Oh, you’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch! Most years we also point out the worst of TV to help you steer clear of what may not be for you. Here are the five to miss.
5.
The Last Frontier
(Apple TV)
Poor Jason Clarke. He has worked long enough and great enough to get a starring role. And this is it. You see, in The Last Frontier, he’s a U.S. Marshall up in Fairbanks, Alaska and dag gum if multiple fugitives aren’t on the loose from a nearby plane crash. You know, like Con Air. The first fifteen minutes of the show is strange – in a bad way.
4.
True Haunting
(Netflix)
The issue with True Haunting? It sells you on a word “documentary,” but documents very little. Instead, it’s bad acting doing Unsolved Mysteries-esque reenactments of a paranormal experience only worse because these scenes play long, much as a narrative series does. Did I mention the acting?
3.
Dope Thief
(Apple TV)
What happens with Dope Thief pains viewers with potential. Ridley Scott shoots the first episode with his eye for people in deeper trouble than they’d realized. The second episode dips, then the third drops further, and so on and so on until the final episode is so far from the snappy crime caper that begins that Dope Thief is unrecognizable. True stars Bryan Tyree Henry and Wagner Moura did great work, but that’s about all there is to show after the premiere.
2.
Monster: The Ed Gein Story
(Netflix)
Would someone, anyone please tell Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan they’re doing these all wrong? Or, maybe just stop? Here, they’re guilty of adding false aspects of Gein’s story to up the ante on viewers’ disgust yet these choices do nothing for the narrative or even the fear factor. They’re just gross. And of course, they do nothing for the victims. And there’s one of the last scenes where, and I’m not making this up, Gein is visited by future serial killers while swathed in a golden light in his dying days. If they’re going for camp, it’s not working. Try again. Or don’t.
1.
Adults
(FX/Hulu)
This take lives and breathes in the meme of an old man out of touch. Adults brings together a group of friends for an ensemble comedy which evokes as much laughter as a hernia. It attempts (boldly! shockingly!) to face sexual harassment at work and colonoscopies and that’s when I stopped. The worst fault of Adults though isn’t the content. It’s that none of it felt real. Do young adults talk and act like this? If so, to borrow from Neil Young (he’s an old rock star; that’s a person who plays guitar and sings; his songs are longer than TikTok videos): twenty four and there’s so much more.
For what to watch instead, go here.