Now that summer has become a legitimate TV season (thanks to streaming), it’s exciting to be able to watch series that I enjoy (along with a few new shows) during a period when everything used to be on hiatus or reruns. The new seasons of Black Mirror and the debut of Marvel’s Secret Invasion really snuck up on me, and Strange New Worlds is keeping the Trekker spirit alive. Following on the recent conclusion of Ted Lasso, Never Have I Ever came to a pretty satisfying ending as well. Here’s the good and bad of some of the TV I’ve watched so far this summer.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

It’s great to have this series back again. In its first season it was really the standard-bearer for what new Trek could be. However, episodes in the second season so far feel a bit cookie-cutter, merely taking the new crew through some familiar Trek standards. The first episode had the crew (without Captain Pike) defying orders, breaking rules to rescue their former crewmate La’an Noonien-Singh. I thought it was OK, but not very typical in that the crew were mostly off the ship, out of uniform, and not acting much like Starfleet. The second was the “trial episode”, concluding the cliffhanger from season one where Una “Number One” Chin-Reilly (Rebecca Romijn) has Pike’s help to defend herself from court martial after having lied about her status as an augmented person in order to get into Starfleet. I really enjoyed this episode with its speeches and legal/rhetorical tactics. Plus, guest star Yetide Badaki (who I remember from American Gods as the goddess Bilquis) gave a great performance as counsel and long-lost friend to Una. The third episode has been considered by many to be the best of the season so far, but I had a mixed reaction. I didn’t love the focus on La’an again. She’s not my favourite character. Plus, the time-travel storyline was so basic that it was barely sci-fi (really more of a cliche thought experiment or an excuse to throw a couple of fish barely out of water). However, they did get to examine something they’ve been wanting to address since the first episode: La’an’s heritage as a descendent of the notorious Khan Noonien-Singh. For me, the most enjoyable aspect of this episode was the fact that it was set in 2022 Toronto — T.O. represent! In fact, the very spot where the characters time-teleported into 2022 was Yonge-Dundas Square, which is only steps away from my apartment. It was awesome that the characters actually talked about Canada and went by many local landmarks. It was funny to see them coping with my very own time and place (though I was seriously disappointed that after all the shout-outs to real aspects of Toronto, the writers felt the need to create a fictional bridge across Lake Ontario to be blown up by fictional time-terrorists). The season is off to a semi-decent start, and it’s great that we’re getting to know more of the crew apart from Captain Pike (especially comedy queen Carol Kane as the new chief engineer).

Secret Invasion

I don’t have too much love for the Marvel TV shows, but with a bigger, more complex plot, I was expecting that I might be able to get into Secret Invasion. It’s very much Marvel’s take on a spy-fi series, paying off the setup from the Captain Marvel movie, which established that refugees from an alien race of shapeshifters have been living on Earth since the 90s. Nick Fury (still played gruffly by Samuel L. Jackson) comes back to Earth (after a satellite-bound hiatus from the planet after “The Blip”) to re-engage with these alien Skrulls who were apparently stirring up some political trouble. So far, the plan of a faction of militant Skrull terrorists has expanded into the titular secret invasion and we learn that human world leaders are being impersonated by Skrulls. This is a thrilling premise for a spy show, but as a Marvel show, it’s been a bit weak. Firstly, it seems (and other characters have commented on this, not just me) insane that old soldier Fury is taking on these powerful aliens who have infiltrated many parts of society, practically all by himself. True that he appears to be the cause of this uprising, since it’s partly motivated by disappointment over Fury’s broken promise to find the Skrulls a new home world. However, Fury’s continued refusal to seek out super-powered help is baffling (except that in the real world we know that superheroes added to the story tend to eat up a TV show’s budget). Also, in the comic books, this “Secret Invasion” story arc involved Skrulls impersonating super-humans. So far the TV show only has Skrulls impersonating humans who, while they are prominent, world-leading humans, are still a bit on the mundane side. Considering Skrulls can change shape, it also seems lame that they don’t turn into lions or dragons or mice in order to carry out their plots. Looking like another person so you can get close to an enemy and shoot them is all in a day’s work over at Mission Impossible, so what’s the big whoop over here at Marvel? We are at the height of superhero fatigue these days, so I am hoping that the rest of the series will really find a way to up the ante and bring the drama.

Black Mirror

While this is one of my favourite series of all time, I have not watched any episodes more than once. I find these provocative stories of social satire to be pretty intense and I usually need to relax my brain after each one. Nevertheless, I was very excited and surprised when the latest season arrived on Netflix. So far I have only watched the first two episodes, but they were both quite memorable, and have triggered a lot of online thought and discussion as usual. One interesting thread common to both episodes is that Netflix is willing to poke a bit at themselves, especially in the first episode, titled “Joan Is Awful”, which features Schitt’s Creek‘s Annie Murphy as a middle manager named Joan who has a very bad day when she is required to fire one of her employees. When she gets home later, she is shocked to find that Streamberry (a fictional Netflix analog) has just released a new show called “Joan Is Awful”, where Salma Hayek plays Joan in the dramatization of the events of her day. While definitely intrigued by how Streamberry is able to do this, she is even more determined to find out how to stop it, as the show is ruining her life as much as mirroring it. The second episode was even more disturbing as a young couple go home to a small Scottish town intending to film a human interest documentary about a nearby local, but instead get swept up in making a true crime show about a grisly series of events from the town’s past. As usual, the stories of Black Mirror make us consider how we could be headed for calamity based on how we interact with and use technology, media and culture. While some episodes have been better than others, I am really looking forward to what the rest of the episodes have to say.

