Ask Matt: The Sudsy ‘Gilded Age,’ Shows in Limbo & More
Welcome to the Q&A with TV critic — also known to some TV fans as their “TV therapist” — Matt Roush, who’ll try to address whatever you love, loathe, are confused or frustrated or thrilled by in today’s vast TV landscape. (We know background music is too loud, it’s the most frequent complaint, but there’s always closed-captioning. Check out this story for more tips.)
One caution: This is a spoiler-free zone, so we won’t be addressing upcoming storylines here unless it’s already common knowledge. Please send your questions and comments to [email protected]. Look for Ask Matt columns on most Tuesdays.
Gilding the Lily
Question: Is The Gilded Age starting to lean too heavily on the soap opera style of writing? — Joan
Matt Roush: Starting to? My dear (as they used to say back in the day), The Gilded Age is and always has been a gussied-up soap opera, a poor relation to Downton Abbey with far less balance between its upstairs and downstairs characters. It’s to be enjoyed for its opulent production and costume design, its blue-chip cast comprised of some of the best of Broadway and beyond, and its shamelessly contrived plotting. (Season 2’s blink-and-you-missed marriage of spinster Cynthia Nixon to Robert Sean Leonard, who left her an heiress while her dragon-lady sis Christine Baranski lost her fortune, is just one crazy example.)
Season 3 was for me the most enjoyable precisely because it stopped pretending it was prestige fare and obsessing on ephemera like opera boxes and took wild sudsy swings like abruptly running over Oscar’s lover with a horse carriage and shooting its main male anti-hero (Morgan Spector as George Russell) in the penultimate cliffhanger. That said, I appreciated the nod in the season finale to the most classic soap-opera heroine of all time, Scarlett O’Hara, as George did his best “I don’t give a damn” Rhett Butler imitation as he rode away from Bertha, who unlike Scarlett (at least while Margaret Mitchell was alive) gets another season to win him back.
Will Nautilus Ever Sail Again?
Question: I wanted to ask about Nautilus. I really enjoyed the series. I know it’s doing well on AMC+ and is popular here in the UK on Prime Video. I know it was a Disney show that was filmed a while ago and sold by Disney, who decided not to air it. With this in mind, what are the chances of it being renewed? I know Amazon is unlikely to invest in a Disney show, but would they and AMC have the option to purchase it from Disney? Production and distribution can get pretty confusing, but I look at shows like Wednesday, which is made by MGM but airs on Netflix, and I assume Netflix are happy because the show is huge and bring new subscribers? So, I guess for AMC to want to purchase the show, it would be about the new subscribers the show brings to the streamer? — Gavin, Cardiff, Wales
Matt Roush: I’m not sure it matters how well the show performs (and I haven’t been keeping track). Nautilus always felt to me like an opportunistic acquisition to keep the lights on during the summer — for AMC, a break between the Walking Dead and Anne Rice franchises — with a harmless if rather juvenile fantasy. The show has been on the shelf for two years, and I’m not sure what it would take to reassemble the cast and the sets Down Under, but I’d be surprised if this was seen as a priority by any of these companies.
The New Modern Family
Question: Any word on whether Mid-Century Modern will get a second season? I, for one, loved the show and would look forward to seeing how they handle the loss of Linda Lavin/Sybil Schneiderman. I was honestly surprised that there were no Emmy nominations in the acting categories for this show. — Gary
Matt Roush: I was especially miffed, though not really surprised, that the Emmy voters couldn’t see fit to reward the great Linda Lavin with a posthumous nomination. But this sort of broad comedy doesn’t seem to fit their criterion these days, more’s the pity. (I’d also have put Matt Bomer and Nathan Lee Graham high on my list of supporting comedy contenders.) As for the show’s future, I haven’t a clue. I’ll never say never and will remain cautiously hopeful until Hulu actually says “never,” but it is concerning that five months have passed without a peep since the series dropped all 10 episodes at once, which I’m not sure was the best release strategy. I strongly believe that mainstream shows like this benefit from weekly episode rollouts (even if you dropped them in batches of three or four) to help build buzz over a period of time.
