April TV Update

The five last TV shows I watched in 2025

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 1. The Iris Affair

The known universe is a bubble in the greater reality; other universes have lived before ours (though as time is one of the elements that make up our bubble the word before becomes tricky). At thin places we might discover echoes of these earlier universes. For example the Boötes Void (real) a place unusually empty of galaxies. Echoes of an old civilisation, sending it’s final messages into our reality.

But maybe the idea of time even within our reality isn’t as cut and dried as all that. Professor Jensen Lind’s work leads him to believe that the laws of physics are symmetric and reversible, all time being one. His work on a quantum computer, called Charlie Big Potatoes by Lind’s investor partner Cameron Beck (Tom Hollander) sometimes seems to him to be a vision of the future. And when this vision shows him something he does not expect he locks down Charlie, preventing it’s use, though his clues remain in his journal, encoded and enigmatic.

Beck unfortunately has solicited investment from the Intragroup Committee who are notoriously unforgiving of failure. The chairman’s granddaughter has fatal insomnia, a disease that might be cured if Charlie were able to solve the protein folding problem. With Charlie locked down in a remote Slovenian converted bunker, Beck tries unorthodox methods to crack Lind’s codes and re-activate Charlie. He sets up an online puzzle challenge, meeting the winner, Iris Nixon (Niamh Algar) and recruiting her to decode the journal. After some time and some success, she reads far enough into the journal to understand Lind’s reasoning. She escapes, fleeing with the journal and goes into hiding.

Beck offers a reward for finding her, a mystery that attracts disgraced journalist and conspiracy youtuber Alfie Bird, and his show Two Seconds To Midnight. When a member of a group of corrupt Italian State Police officers thinks he’s found Iris, the boss sends two of them to Sardinia to find her. It turns out it is Iris, who has been living under a number of aliases, doing jobs that get paid under the table. One of those jobs is tutoring Joy Baxter, a British teen who is acting out and neglected by her parents. Iris is also having an affair with local police officer Teo Solinas. She uses both of those relationships ruthlessly, and gets the advantage over the corrupt police, killing one in self defence. However this exposes her; with a police officer dead the corrupt police now have an actual pretext to act against Iris, and Beck becomes aware of her activities.

Iris is, in the end, coldly logical, manipulating people as puzzles. Yet she has both inherent charm and the situation as the underdog – chased by police and extremely rich people’s lackeys – to put us on her side. Beck, charming, aware of his flaws and as ruthless in his own way, is also caught between dangers. We see a compelling confrontation between them at the start of the show, the climax of the Sardinian part of the story, which we see again at the end of episode three – the show is full of flashbacks, and it is here, at the first scene actually shown, that I end my recap. In the first version it’s clear that Iris is in trouble. In the second we know she’s one step ahead, but Beck knows she’s smarter and more dangerous than the others believe, and that one step is both too much and not enough.

Watch This: Thriller about one smart woman trying to solve being hunted by people whose quantum computer could destroy the world
Don’t Watch This: Full of violence, betrayal, and some of the supposedly smart solutions seem a bit tenuous

2. Fire Country (Season 3)

At the end of Season 2 of Fire Country Bode Leone, formerly an inmate firefighter, had been let out of prison for heroism; now he qualifies to join the regular Cal Fire as a cadet. Joining him is new character Audrey James as rival/partner and possible love interest. Meanwhile Manny, having punched Luke Leone for trying to close down Three Rock, the inmate fire-fighting camp, gets to become an inmate firefighter (for the second time in his life). None of this is especially important for the first two episodes as Gabriela, Manny’s daughter, runs away from her wedding and when inevitably a helicopter crashes starts a fire, she spends most of those episodes fighting fires in her wedding dress.

