Category Archive: TV SERIES
The White Lotus
(Written and directed by Mike White) (HBO 2021) “Eating the lotos day by day, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, And tender curving lines of creamy spray; … To muse and brood and live again in memory, With those old faces of our infancy Heap’d over with a mound of grass, Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass.” (Tennyson, Song of the Lotos-Eaters) We don’t know if Alfred’s weird poem informed the consciousness of Mike White’s weird satire but we like to think so. This 6 part series, a sort of ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ meets…
Continue Reading →The Closer
Dave Chapelle’s last (?) Netflix Special, 2021 Chapelle is almost always controversial, and worth watching (except for his Block Party Special, which was an ocean-liner-sized yawn) but in his valedictory show for Netflix, he seems to be intent – or resigned – to cancel himself. He has been criticized for being ‘transphobic,’ and has obviously spent a good deal of time reflecting on (and deflecting) this. It has affected his naughty boy comedy: the naughty boy is still there, twinkling at us through his not-so-innocent eyes, but the deconstruction of his often sensible stance is slightly chilling, and the effort…
Continue Reading →Wentworth
Remake series 1 – 3 (Foxtel) It is not Covid-19, but FLU-68 that is destroying Australian television. Fervid Ludicrous Upscaling first infected Australian drama series writers (and directors) in 1968, causing them to throw Charlie Cousens off a silo in the eponymous town of Bellbird (ABC 1967-1977). Each generation of writers catches it from the last and is less able to resist its degenerative depredations, no matter how many doses of Edge of Darkness (BBC 1985) or Better Call Saul (Sony etc., 2015-2019) vaccine they have had. Perhaps there’s been a switch a la The Young Doctors (1976-1983) and the syringes are filled with Erinsborough tap water. Australian tv…
Continue Reading →I Think You Should Leave – Again
Created by Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin (Netflix, July 2021) For those who like their comedy dark, psychotically dark, and salted with real tears, the first season of I Think You Should Leave was hysterical, although we can understand why some people might absolutely hate it. The Varnished Culture has to report that the 2nd season is even darker, shorter, more arbitrary and occasionally jaw-dropping.. Highlights: An employee hides, snacks and chokes on his hot dog at an impromptu meeting because ‘you can’t cancel lunch.’ A man disguised for a prank candid-camera show loses his will to live at the…
Continue Reading →Please Don’t Go: I Think You Should Leave
I Think You Should Leave (By Tim Robinson, et al) (Netflix, 2019) The Varnished Culture has long been a fan of the Theatre of Embarrassment. I Think You Should Leave, created and driven by newcomer Robinson, adds demented anger and Kafkaesque punishment to embarrassment, and it’s the funniest thing in years. A collection of sketches involve a central character who is the carnal embodiment of the current zeitgeist, in terms of obsessive egotism, transferred anger, rampant obscurantism, excessive fussiness and florid querulousness. We cannot wait for a commissioned but Covid-delayed second series. Our favourites: The job applicant, meeting at a…
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