Zoren: For new streaming shows, 2 thumbs-ups and a just a so-so

It was a week of sampling.

The spring has arrived with new shows that piqued my interest, I chose three of them to get an impression.

Two I’ll watch again, one out of respect for some good elements that have not gone beyond admirable and bring satisfaction and promise and one because I am eager to go past the sample and see how it plays out.

The third show, though entertaining in its way, may get a second look, but it’s doubtful.

The promising show, which is also the classiest and best produced is “The Narrow Road to Deep North,” which began streaming Friday on Prime Video.

It attracted at first because of a 1940’s sensibility that wends into modern times and because the five-part series is based on a 2014 Richard Flanagan novel that earned that year’s Man Booker Prize, the only literary prize for which I have respect.

The show that intrigued me is “Your Friends and Neighbors” on that increasingly reliable streamer, Apple+. It ranked high on the sample list because it stars Jon Hamm, whose performances are always worth watching.

This series adds to the variety of them and displays more of Hamm’s talent.

The show that will be left to the delectation of others — I’ve talked to people who love it — is “Mid-Century Modern,” a Hulu series that wants to be a gay “Golden Girls” but tries too hard, pushed humor instead of letting it happen, and uses — gag, gag — a laugh track.

Frankly, I didn’t find its forced jokes funny enough, or its situations interesting enough to warrant a return visit.

“Deep North” may not become wildly popular, but it is rich in texture as it travels from the 1940’s war years to 1990’s Australia, covers both times well, and makes telling transitions from domestic life in Melbourne and Tasmania to a war setting, most notably aJapanese POW camp in which captured Australian soldiers are forced, “River Kwai-style” to build a railroad to “serve the Emperor” and “work off the shame of a being a prisoner.”

All parts of the show are presented engagingly and keep you involved in the various situations at hand, be they everyday, romantic, or intense.

Sequences of all kinds in all settings are presented in an adult manner and dramatize what is essentially human about individualsand the world in general.

The series appeals to the intellect. It lets its drama play out in each of its periods and settings.

Much of it takes place in the 40s and illustrates what I always find to be the thoughtfulness of the time.

I was born in the ’50s and grew up in the ’60s. I may be the only one of my generation who prefers the attitudes and outlook of an earlier time, the time of my parents.

Watching movies from the ’40s, whether pre-war, midwar, or post-war, made me admire the sensibility of the period. Characters in those movies were so adult compared to the childishness I lived through in the late ’60s.

Ingrid Bergman, Teresa Wright, Dana Andrews, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Maureen O’Hara, and others knew how to have a good time and enjoy life while accepting its responsibilities.

Their relationships had more depth and their discussions about life, while not erudite or lofty, had a ring of sincerity and purpose that is missing in film from the ’80s and later.

By the 21st century, much of what I liked in people from the ’40s is gone, replaced by neuroses and self-conscious. Today’s characters seem less complete, more unable to balance a life that incudes going out dancing or taking a meaningful walk with supporting oneself and living sensibly.

I can’t tell you how many contemporary movies I see and ask, “Where is Celeste Holm,” the woman whose character solved every other character’s problems, when we need her?”

I see the sensibility I describe in “The Narrow Road to Deep North.”

A conversation the lead character, Dorrigo Evans — Jacob Elordi in the ’40s; Ciarán Hinds in the 90s — has with his aunt (Odessa Young), a younger woman, more his age than his uncle’s, with whom he finds mutual attraction, was flirtatious and smart at the same time.

It smacked of adulthood, a talk that made points yet remained adult. It didn’t try to knock socks off the way most 21st century scriptsto.

Ironic considering it is a 21st century script, a good one by Shaun Grant.

War scenes, in both the base where the Australian soldiers were captured and the POW camp in which they’re imprisoned, have a contrapuntal combination of camaraderie and hardship.

You see the men joking, even to the point of spoofing “Romeo and Juliet” in front of the generally stern Japanese captors, and you see them living through the horrors of battle and the brutality of life in a camp in which forced labor is the rule.

“The Narrow Road to Deep North” is a series I enjoy for the way Grant and director Justin Kurzal tell its broad and far-reaching story.

“Your Friends and Neighbors” I watch for its genuine wit, its jaundiced views of success, the reveries that punctuate Jon Hamm’s character’s life, and the way it leads into overarching premise, Hamm as a man who begins to break into affluent people’s houses, first to see how opulently and materially they live and later to bask in some of their secrets.

Oddly, Hamm’s opening monologue as Andrew “ ‘Coop’ Cooper,” a hedge fund pro recently driven from his job, almost had me crying “Next” and looking for another show to sample.

That reverie, an explanation of the unsettling scene that begins “Your Friends and Neighbors” was playing at being smart but veering towards the self-consciousness that kills so much 21st century writing.

Let’s say that reverie was too clever, so much so it sounded as if the writers were showing off instead of leading in to a story.

Luckily, the show acquires more sparkle, a wry giddiness, as it proceeds and becomes quite entertaining. Writer Jonathan Tropper grabs command of his sharp humor.

You’re not only willing to go into Coop’s mind and share his clear yet ironic way of seeing things, but you look forward to each plot sequence and the monologue that follows it.

Once “Your Friends and Neighbors” finds its stride, the show becomes brittlely sophisticated.

Tropper’s humor carries it. Hamm plays Coop with his usual sure-handed aplomb, and what develops into a comically suburban “Breaking Bad” is one enjoyable ride you want to keep taking.

Coop could easily be a villain, especially after you seeing him taking cash and an expensive watch without the slightest hesitation or regret, but you find yourself on his side because everyone else seems so small or relatively uninteresting.

It turns out Coop’s friends and neighbors are not that conventional, but his style of walking on the wild side attracts, no short measure because of Jon Hamm’s shrewd nonchalant performance.

