Even though its final moments can't quite justify the confident, cerebral adventures that come before, Stranger Things is quintessential - and essential - summertime entertainment of the quality we've been too long denied.
There's not a lot left to do and say within the 30-minute, struggling creative-type, self-aware comedy genre. Shows like Louie and Girls honed in on the structure and voice of sitcoms like this over the past few years, letting replicators flourish (Broad City) or flounder (Flaked). There's always a downtrodden hero, a partner in crime, and a plan to somehow "make it," along with all of the other people who seem to be getting ahead. Some shows have slowly been pushing at the boundaries of what even defines this type of series, like You're The Worst's deeply dark second year, and the cool thing about Hulu's returning anarchic little sitcom, Difficult People, is that it knows this, and sets its sights on its peers with weaponized glee.
A lot about Freeform's new mystery/thriller Dead of Summer bathes in overkill '80s camp in the best ways possible. The music is synth-heavy and obnoxious to just the right extent, the setting is ominously idyllic, and its characters rock their mysterious backstories as much as their tubular nicknames ("Cricket" and "Blotter," for starters). The show's cheesy thrills, wherein rodents and "innocent" counselors sub in for jump scares 100% of the time every time, are just energetic and economical enough to wrap you up in a script that, unfortunately, shows its tween-friendly Freeform-ness more often than not.
It's funny that, just one year ago, you couldn't watch an episodic whodunnit even if you wanted to. MTV's Scream re-do was gearing up, and Scream Queens was a few months off, but the in-the-now murder mystery market was wide open. Cut to today, and now you can't swing a bloody hatchet around your channel lineup without stumbling across something dark and sinister and mysterious, with conveniently plotted red herrings.
The news that you've seen Greenleaf before probably won't come as much of a shock. The show is billed as a dynastic family drama whose deceit and lies bubble to the surface once a prodigal child returns with a baggage of viewpoints directly contradicting with what most in the scrupulous title clan take as gospel. Interchange Greenleaf's sprawling megachurch in Memphis with a record business, oil company, etc, and you have the set-up of most serialized dramas in the past three decades.
Hilarious, scintillating, and - in the unfortunate context of our reality - ultimately vital, Orange Is the New Black proves its long-term potential in season 4 through one universally captivating story after another.
Picture this: a group of stranded, dehydrated, hopeless strangers are standing around a bonfire filled with the corpses of the passengers on their crashed plane who weren't lucky enough to survive. Now, imagine that those survivors begin sniffing the air, noses upturned, realizing that burning bodies near where they live isn't the best idea. Lastly, picture them all beginning to vomit on one another, and back into the bonfire of death, as a chain of regurgitated bodily fluids sparking one by one until they're all running for their lives.
Multiple factors could impede your enjoyment of CBS's new sci-fi/political drama BrainDead. While known to at least somewhat succeed at the latter genre, CBS has been lagging behind with the former. Because of this, to get the most out of BrainDead, you'll have to be willing to welcome a network that doesn't exactly have the best sci-fi track record. The show might be a D.C.-set poli-drama that makes ample use of all of the Trump v Clinton v Sanders soundbites that have dominated the media cycle of lte, but it's also got a weird streak and a demented sense of humor. Oh, and spontaneous combustion.
