Is it just me?

 I have long awaited the return of BETTER CALL SAUL and BARRY.  They are two of my favorite shows.  It’s been too long since both of these series was cranking out new episodes.  Certainly you can blame COVID for the interruption in production, and perhaps it’s unfair but with each passing month the anticipation grew.  At least for me.  

I was so excited because both returned recently.

And I have to say — so far — I’m disappointed.  

Now the BARRY season is young and BETTER CALL SAUL is almost at the halfway mark of their final season — perhaps each series builds to a slam-bang conclusion — but for now, I find myself completely underwhelmed.  

BETTER CALL SAUL is now slow to the point of indulgence.  And they seem to have lost sight on what made BREAKING BAD so good — exceptional storytelling.  In BETTER CALL SAUL this year it seems like every episode is just setting things up, and not in a particularly entertaining fashion.    I don’t need to see Howard making cappuccino for five minutes.   Last week I didn’t need to see Gus gazing at the underground meth lab he built for five minutes.  I get it!  Clearly they're padding.

At this point I’ve almost stopped following the disjointed story lines and ultimately all I care about is ‘are they going to kill Kim?”   Everything else — whatever.  With BREAKING BAD I cared about every character and was riveted at each unexpected ingenious story turn.  It’s tough when it’s a prequel because you know who’s going to live by who’s in BREAKING BAD (which is why Kim is a big question mark).    

I hope they make it worth my while.   I'm told they have a major cliffhanger next week.  We'll see.

I’ve seen the first two episodes of BARRY and that show seems to have lost its way.  I don’t particularly like the new manic-depressive Barry.  They don’t seem to know what to do with Henry Winkler.  And how did Sally go from struggling actress taking lessons to star and showrunner of a series?   Everything about her character seems to have completely flipped.  I used to love Sally and now she’s Lena Dunham.  Plus, the show is doing a lot of inside baseball TV industry stuff.   The sessions with casting and executives play funny to me because I’ve been in those meetings, but I suspect 99.000% of the audience hasn’t.    

Would I be as disappointed if I didn’t have to wait an extra year for these shows to return?  Maybe.  You figure — they had all this time.  They could really craft something incredible.  And they’ve done great things in the past.   But the only suspense now is: are they going to get better?    I sure hope so.  Like I said, at one time I absolutely loved both shows.  

What say you folks?

Oh, and HACKS started their second season last Thursday.  Only one episode has dropped but it seemed to pick up right where they left off.  What that tells me is “Hey, it’s not like every show disappoints.”  

from By Ken Levine