Captain's Log
There are so many shows I wanted to hide from my shadow and see if that gave me six weeks of no new TV
…or is it six weeks of no new TV if I see my shadow? I forget.
Went back to Futurama again and ended up finishing the season. This felt like a bit of a step up from last season, in large part because the writers have largely stopped trying to write about real-world stuff that ages poorly (which was kind of a problem even in the original run). The weakest story of the season ends up being one of those riffs— the main plot of “Murderoni” involves a Comet Ping-Pong style fake scandal. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t involve time-traveling back to 2017 when this would’ve been relevant (nor does it comment on the absurdity of juxtaposing QAnon-type conspiracies with what’s actually in the Epstein emails, probably because it was made before any of those were released). It’s a shame, because there were some good lines in that one as well.
Fortunately, the season overall is actually fairly solid otherwise, and I thought the last three episodes were particularly good for where the show is at now. The season finale, as it has every season of this latest revival, is the highest-concept episode of the season, and it works pretty well. Perhaps the funniest exchange of the season was from the penultimate episode, between Bender and his truffle pig: “Thank you, Mr. Bender! You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met!” “Really?! That’s horrible!”
Abbott Elementary, “Picture Day” – It’s a rainy day in Philadelphia and the teachers are a mess… and they, and Ava, forgot the school rescheduled picture day for today (and can’t reschedule again). So, rain-soaked and dressed more for the weather than the annual photo, the teachers try to figure out a way to make themselves look good. This is, of course, not a problem for Ava. What is a problem for Ava is the protestation of the cafeteria staff, who want better treatment (such as a floor mat) and ultimately want to be included in the photos. Solid episode, although nothing was really remarkable here. (The overall logic of the major plot was a bit odd, but at this point, whatever.)
Animal Control, “Lost Dogs and Bar Flies” – One of Frank’s neighbors ratted him out for keeping the rescue dog (Hopper, a Malinois) despite a no-dogs policy in the building, and so he has to find a new home. The precinct pretty quickly proves not to work, and then, much to Frank’s chagrin, Roman Park (and his new French girlfriend) take it in instead. Frank finds himself lonely without Hopper, so he invites (most of) the precinct out for beers… where Victoria learns Emily has been keeping her new relationship with Shred secret from her. Pretty solid episode on the whole; to go further would give away the plot. And maybe the jokes. And also the C-plot I didn’t mention at all.
Going Dutch, “There’s No PX Like Home” – So, if you’re more of a Scotch drinker than an Army student, ‘PX” stands for “post exchange,” not Pedro Ximénez (the grape varietal used to make so much of the sherry whose barrels are used to age Scotch). Liquor lesson aside, I guess this episode is set at the “semi-quincentennial” for America (which would put it at… like, five months from now?). Maggie wants to get turkeys for the base celebration, which Patrick isn’t that keen about… but when Gen. Davidson breaks the news that there’s a supply chain problem with getting the turkeys, Patrick figures Davidson is trying to stick it to him and hatches a plan to liberate the turkeys from the base. Solid episode, fun show, and there’s a side plot with Conway and Papadakis that I really enjoyed. (Papadakis being brutally mean for a few seconds and then telling Conway how easy it is was both very funny and some nice depth for the character, in context.) Also, a post exchange is where you buy stuff from the outside world if you’re a soldier, I think.
Stumble, “Lights Out” – Courteney’s success at getting the AI data center built in Headltston and hoping the money from that will sponsor her team has immediate repercussions (like “no electricity or running water in the town”). Without facilities to practice in, Courteney is stuck at home trying to figure out what she can do— and while Boon is happy to have her around more, she’s too driven to not try to figure out how to fix the problem, whether that’s appealing to Annaleigh Ashford’s returning AI executive or Jeff Hiller’s obviously-descended-from-Nazis candy-button magnate. This wasn’t the greatest episode, but it wasn’t bad or anything; by that I more mean that it just didn’t have as many laugh-out-loud lines as my favorite episodes have had. (And the only cheerleaders who got featured were Steven and Krystal. Peaches and Sally are my favorites both as characters and as the funniest, but DiMarcus can be quite funny too, and whatever weird thing he and Madonna have going on has provided some good comedy in their last couple of appearances. Which doesn’t necessarily make Steven and Krystal the least funny… actually, Krystal probably is, and Steven is funnier when his loser-ness has someone to bounce off of rather than being the primary focus.)
