Tag Archives: review

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.2 “Storm of Fuck” (dir by Marcos Siega)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The second episode of Dexter: New Blood had a title that I’m sure Deb would have appreciated.

Indeed, any Deb-centric episode of the first series of Dexter was always guaranteed to feature a storm of profanity and one of the the things that I always liked about Dexter is that everyone on the show was always as shocked by Deb’s language as the viewer was.  Ghost Deb tends to curse a lot as well.  Of course, Ghost Deb has her reasons.  Not only is she dead but she can’t get her stupid stepbrother to listen to her advice.  Ghost Deb told Dexter not to let Harrison stay in the cabin.  She told Dexter that everyone he gets close to dies.  And yet, over the course of Storm of Fuck, Dexter not only invited Harrison to live with him but he also took Harrison along with him while he covered up the previous episode’s murder of Matt Caldwell.  (Of course, he didn’t tell Harrison what he was actually doing.  Dexter is very good at keeping his secrets.)

A few thoughts on Storm of Fuck:

First off, it’s pretty obvious that the girl in the motel is going to be used as the target in some version of The Most Dangerous Game, right?  And it’s also pretty obvious that Edward Olsen is the one behind it.  It’s in no way a big surprise because Dexter has always been full of evil, rich serial killers.  It also seems fairly obvious that Audrey is eventually going to end up getting hunted by Olsen.

Secondly, I don’t think Matt’s father (played by Clancy Brown) is a serial killer but I do think that he’s going to eventually figure out what Dexter did to his son.  He’ll be the New Blood‘s equivalent of James Doakes, the man who knows the truth but can’t get anyone to listen to him.

Third, Harrison has totally murdered someone, right?  I mean, he may not be a serial killer.  And the events of Storm of Fuck would seem to indicate that he doesn’t have anything to do with any of the recent missing persons cases.  But, obviously, he’s got some secrets.  What did he do back when he was on drugs?  Was he even on drugs or was that just something he said?  Are those drawings of people who he knows or people he killed?  When he read Dexter’s letter about “dark tendencies,” was he upset because he discovered Dexter was alive or was it because he knew that he did have those dark tendencies?  My point is that Harrison is destined to follow in his father’s bloody footsteps eventually.

As for the rest of Storm of Fuck, it was an okay episode.  It didn’t exactly move the story forward by much but it did allow us a chance to get to know all of the new characters.  To me, this episode worked best as an example of the show’s often underrated use of dark humor.  As macabre as the subject matter often is, it’s hard not to laugh at the contrast between Michael C. Hall’s deadpan voice-over and the events happening on screen.  And, in grand Dexter tradition, the entire episode featured Dexter getting one lucky break after another until, during the final few minutes, everything fell apart.  Dexter had nearly gotten everyone away from his cabin when Kurt Caldwell showed up and gave a rousing speech.  On any other show, we would have cheered a community coming together and Kurt’s speech would have been a big hero moment.

On Dexter, though, it’s just a storm of fuck.

Cleaning Out The DVR: The Mauritanian (dir by Kevin Macdonald)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I finally watched The Mauritanian.

The Mauritanian is a film that was released earlier this year.  The Golden Globes gave it some unexpected love.  The Oscars ignored it.  It won some awards in the UK.  It’s based on the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi, who was detained at Gitmo without charge for 15 years.  The U.S. government claimed that Salahi was one of the men responsible for recruiting the 9-11 hijackers.  Salahi claimed innocence and wrote and published his memoirs while he was still a prisoner.  Salahi was regularly tortured and sexually abused while detained.  His interrogators regularly threatened to bring his mother to Gitmo, where she would be gang-raped, unless Salahi told them what they wanted to hear.

