Series · Prime Video · 2009

K-On!

Light, and the light is practice. Harmless. Not a substitute for doing the thing yourself.

K-On! is about girls who joined a club for a reason that was almost accidental and then became responsible for a song. The tea is most of the screen. The song is the part that keeps it from being only a mood.

Fine for a child who likes music, in short measure. Then hand them the instrument. The show already told you the instrument is the point.

The eight

Industry
6/10
They learn instruments badly, then less badly. The club is a craft in miniature.
Household
5/10
A club that functions as a little house: tea, after school, someone always late.
Piety
2/10
None. School festivals are the feast.
Courage
4/10
Playing in front of people is the scary part, and they do it.
Republic
3/10
A school. The stakes are a club that might close.
Temperance
8/10
Kind, slow, no cruelty. The laziness is gentle and still has a recital.
Truth
6/10
It admits they are not a famous band. The festival is enough.
Stewardship
5/10
A habit of showing up for the people in the room.

Live historicallyPractice one piece of music, or one page of anything, longer than is comfortable. Stop when it is better.

Series · Prime Video · 2005

Bones

Work and, eventually, a marriage. The bodies are the price of entry.

Temperance Brennan is great at a hard job and bad at people, and the series lets the job stay great while she learns the people. That is a better arc than House, because it does not bless the coldness. The cost is the weekly corpse. If you can keep the corpse from becoming your comfort watch, the partnership is a fair story.

The eight

Industry
7/10
The lab is a real craft, respected.
Household
6/10
They end as a family. The show is patient about it.
Piety
2/10
She begins without a creed. The partner and the child complicate that.
Courage
5/10
They stay with the dead until the dead have a name.
Republic
4/10
The Bureau and the lab. Institutions that function.
Temperance
4/10
A murder a week is still a diet.
Truth
6/10
The unnamed body is given back a story. That is the decent core.
Stewardship
5/10
A child arrives, and the work has to make room.

Live historicallyDo your work carefully enough that a stranger would be glad you were the one who touched it.