Ask Matt: ‘Reservation Dogs’ Is a Sleeper, ‘League’ Cancellation, In Favor of Short Seasons & 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, but there’s always closed-captioning.)
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] and follow me on Twitter (@TVGMMattRoush). Look for Ask Matt columns on most Tuesdays and very occasional Fridays.
Let Sleeping Dogs Flourish
Question: Is anybody watching Reservation Dogs? I was put off initially by the title, which reminded me of Dog Day Afternoon, a bleak title about a bank heist gone wrong. Looking at the cast, I’m reminded of My So-Called Life, although as your website’s laudatory story says, “The show takes hilarity and heartbreak and wraps it up into a package so unique I can’t compare it to anything I’ve seen on TV before.” How dare this show about “a group of Indigenous adolescents who are trying to make their way in the world” last three seasons, while the show I liked about Indigenous people, Alaska Daily, was canceled after only one! — Hal H
Matt Roush: I get that you’re being somewhat facetious here. (Besides, the title is more of a twist on Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, because the show started out depicting, among other things, the kids’ misadventures in petty crime and gang rivalry.) But this isn’t really a fair comparison. Dogs, a slice-of-life comedy, is produced by FX for Hulu, which amounts to a niche within a niche, and was almost instantly a critics’ darling — ignored by the Emmys, but winning prestigious AFI, Peabody, and Humanitas awards. (Disclosure: I’ve served as a juror for the AFI Awards.) Alaska Daily, a drama that was largely about a struggling newspaper so already a hard sell, had to survive in the unforgiving broadcast network marketplace, so was probably lucky even to eke out its one short season. I’m glad ABC took the swing, just like I’m glad FX/Hulu nurtured the gem that is Reservation Dogs, never assuming it would attract a mass audience.
A Major League Disappointment
Question: What do you make of Prime Video’s cancellation of A League of Their Own, which they had previously renewed for a short four-episode wrap-up season? Are they just using the effects of the ongoing strike as an excuse to make this unfortunate call? It always felt to me like Amazon giving the show such a truncated pick-up sent a message that their heart wasn’t really in it. I’m obviously disappointed, because this was such a unique twist on a beloved story, and the cast was fantastic. — Vera L
Matt Roush: I think it’s a shame, and it’s hard to argue against the perception that the guild strikes gave these programmers cover to jettison a show that they weren’t terribly supportive of, given the negotiations it took to even get a four-episode follow-up. I get that this queer-leaning take on a nostalgic property was controversial, but it was also a blast. Amazon also quashed a second season of the sci-fi series The Peripheral, again claiming that the production delays due to the strike made this renewal less feasible. We probably haven’t seen the last of this.
Less Really Is More
Comment: I have to disagree with last week’s complaint from Veronica that 10-episode runs are too short. I love the short seasons. The 22-episode seasons only had eight or 10 good ones, anyway. Now we get the 10 good ones without the fluff. My complaint is that every show has to end with a cliffhanger. If it’s a good show, you don’t need an artificial gimmick to get viewers to return the next season. There are shows that I’ve stopped watching because they didn’t wrap things up. — Dennis
Matt Roush: All fair points. I tend to use the less-is-more argument more often than not, especially when dealing with bloated streaming series where the episodes are both too long and too numerous. That said, I also get that when a show is as purely enjoyable as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds we might wish for a compromise between an awfully short 10-week season and a full 22. (Would 13 have been too much?) About cliffhangers: It’s an overdone device for sure. And given the realities of how long it’s going to take for new seasons of anything not yet filmed to resume, I wish Strange New Worlds hadn’t left us in such a state of peril. But that is one of the benefits of streaming: Whenever it returns (hopefully in 2024), it’s pretty easy to do a catch-up session to refresh the memory.
A Different Sort of Cliffhanger
Question: I really enjoyed the broadcast TV show New Amsterdam which I just discovered this last spring. I was happy to see it had gone over to Netflix and started watching it from Season 1 on. I was surprised when it ended on an episode that was not the last episode. Why? – Kandace K
Matt Roush: Last time I checked, Netflix was only streaming the first four of five seasons. Streaming rights are tricky and I can’t even try to keep up with who’s got what and when, but if the show already has a home on Netflix, I imagine the fifth season will be made available at some point. If you can’t wait, you could watch the final season online at nbc.com or sample Peacock, where the final episodes are also available.
Gimme Gimme More Raylan!
Question: Justified: City Primeval is no original Justified, but Timothy Olyphant/Raylan Givens — more more more! Any hope? — Andrea
Matt Roush: I hear you — and others who have been asking similar questions since the reboot began. As of this week, with only one more episode to go before the Aug. 29 finale, FX still hasn’t given a green light to a continuation. But when you get to the end of the season, there are some teases suggesting that this isn’t the last we’ll see of Raylan Givens and selected others from his world. Fingers crossed.
And Finally …
Question: I thought that when Nexstar bought The CW, they would work to revitalize the network or at least add their own original programming to it. Instead, they seem only to desire to kill the network. In two years’ time, they have canceled most of the shows on The CW, added no new original ones that I know of, made use of far too many foreign shows instead of ones made for America, aired very little content that even was new by focusing instead on constant repeats of shows, and seems to keep screwing the very network that they bought. Any idea why this is happening? It doesn’t seem like a smart business practice to me. — Adam D
Matt Roush: There’s no question that The CW currently evolving has little resemblance to the network of the last 15-plus years, when it emerged as the corporate love child of the defunct UPN and (still miss it) WB. No longer a pipeline for expensive products from the CBS/Paramount and Warner Bros. studios, the new CW is obviously a work in progress, and it’s going to more closely resemble a traditional cable or independent channel in its reliance on (mostly) cheaper imported shows and unscripted reality, sports, and other events. With few exceptions, they’re out of the DC superhero and young-adult soap business, which never earned the sort of linear ratings that spelled success or profits. I’ll miss the network that once took chances on shows like Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. And it’s possible some of their acquisitions will catch on. (I recently watched the pilot episode of a wild British comedy, Everyone Else Burns, about a bizarre family of devout zealots. Felt like something I’d more likely see on Comedy Central, so who knows where this is going.)
That’s all for now. We can’t do this without your participation, so please keep sending questions and comments about TV to [email protected] or shoot me a line on Twitter @TVGMMattRoush. (Please include a first name with your question.)
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