It’s a horrifying story and an important one, especially nowadays when so many people have forgotten that everyone is meant to have rights under the law.  Unfortunately, The Mauritanian doesn’t really do the story justice.  Instead of simply focusing on Salahi (played, in a charismatic performance, by Tahar Rahim) and what he went through after being detained, the film divides its time between Salahi, his lawyers, and the man assigned to prosecute his case.  As the representatives of the legal system, Jodie Foster, Shailene Woodley, and Benedict Cumberbatch all give one-note performances.  Foster somehow won a Golden Globe for her role but there’s not much to the performance or the character, beyond the fact that she’s pissed off and she’s played by a respected performer who came out of semi-retirement because she agreed with the film’s message.  Shailene Woodley is not particularly believable as someone who could have passed a bar exam.  Meanwhile, the film uses Benedict Cumberbatch’s likable screen presence to try to disguise the fact that it tells its story with a counter-productively heavy hand.  The film wants us to think its nuanced, just because the normally heroic Cumberbatch is playing one of the government’s representatives.

The Mauritanian is a film that wants to shock and outrage us.  It’s also a film that wants to move us and make the audience celebrate the activism of the attorneys played by Foster and Woodley.  Unfortunately, director Kevin Macdonald takes a rather generic approach to telling this story.  There’s no complexity.  There’s no surprises.  One need only look at a film like The Report to see how a film like this could have been effective.  Instead, The Mauritanian often threatens to become as self-congratulatory as The Trial of the Chicago 7.  At its weakest, it’s like an Aaron Sorkin film, without the snappy dialogue.  There is a harrowingly effective sequence in which Salahi is psychologically tortured but Macdonald lessens the impact by continually cutting to Foster and Cumberbatch reading a report about the torture.  It takes a moment that should have been about what Salahi was put through and instead makes it about how his attorney reacts to it.  It’s as if Macdonald didn’t have faith in his audience and felt that we would need two stars to let us know that the torture we’re viewing with our own eyes was wrong.

Though The Mauritanian was only released a few month ago, it already feel like a relic from another era.  One gets the feeling that a flawed but politically outspoken film like this would have gotten a lot more attention from the Academy if it had been released in 2006 or 2007 or even during the first two years of the Obama administration, back when people still believed that Obama was serious about closing Gitmo.  Today, however, we take the excesses of the war on terror for granted.  People are no longer shocked by them.  As I watched The Mauritanian, I found myself thinking about the fact that, just two-and-a-half months ago, the U.S. blew up an innocent aide worker and his family, bragged about it, and then tried to cover it up.  At one time, this would have been a national scandal.  In 2021, however, it’s the sort of thing that gets shrugged off.  One gets the feeling that a movie will never be made about that man or his family.

 

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 11/7/21 — 11/13/21

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This was my birthday week and I’m happy to say that I spent a lot more time celebrating than watching television.  Here’s what little — I do mean very little — I did watch.

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

With the colonels now free from the Communist Resistance, it was up to Rene and the café residents to figure out what to do with all of the stolen money.  Of course, in typical Allo Allo fashion, it turned out that hiding money was much more complicated than stealing it, especially with Herr Flick determined to catch the culprits.  Officer Crabtree showed up to show everyone a picture of the, “sispoocts,” which turned out to be his way of saying, “suspects.”

Dexter: New Blood (Sunday Night, Showtime)

I wrote about the first episode of Dexter: New Blood here!

Fear The Walking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

I reviewed the latest episode of Fear The Walking Dead here.

The Office (Comedy Central)

On Saturday morning, I watched the “Did I Stutter” episode of The Office, which features not only one of Steve Carrel’s best performances from Michael but also great work from Leslie David Baker as Stanley.  I also related to Pam and her total blindness without her contacts or her glasses.

Survivor (Wednesday Night, CBS)

You can read my thoughts on the latest episode here!

The Walking Dead: World Beyond (Sunday Night, AMC)

Apparently, I was just not in a Walking Dead mood this week.  I didn’t care much for Fear The Walking Dead‘s latest episode and the latest episode of The Walking Dead: World Beyond was boring as well.  I may just be bored with zombies, who knows?

TV Review: Dexter New Blood 1.1 “Cold Snap” (dir by Marcos Siega)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When last we saw erstwhile serial killer Dexter Morgan, he had faked his death, fled Miami, and was apparently working as a lumberjack in Oregon.