The fire damages Smokey’s the local bar, and when the owner decides to give up Vince and Sharon Leone decide to buy it and re-open it. As it turns out this puts them under some financial strain (and not the only one; Gabriela decides to pay off the cost of the wedding which cleans her out, and has her living in the Leone’s trailer – which they bought when considering using their accumulated leave). Unfortunately one of the major plotlines in when Vince’s dad, a former senior firefighter, starts having memory problems. When Luke takes a liasion role in Japan the other Leones have to look after him. Eventually he has to move into an assisted living home.

Jake, the Leone’s not-quite-adoptive son, is captain of the fire station, but any further promotion is blocked by Vince (presumably in his 50s, so with a few years left) as battalion chief, and Sharon as division chief. He clashes with Bode as cadet, and later with an instructor who encourages Bode’s risk-taking free-styling methods. Eve, the other main character, is captain of the inmate camp, having to deal with all those plot lines. She also has to reconcile with her family when a big fire threatens their ranch. And she encounters a former girlfriend and they find they’ve grown past what they thought were big differences. They go on a date at the renaissance faire, but inevitably there’s a fire (an ongoing problem with half the things anyone tries to do in this show).

This is fine – most episodes involve fighting a fire or some other disaster, with occasional turns to other fire station business (one secondary plot has a baby surrendered to the safe surrender box in the station etc). And with Bode and Audrey as cadets we get to go over basic firefighting and training again. Fine is the word – occasionally the soap opera shenanigans get too melodramatic and I wonder why I’m watching. Gabriela finds herself being stalked, letting them bring in Sharon’s step-sister, who’s now the sheriff and preparing for spin-off show Sheriff Country. Annoyingly, the final episode of the season ends not just with one character, again, in legal jeopardy, but several trapped and missing in a fire. The first is a better cliffhanger; yes something will have to be done, but not until they get a lawyer, figure stuff out etc. The latter requires immediate action, leaving me having to wait several months to find out what happens (they escape, maybe one character dies heroically?).

Watch This: Charming, charismatic actors solve moderately difficult problems every week while their relationships swing wildly about
Don’t Watch This: Everything keeps catching fire.

3. S.W.A.T. (Season 8)

S.W.A.T.’s over now, for real* so what does this final season give us? One or two new twists. The six-man team was left with five at the end of last season and they bring in a new recruit Devin Gamble; initially her actor Annie Ilonzeh does not make the main credits, but later she does. She used to work with the leader Hondo, until her father, a career criminal, killed a cop, following which she transferred to Oakland (elsewhere in California). Now ten years later she’s back. Her criminal family background keeps coming up, though it’s not until after she makes main character status in the credits that the police department actually investigate her.

One reason she’s investigated is that they tangle with Deputy Chief Bennett. She turns her eye on S.W.A.T. and in particular Commander Hicks after the team is sent to deal with a prison riot. Unfortunately her husband was the prison governor and Hicks not only tells him off in public for his failures, he gets him fired. Bennett tries her best to get Hicks fired, putting S.W.A.T. under a microscope. And why not, they’ve all done things that are a bit dubious. As Hondo points out when Gamble is suspended for consorting with criminals (her family) he fostered his old friend’s kid when he got out of juvie; and his old friend was a big gang leader back in the day. So why are they getting on them for this?

The show can’t quite articulate what’s going on, why Hondo, a main character, can ride the line again and again. Or actually it can; he got suspended and demoted for going public about a group of racist cops. The LAPD leadership tried to force him out for embarrassing them. This is the same again, though both less targeted (any weak point in S.W.A.T.) and better justified (actual leaks of information to criminals need investigating). Why aren’t they always under this scrutiny? Well then policing would be impossible and they need to kick down doors and fight the bad guys.

It's worth pointing out that most of the show on an episode by episode basis is finding the bad guys (and their doors) preparing to kick down doors and fight the bad guys, kicking down doors and fighting the bad guys, and dealing with the aftermath of kicking down doors and fighting the bad guys.

So what else? Deke runs into an old friend (while dealing with some corrupt officers in the Sheriff’s Department**); though he’s the same age (and Deke nearly retired last season) he encourages him to try out for S.W.A.T. Deke turned over S.W.A.T. academy, the training and testing program, to Tan when he thought he was going to retire (also he has five kids and a private security firm to run). Tan runs it differently, much tougher, focused on getting S.W.A.T. officers out at the end, ruthlessly cutting anyone who doesn’t make the grade rather than encouraging everyone to reach their potential. In the event Deke’s friend is injured in training, which puts a lot of strain on all of them.

The other two, younger officers on the team have some gestures at storylines. Zoe Powell learned what happened to the son she let be adopted some years before, and now he’s grown, in college, but thinking of taking a leave of absence with his band. Trying to deal with this she re-connects with her ex. Alfaro is a hustler, always trying to do deals. He starts an affair with Deke’s sister, who is sorting her life out while staying with Deke, paying her way by helping with the children after Deke’s wife has got back into lawyering. Oh and Deke has one final storyline, he rescues a sport’s agent when there’s a complex kidnapping involving her clients. She then takes to stalking him. He may have been considering retirement, but he’s still got it!

Does the show still have it? No more than at the beginning I think. It came strong out the gate willing to talk about police and crime issues, and then mostly spend it’s time kicking down doors and fighting bad guys. S.W.A.T. is family they say, and that includes messing up and arguing and getting in each other’s business. And family is against the world, which includes corrupt institutions, which is good. And it’s also for itself which is maybe not so good, but that’s not what the show is interested in.

Watch This: Eight seasons of good action, a few clever plots, a bit of engagement with themes of crime and policing
Don’t Watch This: Mostly just kicking in doors and fighting bad guys

* A spin-off S.W.A.T. Exiles seems to be in production.

** Okay, S.W.A.T. are a part of the LAPD, the Los Angeles city police. The Sheriff’s Department are the police force for the county, in this case Los Angeles county, of which Los Angeles City is the largest city. The Sheriff’s Department deal with county wide issues, and also run jails. When people in American cop shows and films talk about taking a prisoner to county, they mean turning them over to the county jail(s), run by the county Sheriff’s Department, rather than their own cells ("holding"), if they are another police force.

4. Revival (TV Show)

In Wasau Winsconsin, newly dead people revive on one night (“revival night”). The revived people seem normal other than being able to regenerate from injuries. The town is locked down; as the show starts they’ve stopped locking down but the town is still quarantined from the outside world.

This is a problem for sheriff’s deputy Dana Cypress who had got a new job out of town but now can’t leave to take it. She’s at odds with her boss, who is also her dad, Sheriff Wayne Cypress. They disagree over how to handle the Revivers (to keep the peace Wayne is in favour of treating them with suspicion). They also disagree over how to deal with Martha Cypress (Em), Dana’s teen sister, who is reclusive and has chronic illness. She’s also having an affair with her college professor.

The plot starts with the death of a horse, which both Dana and CDC scientist Ibrahim Ramin think may have been caused by a reviver, though they keep this quiet. (Ibrahim and Dana had hooked up via an app the night before, the first time they could get out of lock down, but been interrupted by Sheriff work.) At the end of the first episode Wayne manages to lose Cooper, Dana’s young son, in the woods while performing a wellness check. Dana, having picked up Em passed out in the street, goes to investigate a disturbance, only to be attacked by a reviver who stabs Em. Em recovers, revealing she’s a reviver. However she doesn’t know how she died, having woken up the morning after Revival Night at the waterfall.

Here’s the show: most revivers are just people, which means of course they have secrets and problems and commit crimes. But some go crazy and start attacking people. There’s a religious radio show host/ tow truck driver/ car junk yard owner who puts together a group who want to destroy the revivers. There’s a family of criminals, smuggling drugs across the quarantine line, who realise there’s a black market for reviver body parts. The authorities want to learn about revivers, and there’s conflict between sheriff, mayor, the people of the town, the state governor, the CDC, and other federal institutions. And meanwhile Dana tries to find out how Em died, while Em explores being a reviver.

The mystery of revival goes through a couple of reveals which are visually cool but frankly I didn’t find compelling. They suffer compared to the more prosaic mysteries – of who is selling drugs, who killed Em, what the people in Em’s life are up to, who is a reviver and how do people respond to dead friends and family returning. That’s the strength of the show, rather than the talk of death and the strange creatures in the woods.

Watch This: Supernatural/science fictional crime drama with compelling characters
Don’t Watch This: People return from the dead, continue to act weird

5. IT: Welcome To Derry

In IT a group of children confronted a monster that haunts Derry in 1988; in IT Chapter Two the now grown children in 2016, must confront it again, the monster having returned after 27 years. Slightly fudging the timeline, IT: Welcome To Derry asks, what happened when the monster, IT aka Pennywise The Clown, emerged in Derry in 1962?

What happened is that the US Military, using the Cuban Missile Crisis as a pretext, planned to use The Entity that hides under Derry as a weapon. For that purpose they assign two Air Force members; Airman first class Dick Halloran, a psychic who appears in other Stephen King stories; and Major Leroy Hanlon, who due to an accident has had his amygdala damaged and so feels no fear. This is important as The Entity works on fear. Notably and importantly, both Halloran and Hanlon are black.

So is the movie theatre projectionist and his daughter Ronnie, and this is also important as a group of children, the sine qua non of IT, the prey of Pennywise The Clown, go there seeking answers to their visions of missing boy Matty. Slightly surprisingly the attack of IT there succeeds in taking three children, leaving only Ronnie and Lilly. Lilly has her own problems; she was sent to Juniper Hill Asylum after her father died in an accident in the pickle factory, and is being bullied (by people leaving pickle jars in her locker etc.)

Ronnie’s father is blamed for the death of the missing kids. Lilly has a friend Marge, who wants to be one of the popular girls, but they want nothing to do with Lilly, unsurprisingly for 1962 ostracising the kid who went to a mental asylum. Meanwhile Will Hanlon, Leroy’s son, a science enthusiast, befriends Ronnie, and another boy Rich. The group of kids attempt to figure out what happened, attempting to get Ronnie’s father exonerated.

In between we learn something of the even-more past emergences of The Entity; in the 30s there was a group of bank robbers who had a shoot out. And back in 1908 a clown from a traveling circus got caught up in it, the original Pennywise. It becomes clear that in every cycle the people of the town seize on some pretext to become violent, creating fear, killing people to feed The Entity, and then afterwards they forget. They forget more if they leave (this is the starting point of It: Chapter Two, somewhat expanded upon). Here the town is subtly inclined to form a lynch mob for Ronnie’s father. He’s removed before he can be killed and hidden in The Black Spot, an old Army hut that Halloran has used his special privileges as the project psychic to convert into a bar and club for black air force personnel. This inevitably leads to a mob attacking, with tragic consequences.

There are particular challenges that a TV Show that wants to be horror faces, and IT: Welcome To Derry faces them head on by giving us a first set of child heroes, then massacring half of them (while trying to track down one killed by a mutant baby in the prologue). As a prequel it faces another challenge; we know that events will reset to the state of play in the film IT. And IT: Chapter Two told us plenty, perhaps too much, about the origin of IT. So what’s left for this?

Well kid adventures, the threat of nuclear war, some good effects. Digging into the still earlier hunts of The Entity, and so considering the Native American involvement. Something of a grab bag of Stephen King ideas. The original novel of IT was set in 1957-8 and 1984-5, (making the protagonists more or less his age). And they make the interesting point that here in Maine, it’s the most North-Easterly region of the United States, making the air base the closest to the Soviet Union on that side (flying over the Arctic). I don’t know what this adds up to.

Watch This: Kids fight a monster in the 1960s
Don’t Watch This: Lengthy 1960s coda to better films