What is the difference between a mystery-box show and a show that is purely mysterious? Is there a difference? Since J.J. Abrams coined the term to describe Lost, the seminal science-fiction series he co-created (and then largely left to its own devices, under Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse), I’ve seen it used to describe everything from the kids’ cartoon Gravity Falls to HBO’s once-upon-a-time next-big-thing Westworld to shows that predate the term entirely, like Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner. At root, the phrase seems to be used to describe shows that create a sort of “What the hell is going on here?” feeling: The stories in question do not contain a mystery or multiple mysteries, they are one big mystery, leaving the viewer scrambling (and, ideally for the creators and networks, tweeting and Redditing and tumblring and so on) to figure out what is happening and why at basically all times.

For me, the phrase has taken on an almost purely pejorative connotation. It describes shows that hide things from the viewer almost arbitrarily, not because the story demands it or benefits from it, but because the goal is to keep the audience engrossed and guessing at the expense of creating emotional and intellectual investment more organically. So for me, The Prisoner wouldn’t qualify, as its sinister surrealism requires a lack of explanation to establish that tone; Westworld, with its ginned-up “who is he? when is he?” riddles, does qualify, as it’s obscure mainly for the sake of eventual revelations that don’t really pay off the delayed gratification. More recently, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power attached a series of needless question marks to seemingly half its characters and storylines, for no ostensible purpose other than to get the viewer to tune in next time to find out who the heck Adar is or whatever. Mysteries push the story forward; mystery boxes are substitutes for stories.

By this (entirely invented for the purpose of this review) definition, 1899 is not a mystery-box show. Oh, all the hallmarks are there: an entire cast of characters each with their own mysterious past; an implied or explicit but uncertain connection between several or all of them; flashbacks and flashforwards and hallucinations and dreams that reveal new layers of story; portentous symbols; mysterious strangers; the strong suggestion that there’s some kind of temporal rupture or loop involved. 

But — here’s the key — it doesn’t make me feel trapped like a mystery-box show does. I’m not banging my head against the walls of this thing, trying to find the writers’ way out before they reveal it. I’m taking each new revelation and secret and strange occurrence as they come, treating them as seasoning for the real main course: a collection of sad and broken people who have discovered a calamity, and who may be next in line. 

I reviewed episode two of 1899 for Decider.

1899 features dialogue in English, French, Spanish, Cantonese, Danish, German, Polish, and Japanese. The opening credits list a lead cast larger than your average Game of Thrones episode. Creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar already proved, with their mind-melting, time-warping German-language science-fiction masterpiece Dark, that they know their way around a dark genre story with a sprawling cast; here, it’s as if they looked at themselves and said “Hold my beer.” You have to respect their ambition, and this pilot episode proves you have to respect their execution, too.

I’ll be covering 1899 for Decider, starting with my review of the series premiere. Due to some personal stuff these reviews will probably not be rolling out as quickly as my Netflix coverage normally does, but they will roll out, I promise!

There had to be a comedown. By the standards of Episode 10’s for-the-ages, nothing-left-to-lose prison break, the penultimate installment of Andor’s first season is a quiet, somber episode. It’s more concerned with moments of individual sadness than collective action, with frustration and powerlessness rather than catharsis. But still there are unexpected reprieves, dry humor — and, in a move that ought to delight longtime fans of the franchise, some of the most Star Wars-y stuff this Star Wars TV show has ever attempted. That these attempts are so successful should come as no surprise: This is Andor, and Andor doesn’t miss.

I reviewed today’s episode of Andor for Decider.

Let’s talk about The Godfather. More specifically, let’s talk about The White Lotus talking about The Godfather. 

The colloquy in question happens between family members Bert, Dom, and Albie and Albie’s would-be inamorata Portia, at the tail end of a Godfather-themed sightseeing tour. Portia, who hasn’t seen the movie — whether that’s writer/director/creator Mike White making a point about ignorant youth or the out-of-touch olds who would view such youth as ignorant is anyone’s guess, but you can bet a point is being made — has to get filled in on the details by Bert, who recounts the murder of Michael Corleone’s Sicilian wife Apollonia with relish. Portia, noting the replica of Apollonia’s blown-up car complete with a female mannequin inside, finds the whole thing a little tasteless for a tourist destination, which, y’know, fair. 

