Lisa Marie’s Week in Television: 4/10/22 — 4/16/22

Posted on April 16, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Because of the holidays, I haven’t seen the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead yet. It’s on the DVR, along with American Idol and all the British comedies that I usually watch. I’ll review it in the upcoming few days, even though I’m sure everyone has moved on by now. One fun thing about having your own site is that you can set your own schedule.

Here’s a few thoughts on what I did watch:

61st Street (Sunday Night, AMC)

Arriving with very little fanfare, 61st Street is AMC’s latest original series. It takes place in Chicago and it deals with a burned-out defense attorney (Courtney B. Vance) and a high school track star (Tosin Cole) who is just trying to survive long enough to make it to college. Unfortunately, Cole is in the wrong place at the wrong time and, as the premiere episode came to a close, he was being pursued by the Chicago cops.

Judging from the pilot, the show is attempting to do for Chicago what The Wire did for Baltimore. The problem, however, is that 61st Street never feels as authentic, unpredictable, or downright dangerous as The Wire. In the pilot, at least, the characters came across as being caricatures and, for a show that is set in a very real neighborhood, there was little sense of place to be found. The show could have been taking place in any generic city.

Interestingly enough, the show as created by Peter Moffat, an British writer who is best-known for writing a series of films and television shows about recent British history. He also wrote the script for the worst film that Clint Eastwood ever directed, Hereafter. You have to wonder just what exactly led Moffat to try to capture the spirit of Chicago. For that matter, why do we even need yet another show about Chicago? There are other cities in America.

2022 Masters Golf Tournament (Sunday, CBS)

I watched a bit of it with Jeff on Sunday afternoon. The golf course was really pretty. I’m going to learn how to play golf. I already kind of know but I want to learn how to play golf well! Why should my boyfriend have all the fun?

The Brady Bunch (Sunday Morning, MeTV)

During this Sunday’s block of The Brady Bunch, Bobby became a pest after saving Peter’s life, Jan freaked out because she wasn’t good at anything, Bobby and Peter imagined what it would be like to live on another planet, and some weird new family showed up as a part of backdoor pilot! While it’s best not to spend too much time thinking about The Brady Bunch, I have always been amused by backdoor pilots. It’s always like, “Oh, hey, people we’ve never seen or head about before! Wait …. why is the show following them to their home?”

Full House (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

The Tanners are going to Hawaii!

Sunday’s 4-episode bloc of Full House opened with an episode in which Danny, the girls, the uncles, and aunt Becky all went to Hawaii to celebrate the two-year anniversary of Joey and Jesse moving into the house. The cool thing about this episode is that it had plenty of Hawaiian scenery and Becky got mad at Jesse for talking about Elvis all the time. You tell him, Becky!

This was followed by three episodes in which everyone learned an important lesson. DJ and Stephanie learned about the importance of going to school. Becky and Jesse learned how to communicate as a couple. Stephanie learned not to make fun of her nerdy friend and Danny really should have learned to stop inviting Joey to appear on Good Morning San Francisco.

The Girl From Plainville (Hulu)

I reviewed the latest episode of The Girl From Plainville here.

As I mentioned in that post, I’m pretty much over the show and I will probably, from now on, only offer capsule reviews of the 3 remaining episodes in my Week in TV posts.

Hard Cell (Netflix)

This British sitcom takes place in a women’s prison in which the majority of the characters are played by Catherine Tate. I watched the first two episodes on Wednesday and, unfortunately, neither one of them really worked for me. There really wasn’t much gained by having Tate play multiple characters and the mockumentary approach no longer feels that fresh. Tate is undeniably talented but the show just fell flat.

It’s The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown (Apple TV+)

Erin and I watched this on Saturday afternoon. Erin wrote about this special a few years ago.

Law & Order (Thursday Night, NBC)

This week’s “ripped from the headline” case was based on the Ed Buck murder trial and featured a wealthy, old white man who liked to pick up young black men and then shoot them up with drugs. Occasionally, the younger men died. He was brought to justice, just as Ed Buck finally was. This was an okay episode and it gave Camryn Manheim a chance to shine.

I do have to say that I still always find it amusing how the Law & Order franchise has imagined a world in which a bunch of blue collar, unsentimental New York cops all talk like panelists on MSNBC. I kind of doubt that many cops voted for Bernie Sanders but you wouldn’t know that from watching this show.

The Love Boat (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

On this week’s cruise: Telma Hopkins, Theresa Merritt, Brian Stokes Mitchell, James Noble, Raymond St. Jacques, Holland Taylor, Adam West, and Alan Young! The highlight was Adam West, parodying himself in the role of an overly macho buffoon.

Midnight Mass (Netflix)

This horror-themed miniseries from Mike Flanagan was released in October of last year but, at the time, I really didn’t feel like watching a show about a demonic priest. However, with the Emmy nominations coming up, I figured that I should go ahead and give the show a try. At the very least, I wanted to see if it lived up to all the acclaim.

It’s a show about life on an isolated island and what happens to the community when a mysterious priest shows up. I watched the first episode on Sunday night and it was pretty effective, even if some of the dialogue felt a bit overwritten. Flanagan knows how to create a creepy and intriguing atmosphere and I liked Hamish Linklater’s menacing-but-friendly portrayal of Father Paul Hill. I did not like the episode’s final scene, which involved a bunch of dead cats washing up on the beach. Normally, that’s the sort of thing that would make me stop watching but, because of my faith in the storytelling abilities of Mike Flanagan, I decided to make an exception in the case of Midnight Mass.

