Death by Lightning assembles a great cast to revisit forgotten history

Photo: Netflix

If you look at any list of least remembered presidents, you’ll likely find James Garfield near the top. He held the office for only 200 days, not long enough to accomplish anything but not so short as to be a record. Destined to be forgotten the moment an assassin shot him in the back. As a history buff, I’m familiar with Garfield, but not so knowledgeable that the Netflix miniseries Death by Lightning couldn’t teach me a thing or two.

The series begins in the lead-up to the 1880 presidential election, with the Republican party in disarray. James Garfield (Michael Shannon) sees his stock rise as a compromise candidate between the various factions of the party. Meanwhile, conman and political wannabe Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen) leaves prison and searches for a new opportunity. Death by Lightning traces the arcs of these two men leading up to their fateful and ultimately fatal encounter.

The show examines a particularly fraught time in US politics, full of corruption and unchecked greed. It isn’t hard for the writers to draw parallels between that era and ours. The program is at its best when exploring the game of politics, specifically the Republic National Convention that leads to Garfield’s unexpected nomination. So interesting is the inter-party feud between Garfield and New York Stalwart Roscoe Conkling (Shea Whigham) that we never even see his opponent in the Democratic party. There are some people who still end up forgotten.

With just 4 episodes, Death by Lightning tries to cover a lot of ground. This leads to the series feeling overstuffed with people and events. Frederick Douglass appears in a single scene. Alexander Graham Bell arrives to announce his invention of the metal detector. These historical cameos are fun, but feel like the Marvel version of US history. A distraction from our story’s focus and from the terrific performances on display.

Death by Lightning boasts a cast of talented actors that brings these overlooked figures to life. Besides those already mentioned, we also have Bradley Whitford, Nick Offerman, and Betty Gilpin. In particular, Gilpin as Garfield’s wife Lucretia gets her big moment at the end, as she damns Guiteau to the dustbin of history. It’s our two leads who shoulder much of the heavy lifting, though. Shannon imbues Garfield with a meekness unbecoming of most politicians while also letting his virtues shine through. There’s a sense that, given time, he would have acquitted himself well in the role of president. Macfadyen is all sweat and smarm as Guiteau. What makes the role so mesmerizing is how his desperation slowly morphs into resentment with each rejection. He is a man deluded into believing his life must have a higher purpose even as it continues to elude him.

There are a lot of ideas floating around Death by Lightning. The most important ones speak to our current political climate. A reminder that history rhymes, even in the untold stories. It’s doubtful that the series will elevate Garfield to anything more than a historical footnote. What it captures instead is the feeling of promise and its all too quick demise. Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned there, if that feeling ever returns.

Death by Lightning is currently streaming on Netflix

Heated Rivalry melts the ice with its frisky queer romance

Photo: HBO Max

It’s been a rough year in general, but especially for queer media on TV. While there’s still shows being produced, the tremendous shift rightward leaves dim hope for their continued production. It’s the perfect time for a show like Heated Rivalry, one that is unafraid to get hot and heavy. A series with an interesting journey to American screens.

Based on the romance novels by Rachel Reid, Heated Rivalry is a production for Canadian streaming service Crave. Fan enthusiasm for the adaptation ultimately caused HBO Max to buy the U.S. rights. A sports love story, the series follows Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) two superstar hockey players. They meet as rookies, and the show follows their blossoming relationship as the duo navigate their professional and personal lives.

Heated Rivalry is far more interested in the personal. If you’re coming to the show hoping for some fast-paced hockey action, you’ll leave disappointed. Instead, the focus is on the fiery romance between our two leads. Williams and Storrie have incredible chemistry, and it shines through in their many scenes together. Ilya is the flashier role, and Storrie imbues the Russian native with a charm that’s hard to resist. In comparison, Hollander is a less dynamic character, but you can see Williams holding back the emotions. There’s more that he wants to say, but knows that he can’t.

The couple have put up a lot of walls, but they all come tumbling down in the bedroom. The show spends plenty of time on the sex scenes, and doesn’t hold back. It’s still rare that we see a series that depicts gay sex this openly and honestly. It’s also where we see our duo at their most vulnerable and connected. While the directing goes to great lengths to keep the scenes from getting too mature, there’s a sense of genuine passion that helps sell this relationship. Which is good because there isn’t much left to the program outside of it.

Heated Rivalry ultimately tells a pretty simple love story but overcomes it thanks to the strength of its central relationship. There’s a chemistry that is impossible to deny, like the best of romances. That it offers an oasis of sex-positive storytelling in our current desert is simply a plus. It’s a joy, then, that this series landed on American screens. If we can’t produce this type of work, the least we can do is import it.

Heated Rivalry is currently streaming on HBO Max. New episodes air on Fridays.

