This time of year used to be when we got some midseason replacements for shows that didn’t survive the fall. However, in a year when there’s a dry breeze and tumbleweed rolling across the barren viewing schedule, we still get plenty of shows from our streaming channels to keep us busy (while we endure lockdowns). I enjoyed quite a mixed bag of shows in the last couple of weeks, including a slick, French heist show, the first (kinda bizarre) official MCU TV series, and a couple of series looking to reinvent the “corset” drama.

Lupin

One of the new highlights of Netflix’s huge and growing slate of internationally-produced series, this slick show features the imposing Omar Sy (star of the French hit Intouchables — which was remade into The Upside, starring Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston) as the main character Assane Diop. In the first episode, Assane pulls off the theft of an expensive diamond necklace — from the Louvre, no less. The spectacular opening scenes make for an attention-grabbing start to a series of events driven by Assane’s pursuit of answers about his past, and justice (or at least comeuppance) for individuals who seriously wronged his father and ruined their lives. Assane bases his M.O. on the stories of a famous gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin, created by the French author Maurice Leblanc at the turn of the 20th century. The show is a lot of fun, in that action-packed, heist-film kind of way. Each episode focuses on Assane’s pursuit of one more piece of the puzzle (and he goes to some extraordinary lengths to get them). As clever as it gets, the series does suffer from a growing case of plotholes as it progresses. Unfortunately it becomes even a little distracting to wonder why the police can’t catch Assane when he’s made himself extremely visible (they even have images of his face), and when everyone (good guys and bad) have access to modern police technology. Watching for escapism is the only best way to appreciate this series. Merely five episodes are included in its first semi-season, so that’s short enough to allow viewers like me to choose suspense over suspension-of-disbelief.

WandaVision

With a much-hyped debut on Disney+, the first tv series to come out of the Marvel cinematic universe has a lot of room for improvement. Starting out with very little context, Avengers Wanda Maximoff (known in comic books as the Scarlet Witch), and Vision (with literally no other name) are living in a black and white tv world lifted almost directly from past television shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show and Bewitched. These are superhero characters, so I expected some explanation why they aren’t acting like superheroes, but are instead playing boring 60s house. There’s a tongue-in-cheek tone to the show, and people on the internet have gone crazy hunting Easter eggs and clues that may or may not be references from the Marvel universe, but enough already. After watching the two episodes that have been released, I already feel like I’ve been waiting for the punchline or big reveal for too long. The main problem is that we know this is not the “normal” state of these characters — and if we don’t, we’ve got lots of little signs by way of mysterious sounds and voices, or out-of-place splashes of colour, to remind us. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t mind waiting for the twist so much if the actual episodes weren’t so cliche and dull. If you are familiar with the original shows, these send-ups are not particularly clever. If (like most of the MCU audience), you are too young to be familiar with those shows, all you get is a relatively flat set of episodes where the jokes are outdated and no amount of nudge-nudging and wink-winking can make them funny. I really hope that there’s something coming very soon to make this show worth the wait.

Kim’s Convenience

The last remaining Asian-fronted sitcom (in North America) is back on the air! Hurray! (though I read that another season of Aziz Ansari’s Master of None might be in the works — Hurray! and Never Have I Ever should also be coming back — though I don’t think of that show as a sitcom per se). The season 5 opener take a short time jump forward, past daughter Janet’s trip to Africa. She’s now back looking for “woke” work helping the needy (especially in the developing world). Her brother Jung has gone to California for business school. This is probably meant to allow actor Simu Liu’s to split time between his role on the show and his work in the Marvel cinematic universe as Shang Chi, while filming in Australia. (What I don’t understand, though, is why they made his fake school in California. Are there particularly good schools out there? He’ll be doing video calls for his scenes anyway; he could be anywhere on Earth.) The series also gets a bit heavy as Mrs. Kim is dealing with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and spends much of the first episode trying to find the right moment to break the news to Janet. After one episode, the show seems to still be true to its earnest, good-hearted-yet-slightly-corny sense of humour. I think there might be a shift to focus a bit less on Mr. Kim and more on some of the other characters. Though I definitely have a love-hate going with the Shannon scenes, her sexy-video snafu — which seems like a joke from 10 years ago, at least — still made me laugh.

Last Man Standing

In its final season, the Tim Allen family sitcom has not really been at its peak powers since shifting to Fox. Nevertheless, this year they hit the ground running, doing a quick fast-forward over the current COVID-19 pandemic to a few years from now, after we can all stop wearing masks or social-distancing from the world. The babies born at the end of last season are now toddlers, and everyone feels a little older (which is strange given that less than a year has passed in real life — though it was 2020, so the tough year has aged us all). One fun thing that happened in the second episode was that Tim Allen reprised his Home Improvement role of Tim Taylor and had a few scenes with his alternate self. That’s one way to top his previous casting stunts of having actors from his old TV family appear on this series (Patricia Richardson and Jonathan Taylor Thomas both made recurring appearances, but as only echoes of their Home Improvement characters). The latest episode also brought back recent cast addition Krista Yu as exchange student Jen. What’s weird is that despite the time-jump, story elements about the political situation in Hong Kong were written in. Considering they’ve jumped into the future, the show doesn’t really indicate that much has changed in that time. It feels like they’re talking about 2020 Hong Kong. Anyway, I’m hoping that this show will go out on top, with lots of exciting fan-service for those of us who (much to our own surprise) have enjoyed this show for all of its 9 seasons.

