“What did you just watch?” TV shows that completely baffle us – but we can’t stop them | television

Al-Kursi Company

With a gun to my head, I couldn’t tell you with any degree of accuracy what Tim Robinson’s The Chair Company is all about. In terms of straightforward plot, it is the story of a man who gets drawn into the conspiracy after a chair breaks when he sits on it. But beyond that, it’s honestly anyone’s guess.

Much of it defies logical explanation. Why does this guy only listen to recordings of guys yelling at each other? Why was there a vampire inside her, and why did she lure people to her by inventing a completely new form? Why did the show’s main antagonist end up having a baby’s head? None of these questions will ever be answered properly, because it’s clear that The Chair Company prefers to cruise around in its Lynchian weirdness. This is by far the most baffling TV show I’ve ever loved, and I say that as someone who’s watched Lost all the way through four times. Stuart Heritage

industry

The financial jargon of the industry cannot be understood by the likes of poor people. I cannot tell you a single financial transaction that took place on the trading floors. When I naively recapped Season 1 for another outlet, I apologized more than once that I had “no idea what Harper is doing.” Even when they’re not talking about work, I need to translate this lengthy amount.

Does it make me feel like an idiot? Yes. But maybe that’s the point: this is an exclusive world in which only the bad and the rich play, whose first language is money. Even Konrad Kay, one of the project’s founders, who worked in the city, admitted that a term like “DV01” is “financial gibberish” whose full meaning is not known. His partner Mickey Down called it “techno chatter” and said they tried to brush it off. Ha! “There’s no need to be so reckless,” tell that guy who says in the new season.

However, I am addicted to this show. I’ve learned to gauge the “liveliness” of an action scene—a problem, a celebration of a big win, a disaster that destroys this place, etc.—while waiting for the recurring rewards of what I’m really here for: sex, drugs, brawling. I’m like a child saying I’ve finished a book with a smile on my face, right after clicking through the picture pages.

However, when I get to an episode where, say, everything blows up at Marie Antoinette’s party at Muck manor, in a diabolical moment, it all makes sense. Holly Richardson

Twin Peaks

I’m not sure anyone, even David Lynch himself, could coherently explain what was going on in Twin Peaks, a show in which characters seem forever trapped in doorknobs and David Bowie’s reincarnation as a giant kettle seems par for the course. Although I was able to latch on to plot twists in the more conventional (though still largely unconventional) early 1990s seasons, my grip had completely softened by the time of the more complex revival in the mid-2000s.

Not that that was a turn-off. Much of the fun was watching Lynch and Mark Frost’s disorienting murder mystery, as a series of fantastic, impossible images and ideas fly at you from off-screen. And even if I couldn’t quite sum up its plot, on a purest, most primal level, I certainly understood and was moved by the show. After all, at its center is a simple, poignant story: a tenacious detective embarks on his decades-long quest to get justice for a murdered teenager. It so happened that in this traditional hero’s journey, there was the occasional pulsing brain tree or a little person talking backwards to keep viewers on their toes. Gwilym Mumford

Dragon House

I’ll admit it: I found the first season of Game of Thrones to be difficult. This is largely because trying to decipher the various family connections between the seven thousand letters feels like a GCSE history lesson with more flash. But at least they got one thing right: they did not give everyone almost identical names, and created entire families whose descendants were indistinguishable from each other.

Not so in House of the Dragon, where the future of the Seven Kingdoms seems to depend on whether the next ruler comes from a brunette family or one whose hairdresser has too much icy blonde dye they’re trying to change. Maybe some of them are related to the Mad King? Or is Paddy Considine the Mad King? Or has the Mad King not happened yet? Oh my God, the amount of questions each scene raises: Why does each family come up with one preposterous name, and then change the letters slightly for the rest of their massive collection of frogs? Are we really expected to also remember a whole bunch of dragons with no distinguishing characteristics other than the phrase “loves fire”?

