingpolitics!”
Hot take: television isn’t homework. It doesn’t have to educate you or make you a better person. Watch what you want. And when you run out of stuff, watch what **I** want.
Yep, it’s another recommendation roundup. My newsletter, my rules.
The Studio (Apple TV+)
Omg! A comedy! Seth Rogen plays a movie exec trying to balance corporate profits, creative egos and his own compulsion to be thought of as cool. It’s a bit over-stylized (does everything need to be a oner set to a drumroll? Is this Birdman?) but Ike Barinholtz is perfect and I hope it runs long enough for me to cameo as a version of myself who is an even bigger bitch than I really am.
Dying For Sex (Hulu)
You will cry watching Jenny Slate take care of Michelle Williams as she dies of cancer. You will also laugh and sigh because it’s a deeply romantic and funny based-on-a-true-story about one dying woman’s sexual Rumspringa, and then you’ll probably call your mom or make a mammogram appointment. Everyone on this limited series deserves an Emmy but especially Paula Pell.
The Pitt (HBO Max)
A less saccharine Grey’s Anatomy that borrows the 24 structure (one episode = one hour in the show’s universe) and the overall vibe of The Bear to give us Noah Wyle weeping his way through Hebrew prayers. Yes, it’s a soft reboot of ER (to the point that there’s a lawsuit about it), but I never watched ER and I raced through The Pitt in literally two days. Whether or not it makes a showing at the Emmys, the series wins a Logan Award For Palatable Drama.
Okay, anyway, Hacks is back!!!!!!
Lizzie