5 Best TV Shows Similar to Who Were We Running From?
Slow Horses
The AppleTV+ spy series retains its humor but gives viewers its most tightly plotted effort yet. Slow Horses Season 3 reiterates how the series differs from so many other TV shows. While critics frequently discuss film as a director’s medium, television tends to be more showrunner—and thus writer—driven. While Horses indeed derives many of its pleasures from the writers—the returning trio of Will Smith, Jonny Stockwood, and Mark Denton once again man the pens—each season’s unique tone owes to its single director. James Hawes made the series’ debut season a workplace comedy where the occasional gun battle might break out. Season 2 darkened or ditched much of the comedy for a bleaker, higher action affair under the direction of Jeremy Lovering. In Slow Horses Season 3, Saul Metzstein doesn’t push the team back into the offices. If anything, Slough House appears even less than in Season 2. However, he does re-up some of the mismatched colleagues’ humor, particularly when it comes to the team’s most recent additions, gambling addict Marcus (Kadiff Kirwan) and drug addict Shirley (Aimee-Ffion Edwards). He also further deepens the emotional stakes with a light touch, adding depth to ever-growing complications. Continue Reading →
Justified: City Primeval
How does anyone justify a revival? The original Justified gave viewers a conclusion in the first 30 minutes and an epilogue with the last 16. It gave Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) a fitting third act, living in Miami as a part-time dad to his daughter and finally enjoying freedom from the town he worked so hard to escape. So how does a creative team go from “we dug coal together?” to that nearly happy ending to a brand-new Givens tale? The simple answer is to head north. Continue Reading →
Good Omens
The 2019 adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s 1990 novel Good Omens was a charming show that succeeded in translating the book’s strengths and weaknesses to the small screen. It was clever like the book, with an ingenious plot (what if there had been a mix-up at the hospital and the Antichrist went home with the wrong family) that parodied The Omen while conjuring an apocalyptic tale all its about an angel and demon whose millennials-long rivalry grew from mutual antagonism, to grudging respect, and finally admiration and even a kind of love. But it also carried over the book’s weaker elements, its wonky pacing, plurality of uninteresting characters, and the fact that the first two thirds of the story is essentially table setting for the final third. Continue Reading →
Survival of the Thickest
In 1995, way back last century, I went shopping for a dress to wear to my cousin’s wedding. Accompanied by my mother, it soon became apparent to us both that I, both a big and tall girl, wouldn’t be able to buy a dress in the Juniors section. My options eventually whittled down to one adult black velvet dress that, while the saleswoman assured us was totally chic for weddings, nevertheless showcased to the world that I could not fit into a fun or stylish dress for someone my age and that’s rough. It’s very rough. Continue Reading →
The Plot Against America
David Simon and Ed Burns' adaptation of the Philip Roth novel paints a harrowing picture of an alternate America that feels all too prescient. HBO’s latest miniseries imagines a world where renowned pilot, isolationist, and anti-Semite Charles Lindbergh runs for president and defeats FDR in 1940. What follows is a rise in anti-Semitic hate and fascism throughout America. And as you watch the series, you’d be forgiven for thinking this a pretty in-your-face way to address the Trump administration. That might be true, but the series is based on the Philip Roth novel of the same name which was released more than 15 years ago in 2004. If anything, Roth’s The Plot Against America has been frustratingly, dishearteningly prescient. It’s no wonder showrunners David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire) were drawn to it. The show follows the Levin family (originally the Roths in the novel) as they deal with the shifting political tide and how it strains their family bonds. Father Herman (Morgan Spector) is an outspoken liberal who finds Lindbergh distasteful and disgusting. Wife Bess (Zoe Kazan) frets constantly for the safety of her family, remembering all too well how isolating it was to be the only Jewish girl in her class growing up. Michele K. Short/HBO Cousin Alvin shares Herman’s political leanings, but is determined to act, eventually signing up for the Canadian army in order to “kill Nazis.” Meanwhile, impressionable young Sandy (Caleb Malis) grapples with his hero Lindbergh’s politics while his little brother Phillip (Azhy Robertson) tries to make sense of it all. Things are only further complicated when Bess’s sister Evelyn (Winona Ryder) falls for Rabbi Bengelsdorf (John Turturro), a staunch Lindbergh supporter. Continue Reading →