TV Reviews
Contents
House of Cards
House of Cards: the Breaking Bad of Politics. And I'm not sure I mean that in a good way. I grew to hate all the characters on Breaking Bad, but I started out hating them on HoC. They don't get more likable. If you like watching people manipulate each other and behave badly, this show is for you.... or you could have visited my family during the Holiday's.
Man in the High Castle
The premise of "what if the Nazi's and Japs won WWII" is a fascinating piece of alternate history. The premise exceeds the implementation for season 1: which turned in a mediocre spy thriller with a different backdrop. Season 2 is far more interesting and starts exploring what life and culture would be like, as well as the drama is more interesting. I'm hoping Season 3 continues the progression.
The Newsroom
I watched The Newsroom, after it was getting absurd amounts of adoration from my left of center friends. And for me it was Sorkin's usual anally-injected leftist dogma under the cover of machine-gun prose and fake objectivity. I watched the first error ridden diatribe, full of errors and falsehoods, and couldn't bring myself to watch any other episodes. It was so insulting (and so loved by people that didn't know better), that I immediately put Sorkin into the same category as Michael Moore, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and other cult leaders. Then I wrote this line-by-line takedown of the opening monologue. When the series ended 2 years later, I feel like the world became a better place for it being over. If you want to look how America became so divided, shows like this are a great example.
Roosevelt's: An Intimate History
Ken Burns disappoints with a progressive puff-piece, written, directed and shown by the left, for the far left. Teddy the Republican was almost all bad. FDR the Democrat was almost all good. And the complexities that made both 3 dimensional, instead of caricatures, was all whitewashed off the series. I figured the format would allow PBS to do something deep and complex, it was just long and shallow.
Walking Dead
Walking Dead Grumble Thread. Look I can suspend disbelief enough to watch a show about the Zombie apocalypse. Living in the bay-area, I saw them walking to the poll booths on Election Day. But I can't stand stupid people not adapting to their new reality. There's so many better ways to deal with walkers or biters.