I know it’s been a while, but I have been watching stuff even though I haven’t been writing about it all. Colour me surprised when I renewed my Apple TV+ subscription in order to catch the latest and final season of Ted Lasso, only to end up watching several more series (and one documentary film). At first I just wanted to get more value from my subscription (After all, how many times can I rewatch the comedic saga of AFC Richmond?) but I ended up liking a few shows so I thought I’d share my two cents about them.

Ted Lasso

First, let’s talk about the show that it’s all about. (Spoiler warning for everything up to the end of season 2. Don’t read any further if you’re not caught up.) Since this is supposedly the last season of the series, I have been expecting a build up to a big climax (which, if we follow sports story tradition, should be the championship victory). That can still happen, but if that is the plan, they sure are taking the scenic route. I thought surely they would deal quickly with Ted’s betrayal by former assistant coach, Nate, and find a way to give him and Ted a heartfelt resolution (also, still possible, but there’s almost no sign of repentance, remorse, or reconciliation in sight ). Plus, I really hate Nathan as a character now. I feel like his turn last season was an over-reaction, and his turn to villainy is also incredibly outrageous (I mean, more than just being bitter, he seems to revel in anything bad that happens to Richmond or Ted). However, if they reach the end of the series without some justice and comeuppance for Nathan, I will be extremely pissed.

This season might be the end, but at least they’re giving us twice as much content since each episode approaches an hour-long runtime. I guess more time lets them tell stories of many of the “side” characters. Keeley is starting her PR business and we get to know some of the people at her company (they might have been setting up a spinoff, but I don’t know that I’d watch it). We spend time with Sam Obisanya and his new restaurant (which I never thought they’d make into an on-screen storyline). I think Sam is a charming character, but I expected him to return to the background once his storylines were done last season. A nice quasi-addition is Trent Crimm (formerly of The Independent) as a regular. I always liked his character and I suspect he was a fan favourite, hence the shift to recurring status. He seems to have a new role as quiet advisor to a few of the characters. Surprisingly he gives very little football advice even though his being a former football journalist should make him a real expert. Colin Hughes (one of the players you probably overlooked in the first two seasons) steps into a brighter spotlight this season as well.

Though we should be tying things up, we actually meet a few new characters that get thrown away after a few episodes — I don’t know why. Most obvious is a celebrity superstar player named Zava. His addition doesn’t make sense from a story point-of-view because he takes time away from characters we know and yet he himself has very little development. Basically he’s a bit of a hippie, but also an amazing player, so he acts very odd and quirky and the team all worship him — all except Jamie Tartt, who feels eclipsed.

I find this season to be slow-paced and uneven. It’s spinning its wheels a bit and not giving us the stuff we want to see, but goes off in all kinds of tangents instead. There’s still a chance to pick things up (and I can see signs of life) but I can’t decide whether the show is setting up a big finish or a bunch of spinoffs — and that’s hurting the series overall.

Still

I was curious to watch this documentary film about Michael J. Fox, not necessarily because I’m so interested in his life, but the film seemed to have an interesting slant. It used a lot of footage and scenes from Fox’s past roles to illustrate his voiceovers about incidents and experiences in his real life. It was a pretty good gimmick and made the film nostalgic without being obvious about it. Being a child of the 80s, I grew up with Fox as Alex Keaton in Family Ties. While I didn’t relate to Alex very much, Fox did seem to really inhabit the role. I also watched him in the Back to the Future films, but that’s about it. Nevertheless, I enjoyed hearing the story told of how his meteoric success impacted his life and was intrigued by how he had to handle the gradually developing symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease (which I’d known that he famously suffered from, but I hadn’t known much about his story from that perspective). The big revelation that he was hiding his disease while still taking on various acting roles was a surprise. I was also not expecting that he’d fallen into the trap of the Hollywood fast life — I had imagined that Fox was very clean-cut and wholesome, but apparently that was mainly just his roles. With a few mild surprises, this was otherwise a pretty gentle and decent story told of highly successful actor’s life. It’s not overly chaotic and it’s even a bit uplifting to see Fox with his family, and his devotion to his wife Tracy Pollan (who has supported him with his illness). If you are a fan of Fox (or the 80s), you should definitely check this film out.

