Adapted from the 2018 novel by Elin Hilderbrand, the plot kicks off at a Nantucket wedding hosted by the groom’s wealthy parents, played by Kidman and Liev Schreiber. Everything is elegant and photo-ready at the Winbury family’s waterfront estate. Then a dead body turns up in the water. The nuptials are postponed and the police bring in each person, one by one — guests, employees, members of the family — for questioning. How inconvenient for the Winburys, who are all about their gleaming facade, no matter how fake. This is a family that occasionally asks their nearest and dearest to sign NDAs, so their obsession with appearances and obfuscation complicates the investigation.

Kidman is at the top of her game here as a regal, glorious snob who is unflappable, but wound so tight she just might snap. She’s a famous writer of murder mysteries (ironic!) and she’s the one who makes this lifestyle possible. Her husband comes from family money that has since evaporated, so it’s her sizable income that’s paying the bills. (It’s unclear if anyone else in the family actually works.) The pressure to keep up appearances isn’t just about social class, but about maintaining their carefully crafted personas — the perfect couple of the title — that has been so lucrative for her as an author. Schreiber, with his perpetual stubble and sun-kissed complexion, embodies a guy who is both sexy and unbothered. Perpetually on vacation, he’s content to smoke pot all day and be everyone’s object of desire.

They have three sons — too dull to name or describe — and the dysfunctions of the family become the central drama. Dakota Fanning plays a mean girl who is deeply unhappy beneath it all — of course she is, she’s married to a dud waiting to cash in on his Winbury trust fund. Meghann Fahy is the maid of honor, and her performance is not unlike her turn on “The White Lotus” — sunny but hiding many secrets. That’s no insult to Fahy, she’s extremely good, but here’s hoping she doesn’t get typecast, she seems too talented for that. Eve Hewson plays the bride, who isn’t embraced by the family so much as tolerated and she brings a reluctant energy to the proceedings. Is this really all it’s cracked up to be? She’s down-to-earth and has modest origins that are a world away from this “stratospherically high rent district,” as the enclave of second (or third or fourth) homes is described in the novel.

The show has streamlined and tweaked the book, which means many of Hilderbrand’s droll observations about wealth have been excised (one of the Winbury’s cars, as seen through the eyes of the bride’s mother, “looks exactly like what people drive in across savannas of Africa on the Travel Channel”).

Changes are part and parcel of adaptation, and expected. But Netflix is treating the identity of the drowned person as a spoiler initially — first we must meet all the players at the rehearsal dinner on the beach before we find out which one turns up dead — whereas the book lays out this information from the start. The mystery of who has been killed, which we learn soon enough anyway, is so much less interesting than the how and why and whodunit of it all. I say all this to suggest that perhaps we (and by we, I mean producers and media executives) have put too much stock in the power of spoilers when, really, good storytelling is enough.

“The Perfect Couple” needn’t have worried. Entertainingly absorbing and beautiful to look at, the show (created by Jenna Lamia and directed by Susanne Bier) has “general audience” written all over it and is a great example of what the genre can be when it’s handled with skill and wit. It’s more or less an Agatha Christie manor house mystery given an American sensibility, and the resolution, which is just one of the many ways the Netflix series diverges from the book, is a massive improvement from the source material.

There is no primarily point-of-view character but Hewson’s bride might be the most vital; she’s underwritten (that’s an issue with most of the lineup here), but her growing suspicion of the family she plans to marry into prevents the show from becoming yet another exercise in wealthaganda. Her distrust is the necessary splash of cold water on the show’s aspirational trappings — she’s an outsider who sees how empty this all is, and has no problem voicing her concerns. She’s not just another hanger-on hoping to benefit from their largess and it’s the essential perspective usually missing in these kinds of shows.

“The Perfect Couple” — 3.5 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Netflix

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

Based on Mick Herron’s Slough House book series — named for the dingy London headquarters where the slow horses have been banished —  Season 4 adapts the 2017 novel “Spook Street.” It begins with a bang, as David Cartwright (Jonathan Pryce) blows away someone he believes has infiltrated his home. Who the hell did he just kill?

Lamb (Gary Oldman) arrives and, with typical unemotional disinterest, IDs the body. Chances are, he’s lying about whose corpse lies splayed in that bathtub. It’s a choice that has all the hallmarks of the simple but necessary subterfuge that is Lamb’s stock in trade.

Meanwhile, a car bomb has exploded in London and Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas, formidable as ever) is tasked with finding out what happened and preventing any further incidents. One of the long-running jokes of the series is that, as MI5’s No. 2, the top job remains forever just out of reach. That means she’s stuck answering to intellectually inferior men and she can’t help but cop an attitude in her own pristine way. But it’s never clear what drives her. Does she actually care about preventing carnage and something as squishy as … human lives? “There isn’t a big picture to running an intelligence agency,” she sighs, “it’s just putting out fires every bloody day.” Maybe she’s just obsessed with the job and the power it confers.

Somehow the car bomb and that death in David Cartwright’s home are connected, which necessitates a sojourn to France, where someone has tried to raise a small army of killers from birth. For what purpose? Unclear. But this ragtag paramilitary operation has fallen apart now that its members have grown into adults. What remains are just a few thugs, but their leader (Hugo Weaving) has an important connection to old man Cartwright and lingering resentments have a way of, well, lingering. Weaving is especially good as an entirely realistic villain, playing him with an American accent and an American sense of entitlement. It is a wonderfully grounded contrast to his similarly nefarious Agent Smith from “The Matrix” franchise. A more complex performance, too.

If the show’s third season was unusually obsessed with guns, the violence here erupts with more thought and narrative purpose and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. As a series, “Slow Horses” doesn’t offer tightly plotted, clockwork spy stories; think too deeply about any of the details and the whole thing threatens to fall apart. But on a scene-by-scene basis, the writing is such a delicious combination of wry and tension-filled, and the cumulative effect is wonderfully entertaining. Spies have to deal with petty office politics like everyone else!

