I hope you enjoyed last week’s format, because I can’t write longer entries when there are so many shows.
Nothing on my radar, yet. I have just learned about this new Hulu series Sunny Nights starring Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden, so I may report back on that at some point.
Abbott Elementary, “Aide” – Janine’s request for an aide to help her swelling class brings back Ashley, who is as ridiculous as ever but also has learned a thing or two. Gregory and Melissa’s bizarre ideas for gym class thankfully are put to an end by Jacob’s brother Caleb, who both has the requisite experience for gym and remembers he is working with kids. Minor C-plot with Dominic, Jacob, and Barbara, but at least Dominic gets something to do and plays it well. B+
Matlock, “The Greater Good” – Bringing Julian into the fold continues to pay dividends for the plot, as he’s sharp and a quick thinker and proving to be a big asset. Jason Ritter gets a real showcase this episode and delivers. The new associate from the floater pool is an eager and earnest bro, just a human golden retriever, and his presence alone in this episode is hilarious. A
Elsbeth, “All’s Hair” – Jeff Hiller, one of the five high-end wigmakers in New York City with specialized clientele, poaches the client of another, and their confrontation leads to murder. (The other is played by Al Sapienza– Mikey Palmice himself– which really adds to the “Five Families” thing here.) Winnie Crawford returns and tries to pry information about Alec Bloom from Elsbeth. B+
Animal Control, “Donkeys and Weasels” – Frank dealing with his terrible father (no less terrible after a heart attack) drives most of the plot. Victoria and Patel try to cover for one of their screwups. Solid episode but didn’t terribly grab my attention. B
Going Dutch, “Twenty-Year Sitch” – Shah’s 20th anniversary as a military man leads to a celebration and a camping trip. Want to give this one a little space to highlight something I thought was handled nicely: a failed marriage that isn’t acrimonious. Celeste and Shah care about one another and tried to make it work, and she’s a nice person, but she’s kind of selfish without meaning to be and doesn’t really get Shah at all. Hilarious runner of Papadakis moving on from A Song of Ice and Fire to the Bible and similarly reading it as a lore-dense epic fantasy series. “Did you know the Bible is the highest selling book of all time? Sold more copies than Da Vinci Code. Which is also about Jesus, so I guess it’s Extended Bible Universe.” “You mean Christianity?” A-
Stumble, “Making Mat” – 17 cheerleaders. 16 on mat at Daytona. Courteney doesn’t want to cut anyone from appearing, but someone has to go. Surprisingly affecting side of the show, but doesn’t lose any of the comedy. Not sure if next week is the finale, but the season’s ending soon. A-
American Dad!, “Powering Through” – Stan’s insistence he can work through any illness leads Steve to deliberately get him sick, at which point he asks Dr. Weitzman to help him find a cure. Of course, this goes into classic AD! CIA territory, with Stan mutating into some kind of monster, spreading the virus. It’s up to Steve to save the day. Also some good meta-gags with the title sequence. A-
St. Denis Medical, “Happy Birthday, Matty” – Entirely on location at the Laser Lounge for Matt’s birthday, which Joyce thinks is an actual lounge, when it’s closer to a Dave and Buster’s. Ron gets fixated on Space Invaders. Chaplain Steve shows up and is a total dick, which inspires Bruce’s more protective instincts… let alone Serena seeing more clearly what a dick he is. B+
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, “Save the Cat” – Reggie convinces himself a missing cat belongs to his old coach, and finding the cat will earn him the redemption he’s looking for; Arthur tries to help him find it / rein him in. The B-story, where Monica finally caves and asks Rusty for dating advice, is much funnier. Rusty somehow finds the two worst ways to break to Carmelo what they’re doing: “We’re trying to find you a new dad.” beat “…or… something casual to bounce on.” A-
DMV, “The Fourth Wheel” – Anna Camp guests as the DMV state chief’s annoying niece who needs a job; her scheming to worm her way into the hearts of the others and oust Colette goes awry pretty quickly, but can Barb bring herself to fire her? Noa also serves as a go-between for Cece and her new short rich terrible boyfriend, which he quickly hates doing. B+