Final Verdict: Tune In

Television Turmoil: Cavemen tried and failed to make a sitcom out of a mascot

Television Turmoil is a look at the worst and weirdest series to make their way onto the small screen.

Advertising and television have always had a connection. From the early days where one sponsor would support an entire program to today, where the fractured media landscape leaves multiple avenues for targeted advertisements. Commercials are the lifeblood of TV. As depressing as it sounds, they’re the reason most everything seen on screen is there. As successful as some commercials can be with audiences, it is rare that one becomes an actual show. The biggest reason for this likely comes from how often commercials rely on repetition of the same joke or point. Something might work well in a 30-second bit, but fall flat when expanded into a full program.

None of this seemed to concern ABC when they green-lit Cavemen in early 2007. Based on the popular GEICO Cavemen ads, the series was pitched as a “clever twist on stereotypes” and aimed to be a satire of race in America. This concept isn’t too far off from what the commercials had offered in the three years prior to the show.

Created in 2004, the advertisement’s original purpose was to show how easy and intuitive GEICO’s website was. “So easy a caveman can do it,” the ad claimed, to the chagrin of the caveman who is on set. Other ads have various Cro-Magnons, all portrayed as normal, everyday people, reacting to the ad campaign with typical disgust. As far as commercials go, they’re pretty good, even if they clearly want you to laugh at the cavemen for being offended. So, how do you adapt a one joke commercial into a full sitcom?

If the pilot of Cavemen is to be believed, the answer is to double down on that joke and make it as distasteful as possible. Similar to the commercials, the show takes place in a world where Cro-Magnons are a sub-species of human and treated like another minority. The pilot makes this excruciatingly clear. An opening scene finds our trio of cavemen watching the news cover a recent crime where the suspect is believed to be a fellow Caveperson, complete with offensive sketch. “Why is it always a caveman?” Nick (Nick Kroll, who really tries his best here) shouts at the TV. It is just the first of many instances of the show leaning into the stereotypes it claims to be satirizing.

The primary focus of the pilot is on Joel Claybrook (Bill English) who attends a private barbecue hosted by his girlfriend, Kate (Kaitlin Doubleday) and her parents. Joel’s buddies tag along, and many race-based shenanigans ensue. Joel tries to get the blessing of Kate’s father, worried that he disapproves of her dating a caveman. There’s a subplot about Kate’s friend, Thorne (Stephanie Lemelin) trying to sleep with one of the other cavemen to see if the sex is “wild.” There is even a gag revealing that cavepeople occasionally use the term “magger” to refer to each other. A made-up slur that is a stand-in and sound-alike for a very real one. It’s no wonder that the limited screening of the pilot received harsh criticism. So much so that the episode never aired on ABC and the show quietly retooled.

The second episode, which acted as the show’s broadcast premiere, recast the third caveman, Andy (now played by Sam Huntington) and toned down the more overt racial elements. While these changes helped both the cast dynamic and the overall quality of the show, the series still focused on using the cavemen as a stand-in for various races. The ABC premiere involves Joel worrying that Kate is afraid to reveal their relationship to her friends. Further episodes involve Nick getting a teaching job only to learn the school has an offensive caveman mascot, Andy finding stand-up success by playing into stereotypes and Joel’s new friend possibly being a “shaver,” a caveman who shaves their body hair to appear Homo Sapian.

These are all clever ways of exploring race compared to anything provided in the pilot. The back half of the show’s 13 episodes is a clear improvement. Sadly, it all came too late. By the time the 7th episode aired, the Writer’s Guild had gone on strike, and ABC saw a perfect opportunity to cut bait. The remaining episodes never made air, and Cavemen cemented its status as an all-time punchline.

Even with some improved writing in the later episodes, the show’s biggest problem remained. For a show fixated on exploring race in America, it was exclusively white. It only places further attention on what the exact intent was with portraying the cavemen as a stand-in for all minorities. By excluding actual people of color from the conversation, the show feels less like a commentary and more like preaching to an all-white choir.

By now, we’ve all figured out the actual reason though. No one involved in creating this show was actually interested in exploring race. Even when the show hits on something close to actual commentary, it backs away quickly. Falling back into the tired sitcom structure that the show set up for itself.

Even if it had attempted to involve actual minorities, it is unlikely Cavemen would have ever evolved past the state it currently rests in. It all comes back to the program’s original sin. Basing a show on a widely seen commercial was never going to work out. It feels crass in a way that would never sit well with a chunk of your audience. A marketing tool being adapted into a vehicle for selling even more products. It’s a capitalist dream! It makes sense that critics were merciless to it and that audiences soon caught on to how unoriginal the program actually was.

