Summer Watch List

So, as you may have noticed, it is summer.  And aside from a time where some of us like to engage in this little-known activity called reading, it is also a time when the cable networks put out some of their best shows.  So what have I been watching?  Not Breaking Bad.  But lots of other things!

Episodes

I'll admit that I've already finished Season 2 of Episodes.  Much like Downton Abbey, it airs in the UK months before it comes to the States, and so it's easy to find links online.  And so even though I only started watching the season last weekend, I'm already done.  The reason for this is that it's SO EFFING GOOD.  Literally everything about this show is fantastic, but especially the actors.  Matt LeBlanc continues to be great at playing a parody of himself, and Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan are always brilliant as the transplanted British writers/producers, but this season gave more of the spotlight to the supporting actors, and Kathleen Rose Perkins shines like a goddamn star.  Her portrayal of Carol is at once pathetic and empowering; infuriating and endearing; hilarious and sad.  She's taken the character from the one-note Rigid Studio Executive and turned Carol into someone we root for and whose motives we come to understand.  And she's just SO fucking funny.  John Pankow as the studio head Merc Lapidus is a comedic gem, and Genevieve O'Reilly as his blind wife Jamie plays her role with a quiet subtlety that'll make you laugh out loud (as two characters are fighting and chaos erupts amongst the cast, she just keeps yelling, "What's going on???!!!").  Daisy Haggard as the erstwhile, clueless exec with the weird moaning voice steals every single scene she's in and Joseph May as Andy Button is the type of character who would eat a popsicle made of shit if you told him it was fudge - while smiling.  I honestly can't pick a favorite character because I love them all, and I didn't mean to brush past Greig and Mangan because they carry the show, and both actors' abilities to transform from glib to gutwrenching in the blink of an eye is astounding.  They grab you by the heartballs, and just won't let go.

Anyway, not to give anything away, but the season finale is one of my favorite moments of comedy of the entire year.  There're only nine episodes, so get watching and seriously, don't miss out on this show.

"You weren't even in Time Bandits!"

I've been hearing some rumblings lately about how Ricky Gervais has lost his game. Now, Gervais has always walked a somewhat tenuous line with me - it took a few years' time and a second viewing of The Office for me to really come around - but I don't think you can deny that the man can be hilarious, even if his Simon Cowell uniform is quite laughable in a different way. Additionally, I think he's been really smart about the way he's handled things since Extras ended - after making smart choices like casting Louis C.K. in The Invention Of Lying, Gervais has let the spotlight shine on smaller characters, and used his forceful personality to drive the comedy from these supporting roles.

"It's like something out of Jules Verne!"

I've been meaning to talk about Showtime's new show, Episodes, but I wanted to wait until I got a better sense of the show as a whole. In the interim I watched a show starring David Cross that premiered on IFC in October, The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret, and realized that the two shows raise some really interesting comparisons. So, here we go, two shows at once!

Episodes is about a married British writing team who come to LA to help produce an American adaptation of their BAFTA-winning show, Lyman's Boys. The Increasingly Poor Decisions Of Todd Margaret (hereafter known as TIPDOTM or simply Todd Margaret) is about an unqualified temp who gets sent to England to sell a toxic energy drink called Thunder Muscle when his company gets taken over by Brent Wilts (Will Arnett), the loudest, angriest, douchiest guy you're ever going to meet. Both shows find humor in these classic fish-out-of-water scenarios, where expectations and long-held stereotypes are tromped on all over the place. However, even just three episodes in, I can tell that Episodes is already much funnier and much better put-together than TIPDOTM has any hopes of being.