That was how Showtime’s Dexter originally ended, back in 2013.  It was not a popular ending and yet, I don’t think anyone was expecting to be satisfied by Dexter’s finale.  In retrospect, the highpoint of Dexter came during season 4, during the arc involving John Lithgow at the Trinity Killer.  The four seasons that came after the conclusion of that storyline could never quite escape the shadow of the battle of wills between Lithgow and Michael C. Hall.  Seasons 5, 6, and 7 all felt somewhat superfluous while season 8 seemed to go off the rails entirely.  As a result, I think everyone was mentally prepared to be let down by however the show ended but still, people were hoping for a little more than Dexter in Oregon.

Fortunately, Dexter Morgan is back!  Dexter: New Blood, which premiered last Sunday on Sunday, picks up ten years after the conclusion of Dexter.  Dexter (played by Michael C. Hall, of course) is no longer living in Oregon.  In fact, in the first episode, Oregon was never even mentioned. Instead, Dexter is now living in upstate New York.  He’s using the name Jim Lindsay.  He works at a sporting goods store.  He’s dating the local chief of police, Angela Bishop (Julia Jones).  He’s a popular citizen.  Everyone like Jim.  Everyone thinks that they know Jim.  Of course, what they don’t know is that Jim is actually Dexter, a serial killer who once specialized in killing other murderers.  They also don’t know that Dexter spends a good deal of his spare time talking to the ghost of his dead stepsister, Deb (Jennifer Carpenter, taking on the mentor role that James Remar played in the original series).  Deb continually tells Dexter that he can’t get close to anyone.  Anyone to whom Dexter gets close dies.  Of course, even in death, Deb doesn’t seem to understand that Dexter isn’t capable of being genuinely close with anyone.

When Cold Snap, the first episode, begins, it’s been ten years since Dexter killed anyone, though it’s obvious that he still has the urge.  Dexter’s ten-year break comes to an end when he meets Matt Caldwell (Steve M. Robertson), a spoiled rich kid who, several years earlier, was involved in a boating accident that killed five people.  When Dexter learns that Matt intentionally smashed into the other boat and then when Matt later shoots a rare albino stag that Dexter had spent days tracking, Dexter’s Dark Passenger returns.  Interestingly enough, it turns out that, despite being inactive for ten years, Dexter still has a perfect murderer’s lair inside his cabin’s shed.  Before Dexter ritualistically kills Matt, Matt says that his father is going to kill Dexter.  Who is Matt’s father?  I’m sure we’ll find out soon.  A part of me suspects that it might be Edward Olsen (Fredric Lehne), a billionaire who is planning on doing business in the town.  I also suspect that Olsen is probably connected to the disappearances of several young women in the area.  Wealthy businessmen often turned out to be serial killers on Dexter.

Speaking of fathers, Dexter is also a father.  He abandoned his son, Harrison, in Miami ten years ago.  Now, the teenage Harrison (Jack Alcott) has tracked Dexter down.  At first, Dexter pretended not to know who Harrison was and he gave Harrison money to buy a ticket on the next bus out of town.  However, at the end of the episode, Dexter, fresh from murdering Matt, showed up at the bus station, sat down next to Harrison, and said, “I am Dexter Morgan.”

It was an interesting ending and a bit frightening considering everything that we know about Dexter.  Ghost Deb is right.  People who get close to Dexter do end up dying.  That said, we really don’t know much about Harrison.  In the books, Dexter was often concerned that Rita’s stepchildren, Cody and Astor, had their own dark passengers.  To the best of my memory, that wasn’t really explored on the television show with Harrison but what if Harrison does turn out to be a serial killer?  Even worse, what if Harrison turns out to be a serial killer who, like his father, only targets other serial killers?  Would Dexter have to kill Harrison or would Harrison have to kill Dexter?  But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.  As of the first episode, the only thing we know for sure is that Harrison managed to track his father down.

