AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Since this isn’t a regular watch, I’ll put it here. After leaving the TV on after football Saturday night, we decided to catch Saturday Night Live with Sabrina Carpenter hosting. I was curious how she’d be as a host, not having really watched her in anything (and only being faintly familiar with her music), and there are a couple of cast members I liked from their past work (Sarah Sherman, Veronika Slowikowska). Carpenter was a solid host and I mostly found the episode fine– some good chuckles, a few solid laughs (“Plans”, the washer/dryer sketch, a couple of the Weekend Update jokes), and at least not dire, although not funny enough by and large to make me a regular viewer. With one notable exception: The final segment in the 10-to-1 slot, a short film by Martin Herlihy, was very funny.
In weekly watches…
Matlock, “Another Matlock” – While one might expect a network show like this to resolve the first season-ending twists in a way that cools down the temperature until it can heat up again to climax in the second season, Matlock has managed to keep the heat going by changing the game a bit. Olympia and Matty are in a bit of a deadlock now as to how to proceed (and even as to who has the evidence they need to do so), and then in this episode’s ending twist reveals she’s learned a thing or two from Matty along the way. Really good stuff. In other plots, the main case involves a Ukrainian mobster witnesses are afraid to come forward about (to parallel the overall theme of the Wellbrexa case and the stalemate between Matty and Olympia– coming forward with the truth vs. who gets hurt in the backlash), Billy annoys Jason, and Sarah finally gets Simone off her back. Oh, and Matty and Edwin draw some boundaries with Joey, something Alfie struggles to understand. I dunno, the side plots are pretty good this one, but the main overall story and the secret maneuverings and machinations have always been the real draw, and they were once again very good.
Elsbeth, “Doll Day Afternoon” – The title might clue you in that this is going to be less a murder and more a hostage situation. David Cross plays Nolan, a man who buys an expensive doll apparently on the black market, but the seller has the wrong doll; they feud and Nolan accidentally knocks the guy over, causing him to hit his head and die. The next day he’s at the man’s not-FAO Schwartz expensive toy shop to exchange the doll for the correct one… and Elsbeth notices a couple of details that match the crime scene… and Nolan notices she notices, and now we have our hostage situation. The situation is compounded by Wagner not actually being the captain on scene; he’s there, but the actual hostage-situation police work is being commanded by Captain Tully (Campbell Scott! So he’s still around), whose main goal seems to be for one of his snipers to get a headshot in on Nolan. Anyway, Elsbeth doesn’t deviate from its formula too often, but it’s usually pretty refreshing and well-executed when it does, and this one was fun. (And I know Elsbeth was recommending Diane Lockhart to Nolan as a defense attorney at the end of the episode, but I can’t help but want to revisit this story later, with some legally safe knockoff of Saul Goodman played by Bob Odenkirk serving as defense counsel.)
Abbott Elementary, “Ballgame” – This episode was filmed at an actual Phillies game, and I saw some grumblings that it basically seemed like product placement for Baseball (as well as stretching the premise of the “documentary” even thinner than it already has been), but… they somehow managed to pick the game where Kyle Schwarber hit four home runs (and apparently the episode as written was already going to involve him). Gotta respect that kismet. And it did make Barbara’s attempts to give him advice about his batting stance even funnier. All in all it was mostly a pretty funny episode, too.
The Chair Company, “New blood. There’s 5 Rons now.” – I’m still quite into this; Ron digs a little deeper into his conspiracy and makes a possible ally, while discovering more strange corners of his world and continuing to act weird at work, and we get a better glimpse of what he has to lose. Friendship seems like an immediate comparison here, but for two major differences underlined this episode: One, Ron actually seems good at his job and at talking to people (when he’s paying attention to them instead of wrapped up in his weird obsessions and secrecy), and two, his family actually respects and adores him. That gives us more stakes for when this surely must come crashing down.
“Lynchian” is a description I’ve seen quite a few people use about some of the elements of this show and this episode, and that’s fair, although I wouldn’t call it a straight imitation. Like with Lynch’s work, we keep encountering people and scenes that seem a few degrees off from the expected reality. Like Blue Velvet, our protagonist here seems to have unearthed a much darker world under the surface of a relatively placid life. Unlike Blue Velvet, Ron Trosper didn’t find an ear in a field; he just kept digging because he had an embarrassing moment at work he refused to let go. And it doesn’t feel like a Lynch imitation, because the details of how everything is odd or a little off (the bizarrely combative scene at the diner; whatever the hell that tape is Mike is listening to in the car) are very much in line with what we’d expect from Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin’s writing.
