It’s Baby Yoda, not Grogu.
In the year of the COVID-19 pandemic—2020—Akhil Arora’s TV series reviews took a bigger turn towards Bollywood.
The Mandalorian: Season 2
“In contrast to the Star Wars lore-lite that was season 1, The Mandalorian season 2 intertwined itself more with the franchise’s past. […] If season 1 was about bringing in new fans to the Star Wars galaxy far, far away, then it seemed like The Mandalorian season 2 was about rewarding older fans. I mean, you can’t go much bigger on the nostalgia chart than Luke [Skywalker].”
His Dark Materials: Season 2
“Two [Ruth Wilson] scenes stand out particularly because they showcase a vulnerable side of her character, rarely seen in the series, and because they aren’t about moving the plot along, which His Dark Materials is unfortunately too much about. […] But these moments are all too rare, and [the show] is a lot less powerful and revealing when it’s left to the young adults.”
The Boys: Season 2
“The Boys‘ anti-superhero satire doesn’t go beyond surface-level jokes too often. Rarely is the Amazon series able to dig into the excesses, absurdity, and power fantasy of the superhero culture. Where [it’s] more successful is in touching upon themes that are largely out of the [Marvel]’s PG-13 purview: sexual harassment, white supremacy, political polarisation, and America’s gun laws.”
The Umbrella Academy: Season 2
“[It] thinks it’s a ‘cool’ show but it’s not. That doesn’t stop season 2 from trying, over and over. […] What it actually needs are characters with depth, interesting conversations, and a meaningful journey. Instead what it serves up are scenes after scenes set to a peppy soundtrack.”
A Suitable Boy
“You might understandably struggle to keep up with who’s related to whom. More so because writer Andrew Davies … has been tasked with condensing nearly 1,500 pages into six hours—an impossible feat—which means A Suitable Boy throws a lot at you from the start, even as it must leave a lot out.”
Indian Matchmaking
“Netflix makes a lot of cringe-worthy, regressive, trope-heavy reality TV and it keeps making them because people keep watching them. If Indian Matchmaking gets a season 2, you know where to look.”
Dark: Season 3
“Deconstructing Dark’s takeaway towards the end is a curious choice, not least because it negates what Dark has been trying to say since the beginning, but also because it helps bring about what’s bound to be a polarising end. Maybe it’s a case of the Dark creators trying to outsmart the audience and the fans with their endless theories, but in doing so, Dark season 3 prioritises surprise over internal logic.”
Betaal
“[A] three-hour horror series that operates in clichés and tropes, which makes Betaal feel like it belongs to the classic genre era. Graham and the team have talked about introducing Indians to zombies, but frankly, in 2020, there’s little need for that. Even those with a passing knowledge of horror know how zombies work. But Betaal has zero self-awareness, be it with its plot or characters.”
Westworld: Season 3
“[Season] 3 … felt like a semi-reboot of the HBO series’ original designs, as it brought us into the human world. Gone were the sun-kissed Western visuals, in came desaturated cityscapes. With it, out went the endless love for confounding mysteries … and was replaced with the more straightforward embrace of high-octane thrills. But in changing its skin, Westworld looked to have lost some of itself. And it’s never felt like HBO’s next flagship to take over from Game of Thrones.”
Hasmukh
“[It] could do well to learn from its close cousin in Barry, whose co-creator and star Bill Hader also comes from a comedic background, but does a much better job handling the wacky end of the spectrum. Hasmukh is unfortunately all over the place, as it dissolves into a B-grade cable sitcom now and then.”
Four More Shots Please!: Season 2
“If anything, [it] has further dialled up some of its worst instincts. Thanks to a near-constant use of background songs and an obsession with montages, Four More Shots Please! season 2 feels more akin to a series of music videos. […] Too afraid of depicting something raw, the Amazon series is happy to jump from one cutesy, cheesy, and clichéd moment to another.”
Special Ops
“Things literally happen because the writers needed them to happen, and the movie lies to the audience to serve its plot twists, prioritising plot mechanics over its characters. […] Special Ops is both incoherent and rudderless as the finale approaches, and there are more loose ends than you count by the time it wraps up.”
Afsos
“All too often, Afsos finds itself in a much different comedy subgenre, an absurdist one, one where the laughs are dependent on the audience leaving its brains behind. That in itself may be generous, as [Anirban] Dasgupta largely fails to channel his comic talent on-screen with few exceptions.”
The Forgotten Army
“[Kabir] Khan & Co. … fall prey to Bollywood’s love for grandstanding. At various points during The Forgotten Army—sometimes laughably in the middle of a battle—the good guys will launch into a mini-monologue to talk about their heart-breaking, righteous, and powerful backstories, value systems, and capabilities. This is the poorest kind of message filmmaking.”