Even so, I remain unconvinced the show knows what to do with its various slow horses. Outside of River Cartwright (Jack Lowden), who is intense and droll, they are too one-dimensional to justify their screen time. The rancid charisma of Lamb (who seems slightly less putrid this season; he’s still a greasy mess, but the dark overcoat he wears pulls him together in a way that his rumpled raincoat never did) and Taverner’s wily gamesmanship do much of the heavy lifting. Oldman and Thomas are the kind of seasoned performers who bring real vitality to their knives-out dynamic, which more or less repeats itself each season. That’s not a complaint. “Slow Horses” doesn’t pretend that the series or its characters need to evolve in order to remain interesting. Tackling a new case each season, while keeping the same format and framework, is enormously satisfying when done well. And it’s one of the few shows that has avoided the dreaded one or two year delay between seasons that has become standard for streaming. Instead, it provides the kind of reliability that has become increasingly rare. It probably helps that each season is based on one of Herron’s books.

A consistent theme in “Slow Horses” is that the younger generation — even the non-screwups at The Park, Slough House’s upscale counterpart — aren’t especially good at this spy stuff. At least, they’re no match for the cagey instincts and hard-won experience of Lamb and Taverner and anyone else who cut their teeth during the Cold War. It’s not that the old guard are invulnerable, they’re just smarter somehow. The newer generation? One bad guy manages to pull off an ambush that thwarts all their training. Herron and the show aren’t just cynical about MI5’s corruption, they’re cynical about the agency’s ability to do anything even remotely resembling the job at hand.

“Slow Horses” Season 4 — 3 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Apple TV+

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

The disappointment is real — but this is also a romanticization of the past. TV has always been profit over art. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help us understand what’s happening now.

But I get why it’s easy to buy into the fantasy that things were better before streaming upended everything. Survivorship bias means we remember all those old network shows that ran for multiple seasons and then lived on in reruns, but not the countless others — and truly, the numbers are staggering — that were canceled only a few episodes in, becoming yet more pop cultural detritus consigned to the Hollywood junk heap.

But it’s never been this bad — right? I don’t know if that’s accurate either! Around 600 scripted shows premiered in 2022. But go back 20 years, to 2002, and that number was 182. More shows are getting made, therefore more shows are getting canceled. But proportionally, the percentage canceled might not be drastically different.

With the traditional broadcast model, a long-running hit with 22 episodes a season can mean big profits, especially in syndication. For generations, that financial incentive also did the work of shaping audience expectations for the regularity that came with long-running shows.

None of this applies to streaming originals. That’s because money isn’t pouring in — at least, not money pegged to individual shows. The business model is different, which means the goals are different. Here’s how entertainment journalist Rick Ellis explains the thought process in his Too Much TV newsletter: “While many people in Hollywood don’t want to believe it, three new originals with eight-episode seasons are better for subscriber numbers than one show with 24 episodes. Especially because three different shows provides more of a chance you’ll have one that breaks out with audiences.”

Perhaps! But this has left audiences feeling forsaken. And people who make their living in television are experiencing one of the most intense periods of professional destabilization in recent memory.

Who wants a diet of short-run shows only? Maybe it wouldn’t feel so dire if a nice chunk of streaming shows — 10 or 15 of them across different platforms — were getting multiple seasons.

The history of television is littered with shows that barely made it to double-digit episodes, but there were always exceptions — shows that struggled in the early going but were given a chance to find an audience. That’s not because executives were more nurturing than they are now; if a show with mediocre ratings stayed on the schedule, it was probably because there was nothing else to fill the slot.

The 1979-80 TV season was notorious for the number of shows that failed, including “Salvage 1” starring Andy Griffith as a guy who recovered abandoned space junk and used it to build his own rocket. Fourteen episodes aired in the first season. When the second season rolled around, the network aired just two episodes before pulling it off the schedule for good. Imagine how frustrated audiences must have been! But that wasn’t uncommon; four or eight episodes might air and then — poof — suddenly a show was gone because it was a ratings disaster. At least with streaming, you’re getting a completed season (even if it’s short) before it’s canceled.

Here’s another frustration you hear right now: Hollywood has never been more obsessed with IP, aka intellectual property. I agree that this endless lineup of prequels and reboots and adaptations is tiresome. No one wants to take a risk on original ideas. But let’s not fall into the trap of revisionist history, either. Going back decades, spinoffs have always been part of the TV landscape, which is really just another way of saying … IP

IMDb has a page listing “Short Lived TV Shows 1970’s/80’s” and it’s a fascinating time capsule. Never heard of most of these shows. But what’s really surprising is just how many were based on movies (cough, IP once again).

Scroll down the list and … there was a TV series based on “Casablanca”?? (Lasted all of five episodes; maybe Sam got tired of playing that piano every week.) There was another based on “The King and I.” Also: “Breaking Away,” “Animal House,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “The Four Seasons,” “Logan’s Run” and more — all hoping to be the next “M*A*S*H,” I’m guessing.

I’m not in the prediction business and I can’t say whether the TV industry can recover if it continues to abandon the kind of long-running shows that become part of the fabric of our pop cultural lives. But it’s also a mistake to think through the current challenges if we’re only taking into account what’s transpired over the last 10 years or so.

Viewer discontent is real. Media bosses might want to start taking that seriously again.

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

Nothing seems amiss at first. There’s no body or obvious crime scene. But Sazz hasn’t been answering calls or texts, and once Charles and his pals start poking around, they realize there’s been another murder in the building. Slowly but surely, they piece together the clues.

In an amusing twist, Hollywood has come calling. A studio wants to turn their podcast into a movie. So off they go to the Paramount lot in Los Angeles to sign away their life rights. This is such an enjoyably meta idea, because both Steve Martin and Martin Short have a rich history of satirizing show business in general, and the vapidness of Los Angeles in particular. Unleashing Charles and Oliver’s neuroses and egos in a Hollywood setting works as well as expected, largely because Selena Gomez’s Mabel functions as a splash of vinegar. She is less dazzled, and skeptical about the whole thing.

But all the pieces are already in place, including a script, a cast and a directing duo who are fresh off a “heart-wrenching, deeply, deeply viral Walmart ad campaign.” The directors are sisters whose last name is Brothers. They are the Brothers sisters. The show’s delight in wordplay remains intact!

I’m generally less enthusiastic about the show’s (over)reliance on A-list guest stars to fill out its world, with the exceptions of Shirley MacLaine (Season 2) and Meryl Streep (Season 3 and a brief return in Season 4). But you can’t argue with the lineup this season. Molly Shannon is the sharklike studio exec who has hired Eugene Levy to play Charles, Zach Galifianakis to play Oliver and Eva Longoria to play Mabel, whose character has been aged up by a couple of decades because apparently focus groups found the real age gap creepy. (Since when has Hollywood cared about that?!) Galifianakis is especially prickly about the gig and proposes a risky take on the character: “I was thinking about maybe playing him talented.”

