Q. You really like Gentleman Jack a lot. Well, we got it. Maybe it's time to recommend some other programs as well.
A. I recommend a lot of shows, I mean let's say maybe over 100 every year. I have fun watching as many of the 500+ new releases a year as I can to let readers know what I've seen. Ask me for something to watch and listen to me babble for too long jumping from title to title.
But you raise a question about the role of a critic. I think most critics have a few favorites that they give a little more love to. I'm especially happy to pay attention to series that I think are worth watching, but don't seem to be getting enough attention or viewership. HBO's Gentleman Jack is exactly that kind of unrecognized gem for me largely thanks to Suranne Jones's phenomenal lead performance as a lesbian in the early 1800s. That she hasn't been nominated for an Emmy is another one of the Hall of Shame television awards.
Gentleman Jack is far from the first show I avidly animated. I'm also doing my best to get audiences to watch HBO's low-key, intimate comedy-drama Somebody Somewhere starring Bridget Everett, as well as Peacocks We Are Lady Parts about Muslim women in London who form a punk band. I have yet to hear any complaints about any of the shows, which should be, but most likely aren't, on this year's Emmy nominations list.
From left to right Lucie Shorthouse Faith Omole Anjana Vasan Juliette Motamed and Sarah Kameela Impey in We Are Lady Parts.
From left to right Lucie Shorthouse Faith Omole Anjana Vasan Juliette Motamed and Sarah Kameela Impey in We Are Lady Parts. Laura Radford Peacock One of my biggest sustained pushes was behind NBC's Friday Night Lights, a show from 2006-11 that was constantly on the brink of the cancellation. I found it so strange that the show wasn't a hit given its extraordinary acting and its portrayal of a small town in Texas. In hindsight, I think the show was too sincere for a lot of viewers who want dark comedy mixed in with their drama and I also think too many people mistakenly believed the show was about football. It was as much about football as Ted Lasso is about football.
I also urged viewers to watch Freaks and Geeks in 1999. NBC was making it very difficult to find the show and it was driving me crazy. Readers then as now were looking for something unusual and good and there it was in prime time, but no one could find it. In March 2000 I wrote a long article called Save this FREAKS show urging readers to find the show set in the 1980s before it's too late. The day the article appeared, I got a call from series creator Judd Apatow to commiserate, which was an honor, but a sad one, I shouldn't have needed to spend time trying to compensate for network failures.
Andre Holland left and Clive Owen at Showtimes The Knick.
Andre Holland left and Clive Owen at Showtimes The Knick.Mary Cybulski
Other shows I've endorsed in a big way The Knick with Clive Owen and Andre Holland as surgeons in 1900 New York High Maintenance a collection of short stories linked by a marijuana dealer in New York City Man looking for a woman a bachelor in the comedy town where metaphors become real The Bisexual about a lesbian who has to come out again Lodge 49 the sweetly optimistic story of a depressed surfer and more, many more, including Arrested Development and The Comeback before they won post-race fame. I've seen other TV critics make noise in favor of Halt and Catch Fire The Leftovers Bates Motel and Hannibal. In general, we love to do it. It is a satisfying part of the job.
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