Here’s where things get interesting, or annoying. Bert says hey, let the place do it, the best American movie ever made was filmed here. Albie scoffs at him, then argues that the reason older men like The Godfather is because it’s a patriarchal fantasy that glorifies violence, philandering, and the loyal wives kept at home. Now pay attention to what the magician’s hands are doing: Rather than take issue with this take, both Bert and Dom agree, arguing that there’s nothing wrong with men having such fantasies.

So to sum up: When presented with Albie’s moronic argument — only a real dum-dum could watch The Godfather and conclude Francis Ford Coppola is saying “and this is fine,” not that there’s any shortage of such dum-dums — Bert and Dom, two of said dum-dums, make an equally moronic argument in return. 

Is Mike White’s point of view really that The Godfather glorifies the life of Michael freaking Corleone? Or is he simply presenting us with three characters with separate but equally stupid opinions about art? Perhaps a better question to ask is, does it matter? Either the creator of The White Lotus thinks something very dopey about a much better work of art, or he’s so intent on making the same “rich people are stupid assholes” point in different ways over and over that he’s exploring a new frontier. Not my idea of a good time on a Sunday night either way, I’m afraid.

I reviewed last night’s episode of The White Lotus for Decider.

Star Wars means a lot to me. The original film is the first movie I can remember watching, a copy taped off of CBS by my father, who carefully paused the recording to cut out the commercial breaks. I remember seeing Return of the Jedi in the theater at age 5. I had all the action figures I could get my hands on. My Millennium Falcon hangs from the ceiling in my children’s bedroom; my AT-AT passed into the possession of my niece. During my adolescence and teenage years, when nerd culture was a complete non-starter, I kept that love alive like a secret fire, wolfing down the Expanded Universe novels. When the characters in Clerks had that conversation about contractors on the Death Star I nearly lost my mind. At age 18 I got my first tattoo, the Rebel Alliance insignia. I waited on line overnight for the Special Edition theatrical re-releases, and for the first prequel. (I’m a prequels guy, for the record.) Once I had children of my own I took my daughter to every new Disney Star Wars movie, though admittedly I tapped out on The Rise of Skywalker; better for her not to sully the memories with that thing. So yeah, Star Wars means a lot to me. 

But nothing in any of the Star Wars media I’ve consumed over the years ever brought me to tears, until now.

I reviewed today’s magnificent episode of Andor for Decider.

But like I said, this is the climax, and it’s okay to get a little less nuanced and more bombastic overall. Creator Rolin Jones has constructed a remarkable show regardless, one that captures the essence of Anne Rice’s work while improving upon it, for its new era and medium, with every change it makes. I don’t know what I expected of Interview with the Vampire beyond “I hope I have a good time watching the sexy vampires,” but it delivered in every way I could have wanted, and many more I didn’t know I wanted till I got them. Interview is a beautiful and sparklingly intelligent show. It’s going to be hard to wait until next year for Season 2, but I know a vampire who could tell you a thing or two about the beauty of delayed gratification.

I reviewed the season finale of Interview with the Vampire for Decider. It’s up a week early online!

The only problem with Interview with the Vampire is that at a certain point you simply run out of superlatives. Like its contemporaries Andor and House of the Dragon, IWTV provides proof week in and week out that genre television rooted in nerd-beloved source material can be as smart, incisive, surprising, and rich as any of its more traditional prestige-TV counterparts. 

I reviewed last night’s episode of Interview with the Vampire for Decider.

I’m not one to complain about the absence of likeable characters on a television show. I mean, find me a halfway decent person on The Sopranos or Boardwalk Empire or House of the Dragon or, god help you, Too Old to Die Young. The difference, I suppose, is that while all of those unlikeable characters are grasping for something larger than themselves, the unlikeable characters of The White Lotus are all on a luxury vacation. They’re annoying people who aren’t even doing anything interesting. 

Yes, I get that this is the point of the show; it’s a character study, about characters whose worst qualities only intensify over time, whose eventual epiphanies, if they come at all, only reinforce their current insipid lifestyles. None of this is artistically invalid. The problem is that all of this is easy to grasp in an episode or two. After that, you just…you need shifting sands under your feet, you know? You need crises, you need struggles, you need some kind of crescendo. Otherwise you’re just watching, I dunno, the first reel of Visconti’s The Damned on loop, with none of the descent into hell that makes the banality of evil something more than banal in the end. The White Lotus has the banality down pat. It just needs something more, is all.