I was intrigued by the first episode of Dexter: New Blood, though I have to admit that most of that was due to the hints of what could happen in the future as opposed to what actually did happen in the episode.  As I said at the start of this review, the first four seasons of Dexter were brilliant.  The final four seasons were increasingly uneven.  Just as it’s hard for Dexter to run the risk of getting close to anyone, it’s also hard for us viewers to run the risk of fully embracing this revival because we’ve all seen first hand that there are limits to how far Dexter‘s concept can be taken without things falling apart.  It’s probably not surprising that the reviews for this episode were mixed.  Variety liked it.  The AV Club and Rolling Stone complained that it was too violent.  The generic online reviewer of today often seems more concerned with hitting the right talking points and satisfying the online mob than with actually giving thought to such quaint considerations at to whether or not a show is entertaining or if it actually holds your interest.  Dexter: New Blood held my interest and it was entertaining enough for me to set the DVR to record next week’s episode.  To me, that qualifies as a successful episode.

So far, Dexter: New Blood feels like it could be a return to the Dexter of those first four seasons.  Michael C. Hall remains a compelling presence.  I’m interested to see how things develop with Harrison.  I’m glad Dexter got the Hell out of Oregon.  I’ll be watching.

TV Review: Fear The Walking Dead 7.4 “Breathe With Me” (dir Tara Nicole Weyr)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The latest episode of Fear The Walking Dead really didn’t do much for me.

That’s not necessarily the show’s fault, or at least not entirely.  As I’ve said from my first review, I didn’t start regularly watching this show until the start of the current (and final) season.  As a result, I’m still learning who many of these characters are.  Perhaps if I had watched the earlier seasons, I would have been more emotionally connected to Sarah’s search for her brother, Wendell.  And perhaps I would have been more concerned with Josiah’s need to get revenge on Morgan.

But, even with all that in mind, last Sunday’s episode was punishingly slow.  It felt like a throwback to one of those old episodes of The Walking Dead where some minor character would randomly run into someone and then we’d have to spend 40 minutes listening to them have a conversation about nothing before some random Walkers finally showed up.  For lack of a better term, it was kind of boring.  For all of the trouble that the episode put the viewer through, it needed a better pay off than “Wendell’s here but I’m not going to let you see him.”

Josiah carrying around his brother’s disembodied heard was visually interesting but, from a narrative point of view, it was pretty stupid and it kind of made me wonder how someone who could be dumb enough to carry around a zombie head could possibly manage to survive in the world of the walking dead.  The fact that it all led to Josiah having to euthanize an adorable dog did not help matters.  I get that the whole idea behind The Walking Dead and its spin-offs is that the world is a terrible place where terrible things happen but honestly, Josiah was just an idiot.  He was probably an idiot before the zombie apocalypse and he’s apparently still an idiot afterwards.  My hope is that we’ve seen the last of Josiah because I really don’t want to have to spend another episode listening to him whine about his dead brother.  Instead, I hope future episodes will take us back into The Tower and the world of Strand.  Colman Domingo only appeared for a few minutes in the latest episode but he owned every one of them.

Finally, it appears that there are still some atomic warheads that were not set off during the previous season.  And I guess the Stalkers now have one of them.  That’s probably not a good thing.

Scenes That I Love: Cyrus’s Speech From The Warriors

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Cyrus?

He’s the one and only.

From 1979’s The Warriors (which I watched earlier tonight as a part of the #FridayNightFlix live tweet), here’s a scene that I love.  Playing the role of Cyrus, the man who could bring all of the gangs of New York together, is Roger Hill.  Playing the role of his assassin is the great David Patrick Kelly.

Cyrus knew what he was talking about but the world wasn’t ready for him.

Can you dig it?

Music Video of The Day: A Good Song Never Dies by Saint Motel (2021, dir by Darina Su)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is my birthday so here is a video for my favorite song from my favorite band! According to Saint Motel’s YouTube channel, this is “Official Fan Video,” for A Good Song Never Dies, which I’m going to assume makes it different from the official band video. Well, no matter! It’s a great song and a good video.

