Weekly Report from the N.T.A.B. Division of Media Review

Obi Wan Kenobi/Shorsey/Bosch: Legacy

May 30, 2022

Director’s Note: Evidently emboldened by the relative success of the series of articles about 80s sword and sorcery movies as they related to Dungeons & Dragons, the bunker administrator took it upon himself to delve back into the vault for another lengthy piece about film criticism, bad movies, and why Flash Gordon is what it is. Inexplicably, this breach of etiquette has been relatively well received and generated a stimulating discussion. While we have no desire to encourage such breaches of etiquette, we nevertheless grudgingly feel the articles merit a read, if not an outright response, and so the links to both parts are presented below.

In Defense of Bad Movies Part 1: Somewhere Between High Art and Cult Classic

In Defense of Bad Movies Part 2: Flaaaassshh!

Feel free to leave a comment on the blog if you are so moved.

Obi Wan Kenobi (Disney Plus)

When Senator Bail Organa reaches out to Obi Wan Kenobi for help, Ben has to put aside his own fears and doubts to help his former friend’s secret child... And that’s your premise. You don’t need any more than that. Oh, well, except maybe also this: Flea (from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) is now a Star Wars character actor.

I’ve done you no favors.

In the last decade or so, Star Wars movies (and now teevee shows!) have fallen into two camps for me. (A) this is a show I didn’t need to know anything about, and (B) finally, a thing that shows me something new and interesting. Where every project came down depends on when in the timeline they managed to set it. But regardless of where and when a story takes place, the real question is, “can you make the story relevant to me, even though I know what’s going to happen?”

Obi Wan Kenobi seems to be the first new Star Wars project that straddles that line. We all know where Ben was during the time Luke was growing up on Tatooine; after all, the end of Episode 3 spells it out. Ben’s exiled to the desert, a kind of self-imposed penance and a necessary task to keep Luke safe.

This is fine, if you’re parking a character until Star Wars starts, in 1977. But if you want to do The Further Adventures of Ewan MacGregor’s Alec Guinness Impression, you need to find a way to make it matter, or the story ends up being a Diet Coke instead of a root beer float.

And so, Obi Wan Kenobi is a root beer float, but it’s made with soft serve yogurt instead of ice cream and zero calorie root beer instead of the good stuff. Eminently drinkable, but maybe not quite what you were hoping for. I know that sounds like I’m damning with faint praise, but I liked the first two episodes; they were well-shot, more deliberately paced, and made use of some obscure Star Wars lore that we’ve not seen onscreen before.

Also, we got off of Tatooine by the end of the first episode, for which we are all very grateful. I swear, I know more about that Outer Rim planet than I do about the actual Middle East, and yeah, I’m embarrassed by that, but what can I do? It’s what I’ve been given.

The vibe in Obi Wan Kenobi is somewhat similar to that of, say, Unforgiven, wherein the former badass has to come out of retirement to help an old friend “one last time.” We know it won’t be that, exactly. After all, I know when and where Obi Wan buys it. But can I get some entertainment out of this show before Darth Vader shows up? Yeah, probably. I got no where to be right now, and it’s cool seeing MacGregor back in the saddle again.

Shoresy (Hulu)

I’ve never been so happy in my whole life. I wouldn’t have dreamed that Letterkenny would merit a spin-off, much less, a whole show built around fan-favorite faceless hockey goon Shoresy, the comic foil for Riley and Jonesy with his incomparable chirping about their moms and the endless stream of shit-talking he lays on all of his opponents on the ice.

I mean, who asked for that?

In retrospect: me. I wanted it. I needed it. I just didn’t know it, until I got it.

Full disclosure: I think Slapshot (1977) is one of the greatest sports movies of all time, never mind being the Citizen Kane of amateur hockey Tell-All flicks. It’s a legitimate cult classic in every sense of the word. And I’m certain that Jared Keeso, the creator of Letterkenny and Shoresy, feels the same way. The larger plot certainly shares some of the same thematic elements as Slapshot, and not in a bad way. There are, after all, only so many hockey stories you can tell in the larger narrative of The Sports Movie. What keeps people interested are the characters, their stories, and their struggles.

Like Letterkenny, Keeso plays the one guy in the room everyone looks to for answers (less reverentially than Wayne, and more begrudgingly, because Shoresy prides himself on being an Apex Predator Asshole). But there the similarity ends. He’s surrounded himself with people I don’t know—presumably Canadians, all—who hold their own with his strongly flavored comedic stylings, which amounts to a veritable fusillade of trash talk, put downs, insults, and some of his signature catch phrases, used sparingly, thank heaven.

I was only passingly worried that a whole show built around a one-note joke of a character, however funny that one-note joke might be, would collapse under its own ponderous importance. This was not the case; in fact, it’s part of the brilliance. So little is known about Shoresy that they are free to do whatever they want, and some of those choices are quite inspired. A nice chunk of the show is spent showing us who Shoresy is, and getting to know him, beyond, “Give your balls a tug!” is a big part of what makes the show so good. When the least best thing about the show is a Scott Thompson cameo in the family reunion scene, you know you’ve hit it out of the park.

Keeso knows this can’t be Letterkenny reskinned, and while the humor of the show is certainly in the same wheelhouse (think about the way Kevin Smith’s movies are all different, but clearly written and directed by the same guy), the show’s tone is not the same as the hockey scenes in Letterkenny, and they waste no time differentiating the two shows. Super smart.

Shoresy is only six episodes, and they are a tight 30-minutes long. It’s pretty obvious they are going to do season 2. Go ahead and watch them all at once, and let the chirping soothe your jangled nerves like an auditory balm, lulling you gently to sleep in between periods. Just be prepared for some of the foulest language you’ll likely hear without eavesdropping on a Middle School D&D game. Fun fact: there’s lots of French-Canadian cursing here, as well, with close caption translations thoughtfully provided, you know, so you can be offended in two languages!

Those Canadians. So thoughtful. So helpful.

Bosch: Legacy (FreeVee)

Picking up the pieces of the last season of Bosch on Amazon Prime, Harry is now a private detective, his daughter Maddy is a boot with the LAPD, learning the ropes, and Mimi Rogers is recovering from her near-fatal shooting and trying to find her way back to law practice. It’s almost a completely different show, and if the horrible, terrible new super-shitty theme song is an indicator, the show’s producers want you to feel that way, as well.

Seriously, what was wrong with that cool, kinda-noirish Jazz number to lead us in? Were the AASCAP rights that high?

This cop show is now on FreeVee, which is what IMDB is inexplicably calling their streaming service now, and it’s free with ads (I’ve not popped for the “no ads” version yet). Whatever. Just watch it on Amazon Prime; it’s the same damn thing.

Bosch: Legacy is the same, high quality production as the original series, and all of the major characters (and a few minor characters) are back in the saddle. Also, it manages to be a better cop show than The Rookie, a better legal drama than Bull, and a better private eye show than Magnum, P.I. If you like those kinds of shows, and you’ve somehow not watched Bosch, you really can’t go wrong with the original series, or this new continuation, even if Titus Welliver is starting to look his age.