At the studio, our New York threesome stumble upon a Hollywood backlot version of their home city — an old-school rap beat plays as a guy pushes a hot dog cart and a mother leans over the fire escape to holler at her kid — and it’s funny because this blatantly and hilariously corny depiction of a quasi-Washington Heights neighborhood is no less stereotypical than the show’s own depiction of New York’s Upper West Side.

They don’t stay in LA for long. Back at The Arconia, their glorious apartment building, they find proof that Sazz (Jane Lynch, who is piquant in all the right ways) is indeed dead. Even so, she shows up as a ghostly apparition who accompanies Charles on his quest to solve her murder — or, she tells him, maybe she’s just a “manifestation of your rapidly declining mental state.” His grief feels more poignant this time and losing his friend seems to cut him deeper than the previous tragedies he’s weathered.

The show’s great balancing act — between humor and moments that hit you in the gut — has always been its strength. Melissa McCarthy’s comedic instincts fit right in, as Charles’ over-the-top sister, with whom they temporarily bunk at her house on Staten Island. She is somehow melancholic and exuberant all at once.

A bar frequented by stunt performers is called Concussions and it’s the kind of throwaway but memorable joke that has you think: Please let this silly-smart show continue for a few seasons more, with its vulnerable, sardonic, wonderfully screwball outlook on life and death and everything in between.

“Only Murders in the Building” Season 4 — 3 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Hulu

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

Even so, it’s not the deluge of the recent past.

Six hundred scripted shows premiered in 2022. That was never going to be realistic long-term and media companies have cut back. But it’s also made the professional lives of screenwriters and others in Hollywood more precarious than ever (unless you’re a big-name star). Overall, Hollywood remains in a state of flux, with layoffs at Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Global. The latter — which is the parent company to a sizable chunk of TV operations, including CBS, Showtime, Comedy Central and Paramount+ — may or may not have a new owner by the time you read this, with two rival bids duking it out. What either outcome means for you, the viewer, is unclear.

I would be remiss for not mentioning that one of the best shows in recent memory isn’t premiering this fall; it just became available on Netflix and is probably new to most viewers. That would be AMC’s “Interview with the Vampire,” which is smart and funny and far better than any adaptation has a right to be. I don’t even like vampire stories, but here I am, in the bag for this one.

With that out of the way, here’s a snapshot of the coming weeks, presented in chronological order. It’s a fever dream of adaptations because Hollywood’s love affair with IP (intellectual property) continues unabated.

“Slow Horses” (Sept. 4 on Apple TV+): The British spy series returns for Season 4 with an adaptation of Mick Herron’s “Spook Street,” which centers Jonathan Pryce’s recurring character, who may not be long for this world: “What happens when an old spook loses his mind? Does the Service have a retirement home for those who know too many secrets but don’t remember they’re secret? Or does someone take care of the senile spy for good?”

“Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist” (Sept. 5 on Peacock): Adapted from a true-crime podcast, the limited series tells the story of an armed robbery that took place on the night of Muhammad Ali’s 1970 comeback fight in Atlanta. Here’s how the podcast describes the crime: After the fight, guests attending an after-party (thrown by a hustler known as Chicken Man) were greeted not with food and drink, but the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. Starring Kevin Hart as Chicken Man and Don Cheadle as the police detective assigned to the case.

“How to Die Alone” (Sept. 13 on Hulu): Natasha Rothwell (“Insecure” and “The White Lotus”) stars in this comedy as a millennial stuck in a miserable existence: “I’m broke, my family thinks I’m a lost cause, my love life is a joke and the punchline is, I work at an airport.” A brush with death prompts her to start taking chances.

“Three Women” (Sept. 13 on Starz): The drama centers on the lives of three women (talk about an accurate title!) including a suburban housewife who begins an extramarital affair, an entrepreneur navigating an open marriage and a student who accuses a teacher of an inappropriate relationship. All three tell their stories to a character played by Shailene Woodley.

“Moonflower Murders” (Sept. 15 on PBS Masterpiece): A former book editor living in Greece and running a hotel (played by Lesley Manville) is drawn back into her old literary world when she’s asked to figure out whether a novel about a murder is fact or fiction. Based on the book by Anthony Horowitz.

“Agatha All Along” (Sept. 18 on Disney+): “WandaVision” was the first Marvel TV series to premiere on the streamer and it remains the best. That’s because it eschewed your typical superhero storyline in favor of the cheeky and bizarre, plunking down a couple of MCU characters into various sitcom templates of old. It also featured a very funny performance from Kathryn Hahn, and her character’s long-gestating, witch-focused spinoff is finally here. The teaser suggests the show will be entirely different in tone and interests than its predecessor. That’s not a selling point for me, but Hahn is so … decisions, decisions.

“The Penguin” (Sept. 19 on HBO): This eight-episode TV series from DC Studios puts Batman nemesis The Penguin front and center, played by Colin Farrell under 576 layers of prosthetics. (I’m exaggerating, but he’s as unrecognizable as he was in 2022’s “The Batman.”) The premise is very Batman-saga-meets-the-Italian mob.

“Frasier” (Sept. 19 on Paramount+): I wasn’t a fan of the first season of this reboot, which had no understanding of what made Frasier Crane — and the people surrounding him — so much fun. But here we are with Season 2, which is loading up on guest stars from the original show — including Dan Butler as Bob “Bulldog” Briscoe, Edward Hibbert as Gil Chesterton and Harriet Sansom Harris as Frasier’s agent, Bebe Glazer — with Frasier returning to his own radio station in Seattle for an episode. Peri Gilpin, who played Roz, will also appear as a recurring character.

“A Very Royal Scandal” (Sept. 19 on Amazon): In 2019, Britain’s Prince Andrew gave a now-infamous TV interview about his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, which ultimately led to him withdrawing from official royal duties. The backstory of how that interview came together has already been adapted for the screen by Netflix and it was a pointless exercise with a self-congratulatory tone. But at least it was only a movie-length treatment. Amazon’s upcoming version is spread out over three episodes and stars Michael Sheen and Ruth Wilson.

