TV Takes Part 1

Chloe; The Resort; Trying; The Undeclared War

I watch a goodly amount of TV. Sometimes it’s the same shows everybody talks about. Sometimes it’s stuff that may not be as popular, may not be as excellent, but may be interesting nonetheless. So, in this space, I’ll discuss a show or three or more.

Chloe – 6 episodes streaming on Amazon Prime.

The title character is dead from the beginning of the first episode, and we spend nearly six hours with people who loved her, hated her, married her, and maybe possibly killed her. The main character in the show is Becky Green, who quickly displays a skill for lifting things which don’t belong to her and an even greater skill for lying and pretending to be someone she isn’t. Becky is the chief caregiver for her relatively young mother suffering from early onset dementia. This plot point weaves in and out in terms of importance, but it does lead to several anxious moments, especially in early episodes.

There are more than a few fake-out scenes, as Becky relives or reimagines her late night call from Chloe on the night of the latter’s death. Flashbacks are not always reliable, but do serve to milk the mystery at the heart of the plot, and the emptiness at the heart of Becky. The ultimate resolution seemed a little anti-climactic, but the bulk of the British series is interesting and compelling, as long as you’re not too picky about believability.

The Resort – 8 episodes streaming on Peacock.

The White Lotus seems an obvious comparison, but that show was a murder mystery about several characters at an island resort, while this one is focused on one couple trying to solve the mystery of two young people’s disappearance 15 years ago. Cristin Milioti and William Jackson (you know him as Chidi from The Good Life) have been married long enough to take each other for granted. Milioti literally stumbles into the mystery when she falls down a hill on a hike and finds an old cell phone containing a sim card which she manages to get working on the last old model phone of its type.

She and Jackson disagree at several stages about her growing determination to follow clues, and meanwhile we see the two young people meet and fall for each other before the hurricane which destroyed the resort at which they were staying fifteen years in the show’s past. Nick Offerman shows up as the woman’s father, still searching after all these years. Luis Gerardo Méndez steals every scene he’s in as another character from that timeline interested in getting to the bottom of things. Milioti turns out to have a need for closure in her own life, which leads ultimately to . . . well, her last line in the series, and almost the last line in the whole show, was “This is all bullshit.” I love the concept, love the actors and the situations, and feel let down by the ending. I hope it wasn’t just so they could have a Season 2.

Trying Season 3 – 8 episodes streaming on Apple +

This British series has been around for three years now. The first season introduced Nikki and Jason, adorably in love yet realistically befuddled. They wanted to have a baby, and spent one season trying to conceive, the second trying to adopt, and the third trying to keep two older children who they somehow took home on a trial basis. There is a lot of sweetness on this show, but the actors playing Nikki and Jason don’t let things get too cloying. Neither will the writers, who put plenty of obstacles in their ways, and who dump things on supporting characters like Nikki’s sister Karen and her pretentious but human lover/husband Scott. The kids aren’t particularly good actors, but they play enthusiasm and sorrow well. Apple Plus is trying to market this as the next Ted Lasso, and that’s not quite true, but it is funny, human, and, yeah, sweet. Also, I respect any show that leads to an ending that truly seems unlikely to be followed up with another season.

The Undeclared War – 6 episodes streaming on Peacock.

This British series benefits from each episode being directed by Peter Kosminsky, who brings a consistent tone and some visual tension across each. Saara (Hannah Khalique-Brown) is doing a year as an intern at the super-secret British computer spy agency GCHQ. Her first day happens to be the day Russia lets loose a hack that shuts down half Britain’s internet. The rest of the series concerns her attempts to find out what else could be coming up, and it cuts her efforts with those of a young Russian, Vadim (German Segal) who went to university with Saara before he returned home to get involved in cyber crimes. There is a little bit of drama with Saara’s Muslim family, and a little bit about a love triangle between Saara, her live-in lover James, and a co-worker. But the focus is the horrors of knowing a considerable number of social media posts are just out there trying to stir the pot on a stew of opposition viewpoints, leading to chaos in a Democracy. Did I mention it’s set two years in the future? It never feels like it.