Patience Pays Off
Comment: I want to take a moment to sing the praises of two shows: One, Syfy‘s Resident Alien, takes place in the fictional town of Patience, Oregon; and the other, Patience on PBS, is named after one of the lead characters.
I finally caught up and watched the series finale of Resident Alien. They “stuck the landing.” It was a beautiful ending to a fun show. Throughout the series, the writing and acting were excellent. Still, it was really in the final season that the joy and beauty of humanity stood out as Harry (Alan Tudyk) began to embrace the changes he went through. I feel that same joy watching this other series. While in some ways it couldn’t be more different, it shares the same underlying joy in the human condition and all of its diversity. That show is Patience on PBS. To paraphrase, I came for the mysteries but stayed for the beautiful and honest way they portray neurodiversity. During a time when there is so much cruelty in the world, I need reminding that humanity has a better side. These two shows help! — Mitchell S., Brunswick, ME
Matt Roush: I’ve been watching and sampling a lot of dark drama lately that’s on the TV horizon once we get past Labor Day, and I agree with Mitchell that there’s much to be said for shows that give us an escape valve and remind us that there’s still some light out there, given so much recent evidence to the contrary. The reaction to Resident Alien‘s finale has been quite encouraging, and I’m glad to see my enthusiasm for Patience reinforced here. (I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Patience is a remake of the French-language series Astrid et Raphaëlle, which has its own quite ardent fan base. I recommend both.)
Where There’s Smoke …
Comment: I’m a bit disappointed by Smoke on Apple TV+. I wasn’t sure I’d continue during episode 1, though by episode 2 I was interested enough to go on. (Your assessment of it being too slow-moving is just.) What are we supposed to make of this show? If it’s nothing but a character study, then I guess it succeeds, but the storyline is disappointing. Most of the main characters have done something horrible, yet we’re supposed to cheer them on as they nail Dave Gudsen (Taron Egerton)? The one main character who hasn’t done something wrong (unless I missed it) is Captain Burke, and [SPOILER ALERT] he gets needlessly killed!
And the whole ending is unsatisfying to me. Bizarre as the whole story is, pretty much everything was just about believable until the wild ride Gudsen took Calderone (Jurnee Smollett) on through the wildfire, and the wildfire itself seemed to begin and spread unnaturally fast. In this way, the ending seemed contrived and dishonest. There is good acting here: Smollett is great, and Egerton is quite good at portraying a sad and horrible person. — D.P.
Matt Roush: I struggled with this series as well while covering it weekly in our “Worth Watching” column. Being a huge fan of series creator Dennis Lehane (whose previous collaboration with Taron Egerton, Black Bird, was excellent), I came to this with high expectations, which were dashed pretty quickly with the leaden pace of the first episodes, big twist notwithstanding. I agree that the performances generally elevated the material, and if it had been content with peeling away the delusions and savior complex of the Gudsen character — an arson investigator and secret arsonist who saw himself as the hero of his own story — that might have been enough. The sudden shift from slow burn to overheated was especially jarring, culminating in Smollett’s meltdown in the final chapters, the ludicrous final twist involving her and Burke (whose main flaw was infidelity and commitment to job over family), and the climactic firestorm. Ultimately, Smoke feels like another streaming series that might have been more effective as a movie—or as a punchier four-hour thriller, as they used to make in the days of network two-parters.
And Finally …
Question: I watch TMZ every night at 7:30. I really enjoy the show, but I have to tell you that music that they play over their conversation is driving me crazy! It’s way too loud and it makes it hard to hear what they’re saying. I sent this information to TMZ, but I don’t think they’ll ever do anything about it. Any thoughts? — Kathleen
Matt Roush: Let me direct you to the introduction at the top of my column each week, in which I point out that loud music is the #1 complaint I hear about TV shows of all types, and that we’ve published a story that might help you get better sound out of your TV. That said, I doubt TMZ will ever change its tune, and it’s one of the few shows I can think of where I’d rather listen to the music, but that’s just me being a critic. Thanks for writing.
That’s all for now. Remember that we can’t do this without your participation, so please keep sending questions and comments about TV to [email protected]. (Please include a first name with your question.)
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