It's the peakiest peak TV week you ever will peak
What to stream this weekend: 20-21 Jan 2024
Boy, is this week the epitome of how TV has felt/been these past couple of years. Scroll down this ABW edition and look at all these shows that:
You have never heard of
Will never hear anyone talk about
You likely won’t talk to anyone about even if you do watch them.
That isn’t to say these are bad TV shows. It is just that there isn’t one big title amid what amounts to quite a lot of new telly.
Death and Other Details is marginally better than the unnecessarily confusing first 20 mins might otherwise indicate. With time jumps, ill-advised expository narrative perspective jumps, and a stretched-out-to-series murder mystery, it dilutes what could have been a pretty fun show. It does settle down and get a bit better. But I’d understand you seeking your TV pleasures elsewhere.
AMC+’s Monsier Spade I am very keen to see, but it isn’t streaming anywhere here in Australia yet. Annoying as it is the one show I am genuinely eager to see right now. Clint Worthington has a solid review of the Clive Owen-led Sam Spade show over at the Roger Ebert site.
Frank and Fontana craft a clever, elegant script that echoes the rhythms of Hammett without feeling like a pale imitation—especially when it comes to filling Spade’s mouth with withering, literary dialogue. ("You sound like a leaflet someone dropped from a plane,” he cracks at a young revolutionary late in the series.) Frank, who also directs, makes beautiful use of the pastoral French setting, using the trees and plains of the countryside for moments of alternating serenity and savagery.
