What’s your TV Show Hot Take?

Monday is movies. And/or TV. Today, I give you the chance to 'out' your TV Show Hot Take:

I have not been watching a lot of TV lately. Movies, yes, of course. Always. But TV shows not so much. So, I’m watching the TV, but not really watching any TV. I mean, I started Rain Dogs, and it’s going okay. I finished Golden Girls, and that was epic. I’ve watched a couple of the episodes of Chris Hemsworth’s Disney series, Limitless. And I’m keen to watch the rest – but it’s a series of stand-alone, but linked, documentary features. It’s not really a TV show as such.

I’m as interested in rewatching The Sopranos as I am in starting any new TV series right now. I haven’t finished season two of The Bear. I have only started the re-boot of Justified. I’m just finding that I can’t commit to a TV show. It used to be that if something had two or three seasons I was out, but now I’m struggling to get through anything more than a mini-series.

This is partly because of a lack of time, or a decision to spend that time in other ways (I love movies, I love reading, I love listening to music, I work, I have writing I like to do, I have a family…) but I am definitely feeling a pull away from consuming TV series’. For the longest time I have felt like most shows lack a cohesive arc, and are being written to be continued.

Deciding to just walk away from some of the big-name shows is mostly pretty liberating. There are shows I will never get to (Yellowstone?) and others I’ve given away (Yellow Jackets).

The last two TV shows I cared about hugely were the ones that everyone was talking about for a while: Succession. And The White Lotus. And I was there on day one for both. And watched them in that old-school episodic way (and that felt like a treat too – tuning in, week to week). Succession is all wrapped – and I’ll probably go back and watch them all from the start next year. White Lotus has another season to come – and I secretly hope that it’s the last (so it can go out on a high – but hey, I didn’t really want White Lotus season two and it was probably better than the first one).

These shows were as close to perfect as anything has been. New gold standards. I couldn’t stick with Lost at all, I saw through that after one episode. And I didn’t have the patience for The Wire, but I think The Sopranos remains a high-water mark. There are shows I’ve loved (Enlightened by White Lotus’ Mike White, and featuring an incredible lead role from Laura Dern is a decade old now, but it’s one of the best shows I’ve seen in recent years; only catching up with it recently).  But there are so many I’ve tried recently, and I just can’t care about them. (I watched one and a half episodes of Euphoria – and felt nothing resembling that, or indeed any emotion whatsoever).

So much of TV watching is about hitting it at the right time; we used to call them water-cooler moments, but they’re mostly gone now – because people work from home, and because there was/is a pandemic and its long tail, and because before either of those things, streaming created binge watching. And people post on their stories, use their phones while they’re watching, and are just generally beyond spoiled for choice. The best of the new delivery model, a return to episodic TV with a ‘drop’ once a week, has inspired a few water cooler moments; people in offices discussing shows in their pod. “Hey, did you guys catch…[GREAT SHOW] last night?

I decided to catch up on Breaking Bad a couple of years ago – I had watched the first season near the time of its release, and I hadn’t really felt any buzz whatsoever. Then it blew up and everyone was talking about it, and I just missed it. This happens. I left Mad Men right in the middle because I felt I had taken all I needed from it. No amount of people telling me it was one of the best ever could get me back on board. I just lost interest. And I should have done the same thing with Breaking Bad. But no. I decided it was probably worthy. It was likely another Sopranos. It was this. It was that. What it was, in the end, was one of the greatest disappointments and biggest wastes of my time. I just worked through it – feeling like each season was becoming a crawl. The odd moment (usually an explosion) that seemed kinda cool or good, or something. But mostly, it was a bore. A snooze-fest. And I felt almost alone in thinking that. I knew its reputation. But I just could not get on board with it. Even for trying.

Whereas I’m super behind on The Americans and Mr. Mercedes, and just nearing the final straight for both, and they’re good. I mean, Mercedes is nothing special (its second season was a shark-jumper for all time – but seasons one and three are solid). And The Americans is very good. Something compelled me to stick with them. Where other times I just would not. Something told me they were worth my time.

But that’s so often not the case.

My big hot take, if you like (I really don’t think it’s anything much) is that Breaking Bad is the most overrated and rubbish of “The Big Shows”. I can’t really say anything more about it than that. Or should I say, I can’t really be bothered saying anything more about it. It wasn’t for me. And no amount of convincing could make it rewatch it, or revaluate. Life is too short.

But I wondered if you have a similar Life’s Too Short Hot Take. What TV show didn’t do it for you despite everyone else you know raving? What show that no one likes is the most criminally underrated as far as you’re concerned? Today’s your chance to have a rant or a rave and ‘out’ your TV show hot take.