Thank goodness, then, for young Jace Velaryon, the only one with a vaguely ordinary name—presumably named after his mother Rhaenyra’s love of Jason Donovan’s poetry in that 1988 classic, “Especially for You.” Although why they shorten it to “Jason” when they are perfectly capable of pronouncing words like “Rhaenyra” is beyond me. Oh, wait, I just Googled: his name is Jacaerys. This bloody show. Alexey Duggins

lost

I’m fully invested in Lost. I once watched so many hours of the first season in a row that I left my friend’s house cross-eyed and paranoid that other people were out to get me. When that episode ended with the reveal of the hatch – well, television has never felt so exciting? And of course, I will never forget the code 4 8 15 16 23 42, which had to be pressed every 108 minutes to save the world.

Many of us have binged on Lost from the beginning to the divisive purgatory ending, where it’s revealed that not all of them were dead all the time. (“You’re real. Everything that happened to you is real.”) However, from the beginning, the plane crash saga was a confusing, funny ride that you had to come to terms with.

Black smoke monster. Dharma Initiative. Polar bears, for pity’s sake. The truth is that the island cured people of their diseases. Temples and various other major buildings that they haven’t found in years! Giant Egyptian foot statue. The giant frozen wheel in the middle of the island means she traveled through time and disappeared at some point? None of it hung together, but I liked to let it wash over me anyway. Even polar bears. Kate Abbott

Morning show

Why is Reese Witherspoon in space? Why is Julianna Margulies so evil? Why does a TV director live in a mansion worthy of a tyrannical billionaire? Why are so many company employees exposed and photos leaked? Who gains what now?

These are just some of the many questions that run through my mind as I watch The Morning Show, which began as a searing post-#MeToo drama about the systematic cover-up of sexual misconduct by powerful men, and quickly devolved into rot of a more fascinating, more fascinating kind. At this point, it’s all superficial — a blazing surface on which Jennifer Aniston’s character runs with Jon Hamm’s very evil Elon Musk-type character — and I’m not complaining.

You could say that in itself is a biting commentary on how hard it is for news to compete with more exciting content these days. But it’s best not to overthink it and let the exaggerated comedic stories about artificial intelligence and Iran’s nuclear program wash over you like fancy bath oil. Laura Snaps

Rehearsal

On Nathan Fielder’s show “Nathan for You,” watch the Canadian spew absurd business advice — poop-flavored Froyo, a fake Starbucks justified by the parody law — while disturbing comedy meets critique of late capitalism. When it was announced that he would follow up on HBO’s The Rehearsal, with a blank check to deliver something truly great, I was thrilled. Its premise seems almost plausible: many people avoid difficult conversations or scenarios. What if you could “rehearse” them in elaborate sets with trained actors?

But actors don’t know what they’re signing up for before succumbing to the “Fielder Method” — which is essentially stalking a real person before unknowingly adopting their character on TV. In the heartbreaking Season 1 finale, a six-year-old actor “playing” Fielder’s son begins to believe that Fielder is actually his father.

Felder is disarmingly honest about making it up as he goes along and his potential to literally ruin people’s lives. While the voiceover helps guide viewers, the gimmicks, grand narratives, and straightforward shenanigans remain mystifying. Where does Felder get these ideas and what does he really hope to achieve?

Season 2 uses a more structured approach: Felder dutifully tries to reduce plane crashes by organizing pre-flight mediations between pilots, until the finale throws you for a loop of importance where you’ll find yourself thinking: “What did I just watch?” and “How can I enjoy a ‘normal’ show now?” Sasha Mistlin

Scandi noir

Murder. Borgen. Bridge. It was truly a golden age for the small screen and most of us couldn’t get enough. A large part of the appeal of these moody Norse sagas was their strangeness. The language was a puzzle: translation was obviously necessary but it was fun to achieve casual familiarity with a repeated phrase and enjoy the unique tone and texture of the dialogue. Then there was the aesthetic mood – all the snow crunching under sturdy boots, the cheerful knitwear, and the urgent conversations animated by billowing clouds of ice crystals.

There was a lot to think about other than the nuances of the plot, which, in my case, often came second (or even third or fourth) to enjoyment of the overall atmosphere. What’s really going on here? Ummm. Good question. Well, I’m sure Sarah Lund will sort it out for us… Phil Harrison