Electrifying, sassy, campy, and sometimes even witty, subversive fun – that’s what Ryan Murphy’s ‘Scream Queens’ debut season was. Its second season tried to be all that but failed enormously.
I have no idea why it doesn’t work since, in theory at least, everything that made the first season such a guilty pleasure is still there – the over-the-top antics, the hyperbolic and tongue-in-cheek dialogues and insults as well as the lively performances of a cast clearly enjoying the material it’s been given. Yet, all that ‘Scream Queens’ really is in its second season is evidence that too much, even if that is your initial appeal, eventually always grows exhausting and that knowing when to end something is a skill far too undervalued.
‘The Walking Dead’ is just not a good show despite what its popularity may lead you to believe.
It had a strong first season (consisting of only 6 episodes), half a good second season (consisting of only 6 episodes) and arguably peaked during a surprisingly impeccable first half of its fifth season (consisting of only 8 episodes) that I still can’t explain to myself how and why it happened.
And yes, it also has a few rough diamonds in between its otherwise overwhelmingly messier runs that can’t just deliver on creative and exciting zombie action but are even great and insightful ponderings on the clash of differing moral values, discussions to what extent violence is justified during situations of emergency and whether it is vindicated at all and a stimulating observation on how to go back to leading a normal life after having been confronted with one’s own worst self and that of humanity. This sounds interesting but it isn’t when it’s presented by ‘The Walking Dead’s dull and monotonous panache – unless, of course, they hit one of those rare goldmines again once every year or so.
If those rare occasions of quality are enough for you to stay loyal to a show or if you find its excessive action scenes actually entertaining then sure, this might still have something worthwhile in it for you. However, after seven years of tedious, repetitive plot-circles, messy ways of treating its themes and increasingly frustrating gimmicks, I would argue that ‘The Walking Dead’ isn’t only long after its peak (which was never impressive to begin with) but that its chances of returning to something of merit are very slight to say the least.
If ‘The Sopranos’ outdated the ensemble drama to an extent, this decade has somewhat made the white male anti-hero drama obsolete. That is not to say that it can’t work anymore or that it can’t be one of the most ingenious, relevant, important and ambitious character studies either – indeed, one of the best shows of all time, Mad Men, was just that until last year and Breaking Bad has only been gone since 2013, as well. However, the premise lends itself to walk way too easily into territories that have long been dried up by usually far superior shows and be blind to the potential a show is actually hiding at its furthest edges.
This is, in a nutshell, the case with HBO’s ‘Vinyl’. A period drama set in the 1970s rock-disco music scene that offers up a diverse ensemble full of hypothetically rich, interesting characters but refuses to ever let any of them take center stage. It’s not that Bobby Canavale isn’t showy enough as the show’s lead (even if his performance borderlines on caricature at times), but that his character essentially has nothing new to offer to us, no new revelations to bring or anything interesting to say that hasn’t been said before. It’s the same type of anti-hero lead HBO and other networks' clones have been duplicating since ‘The Sopranos’ premiered.
Sadly, ‘Vinyl’ is actually stacked with the kind of potential protagonists that could have made this drama into the kind of fresh and worthwhile innovation HBO was hoping it would be.
There’s a lot to say about HBO’s – and many other networks’ – tedious tendency to stay stuck in a loop of replicating old triumphs, of just doing whatever worked before.
Yet, at a time during which so many other projects are finally starting to be daring and take risks (for better or for worse), the important question that has to be asked once again isn’t when or where to set your show anymore but who to set it around – a question to which HBO itself once replied with the change of TV as we knew it.
I barely watch TV anymore aside from like, 3 shows.
