Midnight, Texas: Pilot Show Only
July 24, 2017 8:40 PM - Season 1, Episode 1 - Subscribe
In the series premiere, locals from a Texas town try to fight off supernatural beings, violent biker gangs, suspicious cops and more.
AV Club review (C-) Even if you liked True Blood’s monsters and dumbasses, don’t visit Midnight, Texas
Hollywood Reporter review - If you were looking for a new 'True Blood' — only without the sex, swearing, extreme gore and socially relevant subtext — NBC has you covered. [warning, autoplaying video at link]
LA Times review - There's magic in 'Midnight, Texas' and its charming new take on spooky old stories
TV Line review - NBC's Silly Creature Feature Is Just Scary Bad: "It’s never a great sign when a network show debuts in the dead of summer, more than a year after it was first announced. But those red flags make sense when you actually watch Midnight, Texas — an overstuffed, often ridiculous supernatural drama that somehow manages to make a town filled with magical creatures seem crushingly dull."
AV Club review (C-) Even if you liked True Blood’s monsters and dumbasses, don’t visit Midnight, Texas
Hollywood Reporter review - If you were looking for a new 'True Blood' — only without the sex, swearing, extreme gore and socially relevant subtext — NBC has you covered. [warning, autoplaying video at link]
LA Times review - There's magic in 'Midnight, Texas' and its charming new take on spooky old stories
TV Line review - NBC's Silly Creature Feature Is Just Scary Bad: "It’s never a great sign when a network show debuts in the dead of summer, more than a year after it was first announced. But those red flags make sense when you actually watch Midnight, Texas — an overstuffed, often ridiculous supernatural drama that somehow manages to make a town filled with magical creatures seem crushingly dull."
I saw a TV ad for this waiting for a donair being put together for me, read the Onion AV review, and stopped bothering about this - even without the 3 ep benefit of the doubt trial.
If anyone is interested in this, maybe give Supernatural another try (I loved the early seasons), or just mainline some True Blood reruns, or give Ash vs The Evil Dead a shot.
posted by porpoise at 9:16 PM on July 24, 2017
If anyone is interested in this, maybe give Supernatural another try (I loved the early seasons), or just mainline some True Blood reruns, or give Ash vs The Evil Dead a shot.
posted by porpoise at 9:16 PM on July 24, 2017
I saw the thing about this on AV Club and was baffled. I mean... True Blood minus all the reasons to watch True Blood*? Who'd even spend money putting that together?
Thanks for the post, if only to confirm that I shouldn't take a look for myself. Heh.
(* Pam'n'Eric, obviously.)
posted by mordax at 12:35 AM on July 25, 2017
Thanks for the post, if only to confirm that I shouldn't take a look for myself. Heh.
(* Pam'n'Eric, obviously.)
posted by mordax at 12:35 AM on July 25, 2017
Wow. I read early reviews this morning and thought it couldn't possibly be this bad. It is.
I like the books, as silly as they are, and one of the interesting things about them is that while you knew that obviously this was a town full of a variety of supernatural creatures, the true nature of many of them was a playful and intriguing slow reveal. Having Lemuel say "...'vampire' is one word for it", Mr. Snuggly start talking in that awful voice, Fiji showing her actual powers, and that painfully gross wings-emerging scene with Joe right in the first episode was ridiculous.
Read the books and give this one a pass.
posted by rhiannonstone at 9:33 PM on July 25, 2017
I like the books, as silly as they are, and one of the interesting things about them is that while you knew that obviously this was a town full of a variety of supernatural creatures, the true nature of many of them was a playful and intriguing slow reveal. Having Lemuel say "...'vampire' is one word for it", Mr. Snuggly start talking in that awful voice, Fiji showing her actual powers, and that painfully gross wings-emerging scene with Joe right in the first episode was ridiculous.
Read the books and give this one a pass.
posted by rhiannonstone at 9:33 PM on July 25, 2017
Ok let me be honest here. I've watched some seriously CRAP tv and enjoyed it. And it has elements that should appeal to me, but dear god it is just so awful. Just binge watch old True Blood.
posted by miss-lapin at 9:40 PM on July 26, 2017
posted by miss-lapin at 9:40 PM on July 26, 2017
I've read the books and enjoyed them but as mentioned, too much was crammed into one episode. I'm still going to watch for the fun of it and the fact that most of the actors are basically unknowns and the productions values are pretty good. Also, having been a Charlaine Harris fan for a long time, I enjoy the fact that the Bobo character is from her Lily Bard mystery series set in Shakespeare, Georgia(?), and the lead character Manfred is from her supernatural mystery series about Harper Connelly who can find graves and relive the last minutes of a life. Manfred's dead grandmother is also along in Midnight TX (she's a psychic, too). I'm just finding the whole thing a hoot.
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:43 AM on August 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:43 AM on August 5, 2017 [2 favorites]
Still enough of a hoot that a friend and I watch every week. Next Monday is the ep. 10 season finale. I so seldom watch series tv that I have no idea why I'm still watching this. It's just fun, somehow. Don't know whether it'll get picked up for a 2nd season, and am not sure I care.
posted by MovableBookLady at 5:21 PM on September 16, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by MovableBookLady at 5:21 PM on September 16, 2017 [2 favorites]
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Anyway, I enjoyed reading all the bad reviews because, yeah, this is not a good show. It's not quite bad enough to be campy-good-bad; it has that 'genre show made by non-genre people' feel to it.
posted by oh yeah! at 8:54 PM on July 24, 2017 [1 favorite]