“Matlock” (Sept. 22 on CBS): The original “Matlock” of the 1980s and ’90s was an Atlanta-set legal drama starring Andy Griffith. This new version has an actor just as beloved at its center — Kathy Bates — but the premise is slightly different. She plays Madeline Matlock, a folksy defense attorney who, thanks to her rotten finances, can’t retire just yet, so she seeks out an entry-level job at a slick corporate firm in New York. But the real story — her real motivation for working there — is more complicated. That part makes up the ongoing storyline, while each week there’s a new client to defend.

“Midnight Family” (Sept. 24 on Apple TV+ ): The Spanish-language series follows a med student in Mexico City who moonlights as part of her family’s privately-owned ambulance service. It’s adapted from the absorbing 2019 documentary of the same title, which is well worth seeking out whether you plan to watch the Apple series or not (it’s streaming free on Pluto). Here’s a bit from my write-up when it screened locally:

“Mexico City has a population of 9 million, but according to a figure provided at the film’s beginning, the government operates fewer than 45 emergency ambulances. Privately operated ambulances attempt to fill in those gaps and director Luke Lorentzen’s high-adrenaline vérité film offers an immersive look at this underground economy, as seen through the eyes of one family-run business. … The documentary is the antithesis of eat-your-vegetables filmmaking. It has the intensity of an action film and the moodiness of a noir. It’s thrillingly shot and incredibly thought-provoking. It’s one of my favorite documentaries in recent memory. … You worry for everyone — patients (who are having one of the worst days of their lives) and paramedics alike. The latter are frequently stopped by police, who shake them down for bribes. This becomes a major impediment; they are barely getting by.”

“The Last Days of the Space Age” (Oct. 2 on Hulu): Starring “Chicago Fire” alum Jesse Spencer, this eight-part dramedy is set in Perth, Australia. The year is 1979: Power workers are on strike, the city is hosting the Miss Universe pageant and the U.S. space station, Skylab, is about to crash nearby. According to the show’s description: “Against this backdrop of international cultural and political shifts, three families in a tight-knit coastal community find their marriages, friendships and futures put to the test.”

“Disclaimer” (Oct. 11 on Apple TV+): Cate Blanchett stars in this limited series from Alfonso Cuarón playing a powerful and celebrated journalist whose personal secrets are revealed in a novel by an unknown author played by Kevin Kline, who is looking to humiliate the woman he believes is responsible for his own pains and losses. Sacha Baron Cohen plays her wealthy husband.

“Ghosts” (Oct. 17 on CBS): This sitcom about the misadventures of ghosts trapped in a manor house and their human companions wasn’t nominated for a best comedy Emmy this year, despite being one of the funniest shows on TV right now. Much as I admire “The Bear,” which is nominated for best comedy, here’s a show that’s consistently comedic each episode … but I digress.

“Poppa’s House” (Oct. 21 on CBS): Starring Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr. as father and son, the idea for the sitcom came about when a house across the street from Wayans Jr. became available and Wayans Sr. considered buying it. And then he reconsidered. “I was like, ‘Hell no!’ because their mother would be like, ‘Go to your Poppa’s house!’ Everybody would be sending them to me,” he said in a recent interview. “I told my agent, and he said, ‘That’s a show!’”

“Before” (Oct. 25 on Apple TV+): Billy Crystal stars in this 10-episode psychological thriller as a widower and child psychiatrist treating a young patient who has a haunting connection to his past. A rare dramatic role for Crystal.

“The Marlow Murder Club” (Oct. 27 on PBS Masterpiece): From the creator of “Death in Paradise” (yet another Masterpiece mainstay) comes the TV adaptation of “The Marlow Murder Club” book series, which follows a retired archaeologist who teams up with a dog walker and a vicar’s wife. Together they become an amateur trio of sleuths in England, piecing together clues and grilling witnesses.

“St. Denis Medical” (Nov. 12 on NBC): We haven’t had a hospital comedy on network TV since “Scrubs.” This one is a mockumentary from Justin Spitzer (“Superstore”), but another clear inspiration here is “The Office.” The trailer looks promising! Hopefully the show will be able to score some satirical points about how absurd and frustrating so much of our health care system has become. Among the cast are comedic ringers including David Alan Grier, “Superstore” alum Kaliko Kauahi, Wendi McLendon-Covey (now freed up from her long run on “The Goldbergs”) and Allison Tolman.

“Cross” (Nov. 14 on Amazon): Aldis Hodge (“Leverage”) stars in this TV adaptation of the Alex Cross book series as a detective and forensic psychologist who digs into the psyches of killers and their victims in order to identify — and ultimately capture — the culprits.

“Landman” (Nov. 17 on Paramount+): Starring Billy Bob Thornton, the series is set amid the oil boomtowns of Texas and is based on the podcast “Boomtown,” offering an “upstairs/downstairs story of roughnecks and wildcat billionaires fueling a boom so big, it’s reshaping our climate, our economy and our geopolitics.” Would it surprise you to learn the series was created by “Yellowstone’s” Taylor Sheridan, who has become the key force behind most of Paramount+’s recent output?

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

The pair had been eyeing a career of Grand Slam wins together before an injury put an end to all that. Five years later, Justine is working as a physiotherapist at a posh tennis academy with lush grass courts on a country estate. Now in her early 20s, her life is considerably less dazzling as she tries to manage her simmering rage and disappointment with boozy nights out. Meanwhile, her ex-coach, Glenn, has moved on with another player, who has just won the French Open. Did you watch the match, asks Justine’s mother? She shakes her head no. “Why would I fangirl over the coach who ditched me?”

When Glenn returns to England to work at the same tennis academy where Justine is currently employed, she’s less than happy about this turn of events. His presence has a way of rubbing his success (and their shared history) in her face. Hence her decision to go public with that explosive accusation. Whether anyone will believe her is an open question, including close friends and even her mother, who have all weathered Justine’s tenuous relationship to the truth.

The intimacy between a coach and athlete often goes unexplored in real-life or fictional contexts. That’s what “Fifteen-Love,” from show creator Hania Elkington, is interrogating. When does it go over the line? What does that look like? (The show premiered in the UK last summer on Amazon; not sure why it’s getting its U.S. premiere on Sundance Now, but such are the vagaries of streaming.) Whereas filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s recent and similarly tennis-themed “Challengers” comes across like a series of provocations, “Fifteen-Love” is aiming for something meatier while also indulging in plenty of entertaining twists and turns.

