Captain's Log
Let's Stumble our way into being Invincible. What does that even mean
March Madness starts today, so for a couple of weeks we’ll have a bit of a thinner schedule, particularly in the Thursday-Sunday stretch of the week. Not today, though!
Invincible kicked off yesterday. I’m going to try to be more timely about writing about it going forward, but they released three episodes to premiere season 4. That’s a lot to watch and write about in a timely manner, so… I didn’t, especially after I had an attack of food poisoning in the middle of the night a day ago. It’ll be easier when the TV schedule slows down a bit the next couple of weeks.
Stumble, “Daytona” – The team makes it to Daytona to compete, and we finally meat Courteney’s old cheer coach Marg Hargberg (a delightfully mean Katey Sagal!). And sure, maybe it’s not whether we win or lose, but the friends we made along the way, but it’s still well-executed, very funny and quite moving. And actually, it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s whether or not Peaches can steal the championship trophy anyway. What a wonderful show, to create so many characters we care about and be so funny in such a short time. Please watch. A
Matlock, “Tail Lights” – The judicial prejudice in the case of the week was pretty far even for this show. A fair bit of broadness all around. The main cast is still great, but this felt sloppier than usual. But it ends with a surprising turn, though I refuse to believe the final scene at the office is the final chapter of that saga. (Not that I think we’re supposed to.) B
Elsbeth, “Murder Six Across” – Steve Buscemi is our crossword-nerd murderer of the week, and a welcome reminder that he’s such a good actor he immediately elevates anything he’s in. And hey, that’s Samantha Mathis! A-
Abbott Elementary, “Safety Day” – Hilarious safety presentations that are wildly inappropriate for an elementary school. Plus some side plots not really connected to the overall. Slight but pretty funny, but loses some credit for bringing back F.A.D.E. but not using Tariq. B+
Animal Control, “Squirrels and Fat Cats” – Frank finds out about Shred and Emily, blackmailing Shred into helping him steal a stapler from acquisitions, which delightfully reunites Joel McHale and Jim Rash. Patel and Victoria try to handle a bully that’s been targeting Patel’s daughter. He actually saves the day for once! A-
Going Dutch, “Tinker, Tailor, Colonel, Spy” – Parker Young’s CIA bro is back with his eyes for Maggie, and Patrick doesn’t trust him. Shah’s marriage ending means both he and Maggie are dealing with their feelings for one another without knowing they are… will they find out? Maybe if the Colonel’s truth serum gets to them. Papadakis: The oven mitts don’t work. A-
American Dad!, “Camera Stan” – Stan decides to prove to the family he’s a natural for reality TV when Steve tells him the camera brings out the worst in him, and Roger’s producer character has just the right opportunity for him. Stan’s obnoxious behavior is a lot funnier for us than the other people in the reality house. Newfoundland terrorists get involved. A-
St. Denis Medical, “Everyone Loves Portland General” – Bruce considers leaving St. Denis for Portland General; Matt helps Ron get back into his email account; Serena discovers that holding a baby is an easy way to get out of work. One particular joke from Matt that got a scream from me, and really, he gets most of the laughs this episode; he seems to have emerged as the show’s best character this season. B+
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, “You May Hug Your Hero” – Reggie starts a football camp for underprivileged children. His encounter with retired linebacker Jerry Basmati renews their old rivalry. Monica tries to convince Brina to take the high road with Jerry’s wife Tisha. Arthur gets distracted while filming the football camp. Guest starring Megan Thee Stallion, Craig Robinson, and Heidi Gardner. A little less structured than the best episode, but a strong ending, lots of great lines, and a riotously funny C-plot. A-
DMV, “Test Drive” – Teen Outreach Day at the DMV leads Colette to push Gregg into mentoring a teen, in her usual fashion. Vic meets the teen version of him and becomes convinced he might somehow be his; Noa coaches him through it. Barb wants to make a video of the day to air on DMV-TV and her Kubrick-esque perfectionism drives Cece nuts. Pretty funny; show is settling into a good groove. B+
High Potential, “Pie in the Sky” – Smoke on the water! Uh, I mean, an astronaut is murdered under strange circumstances. Also strange, where Soto’s continued digging into the Roman case seems to lead. I would write more but I’m still feeling pretty ill. Bonus points for use of Wet Leg. I’ll be generous for that (and Jennifer Jason Leigh), but the grades are all relative and meaningless, anyway. A-
We did watch the first episode of Neighbors, which we’ve heard good things about. It’s a documentary series about, well, disputes between neighbors that have escalated or gotten out of hand. Two sets of neighbors are featured each episode; I’ve heard it’s funny, and while the first episode was entertaining, well-made, and definitely unearthed a couple of kooks… it also is the kind of thing that makes me lose any hope in the American experiment. President Xi please liberate the Americans who are members of society from the property-rights wannabe-homesteader individualistic paranoid gun nuts.