I reviewed this weekend’s episode of The White Lotus for Decider.

I focus so much on the writing of this show, the shocking and rewarding ways that it deviates from the Disney Star Wars norm, that I feel I neglect the performances. Frankly, they’re uniformly excellent. Genevieve O’Reilly, conveying Mon Mothma’s imprisonment in a gilded cage. Denise Gough, making Dedra Meero one of the most magnetic and frightening villains in the Star Wars legendarium. (She’s serving Peter Cushing, baby.) Diego Luna, a rat in a trap, always searching for a way out, never letting himself let up. Andy Serkis, showing layers of weariness and fear under Kino Loy’s bluster, emotions that finally give way to anger when he realizes he’s been had. Kyle Soller barely keeping it together as Syril Karn, all desperation to prove himself to someone, anyone, to be respected, perhaps to be loved. Kathryn Hunter as his mother, a passive-aggressive martinet, making his life worse even as she purports to be making it better. It’s such a wide range of performances for such a wide range of characters, all of them handled with care, all of them, even the bad guys, treated as three-dimensional human beings.

Unless things go badly wrong, Andor has already cemented itself as one of the best science-fiction shows of the century, up there with Battlestar Galactica, Dark, and Raised by Wolves. I simply cannot wait to see how far it goes.

I reviewed this week’s excellent episode of Andor for Decider.

“I’m trying to think of something more fucked up than this.” Me too, Daniel Molloy, me too. Titled “A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart” with the show’s typical baroque brio, the fifth episode of Interview with the Vampire is a troubling hour of television. It chronicles first the disintegrating sanity of the young vampire Claudia, then the traumatic event that forces her back home, then the final collapse of her surrogate family via the abusive tendencies of its miserable patriarch. It does all this while sacrificing none of the richness that has made the characters, and the show, so vivid and surprising all this time. 

I reviewed this week’s excellent episode of Interview with the Vampire for Decider.

Have you enjoyed your stay at The White Lotus? No, seriously, I want to know: What did you make of the first season of writer-director Mike White’s anthology satire, about the trials and tribulations of the white upper class and their overworked, underappreciated servants at a luxury Hawaiian resort? Because here I am, filling out my comment card, and I’m just not sure what to write.

Of course I wish I loved the show. That’s easy: Don’t you wish you loved every show you watch? Particularly when you’re a TV critic who considers himself to be in the liking-things business, it’s always more fun to be over the moon for a series than to be left scratching your head. With a show as widely beloved and acclaimed as The White Lotus, that goes double.

But a part of me also wishes I hated the show. Hour-long comedy-dramas are the Coward’s Television: On a surface level they appear as character-driven and attention-demanding as your standard prestige-TV drama, but because the characters involved are joke-delivery mechanisms first and “characters” second, they are in fact neither. Unlike the people on, say, The Sopranos or Mad Men or Better Call Saul, their purpose is to be funny, which makes them a lot different than people who happen to be funny sometimes. You’ve met lots of people like the latter; people like the former don’t exist. 

But unlike, say, Succession — another widely beloved and acclaimed HBO dramedy about the rich and awful, which has somehow managed to convince the critical and awards establishment to let it have its cake (everyone telling variations of the same over-elaborate dick jokes season after season) and eat it too (sometimes characters get sad and, hey presto, Drama!) — The White Lotus tended to fall firmly enough on the black-comedy side of the spectrum to dodge that obnoxious neither-fish-nor-fowl nature. 

It took its time to get there of course, after an opening couple of hours so dry it wasn’t clear what the show was up to; and in its final episode or two it made sure to have several important female characters get really upset so you knew you were watching something real, man; but there was a sweet spot in the middle there where the assholishness and/or obsequiousness of the players just kept ratcheting up and up to such hilariously uncomfortable levels that it was hard not to root for the thing.

Which I suppose is where I find myself with Season 2, the first episode of which (“Ciao”) takes us to a new locale with an almost entirely new cast of characters, but with almost all the same thematic and comedic preoccupations. Everyone’s still rich, everyone’s still horny, everyone’s still either completely oblivious or so ostentatiously tuned into the world’s suffering that they’re oblivious to their own obliviousness, and the staff are still oh so happy to serve you.