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, “The Squire” – Another quite good episode, as Dunk and Egg spend most of the day waiting and preparing for the chance to enter the tournament. Dunk gets an intriguing offer. Most of the episode, though, is largely given to Dunk and Egg hanging out and bonding (and man, I could really go for that egg sandwich). And for comedy, I wasn’t expecting Egg to have a “Miss Susie Had a Steamboat” song about Westeros.
And we finally learn something significant about Egg that you probably already suspected if you’ve paid much attention at all to the overall ASIOAF series. (I haven’t read anything except the main series, but I still picked this up just from a line of dialogue I remembered in Game of Thrones.) But definitely a good episode that’s starting to introduce more action into the show’s already-humorous tone (including my favorite combination of both, a sports riot).
St. Denis Medical, “Nod and Agree” – Ron’s son (Sam Richardson!) is wrapping up a visit, and it’s gone so well due to Ron’s new policy of [see title] that he doesn’t want to mess anything up… but then a cardiologist at St. Denis (Wayne Knight!1) gets in a dustup with him that threatens to burst that bubble. Val gets back from jury duty, and Alex won’t shut up to Serena about how good she’d be at jury duty (including a Twelve Angry Men fantasy), so Serena tells her Val actually went to Cabo and lied because she’s out of vacation days, which makes Alex annoyed that her employees would lie to her, because she’s the cool boss or whatever the fuck. And Matt brings in a juice recipe (“family secret”) that Bruce becomes so enamored with that he tries to replicate it before offering to buy it. Pretty fun episode on the whole; the focus on Ron was a nice touch.
High Potential, “The Faust and the Furious” – I’m not sure why the episode is called this. Anyway, it’s essentially “what if Bryan Johnson was murdered?” Pretty good plot, albeit with some twists that were obvious (of course Morgan and Karadec aren’t going to die), and at least one valuable lesson about not mixing St. John’s Wort and birth control. There’s also the continued side story of Karadec’s love life, and a plot with Oz trying to get the headstone for his father’s grave after his mother has been messing up / putting it off for reasons you’ll find out if you watch. These weren’t bad or anything, but they do feel like perfunctory attempts to develop side characters more than anything necessary.
Best Medicine, “Hello Darkness, My Port Wenn” – This one felt a little better-pitched than the others so far. The basic plot involves Martin having to visit a recluse in town for his yearly checkup and to make sure he’s taking his meds… because the recluse also manages their power grid, and if he doesn’t reset it once a year, the town goes down. I say this one is better pitched because Martin actually does make a mistake through his stubbornness and not listening to other people, instead of him being right and them getting mad at him anyway. And the townspeople actually help Martin out and admit he’s right that the grid really needs to be updated instead of relying on this jury-rigged system, instead of being mad at him all episode, realizing he was right in the last five minutes, then forgetting it all by next week.
So that’s a definite improvement from where the show had been pitched. And there’s a nice little sideplot where a kid in Louisa’s class gets an apple stuck in his mouth and Martin ends up bonding with him. And there’s some stuff between Mark and Louisa that would be more interesting if I was more invested in their previous relationship, although at least they are the two characters aside from Martin that have most moved beyond caricatures so far. So, this one was good enough to keep me watching, although I’m still considering this a probationary period.
Also, sometimes people don’t take St. John’s Wort but just like the flower. Odd to see that pop up twice on Tuesday night.
Somehow, nothing. I mean, it is eight weekly shows, but they only add up to about five hours, and that still leaves 163 hours for not watching TV. (Some of which I still use to watch TV. We watch too much TV, I think. But if we didn’t, who would write this column?)
We’ve been on a bit of a 30 Rock kick, which started out with some early episodes before moving into “let’s just watch all the Dennis Duffy episodes” territory. What a great character, perfectly written and perfectly played by Dean Winters. Just the right mix of crude, boorish, and stupid, but also extremely firm and fully confident in his convictions. (His excuse for appearing on “To Catch a Predator” doesn’t work at all if he doesn’t 100% believe it.) We haven’t finished those yet, though, so this week we can talk about the tie that douchebag up front made him wear, or the coffee machine, and next week we can also talk about Megan Duffy (maiden name Duffy, hopefully no relation) and Black Dennis.
