Discussion: What Should I Watch on The Criterion Channel?

Call it recency bias, or call it fate: For the past month I've been bumping into Andrei Tarkovsky. It's not like he goes to my Trader Joe's (he's dead), but people keep mentioning him in my presence. Since my apophenia knows no bounds, I decided it was time to watch some Tarkovsky, starting with Andrei Rublev.

Peaky Blinders Movie: The Immortal Man

“Once I got nearly everything. It wasn’t enough.”

As a reviewer, I try to avoid going easy on myself when I call a movie bad. Is it so bad that we can enjoy its terribleness? Is it just not doing what I wanted it to do? Is it failing to live up to previous iterations? Or is there truly something here that isn’t working? To duck that question, I’ll just repeat what I emailed Billie after I watched this: The Immortal Man is so bad that it’s weird. Let’s examine why.

The Night Manager: Season Two Review

“What if you could own a country in a different way?”

The return of The Night Manager, ten years after the first season aired, was a surprise, if only because I’m not sure anyone had been desperately rooting for another batch of episodes. That first season, after all, was perfectly done, in the sense of being very good but also in the sense of being thoroughly completed.

This review spoils the entire season.

The Night Manager: Season One Review

“You have to commit.”

I’ll start by telling you the basics of The Night Manager, even though they sound like the plot of just about any movie that isn’t pre-existing IP these days: When Jonathan Pine, the night manager at a five-star Cairo hotel, stumbles onto some terrible information about illegal chemical weapons, he gradually gets involved in taking down the wealthy arms dealer Richard Roper on behalf of a rogue unit within British intelligence.

Pluribus: Season One Review

"Some of you think the world might be better off this way."

Vince Gilligan’s new show Pluribus introduces us to a world in which an extraterrestrial virus renders all but about a dozen people on earth into, basically, the Borg, if the Borg were Midwestern Nice and obsessed with galactic domination.

This review is spoiler free until the Darian Gap. Cross the Darian Gap at your own risk!

Josie’s Best of 2025

Another year nearly done! I’ve accomplished almost none of my goals, but maybe I can learn to knit in the next six days. (Probably not.) I did manage to watch a lot of television, so I guess that’s something to brag about.

The Night Manager

Season Reviews |
Related Links |
Cast |

The first season of The Night Manager ran in 2016; 2026 brought a surprise return. Come for the Tom Hiddleston, stay for the Olivia Coleman, and enjoy this grown-up spin on international spyjinks.

Josie Kafka is reviewing this series.

Season Reviews

Season One
Season Two
Season Three (2027, perhaps?)

Related Links

Our Marvel Index includes links to every Marvel movie and TV review on Doux Reviews.

Cast

Tom Hiddleston (Jonathan Pine)
Hugh Laurie (Richard Roper)
Olivia Colman (Angela Burr)
Elizabeth Debicki (Jed Marshall)
David Harewood (Joel Steadman)
Tom Hollander (Corcoran)
Camila Morrone (Roxana Bolaños)
Diego Calva (Teddy Dos Santos)
Indira Varma (Mayra Cavendish)
Hayley Squires (Sally Price-Jones)

Movie Review: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

“Are you willing to break the thing that no one wants you to break?”

Will you laugh at me if I tell you that Glass Onion is one of my comfort movies? It probably depends on how well you know me: close friends might give a knowing chuckle, random acquaintances might back away slowly, wondering why they ever thought I was normal. But I love the movie’s propulsive feel, the twists and turns, and—above all—the way it refuses to take billionaire bird brains seriously.

Movie Review: Thankskilling

“Peck on someone your own size.”

Thankskilling is a cheap, efficient, mediocre horror movie about an ancient Native American shaman, who lives within the body of an undying turkey, coming back to wreak vengeance for the theft of his people’s land by killing a group of college students going home for Thanksgiving break. That may be all I need to say about it. But I promised Fangirl a review last year, and this week seems like the perfect time to fulfill my promise.

Slow Horses: Season Five Review

"It's a bit unorthodox, but you gotta think outside the box sometimes."

Although each episode of the fifth season of Slow Horses was as grabby and propulsive as always, the whole season was less satisfying than its parts. Some of this may be due to the departure of showrunner Will Smith, or perhaps it was a weak entry in the source material. Either way, there's good and bad this time around...

Series Review: Giri/Haji

"We are not bad people, we just did bad things."
"Really, what's the difference?"

This review contains mild spoilers, but they won't really make sense until you've actually watched the show, so I think you should read this, which will convince you to watch it. That's my evil plan for the week.

Slow Horses: Season Four Review

"You want me to do it out of the goodness of my heart?"

This review spoils everything.

Every Slow Horses season has its own plot, and thus its own vibe, but this season's focus on personal relationships threw me for a loop that I wasn't expecting.

The Lazarus Project: Season Two Review

"This is how it always starts. A small group of people trying to do a good thing."

This season review spoils everything.

Discussion: What Have You Learned from TV?

We haven’t done a discussion in a while, and I’ve been pondering this question a lot recently.

The Lazarus Project: Season One Review

"You can time travel."

I could tell you that The Lazarus Project is Groundhog Day meets Mission Impossible, but that wouldn't be accurate. It's a set of fascinating character studies, an exploration of the complexity of human relationships, and one of the few shows I've watched recently that accurately portrays how messy human actions are, not just for an individual, but for entire groups.

This review is safe to read before watching the show. Also, I don't think this show has anything to do with the Paul Walker movie that I have not seen.

The Lazarus Project

Season Reviews |
Related Links |
Cast |

It's Groundhog Day meets Looper, with a dash of Back to the Future and some amazing character work. Joe Barton is the showrunner and writer; he's amazing, and so is this show.

Josie Kafka reviewed both seasons.

Season Reviews

Season One
Season Two

Related Links

Groundhog Day Index
Time Travel Index

Cast

Caroline Quentin (Wes)
Tom Burke (Dennis Rebrov)
Paapa Essiedu (George Addo)
Anjli Mohindra (Archie)
Rudi Dharmalingam (Shiv Reddy)
Charly Clive (Sarah Leigh)
Salóme Gunnarsdóttir (Greta)
Lukas Loughran (The Dane)
Vinette Robinson (Janet)
Brian Gleeson (Ross)
Elaine Tan (Zhang Rhui)

Poker Face: Season Two Review

"Yippie ki-yay, oystershucker."

This review contains spoilers for all of Season Two.

Movie Review: Mountainhead

"Eat the chaos."

I told myself I wouldn't watch this. I told friends I wouldn't watch it. Then I told myself I'd try it for 15 minutes, and immediately got sucked into this excellent, hilarious, brutal movie about the most terrible people in the world, directed by subject-matter expert Jesse Armstrong of Succession.

Season One Review: Kaos

"A line appears, the order wanes, the family falls, and Kaos reigns."

We can file Kaos in the "gone too soon category," or even under "What were they thinking?!" Not because the show is bad. (It's amazing.) But because I can't understand why Netflix would cancel a buzzy, interesting, diverse, and fun original show. The Netflix gods must, indeed, be crazy.

Mobland: Season One Review

Mobland is a Guy Ritchie-produced gangster soap opera set in London starring Tom Hardy. Sadly, it is not quite A Tom Hardy Show. Mobland is bingeable, mildly forgettable, and worth watching if you’re already subscribed to Paramount+ for something else.