That said, Holy Week (especially one that I was spending with my sisters) didn’t really feel like the right time to watch a miniseries about an evil priest so I decided to put off watching the rest of the show until next week.

The Outlaws (Amazon Prime)

This British comedy/drama hybrid deals with seven strangers who are forced to due community service as punishment for breaking the law. At first, they start off as strangers but then they bond and steal a lot of money. You can probably guess the story. Christopher Walken plays Frank, an old con artist who has recently been released for prison. He’s a delight, as always.

I watched the first episode of this show on Monday night and I have to say that it kind of annoyed me. I appreciated the performances of Walken, Eleanor Tomlinson, and Darren Boyd but otherwise, the show itself often seemed to be trying a bit too hard and the mix of comedy and drama occasionally played a bit awkwardly. Largely due to the fact that it was only a 6-epiosde series and the presence of Christopher Walken in the cast, I decided that I would give the show a second chance but that first episode didn’t do much for me.

I watched the second episode late on Tuesday night. It was a definite improvement on the second episode and featured plenty of good Walken moments but the hour length still made the episode feel as if it was punishingly overextended and the show’s balance between comedy and drama continued to be a rather awkward one.

I’ll watch the four remaining episodes of the show next week.

Survivor (Wednesday Night, CBS)

I reviewed the latest episode of Survivor here!

Yellowjackets (Showtime)

I finished up Yellowackets on Monday afternoon. I cried with Laura Lee blew up. I was also really upset when Jackie froze to death. And don’t even get me started on the dog! This was actually kind of a traumatic series. Still, it was a fascinating show to watch and I look forward to seeing how things plays out during the second season.

TV Review: The Girl From Plainville 1.5 “Mirrorball” (dir by Pippa Bianco)

Posted on April 12, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, I tried.

I really did. Coming off of the high that I got off reviewing each episode of The Dropout, I thought it would be pretty easy to review all 8 episodes of The Girl From Plainville but, having watched the fifth episode last night, I think I’m done.

Don’t get me wrong. I will continue to watch the series. (There’s only three weeks left.) And I’ll certainly include any thoughts that I have about the show in my “Week in Television” post. But I think I’m done with trying to come up with 500-1000 words to use to review each episode because, quite frankly, there’s just not much to say about The Girl From Plainville. The story of how Michelle Carter encouraged Conrad Roy to commit suicide is well-known. The fact that Michelle Carter was put on trial and convicted is also well-known. This show is trying to build-up suspense about a story that most viewers will already know.

It perhaps wouldn’t matter if The Girl From Plainville had something new or unexpectedly insightful to say about the case. But the fact of the matter is that Michelle Carter is not that interesting of a human being. Everything that I’ve read and seen about the case seems to suggest that she really didn’t have much going on inside of her brain. Because she lacked an actual personality, Michelle learned how to behave and how to interact through social media and television. Conrad’s death allowed her to live her life as if it was an episode of Glee, or at least that’s what Michelle was hoping. And now, years after Conrad’s suicide, Michelle is out of prison and being played in a miniseries by Elle Fanning. It doesn’t seem to be quite fair, does it?

As for last night’s episode, it felt pretty much like a filler episode. The prosecution team continued to build a case against Michelle while Michelle had to deal with going from briefly being the most popular girl in school to being an absolute pariah. We also got a few clumsily handled flashbacks to Michelle texting Conrad. Last weekend, I watched Dopesick, which also aired on Hulu and also used a jumbled timeline. The timeline in Dopesick did occasionally get confusing but, at the same time, it worked because it took place over several years and the actors could be made to look older or younger, depending on the timeline. If Michael Keaton had a hint of hair, you know the show was taking place in the 90s. If he was bald, you know it was 2004. The Girl From Plainville, on the other hand, is only dealing with a two-year period and, as such, it’s hard to keep track of what’s happening when. The characters played by Elle Fanning and Chloe Sevigny pretty much look and act the same in 2012 as they do in 2014. It’s a very clumsily constructed story structure, one that does the miniseries little good.

That said, Elle Fanning continues to give a convincingly unhinged performance as Michelle and Colton Ryan is appropriately vulnerable as Conrad. (Sorry, I’m not going to call him Coco.) I think if the miniseries had done away with all of the flashback nonsense and just told their story in chronological order, Fanning and Ryan’s strong performances would have been better served. For now, I’m done with doing full reviews of this show but, if next week’s episode is a surprisingly good one, that could change.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Televison: 4/3/22 — 4/9/22

Posted on April 9, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

For the next few weeks, I’ll be trying to catch up on all the potential Emmy nominees that I missed when they first aired. So, I guess my week in television is about to get a lot busier!

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

“I shall say this only once,” Rene announced to Michelle, “I am done with the Resistance!”

Rene says this during nearly every episode of Allo Allo and no one ever believes him. Such was the case with Sunday’s episode. Michelle responded to Rene’s resignation from the Resistance by giving him suicide pills and announcing that the British airmen had been captured but she had a great plan to rescue them, a plan that would, of course, hinge on Rene’s involvement. While Rene’s mother-in-law prepared for her wedding and Lt. Gruber tried to make sure that the painting did not fall into the hands of his rivals, Rene had to deal with a code book that had been eaten by rats. I realize that previousy sentence makes no sense but that’s to be expected with this show. Eventually, everyone ended up disguised as an undertaker while Crabtree wished everyone a “Good moaning,” in his fractured French.

American Idol (Sunday and Monday Night, ABC)

Hollywood week came to a close with two episodes of American Idol.