Disenchantment

This series is less well-known than its other Matt Groening-created siblings, Futurama and The Simpsons. Nevertheless, it takes that same kind of humour (Long live the uncouth, everyman protagonist!) and places it in a quasi-medieval fantasy setting. Returning in its third season (though it’s Netflix, so the seasons are only 10 episodes long), there are actually a lot of plot threads to pick up. The world of the show has grown quite large, including the semi-evil queen who keeps coming back to interfere with her daughter, the protagonist Princess Tiabeanie (and we are never sure if her intentions are truly good or bad), the surrounding kingdoms and races (including elves, trolls, mermaids, and demons from Hell — where they actually went last season). Also, last season introduced the anachronistic Steamland: a steampunk-inspired land of old-tyme technology and turn-of-the-century modernism, which is back, literally with a vengeance (Steamland wants to take over Tiabeanie’s Dreamland). As much as I enjoy all the fantasy elements of this show, I was never big on recurring jokes about drinking or being uninspired slackers. Also, there are so many plot threads that seem to crop up randomly that I lose a clear sense of the overall storyline (OK, there’s an underground race of weird black-eyed quasi-elves living beneath the castle. OK, young prince Derek is going to marry an old, foul-mouthed fairy. Let’s go with it, I guess.) While it’s good for a bit of a chuckle, I find that this show has still not quite hit the right tone. Nevertheless, I binge-watched the whole season in less than a week.

Miss Scarlet and the Duke

A new series just debuted on Masterpiece Mystery (though it played in the UK last year) which reinvents the Victorian sleuth a bit by making her a woman. Eliza Scarlet is young, intelligent, and wants to be a private investigator just like her father. Unfortunately, the Victorian society around her (including her own papa) is not really keen to give her that chance. Despite working every angle to pick up cases and prove herself, things get even harder once her father dies. Needing the income to make ends meet, she continues in his footsteps (while keeping his name as the figurehead — no one would hire a female PI, after all) to prove she can solve crimes and catch crooks as well as any man. In the first episode, we watch Eliza get mixed up in some seedy dealings, and even finds herself a couple of new enemies. Her unofficial Scotland Yard counterpart, William ‘The Duke’ Wellington, does not make a huge impact in the first episode. He’s a friend of Eliza’s (and looks a lot like Hugh Jackman — though it’s not him) and they’ve had a bit of a romantic history, but so far she’s just used him to help get her out of police custody (when she gets in it). The series is making a pretty good start (with a couple of mildly clever twists), but it’s not yet become the Sherlock meets Downton Abbey that I had hoped. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see some familiar faces (Eliza’s father is played in flashback by Kevin Doyle — the hapless Molesley from Downton, and Eliza herself is played by Kate Phillips — who was in the Downton Abbey movie) cast in new roles.

Bridgerton

I am not a fan of Shonda Rhimes’s other big series like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, or How To Get Away With Murder. They have just not been my cup of tea. However, this new period series, Bridgerton, seemed like something I’d be more inclined to enjoy. I loved Downton Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and have enjoyed many a corseted, drawing-room drama about young, rich, British aristocrats looking for love and marriage. I also confess that I have only watched a few episodes of this new series so far, but it’s already lost allure to me. Set in Regency-era England, it focuses on the Bridgerton family — the eldest daughter Daphne in particular — and their attempts at navigating the upper-crust society and winning good marriages for all the children. This series puts a new twist on the classic format by adding a Gossip Girl-style narrator, in the voice of the mysterious Lady Whistledown (narrated by the peerless Julie Andrews). Whistledown writes a gossip newsletter that is distributed among the society, and she seems to know about and comment on every notable scandal and faux pas around. Another modernization is the ethnic diversity of the cast. While I was put off at first, by a few episodes I have acclimated to the appearance of all skin shades among the fictional British elite. Even though it’s obviously a modern concession and an inaccurate reflection of the lily-white times, it makes the series feel somewhat timeless. (Now, if only the Asian actors could serve as more than just the occasional extras in the background.) Finally, much has already been written about the occasional racy sexual scenes that have also made their way into this ostensibly demure show. I have not seen too much naughtiness in the first few episodes, but enough to realize that they also help Bridgerton fit better with the other Shondaland shows, with their passionate, bed-hopping characters. I wonder if someone has already given the Duke of Hastings, played by new heartthrob Regé-Jean Page, a “McDreamy” or “McSteamy”-style nickname. Maybe if I’ve exhausted my other viewing options I’ll come back to Bridgerton (sounds more like a town than a family name, no?), but for now, they get to dance their balls without me.

The current slate of new and returning shows are definitely full of variety — and that doesn’t even include all those shows that I have no interest in watching — like the “did we really need this?” performance series The Masked Dancer; the surprisingly enduring Karate Kid spinoff, Cobra Kai; or the boring and unfunny new Mayim Bialik series Call Me Kat. There’s a few shows for everyone that can occupy our time as we sit and wait for the world to get back to normal.