You can skip Midnight Mass this Halloween season
And 6 other new shows I've watched, ranked.
My new shows countdown brings capsule reviews of new shows to your inbox every 15th of the month. I’ve made this month’s ranked list available to all subscribers, but you will have to be a paid subscriber to continue receiving them after today. So if you’re interested, consider upgrading if you haven’t already!
7. Midnight Mass (Netflix)
My score: 30/100
To me, Midnight Mass is Mike Flanagan’s most disappointing project yet. Filmed over the first COVID summer in Vancouver with a handful of his acting muses, it didn’t necessarily suffer from restrictions—in the last few episodes, there are church scenes with easily 150 extras, interacting with each other in a way I can’t explain without spoiling the premise (hint: vampires). But didn’t grab me by the throat the way Hill House or Bly Manor did.
The horror elements of the show are decent and well-done. But this limited series leaned way more toward a traditional drama with long, drawn-out existential conversations about faith (Catholicism, specifically) and the meaning of life. To some watchers and critics, this translated as depth. To me, I just felt like Flanagan was working out his own Catholic guilt. There are also some ableist storylines interwoven with the plot (again, I won’t spoil, but you’ll know it when you see it). If you’re interested in the intersection of horror and religion, I would highly recommend Evil instead, which has blossomed in its second season on Paramount+
6. Scenes from a Marriage (HBO)
My score: 55/100
HBO’s latest miniseries is a meditation on the dissolution of a marriage, with Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain as the powerhouse leads. It is a gender reversal of the original series it is re-creating, the 1973 Swedish influential classic. As the title suggests, it feels like watching various scenes of a play against the repetitive background of their suburban home.
Predictably, each episode crescendos with emotional disagreements about their relationship, often being honest with each other for the first time in years despite how hurtful those reveals are. If, unlike me, you don’t get exhausted watching the woes of heterosexual relationships on shows like The Affair or Couple’s Therapy, you’ll enjoy this more than I did. Regardless of my thoughts on it, the acting is spot on.
5. Y: The Last Man (Hulu)
My score: 60/100
The premise of this post-apocalyptic series based on the popular comic book series is intriguing: all cisgender men, due to a widespread virus that causes a brain hemorrhage for those with a Y chromosome, die instantly around the world. This leaves women and trans men in the chaos that follows, with a low-ranking politician (Diane Lane) suddenly in power as president in the US after most of the Republican party gets wiped out. Of course, the son of the new president and his pet (male) monkey survive, which must be kept secret at the risk of feeding the fires of conspiracy in new America.
Basically, it’s Designated Survivor meets The Walking Dead. An attempt to replicate some of the polarization of American politics between the liberal-minded president and Republicans falls quite flat, and the “last man” is a frustratingly entitled character to follow, but the show does a pretty good job at creating a nuanced understanding of gender beyond the binary of male/female.
4. Foundation (Apple TV+)
My score: 70/100
Based on the massively popular sci-fi book series, it’s been called an “unfilmable” series due to its scope. But I guess the success of sprawling shows like Game of Thrones and The Expanse have changed that. The series shines with the glimmer of an Apple TV+ budget, with no-holds-barred CGI.
It’s certainly impressive, if not slightly over-produced. Foundation lacks a certain gritty texture that makes shows like Raised by Wolves a unique watching experience. It was recently renewed for a second season, which will give the show the space it needs to find its rhythm and invest in its characters. Also, wow Lee Pace!
3. Impeachment: American Crime Story (FX)
My score: 74/100
Well, Sarah Paulson can pretty much guarantee another Emmy nomination after this performance (as Linda Tripp). Here, we get the inner details of what happened between President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, this time with Lewinsky’s stamp of approval as one of the show’s producers.
The show is filmed way too darkly (I can’t see anything!!!) but it’s definitely reminiscent of The People v. O.J. Simpson in cinematography. Like that season, the details of what actually occurred were outside of my frame of knowledge. For example, I knew nothing about Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford) suing the president, or Tripp’s betrayal of Lewinsky’s trust, and I wonder how many viewers are in the same boat. So although a bit frothy and melodramatic, the show continues to be a well-crafted lesson in socio-political history.
2. Maid (Netflix)
My score: 78/100
Maid was shot completely on Vancouver Island, where I currently live, which makes for a personally distracting experience. I can tell when the show is cheating geography, or when they’ve replaced the signs of a popular local landmark to masquerade as Port Townsend, Washington. But local fanfare aside, it’s a compelling story about trauma, motherhood and class with powerful performances by Margaret Qualley (who is in every scene), Anika Noni Rose in a surprising supporting character, and Qualley’s real-life mother Andie MacDowell, nails a challenging arc from cartoonish to gutting as the season progresses.
The titular character’s struggle over the season is exhausting and sometimes hard to swallow, her decisions are often questionable, but maybe it only feels that way from my position of privilege as someone outside of her experience. She frequently has no one to turn to, nowhere to sleep, or is forced to rely on the kindness of strangers and her own perseverance to keep her daughter alive and healthy.
I’ve had a few folks in my DMs asking me if I think the show is “trauma porn” through its depictions of poverty, addiction, single motherhood, and intergenerational trauma— which is a valid point to bring up and one needing further investigation. My thinking is that if you want trauma porn, The Handmaid’s Tale is ready for you. Maid is much less concerned with the spectacle of trauma than a thoughtful but unflinching observation of it. I will say that shows about poor people that truly dig into the day-to-day survival seem to spark this response quicker than say, the dozens of shows about rich people doing awful things in the name of power (*cough* Succession and the likes). Food for thought.
1. Squid Game (Netflix)
My score: 80/100
Given Manifest was the most watched show on Netflix for a few months, I didn’t really trust that specific audience to direct me toward the next hit, but Squid Game is truly an unexpected delight. It’s wildly violent, made worse by your emotional attachment to the characters battling it out in a Hunger Games-style competition.
Unlike those films, these players are game “volunteers” Or rather, they attend not because of their athleticism or skill, but because of their desperation for the cash prize, choosing to risk dying in the competition over returning empty-handed to their mounting debts. Obviously, it’s a powerful metaphorical representation of broader class struggles in Korea and beyond. The critiques on capitalism are clear, but sometimes the show’s nuance gets lost in English translation, sadly for for us (see: the dozens of thinkpieces, TikToks, and tweets about the awful English dubbing and mistranslations).