And, it’s true, you know. A good song never dies!

Enjoy!

Film Review: Georgetown (dir by Christoph Waltz)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Georgetown is one of those films that’s been around for a while.

The movie, which is the directorial debut of Christoph Waltz. was originally filmed in 2017.  It made its debut at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2019, where it received respectful reviews.  It played in at least some parts of Europe in 2020.  But it didn’t get a limited theatrical release in America until May of 2021 and it was released on VOD just a few days later.  Some of the delays in the film’s release were undoubtedly due to the uncertainty bred by the COVID lockdowns.  And some of it was probably due to no one being sure how to market a true crime film about murder amongst the rich and powerful of Washington D.C.  As such, Georgetown didn’t really get much attention when it was released.  That’s a shame, because it’s actually a pretty good movie, a clever mix of social satire and legal drama.

Christoph Waltz not only directs but also stars as Ulrich Mott.  Mott is a somewhat ludicrous figure.  His past is shadowy.  He claims to have served as a member of the French Foreign Legion, though his breaks down in tears after a snarky State Department official points out that none of Mott’s medals appear to be genuine.  Mott claims to have a lot of powerful and influential acquaintances, even though many of them only know him because he aggressively approached them at a party and forced them to take one of his business cards.  He occasionally wears a eye patch, even though he doesn’t need it.  After the fall of Saddam Hussein, Mott announces that he has been named a brigadier general in the Iraqi army and he claims to be a lobbyist for the new government.  Mott is also the head of a consulting firm called the Eminent Persons Group, which is later described as just being a Ponzi scheme for the rich and powerful.

It’s easy to make fun of Ulrich Mott but, throughout the film, we watch as he arranges dinners with men like future Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard.  He meets with former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara.  He mentions the he knows George Soros.  Mott is well-known among America’s elite, if not exactly respected.  This is almost entirely due to his marriage to the much older Elsa Breht (Vanessa Redgrave), a journalist who is, at one point, described as being “the queen of Georgetown society.”

When the 91 year-old Elsa is discovered dead at the foot of her staircase, the police originally think that she may have just suffered from an accidental fall.  Mott, however, declares that it’s obvious that Elsa was murdered by his enemies and that he will dedicate the rest of his life to tracking them down and getting justice.  Meanwhile, Elsa’s daughter (played by Annette Bening) is convinced that Mott murdered her mother.  The police agree and Ulrich Mott is soon on trial.  Mott’s main concern is that he be allowed to wear his red beret in the courtroom.  After all, it’s apart of his uniform as a brigadier general in the Iraqi army.

Flashing back and forth from the past to the present, Georgetown is primarily a character study of a man who has little talent and not much of a conscience but who does have a lot of ambition and a lot of charm.  Mott works his way up into the upper channels of D.C. society through a combination of flattery and compulsive lying and Waltz gives such a charismatic performance in the lead role that you believe every minute of it.  He’s appealingly vulnerable when he approaches the first clients for what will become the Eminent Persons Group and it’s hard not to sympathize with him when he breaks down in tears after being exposed, for the first time, as a fraud.  However, as the film progresses, we’re left to wonder if the vulnerability and tears were genuine or if they were just another part of Ulrich Mott’s performance.  Mott is both diabolically arrogant and almost compulsively self-destructive and Waltz does a great job of portraying those two seemingly conflicting sides of his personality.  He’s well-matched by Vanessa Redgrave, who makes Elsa’s love for Mott feel real and credible.  Watching the film, one can understand why Elsa initially believed in Mott and also why she stayed with him even as she discovered that he was never quite who he claimed to be,

Georgetown is nicely done portrait of duplicity and murder among America’s elite.  It’s both sharply satiric and, in its way, rather heart-breaking.  It definitely deserves more attention that it originally received.

Film Review: Land (dir by Robin Wright)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Land tells the story of Edee, a woman who thinks that she wants to die.  Edee is played by Robin Wright, who also directed the film.

