Tag: second season
Will Porn Always Be a Man’s World?
Late last year, when the streaming platform formerly known as HBO Max announced the abrupt cancellation of Minx a week before Season 2 finished filming, the news struck me as grimly ironic. Minx, created by Ellen Rapoport, is a buoyant, ’70s-set comedy about the first feminist porn magazine, loosely based on the real-life publications Playgirl and Viva. It’s a sweet, funny, shrewd show that also features plenty of full-frontal male nudity. The effect is hard to categorize;
11 Undersung TV Shows to Watch This Summer
Championing an underappreciated television show can be a joy, an inside secret you’ll share with other fans who have stumbled upon the same discovery. Sure, it’s no fun to feel like you’re the only person in your friend group watching, for instance, Veronica Mars—I certainly did back in the aughts—but as more people caught up and caught on over the years, finally getting to talk about the biggest twists and the best performances felt thrilling. Pushing a show, especially
‘Ted Lasso’ and the Political Precarity of Kindness
Ted Lasso, like an athlete meeting the moment, peaked at the right time. The show premiered during the waning months of Donald Trump’s presidency; against that backdrop, its positivity felt like catharsis, its soft morals a rebuke. Soon, Ted Lasso was winning fans and Emmys. Articles were heralding it as an answer to our ills. The accolades recognized the brilliance of a show that weaves Dickensian plots with postmodern wit. But they were also concessions. Kindness should not be
The 15 Best TV Shows of 2022
Television has always been a tether—to other people and to ourselves. In 2022, a year of turmoil and uncertainty, TV has provided something even more essential: a lifeline. Some shows reflected the moment’s surreality back to us. Some made us see other people in slightly new ways. Some offered escapism through larger-than-life story lines. At their best, the TV shows of 2022 revealed human truths through fiction. They made us laugh. They made us think. They offered some refuge from
The ‘Meta-emptiness’ of Emily in Paris
When the first season of Netflix’s Emily in Paris debuted in October 2020, it was met with both delight and ridicule: delight at its escapism into sunny France and from away the election and pandemic, but also ridicule at Lily Collins’s bubbly American abroad blithely Instagramming her croissants by the Seine. (“The whole city looks like Ratatouille!”)
These reactions are not mutually exclusive though, as Emily in Paris’s many conflicted fans can attest. So with the arrival of … Read more
‘Alter Ego,’ ‘Sexy Beasts,’ and Reality TV’s Absurd New Extreme
At a posh bar somewhere in the U.K., a devil is on a date with a statue. The two sip their drinks and make stilted conversation. “I moved to New York to pursue modeling,” the devil says, her horns protruding from the top of her head, her cherry-red cheeks stretching with her mouth as she smiles. “Ooh, I did a bit of modeling myself!” her flint-skinned date replies. The two don’t find much else to agree on (the demon will
The Review: Ted Lasso – The Atlantic
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In the first episode of The Review, our Culture staff writers David Sims, Megan Garber, and Sophie Gilbert discuss the unlikely hit that is Ted Lasso. Its Emmy-winning first season—and its smart writing and heartwarming positivity—connected with pandemic audiences. As the sitcom’s much-discussed second season complicates the message, what is it saying about the merits (and the limits) of American optimism?
This episode was produced by Kevin Townsend and