I know it’s not truly summer yet, but let’s not split hairs — there are so many new shows and new seasons that I can’t wait any longer! At a time when we should be heading out (finally!) to cinemas for the start of the blockbuster movie season, the streamers are bombarding us with so many exciting new and returning shows that I don’t even have time to get to them all. (Apologies that I haven’t binged entire series or even caught up on all these shows, but have been waiting for weeks and I finally need to give my hot takes on these — even if they’ve kind of cooled off.)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Years ago, when they first announced a series that tells the continuing story of Captain Pike (Anson Mount) and his pre-Kirk-era Enterprise crew (including Ethan Peck’s version of Mr. Spock), I was kind of meh about it. I was more excited about watching more of Jean-Luc Picard’s story, or the Starfleet black-ops series Section 31 (which still hasn’t come out yet). I am not a big fan of the original series, so a quasi-prequel was not anything I was wishing for. Time-warp to 2022, and as other Star Trek shows like Discovery and Picard become beyond disappointing (Do they really need to be so blatantly preachy each episode? Aliens that communicate in human emotions?! Picard’s whole time-rewriting adventure was Q’s way of getting him to deal with childhood trauma? The Borg becoming a race of community-builders? Come on!!). Anyway, today I could not have been more eager for a Star Trek show that follows the old planet-of-the-week formula, full of great sci-fi adventures (rather than interplanetary life-coaching).

So far, the episodes have been great fun — all that I hoped for, and knew that Star Trek could still deliver. Captain Pike is quickly becoming one of my favourite captains. I love how they manage to include some character development in each episode, and still keep the science fiction interesting and exciting. They haven’t yet tackled anything too brainy or head-scratchy, but the recent cat-and-mouse episode putting Enterprise on the run from the mysterious Gorn had me on the edge of my seat. I’m also enjoying the new characters, like a young Lt. Uhura, and Lt. Ortegas — a feisty pilot. I’m less into the new Spock, or the new security officer La’an Noonien-Singh (a descendent of the famous Khan) but I am sure they will grow on me. I am now pretty excited once again to watch Star Trek every week.

The Timey-Wimey Shows: Russian Doll, The 7 Lives of Lea, and The Time Traveler’s Wife

There are coincidentally (though are there any true coincidences in entertainment programming?) two new and one returning show that plays with time-travel, but only within the characters’ own lives or lives they are connected to (I know that’s a horribly mangled categorization, but if you watch the shows, you’ll know that it fits). Russian Doll is a returning show on Netflix. In the first season, Natasha Lyonne’s character was stuck in a time-loop where she would end up dying on her birthday over and over. In season 2, she’s not in a loop, but she takes the subway and ends up at various times in the past — in the bodies of people in her life. I’ve watched a few episodes and she keeps ending up further and further in the past (I think she’s in her grandmother’s life now). Similarly, Alan, a fellow time-looper from season one, also gets on the subway and is swapped into his grandmother’s body/life as well.

The 7 Lives of Lea is a French show that uses almost exactly the same mechanism as Russian Doll, but the story and tone are very different. 7 Lives focuses on Lea, a teenage girl who stumbles upon the skeleton of a person who died 30 years ago. When she wakes up the next morning, her mind is in that young man’s body, living a day of his life in the 90s. Both shows deal with past events in the lives of people who have impact on the current lives of the protagonists, but Russian Doll has a quirkier tone, and past events spread out further in time and have broader implications. 7 Lives, only jumps back to a tight set of days in 1991 and the lives of various people in a small community: adults (including Lea’s parents) whose lives intersect today, and in the past. For Lea, there’s also a murder to solve. I’m more interested in Russian Doll, because what’s going on is more mysterious and strange; plus Lyonne is such a distinctive actor that her character is a lot more fun. Despite using a sci-fi concept, 7 Lives is more conventional and mostly just telling the story in two different time periods. It’s like a series of amped-up flashbacks.