We also caught another episode of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, which puts us halfway through as the case gets stranger and stranger. The ladies take a trip to Portugal to investigate who the mysterious Jodie is and why (apparently) her body was in place of Greta’s; they encounter Booker there, who has spirited Greta away elsewhere for reasons still unknown to us, and is terrifyingly handy with a bomb, among other things. Liam talks to Greta’s mother Margo and gets just enough to give us a hint that she’s got some very strange scheme afoot. Remains to be seen what! In the midst of the mystery, though, the same kind of character comedy among the ladies that was such a hallmark of Derry Girls finds its purchase and is welcome and funny as well. So far, so good!
Possibly also coming up on our streaming docket: Sunny Nights, starring Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden; it was released on Hulu March 11, but is an Australian production that premiered there on Stan in late December of last year. I think they play brother-sister con artists? Something like that.
Uh… there may have been a couple of American Dad! or Letterkenny episodes in there, but I’m not gonna try to remember now, due to all those shows listed above.
That was Stumble‘s 13th episode, which I believe is the season finale. (The storytelling is quite confusingly paced if it’s not.) Please go watch it so it gets renewed.
Matlock and Elsbeth are taking a break on CBS while March Madness is going on; I think Fox will have American Dad!, Animal Control, and Going Dutch do so as well. That’ll be the next two weeks. Monday through Wednesday, I believe the network schedule continues more or less uninterrupted. Until the championship game on Monday, April 6, maybe.
I don’t have a confirmed date for anything until Bob’s Burgers returns to the air April 26. That’s a ways away. If there’s anything before then we should look out for, mention it in the comments.
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 Nineteen, “And Station”
“This looks familiar.”
“I once cut this up in med school.”
There’s a really great scene where Margaret is monologuing at length to Frank while he sits in the background, and Larry Linville really is listening the whole time. From the the technical perspective of acting, this show sits in this interesting line between theatre and television, where the camera sits back far enough to catch multiple people reacting to each other and jumps right in to catch small expressions.
There’s a great gag where Hawkeye tells Trapper there’s a letter in his bag, and Trapper gets serious, only for Hawk to deliver the punchline that it goes to the Hawkeye Pierce Memorial Brothel. This speaks to this being another early-era example of the show getting serious; there’s a great scene where both Radar and Henry come to visit the Swamp to commiserate over their fears for Hawkeye, Margaret, and Klinger out on the front.
Because, of course, this is a great one for the three of those to come together in their experience on the front; this is an early example of teasing a relationship between Hawk and Margaret, which doesn’t feel like it means much in this specific context, but tied into the way their relationship develops over the years, feels meaningful. It also works specifically of showing how brutal experiences can bring people together, as well as how much of the comedy is them trying to think about anything other than the fact they could be about to die.
This is one of my favorites. I always like when the early seasons show the fundamental respect between Hawkeye and Margaret, and this is an excellent one for that, and it doubles down by also showing a (more rarely appearing) respect between Margaret and Klinger, too.
Klinger needing to dress more practically for the front but still keeping his earrings is one of those small details that, though never intended to do so, really speaks to me on a queer level.
“Just letting you know, chivalry isn’t dead – it’s just been replaced by exhaustion.”
“Oh right. Never in the afternoon.” Plus his joy at getting back to camp and putting his hat back on, knowing it would amuse Hawkeye and Margaret.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “Mink” – Hooray for Ruth Hussey!