Perhaps if Cavemen had been an authentic creation, it might have had more time to find its feet. But even without the show’s reliance on race, there wasn’t much to offer. It was a fairly average sitcom setup with thoroughly uninteresting characters. All it had going for it was the premise, which it couldn’t even claim as its own. Premise alone is enough in the world of commercials, but it can only take you so far outside of it.

Next Time: We return to NBC for one of the most infamous clunkers of all time, the shape-shifting blunder of Manimal.

Malice is a tepid thriller full of predictable turns

Photo: Prime Video

Malice lets you in on what it’s doing right away. From the moment we meet Adam (Jake Whitehall), we’re informed that he is here to ruin the life of this rich family. He doesn’t say it, but the way his kind mask drops when alone gives it away. Specifically, he’s here to ruin the life of venture capitalist Jamie Tanner (David Duchovny). The type of noble cause that would normally put us on Adam’s side were it not clear that he’ll eventually go way overboard in search of revenge.

Vengeance is the core theme of Malice, something the show never lets you forget. This is a series that ends its opening scene with a snake in the swimming pool. Moments later, Adam arrives. Later in the same episode, he gives a whole monologue about the Greek god of retribution. You see, Adam is a tutor for the Tanner’s friends/clients Damien and Jules (Raza Jaffrey and Christine Adams). They invite him on their vacation to Greece, and that is where the most one-sided game of cat-and-mouse begins.

While Malice lets us in on Adam’s deal early, it keeps his actual motivations a secret until shockingly late. Instead, the viewer watches his plan unfold with no real context for why it’s happening. That his reasoning is easily predictable just makes the secretive nature even more confounding. It is one of many elements in the series that kindly asks the viewer to turn off their brains.

Still, there’s a certain charm to this kind of dull eat-the-rich style story. Most of that charm comes down to Duchovny and Whitehall. While the story keeps them from truly being at odds until the end, the duo have an energy that keeps the whole affair breezy. After all these years, Duchovny still has a way of making even the sleaziest asshole seem fascinating. To his credit, Whitehall captures the intensity of Adam’s commitment to this scheme. Their ability doesn’t elevate the material like other recent shows have, but it’s an admirable effort.

When it’s not hitting you over the head with visual metaphors, Malice is gorgeous to watch. That’s part of the advantage of starting your show in Greece. It’s a shame that most of the actual events are so flat. The bones of a great thriller are here, but they never come together. What we’re left with is another streaming miniseries that feels like a novel you buy for the beach. Fun in the moment, before your brain picks it apart.

Malice is currently streaming on Prime Video.

Final Verdict: Tune Out

I Love LA tackles influencer culture with a fresh perspective

Rachel Sennott has been walking a fine line her entire career. Her breakout roles in Shiva Baby and Bottoms (which she co-wrote) established her as a talent on the rise. Sennott’s ability to balance the high-wire act of satire and absurdism while still finding human elements to her characters is impressive, to say the least. It was only a matter of time before she got to fully helm a project.

I Love LA plays like a mix of fellow HBO hits Girls and Entourage with a satirical edge. The series follows four friends as they navigate life in Los Angeles while balancing their professional and personal ambitions. As a concept, it’s pretty tried and true, but where the show differs is in its perspective. The show knows these characters are vapid and a little insufferable, and it invites you in on that joke early.

Sennott plays Maia, an aspiring talent manager who takes her friend Tallulah (Odessa A’zion) on as a client when she moves to LA. The relationship between the two is the focus, which often relegates the other cast members to B-plot status. There’s Charlie (Jordan Firstman) a celebrity stylist desperately trying to seem above it all, and Alani (True Whitaker) the daughter of a famous actor, who is chronically ignorant of her privilege. Josh Hutcherson rounds out the cast as Maia’s boyfriend, Dylan, acting as the audience surrogate by being the most down-to-Earth.

I Love LA strikes a tricky balance in the way it keeps the characters self-absorbed while also being funny. That the cast succeeds is a testament to their ability. Sennott and A’zion are the most assured. Maia and Tallulah are in the type of codependent relationship that will blow up eventually. The only thing holding this series back is the lack of real stakes. It fits with the LA culture the show is portraying, but ruins our investment. It doesn’t help that the show often trades consistent laughs for an authentic recreation of that culture. I’m not asking for full absurdism here, just more comedy.

Like Sennott’s previous work, I Love LA will probably be hit-or-miss for many people. The blend of vacuous characters, cringe comedy, and the lightest touch of satire won’t work for everyone. Those who enjoy it will find just enough under the surface to keep them coming back. If you’re like me, you’ll find a cast waiting for the chance to break out. Here’s hoping they get that opportunity.

I Love LA is currently streaming on HBO Max. New episodes air on Sundays.

Final Verdict: Tune In