Soundtracks – The Bear

There are so many different streaming service vying for our money these days, it’s hard to know where to begin. For years, the default option was Netflix – but is it just me, or has Netflix gone a bit Channel 5 lately? Certainly, the quality threshold has dropped, and it seems unlikely we’ll see another Better Call Saul on that platform. If you haven’t watched The Watcher, do yourself a favour: don’t. It’s awful. We did sit through all 7 episodes, just to see how bad it could get… but we’ve also dropped a few other shows after one or two viewings.

Disney+ has a higher hit rate at the moment. A lot of people ignore it if they’re not fans of Marvel, Star Wars or… well, Disney… but there are some really mature and interesting shows on there. Dopesick, The Dropout and The Old Man (Jeff!) to name but three. One show that’s drawing a lot of attention at the moment is The Bear, starring Jeremy Allen White as a high profile chef who returns to run his family’s restaurant when his older brother commits suicide. Well, I say “restaurant”, but for the first few episodes, it seems little more than a glorified sandwich shop. That said, it does give you a taste of what it’s like to work in a restaurant kitchen… and you think your job is stressful! It’s a funny, fascinating show with a great cast and some very powerful scenes, delivered in easy to digest half hour episodes. Reminds me a lot of Nurse Jackie, if Jackie had cooked bacon rather than saving it. 

Great soundtrack too. One episode ends with a lengthy montage set to the tune below. “Is that REM?” asked Louise. I thought it was, though I didn’t recognise it immediately because it comes from the final REM album, by which point a lot of fans had stopped listening. I think I must be one of them, because I never gave the record more than a few cursory listens, but this is a cracking track. If it hadn’t come from a band laden with over 30 years of exemplary history, I’d have probably been more open to hearing it. Sometimes bands are cursed by their own back catalogues…