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Lisa Marie’s Week In Television — 2/13/22 — 2/19/22

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week stated with my watching the Super Bowl, which I imagine will be the last football game that I ever pay attention to in my life.  (Seriously, football’s depressing.  I hate it when the losing team starts crying.)  It’s ending with my thoroughly disgusted by the Olympic Games.  This has not been a great week for sporting events.  Except, of course, for karate.  I finally watched the fourth season of Cobra Kai.  Miyagi Fang is definitely the philosophy to follow.

Anyway, here’s what I watched this week:

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

An odd episode.  Having stolen several bars of Gold from the Germans, Rene hid the gold in his cuckoo clock, which led to the clock making a weird noise every few minute but, for some reason, no one but Rene ever seemed to notice.  Somehow, this led to Rene and his staff disguising themselves as a musical group so that they could infiltrate the general’s chateau and search for the stolen painting, as well as the famous Enigma machine which, if smuggled out of France, would give the British the ability to translate Germany’s secret code.  Eventually, Crabtree sang a song in his mangled version of French.  This was silly humor that I could appreciate.

The Amazing Race (Wednesday Night, CBS)

I wrote about the latest episode of The Amazing Race here!  We’re down to the top four now.  Somehow, Arun and Natalia have survived.  This has been a weird season because of the COVID lockdowns and a few really strong teams were forced to drop out of the race.  As a result, Kim & Penn have pretty much dominated things, despite neither one having much of a personality.  I have a feeling this will continue through the finale.

Celebrity Big Brother (CBS and Paramount Plus)

I wrote about Celebrity Big Brother over at the Big Brother Blog.  Celebrity Big Brother is almost over and, to be honest, I won’t miss it.

Cobra Kai (Netflix)

On Tuesday night, Jeff and I finally got a chance to start in on season 4 of Cobra Kai.  We watched the first three episodes of the season and we were both immediately sucked back into the hyperemotional and somewhat silly, yet always affecting world of Cobra Kai.  My heart broke for Kenny, the new kid who found himself being bullied by Daniel’s son and I was worried when I saw that Kenny was being drawn towards the Cobra Kai dojo.  I enjoyed Thomas Ian Griffith’s surprisingly contemplative performance as Terry Silver and his explanation that his over-the-top behavior in Karate Kid III was due to a cocaine addiction.  (Really, it’s the only explanation that makes sense.)  I enjoyed the complex portrayals of characters like Robby and Torry.  And, of course, I loved the uneasy friendship of Johnny Lawrence and Daniel LaRusso.

We watched the next three episodes on Wednesday.  Terry confronted Daniel!  Daniel and Johnny fought to a draw!  The Karate tournament changed their rules!  Johnny returned to his old high school and creeped out the entire track team!  It was all good.  I liked the fact that Cobra Kai embraces both the silliness of the later Karate Kid films while also managing to sneak in some truly touching moments.  The show manages to maintain an almost perfect balance between satire and drama.

We watched episode 7 and 8 on Thursday.  Daniel learned that his son was a bully and Kenny learned how to take advantage of his opponent’s overconfidence.  This was followed by the return of Paul Walter Hauser’s Stingray, who attempted to rejoin Cobra Kai and eventually ended up getting beaten up by Terry Silver for his trouble.  The school held their prom, Johnny and Carmen revealed their relationship to Miguel, and Robby and Torry got to show off their dance moves!

Early Saturday morning, we watched the final two episodes of the 4th season of Cobra Kai.  The All-Valley Tournament dominated both episodes, with Johnny and Daniel making peace, Robby realizing that the Cobra Kai way was not his way, Miguel leaving to find his father, and Torry winning a fixed match against Sam.  In the end, Terry framed Kreese for beating up Stingray.  Kreese was taken to prison while Daniel realized that he would have to go against his promise to abandon Miyagi Do (or Miyagi Fang as it was renamed during the tournament) if he was going to stop Cobra Kai.  It was an exciting conclusion, full of drama, tears, and some enjoyable self-parody.  Bring on season 5!

King of the Hill (Weekday Afternoon, FXX)

I watched a few episodes on Tuesday afternoon.  Joseph was recruited by a private school and Dale nearly had to fake his death to get out of a financial debt.  (This happened quite frequently with Dale).  Peggy had a memorable birthday party on train.  This was followed by one of my favorite episodes, the one in which Hank accidentally stole a man’s wallet and the man interpreted Hank’s efforts to return it as being Hank threatening him.  (At the same time this was going on, Dale found himself working at the show’s version of Hooter’s.  Dale had applied for a job, expecting to be turned down because he was a skinny, bald guy.  Dale figured he could then sue the restaurant.  The restaurant’s manager decided to call his bluff.)  This was followed by Hank getting scared by a bat hanging out in his garage, Louanne’s father returning from the oil rig (which, it turned out, was actually federal prison), and Bill finding himself temporarily confined to a wheelchair.

