Tonight
Ten for the evening
One to ten. Newest, most watched, highest on the Living Meter. Prime, Disney+, Hulu, Hallmark, Acorn, and Netflix.
A court, cold and witty. Useful as a warning about power. Not a queen to imitate.
Catherine's narration is the show's trick and its limit. A woman who was bought, ignored, and then necessary is a true story. A woman who teaches a girl that poison is competence is a dangerous tutor.
Adults who know the century can watch the politics. Do not let the asides become the history. The bodies of Saint Bartholomew are not a punchline.
Industry
5/10
Ruling is shown as management: marriages, debts, poison, a household of rivals.
Household
4/10
Children are pieces and also, sometimes, the reason she will not yield.
Piety
2/10
Religion is a faction. The massacre sits in the history whether the show flinches or not.
Courage
6/10
She outlasts men who were supposed to replace her.
Republic
5/10
A kingdom as a court. The people are offstage.
Temperance
4/10
The wit is the pleasure. Cruelty is the method, and the show enjoys the method.
Truth
6/10
It does not pretend the court was kind. It does let her charm the record.
Stewardship
3/10
What she hands the girl is a lesson in survival, which is not the same as a conscience.
Live historicallyIf you admire a person who survived a cruel room, ask what the survival cost the people who were not in on the joke.
Brains as a personality. The danger is teaching a child that being right is a character.
The adult Holmes works because Watson is the human in the room and because the cases are about other people's lives. A boy Holmes with the humanity not yet required is a portrait of contempt getting there early. The deductions can still be fun. Fun is not a reason to raise a child on contempt.
If you watch it, keep Watson's office: someone in the room who cares what the cleverness costs.
Industry
5/10
Observation is a skill, and the show loves the skill.
Household
3/10
Family is the inconvenience around the gift.
Piety
2/10
No reverence. The mind is the authority.
Courage
4/10
He walks toward the puzzle. The puzzle is rarely a neighbor's need.
Republic
3/10
The police are there to be slower.
Temperance
4/10
Arrogance is the charm they are selling.
Truth
6/10
The clues are fair. That is the old Holmes virtue, and it survives.
Stewardship
3/10
A boy with no one to hand the method to except an audience.
Live historicallyWhen a child gets it right and is sharp about it, praise the rightness and correct the sharpness.
Keep the sentence. Do not assume the movie is brave enough to live in it.
A title this direct is either a satire with a spine or a poster that flatters the audience for feeling superior to the grift. The desk has the words and not the scenes. If the film shows the lie from the inside, including the viewer's own hunger to be sold a self, it belongs in the conversation. If it winks and takes the fee, it is the thing it names.
Put the sentence on the wall either way. Then check the film against it. Most pictures that accuse the market still want the market's applause before the credits.
Industry
4/10
The subject is the work of selling.
Household
3/10
Households are usually the ones being sold.
Piety
2/10
Nothing is sacred but the scam.
Courage
4/10
Saying the quiet part is a small nerve.
Republic
4/10
A public of marks.
Temperance
3/10
The pleasure may be the superiority.
Truth
6/10
The title tells a true thing, which is rare on a poster.
Stewardship
4/10
The sentence is worth keeping even if the film is not.
Live historicallyName one ad you believed this week, and stop believing it.
A first winter is a real test of a house. This tile has not shown the house yet.
The picture is a roof and weather. That can be a story about preparation, marriage, grief, or a threat outside the door. Winter stories are worth having when they are about stores, neighbors, and who is warm. They are cheap when they are about the aesthetic of being cut off.
The desk will not invent who is inside. It will say that a first winter is survived by ordinary readiness, not by a mood. If the film is about readiness, good. If it is about the thrill of the cutoff, you have better things to stack by the door.
Industry
5/10
Wintering is work, if they show the work.
Household
4/10
A shelter implies a household.
Piety
3/10
Weather is not yet reverence.
Courage
4/10
Staying can be brave.
Republic
3/10
Isolation cuts both ways.
Temperance
4/10
Unknown.
Truth
3/10
A poster of snow makes no claim.
Stewardship
4/10
The real heirloom is being ready for the people next door.
Live historicallyCheck on one person before the cold settles in your actual town.
A house full of men who stayed. Sentimental, and the staying is the point.
Danny, Jesse, and Joey are a fantasy of enough adults. The fantasy matters because the alternative on the menu is the competent loner. The show is corny, and the corn is in the right place: apologies, bedtimes, a father who comes back into the room. You can outgrow it. You do not have to sneer at it.
Industry
5/10
Jobs, school, chores. Softly done.
Household
8/10
The family is an answer to a death. They do not leave the girls.
Piety
4/10
A hug is the liturgy. It is not nothing.
Courage
5/10
The courage is ordinary: telling the girls the truth about a mistake.
Republic
4/10
A San Francisco house that functions as a whole neighborhood.
Temperance
6/10
Sweet to the point of sugar. The sugar is safer than the alternative row.
Truth
5/10
The lessons are simple and usually meant.
Stewardship
7/10
It is about raising the children who are actually in the house.
