television – PopCult Reviews

TV Review – The Prisoner (2009)

The Prisoner (2009)
Written by Bill Gallagher
Directed by Nick Hurran

J.J. Abrams had a stranglehold on U.S. media by the late 2000s. Not just that, but films like The Bourne Identity and the shooting style of director Paul Greengrass clearly became a trend in film and television. These aren’t terrible styles to emulate for a Prisoner remake in that period. If we think about the increased paranoia post-9/11 surrounding the rise of the surveillance state, it seems to mesh quite well with the themes & ideas the original series co-creator & star Patrick McGoohan sought to explore. However, the original Prisoner was a product of the 1960s Cold War era. If you want to tell the story in a modern context, some changes must be made. I don’t think the changes this miniseries made were the right ones, though, and despite having a few clever bits, the overall show was a disappointment.

TV Review – Northern Exposure Season Six

Northern Exposure Season Six (1994-95)
Written by Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, Mitchell Burgess, Robin Green, Jeff Melvoin, Meredith Stiehm, and Sam Egan
Directed by Michael Fresco, Jim Charleston, James Hayman, Lorraine Senna, Oz Scott, Michael Vittes, Victor Lobl, Daniel Attias, Michael Lange, Janet Greek, Stephen Cragg, Scott Paulin, and Patrick McGee

Wow. That was…um, something. By the time season six of Northern Exposure ends, you will have been waiting for it to end for a while. David Chase didn’t do too much damage in season five, but by the time six rolled around, it became clear he was disinterested in the whole thing other than ways to shoehorn in his own interests. While watching these episodes, I thought about how weird it would be to watch the pilot and then jump to season six. It would feel like an almost totally different series.

My Favorite Television Watched in 2024

X-Men ‘97 Season One (Disney+)
Read my full review here

I was skeptical of the animated X-Men revival. Like many others, I have been burned out on superhero shows and films for a while now. However, this was the one Marvel thing in 2024 that I actually enjoyed. It was probably aided by reading Chris Claremont’s 16-year run on Uncanny X-Men this year, where so many stories on X-Men animated old & new drew from. Stylistically the ‘97 revival felt like the 1990s version, but with slightly more sophisticated storytelling and some major upgrades regarding the animation. There were a few duds; the Jubilee/Mojo episode was meh. The season overall was fantastic. I was very happy to see characters like Nightcrawler added to the regular roster; it always felt odd that he wasn’t included as a regular. We get a big cliffhanger that suggests some twists for a second season. Hoping they can keep the quality levels just as high going forward.

TV Review – The Prisoner

The Prisoner (1967)
Written by George Markstein, David Tomblin, Vincent Tilsley, Anthony Skene, Patrick McGoohan, Terence Feely, Lewis Greifer, Gerald Kelsey, Roger Woddis, Michael Cramoy, Roger Parkes, Kenneth Griffith, and Ian L. Rakoff
Directed by Don Chaffey, Pat Jackson, Patrick McGoohan, Peter Graham Scott, and David Tomblin

As a citizen of the Western World (born in the States, residency in the Netherlands), I have been told from birth that I am free and those outside my sphere are not. For many years, I took this to be the truth. Why? The people who told me I was taught to see as correct in all things. These are the institutions responsible for my freedom, after all. But as I got older, the more I read & observed, it became clear that I wasn’t free. Well, I was free, in about the same way as a dog chained in a backyard is free. I can move up to a point, but then the chain chokes me and reminds me of the limits of this supposed “freedom.” I am as free as the establishment that controls my world allows me to be. I don’t think that can be defined as actual freedom.

TV Review – Disclaimer

Disclaimer (2024)
Written and directed by Alfonso Cuaron

Alfonso Cuaron is a filmmaker who has delivered some art that wowed me over the years. Children of Men is one of the best post-9/11 films to have come out. Watching it now feels prophetic as a study of social collapse in Western societies that cannot handle the refugees they created. His Harry Potter film is the only one with merit outside of being part of the franchise. I was slightly less impressed with Gravity, but Roma is a fairly good movie told from a privileged point of view. I don’t always love his work, and Disclaimer falls into that ambivalent category.