On Sunday, the finalists were forced to perform duets, which meant that the episode was full of people singing painfully sincere songs and getting all emotional. It was a bit awkward to watch at times. There was a definite lack of drama, as only one duet team failed to get along. Though a lot of Idol fans are going to hate me for saying this, I found myself getting a little bit tired of Kelcie going on and on about how insecure she was. Fortunately, she was paired with Betty, who made it her life mission to bring Kelcie out of her shell. And it worked, as both Kelcie and Betty made it to the next round.

On Monday, the remaining competitors performed one last time for the judges and they were whittled down to 24. Both Betty and Kelcie were let go during this round. We didn’t actually get to see Betty’s performance but we did see Kelcie perform and she wasn’t bad. She’s got a great voice, even if the insecurity is a bit hard to take. But she was apparently let go specifically because of the insecurity, with the judges telling her to work on her confidence so …. I don’t know. It seems like, if that was going to be a determining factor, that’s something that they could have said during the Duets. Instead, they put Kelcie through because it would make for good television to then cut her at the last minute.

Anyway, it’s a pretty bland bunch of singers this season. They’ve got good voices but there’s very little real quirkiness to be found. And no, Leah Marlene is not quirky, no matter how many times she tells us that she is. Real quirkiness is natural. It’s not something you have to work at.

Bar Rescue (Sunday and weekday mornings, Paramount)

Sunday’s bloc of Bar Rescue episodes was all about Jon rescuing bars in Texas! I watched two episodes on Sunday evening. They were both set in Houston and they both involved a lot of yelling. The important thing, though, is that every bar was made profitable by the end of the hour.

On Monday, I watched an old episode that found Jon Taffer and the crew in Florida. The bar owner thought that Taffer had good ideas. The bar manager felt that Taffer was rude and he resented being yelled at. I was kind of on the manager’s side as far as that was concerned because Taffer really did go a bit overboard with the yelling during this episode. Fortunately, everything worked out in the end. The bar was rescued, just in time for the hurricane season.

Beyond the Edge (Wednesday Night, ABC)

It amuses me to no end how this show keeps pretending like the celebrities are in mortal danger in the jungle. We all know that production is not going to let Metta World Peace drown in quicksand. After I pointed this out on twitter, a fan of the show wrote to me, and said, “Your weird.” (That’s an exact quote, including the misuse of your.) Oh well! You can’t please everyone.

The Brady Bunch (Sunday Morning, MeTV)

What a weird collection of episodes! First off, we had an episode where Mike’s father and Carol’s mother visited and the kids tried to get them to fall in love with each other. Robert Reed and Florence Henderson played their own parents. You could tell Florence was just having fun but Robert really went all in and acted up a storm. This was followed by the episode where Cindy and Bobby auditioned to be on television and Cindy ended up freezing once the cameras were on her. Poor Cindy! Finally, Bobby got his first kiss and turned into a jerk and then Greg got in trouble for helping his friends steal a goat. The drama never stopped with those Bradys!

The Chair (Netflix)

I watched all six episodes of The Chair‘s first (and, perhaps, only) season on Thursday. In this comedy-drama, Sandra Oh plays the newly named chair of Pembroke University’s moribund English department. When the department’s most popular professor (Jay Duplass) is filmed doing a Nazi salute in jest, all heck breaks loose. The Chair is a bit uneven but ultimately, it works. It’s well-acted and the mix of comedy and drama is, for the most part, effectively handled. A recurring bit about David Duchovny being invited to give a lecture is a highlight of the show’s first season.

Couples Court With The Cutlers (Weekday Afternoon, OWNTV)

I had this on as background noise for two hours on Monday. That’s a total of four episodes, for those keeping count. I didn’t really pay much attention because, again, it was background noise. I did hear the audience gasp quite frequently. And, of course, I looked up whenever Kendall Shull came out to deliver the lie detector results.

Court Cam (Wednesday, A&E)

I watched four episodes on Wednesday evening. Mostly, I just had them on for background noise. I do remember that one episode featured an attorney getting mad at a deputy who went through her private papers while she was giving her closing statement. The deputy was held in contempt of court, as he definitely should have been. He spent ten days in jail, after refusing to apologize to the attorney.

Cruel Summer (Hulu)

The first season of Cruel Summer aired on FreeForm last year. With each episode jumping back and forth between three separate years, the show tells the story of two teenage girls in Texas. One is abducted. The other takes her place. On Thursday, I watched the first two episodes of Hulu. It was all a bit overdone and overheated but undeniably compelling. I always enjoy a good melodrama.

Dopesick (Hulu)

On Thursday night and Friday morning, I finally watched the highly acclaimed miniseries, Dopesick. The miniseries deals with the introduction of OxyContin and how the drug literally destroyed communities and continues to destroy them today. This was one of those miniseries where good scenes co-existed with scenes that were a bit too on-the-nose for their own good. Michael Keaton and Kaitlyn Dever both gave excellent performances as two people caught up in the epidemic. The miniseries wasn’t quite as good as I had been led to believe and it was definitely heavy-handed but it was still effective enough to make an impression.

The Dropout (Hulu)

I wrote about the series finale of The Dropout here!

Full House (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

Poor Uncle Jesse! On his 26th birthday, he and his band had a gig at the hottest club in town. Unfortunately, when the band couldn’t make it, Jesse’s idiot roommates decided to help him out and basically, they ruined Jesse’s big night. Everything worked out in the end, though, because it’s not like Jesse could move out and have a normal life or anything like that. The other three episodes that were shown on Sunday featured Joey getting back together with his ex (ewww!) and a two-parter in which Jesse and Becky nearly got married at a tacky casino before decided that it would be better to hold off so that Becky’s parents could come to the ceremony. Run, Becky! Escape while you still can.

