Complete and utter Kaos

A look at my favourite, mostly belated TV of 2024's third quarter.

You know, there was a time in my life when I wrote about TV for (part of) a living, gleefully consuming 5-6 hours a night, bragging about how long my list of Sky TV series links was, and spouting opinions in Stuff’s blogs section.

Remember when series linking was the main way of tracking your favourite television shows? Now I have a spreadsheet keeping track of the shows I want to watch and which episodes I’ve seen, and get decision paralysis whenever I browse what’s on offer at most streaming platforms.

The result of all this is that my television viewing is fractured, even though I work in the television industry; I don’t start most shows until they’re done, I base most viewing decisions on recommendations - either from friends and family, or from critics I trust - and I’ve stopped sampling every new show on the market.

Hiroyuki Sanada was brilliant in Westworld.

I saw Baby Reindeer get a lot of buzz, and saw Shogun win a lot of awards. I see the hyperbolic praise being heaped on Industry and The Penguin.

I haven’t watched a single episode.

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So what did I watch over the last few months?

Well, to start with, I finished a couple of shows that started earlier in the year: The Acolyte has already been cancelled, and I don’t really know what I thought of House Of The Dragon’s second season; I think I liked it … ? I thoroughly enjoyed the fourth season of The Boys though.

I’m still watching Last Week Tonight with John Oliver religiously every week, as well as The Daily Show (especially the Jon Stewart episodes). Likewise, the Dropout series Make Some Noise - maybe my favourite show right now.

I thoroughly enjoyed Taskmaster NZ’s fifth season, and finally watched Troy Kingi’s Desert Hikoi (I waited until after the album was out). And I’m about halfway through the thoroughly under-rated Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee; the eponymous host has a smile that just instantly puts you in the joke, and the format is so basic as to be naturally productive for comedy.

Guy Montgomery is having so much fun.

A couple of shows have started or returned in the last couple of weeks that I’m excited about. Marvel’s Agatha All Along catches up with the wicked witch from WandaVision; its only four episodes along but I’m enjoying it so far. And horror series From is back for its third season; only two episodes of that so far.

I also watched a pair of comedies I’ve had on my list for a while.

Only Murders In The Building is a show about which I’ve been saying ‘I must watch that at some point’ for the last couple of years. I’m now half way through the third season and can safely say it is an absolute delight: Steve Martin and Martin Short are a helluva pair, and giving them Selena Gomez to play off was a genius casting move. And now they have Meryl Streep to play with as well. Give that casting agent a raise, I say.

Then there is Jury Duty, an eight episode prank that ended in the most wholesome and lovely way I could have imagined. I’m loathe to say anything more about it - just track it down and watch it from start to finish, and bathe in all the warm fuzzies you get after the last episode ends.

But there is one show which has been my absolute favourite of the past few months, and that show was in the title: Kaos.

If you’re unfamiliar, Kaos dropped on Netflix at the end of August - its the latest series from Charlie Covell, the writer of The End Of The F***ing World, and stars Jeff Goldblum as Zeus in a reimagined modern-day version of the Greek myths.

My son corrected me today: its pronounced Zoos not Zyoos.

The Greek myths have been fertile ground of late, especially for more unorthodox retellings: aside from Stephen Fry’s series of books (starting with Mythos), there has been a musical video game (Stray Gods) and a crowd-sourced musical that first went viral on TikTok (Epic; the latest release charted in NZ).

Covell’s show takes place in the modern city of Krete, where we discover that Prometheus has started a plan that will lead to the fall of the gods (known as Kaos) by using three unwitting humans: Eurydice, Caeneus and Ariadne.

You may know Eurydice from the hit musical Hadestown, and her musical boyfriend Orpheus - here portrayed as a global pop star a la Taylor Swift - shows up as well. There are the usual assortment of gods: Hades, Poseidon, Hera all play key roles, as does the minor deity Dionysus.

The style of the show is phenomenal. Krete is portrayed in standard colouring, but visits to the Mount Olympus mansion of Zeus and Hera are graded in hypercolour, Zeus lazing around in a matching tracksuit like a mob boss resting on his laurels at home while Hera keeps up her glamorous facade.

Meanwhile, the Underworld - home to about a third of the action in the later episodes - is portrayed in a muted palette of light and dark greys, never rising to bright white, never sinking to obsidian black. Its a shock to see Hades in full colour when he visits Olympus later in the series.

Covell’s writing is stellar throughout, unexpected at times, linking together scenes with ease, tying it all together to a satisfying end.

The cast is phenomenal too: Aurora Perrineau is stunning as Eurydice, bringing life and vitality to every scene she is in, while Killian Scott does a great job selling the loss he feels as he tries to bring her back. Nabhaan Rizwan is the breakout star as the under-appreciated Dionysus, finding he wants more responsibility from his father after growing bored as the god of festivity.

Six gods and six humans. From left: G/H/G/H/H/H/H/H/G/G/G/G

The show hinges on the duo of Zeus and Prometheus though.

Goldblum is having way too much fun as the slowly unravelling god of the gods, paranoia and stress and imagined threats and perceived slights getting the better of him time and again.

And Stephen Dillane (Stannis Baratheon in Game Of Thrones) is having a blast as Prometheus, the fourth wall-breaking narrator of the piece who is suffering eternal punishment for giving the humans fire, but is still the best friend Zeus has and is called on repeatedly to dispense advice.

Kaos was a joy and got better with each new episode - so much better, in fact, that I binged the last five episodes in a single night, not wanting to stop viewing regardless of the time. Its been years since a show grabbed me in that way.

Anyway, enough about me:
What have you been watching and enjoying in the last few months?
Share your favourites in the comments section below!

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Thanks for reading, whanau. See you later in the week!
Chris