Musings Beyond the Bunker #200 (Friday November 19)
Good morning and welcome to #200!
I’ve been asked in recent weeks to share a few best books, TV shows and articles. This is the 200th edition (and over 600 when counting the original “Musings From the Bunker”) and I’ve decided to provide some new “best of” lists. Today is the first.
I believe the best stories are those with a beginning, a middle and an end. Multiple seasons sometimes can offer greater exploration of characters but instead often are just prolonging a profitable franchise at the risk of creativity and quality. Stories well told, with a defined duration, introduce us to interesting people and dilemmas and then we say goodbye. While I like the occasional “situational comedy” for what it is, it really is just shoving some familiar characters into more and more (and often increasingly absurd) circumstances. The characters become like organ grinders’ monkeys. Dance, Derek, dance…
This list could be entitled, “Sometimes the best things come in small packages…”
TELEVISION SHORT SERIES BASED ON HISTORY
Chernobyl. Not just the remarkable story, but a picture of late-Soviet dismal times, state coverup, and science and politics at odds.
Dopesick. Great star turns in a stark and frightening recreation of the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma knowingly conspiring to spread use of a drug (in increasing doses) to addict millions and kill hundreds of thousands in their wake. It’s eight episodes of riveting drama.
The Good Lord Bird. This short season adaptation of James McBride’s National Book Award winning historical novel. Sure it includes a couple of fictional characters in order to frame the story. Ethan Hawke’s career-defining role in a movie that includes Daveed Diggs as Frederick Douglass. It can be fantastic but it will really bring home the crazy, visionary, religious zealot John Brown, Bleeding Kansas, and the Harper’s Ferry raid.
Roots. Don’t know what to say, other than that it is one of the beginnings of great narrative, dramatic television. A partially factual, partly reasonably imagined, history of a Black American family from the slave ships to then-modern America. Plus LeVar Burton.
Waco. Dramatic recreation of the Branchdavidian standoff with the DEA and the FBI in Waco. Excellent portrayals of several of the key players. Not really true to the facts, leaning pretty heavily toward the “unnecessary government over-reaction” story. The BDs were not good guys and this makes them a little too sympathetic. But wow, what a great dramatization.
Band of Brothers. The story of “Easy Company,” in World War II, based upon the Stephen Ambrose book and taking its title from Shakespeare’s Henry V.
The People vs. O.J. Simpson. Those of us who lived through it remember exactly where we were when we saw the slow-moving Ford Bronco riding down the freeway (we were at the Pasadena Playhouse with the Krolls). The story is great and the small extras, like Johnny Cochran stepping on opposing counsel’s freshly shined shoe, provide a bit of realism and insight into the players. O.J. says he’s still looking for the killer. Hope he doesn’t pass a mirror in his search.
Victoria. Jenna Coleman—again!—as the great Queen during the eponymous Victorian Era (followed by those crazy “out there” Edwardians…). A great story of Empire in full fettle, still unconvinced of its inevitable decline. And a great love story. Worth a watch.
The Crown. Prurient, yes. Fascinating in what it shows (and what it needn’t say but is obvious). Quite a walk through not only the dynasty but the lives of Britons, palace life, and the 20th century journey seen through this one fascinating regal.
Doctor Death. Riveting short series on the spinal surgeon in Texas who bounced from hospital to hospital, narcissistic to the max, undaunted and undeterred by the medical establishment. Alec Baldwin and Christian Slater are wonderful as the reserved and the outgoing doctors, respectively, who make it their mission to finally stop this serial murderer and maimer from practicing. Truly an indictment of our medical system.
Long Shot. This is one episode that tells the story of a man accused of a crime, whose alibi is attending a Dodger game with his child. The only problem is that there is eyewitness testimony placing him at the scene. Mr. Catalan mentions to his lawyer that there was something being filmed that day; it was an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (the episode where Larry hires a hooker so he can use the car pool lane to get to the Dodger game. A review of hours and hours of tapes provide an amazing story of our legal system, random luck and a heartwarming ending. On Netflix.
FICTIONAL MINISERIES
I’m listing them without detailed commentary. All worth it, all for different reasons.
The Night Of. Don’t get caught driving a “borrowed” taxi; don’t spend the night with someone you don’t know, don’t catch them dead in your bed and certainly don’t get caught up in the criminal justice system.
The Night Manager. John Le Carre at his best, starring Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston.
Patrick Melrose. Benedict Cumberbatch.
Watchmen. Such a brilliant take on history, law and order, racial injustice, and the struggle for truth. All in a science fiction film far more than just scifi.
11.22.63. What happened and what could have happened, with someone with knowledge of the future, visited Dallas at the time of the Kennedy assassination and before. Stephen King not as scary, but as thoughtful and at his creative and historical best.
Lonesome Dove. Sure it’s a western, but much more. Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall in one of the earliest and best examples of the genre. Larry McMurtry’s classic well-translated to an enjoyable and immersive visit to the old west and a monumental cattle drive.
The Queen’s Gambit. Not actually a true story, though it seems so.
BEST TV ALTERNATIVE HISTORY SHORT SERIES
Counterpart. Cold war paranoia and a split of timelines with two different resulting societies, connected at the Berlin lab basis where the timelines split. But people can visit back and forth, though on a limited basis. Incredible on so many levels.
The Plot to Destroy America. While the ending differs ever so subtly, it’s a good adaptation of Philip Roth’s classic. What if we appeased the Germans? What would the world look like? And how, living in this other, difficult, timeline, do we extricate ourselves or “right the ship” of history? For more great speculation on the end of the war and alternative history, try The Man in the High Castle (either the Philip K. Dick novel or the multi-season reimagining of the story) and Fatherland, by Robert Harris. Fatherland is a detective story in the context of a victorious Nazi Germany after the war, and the attempt to eliminate the attendees of the infamous Wannsee Conference, for political and public relations purposes.
For All Mankind. Said a bunch before. A reimagining of the Cold War and the Space Race, and their increasing interrelationship over a timeline where the Russians make it to the Moon first. The overlapping of the “real” history with the imagined history—together with examination of issues of race, gender, and other struggles over the same timeline—makes for a great yarn. Season three coming out next year.
Have a great weekend,
Glenn
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