Harkening back to “The Narrow Road to Deep North” for a second, Jonathan Tropper also writes some adult dialogue that doesn’t sound 21st century phony.

The scene between Coop and the woman who inadvertently causes him to lose his job, is a gem of writing.

The scene also shows the stupidity of laws and policies that fail to take into account specific situations and effects and go straight to modern moralism.

My first impression of “Mid-Century Modern” was skewed by a technical glitch.

For some reason, the show came on, but the video didn’t.

I heard Nathan Lane, Nathan Lee Graham, and eventually, Matt Bomer talking but I couldn’t see them or where they were.

Naturally, I corrected the situation. Above all, I wanted to see where the gales of laughter I heard were coming from. I could tell the setting was some kind of memorial.

It was in fact a funeral for the fourth musketeer in the band of gay friends Lane, Bomer and Graham represent. And the laughs were from a laugh track?

I may like ’50s entertainment, but I can live without canned laughter, especially at jokes that might rate a chortle if delivered ad lib at party but which die on the vine when they come at you rehearsed and with a wink to tell you something funny is allegedly being said.

I have to be fair. “Mid-Century Modern” has its share of cute one-liners. The problem is they’re more the type that make you laugh to yourself, “That was funny,” more than they generate genuine laughs.

Which the laugh track tells you they don’t.

“Mid-Century Modern” tries too hard to entertain, so hard it misses the mark.

Lane and Graham can handle any punch line, and Bomer has the “Rose” act from “Golden Girls” down pat, but the humor is too forced, too much a like a nonstop gag machine to create what “The Golden Girls” easily could: heart.

Doubly sad is the best performer on “Mid-Century” is Linda Lavin, who play’s Lane’s character’s mother.

Lavin gives lessons on how to nail a decent line. She is able to do so for several episodes. Unfortunately, Linda Lavin dies before the first season of “Mid-Century” is finished.

Her character’s death is noted but is basically unexplained.

On-air changes at WRTI

Jazz programming at WRTI (90.1 FM) now kicks off with Nicole Sweeney, who arrived earlier this month to take over the 6 to 9 p.m. host slot vacated by Greg Bryant at New Year’s and ably presided over by Josh Jackson since then.

Sweeney comes to ‘RTI from WCLK in Atlanta, where she worked for several years in a pivotal role similar to the one she has assumed. Through arriving from out of town, she is no stranger to WRTI.

A Temple alumna, with a 2004 degree in communications, Sweeney was an intern at the station, one of three internships she held in Philadelphia broadcasting. She was hired by ‘RTI and worked on its overnight show before heading to Atlanta.

Bryant, whose 90.1 tenure seemed short, moved to Los Angeles in January. Jackson, the station’s associate general manager for programming and content, did his usual fine job filling in until Sweeney was chosen and could start.

WRTI splits its day between classical music (6 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and jazz (6 p.m. to 6 a.m.).

That makes the leadoff role for both types of music critical.

Monday to Thursday, Sweeney is followed at 9 p.m. by Miss (Courtney) Blue, who has a particular ear for vocalists and hands off the jazz mike at midnight to Bobbi Booker for overnight.

Weekends feature shows by J, Michael Harrison and David Ortiz.

Times have changed since I began writing about broadcasting in 1977.

If I was not a regular listener to WRTI, I’d have never known about these comings and goings. Once upon a time, stations sent releases to reporters and columnists about on-air changes, so we could tell you.

Luckily, at some point in January, I noticed that Josh Jackson was on at 6 too often for Greg Bryant to be on vacation. I liked Bryant, but I liked Jackson better because he is more fussless and natural in his approach to presenting the music.

His knowledge of jazz, its performers, and discography shows and is delivered conversationally instead of being flashy or in a way that makes it sound likes he’s showing off.

Last week, I heard Sweeney for the first time, checked the ‘RTI web site, and saw the shift had been made.

So far, so good.

It takes time to get used to a new host, especially since Jackson made the 6 p.m. show so listenable.

One of the reasons it took me a while to catch up is in the throes of the Eagles’ Super Bowl season and the recent start to regular Phillies games, I was parked on WIP (94.1 FM) a lot.

Now, unless I hear Scott Franzke, some other Phillies commentator, Rob Ellis or Jody McDonald, I flee ‘IP for my listening life.

Classical and jazz are my go-to genres.

I am grateful WRTI exists, as well as my other default, WPHT (1210 AM), so I can be spared some of the shriller — and less interesting, inevitably irritating — 94.1 evening hosts.

Something sad I learned while looking to see where Sweeney came from and Bryant went was the Jan. 19 passing of Bob Perkins, a longtime host of the 6 to 9 p.m. shift at WRTI and a personal Sunday morning tradition for many years.

Called B.P. (his initials) with the G.M. (good music), Perkins regaled his audience with encyclopedic knowledge of jazz from the days of Handy, Smith and Joplin to now, and wonderful stories of the fabled musicians he met and interviewed along the way.

Perkins’ delivery was his own. He often sounded as if he was the wise old veteran spinning yarns from his rocking chair.

The pace was slow, the tone was quiet, there were clicks and pauses, the mike seemed non-existent, but you had to pay attention to take in and appreciate all the history and backstories B.P. could relate from memory, experience and sheer love of the art he sought, enjoyed, and brought to others every day of a long and respected career.

Jan. 19, 2025, will go down as a day of memoriam in Philadelphia broadcasting history.

On the same day Perkins left us at age 91, another authentic media pioneer, Dorie Lenz, passed at age 101.

Looking at those ages, I have to say, “At least we had the good fortune to know and have B.P. and Dorie around us, educating us, and creating so much fun for so many years.”