Friday Night Shots – Great TV Shows to Watch

Good evening!

Welcome to an extremely rainy Vancouver, washing away all of the snow we’ve received over the last few days.

This snow thing is really unusual for us. We’re not used to it! We don’t know how to deal with it.

But it’s beautiful to look at, and it won’t be around much longer.

Anyway, have a seat at the bar and let me get your your libation of choice.

It’s just you and me here. I suppose I should probably advertise the place if I want to get more customers, eh?

Let me turn down the jukebox. I don’t know how the Collected Sonnets of Cookie Monster actually got on the jukebox.

I shall investigate…

How about we take a minor break from board games (despite the fact that I took a minor break from them earlier in the week) and talk about some great TV shows that I’ve watched or been watching?

Most of these are streaming. I’ll identify where they stream for me but you may need to check on their availability where you are.

Reacher – Amazon Prime

I’m a huge fan of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books. I should probably review one, eh?

Anyway, the books are tremendously engaging and I race through them just because of a combination of “I need to find out what happens next” and Child’s breezy writing style.

The latest books are co-written with Child’s brother, Andrew, but the style grabs me just as much.

Anyway, I’m also a big fan of the Tom Cruise films as Reacher, even though he is much smaller than Reacher is in the books.

His attitude is what intimidates people, not his bulk. Cruise carries himself well enough that he’s still extremely believable.

The TV series stars Alan Ritchson as the title character, and he does totally live up to the image of Reacher from the books.

He’s huge, but he’s also intelligent.

He’s an ex-MP (Military Policeman) who, after leaving the army, decided to become a drifter. He travels the United States on his own whims, going where the mood takes him. He lives off of his military pension, but he travels so light that he only has his toothbrush with him.

When it’s time to change clothes, he buys new ones and ditches the old ones.

He takes buses, or hitchhikes.

And he always stumbles into trouble.

The two seasons are interesting and the characters are great as well.

Here’s the trailer for Season 2 which shows you a little bit of Reacher in action.

Season 1 was great. Season 2 (just wrapped up this weekend, but I haven’t watched the last two episodes yet) has been even better.

Lucifer – Netflix

I admit that this is a guilty pleasure and not everybody cares for this one, but I really do like it.

This series is based off of the DC Vertigo comic Lucifer (and when I say “based”, I mean that it uses three characters from it and the beginning concept and then goes from there).

Tom Ellis plays Lucifer, the Devil, who has abdicated his throne in Hell because he wants to stay on Earth where he is having tons of fun.

He even owns a nightclub!

His Angel brother Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside) spends all of Season 1 trying to get him to go back to Hell. But Lucifer has met a fascinating woman in LA detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German), a woman who somehow makes the normally invulnerable Lucifer able to be harmed when she’s around him.

This intrigues him.

The whole series (six seasons, three of which were on Fox and then the final three were Netflix exclusives) circles around their relationship, but it’s also a police procedural as Lucifer has managed to gain himself a job as a consultant with the LAPD and becomes Chloe’s partner as they solve cases.

I haven’t even mentioned the other characters, including Dr. Linda (Rachael Harris) who is Lucifer’s therapist throughout most of the series, Mazikeen (Lesley-Ann Brandt), a demon who just wants to go back to Hell but then starts to adapt to life on Earth and actually befriends some of these humans, and Ella (Aimee Garcia), the forensics expert who joins in season 2.

Ella is a religious woman, so watching her relationship with Lucifer, the growing friendship and respect that develops between them, is really wonderful. Lucifer can’t lie, so he’s literally telling everybody he’s the Devil.

Nobody believes him, of course. Including Ella.

And I can’t forget Dan (Kevin Alejandro), Chloe’s ex-husband and another cop who does become the butt of a lot of jokes but also is an interesting character in his own right.

Season 1 starts out kind of heavy and dark, even though there are also plenty of jokes.

Subsequent seasons lean more into the comedy, but there are still some great character arcs.

I think what makes Lucifer so much better than other shows like this (like Castle, which really crapped out for us on our binge-watch) is that there is so much more going on beyond the procedural aspects of the episodes.

So the case may be boring sometimes, but the character and ongoing celestial story elements, really do grab you.

Highly recommend checking it out.

It may not be for you, but at least you tried.

The Americans – Disney+

This is an older series, ending in 2018, but it is so good!

Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys play a couple of Soviet agents (Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings) who have been in the United States as deep undercover spies since the early 70s.

This show takes place in the 80s, by the way.

Part of their cover is that they basically become Americans, blending in, having a family, being just ordinary run of the mill Americans.

They still undertake spy missions for their Soviet masters, of course. But they are adept at covering their tracks when they have to do so.

The show went over 6 seasons, and the tension begins right from the outset when an FBI agent, Stan, (Noah Emmerich) moves in across the street with his family.

Philip and Stan become fast friends, though Philip still sends in reports about Stan.

Especially because Stan is part of a task force that has been formed to root out these Soviet sleeper agents.

