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This is a safe space, right? We’re among friends?
If that’s the case, I have a confession: I don’t, like, “get” Severance.
I watch it, and recognize I’m watching something ostensibly “great.” It’s complex and cinematic…and so, so confusing. Would I suggest that it should be up for major television awards? Sure. Did I treat pressing play on the new episode each week as some sort of chore? Yes, that too.
It can feel awkward to be a person who people go to for recommendations about what to watch because, often, I think I have terrible taste. “Serious” critics would demand that you watch Severance. I’m like, maybe get to that one at some point, but hurry up and watch the latest Real Housewives of Beverly Hills first so we can gossip about it.
Don’t get me wrong. I take my job seriously, and am adamant that a person can be obsessed with both the highbrow and lowbrow, with no shame to be felt about the latter. I hope that my endless screaming about them got you to watch masterful, smaller series like Somebody Somewhere, Dying for Sex, Bad Sisters, or Interview With the Vampire. I also hope that you’ve caught on that the most joy that can be found watching television each day happens on The Kelly Clarkson Show and Watch What Happens Live.
We contain multitudes!
We are about to enter the Golden Age of one end of the spectrum of quality. There is going to be so much bad TV this summer, and I can’t wait to devour every second of it.
Bliss happens every Thursday night at 9 pm ET, when the latest bats–t episode of And Just Like That drops on HBO Max. I fill up my biggest mug with hot tea, lube up my vocal cords, and spend 45 minutes screaming at my television over all the ludicrous ways my beloved characters from Sex and the City have been bastardized.
This week found Carrie Bradshaw riding an ATV in rural Virginia. Excuse me?! Blasphemy! Yet, I loved every second of it.
I am baffled by the ways these writers have imagined how these characters would behave at this point in their lives, yet also moved by the prospect that I may too be lobotomized sometime over the next 20 years and become a completely unrecognizable person. Who will that Kevin be? I couldn’t help but wonder!
Sunday nights are about to get so good. TV’s silliest show, The Gilded Age, finally returns. This series tricks you into thinking it’s fancy and important. It’s from the creator of Downton Abbey. Everyone is in fancy gowns. The cast is stacked with award-winning actors. And yet the biggest drama of a given season is which opera the characters are going to see or, most memorably, Christine Baranski deigning to walk across the street.
The new season infuses more Downton-esque melodrama into the camp of its otherwise dramatic nothingness, and some of it works. But the show is much more gratifying when it’s focusing on a servant who wants to build an alarm clock—easily TV’s most random plot line—or Baranski’s character being aghast that Cynthia Nixon’s character wants to make their household a sober one.
Two frontrunners for the TV line of the year both come from Baranski related to that plot line: “He drank wine and served it to guests. So did Jesus!” And, “Let the sober circus begin!”
I sometimes question whether I’ve lost my mind when it comes to what TV shows I’ll watch. I haven’t finished the new season of The Last of Us, but I devoured every episode of the trashy soap Sirens. I don’t anticipate the upcoming crime drama Smoke, starring Taron Egerton, to be “for me,” but I depressingly predict caving and watching critically ravaged summer thrillers We Were Liars or The Waterfront once I start to feel left out when they inevitably become popular.
And let’s not forget the best part of the summer: reality TV.
I hesitate even mentioning this series in a post about so-called “bad” television, because it is a masterpiece. The Real Housewives of Miami is airing, and each episode is brilliant. I don’t say that in jest, or as hyperbole. I am a connoisseur of reality television. This is the genre at its peak form.
Let’s be honest, though. We do want that absolute garbage reality TV, too. I’m grateful that this summer will deliver that in a full variety pack.
Bachelor in Paradise returns for those who unabashedly crave messiness. The exciting twist this season: several Golden Bachelor and Golden Bachelorette contestants join the cast. Old people can be horny too!
Netflix is continuing to roll out its Trainwreck documentary series, an anthology looking back at recent rock-bottom moments when it comes to media-sensation news stories. Still to come this summer: entries on the notorious Carnival “poop cruise” and one the Balloon Boy phenomenon.
And, as always, Shark Week returns. Well, technically it would be Shark Months. The shark content has spread like chum across a dozen networks and streaming services. I will consume every bit of programming, from a serious documentary about conservation to a pandering “Michael Phelps races a shark” special to whatever the next Sharknado nonsense may be.
According to reports, we’re about to enter a “diabolical” stretch of hot weather. As 30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan says, “Live every week like it’s shark week.” For me, that means cherishing this time spent watching “bad TV.”
The post ‘And Just Like That…’ It Was the Glorious Summer of Bad TV appeared first on The Daily Beast.