Frasier, “Door Jam” – Fraiser and Niles discover Cam Winston (alas unseen here) has been invited to join something they were not invited to join, obsess over becoming members even before they learn it’s a hoity toity day spa, and then obsess over getting into the “gold door.” Nothing we have not seen before, but Grammer and Hyde Pierce do it so well as we build to the inevitable comeuppance. Plus Hyde Pierce does a perfect impression of Brian Stokes Mitchell’s voice. Meanwhile, Martin introduces Daphne to The Rockford Files, and Daphne has to backpedal fast when she compares Martin with Jim’s dad Rocky. I am here for both Rockford love and for comparing the two grumpy old men (and for Martin insisting he’s more like Jim despite all evidence to the contrary).
Inside No. 9, “Boo to a Goose”
Fuck me, this was excellent: really kicking off the final series with an all-time banger. A train breaks down in a tunnel, a kindhearted nurse’s purse goes missing, accusations fly, and, well, fuck.
The show’s deft hand at rapid-fire characterization comes into play here, so that in half an hour, I genuinely care about, say, Siobhan Finneran’s character’s realization that she and her husband have slid into mild, self-pleasing passivity or the climactic choice of Pemberton’s caustic, embittered drag queen, and the various payoffs and reveals not only work but are, in several cases, positively gutting. Excellent work from our two leads, as usual, and some phenomenal guest star turns, especially from Joel Fry, Finneran, and Phillipa Dunne.
The ending is incredible and ruthless, even cruel–the humanity’s been doled out very fairly here, and Dunne’s nurse is the most compassionate character of all, but it’s not a test of compassion, is it? This is a vicious pass-fail exam on a very specific point that is, it turns out, the only one that really matters to the people administering the test, and then you go on.
Scrubs, “My Angel”
Yay, Dr. Park is back! The reveal that he and Turk have actually been pretty friendly in the recent past is a great one (love them passing hellos to/from Carla back and forth at the end of tense exchanges about JD). Good use of a patient’s story to inch Elliot’s emotional arc forward, as she decides to try dating again; JD, meanwhile, decides he’s not as ready for it as he thought, and both developments feel true and appropriate. Sibby having to defend herself against charges of being a black widow deeply amused me, as did Blake knocking a patient’s wheelchair into Asher to shut him up for his own good. If I have a criticism, it’s that the final beat with the nurses felt underbaked and rushed-through–a bit like it needed a montage rather than a single shot–but overall, this still feels like pretty vintage Scrubs.
Huh, haven’t watched the new revival yet but the premise of JD and Elliott not being together anymore…actually makes sense. (Elliott is also my least favorite kind of white lady so I never truly got her character.)
I didn’t mind them ending up together at the end of the original series, but the divorce checks out, so I’m really hoping that they don’t do a will-they-won’t-they(-get-back-together) in the revival, because a multi-year marriage that didn’t stick despite a lot of effort and good intentions on their part feels final enough that they should both walk away. And there was a moving bit about how they’ll always be important to each other that sold the emotional side of things.
Twin Peaks, S2 E3 – all-timer Albert episode, the monologue where he aggressively outs himself as a pacifist is up there with the highlights of the whole show. Some of the less beloved subplots kick off here – James threatens for the first time to just ride away on his bike, for example – but there’s a ton of great stuff too. Leland talking about his childhood encounter with Bob, and the police sketch sending the one-armed man into a fit – unsettling stuff. I don’t love the plot about Audrey getting held and drugged at One Eyed Jacks which kinda drags a bit, but Jean Renault is nicely creepy at least.
Seinfeld, S7 – “The Hot Tub” was a lot of fun, with some nicely linked plots after a few slightly disjointed episodes. Jerry getting extremely invested in the marathon runner’s need to wake up early made me laugh, as did George dealing with a bunch of Texans (one of whom was played by Charles Cyphers, in a rare non-John-Carpenter appearance!).
I feel like “The Soup Nazi” is one of those episodes with a little extra cultural footprint and deservedly so, probably the best episode of the season so far. Loved the bizarre armoire subplot and the triumphant bitterness of Elaine’s revenge at the end.
Threw on some random Season 7 Always Sunny for some very specific gags and deliveries, especially Dennis and Charlie falsely reporting a rape to the police – specifically David Marciano, AKA Billings on The Shield – when they’re trying to find the “shusher” (“He made soup of your insides, man.” “He, he BARELY made it inside me.”) and “A leather shop?! In Arizona?! They’d be out of business in a week’s time!” The one where they’re trapped in a house though ends on a pretty weak punchline compared to any other episode.