The third of this timey-wimey trio is the remake of a movie/book, The Time Traveler’s Wife, about a woman/girl, Claire (played by Rose Leslie from Game of Thrones, The Good Fight and Downton Abbey), who is repeatedly encountering her husband Henry (played by Theo James), at various moments in her life and at various ages. The reason for this is that he has been spontaneously jumping through time at various moments in his own life and ending up at different times each jump. Instead of a time-loop, their two lives are a jumble of intersections and interactions throughout lifetimes. The two actors are the main focus (though obviously there are other actors playing the same characters at different ages), and they’re both not bad. I’ve only watched two episodes so far, and I found the first episode pretty chaotic (with all the time jumps) and it was not easy to keep the chronology straight. However, I loved the second episode, which focused on a deeply personal and traumatic event in Henry’s life. At first I wasn’t sure why this story was being adapted again. I have not read the book, but I really liked the movie (starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams). I guess there was a lot of the original novel that was left out when they tried to squeeze it into the span of a movie. Since British uber-writer-producer Steven Moffatt (who is behind some of my favourite re-imaginings, including BBC’s Dracula, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, and the modern Doctor Who) was the mastermind behind this series, I have every expectation that I am going to love it.

The Lincoln Lawyer

Another book-turned-movie-turned-tv-series, this time it’s 90s lawyer-show wunderkind David E. Kelly (who has been all over the tv map, with Big Little Lies, The Undoing, Nine Perfect Strangers, and even some non-Nicole-Kidman-starring series, including Big Sky) giving this story a kick-start. While I truly miss The Practice, Ally McBeal, and Boston Legal all jewels from when David E. Kelly was at the height of his powers, I was very happy for him to get back to the legal stuff with this Michael Connelly adaptation. I don’t remember much from the Matthew McConaughey movie based on the same, but this series is about Mickey Haller, a successful defense attorney (returning from an incident-induced hiatus) after a colleague is killed and bequeaths his cases to Haller. At the top of the docket is the high-profile murder trial of a tech billionaire who accused of killing his wife and her lover. While the premise seems straightforward, the story is enhanced by the oddities of the characters, starting with Haller, who prefers to do his best work out of the back seat of large Lincoln. His assistant (played by Becki Newton) is his second ex-wife, who is engaged to his gruff private investigator. Also, his driver is a former client and fellow addict, so they share a lot of legal-life-lessons. Because this is more of a mini-series, the main story arcs pretty much span the whole season. I don’t know if there will be any more seasons, but what this means is that there is less emphasis on the quick-solve cases. Though there are a few in the earlier episodes where Haller brings up some surprise evidence or idea that wins the case effortlessly, by the second half of the series we’re mostly dealing with the big murder trial and (inexplicably) another trial that Haller’s first ex-wife (Lovely to see you again, Neve Campbell!) is prosecuting. I like the writing on this show (even though it’s not Kelly himself doing the writing) and the characters. Even though I don’t yet love the lead actor playing Haller (relative unknown Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), I’m getting used to him. Bottom line is that I have been a longtime lawyer-show addict, so I am happy to get my fix with this series.

Hacks

Finally (for now), my biggest surprise-fave of last year was this Emmy-winning series that features the always-amazing Jean Smart as a Joan-Rivers-esque comedienne who ends her long-term residency in Vegas after her life gets real after the mentorship of a younger, Millennial comedy writer disrupts her life. The writing and acting on this series are top-notch, witty and hilarious, and the relationship between Smart’s Deborah Vance and Hannah Einbender as Ava is fraught with friction and electricity, but also genuine connection. It’s super-engaging to watch. After Ava made a huge, drunken mistake at the end of last season, Deborah has had the upper hand and is not shy about tormenting Ava. Meanwhile, they all go on tour together, taking Deborah’s new material on the road. As she plays small town fairs and lesbian cruises, each episode and destination is a bit of a reckoning for the characters (especially Deborah). Though the rhythm has changed a bit from the previous season, this series is still humming, and everyone — especially Smart — is truly bringing these characters to life. I especially like the episode where Deborah has to face an old rival (played by the equally amazing Harriet Samson-Harris) who she screwed over decades ago.

There are still plenty of shows to talk about (including Obi-Wan and Stranger Things) but I’ll save them for the next time.