Hey, in terms of fun, good shows from 2025 that not nearly enough people saw, the CW’s Good Cop / Bad Cop is now on Netflix! Go watch it! Even though I haven’t published my 2025 TV list yet, I assure you it ranks highly enough that it is worth your time. (And read the synopsis over on Wikipedia if you need to know more; I’ve written enough for one week.)
Actually, it’s also on Amazon Prime if you have that instead. And for our Australian readership, it aired there on Stan, so… whatever streaming service shows you their stuff should be where you can find it.
No, we’re not there yet, although High Potential is taking a break for a month or so. Some of the other network shows may be doing the same with the Winter Olympics taking up the next few weeks starting tomorrow; I’m pretty sure NBC in particular will be, since they’re covering the Games. Hey, wouldn’t that be great to not have shit to write about for a couple of weeks so I can deal with, like, everything else going on in my life. Maybe I’ll get my TV Groundhog wish after all.
A week from today, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, the latest from Lisa McGee (Derry Girls), drops on Netflix. And by “drops” I mean “premieres,” because I don’t know if they’re releasing the whole season at once or weekly.
Tell me something good! Tell me that you love me you’re watching the shit I tell you to!
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 Three, Episode Thirteen, “Mad Dogs and Servicemen”
“I don’t understand a word you say, but I’d lay down my life for your right to confuse me.”
“You two are gonna pay for this!”
“Not on our salary.”
This has Hawkeye try and deal with a psychological problem (which Trapper ends up solving); it’s interesting that is where the characters feel out of their depth, although it does make a kind of sense to me. Hawkeye is smart, but he’s also fairly black-and-white – not just in his morality, but in his solutions. Psychology problems must have appealed to the writers because they have sympathetic characters and no easy answers.
This introduces Radar’s petting zoo. Never thought about it until now, but this show shares more than a few qualities with Star Trek: TNG – the initial spark being that all the characters have hobbies and interests outside the plot, but also the deeply systemic structuring of the episodes.
Really imaginative scene where Margaret reads a letter for Radar from a teenage girl writing to guys on the front. The letter is funny (and kind of adorable – this is another written by Linda Bloodworth and Mary Place, and they perfectly capture the thinking of teenage girls), the idea of Radar reading this kind of letter is funny, and the fact that Margaret is mediating makes it genius.
“Radar, we don’t have a back porch.”
“Oh, I’m sorry sir, I’ll requisition one right away.”
I assume that’s the same future Linda Bloodworth-Thomason who created Designing Women. And is that Mary Kay Place or is there a different one?
It’s the one and the same.
Wow, I mostly know Place as a comedic actor (her first big role being Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman). Didn’t even know she did any writing.
Bande à Part – since there’s conflict over the English-language title of this one I will stick with the original! Was curious to see some more Godard after Nouvelle Vague and I’ve always thought this one sounded fun. And it mostly was! A similar pulpy blend of crime and low-key hang-out stuff to Breathless, but with Anna Karina as the melancholy heart. She never seems to be as into the criminal hijinks as the two guys and when they’re somewhat forced into more decisive action things inevitably go badly wrong. The café dance scene that has been homaged elsewhere is an absolute delight and definitely the best part of the movie for me, outside of that I really enjoyed the general Paris-in-the-60s time capsule stuff and the general vibe even if the storytelling is a little frustrating. Alphaville remains the only Godard film that has fully worked for me, but he’s an interesting character for sure.
Seinfeld, S6 – “The Secretary”, although the other plot about Elaine’s new dress and the escalating chaos after she returns it seems to be the focus of the episode more than George’s typically terrible workplace behaviour. Both funny though, particularly the two scenes with George’s boss getting stuck in endless anecdotes.
I should watch more Godard at some point, but I hated Breathless so much–despite it ostensibly seeming like my kind of thing–that the prospect always feels depressingly medicinal. Still, this does sound promising.
If you’re looking for a different flavour to Breathless then this probably isn’t the one, he’s definitely working in a similar register here. I enjoyed Breathless without feeling any real connection to it but there’s a screening here next weekend so I’m gonna give it another go.
I really like Alphaville too. I think the next Godard film, which uses that sort of pastiche/cultural references, that you should check out is Contempt (Le Mépris).
Ah yes, that does sound like an interesting one. Will seek it out!
