The following shows have premiered more recently and, for the most part, live up to being “Too Much of a Good Thing” by being pretty darn good. Only one was a disappointment, and even that had its moments. So sit back, grab the popcorn and settle down in front of the TV.
“Vladimir”
That can’t be Oscar winner Rachel Weisz on the screen! Yes it is, and now starring as the lead in a delicious, somewhat politically incorrect new series about a professor at a small private college. A well-regarded expert on feminist literature, with one book under her belt but stalled on the next, M is the embodiment of a contradiction in terms. Life has become rather complicated because her errant husband, another tenured professor at the same college, is being investigated on sexual harassment charges. He doesn’t deny his multiple affairs with students, but he, like almost anyone else under similar circumstances, insists they were consensual.
The college has hired a new couple for the English department: Vladimir, full time, and his wife, Cynthia, as an adjunct in the same department. M is thunderstruck. Her first glimpse of the dreamy, much younger Vladimir propels her back to middle school with raging hormones. She contrives different ways for their paths to intersect. He seems to reciprocate her attractions, but then again, the camera is taking M’s point of view. And there’s the pesky wife, an effective parry to M’s thrust. Vladimir is relentlessly faithful to his wife despite the many ways that M seems to maneuver herself between them.
Most of the episodes are of the “will she, will he?” nature, but that in itself is the cat-and-mouse game we’re longing for. Occasionally breaking the fourth wall, M gets us on her side in her desire to rekindle fires she thought had died down. Even her husband, the lascivious John, sees it and would be happy for her to get a notch on her belt, something that won’t even the score but at least takes her off the high ground.
The cast is wonderful, led by the amazing Rachel Weisz as M, playing a cougar who has been blessed with a youthful appearance. She manages the “Should I? Would I? Could I?” to perfection. Her desire and ambivalence are universally appealing to “women of a certain age.”
Leo Woodall is Vladimir, the object of her affection. His deep blue eyes (not sure that they are blue, but they should be) invite you in, an invitation that is more of a tease than a solicitation. Woodall has a wide-eyed innocent look that is most effective. John Slattery plays John, M’s errant husband, to a perverse “T.”
Based on the novel by Julia May Jones, the writing is sharp, the dialogue sly and the overall effect is a delicious soap opera of dark humor. Starting a bit slowly, eventually these eight episodes fly by. You will want to binge.
Now streaming on Netflix.
“The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins”
Starring Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe, with support from Erika Alexander, “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins” takes several cliched ideas, the fallen hero and the mockumentary, among others, and somehow makes them new again.
Reggie (Morgan) was a much-loved all-pro football player who has been banished from the game for betting on himself. He is determined to make a comeback and has hired Arthur Tobin (Radcliffe), a filmmaker in need of his own redo, to make a documentary of his life, assuming that he could dictate the entire film. “That’s not how it works,” Tobin tells Dinkins and they’re off to the races. Weaving in the much younger wife, the ex-wife (Alexander) who is the agent, and the coach he disgraced, a clever cameo by Corbin Bernsen, writer/creator Robert Carlock uses some of the magic he wove in “30 Rock” in bringing together unlikely characters and scenarios and mining them for laughs. The character of Reggie is definitely in Morgan’s wheelhouse and he’s up for the game, but it works all the better because he has the absolutely delightful Daniel Radcliffe as his foil. Radcliffe shows remarkably good comedic timing. The more subtle foil to Morgan’s broad strokes, he is aided by Alexander as Reggie’s ex-wife who helps anchor the action.
This is situation comedy in the sense that Reggie creates a problem or makes one worse, the situation, and then chaos ensues, hence the comedy.
Releasing episodes weekly on NBC and streaming on Peacock.
“Bait”
Riz Ahmed has created a funny, sad, dramatic, slapstick adventure in six episodes that in many ways is a personal reflection on the life of an actor, his life as an actor, but especially the difficulties when this life is reflected through the prism of a person of color. Ahmed, who first made a splash in “Nightcrawler” and won an Emmy for his amazing performance in the HBO limited series “The Night Of,” is one of those actors who commands your attention. I willingly watch anything he’s in, regardless of the material, because he is in it. “Bait” is a very clever riff on the struggles of an actor.
Shah Latif, a strikingly handsome British Muslim actor, has the most important audition of his career. He is being considered for the next James Bond. Seeing him in a tuxedo, you have no doubt, until in the midst of the scene, he freezes. That the producers were even considering a man of color was extraordinary. Everything depended on that audition, and he’s blown it, launching him into a full-scale existential crisis. There’s a passage in “A Chorus Line” that distills what he’s going through: “Who am I anyway? Am I my resume? That is a picture of a person I don’t know. What does he want from me? What should I try to be?” The fast-moving, short (30-minute) episodes take Shah through a metamorphosis, not just as an actor but as a person—a son, a brother, a Muslim, a friend, an actor—and it’s not always pretty.
Actors, by nature and necessity, are narcissists. To succeed, they need to be focused on one thing and one thing only: getting that next job. Shah is definitely a self-centered, insecure ego on two legs, but he’s definitely being blocked. He blames everyone else, and there’s plenty of blame to go around. In his quest for the holy grail of Bond, he’s lost himself. But what he doesn’t realize initially is that in order to be what others want him to be, he, first, must find out who lies beneath the skin. The journey, filled with crazy relatives, hallucinations, double-crossing colleagues, and bad acts on his part, will put him on the path to self-awareness.
As Ahmed is well aware, the path to James Bond is littered with expectations and stereotype. People have very strong feelings about this character as judged by the racist uproar when Idris Elba’s name was mentioned. This is not the 1960s of Sean Connery or even the 2000s of Daniel Craig; that version of James Bond died, leaving plenty of room to rethink the character. “Bait” humorously balances the question of “Why” with the answer “Why not.”
Well-written, entertaining, poignant and often laugh-out-loud funny, the series is overflowing with excellent actors. This is a trip you will want to take. And the bonus is that you’ll take it with the fabulous Riz Ahmed.
Now streaming on Amazon Prime.
“56 Days”
Based on the Irish bestseller by Catherine Ryan Howard, “56 Days” intertwines the today, where a grossly decomposing body is found in the corporate apartment of Oliver, a high-flying twenty-something with a big secret to hide. Is it him? Or is it the very sexy Ciara, the object of his passion? They met in a grocery store and began their tempestuous affair 56 days before the discovery and police investigation. But Ciara, too, has her secrets and the meeting may not have been by chance.
Each episode reveals a bit more of who they are and who they aren’t as the story goes back and forth in time, but rather than unraveling the mystery, the narrative becomes more complex as we drive toward the answer to the question. Who is in the tub?
Avan Jogia as Oliver and Dove Cameron as Ciara are a good-looking couple hindered by a lack of character development that would enhance their actions. The detectives, played by Karla Souza and Dorian Missick, are all surface and no depth. They, too, have their secrets, but, in all honesty, you don’t really care.
The idea behind this series was a good one, but the execution is lacking and you end up not caring very much, even about the dead body.
Now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Neely Swanson spent most of her professional career in the television industry, almost all of it working for David E. Kelley. In her last full-time position as Executive Vice President of Development, she reviewed writer submissions and targeted content for adaptation. As she has often said, she did book reports for a living. For several years she was a freelance writer for “Written By,” the magazine of the WGA West, and was adjunct faculty at USC in the writing division of the School of Cinematic Arts. Neely has been writing film and television reviews for the “Easy Reader” for more than 10 years. Her past reviews can be read on Rotten Tomatoes where she is a tomatometer-approved critic.
