Olympics Fever leaves us with Netflix's farcical plague dramedy

Two weeks until the fever breaks...

Do you have Olympics fever? The TV networks and streamers are pretty sure audiences are going to be distracted by all those hot bodies and medals, so they’re not doing a whole lot to court your interest.

Which isn’t to say it is a ghost town, TV wise. Well, not entirely.

I haven’t seen it yet, but The Decameron on Netflix is apparently a very easy, entertaining watch. But, perhaps, too light on either laughs or drama. It’s about what the rich folk get up to while hiding from the common folk during the black plague.

Alison Herman at Variety was into it:

While “The Decameron” may not reach the heights of Mike White’s contingency plan turned HBO crown jewel, the series is a tartly funny showcase for a uniformly excellent ensemble. (Executive producer Jenji Kohan, of “Orange Is the New Black,” knows a thing or two about sprawling casts funneled into a single location.) As the days tick by and desperation mounts, the forced politeness of strangers forced to share space and potentially toxic air gives way to mounting chaos. Fortunately, we’re far enough removed from lockdown to appreciate the setup as a vessel for black comedy, not just a reminder of what we’d rather forget.

Lucy Mangan at The Guardian was a bit ho-hum on it:

The success of Bridgerton has meant that the schedules are now flooded with historical content of all kinds, from the great The Great to the impressive Mary & George, to Sally Wainwright’s unexpected entry into the field with Renegade Nell, to the eccentric but endearing My Lady Jane (what if the Nine Day Queen had lived?!). The Decameron falls between too many stools to be a triumph. But it is full of nice performances and lovely gowns (jewel-toned medieval drapery always beats 18th-century pastel puffery for me) and is good enough to mark out a place for itself even in the middle of the current glut of similar offerings. Have fun.

Nandini Balial at RogerEbert.com was far less into it:

But just in case the viewer is led astray by the title, Netflix’s new limited series borrows only the title of Boccaccio’s book, and instead imagines how the guests behaved during their rural sojourn. Because it is merely inspired by and not based on the original stories, the series lacks nuance, its point of view is about as sharp as a daytime soap opera, and for the life of me I don’t know how these scripts made it into production. This is perhaps the worst series to hit the airwaves since HBO’s “The Time-Traveler’s Wife,” a feat I did not even think possible. 

I’d also recommend giving Tokyo Swindlers a look - it’s a Japanese real estate heist show. That sounds pretty good to me.

So, as I said. there’s not nothing on. But… things are light.

If you are in Sydney, Australia on Saturday night looking for something fun, might I recommend stepping away from your TV set to watch something you may have watched on TV many, many times before.

My pal Simon Foster, as part of the Sydney Sci-Fi Film Festival (which kicks off later this year) is doing monthly curated screenings at the Blacktown drive-in. This month he is screening 80s VHS classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. I reckon that’s a great night out of the house. You can buy tickets at the Event Cinemas website.