The show mixes all of this espionage stuff with the family dynamics of the Jennings family (the kids don’t know what their parents are really doing, as their cover is that they run a travel agency) as well as relationships between the other characters, like the pressures of Stan’s job leading to a lot of his own family strife.

So there is plenty of angst along with the spies.

The Americans is well-acted and the stories are really interesting. Watching both Jennings develop relationships with people who they are ultimately going to betray, is almost heartbreaking.

Is it possible that one, or both of them, are beginning to love the American lifestyle a little too much?

That tension is prominent throughout the series as well.

We binge-watched this one on Disney when we discovered that it was on there, and it was well worth it.

It’s a marvelous show.

Slow Horses – Apple TV+

This is almost the best show that we have watched recently, and on some days I would say it’s the best.

The series is based on the British Slough House spy novels by Mick Herron.

I haven’t read them yet, but I’m thinking of trying them after watching this series.

The incomparable Gary Oldman stars as Jackson Lamb, a veteran MI5 agent who heads up a group of MI5 misfits (they’ve all done something to get on the wrong side of MI5 brass) who have been relegated to Slough House.

Lamb himself is extremely repulsive. He farts a lot, he burps, drinks heavily, doesn’t take a shower.

And he loves the effect this has on people.

He’s also abrasive, belittling his agents at every opportunity, but he will stick his neck out for them when the chips are down (even as he insults them for getting into the situation in the first place).

Yet somehow this band seems to get the job done, even sometimes when other MI5 agents can’t.

Oldman can do no wrong in this series. He plays Lamb with an almost unparalleled relish, seeming to really love the fact that he can come to the set all day as slovenly as he wants to.

The rest of the cast is pretty good too. Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas (who plays one of the higher-ups in MI5) have an awesome chemistry (she’s an amazing actress too). Their verbal sparring when they have to meet up is just hilarious.

The show is almost a workplace comedy as much as it is a spy show, but both sides of it are extremely engaging.

The plots are really good, with the recently-concluded Season 3 being a highlight. All of the actors play off of each other really well too.

If you can get access to see this show, you definitely should.

It is amazing.

Ted Lasso – Apple TV+

If you’ve never heard of Ted Lasso, I don’t know what rock you’ve been living under.

Of course, I have to say that Ted Lasso is probably the best show I’ve watched in a long time, for a number of reasons.

First is because it is just such a positive show. It demonstrates that there is actually kindness out there in the world, and that it can move mountains.

Sure, there are some evil people, but that doesn’t mean that we need to become evil to deal with them.

The basic premise of the show is that Ted (Jason Sudeikis) is hired to become coach of a Premiere League football team in England, even though he’s only been a lower-level college football coach over in the United States.

There’s a reason for this hiring, though!

The new owner of AFC Richmond, Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), wants the team to fail so she hires a coach who knows nothing about football.

Welton is recently divorced from Rupert Mannion (Anthony Head), a really horrible man who was the Richmond owner and who didn’t seem to love anything but this team. He’s a womanizer who had many mistresses while they were married, and ultimately he is a real shitbag.

Rebecca won the team in the divorce settlement, and she wants to ruin it to get back at him.

Definitely a similar vibe to the classic baseball comedy Major League, but with some major differences.

The first season deals with this storyline, and where it differs from that movie is in both motivation and how everything is handled (so really, it’s just the basic premise that’s the same).

In Ted Lasso, Rebecca is not a shrew who just wants to ruin the team because she wants to move it to a better location than Cleveland.

Instead, Rebecca is an extremely damaged woman, coming out of the divorce and a number of years living under Rupert’s thumb. She wants to get back at him.

She’s lost in the pain she’s feeling.

The other way it differs is that even with this horrible plan she has to tank the team, she’s portrayed as a human character. Not just hurting like I mentioned above, but human in a way that she still cares about people.

Even though she begins the season thinking that Ted is a “complete wanker,” she warms to him even as she carries out her scheme.

When Ted’s at his lowest moment, she’s there for him.

She still is carrying out the plan, but she’s human. She’s affected by this kind and generous man that she’s brought to England.

She’s not portrayed as nothing but a bitch.

She’s a very layered character.

The most powerful line in the entire series is uttered near the end of the first season, as things come to a head.

“I forgive you.”

That’s this show in a nutshell.

Kindness. Forgiveness. Positivity. Working through your imperfections and maintaining a positive attitude. Trying to make as much of a positive impact on the people around you as you can.

There’s way too much other great stuff to talk about since I am trying to keep this post kind of brief (too late!) The characters are wonderful, the dialogue is great and most of the storytelling is top-notch (the Keeley romance storyline in Season 3 is really the only weak point).

If you’re like me, you will really find yourself affected by a lot of what you see.

There’s a reason why, even though I’ve watched this show like 15 times, the karaoke scene in Season 1 still makes me cry.

And don’t get me started on how hilarious Roy Kent is, but yet how ultimately touching his storyline is.

I hope you’ve enjoyed some of these suggestions.

Have you watched any of them?

Any other recommendations for me?

Let me know in the comments.

Tonight’s post brought to you by Smirnoff Pink Lemonade vodka, the number 8, and the letter T.