I was particularly looking forward to catching new episodes of Netflix’s The Crown this past week as new and returning shows debut into the late fall and early winter. The pandemic-hobbled TV season continues sadly, with a lot of recent new shows having been disappointing and uninspiring. In a time when I could really use a new fave, a new obsession, that’s proving to be hard to find.

The Crown

With this latest season, the show that dramatizes the life of Queen Elizabeth II (and those around her) finally crosses over into events that happened within my lifetime. Covering the 70s and 80s, with the prime ministership of Margaret Thatcher (played by The X-Files‘s Gillian Anderson) and the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, these episodes hit a bit closer to home. Maybe not surprisingly, I found myself questioning the factuality of these episodes even more than I had for previous seasons. I had paid very little attention to these real life events when they happened, since they occurred far away from my own childhood. However, I still have vague impressions and memories of those events from the news. So I finally have a personal point of reference to compare against what is happening in these episodes. Nevertheless, the show is definitely as lavish, well-written, and well-made as ever, and the casting is always good. Emma Corrin does a great job expressing that magical spark and charisma that characterized Princess Diana throughout her public life. Josh O’Connor, who had already been portraying Prince Charles in the previous season, continues to depict a self-centred man who is full of resentment (especially of Diana’s spotlight). Finally, Gillian Anderson is a bit odd as Thatcher. I have not seen much footage of the real “Iron Lady”, so I’m not sure if Anderson’s tight-faced expressions are true to life (maybe I should check out the movie in which she was played by Meryl Streep for comparison). It’s a bit disappointing that these secondary characters have stolen the attention away from the character of the Queen, who continues to be well acted by Oscar-winner Olivia Coleman. However, this show continues to be one of my favourites.

His Dark Materials

While I enjoyed it, I found the first season of this big-budget fantasy adaptation to be a bit tricky to follow. By the end, Lord Asriel (an extra-large cameo by James McAvoy) had managed to open a gateway to another world and our young heroine, Lyra, crossed through. In the second season, a lot of time is spent in this totally new environment, exploring this new world with Lyra and her travelling companion Will (another exile of the parallel worlds: a different world which looks a lot like ours). Even though we’ve only had one episode so far this season, I am enjoying the more traditional exploration storyline over the complexities of the first season. The machinations of Lyra’s mother, Mrs. Coulter, and the Magisterium continue in the backdrop, but they’re less prominent (at least for now). On the other hand, I wonder if we’ve also left behind all the interesting species of characters that we previously met now that Lyra’s crossed over. I hope we have not seen the last of the witches, gyptians, armoured bears, etc. I never read the second book, The Subtle Knife, so I don’t know anything about where the story is supposed to go. However, I’m looking forward to a fun ride that will be full of surprises.

Alex Rider

I was excited that this show was coming to Amazon Prime mainly because I like British things and I like spy-fi. Based on a successful book series, Alex Rider follows the adventures of a teenage boy whose guardian/uncle dies, revealing that he was actually part of a legacy of espionnage (I always used to think of this series as Harry Potter with spies rather than wizards.) Alex becomes an agent himself and tries to discover and defeat the people responsible for his uncle’s death. In case anyone remembers the 2006 movie adaptation of the Alex Rider story (called Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker), it featured Alex Pettyfer in the title role and Ewan MacGregor as his ill-fated uncle. I had high hopes for that movie, but it was so bad (over-the-top and poorly written) that I was surprised that someone decided to try again with a TV series. Sadly, I don’t like the new series very much. For a show about a teenage spy, it is heavy and slow. It’s got that airless feeling that bogs down too many British dramas, in my opinion. Alex (played by Otto Farrant) is super-broody, and the story moves at a glacial pace. I’ve already watched three of the eight episodes in the first season and Alex has only barely begun his undercover assignment at a secretive boarding school which appears to be behind the assassination of high-profile, high-value individuals. I don’t know if the original books by Anthony Horowitz were meant to be so serious, or maybe this is an over-compensation for the way the 2006 movie was handled, but I had hoped for a lot more fun than what I’ve experienced so far.

