Seen in October

The boys are back in town, but at the behest of the women.

Wait a second. How is it November already? I was just towelling off and sunning myself at the pool wasn't I? It makes no sense but here's what I saw in October.

Big Mistakes S01
Netflix

Dan Levy has a new show and it’s pretty great. Levy plays Nicky, an openly gay pastor (at some kind of church that’s progressive enough to have a gay pastor as long as he isn’t “practicing”) and Taylor Ortega plays his sister, Morgan. The two siblings fall into a series of bizarre adventures after mistakenly stealing an expensive necklace owned by a Russian gangster. The pair’s other sister Natalie is deeply involved in getting their mother, Laurie Metcalfe (who is brilliant in this) elected as mayor of their small upstate New York town.

Best buddy-comedy/road trip/detective/super-hero show yet.

Lanterns S01
Crave

I’ve never really been a Green Lantern fan, but if Damon Lindelof (who was the show runner of HBO’s Watchman) says it’s a cross between a DC comic and HBO’s True Detective, well now you’ve got my interest. Much of the show is Hal Jordan/Green Lantern (Kyle Chandler) investigating a shooting in small town in Nebraska with his apparent replacement he’s supposedly training, John Stewart (the excellent Aaron Pierre). Instead of me explaining it too much I’ll quote the Wikipedia page, “Green Lanterns are interstellar peacekeepers who wear rings that give them extraordinary powers. The series follows experienced Lantern Hal Jordan and new recruit John Stewart as they investigate a murder in Rushville, Nebraska, which Hal believes is an extraterrestrial incident and leads them to darker mysteries and reckonings.” Let’s just say there’s a lot going on between the two men and the town sheriff, Kerry Kane (Kelly Macdonald). Earlier this year as I watched a couple of episodes of Daredevil I thought, “It’s finally happened. I’m too old to watch this superhero crap.” Then this show came along, de-aged me and I’m back on the bandwagon.

Ted Lasso S04
Apple TV+

With a similar level of fantasy as a superhero genre, Ted Lasso, the American Football coach who took over an English professional soccer team returned. Ted (Jason Sudeikis) returns from the US to takeover Richmond’s professional women’s team. Other cast favourites such as Hannah Waddington, Brett Goldstein, Juno Temple, Brendan Hunt and Jeremy Swift all return as well along with a new female coach, Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds) and a whole women’s team of characters. The new season focuses on the building of a women’s side (as foretold at the end of season 3), and how that changes the tone of the show. It does seem like the titular character will have a smaller role in the next season so it will be curious how that’s handled. In every other sense the series returned to form feeling as though it had never even left.

Gary Oldham as Jackson Lamb.

Slow Horses S06
Apple TV+

How do spies effectively out in the cold continue being spies. This new season about the team at Slough House begins them being officially wiped from the books. It’s the beginning of a much darker series of events for all involved and ends on an even more worrisome note. If you’re a fan of this show, you won’t be disappointed even if you are a bit saddened.

Bill (2015)

Hoopla

With news that the team behind the British comedy series Ghosts had returned for a feature film, we sought out this earlier comedy feature about how the flailing Bill Shakespeare found success in the big city of London. It’s full of anachronistic fun and follies. I’m not sure it holds together as a feature length film but it was a swill bucket full of laughs and that’s what counts.

Mayday
Apple TV+

Set during the height of the 1980s Cold War, American fighter pilot, Troy Kelly (Ryan Reynolds) on a black ops mission is shot down in a prototype jet while flying over Russia. Lucky for him, he’s crash landed and rescued by US loving former KGB agent, Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh). Kelly’s only way out of the USSR is through it with help from Nikolai (“Call me Nick.”). Reynolds excels in his swagger and snappy one-liners while Branagh is eating the scenery with relish and a bit of mustard, all the while brandishing his comedic Russian accent to good effect. It’s fun, with little chance of surprise but a good road trip buddy comedy action adventure of the type we don’t get much of anymore.

What is Michael Sleep cooking up in his shed?

Small Prophets S01
Apple TV+

This is probably my favourite show of the year. It’s another enchanting short comedy from Office alum Mackenzie Crooks (who also created the British show The Detectorists). Michael Sleep (Pearce Quigley) is a man stuck in the past who can’t really move beyond the day seven years before when his beloved girlfriend, Clea, mysteriously left on Christmas Eve. His father (in a wonderful turn by Michael Palin), suggests the solution to Michael’s problem is to grow some homunculi, and so he gives his son a notebook with full instructions on how to do so. Michael’s dad suggests that homunculi, as prophesying spirits, can answer any question truthfully about the past, present or future. Michael decides to humour his father after finding the notebooks and realizes there may be an outside chance on discovering what happened to Clea. It’s a special and funny little show that brings some magic back to television.