The Year 2022 in Television

Matt Lynn Digital is taking this opportunity of the year end to look back at the last year in book reviews, movie reviews, music reviews and television reviews. We will look at these individual categories, one per day through Saturday. We begin today by looking into the television reviews offered by Matt Lynn Digital in 2022.

(The television series Breaking Bad).

With the top ratings of 4.75-stars on a scale of 1-to-5, the leaders included the television series Breaking Bad (2008-2013) and season three of the television series Bosch (2014-2021). Breaking Bad gets into the story of how underpaid and demoralized chemistry teacher turns genius science skills into a psychopathic criminal enterprise. The third season of Bosch focuses on the combative, anti-authoritarian tendencies of the central character in fighting crime, his past and those around him to fight legitimate injustice in the form of potential serial killers and storylines that reach into previous and future seasons.

(Season one of the series Bosch).

Fitting into the next slot of television with ratings of 4.5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5 include seasons one, two and four of the television series Bosch (2014-2021). These three seasons introduce and continue the ongoing story of the central policeman to the full series, coupled with the changing interpersonal dynamics among his fellow policemen. The stories of the other law enforcement service get personal, political and legal probing the lives of criminals, lawyers, reporters, the general public and foreign nationals. Add members of the general public that find the presence and track record of law enforcement complicated, and you begin to get some of the scope of this series.

(George Carlin’s American Dream).

A documentary named George Carlin’s American Dream (2022) premiered as part of a two-night presentation in May that remembered the life and times of comedian George Carlin. The presentation gave an intimate overview of the man’s career in addition to his influences on people in and out of show business, including his family and himself. Many life lessons about being true to yourself were revealed in this documentary. I gave the experience 4.25-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

(The Malcolm Venville documentary Abraham Lincoln).

The documentaries Abraham Lincoln (2022) and Benjamin Franklin (2022) premiered in February and April, respectively. Both explored significant elements of the men’s upbringing and the force of will that shaped the way they would behave in public life. The explorations of Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin earned 4-stars on a scale of 1-to-5 ratings from Matt Lynn Digital.

(The Malcolm Venville documentary Theodore Roosevelt).

The documentary Theodore Roosevelt (2022) premiered in May of this year while the imagined movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019) made its debut three years ago. The life and times of Theodore Roosevelt were told in a manner consistent with the manner of the documentary on Lincoln referenced above. The movie offered Fred Rogers‘ sensibilities through a biographical drama presented in a fashion similar to an episode of the television series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (1968-2001).

Matt Lynn Digital appreciates your continued interest in the content we offer. Should you have programs that you’d like us to review, or similar work to that mentioned above, please be sure to let us know.

Matt – Wednesday, December 28, 2022

The Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio documentary ‘George Carlin’s American Dream’

The HBO documentary of comedian George Carlin aired in two episodes this past weekend. George Carlin’s American Dream (2022) offered a fuller look into the man, his career and his life than I ever had seen and read before, attracting commentary from contemporary and subsequent comedians, family, and industry colleagues both directly and through archive. The use of Carlin‘s own writings and archive footage were also used. Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio directed and produced the documentary.

(From left, comedy partners Jack Burns and George Carlin).

“In the 1960s, George Carlin enters the scene as a straightlaced stand-up, but soon gains notoriety for his fearless countercultural comedy,” as quoted from HBO here. Jack Burns was an early partner for this straightlaced period from their radio days in Fort Worth, Texas, as we saw in Part 1 of George Carlin’s American Dream. It is during this period that Carlin meets and marries Brenda Carlin (Hosbrook), whom he meets in Dayton, Ohio. The couple had one child, a daughter named Kelly Carlin-McCall.

(From left, first wife Brenda Carlin (Hosbrook), daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall, and George Carlin).

The partnership with Burns lasted a couple of years, through radio and early television appearances from audition tapes in Hollywood, California. The two worked at a television station while working their craft in coffee houses at night, later moving onto television variety shows. Guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for Carlin, who eventually broke from Burns, were a part of this period. This phase of Carlin‘s career lasted through the late 1960s, was relatively profitable compared to the period that followed, and ended in a straightlaced fashion around the end of the decade, despite continued guest hosting of Carson‘s The Tonight Show.

(George Carlin after transitioning from a more straightlaced presentation).

The first major transition of George Carlin‘s comedy into a more countercultural comedy began approximately in 1970. The transition began with the first episode of the documentary, with the remainder of the comedian’s life and comedy addressed with Part 2. “Fellow comics reflect on George Carlin‘s later years and how his prescient political commentary continues to resonate today,” as quoted from HBO here. We get further into the background of Carlin the man, moving beyond the complex relations with his deceased and abusive father, his controlling mother, and his abused brother. We see the complexity of the relations with Carlin‘s first wife and daughter, and subsequent marriage to Sally Wade.

(From left, George Carlin and second wife Sally Wade).

George Carlin‘s career took a major turn when he began using cocaine and his first wife began drinking when losing a connection to helping her husband’s career, like she had at the beginning of their marriage. The use of language became much more pointed and anti-authority. Record albums recorded in the 1970s proved helpful financially, yet complexities did not. The Seven Dirty Words routine, which changed legal history more than a decade after Lenny Bruce was arrested in Chicago, Illinois for swearing in his routine, would offer indecency guidelines. Carlin would become the first guest host of NBC‘s Saturday Night Live in this period, something he would repeat in 1984 after his 1981 A Place for My Stuff album and his 1982 Carlin at Carnegie television special. The 1990s and 2000s would see shifts into increasingly political subjects, including about abortion, race, people as individuals rather than in groups, and in frustration with how decisions were made and the lack of perceived influence over large scale life individual people really have.

(George Carlin quote about the American Dream).

George Carlin’s American Dream provides a deeper dive into the career and life underpinning the man than I have provided here. The insight into the cultural force that the man’s thoughts and feelings were, culturally, as well as offering a sense for the flawed man that existed underneath offer an insight that were shown with a comprehensive quality that in fact was quality. The bridging of the messaging from Carlin‘s past into today was also an achievement, both for the man and the documentary. I give the documentary George Carlin’s American Dream as directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio 4.25-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Wednesday, May 25, 2022