The Girl From Plainville (Hulu)

I reviewed the latest episode of The Girl From Plainville here!

King of the Hill (Weekday Afternoons, FXX)

I watched two episodes on Wednesday, both classics from the show’s final season. In the first episode, Louanne and the Manger Babies got involved in the lucrative but demanding world of direct-to-DVD children’s programming. As John Redcorn put it, “We are already direct-to-DVD. There is no other place to go.” This episode featured one of my favorite Dale storylines, as he tried to write a children’s book about the “gun who cared.” The second episode featured Boomhauer allowing an obnoxious Canadian family to stay at his home while he went up to Ontario. The Canadians were not impressed with America but Hank still helped one of them get out of jail because that’s what neighbors do. Awwwww!

Law & Order (Thursday, NBC)

Eh. The Law & Order revival is just as clumsy when it comes to handling political issues as the original series was. This week, a congressional candidate was murdered and an extremist group went on trial and it all felt very much like partisan fan fiction.

The Love Boat (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

On this Sunday’s cruise: Frank Bonner, Shelley Fabares, Jennilee Harrison, Arte Johnson, Stephen Shortridge, McLean Stevenson, William Window, and Jane Wyatt. Not exactly the most exciting line-up, to be honest. And this was actually a pretty boring episode but the ship and the ocean both looked really nice!

The Office (All the time, Comedy Central)

I watched two episodes on Saturday. Unfortunately, they were both from the 8th season. In the first one, the Office crew went to a local trivia night. The second episode was the pool party episode. The trivia episode was actually fairly amusing but the pool party was the 8th season at its worse. There was never any reason for Robert California to invite the Scranton branch to a pool party. The problem with all of these ensemble party episodes during the post-Carell era is that they mostly just served to remind us that we really only knew these characters by how they related to Michael.

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

After being rejected by Nurse Gladys Emmanuel, Arkwright considered burying Granville alive in the storeroom. It was an intense episode.

Parking Wars (Monday Morning, A&E)

In Detroit, Pony Tail handed out the tickets and encouraged everyone to be kind to each other. It was a valiant effort but we all know that it’s cold in the D. Anyway, I watched two episodes on Monday morning and they left me as aggravated as usual.

Survivor (Wednesday Night, ABC)

I wrote about the latest episode of Survivor here!

Talking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

Chris Hardwicke interviewed people and complained about the villainy of Lance Hornsby.

The Walking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

I reviewed Sunday’s episode here!

Yellowjackets (Showtime)

I missed the first season of Yellowjackets when it first aired so I decided to catch up this weekend. I binged the first half of the season on Saturday and I’ll do the second half tomorrow. So far, this show has been playing out like a combination of Lost, Degrassi, and This is Us. Even though I already kind of know what’s going to happens thanks to Wikipedia, I’m still intrigued by the show. That said, I’m also spending a good deal of the show with my hands over my eyes because OH MY GOODNESS! THE COACH LOST A LEG! THAT GIRL’S FACE WAS RIPPED APART! THERE’S A COMPOUND FRACTURE ON THE SOCCER FIELD! EVERYONE’S PERIOD HAS SYCNED UP! AGCK! Christina Ricci, Melanie Lynesky, and Juliette Lewis are all Emmy-worthy.

TV Review: The Walking Dead 11.15 “Trust” (dir by Lily Manye)

Posted on April 9, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s often been said that, in the world of The Walking Dead, you shouldn’t trust anyone.

Of course, that’s not necessarily true. Indeed, if you don’t trust anyone, you’re actually probably increasing the odds that you’ll end up getting eaten by walkers or killed by Reapers or Whisperers or whoever the main villain of the season happens to be. You have to be willing to join up with some sort of community and that requires taking a leap of faith and putting your trust in the survival and leadership capabilities of someone who, under normal circumstances, would probably forever be a stranger to you.

That said, the world of The Walking Dead does require a certain amount of weariness. As the past 11 seasons have shown us, not everyone is worth the trouble. Some people insist on trying to apply reason to a chaotic world. Some people simply aren’t strong enough mentally or emotionally to survive the harsh reality of the apocalypse. Some people are just mean. And, of course, some people are just too annoying to keep around. Trust is important but trust also has to be earned.

Last Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead was all about trust. In fact, it was so much about trust that it was a little boring. This was one of those episodes that you could appreciate because it was laying the groundwork for whatever the finale is going to be but, at the same time, you also find yourself wishing that the show would just get on with it.

But, back to the issue of trust:

Hornsy has to decide if he trusted Gabriel and Aaron’s version about what happened at the Apartment Complex. Hornsby decided that he did not and with good reason because both Gabriel and Aaron were obviously lying. Aaron can get away with that but Gabriel just broke a Commandment. As others have pointed out, Gabriel’s not a very good priest.

Maggie had to decide whether or not to trust Daryl when he promised her that the Commonwealth soldiers would only be inside Hillside for a brief moment of time. She trusted Daryl but, obviously, she still doesn’t trust Hornsby and that’s definitely the right call on her part. Hornsby is so villainous that you have to admire the show’s restraint in not putting a black hat on his head.

