With Game of Thrones rushing so quickly to its end that really devastating turns in character arcs are feeling unearned (ahem,) I've naturally got to be on the lookout for new shows to get into. The active shows I consider myself to be watching are Game of Thrones, The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Expanse, and Legion, the latter of which is also heading to its final season soon. So here are two new ones that I've started watching!
What We Do in the Shadows is the long-teased television adaptation of the awesome cult-classic indie comedy by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi (the former known for Flight of the Conchords and actually Legion too, come to think of it, the latter probably best known now for directing Thor Ragnarok but who also directed a bunch of Conchords episodes.)
The movie and show are mockumentaries. The film follows a trio of vampires who live in Wellington along with their profoundly ancient fourth roommate Petyr, who is also a vampire but doesn't play as big of a role in the story. Basically, it's a bunch of blood-sucking monsters who nevertheless have all the usual problems of adult roommates living together more for convenience than anything else, and trying to get by in the modern era despite having grown up centuries ago.
The formula of the show is similar, in this case giving us a different spread of weirdly pathetic vampires in Staten Island. Laszlo is a foppish pervert, Nadja is a hopeless romantic, and Nandor is weirdly meek for a former warlord. Along with them is Colin Robinson, an "energy vampire" who doesn't have to follow the rules (like he can walk into the sun without bursting into flames) and feeds not off of blood, but off of the energy he drains out of people by boring them. There's also Guillermo, Nandor's familiar who is, like apparently all familiars, being strung along with the promise of becoming a vampire so that the vampire can have a devoted servant.
While it takes a couple episodes to get up to speed, the show basically works if you liked the movie - introducing new ideas and scenarios that our hapless vampiric friends stumble their way through. I'm enjoying it quite a bit, especially the most recent one I've seen, which involves a vampire trial that ropes in a ton of actors who have played vampires in movies and TV.
The other show I've started (four episodes in, I think,) is Barry. Starring Bill Hader, the show is about a hitman who, after being sent to LA to kill a personal trainer/aspiring actor who has been sleeping with some Chechen mobster's wife, winds up accidentally getting roped into an acting class and decides, like so many who come to our sunny burg, that he wants to give up his career and become an actor. Only that his career is murdering people.
The show strikes a remarkable balance between being an outrageous comedy while hinting at the tragedy of its protagonist's life - he's a veteran who clearly suffers from some sort of PTSD, and he's been manipulated into this violent lifestyle by someone who has offered to give him a sense of purpose.
The show's got Stephen Root and Henry Winkler. What more could you ask for?
Anyway, assuming I keep liking these shows, you might see more posts about them moving forward.
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