Edee is dealing with a tragedy, one that the film provides clues to understanding without going into too much details.  Edee has visions of a man and a child and it’s easy to figure out that they were once her family.  There are other flashbacks of Edee’s sister, Emma (Kim Dickens), begging Edee not to harm herself.  Edee meets with a therapist and says that she doesn’t want to share her grief with other people.  She wants to deal with her grief alone, a perfectly reasonable request but no one that is likely to be understood in today’s age of social media oversharing.

When Edee drives out tp an isolated, mountain cabin, she says that she’s looking to start a new life, off the grid.  However, as is quickly revealed by a conversation with the helpful Cole (Brad Leland), Edee doesn’t know anything about living in the wilderness.  What’s more, she doesn’t appear to want to learn anything either.  She has little interest in Cole’s advice.  She asks Cole to return her rental car for her.  When Cole says that it’s not a good idea to live in the mountains without some sort of a vehicle, Edee shrugs him off.  She’s obviously not planning on coming down from the mountain.

Instead, she plans to die in the cabin.  The sight of the man and the child, standing ghost-like in the woods, does not change her mind.  And yet, when Edee finds herself with her forehead resting atop the barrel of a rifle, she cannot bring herself to pull the trigger.  When she is approached by a bear, she retreats to her cabin, showing that she still has an instinct for self-preservation.  (Either that, or she would just rather die in a less gruesome way than a bear attack.)  Edee leaves it to nature to determine her fate.  She’ll stay in the cabin and starve herself to death or she’ll let the elements take her out.  It’s a plan that takes the responsibility off of her.

However, there’s a nurse named Alawa (Sarah Dawn Pledge) and a hunter named Miguel (Demien Bircher) in the area and when they discover Edee near death in her cabin, they nurse her back to health.  Miguel tells her that there are better ways to die than starving herself and, in his polite but direct way, calls her out for not appreciating the fact that she has something that most other people don’t, the ability to retreat to her cabin when life gets to difficult.  Miguel is recovering from his own tragedy and is also living off the grid.  He offers to show Edee how to hunt and survive.  Edee agrees, on the condition that he not tell her about anything that’s happening in the outside world.

The scenery looks beautiful and both Robin Wright and Demian Bircher give effective performances as two people who don’t necessarily talk a lot but who instinctively understand that they have much in common.  The film is respectful of the grief that’s felt by both Edee and Miguel without descending into mawkishness or cheap dramatics.  It’s a steadily-paced movie that trusts the audience to figure things out without having to spell everything out.  Land is a simple film but it works.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 10/31/21 — 11/6/21

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I spent the first week after Halloween in a state of exhaustion.  That’s the way it usually is after a successful horrorthon.  I got a lot of work done at the office.  I had the TV on for background noise for quite a bit of the time.  Here’s what I watched:

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

With the colonels being held hostage by the Communist Resistance, Michelle came up with a great plan to solve the problem!  Rene could simply rob a bank!  After all, Michelle said, they had access to the greatest safe cracker in all of France.  LeClerc looked confused until he realized she was talking about him.  Rene attempted to refuse but soon found himself in a bank, holding a torch while LeClerc attempted to break into the safe.  It all led, of course, to an explosion.  Monsieur Alphonse was upset that some of his money was set on fire to provide light in the vault.  Who can blame him?  Meanwhile, Officer Crabtree kept asking Michelle and Rene if there done “ribbing the bonk.”  I laughed.

The Bachelorette (Tuesday Night, ABC)

Michelle sent Jamie home, which was good.  But then she canceled the Cocktail Party, which …. eh.  The whole “I’m going to cancel the cocktail party and go straight to the Rose Ceremony” thing has become the biggest Bachelorette cliché move.  It’s right up there with questioning whether someone is on the show for the right reasons.