Talented and good at her job, Justine is also obsessive, inappropriate and stunted. She comes to work hungover and her reckless unpredictability doesn’t match the academy’s upscale vibe, whereas Glenn fits right in and is trusted implicitly. He’s a smooth operator and an egomaniac who is either adept at managing the needy psychology of elite athletes, or a master manipulator — or maybe both. Is Justine getting screwed over, or is she trying to screw him over? She’s a loose cannon and messy enough that someone might believe she’s lobbing false accusations to torpedo Glenn’s future. But that doesn’t automatically mean he’s not a predator. So who is the lying party?

Smartly, the series doesn’t rely on this mystery to carry the entire narrative, but reveals the truth halfway through the six-episode season, when the story shifts into a thriller about whether it’s even possible to hold people accountable.

Vulnerable and mouthy and charming despite all her rough edges, actress Ella Lily Hyland keeps you guessing just enough in the beginning about Justine’s motives. That she resembles Anna Kournikova is just an extra bonus that sells the tennis of it all. As Glenn, Aidan Turner is doing all kinds of interesting things that simultaneously lean into and subvert the hunky leading man persona he crafted for Masterpiece’s “Poldark,” his best known role in the U.S.

Justine walked away from tennis after a lingering wrist injury that may have worsened for suspicious reasons, but everyone — including Glenn — keeps saying she could have bounced back if only she had stuck with her physical rehab.

So what exactly happened between these two? A series of flashbacks first complicates then clarifies that question and the show has found an intelligent way to straddle the line between nuanced sensitivity and juicy drama, all set against a gorgeous backdrop. It’s smart, endlessly watchable and the kind of series that would likely find a larger audience were it available on a more popular streamer.

“Fifteen-Love” — 3.5 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Sundance Now

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

Adapted from author Carl Hiaasen’s 2013 comic crime novel, the show is from Bill Lawrence, of “Scrubs” fame, and, more recently for Apple, “Ted Lasso” and “Shrinking.” Lawrence has a tendency to go sappy in ways I find emotionally dishonest — the men at the center of his shows, including this one, are frequently stunted but good-hearted and we’re supposed to adore them for it. But tonally, the 10-episode season of “Bad Monkey” is aiming for something different, and for the better.

Yancy is the quippy, easygoing lone ranger of the type that often shows up in the novels of Thomas Pynchon or Elmore Leonard, with unending confidence, but judgment that isn’t always the best. The kind of guy who doesn’t follow the rules, but somehow nails the bad guys anyway. That’s a promising setup.

The show largely works. But I would like it considerably more if someone other than Vaughn were in the central role. He doesn’t embody a specific character so much as play a version of his well-worn persona, delivering a glib, fast-talking patter but little else to suggest there’s a human being underneath all that bluster. He’s blank behind the eyes.

Audiences will likely be drawn to the show either way. Despite an abundance of television thanks to streaming, the actual quality in the aggregate has gone way down. I think at this point viewers are just grateful for anything halfway competent and entertaining and the kind of easy watching that doesn’t insult your intelligence.

So what’s with that arm pulled from the water back in the Keys? Yancy is instructed to drive it up to Miami and hopefully offload the case to the good folks of Dade County. But not before he buys some popsicles and fresh crab and tosses them in the cooler along with the arm. At the morgue, he meets the medical examiner, Rosa (Natalie Martinez), who will eventually team up with him on the case (and fall into bed with him, as well). If only there were some sizzle between them, but their chemistry remains theoretical.

A parallel storyline unfolds in the Bahamas, where a young fisherman named Neville (Ronald Peet) and his pet capuchin monkey (who is neither bad nor good, but simply there) live a simple and idyllic life in a beach shack left to Neville by his father. Turns out, the land has been sold out from under him and the humble abode is demolished when a couple of obnoxious American developers (Meredith Hagner and Rob Delaney) come looking to build a resort. They are also — surprise! — connected to that mysterious arm.

Looking to stymie their plans, Neville seeks out the services of a priestess known as the Dragon Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith), who is suffering a crisis of confidence and just wants off the island. Her story takes a while to get going — initially it veers awfully close to exotifying the character — but it becomes the most resonant narrative of the series, especially as it pertains to her push-pull relationship with her grandmother (a terrific L. Scott Caldwell). Turner-Smith’s career has been underwhelming so far, but when she gets a chance to be vulnerable here, she’s quite good.

Eventually, Yancy and Rosa make their way to the Bahamas, where the storylines finally intersect. An unseen narrator guides us through it all — sample voiceover: “(She) knew she might get a UTI banging in the jacuzzi, but she still felt it was worth it” — which gives the show a mirthful energy and personality it’s otherwise lacking. Plus, there’s a brief but welcome appearance by Scott Glenn, underplaying it beautifully as Yancy’s extraordinarily Zen father.

The show is fundamentally a portrait of downmarket scammers and oddballs who lack a moral compass or even a conscience. The setting is a fantasy all on its own, considering the Florida Keys are ground zero for sea-level rise in Florida. But maybe that’s too much of a bummer for “Bad Monkey” to acknowledge. It’s happy to tackle the sleazoids of humanity. But the climate crisis? As if!

“Bad Monkey” — 2.5 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Apple TV+

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

If there’s a reason to watch, it’s Tracy Letts’ performance as Mitch, Danny’s down-and-out father, who gets some funny and meaty moments halfway through the series. Otherwise, the series is a tremendous slog.

Danny carries a legacy of shame rooted in his time as basketball phenom in junior high. He and Curry were coached by Danny’s less-than-supportive dad, who was lying about his son’s age. Turns out the kid was really 14 and not 12 and everything fell apart when the truth was revealed. Mitch remembers being ripped to shreds: “They were saying things to me that I can’t even say on Peacock. This is Peacock, right? Do I get Peacock?” But at least the guy feels somewhat bad for ruining Danny’s life: “No excuses,” he says. “Except I was an addict at the time. Alcohol. Narcotics. Gambling. Pornos.”

