Overrated/Underrated: ‘Daily Show’s’ Trevor Noah needs to up his game in an insane election year

There’s a lot of pop culture to sort through week after week. Times staff writer Chris Barton offers his take on what’s up and what’s down in music, movies, television and just about anything else out there that’s worth considering.

UNDERRATED:

Karl Hyde of Underworld performing at the 2015 Primavera Sound Festival in Porto, Portugal.

(Estela Silva / EPA)

Underworld’s ‘Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future’: Best known as one of the breakout festival-scaled acts from the first boom of what’s now called EDM, the duo of Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have returned with a seventh collection of their signature, body-shaking sounds. But amid all the propulsive beats is a level of sophistication that lies beyond the reach of many of their more recent contemporaries, from the punchy textured drive of “If Rah” to the ethereal electro-pop of the album-closing “Nylon Strung.”

Joe Swanberg: The stories of this prolific filmmaker, who rose out of the so-called mumblecore indie scene that brought us the Duplass brothers, Andrew Bujalski and Lena Dunham, have grown progressively more approachable as his career has gone on, even as they’ve grown more naturally observant on the likes of “Digging for Fire” and “Drinking Buddies.” Now that he’s signed on for the upcoming Netflix anthology series “Easy,” starring Aya Cash and Marc Maron, our binge-watching options are about to get a lot richer.

Overrated/Underrated: Pop culture’s best and worst >>

OVERRATED:

‘Indiana Jones,’ again: In 2019 — assuming the political climate hasn’t reduced us to an unscripted “Waterworld” reboot — Harrison Ford will mumble through another classic from many childhoods. While this is preferable to someone like Chris Pratt getting fitted for the fedora, it’s hard to feel bullish about another chapter in this saga. The new “Star Wars” didn’t ask much more from Ford than briefly holding a baton before passing it, and the less remembered about 2008’s tired “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” the better.

Trevor Noah on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” in New York.

(Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)

Trevor Noah: Granted, this is a bit unfair. Jon Stewart is an impossible act to follow, plus it takes time to make a show your own. That said, “The Daily Show’s” interview segments are now painfully superficial, and whether standing or at the desk, Noah leans more on a grinning charm than the sort of pointed outrage that has been so readily harnessed by “Daily Show” alums John Oliver and Samantha Bee, who easily outshine the mothership. It’s an election year — can Stewart host a quick boot camp so they can regroup?

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