TED LASSO (AppleTV) - Jason Sudeikis is really good at playing smarmy a-holes, so it's a warm surprise to see him play a character so optimistic and sincere, you can't help but root for him. It's not so much a laugh-out-loud comedy as it is a soothing warm-glass-of-milk comfort comedy, about an American college football coach who's been hired to coach a premiere English football team (aka "soccer"). The owner of the team is a recent divorcee who wants Ted to fail because she know it would make her ex-husband upset to see his favorite team lose, but his approach is so crazy it just. Might. Work. Fun supporting characters, especially Hannah Waddingham (Game of Thrones) as the owner.
STAR WARS: THE BAD BATCH (Disney+) - Never watch more than a few episodes of any of the SW animated series, but this one had a really good 70-minute episode 1. It picks up right when Order 66 is executed, and five clones who are a little different than everyone else don't get the order transmitted into their brains and don't feel compelled to follow it, which means they are torn between siding with their brothers or siding with the Jedi. Timeline-wise my understanding is this places it a few years before Star Wars: Rebels. I'm compelled to watch a few more with my kids and see how it goes.
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY (Paramount+) - Finally started watching it, and I'm thoroughly enjoying how they've tweaked the ST formula. Instead of the main character being the captain and virtually every episode being stand-alone, the captain is a secondary character who's therefore free to be more flawed than every series before it. Best thing that ever happened to Sonequa Martin-Greene was getting cast on The Walking Dead as Sasha, and then having her character killed right when this opportunity opened up. It feels like it wants to be halfway between Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, which is a good thing.
THE CROWN (Netflix) - Finally finished season 4. Loved how the first two seasons had Claire Foy take us through the first 15 years as Queen Elizabeth II, then Olivia Colman took us through the next 20-25 years over S3 and S4, and then when S5 comes out in a few months, Imelda Staunton will take us from the 1990's to the present over the final two seasons. I wonder if the series finale will be Prince Philip's funeral. Then again, my understanding is they don't plan for Diana's death to occur until S6, so maybe it'll conclude while Tony Blair's still PM.
THE ORDER (Netflix) - It had 100% on Rotten Tomatoes so we tried it. It was terrible. Bad acting, humor that might have been funny on Buffy or Angel 20 years ago that lands flat now. I don't get it. My wife kept watching; she says it's terrible but okay to have on while she's doing puzzles.