All that throat-clearing is to say that I’m covering The White Lotus Season 2 for Decider, starting with my review of the season premiere!

Several episodes ago I made the argument that American Gigolo’s warmth was a welcome development given the emotional sterility of Paul Schrader’s original film. Now I’m not so sure. These final few episodes have seen warmth tilt over into soap suds, and the replacement of a harsh look at Julian’s lifestyle with a give me back my son whodunnit didn’t benefit anyone in the end. And I can’t help but feel that this show with “gigolo” in the title should have featured, well, more gigolo-ing, or really had any interest in sex work at all beyond providing an taboo backdrop for a murder mystery. A curious, curious beast, this American Gigolo. I wonder if we’ll see Julian ride again. So to speak.

I reviewed the season finale of American Gigolo for Decider.

But mostly, trying to encapsulate the brilliance of this show is best done by simply recounting a litany of the many many ways in which it draws the Star Wars struggle down to a human level. This is a show concerned with prison bureaucracy, with the existence of toilets, with the existence of deaths from despair. It’s aware of revolutionary factionalism and bureaucratic infighting. It unflinchingly depicts cops and corrections officers as unrepentant, moronic sadists. It shows how prisoners can be made to turn on one another, crabs-in-a-bucket style. It includes insightfully fascistic phrases like “Can one ever be too aggressive in preserving order?” and “If you’re doing nothing wrong, what is there to fear?” It acknowledges that the quaint customs of the various exotic civilizations in the Star Wars Galaxy include shit like arranged marriages between children. It shows committed romantic partners reading each other to filth, as when Cinta dismisses Vel as “a rich girl running away from her family,” then effectively quoting the Velvet Underground & Nico by telling Vel “I’m a mirror…you love me because I show you what you need to see.” A prison overseer tells Andor “Losing hope? Your mind? Keep it to yourself.”

I reviewed this week’s episode of Andor for Decider.

Here’s a quick question for you: Remember when American Gigolo was about being a gigolo?

Admittedly, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it situation. Since his exoneration for murder and reemergence from prison, Julian Kaye has, by my count, gone on precisely one date with a client. They skipped out on a high-school reunion and had sex in a dive-bar bathroom before she revealed to him that she’d once accidentally killed someone, putting something of a damper on the evening. He coached her through her guilt and escorted her to the doors of the high school, yes, but that was where their evening ended. 

All the other sex work we’ve watched Julian/Johnny perform has been via flashback, and much of that coerced while he was a juvenile. To the extent that his titular job is a factor in the series at all, it’s purely as context, the world in which the various crimes, lies, betrayals, and heartbreaks with which the show is more concerned emerge from. The killing for which Julian was framed; the death of his high-school girlfriend upon her involvement in this other part of his life; his complicated relationships with fellow veterans of the trade Lorenzo and Isabelle; his continued dealings with Detective Sunday, the cop who put him away and now feels guilty about it; his child with former client-turned-girlfriend Michelle Stratton; his son running away with an older woman, that older woman’s murder by one of Michelle’s husband’s employees, and his kidnapping by a second such employee; the revelation that the woman he was accused of murdering was the sister of the girl who killed herself: All of these things stem from Julian’s life as a gigolo, without actually providing us with any insight into or commentary on that life. He could just as easily be a (very sexy) cop, or teacher, or paleontologist.

It’s frustrating! Come on, guys, it says “American Gigolo” right there in the title!

I reviewed this week’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

I think that’s the key thing about this episode, written by Eleanor Burgess and directed by Keith Powell, and about the show in general. Its ability to balance the thrills and chills and sex and blood and comedy of an over-the-top Gothic vampire romance with serious observations about race, wealth, addiction, unhappy relationships, and now de facto child abuse and the misery of teenagers is hugely impressive. It manages to deliver pretty much everything you’d want from a vampire show, and more besides. And now we have four core performances that are funny and empathetic and nasty and brilliant, from Bailey Bass as well as from Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid, and Eric Bogosian. 

Between Interview, Andor, and House of the Dragon, those of us who hunger and thirst for legitimately sophisticated nerd-genre storytelling are eating very, very well this Halloween season.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Interview with the Vampire for Decider.