Baywatch Hawaii (Prime)

Running for two seasons, from 1999 to 2001 (wow, two centuries!), Baywatch Hawaii was an attempt to reenergize the fading popularity of Baywatch by moving all of the lifeguard action to a new state.  Mitch (David “The Hoff” Hasselhoff) left California for Hawaii, where he started a new branch of Baywatch.  JD (Michael Bergin), Jessie (Brooke Burns), and Newman (MICHAEL NEWMAN!) came with him and were joined by a group of new lifeguard trainees.  Of the new cast members, a very young Jason Mamoa played an impetuous lifeguard named …. Jason.

Having binged the original Baywatch earlier this year, I figured that I might as well watch the two seasons of Baywatch Hawaii, just so I could get the complete story.  Luckily, both seasons are on Prime.

On Thursday, I watched the first four episode and they weren’t particularly good.  The Hoff looked extremely bored and really wasn’t in much of the show.  Instead, most of the action revolved around Sean (Jason Brooks), the hardass instructor brought in to train the new lifegaurds and turn them into a team.  Every episode, Sean threatened to send someone back to the mainland and, each time, the lifeguards proved themselves at the last minute.  The first episode opened with the Hoff having an existential crisis in Hawaii, one that was solved when he saved a little girl from drowning.  The second episode featured Sean yelling at the new recruits while the Hoff saved the exact same little girl from suffering a case of secondary drowning at her birthday party.  This was followed by an episode where a new lifeguard named Dawn joined the team and immediately started scheming to seal JD away from from Jessie.  Finally, in episode #4, Jason was nearly sent home for being too “self-reliant,” which didn’t make much sense to me but whatever.  In all four episodes, the Hawiiaian scenery was lovely and everyone had an aesthetically pleasing body and really, that’s the main concern with a show like this.

On Friday, I watched episodes 4 through 8.  Sean yelled at the lifeguards.  Jason struggled to learn how to work as a member of a team.  Dawn kept trying to steal everyone’s boyfriend. So far, this has been a pretty repetitive show.  The same could be said of the original Baywatch but that show often seemed to be cheerfully aware of how silly it was whereas Baywatch Hawaii took itself a bit too seriously.  The 8th episode did feature the return of Hobie.  The Hoff was upset when he discovered that 1) Hobie was marrying a girl that the Hoff had never met and 2) Hobie was apparently embarrassed to introduce the Hoff to the wealthy parents of his wife-to-be.  Embarrassed by the Hoff!?  Say it ain’t so, Hobie!  It all worked out in the end, though. The Hoff saved a wedding photographer who fell in the ocean and Hobie and his girlfriend decided to put off getting married and instead just decided to live together in sin.  My aunt would be very disappointed in them.

Classic Concentration (Weekday Afternoons, Buzzr)

This was an old game show, in which contestants tried to match the pictures that were hiding under the squares.  I watched two episodes on Wednesday and it was actually kind of a fun show.

Cold Case (Weekday Afternoons, Start TV)

On Monday’s episode, the Cold Case Squad investigated why Lilly never seemed to wash her hair.  No, actually, they investigated a 1962 murder that had been disguised to look like a murder.  Seriously, though, what was up with Lilly’s hair?

Court Cam (Wednesday Evening, A&E)

I watched two episodes on Wednesday evening.  One featured a defendant who told the judge to go “<bleep> yourself” and I have to say that the A&E censorship beeps are so loud that they can actually give you a headache after a while.

Crossing Jordan (Weekday Afternoons, Start TV)

I watched two episodes on Monday but, for the most part, I just had the show on for background noise.  In the first episode, Jordan and her team of quirky coroners were outraged over prison conditions.  In the second episode, Jordan and the gang were outraged over a religious cult.  There was a lot of quirky outrage.

Day of the Dead (Friday Night, SyFy)

Eh.  It’s not really a bad show but, after watching three episodes this week to get caught up, I kind of feel that Day of the Dead is just not going to be for me.  It’s hard to say why I don’t particularly care for it.  The anti-fracking stuff is a bit too on-the-nose but, then again, George Romero wasn’t exactly subtle when it came to making his political points in the latter Dead films either.  I think my main problem is that we’re four episodes in and it’s still doesn’t seem as if the show has established any sort of narrative momentum.  So, I think I’m done with Day of the Dead for now.