Now middle-aged, Danny is divorced, professionally unfulfilled and looking for the kind of fast cash that a game-worn jersey from Curry can get on the open market. So he reconnects with Curry and their mutual childhood friend, the no-nonsense Kimberly (“Saturday Night Live’s” Ego Nwodim), who handles Curry’s business opportunities: “That man’s schedule is a house of cards built on a Jenga tower,” she says of Curry’s commitments. Nwodim is terrific as the woefully under-appreciated badass of the trio.

Danny is forever toggling between sloppy hubris and a golden retriever-like outlook on life, which is how he finds himself lying about his preteen daughter, claiming she has a fatal disease. This is how he garners sympathy and worms his way into Curry’s multimillion-dollar inner circle. The guilt and anxiety that he (and eventually his ex) feels about the inevitable exposure — remember, Danny’s lived through this kind of thing before — is the primary tension driving the first few episodes. And though Danny has been estranged from his father for years, circumstances will conspire for them to reunite, which becomes a tantalizing narrative thread thanks to Letts.

The problems with “Mr. Throwback” are pretty straightforward. The show isn’t funny, or even interesting in an uncomfortable way. Pally has yet to find a role that leverages his talents and charm the way “Happy Endings” did, and Curry is too wooden to make any of his scenes work. (Even so, it’s interesting to see NBA players make inroads in Hollywood in ways other professional athletes just haven’t, including the many projects from LeBron James, as well as Apple TV+’s underwatched “Swagger,” based on the formative experiences of Kevin Durant. Notably, both players are off-camera, which is probably the wise choice.)

Tonally, “Mr. Throwback” is aiming for something like “Entourage” but with sports, mashed up with a boastful but decent-hearted loser typically dreamed up by Danny McBride (“Eastbound and Down,” “The Righteous Gemstones”) but the show never finds its voice or point of view.

Only Letts, plus a couple of Chicago improvisors in David Pasquesi and Brooke Breit, manage to generate real comedy. Now sober, Mitch is part of a performance trio that travels to high schools warning kids about the dangers of drugs, which is as wonderfully absurd as you’d expect. Watching Letts-as-Mitch struggle with a costume is funnier than it should be, but more pointedly there’s an undercurrent of comedic pathos in everything he does. The show is aiming for that across the board, but only Letts really nails it.

“Mr. Throwback” — 2 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Peacock

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

So here’s a non-comprehensive look at the games so far, not from a sports writer but from from the point of a view of a critic taking in the storylines of this year’s extravaganza via TV and social media. Be sure to also check out all the stories by the Tribune’s Stacy St. Clair and photos by Tribune photographer Brian Cassella, who are in Paris covering athletes and events with local connections.

The highlights

The opening ceremony, which took place along the Seine, may not have been universally loved, but at least it wasn’t boring. I found the headless singing Marie Antoinette in the windows of the former prison, the Concierge, to be a timely if cheeky reminder that wealth hoarding is, in fact, bad. And who wasn’t moved to see Céline Dion, who has a medical condition called stiff person syndrome, which threatened to halt her singing career altogether, belt out a gorgeous rendition of “Hymne A L’Amour” from the Eiffel Tower? That she was able to perform at the Olympics mirrors the experiences of so many Olympic athletes, a fitting bit of symbolism to kick off the games.

Gymnastics has always been a popular draw and this year has offered so many incredible storylines and performances, including Team USA’s pommel horse specialist (and noted glasses wearer) Stephen Nedoroscik, who helped the men’s team clinch the bronze before winning one for himself in the pommel horse individual event. Nedoroscik’s self-deprecating charm and talent can be seen in a nine-minute documentary from a few years ago where he says: “The horse guys are their own thing. And that just comes down to horse people. They’re usually an engineer or someone who’s smart, goofy.”

I think I’ve cried watching every women’s gymnastics event. Many of these gymnasts have such tremendous backstories, from American Suni Lee’s recovery from a recent kidney disease diagnosis, to Kaylia Nemour becoming the first gold medalist in gymnastics for an African country (Algeria, the country of her father’s birth) after a dispute with France’s gymanstics federation over her return following an injury. Team USA won the gold, with more individual medals for Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles and Lee (bronze) and Simone Biles (gold and silver).  If you haven’t watched the first two episodes of the Netflix documentary “Simone Biles Rising,” it gives the comprehensive backstory on the disorientation she experienced in Tokyo that caused her to pull out. The final two episodes are filming now, though Netflix hasn’t said when they will premiere. It’s been thrilling and magical to witness Simone Biles’ career.

Also, if you’re wondering how the bottoms of their leotards stay in place (I did), apparently there’s a sticky spray some gymnasts use to ensure the fabric doesn’t inch into wedgie territory.

U.S. sprinter Noah Lyles has insisted he’s the world’s fastest man — some thought he might live to eat those words — but he ended up winning the 100-meter track race in a true photo finish by five thousandths of a second. “I was shocked,” he said afterward. “I thought I was going to have to swallow my pride on this one … and then my name came up and I was like, oh shoot, I’m incredible.”

In swimming, Katie Ledecky has been breaking records (she won her first gold medal as a 15-year-old at the London Games in 2012) but it was her gold-winning swim in the 1500-meter freestyle final that was so remarkable: She was 10 seconds faster than the second place swimmer, which looks like an eternity when you see it on your screen. Over the weekend, with her gold in the 800 freestyle, she became the second swimmer to win an event at four straight summer games in a row. She has a memoir called “Just Add Water: My Swimming Life” where she talks about being diagnosed with POTS in 2016 and how that’s affected her athletic career.

Technically, Snoop Dogg’s title is Special NBC Olympics correspondent, but he’s more of an exuberant ambassador, bringing curiosity and enthusiasm to each event he attends. Meanwhile, Flavor Flav has brought a similar joie de vivre to the games as the sponsor of both the men’s and women’s water polo teams. And he stepped up and cut a check when discus thrower Veronica Fraley posted to social media last week: “I compete in the Olympic Games tomorrow and I can’t even pay my rent.”

Few things are as moving as competitors extending human kindness, even in the most stressful circumstances. It costs nothing and it tells us so much about their character. In the preliminary heat of the women’s 100-meter, runner Lucia Moris fell down on the track in pain, unable to get back up. Silina Pha Aphay, a sprinter from Laos, immediately went over to her. “Standing beside Moris, Pha Aphay called out for help,” according to NPR. “Once medics arrived, Pha Aphay continued to stay on the track, holding Moris’ sneakers while medics prepared to put Moris on a stretcher. Another competitor, Salam Bouha Ahamdy of Mauritania, later also appeared to support Moris.”

