City on Fire

Matt Roush says...

The streamer has an affinity for adapting giant doorstop novels, and Garth Risk Hallberg’s sprawling 2015 saga proves an especially daunting challenge. Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (Gossip Girl) dilute the material by shifting the setting from gritty 1977 to post-9/11 2003 as the story encompasses New York City from the downtown club scene to Fifth Avenue penthouses. The link between these disparate worlds is Sam (the luminous Chase Sui Wonders), a punk-rock-loving, ’zine self-publishing NYU undergrad who lies in a coma for much of the eight-episode series after being shot in Central Park on July 4. A fine cast including Jemima Kirke, Ashley Zukerman, Nico Tortorella, and a demonic John Cameron Mitchell feel like big-city caricatures in this panorama of bomb-throwing hipsters, pretentious artists, and filthy rich developers. Only Wyatt Oleff, as the smitten Long Island teen straddling high and low society to find the truth about Sam, feels like an actual human being.

What's Worth Watching (May 12)