Live historicallyPut a child to bed with one true, short account of the day. No speech.
A household that likes itself. The joke is the neighbors' panic, not the family's contempt.
The Munsters are a father who is strong and a little dim, a mother who runs the house, a grandfather who should not be left with the equipment, and a girl who is ordinary in a family that isn't. The comedy needs the family to hold. When it holds, the laugh is at manners, not at marriage.
It is dated in the way a 1964 sitcom is dated. It is not dated in the way that rots a room.
Industry
5/10
Herman goes to work. Grandpa tinkers. The house has chores and a breadwinner.
Household
8/10
They are loud, loyal, and glad to be at the same table.
Piety
3/10
No piety. The affection is the creed.
Courage
4/10
They are odd in public and do not apologize for the oddness.
Republic
5/10
A street where the strange family is still a neighbor.
Temperance
7/10
The laugh is gentle. Nobody is undressed for the camera.
Truth
6/10
The premise is a joke and it stays a joke. It does not smuggle a sermon it doesn't mean.
Stewardship
6/10
A show a grandparent can share without translating the dirt.
Live historicallyWatch one with a child and name who keeps the house running. It is Lily.
Odd, local, and kinder than its deadpan. A small yes.
Napoleon is not cool and the film does not rescue him into coolness. It lets him be strange in a town of strange people, and it lets Kip and Pedro and Deb be people rather than lessons. The dance at the assembly is embarrassing and it is an act of friendship. That is enough plot.
Some of the humor is 'look at these hicks.' More of it, if you stay, is affection. A teenager who feels unfit can use it. It will not teach ambition. It teaches showing up in a bad shirt for someone else's speech.
Industry
4/10
Chapstick, a sign, a tetherball. The work is small and local.
Household
5/10
A grandmother, a brother, a house of leftovers. They are still a family.
Piety
2/10
A llama and a youth group, lightly.
Courage
7/10
He dances in front of the school for Pedro.
Republic
5/10
A class election in a real high school, not a mythic one.
Temperance
6/10
No one is rewarded for cruelty. Status loses.
Truth
7/10
The film does not pretend he becomes someone else.
Stewardship
6/10
A friend is the thing he has at the end.
Live historicallyDance, or show up, for a friend who is about to be humiliated. Once.
The rare show that allows both a clinical explanation and a real evil. It also cannot resist the gross-out.
The premise is the right one for this desk: some horrors are illness, some are malice, some are both, and a serious person does not decide in advance. The series then punches itself in the face with a sequence whose only purpose is to be unwatchable. Use the premise. You do not have to finish the series to keep it.
Industry
6/10
Assessment is the job: interviews, records, a method.
Household
4/10
A mother of daughters. The home is where the cases leak.
Piety
6/10
A priest who believes, and a Church that is not only a villain.
Courage
6/10
They take the next case.
Republic
4/10
Institutions fail in particular ways, not as a single sneer.
Temperance
2/10
It adds a shock it does not need, often enough to stain the premise.
Truth
7/10
It refuses the rule that everything eerie must be explained away.
Stewardship
4/10
The daughters are the stake, when it remembers them.
Live historicallyWhen something is wrong in a house, consider the ordinary cause first and do not swear that the ordinary cause is the only kind.
Kindness toward damaged people. The curse is a picture of a house ruled by an elder's wound.
Tohru is given a place to live, and she answers with a kindness that is almost too much. Under the zodiac joke is a family terrorized by a parent's unresolved life. That is worth recognizing. The series is long and soft. It is a reasonable one for an older child who needs a picture of staying kind without pretending the house is fine.
Industry
4/10
School and housework. Tohru works.
Household
6/10
The plot is a family breaking a pattern. She is given a room.
Piety
3/10
A curse instead of a sin. The emotional truth is close anyway.
Courage
5/10
She stays kind when the house is frightening. The boys begin to refuse the elder.
Republic
3/10
The family is the whole society.
Temperance
6/10
Tender, and long.
Truth
6/10
It is serious about what an adult's bitterness does to children.
Stewardship
6/10
The hope is that the next generation will not repeat the house.
Live historicallyBe the person who offers the spare room, or the ride, without requiring the story first.
A unit that works. Television competence, with the usual shortcut around politics.
The best of it is a squad that drills and then does the thing they drilled. The weak of it is the episode that poses a civic wound and closes it by the tag. Enjoy the craft of the unit. Do not let a tag scene be your understanding of the city.
Industry
7/10
Training, entry, a chain of command. The job is respected.
Household
4/10
Families at home, strained by the shift.
Piety
2/10
Loyalty to the team is the creed.
Courage
7/10
They go through the door.
Republic
5/10
A city, a department, a neighborhood that does not trust the door.
Temperance
5/10
Procedural. The action is the pleasure.
Truth
5/10
It tries to hold both the danger and the distrust. It resolves them too cleanly.
Stewardship
4/10
A team that forms the next sergeant. More succession than the loner shows.
Live historicallyIf you lead anyone, drill the boring part. The show is right about that and only that.