Inside No. 9, “Bernie Clifton’s Dressing Room”
Beautiful, moving, painful, bittersweet episode. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton play a former double act (“Cheese and Crackers”) who broke up thirty years ago; they’re reuniting now for a special one-time event, but emotions are running high. Gregarious, clownish Len (Pemberton), unstoppably mugging for the audience and wearing his sentiments on his sleeve, remembers the old days with much more open fondness than composed straight man Tommy (Shearsmith), who now owns a successful, respectable business and pays people to take down YouTube clips of their old acts. The real life Shearsmith and Pemberton’s nuanced affection for old variety comedy–despite its failings: Len’s pained attempt to explain the racism in one of the skits is a great touch–shines through (notably, even the racist skit has two great punchlines), and there’s a lot of genuine humor here in the midst of the story of a partnership that shattered for reasons that only gradually become clear. A ton of emotion here, and it’s really a love story at its core. The “Tears of Laughter” number at the end is gorgeous and completely earned, and I’m not surprised its apparently become a touchstone song that Pemberton and Shearsmith often perform at live events related to the show. Tearing up a bit just thinking about all this.
Pemberton won the BAFTA for this–which, given a BAFTA barb in “Tears of Laughter,” is hilarious–and he’s superb, of course, but Shearsmith especially steals my heart here. Lovely work.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “Never Again” – Dark! More later.
MST3K, “The Chicken of Tomorrow”/”The Brute Man” – One of those times that the riffs on the short are much better than the riffs of the feature. Some time later, many of the writers would admit that they did feel good aobut gags touching on Rondo Hatton’s acromegaly, and there is just something about the movie’s repetitive and dour nature that I think made it hard to find new riffs. Whereas an short funded by Texaco about the poultry industry is begging for it. The movie taken on its own terms is hardly good – Hatton cannot act, and no one else here is very good – but the story had potential, and maybe with a decent lighting budget it could have been passable. Fun facts about The Chicken of Tomorrow: the narrator was Lowell Thomas, and the director was Jack Arnold of Incredible Shrinking Man fame.
As usual, I’ll miss tonight’s installment of The Pitt as it airs but catch up with it tomorrow. This season’s “10:00 AM” was great, though, with a couple of potential conflicts brewing–Al-Hashimi puts Langdon back into play, despite Robby’s express wishes, and not-so-subtly threatens Santos with repeating a year if she doesn’t improve her charting times, which prompts Mel to nudge Santos to use the AI dictation app, which will not go well–and some good wins for Javadi and Whitaker. Surprised it took us this long to get some MRSA: when I was working at a hospital, we saw that with depressing frequency. Maybe next season will bring us some C. diff too, for bonus nightmares.
I’m so in love with Inside No. 9 that it’s taking a lot of willpower to space out the episodes a bit, but I like getting to savor each one.
My wife and I wrapped up S2 of Stranger Things and may not actually keep this up, since we’ve both been more in the mood for other things lately–fair bit of writing going on in the house at the moment, which has perked both of us up a lot. But season two is a good, fun season that makes a lot of good choices.
I would recommend the third season of Stranger Things for a couple of new characters and some really fun ideas. The fourth is a heavy investment of time since every episode is long, and while I liked it, I can see how people would lose interest and not watch the final season (especially with the long wait). But you can stop where you are and just imagine things will be fine.
We’ve seen S1-S3 before–just never got around to S4 and were thinking about doing a full rewatch of the first three seasons before finally watching the last two. So I at least have one viewing of the third season under my belt! Robin is an excellent addition to the cast, especially in terms of her friendship with Steve and that beautifully handled coming-out scene, and I also love the Eleven-Max mall scene where they just get to be giggly and delighted for a while.
Personally, I think 2 was the last good season. I didn’t care for 3 nearly as much; watched one episode of 4 and saw how long the episodes were and was like “I don’t have time for this.”
Year of the Month update!
Coming in February, we’ll be looking at 1957, including all these movies, albums, books, TV, yadda yadda.
Feb. 6th: Gillianren: The Story of Anyburg, USA
Feb. 12th: Bridgett Taylor: The Music Man
Feb. 13th: Gillianren: The Truth About Mother Goose
Feb. 16th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Incredible Shrinking Man
Feb. 20th: Gillianren: Our Friend the Atom
Feb. 27th: Gillianren: Sleeping Beauty’s Castle
This March, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, TV, etc. from 1980.
March 5th: Cori Domschot: The Music Man
Mar. 23rd: Bridgett Taylor: Magnum PI