The Hillside residents are trusting Maggie to give them a safe place to live but I couldn’t help but notice that Hillside looks worse and worse every time the show spends any time there. Would it kill someone to mow the grass and take care of the weeds? Everything about Hillside just reeks of mosquitos and tetanus shots.

Hornsby had to decide whether or not to trust little Herschel when the kid tried to pretend like his mom hadn’t gone to the Apartment Complex. Hornsby obviously knew better than to believe a word that kid had to say.

At the Commonwealth, Eugene has decided to trust Max. Yay!

Mercer has decided to trust Princess. Yay!

Mercer has decided that he does not trust Hornsby. That’s a smart decision but Mercer seriously needs to hurry up and announce whose side he is on.

Finally, the sick of the Commonwealth have decided to trust Ezekiel’s surgical skills. That seems like something that could go wrong but …. well, we’ll see what happens.

Anyway, with this episode, we finally reached the flashforward from the 9th episode. We finally learned why the Commonwealth showed up at Hillside and why Daryl was with them. For all of the speculation, it turns out that Daryl and Maggie are not enemies and, as Daryl showed when Hornsby threatened Herschel, Daryl will probably be on Team Hillside when the inevitable war breaks out. To be honest, I think we all secretly suspected that was what was going to happen. Still, it’s hard not to be a little bit disappointed that things worked out so simply and so obviously. It makes sense, though. Daryl trusts Maggie.

And, in the end, it’s all about trust.

TV Review: The Dropout 1.8 “Lizzy” (dir by Erica Watson)

Posted on April 7, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Below, you will find spoilers for the final episode of The Dropout. I would recommend not reading this post until you’ve watched the episode.)

After all the drama and the deception, The Dropout ended the only way that it could, with Theranos in ruins, Sunny out of Elizabeth’s life, and Elizabeth still unable to comprehend why everyone got upset with her in the first place. While George Schultz tries to come to terms with his mistakes and Erika Cheung worries about whether or not she’s ruined her future career by coming out as a whistleblower, Elizabeth tries to do damage control by forcing Sunny out of Theranos and then going on television for a cringey interview that pretty much seals her fate. Both David Boies and Linda Tanner (Michaela Watkins, who became the unexpected heart of this episode) tell Elizabeth that it’s important that she come across as being contrite and sincerely “devastated” by Sunny’s actions. Elizabeth, however, can’t do it. As she explains to her mother, Elizabeth has been locking away her emotions for so long that she no longer knows how to express or even feel them.

The end of the episode finds Elizabeth finally pursuing the life that she would have led if she hadn’t dropped out of Stanford, started Theranos, and gotten involved with Sunny. She’s dating a younger man. She’s going to Burning Man. She owns a dog. She’s ditched the turtleneck. She’s let her hair down. She’s speaking in her real voice. She’s going by “Lizzie.” She’s reverted back to being the somewhat flakey child of privilege that she was at the start of the miniseries. Even while Linda Tanner confronts her with the number of lives that she and Theranos destroyed, Elizabeth doesn’t break her stride. Elizabeth has decided that she’s moved on, even if no one else can. It’s only when she’s alone that she briefly allow her composure to crack, just long enough to scream into the void.

Of course, the final title card informs us that it doesn’t matter how much Elizabeth wants to be Lizzie, the girl who goes to Burning Man with her boyfriend. Having been convicted of defrauding her investors, Elizabeth Holmes is currently awaiting her sentencing. She could end up spending the next twenty years in prison. And, just as Phyllis Gardner predicted in the previous episode, Elizabeth has made it difficult for other female entrepreneurs to find success in Silicon Valley.

As the episode came to a close, with Elizabeth walking through the now empty offices of Theranos with her dog and an increasingly agitated Linda, I found myself thinking about how those offices progressed through the series. Theranos went from a shabby office building in the worst part of town to being the epitome of Silicon Valley chic. In the early episodes, the cluttered Theranos offices and labs were disorganized but there was also a very sincere earnestness to them. Men like Ian Gibbons actually believed in what they were doing. By the fourth episode, Theranos transformed into a secretive place that was fueled by paranoia. With each subsequent episode, the offices became a bit less individualistic and bit more joyless. In the final episode, the offices were dark and deserted, as empty as Elizabeth and Sunny’s promises. Looking at those offices, it was hard not to mourn the lost idealism of those early days. Sunny may have never shared that idealism. The miniseries suggests that Elizabeth lost her idealism as soon as she finally started to get the positive publicity that she craved. But the people who were there at the beginning believed in Theranos and its stated mission. Even Elizabeth’s early investors were taking a chance because they thought she could make the world a better place. In the end, Elizabeth and Sunny betrayed all of them. As I said at the start of this review, The Dropout ended the only way that it could, with an empty office, a lot of broken hearts, and Elizabeth Holmes convinced that the world had somehow failed her. Viewers may never fully understand what was going on in Elizabeth Holmes’s mind but they’ll never forget her or the story of Theranos.

The Dropout was a good miniseries, probably the best that we’ll see this year. This is a miniseries that better be remembered come Emmy time. Amanda Seyfried seems to be a lock to at least get a nomination. Naveen Andrews deserves consideration as well. The supporting cast provides an embarrassment of riches. Sam Waterston, Dylan Minnette, Kurtwood Smith, Michaela Watkins, William H. Macy, the great Stephen Fry, Camryn Mi-Young Kim, Kate Burton, Anne Archer, and Laurie Metcalf, all of them are award-worthy. Give them the Emmy campaign that they deserve, Hulu!