I’m going to have a hard time leveling any substantial critiques until the show’s over and I know how and if and whether it all came together in the end or not. But I’m engaged and I have enough trust in the creative team here to see the story to the end.
Last note: Terry, Ron’s future in-law (father to Natalie’s fiance Tara), is played by the same actor (Torrey Hanson) who played Jerry, Tim and Trevor’s stepdad, in the Detroiters episode “Trevor.” Based on his behavior this episode, he deserved to get rock bottomed by Conner O’Malley there.
Bob’s Burgers, “The Twinnening [Halloween]” – A spooky occult shop moves in next door to the burger restaurant, and while Bob and Linda try to get into a CAKE show (not the band; see previous episodes), Teddy is completing a rush job so the shop can open before Halloween, which possibly involves human sacrifice and definitely involves a frightening mask and creepy twin brothers. The kids, through a walkie-talkie at home, try to guide Teddy through the horror movie he may be experiencing next door. Pretty fun episode; it’s a bit off the beaten path for the show, with the focus on Teddy and introducing another new character, but those elements help the episode feel fresh.
DMV, “Stay in Your Lane” – Didn’t like this one as much as the pilot. Colette is written a little more too much as a Sitcom Woman, where she overly freaks out at Noa being uncomfortable in the office heat and worries he’ll leave and goes to absurd lengths to keep him comfortable, which include breaking a few rules, like messing with the A/C and causing a power outage. I did enjoy what we got from Gregg this episode, although it didn’t have enough Vic in it. Still, we’re sticking with it, because the cast is good and the pilot showed enough promise that we know it can be better than this.
Only Murders in the Building, “LESTR” – The Hulu description said it was told “through the perspective of” the Arconia’s new robot butler, and it’s not quite as gimmicky as it seems it will be at first, although LESTR does play a significant role in the episode. (Personally, it kinda baffles me that nobody thought before now to ask LESTR if it had footage of anything useful, but then, I’m still not clear where LESTR even came from.) With Camila’s successful play to acquire the Arconia, the trio is trying and not succeeding at solving the murder before the building sale closes; on the last day of occupancy, many of the Arconia’s residents get together and reminisce (including the returns of Teddy and Theo Dimas). These are some nice scenes, and even if the mystery has been slow to unfold this season, this episode serves as a good reminder that the history of the building, and the people in it, add so much to the show’s richness. So… while the murder mystery slowly advances but reveals some new clues (albeit while still leaving quite a few open questions for the finale), I still rather enjoyed this one.
High Potential, “Chasing Ghosts” – Just in time for Halloween, Morgan and Karadec get to investigate a death at a house that’s supposedly haunted (and has a lot of mystique and history). The house once belonged to a couple who were screwball-comedy stars in Hollywood’s golden age and whose story ended in tragedy. A local high-end divorce attorney owns the house now and seems to have panicked and had a heart attack over his conviction he was being haunted. Is that really all, though? Well, it’s a murder procedural, so, of course not. On balance, pretty fun episode.
The Lowdown, “Old Indian Trick” – After last episode’s events, Donald* gives Lee a new lead that might help him piece together what really happened to Dale, and following that lead is going to require going into Indian country, with Deidra as his guide. (Look, the show calls them “Indian,” it’s right there in the title, even Deidra says they’re going to have to visit the Indian community.) Lee eventually finds a bombshell that might be the key to this entire saga… and also, frankly, for an investigative journalist who’s made so many enemies, has terrible opsec about it.
Meanwhile, we peel back a bit of the layers with Donald Washberg’s campaign, Frank Martin of Akron, and all of their ties, and we start to see the face of who they’ve allied with… and it’s pretty ugly, and dangerous. Is Donald just a figurehead for a bunch of old money and white supremacists to sweep into power and dispose of the Natives? Maybe? Who knows? I think there are two episodes left. So I can’t really comment on the whole thing until it’s done, but it’s also hard to find something to say that isn’t a plot summary when you’re writing weekly, unless an episode of a show goes wildly off the tracks in substance, tone, or quality. This one did not.
(* – it took me a second to remember his name, and honestly, I think it’s a little mean to cast Kyle McLachlan in something and then have his character’s brother be named Dale.)
Beavis and Butt-Head, “Ear / Dearly Departed” – Beavis blows off his own ear with a science-project accident, and Butt-Head attempts to re-attach it. That one was kind of gross and may not be your thing. Then, Beavis gets stuck in a vent and Butt-Head, since he can’t see Beavis and Beavis can only see darkness, thinks Beavis is dead and a ghost now (which he also convinces Beavis of). There’s also Mr. Van Driessen attempting to play guitar in the woods, which goes about as badly as it possibly could. Decent, but there have been better episodes this season.