King of the Hill was a good show, though I’m biased because the show is based on my hometown and it’s all about Texas.  A part of me does worry about the proposed revival, just because I don’t know if I’m prepared to hear what Hank thinks of twitter.  If there is a revival, they better give Boomhauer a podcast.

Inventing Anna (Netflix)

Starring Anna Chlumsky and Julia Garner, Inventing Anna is a limited series about Anna Delvey, a Russian con artist who managed to fool some of the leading members of New York high society.  Julia Garner plays Anna while Anna Chlumsky plays a fictionalized version of the reporter who interviewed Anna during her trial.

I watched the first two episodes on Thursday.  From the minute I saw the Shondaland logo, I knew what I was getting into.  The first two episodes were occasionally intriguing but largely superficial, with no consistent tone and too many superfluous scenes.  Julia Garner gave a good performance as Anna, though, smirking her way through the interview and intentionally changing up her accent in order to keep everyone off-balance.

The Office (All week, Comedy Central)

On Saturday afternoon, I rewatched The Michael Scott Paper Company arc.  I loved Pam trying to establish an identity outside of answering the phones at Dunder Mifflin, Jim trying to play soccer and Michael unsuccessfully trying to convince his grandmother to invest in his company.  It’s kind of unfortunate that Pam turned out to be terrible at sales but I could relate.  I doubt I could sell paper either.  I’m stunned that anyone on The Office was able to make a career out of it.

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

Granville shot a man just to watch him die.  Arkwright was too busy pining for Nurse Gladys Emmnauel to notice.

Pam and Tommy (Hulu)

Pam and Tommy is one Nathan Lane cameo away from turning into a Ryan Murphy production.  I wrote about the latest episode here.

Silk Stalkings (Tubi)

On Monday morning, I got back to binging Silk Stalkings on Tubi.  Though I hadn’t really been keeping track up until this week, a quick check with Wikipedia confirmed that I am currently watching episodes from the second season of the show.  There’s 8 seasons in total so I’ve still got quite a bit to watch as far as this stylish and enjoyably silly series is concerned.

Anyway, the first episode that I watched on Monday was called Scorpio Killer.  I’m a Scorpio so I appreciated the title!  The show dealt with a man who murdered his mistress’s husband.  It was a fun episode.  The thing I like about Chris and Rita is, as played by Rob Estes and Mitzi Kapture, they seemed to be aware that they were characters in a somewhat sordid television series and, as such, they never had any problem winking at their audience and basically saying, “Can you believe this plot?”  This was followed by an episode in which Chris and Rita investigated the death of a tennis pro’s stepfather.  It featured a lot of slow motion tennis action and overheated locker room talk.

On Tuesday, I got things started with an episode in which Chris and Rita investigated a murder that occurred at a rather tacky beauty pageant.  They solved the case but the highlight of the show was Rita’s attempts to buy fish for her aquarium.  Needless to say, Chis was convinced that all of Rita’s fish were going to die and Chris was probably right since the aquarium was nowhere to be seen during the next episode.  That episode found Chris and Rita investigating a murder that was connected to a high-profile divorce.  It was a typical Chris-and-Rita-Smirk-At-Dumb-Rich-People episode.  Seriously, don’t commit a murder in Palm Springs because Chris and Rita will definitely judge you.

On Thursday, I started off with a pretty good episode called Jasmine.  Directed by Rob Estes, Jasmine featured Rita investigating a decades-old cold case and having plenty of surreal dreams in the process.  Of course, the main reason Rita was investigating the case was to help her deal with the guilt that she felt after the murder of one of her friends.  It was a well-directed episode and also well-acted by Mitzi Kapture.  The next episode was an enjoyably trashy one, in which Chris and Rita tracked down a cocky teenager who was seducing both his classmates and their stepmothers.

Silk Stalking is a lot of fun.  I like forward to continuing the binge next week.

Super Bowl (Sunday Night, NBC)

The Super Bowl?  Does anyone remember the Super Bowl?  It was played last Sunday and …. well, someone won.  I don’t remember who won.  I watched it for the commercials, which kind of disappointed me this year.

Super Bowl Pre-Show (Sunday Afternoon, NBC)

Yes, I even watched the big show before the game, just in case they showed any interesting commercials.  They didn’t but it was still kind of nice to see how excited everyone was before the game started.  I don’t know if it was really necessary to include an interview with President Biden, though.  That gave the whole thing kind of a weird feel.  Like why do we need the President’s permission to enjoy the game?  At least he didn’t do that creepy whispering thing.