High Potential, “If You Come For the Queen” – Michael Hyatt returns as Sgt. Reynolds, this time the victim of an attempted murder, which gives Daphne a spotlight episode. A second murder seems to be tied into the case in a bit of a Strangers on a Train situation, which really got under my skin that nobody on the show said the words “strangers on a train.” Pretty good case on the whole, though; the Roman plot also progresses, and the story with Ava works well for the family side of things. Borderline grade but I’ll generously tip it over, because it is one of the better episodes of the show as of late. A-
Best Medicine, “Port Wenn-ings and a Funeral” – The Annual Birdwatching Tradition brings in two elderly sisters we’ve never seen before, one of whom, uh, attempts to take flight and leaps off a cliff. Martin tries to figure out what might have caused that, and when the still-alive sister starts acting strange, and Peter starts offering a ludicrously hypochondriac set of suggestions for his own symptoms, Martin starts making connections and ultimately figures out what’s going on— even though it takes some harrowing emergency work to save the day. A much better and sharper case of the week, and the townspeople being far less insufferable. Martin does act pretty foolish at the end there, though. Last notes: off next week for the World Baseball Classic final; officially renewed for season 2. A-
Well, How to Get to Heaven From Belfast will have to wait a little longer, but I did make some time to catch Kumail Nanjiani’s latest standup special, Night Thoughts, the first one he’s done in a long time. I always thought he was very funny, so count me among the number who was worried about his turn into Jacked Marvel Guy (although I don’t think I took it so far as to be part of what made him, in his words, “the first ever person to get made fun of for getting buff”). Pretty good, with some sharp segments and jokes, although there are parts of being too successful to be relatable that trickle in. Not so many as to make this a bad special or one that isn’t worth watching, though. I had a pretty good time.
Watched a couple of American Dad! episodes when I had a slow minute. “American Dad Graffito” and “Gold Top Nuts” (season 19 by Wikipedia) were probably the highlights; the former is the flat-out funniest, while the latter is one of the show’s really odd concept episodes.
Invincible season 4 premieres on Wednesday. TBD if I’ll have time to write about it before next week.
I have finally finished writing the TV List of 2025, which took me way too damn long given how long ago I finalized said list. Since it’s so late, I don’t want to wait to give it any more fanfare, and honestly I’m tired of thinking about it and if I don’t publish it right away I’ll never stop revising it. Look for part 1 this afternoon!
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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What did we watch?
Chopping Mall – You KNOW those Uber autonomous robots are gonna electrocute someone then tell the corpse “Thank you, have a nice day.” This rules, an incredibly fun slasher that asks “What if the ED-209 was a malfunctioning mall cop?” Less about automation of labor and more the increasingly uneasy – as of 2026 – question of the inhuman representation of pure capital while clashing with the human, something it doesn’t at all recognize even with an ID badge. More importantly, there’s nudity, a DIRECT exploding head shot, the great Barbara Crampton, and some surprising sweetness what with the very likeable young characters. Almost as entertaining is reading about director Wyrnoski’s B-movie and schlock career after being in the Corman school off and on. Guest starring Dick Miller, Paul Bartel, and Mary Worvonov, not optional.
I got to see this one with live We Hate Movies commentary one Halloween, and it was a blast.
Oh hell yeah, might have to listen today!
I’m currently watching VIDEOHEAVEN on Criterion right now, and I think this may be referenced in it. In any event I think you would find these two to be great companions in the consumer space horror sub genre (albeit Perry’s film being a video essay).
M*A*S*H, Season Three Episode Eighteen, “House Arrest”
“I can’t allow dirty language in front of Captain Pierce! I promised his mother!”
“I’d better see a doctor. Is there anyone who isn’t mad at me?”
Frank trying to figure out what’s different about Radar (he’s wearing shoes that make him taller) is such a great moment of comic acting from Larry Linville. He’s so good at conveying a stupid man thinking.
Anyway, the central premise of the episode is great – Hawkeye is trapped under house arrest for punching Frank, and the mixture of his popularity and the popularity of his specific crime leads him to have a grand ol’ time – with a conclusion I, uh, would not have written. I’m not against the individual elements of a horny older female colonel, or even a horny older female colonel who forces herself on a male character, but I’d probably take it a little more seriously than this.