TV Review: The Girl From Plainville 1.4 “Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” (dir by Pippa Bianco)

Posted on April 5, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last week, when the first three episodes of The Girl From Plainville dropped on Hulu, my main concern was that, regardless of how well-acted the show may be or how tragic the true life story might be, there really wasn’t much left to be said about Michelle Carter and Conrad “Coco” Roy.

Having watch the fourth and latest episode last night, I have to say that I think my concerns were justified. I mean, don’t get me wrong. The fourth episode was fairly well-directed. It was definitely well-acted. There was a scene where Elle Fanning and Colton Ryan start singing Can’t Stop This Feeling that I’m sure will be a favorite amongst many viewers. But, in the end, it’s hard to see why eight hours are going to be required to tell this story. There was really nothing in the fourth episode that couldn’t have been communicated in a two-minute montage.

The fourth episode continued the show’s distracting habit of jumping back and forth in time. The main problem with this is that, unless Colton Ryan is in the scene, it’s often difficult to keep track of whether we’re seeing the past or the show’s “present.” There’s not much different between past Michelle and present Michelle. For that matter, Coco’s parents appear to have been just as miserable in the past as they were in the present. There was a scene where Coco’s father and his grandfather got into an argument about whether or not they should sell Coco’s truck and it took me a few minutes to understand that the scene was supposed to be taking place in 2014 and not 2012. To be honest, there’s really no reason for the show’s jumbled timeline, other than the fact that it’s currently what all the Emmy-winning miniseries are doing. But since we all already know how the story began and how the story is going to end, we don’t really get much out of the show’s mix of flashbacks and flashforwards.

The show seem to be trying to generate some suspense over whether Michelle will actually go on trial over her part in Coco’s death but again, what’s the point? We all know that she went on trial. The publicity of the trial is the whole reason why most people are going to be watching this show in the first place. In fact, all of the legal maneuvering is probably the least interesting part of the story. So far, both the prosecutor and Michelle’s attorney are coming across as being one-note characters. That may be a reflection of reality because real-life lawyers are rarely as interesting as their television counterparts but that still doesn’t make for compelling viewing.

What does make for compelling viewing is the show’s suggestion that this was all because of Glee. Michelle’s obsession with Finn and Rachel, in particular, seems to have been her main motivation for pursuing a relationship with Coco in the first place. And, of course, Finn died when his actor died so perhaps Coco had to die as well. (On the bright side, at least Michelle wasn’t obsessed with Puck and Quinn.) While the rest of the world is trying to understand why Coco killed himself and why Michelle apparently ordered him to get back in the truck, Michelle is imagining herself in an episode of Glee. As I mentioned earlier, the Can’t Fight This Feeling scene was probably the episode’s highlight, if just because it revealed how fragile Michelle’s concept of reality truly was.

If the fourth episode of The Dropout was where that show justified its existence, the fourth episode of The Girl From Plainville feels like it has more in common with the fourth episode of Pam & Tommy. The Girl From Plainville works as a showcase for Elle Fanning and, occasionally, Colton Ryan but the show itself still hasn’t quite convinced me that it needs to exist.

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 3/27/22 — 4/2/22

Posted on April 2, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I spent most of this week passed out, to be honest. Oscar Sunday took a lot out of me. Here’s a few thoughts on what I did watch:

The Academy Awards (Sunday Night, ABC)

I wrote about the Oscars here.

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

Could the British airmen escape from floating down a canal and meeting a submarine? It sounds like a good idea but …. no, of course it’s not going to work. Good moaning, indeed!

American Idol (Monday Night, ABC)

Hollywood week! The genre challenge! It was boring. The indie folk group had some of the most annoying singers that I’ve ever seen. I’m really hoping that the girl who keeps bragging about how “weird” she is will get eliminated early. If you’re truly weird, you don’t have to beg people to notice.

Baywatch Hawaii (Hulu)

On Wednesday, I finally watched episode two of the second and final season of Baywatch Hawaii. JD wasn’t being a team player so Sean briefly suspended him and then asked him to help with a rescue. JD learned an important lesson about putting aside your own concerns and taking one for the team. Bleh. Meanwhile, the father of an injured jet skier tried to sue Baywatch Hawaii but then he met the couple who was nearly killed by his son’s carelessness and he dropped his lawsuit. Yay! Lessons were learned all around.

On Thursday, I watched episode three. Jenna was determined to shut down Baywatch and sell the property to the Mafia. Sean was determined to raise the money necessary to pay his bills. Fortunately, Jason and Zack saved the gangsters from drowning and, as a result, Baywatch lived to see another day. You can’t put someone out of business after they save your life. It’s the Mafia code.

The Brady Bunch (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

All four of Sunday’s episodes centered around the kids playing baseball. Greg wanted to drop out of school to pursue a career in the majors so Mike used a baseball bat to break his kneecaps. That seems a little extreme to me but the important thing is that Greg stayed in school.

Couples Court With The Cutlers (Weekdays, OWN)

I watched two episodes on Monday afternoon. I was too busy making jokes about Will and Jada Smith someday appearing on the show to actually pay that much attention.

The Dropout (Hulu)

I reviewed the latest episode of The Dropout here!

Full House (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

Personally, I don’t see what was so bad about Danny Tanner wanting to have a clean house. In all four the episodes that aired last Sunday on MeTV, people gave him a hard time for being compulsively neat but seriously, who would want to live in a dirty house? For instance, while I was watching Full House, I stepped outside for a few minutes and accident stepped on a rock while barefoot. Once I came back in, I discovered that the den floor had a trail of bloody footprints on it, much like a totally horrific crime scene. Needless to say, I was not happy about this turn of events so, once I managed to step bleeding, I spent a few hours scrubbing the floor. It was just the right thing to do.