Smiling Friends, “Mole Man” – Pim and Charlie collapse into a sinkhole in the break room and meet Mole Man… and while I have no idea if he is intended to represent rabid fandom, since the idea only occurred to me as I was writing this paragraph, he has definitely become obsessed with the two and wants them to entertain him. And also to not look at his disgusting and grotesque penis. Allan and Glep attempt to fill in for the Smiling Friends (which leads to some funny conversations about how they’re not really Smiling Friends, among other things), and babysitting some horrendous triplets goes about as badly as possible. Pretty funny.
In continuing with streaming shows…
Solar Opposites – watched two more episodes, one where Terry and Korvo go to the Wooden City to prepare their apartment to sell and run into some unexpected… um, horniness, and one where Korvo and Jesse compete over who is the dad of the Opposites house (fueled by the “family”‘s appearance on a Family Feud-type show). Also, the Wall plot continues. Brief summary, I know, but the show has been pretty consistent in quality, so there’s not much else to say unless you want me to spoil jokes or storylines for you.
How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) episode 5 takes us into how Alan is responding to being newly single again (after being the last to know Katrina is having an affair), and this leads to typical Alan misadventures: visiting a solicitor to discuss his feud with Katrina over shared property; making a coffee date and then attempting (with Lynn’s help, of course) to spy on the woman before arriving to see if she meets his standards; attempting to meet up his old pub trivia group without considering that they’d replaced him after he didn’t attend for an entire year; and a very typically pointless, unwanted, attempt-at-media-showcase-or-goodwill Alan gesture (in this case, Extreme Home Makeover-ing the home of a woman who wrote into Mid Morning Matters many years ago and whom he had ignored until now). Great stuff, and I love the interstitials; Alan’s attempts to look like a concerned, attentive listener come off even more insincere than everything else he does (and honestly look more like he’s wondering if he just shit his pants).
We still have not had time to go back to Futurama and Chad Powers. I barely got to everything in the section above!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Nope, but next week should be the end of Only Murders in the Building, possibly Beavis and Butt-Head, and in two weeks I think The Lowdown is ending.
We’ll talk in this space again next week.
Please leave your comments on what you’ve been watching, and especially leave a comment if you have any tips for how I can not write so much every week.
About the writer
Captain Nath
Born on the bayou, thriving in the mountains. Writer, gambler, comedian, singer-songwriter, bon vivant, globetrotter, and all-around Renaissance Man with perfect opinions about TV and music. Pronounced with a long A and with the H.
It's a gaming ship.
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Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
M*A*S*H, Season Two, Episode Twenty-Two, “George”
“It’s amazing. The amount of punishment the human body can survive.”
“The patients or the doctors?”
“Which are us?”
“Who’s your exterior decorator?”
“Two guys got beat up in my unit. One coloured, and one homosexual.”
“So you’re a Negro.”
This is a fairly light episode considering the subject matter; I wonder how progressive this looked at the time, given that it was the same year America had its first gay recurring character and another two decades until Ellen came out. Frank is the main source of conflict and he’s taken care of with some simple blackmail; the pleasure comes less in the complexity of the plot and more the complexity of the dialogue. It did make me think over how much the show benefits or suffers from having a regular character as the mostly-regular antagonist; obviously, it loses some complexity having one character to boo and hiss at, but it also gains a little bit of emotional resonance as the show works hard to make him specific and believable. We know Frank well enough to know this is in-character for him.
Indeed, he has a very Frank-like summary of his morality: “Normal is everyone doing the same thing.” You can accuse this show of black-and-white thinking or strawmanning, but you can’t really accuse it of hypocrisy in this regard. The show is dedicated to concrete problem-solving over appeals to normality or performative gestures; the goal is always putting soldiers back together and, ideally, sending them home (and, occasionally, getting someone laid). It takes great pleasure in all the different ways you can be a human being; while Hawkeye is the coolest guy on the show, there’s no shame in being a Radar who doesn’t drink or womanise.
In terms of McLean Stevenson stuff, there’s a great scene where he and Gary Burghoff play Radar giving Henry a checkup and Henry just going along with it to get it done.
“How dare you do the right thing.” I love that Hawkeye can sound sincerely and ironically outraged at the same time.
