THE IRRATIONAL, s1 (2023-24)
(***+ / *****) :: Loved the characters, the stories, Ariely's source material, and the central idea, but: the "Professor Mercer factoid" dialogue – which I'm guessing was intended as a fun character quirk and a way to showcase Ariely's research – came across not only as lazy writing that yanked me out of the narrative for unnecessary exposition, but made an otherwise great character grate. Were it anyone other than Jesse L. Martin delivering the dialogue, I probably wouldn't have given the show a full episode, nevermind a (truncated) season.
That being said, those Professor Mercer factoid moments are essential to the show: they’re what makes it unique – but I have to believe that someone would've conjured a less intrusive way of handling it, like an annotated extra on Peacock. Have Ariely do commentary on each episode? A podcast where he discusses each of the irrationalities used in the show? Something, anything: hope they figure it out for season two because the expository clunk was more than a bit onerous – even from the mouth of Jesse L. Martin.
SUGAR (trailer)
Private eye show starring Colin Farrell and Amy Ryan (plus what looks like a great cast) with every episode directed by Fernando Meirelles? I’m so in:
Efforts at slowing down or, rather, at eliminating that feeling of rush from my day, front and center: little things like not acceding to young Kirby’s demands to play Derbzball as soon as I return from the run; like letting myself take 30 minutes after each exercise chunk (one after each meal) to read before going on to the next 90-minute thing. Appropriate, I suppose, that Newport's latest, SLOW PRODUCTIVITY was delivered to the Kindle this morning: not sure that I need help with writing slowly, I'm managing that just fine on my own, TYVM – but I would like a little less rush to nowhere in that as well. Old habits, I suppose.