One of the many things that fascinate me about Andor is the way it makes you feel empathy, even admiration, for the employees of the Empire. Part of the explanation for this phenomenon is the simple fact that it’s simply a better written work of filmmaking than the vast majority of Star Wars material; of course the Imperials and their lackeys are going to feel more fully human, because everyone does. But even as the show chronicles the touch-and-go, knife’s-edge early days of the Rebellion, it paints portraits of Imperials you wouldn’t mind having a conversation with — if it weren’t for, y’know, the fascism. But still!

Take Dedra Meero, the Imperial Security Bureau officer trying her damndest to figure out the exact contours and scope of the nascent Rebellion. Thwarted by bureaucracy and backstabbing colleagues, she takes advantage of new laws passed in the wake of the Aldhani raid — the Patriot Act, basically — to work around those obstacles and get the information she needs from a galaxy-wide survey, instead of going sector by sector as mandated. And she gets results: enough information, she says, to prove her theory about a coordinated, galaxy-wide rebellion is correct. 

And instead of chiding her for breaking the rules or being over-ambitious, her supervisor, Major Partagaz, rewards her! He compliments her moxie and initiative, wondering how much better off they’d all be if everyone who worked for him displayed the same qualities. He gives her control of the sector previously under the command of her primary office rival. And he warns her to watch her back, knowing what kind of people they’re all dealing with. 

As played by Anton Lesser, Partagaz a charming guy, intimidating but insightful, the kind of boss you’re both scared of and kind of in awe of too. And Denise Gough plays Dedra as nothing but competent, strikingly so — truly skilled at her job in a way that makes you like and respect a person. These are remarkable, precise performances that endear you to the characters — I mean, again, if it weren’t for, y’know, the fascism. But still!

I reviewed today’s episode of Andor for Decider.

I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m kind of at a loss: What’s so American about American Gigolo, anyway? The adjective implies a sort of national universality about Julian Kaye’s escapades, or a uniquely American characteristic thereof. But as far as I can tell, he’s just some poor sap who fell bass-ackwards into sex work and thence into a wrongful murder conviction, and who’s now struggling to piece together exactly how and why both things happened to him. It’s tough to see his life, as portrayed in this series, as anything emblematic of any larger, America-wide concerns. He’s just some patsy, and remains so.

I reviewed last night’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

The best way I can sum up Interview with the Vampire so far is that, like House of the Dragon and Andor, it’s what I once imagined nerd cultural hegemony might be like: smart, sharp, horny, campy, and at least a little bit unpleasant and disgusting — everything you might have wanted before mighty corporate machines figured out how to produce the stuff like they produce breakfast cereal. 

I reviewed last night’s episode of Interview with the Vampire for Decider.

Change is value neutral. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. The process of adaptation from source material to new material, from one medium to another, is tricky and complex and prone to being misunderstood by just about everyone. Books are not film, books are not television, and hell, film is not television; these are distinct media with distinct strengths and weaknesses and demands. In adapting one to another, change to the origin is necessary to suit the strengths and weaknesses and demands of the destination. The passage of time and the emergence of new social norms is another factor that deserves consideration. And of course there are the tastes and talents of the artists involved to consider. 

Any one of these points, much less all of them in tandem, serves to explain why alterations are, in the end, simply alterations, neither good nor bad in and of themselves. The question is not “Did this adaptation change anything?”, but rather “Were the changes the adaptation made to the source material beneficial, given the new medium involved? Did they enhance the source material’s strengths? Did they improve upon the source material generally? Were they true to the source material’s tone and themes? Did they make the adaptation stronger than a more direct and literal transposition from one medium to the other would have been?”

We have finally reached the end of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s first season, helmed by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, And we have our answers. Were the changes The Rings of Power made to J.R.R. Tolkien’s source material beneficial, given the new medium involved? No, they were not. Did they enhance the source material’s strengths? No, they did not. Did they improve upon the source material generally? No, they did not. Were they true to the source material’s tone and themes? No, they were not. Did they make the adaptation stronger than a more direct and literal transposition from one medium to the other would have been? No, they did not.

I reviewed the season finale of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power for Decider. As I say in the review, this show was a crushing disappointment.

Human, humane, and absolutely thrilling on a genre level, Andor, like Interview with the Vampire and House of the Dragon, proves that nerd-franchise filmmaking on television can be real television, with real stakes and real characters and real motivations and real complexities that can’t be resolved with a visit to the wiki. I’m so glad it exists.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Andor for Decider.