As 21st-century clichés come and go—some hang on, like “Where are the adults in the room?—it’s happily noted that “appointment viewing” for TV shows has receded. There never was, at least in the past 20 years, such a half-baked entreaty for “appointment reading,” although some internet dimwits exclaim, “Do yourself a favor, stop what you’re doing, and immediately read The Free Press’ EXCLUSIVE examination of how the best politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose.”
At night, especially between November and April, when MLB’s dormant, I watch a number of TV shows and movies (lately another viewing of Runaway Jury, Patience, Suspicion and the Belfast-based cop show Blue Lights) and haven’t a shred of embarrassment about it. As noted in this space two weeks ago, I’m a fan of Billy Bob Thornton’s late-career renaissance, first with Goliath and now Taylor Sheridan’s Landman, the latter currently in its second season and airing on Sunday nights. Landman’s an elevated and catchy soap about the Thornton’s character Tommy Norris, the dangerous work he oversees as an oilman, and his crazy family. Jacob Lofland stands out as Tommy’s son, as does his love interest Paulina Chavez, Colm Feore and Ali Larter.
Demi Moore’s never been better as the widow of Tommy’s boss Monty Miller, played, as usual, with half-heartedness by John Hamm. (I never understood the appeal of Hamm’s starring vehicle—once called “appointment viewing”—Mad Men, as it bore almost zero resemblance to the real Madison Avenue advertising machine in the 1960s; one of my brothers was in that world, and while there were liquid lunches, nothing he told me comports with the silly Mad Men.)
I read Kyle Chayka’s rudimentary review of Landman last week in The New Yorker, proving—as if that’s necessary—that he and the magazine are mired, perhaps fatally, in cultural denial. It’s offensive. Chayka calls Tommy Norris “the show’s existential antihero, equipped mainly with wits and cigarettes and Thornton’s sardonic fluency with expletives.” That’s just a teaser of Chayka’s bad prose: can anybody or anything today escape without the adjective “existential”? And Tommy does swear a lot, like a lot of people: there’s nothing “sardonic” about it.
The review gets unintentionally funnier: “To a traditional prestige-TV viewing audience, ‘Landman’s politics are noxious. The show is nakedly “anti-environmentalist.” It’s TV! More: “But something about ‘Landman’ has made it a sleeper hit even among a liberal audience, particularly with the recent launce of Season 2. The show is whispered about cautiously, lest one’s enthusiasm cause offense. I’m kind of… into it?”
I can be vague and anecdotal too: last week, spending time with two virulently anti-Trump friends, we talked about Landman and there wasn’t any “cautious whispering” or ruing the supposed sexism, “extractive capitalism” or exploitation of migrant workers in the Texas oil fields. Landman left one friend cold after two episodes of Season 1; the other has watched every episode to date, with no apologies. My wife, a political centrist who reads The New York Times, is an ardent fan of Goliath and Landman; the supposed political incorrectness doesn’t even merit a mention.
I’ve no idea how popular Landman is, but it was inked for a third season, and maybe one more Chayka review will follow. You can’t beat this: “The soundtrack intersperses recognizable country hits [not to me, but definitely my friend Crispin Sartwell] with sweeping ambient guitar compositions by Andrew Lockington… These artsy flourishes are the drizzle of artisanal jus on the plotline’s chicken-fried-steak, mingling their flavors to the benefit of both.”
That didn’t make sense to me either.
Chayka, as is common with New Yorker/New York Times critics, speaks for America-at-large. “Thornton, as the indebted and alcoholic Tommy, pulls hangdog faces and looks as exhausted with the state of the world as the rest of us feel.” He comes clean near the end of his “guilty pleasure” review: “Sheridan’s cowboyish depiction of the oil industry can still be hard for this unpatriotic East Coast liberal to stomach, especially given that real oil companies seem to have embraced the show as a P.R. opportunity.”
On Tuesday, Bruce Bawer warned readers about Marshall Curry’s Netflix documentary on The New Yorker, The New Yorker at 100, in which longtime editor David Remnick, who suffers from TDS, is featured far more prominently than the weekly’s 20th century history. He writes: “Over the course of the film, we see bits of several staff meetings. Everybody on the staff looks as if he or she works for The New Yorker. What do I mean by that? I’m not sure. It’s something about the way they dress, the way they carry themselves, the look in their eyes. The smugness, I guess. The sense that they aren’t struggling to ascertain the truth but to push a jointly held creed. Also, they look lots younger than their Shawn-era predecessors. One detail, perhaps important: I’ve never heard so many men with vocal fry.”
I’ll pass and wait for the Ken Burns sequel (pulling your leg!).
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023