The Girl From Plainville (Hulu)

I wrote about the first three episodes of Hulu’s latest miniseries here!

King of the Hill (Weekday Afternoons, FXX)

I watched one episode on Monday. Desperate to make money so that he could afford some nicer clothes, Bobby first tried to get a legitimate job but eventually, he turned to panhandling. Hank, needless to say, did not approve of his own son being a bum for fun. He also didn’t approve of the other panhandlers, who were all basically rich kids just pretending to need the money. They even forced Hank’s favorite homeless man, Spongey, to move to a different spot! Fortunately, it all worked out in the end and Spongey hopefully got the money he needed.

Last Man Standing (Sunday, Newsnation)

I swear, this show is inescapable. It’s on at least one channel every hour of every day. I guess it kind of makes sense. It’s a sitcom that didn’t really require too much focus on the part of the viewer and, as a result, it makes for nicely acceptable and inoffensive background noise. Myself, whenever I see this show, I find myself relating to the middle daughter, the one who pretends to be self-centered but is secretly nicer than everyone else. Anyway, I watched three episodes on Sunday and I don’t remember a thing about any of them, other than one featured the mom and the older sisters trying on wedding dresses and talking about how silly the world was. That’s just the type of show that Last Man Standing was.

The Love Boat (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

Debbie Reynolds boarded the ship and briefly pretended to be Dr. Bricker’s nurse. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for a doctor to agree to allow anyone to “pretend to be a nurse.” I mean, a nurse still has a lot of real responsibility. I assume everything worked out in the end. To be honest, I was busy getting ready for the Oscars so I didn’t pay much attention to the show this week.

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

Arkwright somewhat desperately tried to convince Nurse Gladys Emmanuel that he wasn’t a monster who is holding Granville hostage. The nurse (a real one, this time!) was too clever for him.

Saved By The Bell (Sunday Morning, MeTV)

I woke up on Sunday morning and I watched the Christmas episode! That was the one where Zack and his mom allowed a homeless man and his daughter to move in and then they never mentioned them ever again. Kind of a strange episode. I’ve always been worried about what happened to the man and his daughter after the final credits. It just seems like having two strangers living in the house is something that would have come up again in a future episode.

Survivor (Wednesday Night, ABC)

I wrote about the latest episode of Survivor here!

Talking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

Chris did his best to make this week’s episode of The Walking Dead more interesting than it actually was. Good for him.

The Walking Dead (Sunday Night, AMC)

I wrote about the latest episode of The Walking Dead here!

TV Review: The Walking Dead 11.14 “The Rotten Core” (dir by Marcus Stokes)

Posted on March 31, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve always wondered how little Herschel would react when he eventually met Negan and learned that Negan was responsible for killing Glenn.

I mean, we all knew that it would happen eventually because, let’s face it …. Maggie and Negan are totally in love! It’s going to take them a while to admit it, of course. Maggie’s busy ruling Hilltop like a dictator and Negan’s got a new wife. Plus, there’s the whole thing where Negan savagely murdered Glenn and then spent a few seasons gloating about it. I mean, it’s going to take a while to move on from all of that. Taking all of that into consideration, Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan still have more legitimate chemistry than anyone else on this show and Maggie and Negan are definitely in love. Plus, they’re scheduled to get their own spin-off, where they both move to the most romantic city in America, New York! Not only does that mean that Hilltop is probably screwed (because why else would Maggie leave) but it also means that Maggie and Negan are destined to fall in love while listening to Dean Martin sing That’s Amore.

And the question has always been, how would Herschel react? Well, this week, we got our answer. After discovering that bratty little Herschel had snuck into the Apartment Complex, Negan agreed to keep an eye on him while Maggie and the other Hilltoppers continued to fight off a combination of walkers and Commonwealth soldiers. It didn’t take long for Herschel to figure out that Negan was the man who killed his father. Herschel pointed a gun at Negan but was eventually talked out of shooting him, proving that Herschel is ready to forgive and it’s time to let the healing begin!

Just as Herschel was discovering that Negan killed Glenn, Darryl was discovering that the Commonwealth isn’t as much of a paradise as he perhaps originally thought. He and Rosita was ordered by Sebastian to enter his old house and retrieve his cash. The only problem was that the house was full of walkers! In not very subtle terms, Sebastian threatened Darryl’s children. Inside the house, Darryl and Rosita discovered that they were not the first people to be ordered into the House of Death. There was also April, whose children were also threatened by Sebastian. Apparently, threatening people’s children is Sebastian’s thing. Fortunately, Carol and Mercer showed up to help. Unfortunately, they still had to give the money to Sebastian because he’s Governor Milton’s son and, as a result, doesn’t have to face the consequences of his actions.

This was an okay episode, though it was hard not to feel that the whole thing with the Apartment Complex was a bit overextended. The Complex invasion could have been wrapped up in one episode instead of stretching it out over two weeks. That felt like a throwback to the days when almost every episode was Rick talking about something that he was going to do in a future episode as opposed to just going ahead and doing whatever needed to be done. The Walking Dead has often had a bad habit of stretching things out a bit too far. As far as the other subplot was concerned, we already know that Commonwealth is a bad place so devoting an entire episode to Darryl finally figuring it out felt a bit superfluous.

That said, the important thing is that this episode reminded us all that Negan and Maggie are totally in love, even if they won’t admit it. Good for them. The world may end but love never dies.