The Big Door Prize

This was a quirky series that I stumbled up and had no intention of watching (if I hadn’t urged myself to watch more Apple shows). However, it’s become one that I’ve recommended to my friends and colleagues. Based on a novel, this show is a character dramedy with a bit of magical realism. The residents of a small American town find all their lives shaken up when a mysterious machine shows up in the local general store. The Morpho machine gives each person using it a cryptic card that tells them their true “potential”. While each episode focuses on a different member of the community, the show also focuses on the lives of Dusty, a high school teacher played by lovable Irish goofball Chris O’Dowd, his wife Cass and his daughter Trina. The town is full of a variety of interesting characters who start to rethink their lives and make some bold choices triggered by the Morpho cards they received. Some change jobs, some start relationships (even get married), and many reinvent themselves based on the assumption that they understand the clue of what’s on their cards. I enjoy how the town is a quirky mirror of the larger society and how every each character’s changes and decisions act like pinballs or dominoes, causing other changes in other lives around them. Also, like a small town version of Lost, we find out that some of the townsfolk have interesting backstories and all the reckoning and reflection going on is bringing these secrets to the surface. Even though my descriptions might be making this series sound incredibly mundane, I’ve used the word “quirky” a couple of times to try to express how refreshing and interesting I find the show to be. I definitely enjoyed the first half of the 10-episode season more than the latter half because once the characters’ stories start to criss-cross a bit more, things get more chaotic and the characters start to behave more erratically. Plus they start to focus more on the machine again (and I just wanted it to be the magical igniter of the story that could just be written off once things got going). As much as I enjoyed the series, I don’t know if I’ll be interested in reupping my subscription just to watch this show when it returns for season two.

Silo

The last surprise is a new sci-fi series that I didn’t even want to watch, and didn’t expect to enjoy. It’s a post-apocalyptic story (which I don’t like) about a society of people all living in a tall, deep structure underground. Apparently the world outside the silo is so polluted that even with a hazmat suit someone would die in minutes from the exposure. Within the silo, the society follows a set of laws known as The Pact and chief among them is that you don’t discuss the world outside the silo; and anyone who asks to go outside the silo is granted that request, since it is also a death sentence. The society of the silo reminded me a lot of the society of the train in the movie Snowpiercer, except there is less of a focus on the politics and class system. Instead, what moves the series along is a few mysteries: Is the world outside the silo truly deadly? (experience with post-apocalyptic tropes has taught us that governments always lie and that we should not believe what we’re told); there is also a murder (or is there?) of someone who has discovered maybe too much truth. I started the series expecting some very conventional post-apocalyptic storytelling, but the characters we had met in the first couple of episodes seemed pretty interesting. Unfortunately characters start dying almost as quickly as we meet them. The numerous accidental (and less accidental) deaths add even more suspense and tension to the plot. By the third episode it’s almost a relief to focus largely on pure action as the maintenance team have to refit one of the propeller blades used in the massive generator that powers the silo. It’s a fraught bit of tension as time is of the essence and one character even comes close to drowning in the process. There is also some significant world building in the first few episodes as we meet some of the different classes and divisions in the silo as well as various leaders and major roles held by prominent members of this sealed society. We also start out with a celebration of Freedom Day, where we learn about some of the silo’s questionable history and traditions. The cast of the show contains a number of good actors (with surprisingly a lot of Brits) including Rebecca Ferguson (who was Lady Jessica in the recent Dune film), Rashida Jones, Tim Robbins, Will Patton, David Oyelowo, and Iain Glen (the tragic Jorah Mormont from Game of Thrones). Compared to previous prestige sci-fi epics from Apple, such as Foundation and See, I am still intrigued to keep watching. There is so much more that I want to learn and questions that I want answered about the world of the silo. The story has managed to make me doubt all the assumptions that I had made about this being a conventional and cliche piece of post-apocalyptic sci-fi. All I ask, is that when the truths are all revealed, I am not left asking to “go outside”.