This week I was going to write a summer TV wrap up as I’ve done in the past but I don’t think I’ve been watching many new summer TV shows. It’s weird. I’ve seen a few new shows but I’ve also been re-watching some old ones. There are some shows that are evergreen with me and I re-watch them every few years. Or at least I throw an episode on every now and again. I haven’t had one on in a while but The Rockford Files falls into that category. When new TV gets dull I like to throw on an old Jim Rockford episode on and revisit the 1970s. Columbo was also a show like that. I used to have Columbo on as I drew or painted all through the 1990s when it ran on A&E (back when I used to watch commercial TV). I haven’t seen any of Columbo in a while but someday I might. Cheers and Friends are another couple of TV shows that I might throw on an episode of if I’m feeling a little nostalgic and want to escape for twenty four minutes or so. I’ve watched a few episodes of each this summer. But not a ton of them.
A couple of the new TV shows I watched were Netflix ones. I saw the hot TV show of the summer, Stranger Things, and enjoyed it. It was all over the media, both social and regular, being praised and lauded and I have to agree it was good. A lot was made of its 1980s nostalgia but I wasn’t too into that. I liked it because it was a well told tale. It didn’t really matter to me that it took place in the 1980s. If you somehow missed it give it a look.
The second TV show was The Get Down. This one was also a period piece that took place in the 1970s in the Bronx. It was all about young people getting involved in the beginnings of hip hop music. I also like this one but maybe not as much as Stranger Things. There seemed to be a lot of padding in the middle of The Get Down but the first and last episodes were excellent. There was a lot of good music in it too plus the climatic musical scene was spot on. Even if you skip the middle four episodes give the first and last ones a look.
Rizzoli and Isles finished up its seven seasons on the air with a final season that was as solid as the others. It was never my favorite show and probably one I won’t ever revisit but it was a solid police procedural with some of the character’s personal lives thrown in. You got a crime every week, a solve every week, some comedic banter, and some family stuff to work out. It was pleasant enough.
I don’t know what category to put Mr. Robot in but it was back for a second season. I enjoyed the first season but now instead of our gang of hackers trying to take down a giant corporation they’re trying to deal with the aftermath. There are always a lot of questions that go along with this show and tons of mystery surround the plot in general. This second season was even weirder than the first with a strange reveal in the middle of the season. It’s a good strangeness though. I never get the felling that the writers are lost and don’t know where they’re going as I have with many other “What the heck is going on here?” type of shows.
One of the few new half hour comedies that I watched this summer was Angie Tribeca. It’s a goofy show in the tradition of Airplane or Police Squad and is filled with all sorts of puns, sight gags, and silliness. It’s a show that you have to watch with your full attention or you will miss all sorts of things as they fly by so fast in rapid succession. The final episode was especially good with it’s seemingly endless amount of nonsensical Scooby-Doo unmaskings of about ten characters in a row.
I watched six out of the ten episodes of Outcast this summer. It’s a show that’s based on a comic book that I read. The story is about a reverend and a twenty-something guy trying to fight, or at least get a handle on, some sort of demon possession thing that’s going on in their town. It’s pretty well done. I liked it better than Preacher which is another comic book adaptation that I watched a little of but didn’t like. Why haven’t I watched the final four episodes you ask? Good question. I’m not sure but I think it’s because much like The Walking Dead, which is a good show, since I already read the comic (both Outcast and The Walking Dead) I don’t seem to care to watch the show. It has nothing to do with the show being good or bad but has more to do with me liking comics better than TV. I’m already getting the story in my comic so the TV show doesn’t offer me as much as a TV show where I’m not reading the comic.
The Strain in another TV show based on a comic but I haven’t read the comic. I like the show but it only started at the end of the summer. I don’t know why that is because season two ran last summer. It’s not quite a summer show and not quite a fall show this year but I thought I’d mention it. It’s a solid vampire horror show.
So what were my summer rerun shows? The first one is an hour drama/action show. Burn Notice. It started in 2007 and ended in 2013 so I haven’t seen an episode of it in three years. I haven’t seen the early episodes in longer than that so it’s almost a whole new show to me. I didn’t watch all of it so I’ll have to catch up with it again when new shows slow down again.
I also re-watched some half hour comedies. There are a couple of short lived comedies that I like to revisit every now and again. Two of them have Whitney Cummings and Chris Delia in them. Both Whitney (2011-2013) and Undateable (2014-2016 It really just ended last January?) were on my play list this summer. I like both comedies. The rest of the world might not have taken to them but I did. There are not even eighty episodes between them so I like to spread them out and not binge on them. I didn’t even finish all the episodes so I have some to look forward to. I also occasionally threw in some early episodes of New Girl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. They both hold up well.
So there is my summer TV wrap up. Some new stuff and some repeats. What did you watch?
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