Should I be watching ‘Mozart in the Jungle?’

A while back a CDA reader recommended I read Blair Tindall’s book Mozart in the Jungle for a look at the seedier side of classical music. I never got around to it, unfortunately. The book was turned into an Amazon TV series, nabbed Bernadette Peters & Gael García Bernal to star, and turned into a hit for Amazon TV.

But wait — the show’s won a couple Golden Globes, and classical stars like Lang Lang & Gustavo Dudamel have made MitJ cameos? Okay, I’m paying attention. Should I be watching this?

PROS:
–the only TV drama focused exclusively on classical music
–it’s got to have decent music
–I’m starting to get serious FOMO hearing about episodes secondhand
–easy enough to binge the entire series up to present (each ep. is ~30 minutes)

CONS:
–there are too many TV series I feel obligated to watch (X-Files ssn 10?) and this is one more
–it’s on Amazon Prime which I don’t have
–cringe-worthy scenes of non-musicians pretending to be real musicians (talked about this before)
–too much hype, probably needs time to level out

Decision: Feel free to hit me up and explain what I’m missing, but I’m going to wait on it. After two solid seasons I might be swayed the other way. In the meantime, here’s a good interview with Bernal talking about his crash-course on classical conducting.