Still catching up on some TV shows I watched awhile ago.

With Love

With Love is a show on Amazon Prime that revolves around an extended Latinx family and various love stories within it. Each episode takes place on a different holiday so you’re moving quite a bit through time from episode to episode. It made it a little hard to invest in some the characters and relationships, but I thought it was cute. It’s apparently been renewed for a second season. I’m not sure where they will take it from here as it felt pretty self contained, but I guess I’ll find out eventually.

Julia

For the most part I enjoyed Julia on HBOMax. Sarah Lancaster did a great job of playing Julia. I also really enjoyed BeBe Neuwirth as her best friend. It was interesting to see how the show was created, though I have no idea how much of this is fact versus fiction. I did feel at times like Julia was too whiny, and I really could not with her husband. I feel like I always heard that they had this great relationship and that he was so supportive of her. And eventually by the end of this season he had come around and seemed to be more on her side, but good lord what a man baby whose little feelings are hurt because he got forced into retirement and now his wife is having success. Hopefully there will be less of that in the next season.

Heartstoppers

This was a cute adaptation of a series of graphic novels about two teenage boys exploring their sexuality and falling in love. I never read the books, but from what I gather from people online it was an extremely faithful adaptation with literal shot for shot recreations of some of the illustrations. I gather people were really happy with it, which as you know when people have strong feelings about a book is really hard to do. I also heard a lot of queer adults saying that they wish that they had had something like this when they were growing up, so it’s good that kids these days do especially given all the efforts to legally and otherwise try and stuff LGBTQ+ people back in the closet. I don’t think I connected with it as strongly as other people, which is fine. It was not made for me, but I’m really happy that it seems to mean a lot to the people it was meant for.

Ghosts (British Version)

The hit CBS sitcom Ghosts was actually adapted from a British sitcom that is available on HBOMax. They’re pretty fairly equivalent. I think I like the lead actress in this version better than the CBS one, but I also like the actor who plays the husband better in the British version so I guess it balances out. Same with some of the ghosts. There was a joke about not eating rice krispies until they’re dead (i.e. no longer making noise) that I still cannot stop laughing at, and that I mention every time my husband eats rice krispies. Solid bit that.

We Own This City

We Own This City is a show created by David Simon based on a true story and book written by former Baltimore Sun and now Baltimore Banner reporter, Justin Fenton. A lot of critics and people of course compared this to The Wire, which it’s not and isn’t meant to be because it’s not The Wire. They seemed to be mad about that. I thought the show was fine, but I wasn’t upset that it wasn’t The Wire. As someone who read the book and lived through all the news coverage while it was happening the show didn’t have much to offer me other than the way it portrayed the story that I already knew really well. The show was way too convoluted presenting the story jumping around in time with sometimes only very subtle clues as to what year you were in. I could sometimes barely figure it out and I have to think that anyone coming to this story cold would have to be confused a lot.

Under the Banner of Heaven

Speaking of shows based on books, Under the Banner of Heaven is an adaptation of the book by John Krakauer about a murder and a crazy Mormon sect. Again the show was fine, but it in no way did the book justice. I remember loving this book when I read it and finding it super compelling. I didn’t want to put it down. I did not feel anything like that for this show. I could very easily have stopped watching it at any time and not felt like I was missing anything.

First Kill

First Kill is a new teen vampire show where the vampire and vampire hunter fall in love. It’s of course reminiscent of things like Buffy and Vampire Diaries, but it’s also very heavily based on Romeo and Juliet with the families of the two girls warring and telling them they need to stay away from each other. It was in no way actually good. It does have Elizabeth Mitchell in it though, so that’s a bonus. However most of the acting is pretty terrible or the writing is or maybe both.I still binge watche the stupid thing in two days.