In which I try to figure out whether or not "Legion" is good

Okay, so is Legion good?

I know it looks good. The special effects are great. The sets are beautiful. The entire thing feels like a well-designed nightmare. Like Fargo, Noah Hawley's previous series (and the one that made him The Greatest Storyteller Known To Humankind, according to the internet), there is so much care and precision put into every single shot that just the visuals of the series alone probably qualify as a masterpiece. Still, as much as I enjoyed Fargo, I never quite flipped my lid over it as much as most people seemed to, and that was because I felt that the show was visually mindblowing but ultimately kind of empty. There was something there, moreso in the first season than the second (which I thought got too tied up in its own mystery to say much of substance), but it never moved me the way the very best prestige dramas do. Breaking Bad may have looked beautiful, but the reason it connected with so many was because of the relentless story behind it about an ordinary man who turned into a villain, and the how and why of how he got there. It was a relevant, poignant story during a time where many ordinary people not unlike Walter White themselves felt like their lives were falling apart. Whether or not you rooted for him (I mean, I would hope that most sensible people were no longer rooting for him by the end of the series, but I'm sure the Breaking Bad subreddit would love to prove me wrong!) you could understand him. I bring up Breaking Bad because that show was also a visual masterpiece, and it has inspired an army of clones that have similar visual precision but fall flat when it comes to proving their worst otherwise. But you could also sub in The Sopranos or Mad Men or whatever prestige television series with deep underlying themes that you choose. What are the deep, underlying themes of Fargo? What is that show trying to say other than "we went to film school and understand how to compose these cool ass shots?".

I do think that Legion wants to say something, though - something about mental illness and being trapped by your past and your own demons. I just don't know that it's succeeding at it. I was very underwhelmed by the show's pilot, which seemed like a classic "look, we're using mental illness as a science fiction twist!" story, which is a plot point that always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The second episode was a little better, and the third episode was probably my favorite yet, the only one so far that I felt really made any attempt to engage with David and his condition as anything other than a plot device. The show occasionally approaches interesting human moments, like David worrying that Sydney wouldn't love him anymore after seeing his memories as a junkie, or David snapping at Melanie and demanding that the only thing he cares about is his sister's safety. But it doesn't linger on those moments too long, and quickly dives back into the mystery and the cinematography of it all. And that's fine! The show is beautiful and weird and confusing. But when you're bringing up issues like addiction and mental illness, I don't think you can just sweep them away when you get a cool shot, or use them as little more than a way to throw your viewers off the trail of your central mystery. My hope is that Hawley is smarter than that, and this will be leading to a place that has something more to say than "look at this really confusing plot we wrote!". I'm not holding my breath, but it would be nice for Television's Greatest Storyteller to, well, live up to that title.

"Crashing" (HBO)

I was not especially excited for Crashing, even though I generally like Pete Holmes and have a deep love for comedy. But there have been so many shows about comedians in the past few years, all of which follow a very similar "kind of funny, kind of sad look at a comedians' personal life" formula, that it was hard for me to let out anything other than a resounding "meh" when I first watched the trailer and saw the ads. I mean, c'mon. We're living in Trump's America now. The problems of rich and very privileged comedians should be at the very bottom of the barrel of issues that television expects us to care about, right? That's not a totally fair statement - entertainment is escapism and we all need a little escapism these days - but it's hard not to watch shows like that and think, "come on, just admit you have it pretty fucking good, guys."So anyway, it was surprising to me when I watched Crashing and actually really enjoyed it. It's true, it's yet another show that doesn't hide its Louie influences, but there is something about Crashing that sets it apart from the rest of the pack, a little bit. Part of it is Holmes himself, who is funny and winning and charming and seems to have found a proper vehicle for his talents, but there is also something that very few shows about "the biz" acknowledge: failure.

Crashing, at least right now, is a show about an aspiring comedian who is not very good at being a comedian. He's a youth pastor who just got out of a marriage to the only woman he has ever dated and was living a cozy suburban life, using his wife's money to haul ass into the city and perform at open mics, saying it was like "his version of medical school", ignoring the fact that medical school guarantees you a six-figure salary and open mics don't guarantee you jack shit. More importantly, Pete's character is really not even funny, at least not "comedian" funny. He's sort of funny in the way you'd expect a small-town pastor to be, cute for a chuckle on a Sunday morning mass but certainly nothing you're going to be expecting to see headlining his own Netflix special anytime soon. Holmes has said he sees Crashing as the story of where he was ten years ago, so maybe we're going to watch his character eventually become the successfully and well-liked comedian he is today, but I kind of hope that doesn't happen, because Crashing is very upfront about failure in a way most industry shows are not. In the first episode, Artie Lange tells Holmes point black after watching him bomb on stage: this isn't medical school. Most people get nowhere and make no money. It's not for everyone, and not everyone is cut out for it. Most shows would then transition into an inspiring scene where our hero wins over the crowd and it's clear that, no, he's going to beat the odds and make it. But not Crashing. Holmes gets mugged, loses everything, spends the night crashing on Lange's couch, then drives him to a gig in Albany where he opens for Lange and completely bombs once again. And not only is he bombing, but he no longer has an income, is technically homeless, and can barely afford to eat. There's something about those kinds of problems that digs a little deeper than the "I'm rich and famous but sometimes I get sad" narratives of most comedians' autobiographical TV shows. I like most of the shows! But in an age where so many people struggle just to get through each day, shows like Crashing are the types of shows more comedians should be trying.