Olympic athletes belong in a category of accomplishment all their own, but that goes extra for those with intense academic interests and accomplishments. American Lee Keifer won the gold medal in fencing and after the Olympics she will … return to medical school. British gymnast Bryony Page, the gold medalist in trampoline, studied paleontology and wrote her dissertation on the “acoustic signalling” in dinosaurs (she theorizes they probably didn’t roar).

Lowlights

COVID-19 has been making its presence known at the Olympics. According to Time magazine:  “In Paris, the fans are back, virtually none of them wearing masks, and there is no regular testing of athletes.” It comes as no surprise, then, that “nearly a dozen swimmers, including several members of the Australian women’s water-polo team, have tested positive, raising questions about how widely the virus is spreading, especially in the pool.” And likely elsewhere.

The Canadian women’s soccer team was rocked by a drone-spying scandal early in the games, leading to a six-point penalty against the team’s standing, and the news is only getting worse. According to AP: “Canadian soccer officials admitted in evidence to FIFA that spying on opponents was routinely done, for the men’s national team as well as the women’s team.”

It’s supposed to be a privilege to compete in the Olympics. That means top athletes who don’t cheat. But also people who aren’t convicted of physically harming another person. That seems like a low bar to clear. And yet convicted child rapist Steven van de Velde was indeed invited to play for the Dutch on their beach volleyball team. At least the crowd let their feelings be known, audibly booing him every time he served the ball.

Bad sportsmanship is supposed to have no place at the games. According to the Olympics’ own website, Olympic values are excellence, respect and friendship. I get choked up when competitors embrace and appreciate one another’s efforts once the results are in (gymnasts Biles and Chiles on the podium offering a loving bow to Brazil’s floor exercise gold medal winner Rebeca Andrade) which makes the lack of common courtesy stick out even more, from gold medal-winning French swimmer ​​Léon Marchand (caught on camera ignoring a Chinese coach’s extended hand for handshake after the medal ceremony) to American tennis player Emma Navarro (at the net after losing her match to Qinwen Zheng of China, “I just told her I didn’t respect her as a competitor”).

The nastiest of them all occurred in boxing. I’m assuming everyone who participates understands hard hits are part of the deal, but apparently this was news to Italian boxer Angela Carini. She lasted just 46 seconds before abandoning her bout against Algerian fighter Imane Khelif after a hard hit left her in pain and unable to breathe. She refused to shake her opponent’s hand, fueling hate speech and deeply ugly transphobia in the aftermath, all in her name. Carini later offered contrition. “All this controversy makes me sad,” she said. “I’m sorry for my opponent, too … If the IOC said she can fight, I respect that decision.” She claims that in the heat of the moment, she was “angry because my Olympics had gone up in smoke. I don’t have anything against Khelif.” I understand the power of disappointment. But we expect Olympians to not just be great athletes, but at least humanly decent in defeat. For her part, Khelif gave an interview on Sunday night, saying “the wave of hateful scrutiny she has faced over misconceptions about her gender ‘harms human dignity,’ and she called for an end to bullying athletes after being greatly affected by the international backlash against her.”

As global warming worsens, that’s going to affect the Summer Olympics. Sleeping on an unfamiliar bed is probably an adjustment all its own, but at the very least, athletes should be sleeping in accommodations that have air conditioning going forward, which is not the case at the Olympic Village in Paris this year.

Random observations

I am anti-gimmick. I don’t need to know the heartrate of family members in the stands, or which celebrities are there (if I were lucky enough to get tickets to the women’s vault finals, like Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling, I probably wouldn’t watch through sunglasses). I don’t even need some of the announcers, although first-timer Lauren Hernandez, a 2016 Olympic gymnast, has been terrific.

Maybe the most surreal moment was during a cycling event when one of the commentators started free associating over drone footage: “And another one of the chateaus from the Middle Ages. And this always fascinates me … did they call it the Middle Ages themselves, because back then they weren’t in the middle of anything.” He kept going: “It’s kind of like King Louis the Great, who we talked about earlier with the statue at the Palace of Versailles, and you always hear about Alexander the Great, Louis the Great — at that time, did they call them ‘the great’? Or was it just in retrospect that we decided they were great. So many philosophical questions to answer when you have a six-and-a-half-hour race like this!”

Social media can be a cesspool, but also a source of exuberance and real laughter. Exhibit A: “Suni Lee’s smile after her first tumbling pass has inspired a patriotism in me that I haven’t felt since my mom bought me my first Old Navy 4th of July T-shirt.”

Archery: They’re standing a lot further away from the target than I realized. I can’t even hit the garbage can successfully most days. That is all; archers are just really impressive, full stop.

Kayak cross is wild. I didn’t not know they start by being tipped into the drink. It’s like white water rafting but going around gates at the same time? There’s something called the roll zone??

Absolutely charmed by gold medal-winning Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh climbing into a sleeping bag between jumps, closing her eyes and … letting her mind wander. “I feel comfortable when I lay and sometimes I can watch the clouds,” she told Time magazine.

The Velodrome, the bowl-shaped indoor bicycle racing track, isn’t air conditioned because 82 degrees is apparently the optimal temperature for the fastest speeds. I salute all attendees.

Thoughts I had during equestrian events: Do horses experience jet lag? Are they thrilled to be jumping, the way dogs are thrilled to be chasing tennis balls? Is jumping fun … or? Also, they wear little caps? Sorry, the technical term is ear bonnet. Anyway, a jaunty look!

Watching track and field, it occurred to me that an “Avengers”-like assemblage of athletes coming to the rescue could be a great premise for a heist or revenge movie — just think of the real-world missions that would require the services of a shot-putter, a sprinter, a long-jumper, a pole vaulter and hurdler. Just picture a gold medal-er in the decathlon assembling a top-notch team to take down one injustice or another.

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

Growing up, before Blockbuster became the default, the nearest video store for me was a couple towns over, where the titles were listed in alphabetical order in a binder. You’d page through, pick a movie and then wait to see if it was in stock — a brief moment of uncertainty created an exhilaration all its own.