The X-Files, “Avatar”
I was excited for a Skinner-centric episode, but this is middling. The Don’t Look Now visual reference is too obvious and conspicuous; it feels copy-pasted rather than embedded in the show’s style. Having the supernatural as an appendage to the paranoia thriller plot, and having that plot reveal it and try to interpret it before the supernatural “threat” returns the favor, is cool on a structural level, however, and Pileggi is as compelling as ever. The biggest downside of this is that what makes Skinner an interesting dramatic character isn’t his history or his personal life, it’s his professional priorities and loyalties and his role in the X-Files, and so to get a big Skinner episode that’s all about the parts of him I didn’t need to see in order to care about him was disappointing.
I believe there’s a MUCH stronger Skinner-centric episode coming up.
Roseanne’s S6 Halloween episode was actually pretty funny, especially the ending, though not sure how I feel about Nancy becoming more of a main character. Dan’s disliking her actually makes way too much sense. This is a nice, flawed, but genuinely good guy, and she’s ultimately selfish. Still, it all ends well and Darlene’s appearance was fun, as the show doesn’t seem quite sure what to do without both daughters around.
The Practice, “End Games” – The drug addict Ellenor helped to acquit two episodes back barges into the office with cops on his tail. He drops drugs on Ellenor’s desk, and she’s arrested. And then the cops do a search and find a blood stained knife. Suddenly, the George Vogelman murder case is back, even though he too was acquitted. But it turns out the knife was found by the police and some rogue cops concocted a plan to get Vogelman one way or another. Maybe a bit far fetched, but a) this is really meant to end Ellenor’s feud with Lyndsay; and b) it’s one of those moments here that Kelley veers from the usual levels of moderate copaganda. Meanwhile. Judge Kittelson is sued for sexual harassment but it turns out that she had a torrid affair with her clerk and he’s annoyed her recommendation wasn’t better. On the one hand, this is played for tawdry laughs as the judge gives a very funny and very raunchy deposition. OTOH, it’s rather unethical behavior and no one seems to notice that. But as ever, Holland Taylor imbues the horniest judge in Boston with dignity and agency. We’re not done with this, by the way.
Frasier, “The Three Faces of Frasier” – The good doctor is honored at local Italian restaurant with a caricature on its wall. But Frasier is very upset with how he looks and of course soon ends up banned from the place. But is that what’s really eating Frasier? Robert Loggia has fun playing the restaurant owner. And in the background, Daphne is not herself. Hmmmm.
“OTOH, it’s rather unethical behavior and no one seems to notice that.” The entirety of Boston Legal has this issue and sometimes its so egregious that it’s funny.
My all-time favorite Boston Legal joke may be the the S1 Christmas episode glimpse of the cops questioning Denny after he shoots someone to save Alan:
“Did it appear the suspect was about to shoot Mr. Shore when you decided to fire?”
“No, why the hell would I wait for that?”
In fairness, “unethical behavior” is Alan’s entire, deliberate MO.
How Are You? It’s Alan – final episode, satisfyingly funny and uncomfortable in the way the show has consistently been. I kinda felt from the first episode that this might really push into new Partridge territory, but in the end it just felt like a strong addition to his catalogue of discomfort. “SUBSTATION”.
Seinfeld – wasn’t up for a double-length episode so skipped over “The Pitch” to “The Wallet” but turns out the show is actually somewhat serialised at this point so it was a bit confusing. The “live studio audience” stuff is notably more intrusive this season, I guess I’ll get used to it but it’s annoying me a little at the moment. Still, this was funny – Jerry’s dad especially got some good moments. And this also ended on a “to be continued”? Chill out Seinfeld, I want 20 minutes of laughs, not ongoing storylines!
Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Coppola’s mix of German expressionism with a lurid and horny music-video maximalism is still beautiful to look at. The costumes, sets, models and miniatures could have been shot by Murnau and Bava. Coppola sticks fairly close to the novel reproducing the epistolary structure while amping up the sex and violence. At times it feels like he made this to shock and titillate Victorian audiences rather than having modern audiences in mind and tinkering with plot points too much. But the acting is still atrocious all around. To think Coppola workshopped the tone – I guess it’s a heightened theatricality – with the actors before filming and decided this is what he wanted is interesting to think about. Despite that the intentional excess and operatic power still comes through. This Dracula is empowered by a lust more powerful than mortality, god, high-minded ideals and death itself. Blood and sex move the world.
This is a good explanation of the movie’s sumptuous appeal, even though it doesn’t work for me at all. I think this hits a level of operatic exaggeration for me where the characters don’t feel like people, which saps my enjoyment of it, but I guess I admire how unapologetically it’s doing its own thing.
They don’t feel like people. The actors are more like the shadow puppets in the film for Coppola’s storytelling.