Truth Seekers

Another British genre show to debut on Amazon Prime, again I found this one disappointing. I didn’t have any expectations from previous experience with the material (since I knew nothing about this show before watching it). However, it features the hilarious Nick Frost in the lead role of part-time paranormal investigator Gus Roberts (and even has cameos from Frost’s comedy partner Simon Pegg as Roberts’s day-job boss). Roberts works as an installer and technician for a cable/internet company called Smile, but he also has a side gig producing a web sites/video podcast, with a significant fringe fanbase, about all kinds of paranormal stuff in the area. He takes on a new work partner named Elton John (not that Elton John) and together they get messed up in all kinds of crazy, unexplained phenomena in the course of doing their work. The show reminds me a bit of the acclaimed, Spanish-language, paranormal comedy Los Espookys, in that there are all kinds of eclectic characters and random supernatural events that occur and I guess it gets mileage from the quirkiness rather than the coherence of the scripts. The more I think about it, the more series that I can name which are kind of like this one, so they seem to form an unnamed subgenre of oddball sci-fi. I’ve watched five of the eight season-one episodes, and I don’t really know where the show is going, so I guess this particular subgenre might not be for me.

Big Sky

After Big Little Lies, and The Undoing, I was surprised to learn that super-producer David E. Kelley had another show coming out this season, called Big Sky. Featuring Ryan Phillipe as a cop-turned-PI, the show is set in Montana (hence the title), and is adapted from a 2013 novel called The Highway. This show seems very different from those other two recent Kelley series, as it doesn’t feature wealthy people trying to get away with dirty deeds. Instead, I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears when the first episode seemed to be focused on two women who both work in the small town detective agency and both seem to be in a love triangle with Phillipe’s character. I was surprised because the dialogue and characters are kind of juvenile, and I felt more like I was watching something on The CW instead. To top it all off, the secondary (or maybe primary) storyline of the episode was about a young woman and her sister driving on the Montana highway to get to her boyfriend’s place. Along the way, they get into a road-rage incident with a truck driver who happens to be some kind of “incel”-type psycho-killer and we slip into what feels like a teen horror movie. Where was the clever wit and drama that characterized a Kelley production? I was almost ready to give up on the episode (and the series) but then I remembered one of the features of past Kelley shows (most notably, The Practice) which I loved. They often have major twists in the last few minutes of the episode. So, with that in mind, I kept on until the end, and sure enough a very big twist occurred! Now I don’t know what to do. Do I keep watching a show that I kind of hate, just to see what happens next?

Young Sheldon

Last but not least, I was looking forward to catching episodes of Young Sheldon (especially after just finishing a full Big Bang Theory rewatch). I read that the season premiere episode had to be delayed from the end of last season because of the pandemic. That makes sense, since we get to see Sheldon give a speech as the valedictorian of this high school graduation. The speech certainly had more of a “grand finale” rather than a “kick things off” kind of feel. Now Sheldon is coping with having to grow up quickly in order to handle going to college at his young age. I wonder what kind of situations this will trigger in the show, and what new characters will be introduced to replace those from his high school (I enjoyed his old teachers). Also, it’s a bit odd to feel like Sheldon is moving on if the rest of the family continues to face the same old situations at home, so I am interested to see what other things will change for Sheldon’s family. One of the intriguing aspects of this prequel series is how closely they will stick to some of the events in Sheldon’s life that we viewers are expecting to come (since they were mentioned in Big Bang Theory episodes). I think the producers of this show have not promised to be 100% aligned with that continuity, but we’ll see what happens down the road.

As recent new TV fare has been disappointing, I’ve got my fingers crossed for whatever is coming down the pike. Hopefully 2021 will bring hope for us all: both an end to the pandemic, and wonderful, new entertainment as well.