Dennis The Menace (Weekday Mornings, Antenna TV)

I kind of watched two episodes of this show on Tuesday morning.  I say “kind of” because I only had the TV on in the office for background noise and Dennis was such a sociopathic little brat that I really couldn’t bring myself to pay that much attention to him.  Poor Mr. Wilson!

Fear the Walking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

Read my thoughts here!

Ghost Whisperer (Weekday morning, Start TV)

I watched an episode at Monday while I was at work.  After a college student was scared into a coma, Melinda had to determine if it was the work of Bloody Mary or if it was just a ghost who needed help crossing over.  This episode was from the Jay Mohr years so it had all of this weird sexual tension between Rick and Melinda, despite Melinda being married to Jim.

Hazel (Weekday Mornings, Antenna TV)

On Tuesday, I used two episodes of this maid-centered, old sitcom for background noise.  In one, Hazel raised money to repair a broken vase.  In the next one, she helped out a gardener who was in danger of getting fired.  Hazel really needed to get a life outside of work.

I Dream of Jeannie (Weekday Afternoons, Antenna TV)

On Tuesday, I had two episodes on for background noise.  One featured Jeannie’s dog causing chaos.  The other featured Jeannie ruining the marriage of Major Nelson’s commanding officer.  How many lives did Jeannie ruin during her reign of terror?

The Love Boat (Sunday Evening, MeTV)

I wrote about the special Halloween episode of The Love Boat here!

Match Game ’76 (Weekday Mornings, Buzzr)

I watched two episodes of this old game show on Wednesday.  Two contestants tried to match answers with a group of angry-looking alcholics.  The entire set looked like it reeked of gin, cigarettes, and skunk weed.

Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour (Weekday Mornings, Buzzr)

This was a weird game show from the 80s.  Basically, it’s 30 minutes of the Match Game, followed by 30 minutes of Hollywood Squares with the same contestants and minor celebs taking part in both.  I kind of watched an episode of Wednesday morning but, to be honest, the show was mostly just background noise while I organized the office.

Medium (Weekday Mornings, Start TV)

I caught an episode on Monday, while I was at work.  Alison solved the case of a young woman who was pushed off a cliff.  Alison and her incredibly understanding husband also wondered whether they should warn a friend that Alison had foreseen him having a fatal heart attack.  The low-key and serious approach of Medium provided a clear contrast to the more sensationalistic approach of Ghost Whisperer.  But Ghost Whisperer was a much more fun show to watch.

The Office (Sunday Night, Comedy Central)

Jim and Pam badgered Danny Cordray over why Danny didn’t ask Pam on a second date.  This episode is a good example of how unlikable Jim and Pam became after they got married.

One Step Beyond (YouTube)

Check out the episode that I watched here.

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

Granville sadly wondered if he would ever marry.  Arkwright told him he was too young to worry about such things, despite the fact that Granville appears to be nearly 50.  No wonder Granville is losing his grip on reality.

Saved By The Bell (Sunday Morning, MeTV)

No sooner had I recommended that people watch the Mystery Weekend episode for Halloween than MeTV aired it.

Survivor 41 (CBS, Wednesday Night)

I wrote about the latest episode of Survivor here!

Unforgettable (Weekday Afternoons, Start TV)

On Monday’s episode, Carrie and Al investigated a murder in upstate New York.  It reminded Carrie of her sister’s murder, mostly because Carrie has total recall and everything reminds her of her sister’s murder.  To be honest, I think if I had watched this show when it originally aired, I probably would have liked it.  The photographic memory aspect is interesting and Poppy Montgomery and Dylan Walsh are likable in the lead roles.

Walking Dead: World Beyond (Sunday Night, AMC)

Saved by the Dead remains an entertaining-enough show.  I’m still not sure what’s going on but I do enjoy all of the annoyed and rebellious attitudes.