It’s hard to tear me away from the NBA at this time of year, so difficult I stopped writing about television for three months straight. I could have instead given you an exegesis on the flaws inherent in the current construction of the LA Clippers or an impassioned defense of Washington Wizards failure Jordan Poole, but I figured this audience might not appreciate such a hard right turn in our content here at constructive criticism. But as you might have noticed from last week’s day late post, we are back baby. Television and I are talking again. We’re flirting across a crowded room. We are making eyes at each other.
A full embrace is too much to expect, though. It’ll be at least another week before I watch anything not co-produced by Harlan Coben (Fool Me Once is very bad) or set in Dubai (Dubai Bling season 2 is very good). Right now, I’m all about trailers for what’s coming soon and will maybe be as good as some talented people have made it look. So in the spirit of that, here are the most enticing trailers for upcoming shows.
Death and Other Details (Hulu): If you’re Hulu and you once had a meeting where someone proposed throwing together Selena Gomez, Steve Martin, and Martin Short in a murder mystery comedy, wouldn’t you want to encourage a few more meetings like that? My guess is Hulu has had so many meetings like over the last few years it never wants to look at another stylish murder again. But we are not so burdened, and so, on January 16, we get the treat that is Death and Other Details. To me, this trailer looks like what we all want every Agatha Christie adaptation to be but never get, instead receiving some sort of manic hodgepodge somehow peopled by multiple stars accused of sexual assault and then suddenly the next one’s a horror movie. This looks old fashioned but fun; it’s Nancy Drew on a boat with Mandy Patinkin. I will devour this in one delicate gulp.
FEUD: Capote Vs. the Swans (Netflix): Not me, over here recommending a Ryan Murphy show. Couldn’t be this girl, who has never had one single good thing to say about anything he’s ever been involved in. I will inevitably end up hating this, but how could I possibly resist telling you to watch it? I will watch it, even knowing the whole inevitable hatred thing. It’s got everything: Calista Flockhart, Naomi Watts, Chloë Sevigny, Demi Moore, Diane Lane, Molly Ringwald and Tom Holland doing a… Trump impression that’s meant to be Truman Capote? Was Trump doing a Truman Capote impression this whole time? This trailer is classic Murphy and I have no doubt the experience will be too. Murphy inconveniently makes shows I want to watch. He never misses on that front. I never look at a new title and think, nah not for me. I frequently, however, watch three episodes and want to claw my eyes out. Watch on February 1 at your own peril, but know I’ll be right there with you.
Echo (Disney+): I don’t understand what is going on with the Marvel Universe. Take that as a given when coming to this blog: no matter how much I write about it, I don’t understand what is going on. That goes for the internal plots of many of the recent Marvel properties (all, actually) and the internal machinations of the Disney corporation. I guess that Disney now owns the rights to the Netflix Daredevil series? I guess that Disney really felt that it’s streaming service was lacking an adult content section? You know the app you mainly go to to show your boyfriend 101 Dalmatians for the first time and watch him enjoy it way more than you expected? Well, it is now going to also be showing Echo, an extremely TV-MA new series in the same universe as Netflix’s (extremely good and cancelled too soon a long time ago) Daredevil. I am going to wildly speculate that Disney had a meeting one day (these people are always having meetings) and someone said hey guys remember that time Marvel properties were good and people liked them and critics respected them? And then someone said oh wait I know this one! And from that 30 second convo, which cost Disney $10K in salary just to have, we got Echo. I’m excited but also fearful Disney will screw up another beloved property. This is a pretty new idea for Disney (the violence of it, not the re-using of another network’s property) and it could work out well and signal a new turn for Disney’s Marvel content. It could even mean we get more of series like Jessica Jones, which I thought one of the best shows of its year. Or it could get mangled in the Disney machine. IDK! Here’s the trailer, comes out January 9.
Masters of the Air (Apple TV+): Austin Butler is a guy who is going to keep showing up on your television screen. I don’t know yet if he is a good actor, but he is definitely a guy who is going to be around. I wouldn’t be inordinately surprised if he and Jacob Elordi just kept playing the same character in tonally different productions until judgement day. This trailer is giving Pearl Harbor (2001). It is giving The Boys in the Boat (2023). This kind of content is timeless; it fits in to the dad content that’s been flourishing (Reacher, etc.) and yet is directed by one of my favorite controversial chameleons, Cary Joji Fukunaga, who is also going to just keep showing up on your screen (we don’t #MeToo like we used to). He has somehow done a Bond movie, True Detective, a Jane Eyre adaptation, It, Maniac, and Beasts of No Nation. Of those, I loved three and hated three. His style is weird and it only sometimes works and he is reportedly a lech (see above), but do I want to see his version of Band of Brothers in the Pacific? I kind of do (?!). Trailer here. Out January 26.