April Roundup, '21
This month is a straight-up true crime-palooza. You can't take a single step without bumping into another unfortunate tale. So, if that's not what you're into, then it is slim pickings for you, friendo. Sorry!
Watch This Shit:
A bunch of dudebros (they're Canadian, so they're not the worst) do magic and pranks and shiz. It's real cute fun.
Paget Brewster can do no wrong. This spinoff of Harvey Birdman sees her taking over as CEO of Sebben & Sebben, the superhero law firm, following the death of her father. When she's Judy, she's a ball of low self-esteem, and when she's Birdgirl, she's just a bit batshit.
Nasim Pedrad is a 14-year-old boy who's pretty much a dick. I kind of want to dislike it ('cause PEN15 mixed with a gender swap seems real uncomfortable), but... it's way too fuckin' funny. Like, obnoxiously funny. As in: if you don't like this show, your mind is broken hellscape.
This true crime docuseries which on the surface is about "America's most prolific serial killer" is really about how police and the criminal justice system are garbage and let this man go free long enough to become "America's most prolific serial killer." It's also about an abuse survivor and true crime writer who is intent on naming all of his victims before he dies.
Over the course of three summers in the early '90s, a happy-go-lucky nerdy teen named Jeanette replaces the town hot chick and then becomes "the most hated person in the nation." Turns out the former hot chick (Kate) is only former because she was kidnapped by the new vice principal and our anti-hero Jeanette actually found her in captivity months before she was rescued and, obviously, told no one about it. Kate's justifiably salty about it and blasts Jeanette's name on national news. Much melodramz, y'all. Much.
Doing the Most with Phoebe Robinson
If you don't know Phoebe Robinson by now, then I'm sorry about your life. This series is 30 minutes of her doing shit, except she's actually mostly just interviewing people while they do shit. Either way, it's fantastic.
The revulsion that is America's genocidal history, in four parts. Absolutely required viewing.
Oh, you haven't seen any of the Ghost Brothers' shows yet? Even after I've constantly ranted and raved about how awesome they are? Well, GET 👏 YOUR 👏 SHIT 👏 TOGETHER, DUMMY.
Hazel is married to a psychopathically controlling tech billionaire who's kept her in a compound for the past 10 years, Shelly Miscavige-style. She manages to escape his insane world just before he's about to "co-mingle" their minds into a single entity which, yeah, is as crazy as it sounds. The bad news for her is that he'd already put a chip in her brain that not only lets him track her location, but also see what's going on around her. Think Kimmy Schmidt, except instead of her getting her backpack stolen at a dance club, she's chopping off henchmen's fingers at a strip club. (It is funny, I promise.)
A tragic five-episode true crime docuseries examines the 1993 murder of James Jordan (father of Michael) and the trial of Daniel Andre Green who, though one of the two people convicted of the crime, maintains his innocence to this day. It also paints a crystal clear picture of (shock and awe!) how incredibly corrupt the police and criminal justice system are.
A brief history of racial atrocities in America, focusing on the murder of Michael Donald and his mother's hard-fought battle for justice, are detailed in this infuriating four-episode docuseries.
It sounds as ridiculous as the title. A triple homicide in a deep woods pot farm.... Obviously Bigfoot did it, right? But this three-episode docuseries, in fact, dares to make the wild assumption that maybe it wasn't a damn sasquatch, you fucking stoner. An investigative journalist actually attempts to solve the 25-year-old murders and delves into the criminal underbelly of Drug Country, CA.
Unquestionably the most genuinely terrifying horror on television in years. There's definitely a strong argument against telling yet another Jim Crow-era story of racism, but it's absolutely not a place where the horror genre has tended to go. And a black artist (series creator Little Marvin) at the helm certainly doesn't deserve to be policed in their storytelling, especially not by white American audiences who'd prefer not to see uncompromising depictions of the reality of their heritage.
With that said, fair warning: there is some truly revolting imagery in the series, particularly in episodes 5 and 9. And, yes, it's bad enough for me to break my "only review the first episode" rule. But as a whole, this show is absolutely great enough for me to watch it in its entirety in two days flat. And it's certainly better than four fucking seasons of What If Nazis Won?
Stories behind favorite clothing items. Sounds real lame, right? But, bitch, when I tell you how hard I cried! The full body chills! My goodness. There are so many stories packed into these 30 minute episodes, it's kind of remarkable how the documentarians get you connected to their subjects.
Meh:
So You Think You Can Be America's Next Top Phone Photographer. I think it's lame that they're forcing them to use phones. But whatever, it's kinda cute. I'm rooting for Krys!
Another one of those "only Netflix could make this" shows. Do you have any trouble sleeping? Then. Watch. This. Shit.
This is the series we deserved when all we got was Iron Fucking Fist. It's definitely a bit more CW-ish, but still far superior. A young woman is sent to China to find a husband, but finds a Shaolin monastery for warrior women instead. When her mentor gets killed, she has to go back home to avenge her death (while also dealing with family drama and, ya'know... general crime and shit).
Kate Winslet solving small-town Pennsylvania crime (and trying so hard to have the accent, bless her). I'd be real into it if there weren't a bunch of bullshit cop propaganda. And if it were a little less packed with... I wanna say boring filler? Honestly, the most exciting part was recognizing Alanis Morrissette playing very faintly in the background during the bar scene. Only in the very last moments of the first episode do we get a sense of what the rest of this limited series will be about.
Also, watching it will definitely give you plenty of reasons to never have kids, so be sure to keep that in mind when being young, dumb, and heterosexual.
This remake turns a family of too-smart weirdos who hate the United States enough to go live in a Central American jungle into a family of too-smart fugitives who need to evade the law a bunch. Why? We don't know. It's needlessly mysterious, which leads me to believe the eventual payoff won't be worth it. But it sure is pretty.
People are calling this one "Steampunk Buffy," but it seems to me a lot more like "Steampunk Charmed," though I could honestly do without a steampunk version of either show. The first episode was very much meh for me and, at times, quite uncomfortable with the ghost of Joss Whedon's presence everywhere.
For those who don't know: amid the latest swirl of his grossness coming to light, he exited this show, which he created. Of the six episodes shot before the Covid shutdown, he wrote one and directed three. And those six episodes will all air before the end of May. The proceeding four episodes making up the rest of the first (and possibly only [given how critics and audiences alike aren't taking a shine to this one]) season will air at some time in the future, with new showrunner Philippa Goslett replacing Whedon.
So, much like Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and even Dollhouse, it'll do genre fans a lot of good to remember that TV shows are not made by one person. If this show deserves to succeed, it'll be because of the countless others (Buffyverse alums Jane Espenson and Doug Petrie included) who are putting their talent and hard work into it. Still, though... very much meh so far.
Erin Brockovich: The TV Series. It's a little more disjointed than the film with the massive cases condensed down to episodic stories filled with b-, c-, and even d-plots playing out simultaneously, but whatever, it's kind of a good time. And there are a whole mess of actors who I really like in it, so give it a shot.
This Is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist
A four-episode docuseries (a.k.a. an extended unofficial Unsolved Mysteries episode) about the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery. A couple of fake Boston cops steal priceless original artwork and, to this day, no one has been convicted of the crime and none of the works have been successfully recovered.
Don't Watch This Shit:
Honorable Mention:
Female Comedians: The Documentary.
The Shit I Missed:
A series of creepy two-hour documentaries? Yes, please.