Never Have I Ever

Taking a hard left from Black Mirror, another recent release from Netflix was (what I’m assuming is) the final season of Never Have I Ever, a dramedy where we follow the antics and adventures of teenager Devi Vishwakumar (played by the wonderful, Canadian actor Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). While the story started out with Devi dealing with the trauma of her father’s sudden death, over the four seasons we have been going through the many ups and downs in her life and the lives of her friends and classmates. This series has been great at depicting an Indian family living in the US, as well as portraying contemporary high school life (through an exaggerated TV lens, of course). This season, Devi and her friends are seniors getting ready for graduation and college (which is super-crucial for Devi as she’s been a straight arrow aimed at Princeton for as long as she can remember). We are also following these teenagers’ love lives, especially Devi who has the amazing, nerd-defying tendency both to attract the best-looking, most popular boys, but also to sabotage potential relationships or make terrible decisions in pursuit of them. The bad boy of this season is Ethan (played by Michael Cimino) who leads Devi down an uncontrollable path towards trouble. I admit that I don’t give this show much thought between seasons (as I am hardly the target demo for it) but I surprised myself by essentially binge-watching the whole season (Thanks Netflix!) over a few days. By the last episode I was pretty happy with Devi and her family. I thought they ended in good places (even if everything did seem to tie up at a “rom-com” level of convenience/contrivance). The series has been kind of tongue-in-cheek the whole way, so the ending did seem to fit, and it pulled appropriately on the heartstrings as well.

American Born Chinese

Sadly, I have been pretty disappointed with the new Disney+ adaptation of the graphic novel by Chinese-American Gene Yang. Keen to enjoy some more Chinese representation in mainstream media, I started reading the book to familiarize myself with the source material in advance of the show. Also, hearing that Oscar darlings Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan were both going to be in the show brought expectations up to sky-high. Unfortunately I have not really enjoyed the book so far (I’m about 1/3 through it) and the show even less (also only a few episodes in, so maybe it gets better). Both versions follow the story of a reserved Chinese-American teenage boy, named Jin Yang, trying to survive high school. In the book, his story alternates both with the story of a boy named Danny, who is completely ashamed of his cousin Chin Kee (a satirical manifestation of the worst possible Chinese stereotypes imaginable), and with a comic book retelling of parts of the legend of the Monkey King (the most prominent Chinese folktale of all time). On the show, I think they are blending things together, taking away some of the Monkey King stuff, and swapping Chin Kee’s story for scenes from an old sitcom where Ke Huy Quan’s character is a broad Chinese stereotype. While the alternating story lines might work well in the book (since they eventually come together) the way they are kind of blended makes for a confusing story on screen. The scenes when Jin tries to be a normal Chinese-American high school kid remind me a bit of Never Have I Ever as it deals with immigrant families and how cultural heritage affects young peoples’ experiences, but then all the crazy martial arts and supernatural Monkey King stuff suddenly shows up and tries to fit into the story as well, sending poor Jin’s story way over the top. Hopefully kids of Chinese descent can enjoy this series and really feel connection to the characters and their story, but as an older no-longer-a-kid of Chinese descent, I could see lots of things to relate to, but just could not watch any more of this messy show.

The Full Monty

I’m not sure why this show from Hulu/Star/Disney was made if not because of the tidal forces of the “reboot series” phenomenon. Revisiting characters from the 1997 sleeper hit film about a town of unemployed steel workers who put on a strip show is not some thing I’ve ever heard anyone ask for. Nevertheless, this show exists now and it’s not too bad. The main characters are all still around 25 years later, and living in their old town; and the town is still as hard on its luck as ever. Like the original movie, the characters are the real focus (primarily Gaz, played again by Robert Carlyle, but also Dave, played again by Mark Addy — who many will instead remember more as the tragic King Robert Baratheon from Game of Thrones). While they and their former-stripper buddies get into some new hijinks, there is also a next generation to contend with. Dave’s wife Jean is the principal of the local high school attended by Gaz’s teenage daughter Des (played charmingly by Talitha Wing) and Dave is the janitor at that school and befriends a fatherless young boy named Dean/Twiglet. The stories and characters are pretty well done and humourously humanize the working-class challenges of life in northern England. Unfortunately, I’m also feeling that the stories are too languid and it’s unclear where they’re heading. I’m not very motivated to keep watching the show. I expect that later episodes will show more of the story arc that the episodes are all leading towards, but I do hope they hurry up and get there. As much as I am keen on finding out the fates of Des, Dean, Dave and Gaz, I’m having a hard time maintaining my excitement for all of the other characters in this small town.

So. Summer is well underway with a really good mix of shows (and I’ve only mentioned a small number — I didn’t even touch on shows that I have not yet been watching, such as the return of The Witcher for Henry Cavill’s last hurrah). There’s a lot of stuff that we can add to our watchlists; and hopefully the current writers’ strike will end soon and the actors’ strike will be averted, otherwise we’ll probably need to stretch out watching these shows a little longer, well into the fall.