Inside No. 9, “Paraskevidekatriaphobia”
I want it on the record that I spelled that correctly in one go.
Shearsmith leads this as a man with a severe phobia of Friday the 13th in particular and bad luck in general. He wants to play it safe on one of his worst days of the year and simply hunker down at home, but unfortunately, an unexpected package delivery leads to a hilarious cascade of misfortunes (the delivery woman winds up locked in his bathroom, necessitating the arrival of a locksmith, who’s brought along his granddaughter, etc.) and ill omens (a black cat, spilled salt, an overturned horseshoe, a badly placed ladder, and on and on). A lot of incredibly fun slapstick here–Shearsmith trying to spray the black cat with a shower nozzle and winding up drenching himself instead is sad sack perfection–but as a high anxiety person myself, I also feel for the guy. I know he’s being a bit of an annoying dick, but it’s two or three days a year at the most! Cut him some slack! A gleefully inventive episode in terms of all the comedy it’s throwing at its poor beset protagonist, with a very mean and satisfying stinger. The amateur actor parodies are also incredible.
Scrubs, “My Poker Face”
Very much enjoying the new season so far! JD and Turk’s cutting words/correct diagnosis exchange via Surgical/Medical jockeying in front of a patient is top-notch, and I also got a serious laugh out of JD ruminating, “I should probably learn his name,” about the new janitor that he’s chummy with. (Delighted to see that Neil Flynn is slated to return at some point.) I am missing Dr. Park, though, so it’s good to see via advance episode blurbs that he’ll be back in the near future.
Suddenly undercutting the petty interpersonal drama with a heartbreaking patient reveal is classic Scrubs, and done very effectively here.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “The Legacy” – That was a very funny outro. That is all I have to say right now.
The Court Jester – The pellet with poison is in chalice from the palace. Not that it actually matters. Still a fun and funny movie with some great songs, solid performances by the leads, and some fun set pieces. But also increasingly silly bordering on incoherent, with that cadre of questionable (if relatively well treated) little people, a whole bunch of people thrown into the sea unconscious, and the weirdness of the great swordsman Basil Rathbone being worn out by the not-so-great Danny Kaye flailing about. (And don’t think for a second about what probably happens after the movie, since young kings with regents usually didn’t fare very well.)
I’m falling behind on the Hitchcock! Might have to do a double-bill later.
Bugonia – enjoyed the performances (and the score) here but the actual film fell pretty flat for me. I think part of that is having seen the original film, Save the Green Planet – I remember having a good time with the wild twists there but even though I saw it a long time ago, I remembered enough of the plot to remove the surprise factor this time around and I’m not really sure there was enough else there to sustain this. I missed the oddball Yorgos Lanthimos sense of humour and didn’t feel like the build of tension was particularly effective. And when the BIG twist is revealed here it’s very CGI heavy, I feel like the scrappier original film pulled that off a lot better – but again, old memory, might be some rose-tinted spectacles at play. Anyway, maybe my least favourite of the Best Picture nominees that I’ve seen (give or take Frankenstein) and do I have to watch F1 now to complete the list? I’m so close, and I guess cars do go fast.
I’ve seen the original and I wonder if the tone is handled better there.
My memory suggests it was, but my memory is fucking terrible, so.
Specifically, I’m sure I remember the scrappy low-budget quality of the original working in its favour, in that you don’t expect the film to suddenly reveal a more ambitious scope halfway through. When it’s an Oscar-winning director playing with decent money and some big-name stars it doesn’t quite hit as hard, maybe? Or perhaps it does if you don’t already kinda know what’s going to happen, I dunno.
Year of the Month update!
This March, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, TV, etc. from 1980.
TBD: Ruck Cohlchez: Underwater Moonlight
Mar. 16th: Tristan J Nankervis: 9 to 5
Mar. 19th: John Bruni: Gaucho
Mar. 23rd: Bridgett Taylor: Magnum PI
And next month, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1949.
April. 9th: Cori Domschot: I Was a Male War Bride
Apr. 16th: Cori Domschot: On the Town
Your books links didn’t close properly. I fixed it, but since it happened twice, I figured you might have a template to copy and paste from, so you might want to make sure all your link tags are closed there.