The convenience of streaming altered that process for the better, or so we tell ourselves. But studies have found that physical media still has a hold on us in quantifiable ways. “In five experiments, people ascribe less value to digital than to physical versions of the same good,” according to research conducted by Özgün Atasoy, who is a business school professor at the University of Warwick in England. He told me he and co-author Carey Morewedge “wanted to explore whether there is something psychologically unsatisfactory about digital goods compared to physical goods and, if so, identify what might be missing.”

The rise of streaming — the absolute and complete dominance of streaming — means retailers including Target and Best Buy are phasing out the sale of DVDs. Some audiences will greet that news with a shrug. Others will see this as yet another ominous sign that the industry is spinning down the drain, because finding a movie to watch on streaming has never come with the same anticipatory thrill of browsing and buying physical media.

Once a major source of revenue after a movie’s theatrical run, studios have become blatantly unenthusiastic about their DVD business (if it even exists). Ironically, the British-based retail chain HMV is reporting that despite a years-long decline, more customers are buying DVDs again. Among the factors cited: An overall frustration with titles coming and going from streaming platforms, and the regular increase in subscription prices. Maybe you also have doubts about the sustainability of streaming platforms as a business long term. It’s entirely possible that one or more of these services eventually just … collapses.

What researchers like Atasoy have found is that for many of us, the “difference in value comes down to feelings of ownership.” DVDs and other physical goods aren’t abstract concepts that exist in a cloud, but tangible objects, “which enhances the sense of control and ownership. This psychological ownership is a positive feeling that people are willing to pay more for.”

Talking about this column with my editor Doug George, he joked: “Should you need more images of VHS tapes or a real-live VCR machine, I might know where to find them: Middle shelf of the back room of my basement in a green Hefty tub.”

What compelled you to keep them around, I asked?

“Well, that’s a really good question. I almost never watch them. I think the bulk of that box is tapes I recorded some time way back and now they feel like artifacts. We’ve dug them out like once or twice over the years to show my daughters vintage Dave Letterman, some old TV commercials, old MTV. But 90% of it should just get tossed. Or maybe 100%.”

No, don’t throw them out!

“Do not send this stuff to the landfill. It has value and it’s useful — share it with your neighbors,” said Brian Morrison, who came up with the concept of volunteer-run, repurposed newspaper boxes called Free Blockbuster, where people can both offload and acquire movies. It’s a concept borrowed from the Little Free Library organization, but for VHS tapes and DVDs.

Here’s how the idea came about: “A friend of mine who works in the movie business was moving to New York and she had a big collection of DVDs she wasn’t going to bring with her. At the same time, LA Weekly, our free weekly newspaper, shut down physical distribution, but they didn’t take the boxes away. They left them on the street and they became commercial blight. And the third thing was, a friend of mine made a short film reminiscing about his time working at Blockbuster; I also worked at Blockbuster in high school. So I thought: We can take these movies, put them in old newspaper boxes, paint them blue and yellow and call them Free Blockbuster.”

A map of locations across the country can be found at FreeBlockbuster.org. In Chicago, there used to be a box set up in Logan Square, but the Tribune was unable to locate it. There’s another one in Bronzeville; alas, it contained only scraps of garbage as of last week.

“I think there is sometimes an expectation there will be a circulating selection, but it doesn’t work out that way,” Morrison said. “Also, this happens all the time, that someone has taken a sizable number of items from the box. More than their fair share. Which we can’t fault people for — we’ve been programmed to hoard stuff and all of this is free. So if you want to take a bunch of DVDs, which are basically worthless, out of a community box and try to sell them on eBay, I’m sorry, I feel for you. But it’s not worth worrying about, even though that question comes up a lot: What if someone steals everything? And my reply is: You can’t steal it, it’s free. Policing this is not your job. This is a community service. This is a gift you’re giving to your community.”

There’s a box in northwest suburban Elmwood Park that’s going strong and is shepherded by Don Shanahan, a film critic and editor-in-chief of Film Obsessive. His experience suggests Free Blockbuster works best when one person, or a group of people, commits to being consistent and enthusiastic custodians. Shanahan said titles move out of the box “like hotcakes,” so he refills the box once a week. “I could do it more frequently if I wanted to. I’ll do themes like Christmas in July, horror films in October and Oscar winners and nominees in March.” His stock of movies is supplied by “donations from local residents, shipments from downsizing faraway friends of mine who love the physical media cause I’m supporting, free overruns from the Elmwood Park Library and gifted extras from fellow film critics like myself.” He even has “a few donated DVD players that could go in the box “for people who need the devices to go with the movies.”

I asked Morrison if he had any theories about why we don’t get that same feeling of anticipation scrolling through a streaming app. “Streaming platforms are not designed to help you find something you want to watch, they’re designed to keep your attention and largely push you to things they’ve spent money on recently. It’s not about showing you the thing you want, it’s about showing you the thing they invested in.

“I always say Free Blockbuster is not about nostalgia, it is about the future,” he added. “I grew up in the video store era and on Friday nights, going to the video store was a thing to do as a family — to go to that place and run around and pick things up and say ‘What about this?’ That process was fun. Way more fun than scrolling through Netflix or Amazon. The greatest illustration of this now is when there are children or young adults who did not grow up going to Blockbuster and they still love visiting the box, looking through it and picking something out, holding it in their hand and reading the back. It’s the thrill of discovery.”

If studies show people are willing to spend more money on physical media, why aren’t studios taking advantage of that?

“They’re huge companies and things in the corporate world happen really slowly, so they’re not really nimble enough to react on a year-to-year basis,” Morrison said. “And media executives are out of touch because they’re living in a different economic strata than the rest of us. So for a kid in Chicago who doesn’t have the ability to pay for every streaming service, maybe having a media collection that you know you have access to is really valuable. I don’t think executives see that. And they’re also terrified of being old and out of touch. For the past few years, everyone said physical media is dead and streaming’s the new thing, and they don’t want to go back to ‘dead’ media.

“Streaming is a tool and we got really excited about the tool, but now we’ve overapplied the tool,” he said. And then Morrison got philosophical, which is exactly the kind of free association movies are supposed to inspire. “Convenience has been used to sell us any number of things, but what does even that mean? It’s easy and it’s quicker. But I still have a garden where I grow my own tomatoes. I can go get tomatoes at the grocery store much easier and quicker than I can grow them. But I enjoy growing the tomatoes. So this idea that we’re all supposed to want to do nothing all the time, like the idle rich? I don’t know if I subscribe to that.”

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.