The Circle, Warrior, and six months of CID!
Contemporary and historical tales, plus reflecting on half a year of podcasting
Hello!
On this week’s episode of Criticism Is Dead, we discuss The Circle and Warrior, two very different shows in which perception plays a big role.
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02:17 The Circle (U.S.), Netflix’s competition reality show about “influencers” and “catfish,” is back — and season 2 is even better than the first.
In case you don’t know how it works: Contestants are isolated in apartments and use a social media app called “The Circle” to communicate with each other. The goal is basically to gain popularity, whether by being nice, pretending to be someone else (catfishing), or forming strategic alliances and basically playing to win the prize of $100,000. They routinely rank each other to determine who are the “influencers” of the moment; these two top players then agree to “block” (eliminate) one of the players.
Season 1 featured players who were more into flirting and friendship than strategy. I guess some people liked that, but imo season 2 is off to a much more entertaining start, with more overtly ruthless and victory-seeking contestants, as well as some new twists to make this season even more dramatic.
Plus, there’s even a Nicholas Braun-lookalike player who catfishes as a sorority girl lol:
It’s basically trash TV — the equivalent of junk food or candy — but I find it really streamable and entertaining.
17:04 Warrior, streaming on HBO Max, set primarily in 1870s San Francisco Chinatown, is a timely pick for the present age.
Based on an original concept by THE Bruce Lee, and executive produced by his daughter Shannon Lee and Justin Lin, this is a martial arts Western crime drama with a lot to offer, not least of which includes hot men and good fight scenes. (The downsides: kinda predictable story and laughable dialogue at times.)
Not to get into the debate over whether art has to be “of” “the” “moment” to be important, but whew watching this amid the rise in attacks against Asian people here certainly feels resonant! This story of Chinese labor in the U.S., and how Chinese immigrants were exploited and beaten and killed, is part of our history, even if the average student in the American public school education system really doesn’t learn much about it beyond a couple sentences in a textbook. Seeing the way Irish immigrants are pitted against the Chinese in this show also feels relevant to today. It’s kinda cool that a pulpy Cinemax show like this can get this stuff, while prestige TV still coughs and stumbles around issues like race and “representation” or w/e.
The reason Pelin picked this show for this week is because a third season has just been greenlit by HBO Max! So go ahead and start watching these two seasons before the new season comes out sometime tbd!
41:19 Plus, NOT culture notes, but instead, a brief celebration of six months of this podcast!
We choose some top picks from the past half year and indulge in a little sentimentality:
Here are Pelin’s feel-good top three TV picks from the run of our show so far: Ted Lasso, Lupin, and Call My Agent.
And here are my top three, not necessarily feel-good, but more of just ones that still linger in my mind: Call My Agent, Nomadland, and Tokyo Girl.
Thank you all for sticking with us for half a year or so! It’s been kind of a wild ride: mostly fun, sometimes grueling, but always good content. Here’s PROOF of the latter:
As we look forward to the next six months (or however long?), is there anything you’d like to see from us? Whether that’s a Patreon(?), call-ins(??), a community chat(???), or whatever else, please let us know! We’ll keep chugging along as usual, but idk, never hurts to plan for a possible future! Feel free to reply directly to this email or find us on all the various platforms below!
That’s it for this week. Bye!
— Jenny
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Inquiries, complaints, and recs for what to watch can go to criticismisdead@gmail.com.
Some credits:
Music: REEKAH
Artwork and design: Sara Macias and Andrew Liu