I watch way too much TV sometimes binge-watching a show all the way through the night. Thanks to the blessing and curse of a multitude of streaming options there is always a wealth of content.
The rules of what gets into each monthly list are simple. It needs to be a TV show, limited or otherwise, any particular season and I have to have finished watching it in the month. This does mean for shows that are doing weekly releases I may have started watching some time ago.
The List
The list of shows ranked for February 2023 are: –
The idea is to rank what I’ve watched per month and then do some sort of ranking at the end of the year.
The Legend of Vox Machina
We need a bit of perspective before I dive into The Legends of Vox Machina. I started watching Critical Role in 2016 not too long after it started and I watched it religiously until some point in 2022. I even went to Gen Con in 2019 primarily to see their live show.
While I didn’t view it that way, if I was to look at it critically, I was dedicated. It was one of the interests that spun out of my divorce and formed from a time and place.
Taking all that into account? The Legends of Vox Machina establishes the show as an animation classic for me. The first season had a shaky start until it got into the main narrative thread, but this one goes straight for the narrative jugular and exhibits a depth of storytelling and structure that is several levels beyond the first series.
The whole show is just bigger and bolder and it really works.
At first, I watched the show because of my past fascination with the streaming version but now it has transcended that and I am watching it because it is just a very good, epic fantasy, with characters on the verge of being superheroes. There are a number of action scenes in the second series that are phenomenally put together with their narrative being more interesting and complex.
The series, as you’d expect, is tracking the streaming version from the perspective of things becoming more and more dramatic as the campaign progressed.
The Legend of Vox Machina is the best way to experience the story created within what was a streaming show. The economy of the narrative is much better in the animation than it is in the streamed role-playing game. This is especially true because Critical Role is a very long-form, traditional experience which means some things that literally take tens of hours are delivered adeptly in 30 minutes in the animation.
Excellent stuff.
Slow Horses
Every so often TV shows come along that take me a few attempts to get into. Breaking Bad didn’t even stick until my third attempt. Slow Horses was a bit like that as it didn’t stick on the first attempt but on the second attempt it held and I pretty much watched both seasons end-to-end.
The premise of Slow Horses is simple. It’s an adaptation of the Slough House novels. Slough House is where MI5 agents who have bungled their job go to die a slow career death with the remote prospect of getting back into the mainstream while facing constant abuse from their boss played by Gary Oldman. Despite this, Slough House gets involved in all sorts of spy shenanigans either because MI5 wants to disown it, find someone to blame or past history of the characters.
What you actually get is a show that is pretty close to the first few seasons of Spooks, but if it was the characters assigned to Slough House. The show is not a comedy. It mixes up characters who are very good at their jobs and professional with some who are obviously in their purgatory for good reason. The seasonal stories are interesting and the first season especially reminds me of Spooks with some great reveals and twists and turns.
Also, you have Gary Oldman doing his thing which is always fascinating to watch.
Harlem
Okay, let’s be brutally honest here, and anyone who argues against this must be narratively blind, Harlem is essentially an updated Sex and the City. This isn’t a criticism as it is the strength of the show, but that is what you’re getting. It’s very important that the characters are from a different area of New York, that they are women of colour and they mix up the personality types and make the central narrator an anthropology professor rather than a frivolous lifestyle columnist but it is Sex and the City.
As Sex and the City with contemporary sensibilities, it really works for me. I enjoyed series two, possibly not as much as season one but this may just be because it lost its new veneer. It could also be because the through line for the ‘narrating character’ doesn’t feel as strong this time. I like the characters and the issues they explore are always interesting. Yeah, some episodes are stronger than others but Harlem has the big benefit of not having to script 18 episodes every season.
What actually keeps me interested in the series are the characters played by Meagan Good (Camille) and Grace Byers (Quinne). If the other two got swapped out my interest level in the series probably wouldn’t materially change much.
I know I keep repeating it, but ultimately you’ll like Harlem if you want a contemporary Sex and the City. It’s that simple.
Hunters
A bit like Slow Horses, it took me two attempts to get well into Hunters, but even the second attempt wasn’t successful as I tapped out before the first series ended.
I should love Hunters and the first few episodes suggested this would be the case. A crazy bunch of diverse individuals working against a conspiracy of old and new Nazis sounds absolutely awesome. It just couldn’t keep me interested. The premise and the sum of its parts just didn’t add up to something that I found enthralling.
This is disappointing because the concept is awesome. It even has Al Pacino which I still find odd.
The Non-Fiction Stuff
February was Drive to Survive season five month. Drive to Survive is awesome.
I’ve become a fan of sports documentaries that weave the story of the sports ‘season’. The first show to hook me was All Or Nothing which was about American Football (I then fell into a number of others like Last Chance U and QB1) which then lead to Drive to Survive. I am literally fascinated by these shows despite having zero interest actually watching the sports themselves!
Drive to Survive is amazing and I recommend it highly but the most interesting aspect of it is the total symbiotic relationship it has now with the sport itself.
It’s obvious now that everyone involved in F1 is just now used to the whole Drive to Survive process, the cameras and the interviews. It’s sort of a self-aware experience with people pointing out the cameras to fans and stuff. It’s odd, but intriguing especially in how comfortable the various participants have become with the process which makes for fascinating interviews.
The process has also gone the other way with long-time fans having their experience totally disrupted due to ticket prices for Silverstone becoming extortionate because of the success of Drive to Survive. We basically get a fantastic, tease-out the narrative documentary show that is itself enhancing the success of the very thing it covers.
I love it, but I’m also not a fanwho is trying to source tickets.
And, Finally…
I thought February was going to be a let down and I was going to merge February into March. Then I half pushed myself into Slow Horses and Hunters with mixed results and then Harlem popped up as a surprise.
I am finding I am delaying shows and there are a few weekly releases going on. I didn’t start watching You because it’s split in half and the second half isn’t available until March. I’m watching The Last of Us which has every chance to be the best show I watch this year but it finishes in March. Star Trek: Picard season three started its weekly release drops in February and early signs are it’s something else.
Let’s see what March brings.