A Few Random Thoughts On The Oscars

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Let’s just be honest about this.

No matter what else you or I might have to say about the Academy Awards, the only thing that anyone is going to remember about this year’s ceremony is Will Smith walking up on stage and slapping Chris Rock. That’s it. That’s what these awards are going to be known for. Whenever this ceremony is written about in the future, the accompanying picture won’t be of the cast and crew of CODA. Instead, it’ll be Will Smith slapping Chris Rock.

The Slap, itself, was unpleasant to watch. Will Smith sitting back down in his chair and continuing to shout at Chris Rock was unpleasant to watch. It left me feeling awkward and uncomfortable and I was just watching it on TV. I can only guess what it was like the celebrities sitting in the auditorium. You know that they were probably terrified that something unexpected would happen with the vote for Best Actor. At that moment, there was probably a lot of worry about what would happen if Andrew Garfield pulled off an upset.

Will Smith, however, did win Best Actor. After making a few “fierce protector” excuses, he did, eventually, get around to apologizing to the Academy and “my fellow nominees.” He also did a lot of God talk and I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to mention God twenty minutes after slapping someone on national TV. He mentioned that Denzel Washington had apparently taken him aside and warned him that the Devil would come for him at the height of his success. Which …. I mean, okay. The thing is, Will Smith is 53 years old and he’s been a star longer than I’ve been alive. By this point, the Devil should have moved on to someone else.

A few notes on the rest of the show:

It was good to see the show taking place in a theater, as opposed to a train station. Just by using an actual theater, this year’s Oscar ceremony was a significant improvement over the previous year’s.

The hosts were pretty boring. There was nothing gained by having three of them. Amy Schumer needs to fire whoever picked out her first outfit. If Schumer picked it out herself, she needs to hire someone to pick out her outfits. Regina Hall looked lost. Wanda Sykes was okay but that museum segment bogged down the whole show.

CODA is a likable film and it’s obvious that the audience appreciated its heartwarming approach more than the emotionally detached style of The Power of the Dog. The fact that this tiny little indie film managed to defeat the expensive Netflix slate was gratifying in a David vs. Goliath sort of way. CODA, if we’re going to be honest, really does feel more like a made-for-TV movie than a feature film but I think that, emotionally and mentally, people were just ready for a positive movie that wouldn’t leave them feeling disturbed or depressed. After two years straight of pandemic panic, voters were perhaps not inclined to honor a film that ends with its main character dying on anthrax poisoning.

Dune swept the technical awards and ended the night with the most Oscars. Dune II is probably going to win Best Picture.

Troy Kostur’s acceptance speech was definitely the most moving part of the night. It’s a bit of a shame that it’s going to be forever overshadowed by The Slap.

Politically, it was pretty much a typical Oscar ceremony. At this point, I think anyone who cares enough to be offended by Hollywood’s liberalism has probably already stopped watching the Oscars.

As the Academy promised, the cut categories (i.e., the Oscars there were awarded before the start of the live show) were edited into and shown during the show. They were awkwardly inserted, so that we would see the people in the auditorium reacting to a speech that was given two hours earlier. It just came across as weird and fake and, whenever the hosts did anything, I found myself thinking, “They cut categories for this.” Even a brilliant hosting trio would have suffered as a result. In this case, you had Amy Schumer dressed like Spider-Man on live TV while the winner for Best Film Editing had to make due with edited highlights of his speech.

What’s hilarious is that, even with all of ABC’s new measures, this year’s Oscar run longer than the previous two years. The total show clocked in at nearly 220 minutes. For comparison, that’s 20 minutes longer than The Godfather, Part II. Will Smith’s acceptance speech alone ran for seven minutes. Of course, would you want to be the person tasked to tell Will Smith to wrap it up?

It was hard to tell but I guess Army of the Dead won the Twitter Poll and Zack Snyder’s Justice League won the Oscar Cheer Moment thing. Even from just watching on TV, it was obvious how annoyed everyone in the auditorium was with them. Personally, I have to respect the ability of the Snyder fandom to game the system.

The interpretive dance that went along with the In Memoriam segment was distracting and annoying. If I’m ever included in a memoriam segment, I’m hoping there will be no gospel music and no interpretive dancing.

The Godfather tribute was nice but I wish they had gotten Sofia Coppola to do the introduction instead of Sean “Whatever” Combs.

In the end, the Oscars weren’t as much of a train wreck as I thought they would be but it was still a fairly unfortunate ceremony. The category cutting didn’t sit well and I doubt I’ll ever be comfortable with that. (It’s something that I hope will be abandoned in the future.) This ceremony will always be known for The Slap and probably not much else. I would say that I would hope the Academy and ABC would learn from this but the only thing they care about is ratings. If the ratings are good, ABC will take the credit. If the rating are bad, the Academy will get the blame. Who knows what next year will bring?

Speaking of next year, that’s what I am now concentrating on! There’s a lot of good movies coming out over the next few months and a whole new Oscar race to prepare for! Let’s get to it!

Here’s The Trailer For Moon Knight

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s the trailer Moon Knight!

Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke both should have an Oscar by now. Well, they won’t win any for Moon Knight because it’s a miniseries. They might get some Emmy love but eventually, everyone wins an Emmy so it’s not as big of a deal. I mean, I’ve got an Emmy somewhere around here. It arrived in the mail and I was like, “Cool, I guess I won something.”

My point is, Oscar Issac and Ethan Hawke should both be in a lot of stuff. Anyway, here’s the trailer: