What I'm Watching: House of the Dragon, The Bear, Hit Man, and More

Plus: Ripley, Anyone But You, a horror movie about Amish country, Paddington (finally), this year’s Dorian TV Awards nominees, and more.

Here’s a quick rundown of everything I’ve been watching, reading, and writing about recently:

The shows:

• As a casual but enamored fan, my final verdict on this big, bold, beautiful season of Doctor Who is basically just that Benoit Blanc quote: “It makes no damn sense! Compels me, though.”
• I told y’all I’d be catching up on some of the year’s most-talked about shows this week, and I meant it. I found Steven Zaillian’s black-and-white adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith classic, Ripley, both stylish and strangely (figuratively) bloodless. Andrew Scott is perfectly off-putting as master of disguise Tom Ripley, but the show’s melancholy streak and its meticulous, near-tedious attention to detail – plus its decision to drain the Italian countryside of all color – only work some of the time. The whole endeavor comes together in the end, but as with Tom walking up all those stone stairs in Atrani, it’s a bit of a trek to get where it’s going.
• People do not seem to be loving the third season of The Bear, and while I’m not entirely against it, I get where they’re coming from. As Mark Harris points out, the new season suffers from too much directing and not enough writing, plus (my words here, not Harris’) it feels like series creator Christopher Storer decided to shoehorn in every single famous person who’s ever expressed interest in being on the show. It’s crowded with cameos and evocative imagery, but it’s surprisingly thin on plot and character development. Perhaps most damningly, though, the show curdles Carmy’s ambition into a sort of aimless meanness – directly largely at Ayo Edebiri's Sydney – that’s no fun to watch. I was never quite as high on this show as some folks (it’s very good, but never my favorite of the year), so I don’t feel betrayed by this just-okay season and I’ll still tune in for whatever’s next. You can read more of my (spoiler-filled) thoughts on The Bear season 3 over at Slashfilm.

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