TV Review – My Brilliant Friend Season Four

My Brilliant Friend Season Four (2024)
Written by Elena Ferrante, Francesco Piccolo, Laura Paolucci and Saverio Costanzo
Directed by Laura Bispuri

I was skeptical going in. The cast of the show was going to be changed. It made sense. These were meant to be people living through their 30s and into middle age. Keeping on actors who were mainly in their early to mid-20s would make that hard to pull off. Metaphorically, it makes sense. For a long time, it is difficult to see ourselves as adults, so our self-perception is still that of a child. Then, one day, we suddenly realize we are adults due to a single event or a series of them. That child hasn’t really been around for a long time. Season four manages to pull this off, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t missing Gaia Girace and Margherita Mazzucco.

TV Review – Northern Exposure Season Five

Northern Exposure Season Five (1993-94)
Written by Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, Rogers Turrentine, Mitchell Burgess, Robin Green, Jeff Melvoin, Barbara Hall, David Chase, and Jed Seidel
Directed by Daniel Attias, Michael Fresco, Jim Charleston, John David Coles, Nick Marck, Mark Horowitz, Michael Katleman, Michael Lange, Michael Vittes, Oz Scott, Bill D’Elia, Lorraine Senna, Tom Moore, and James Hayman

Joshua Brand and John Falsey, the co-creators and showrunners of Northern Exposure, were dealing with some stress by the end of season four. They had helped create shows like St. Elsewhere and I’ll Fly Away, but with this series, they finally found something they could cultivate and grow. The first problem came when writer Sandy Veith sued Universal, the production company behind NE, claiming they had stolen his idea and given him no credit or compensation. Universal may have cribbed some of Veith’s ideas and fed them to Brand & Falsey, who didn’t know where they had come from. Veith’s script was about an Italian-American doctor working in a small town in the U.S. South. Falsey was struggling with alcoholism and related sickness. He would be in that fight until his passing in 2019. It felt like it was time to leave. Who would they be replaced with? Cue David Chase.

TV Review – Ripley

Ripley (2024)
Written and directed by Steven Zaillian

There are few protagonists in modern literature as challenging as Tom Ripley. He’s a captivating figure because he’s pretty pathetic yet so cunning. In many ways, Ripley is the shadow underdog, a guy who, by all evidence, should lose, yet he manages to commit multiple murders and steal millions while evading capture. Despite coming from a poor/working-class background, Ripley has evolved refined tastes mainly because he believes he deserves to live the best life possible. Other people are inconveniences most of the time, hindrances to him enjoying the luxury offered to the wealthiest among us. If ever there was a character to highlight the negative aspects of sociopathy, an actual condition that isn’t as one-dimensional as much media would like you to think. Ripley can’t seem to care about anyone other than himself; it troubles him, but it is not enough to stop his pursuit of comfort.

TV Review – Northern Exposure Season Four

Northern Exposure Season Four (1992-93)
Written by Robin Green, Michael Katleman, Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, Jeff Vlaming, Mark B. Perry, Sy Rosen, Christian Williams, Mitchell Burgess, David Assael, Jeff Melvoin, Denise Dobbs, and Geoffrey Neigher
Directed by Dean Parisot, Michael Katleman, Nick Marck, Charles Braverman, Rob Thompson, Joan Tewkesbury, Randall Miller, Michael Fresco, Daniel Attias, Win Phelps, Joe Napolitano, Bill D’Elia, Adam Arkin, Michael Lange, Jim Charleston, and Frank Prinzi

Northern Exposure was coming off season three, for which it won several Emmys. Season Four was to be the largest season order for the series, with twenty-five episodes. These days, most shows we get on the variety of streaming services come in around 8-10 episodes per season. Thirteen episodes feel like an indulgence. One of the downsides of having such large season orders was that quantity did not equate to quality. There are some utterly fantastic parts of season four. Then, some episodes are cringingly wrong and outdated. Even so, I’d rather watch this season again than watch much contemporary television, especially the fare that leans into cynicism.

TV Review – Ren Faire

Ren Faire (2024)
Directed by Lance Oppenheim

The term “reality TV” is thrown around so liberally these days, when most of the programming under that umbrella is highly contrived, and its figures’ personalities are obviously contrived. The performative nature of “reality TV” seems to have leaked out into the real world, where we see those who shape their identity around a quirk or two. How do you make a documentary in a landscape where capturing authenticity has become much more complicated. Lance Oppenheim seems to have found it. His style layers melodrama over the mundane, embracing the audience seeking something heightened. Yet, it never feels as if its subjects are being misrepresented.