Movie and TV Reviews - March 2022

Here are some short reviews of things I watched in March. The list will be sparser next month because baseball season will have started. 

Movies

• Spiderman: No Way Home. The only reason I watched this is because the rest of the family insisted on seeing it. The only good thing about it was that it had Doctor Strange in it. 

TV Shows

• Grantchester (Seasons 3 - 6): It's well done, but it got to be too much like a soap opera for my taste. I'd prefer more crime and less melodrama. (PBS Masterpiece)
• Doctor Who (Season 13): Like season 12, this season fell into a self-referential black hole. I could also have done without the time travel as it's usually just a way of getting out of a weak plot. Disappointing, to say the least. (BBC)
• Picard (Season 2): It started with Q and that was it for me. 
• Nova: Mayan Metropolis: This was an excellent and too short documentary about the unearthing of the Mayan ruins in Honduras. It covers the same research described in Douglas Preston's The Lost City of the Monkey God, though not in as much detail. (PBS)
• Around the World In 80 Days: This is light entertainment that I would have loved when I was 12. It's definitely not to be taken seriously but avoids the worst excesses of similar entertainments like The Mummy series of movies. David Tennant is marvellous as always and the production values are high. (PBS Masterpiece)
• The Chelsea Detective (Season 1): Another British police procedural with all the familiar elements: a divorced detective, a younger female partner, and just enough twists and turns in the plot to keep you engaged during the 90-minute episodes. This is one of the better ones. (Acorn TV)
• Wild in the Blood: We watched the first episode of this and decided it wasn't for us. We don't like shows that have protagonists who are profilers with seemingly magical powers of analysis, and I especially didn't appreciate using a really nasty stereotyped trans person as the villain. (Acorn TV)
• Mr. and Mrs. Murder: A variation of the same idea as Sunshine Cleaning, but not as good. OK if you want something light. (Acorn TV)