The Winter Games (All Week, Every Channel)

On Sunday morning, as I got ready for a day of watching Super Bowl commercials, I watched a bit of NBC’s coverage of the games. It was a little bit of skiing with some speed skating and some figure skating tossed in as well.  I didn’t really pay that much attention.

On Wednesday night, I watched the USA take on Canada in hockey.  Usually, when it comes to hockey, I support Canada because I know hockey is an important part of Canadian culture.  This year, I was Team USA because Justin Trudeau annoys me.  Canada still won, though, so I guess my cheering powers were not as powerful as I thought they were.

On Thursday night, I watched some skiing and then I watched the figure skating, which has been quite controversial this year.  What I saw pretty much turned me off of watching any more of the Beijing Games.  Though I didn’t agree with the decision to let her skate, I still felt bad for Kamila Valieva, the Russian skater who has essentially been villainized due to doping allegations.  No one should be put under that type of pressure and scrutiny when they’re only 15 years old, especially when it’s quite probable that any drugs that she took were forced on her by the adults who are supposed to be looking out for her best interests.  Not surprisingly, given all the stress she was under, Kamila did not do as well as she had done in the past.  She ended up finishing in fourth place and started crying.  This, of course, overshadowed the accomplishments of the talented women who did win medals but what really struck me was that none of the members of Kamila’s coaching entourage — the people who should have been acting as her “support team” — appears to offer any words of comfort or encouragement.  (Later, I learned that her coach had demanded to know, “Why did you give up!?”)  And we wonder why so many young athletes burn themselves out or grow up to have personal troubles once they can no longer compete.  Meanwhile, the skater who came in second screamed in anger over having to settle for a silver medal while the gold medal winner sat alone, holding a teddy bear. It was not one of the better moments of the Winter Games.  In fact, it was so disturbing to watch that it pretty much turned me off of the idea of watching what little was left of the Olympics.

TV Review: Pam & Tommy 1.5 “Uncle Jim & Aunt Susie in Duluth” (dir by Gwyneth Horder-Payton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week’s episode of Pam & Tommy was a definite improvement on last week’s, largely because it didn’t feature Seth Rogen wandering around with a “poor me” expression on his face.  Last week, far too much time was devoted to Rogen’s sad sack portrayal of Reed Gauthier, who the show insists on trying to make a sympathetic character even though he was essentially just a thief who tried to make a lot of money by stealing and then selling someone else’s private sex tape.

Reed was nowhere to be found in this week’s episode.  Instead, the narrative focused on how Pam and Tommy’s sex tape became a national story.  Not surprisingly, it all turned out to be Tommy Lee’s fault.  When the show opens, Jay Leno won’t make jokes about the sex tape because it’s not something that Uncle Jim and Aunt Susie in Duluth have heard about.  The LA Times won’t run a story on it because the editor says that it’s not real news.  With Pam preparing for the opening of Barb Wire and Tommy working on his new album (and very much aware that his label no longer views him or the band as being a top priority), it appears that there’s a chance that Pam and Tommy can ride this out.

But then Bob Guccione the publisher of Penthouse, gets his hands on the tape and Tommy and a bunch of lawyers decide to file a lawsuit to keep him for publishing stills.  Pam has her doubts but Tommy and the lawyers do what they want.  Guccione responds by saying that he had a first amendment right to publish pictures from the sex tape.  The L.A. Times discovers, from the court filings, that the sex tape was stolen from Pam and Tommy and that it’s being sold without their permission.  With the story going national, Jay Leno realizes that Duluth now know all about it.  On top of all that, Pam learns how to use a search engine!

It was a busy episode.  And, in contrast to the nearly hour-long episodes that proceeded it, it was only 32 minutes long.  A half hour is the perfect amount of time to spend with Pam & Tommy.  Spending more than half an hour with them means dealing with the fact that Tommy’s a moron and Pam really does seem to think that she’s going to win an Oscar for Barb Wire.  Spending just 30 minute with them means that both characters get a chance to present their cases without wearing out their welcome.  Sebastian Stan and Lily James both gave good performances in this week’s episode, with Stan portraying Tommy as being a manchild who is in deep denial about the fact that the 80s are over while Lily James captured Pam’s need to try to keep everyone happy.  It’s Pam who instinctively knows the right way to deal with Guccione but she’s ignored by Tommy and his team of lawyers.  As Pam’s publicist puts it, women are taught from an early age to always say yes and to agree with men, even when they know that the men doesn’t have the slightest idea what they’re talking about.

That said, Pam & Tommy is still definitely a flawed vehicle.  For every moment that works, there’s a moment or a line of dialogue that just tries too hard.  Particularly in the scenes with Jay Leno, Pam & Tommy felt like it was one Nathan Lane cameo away from turning into a Ryan Murphy production.  Five episodes in and the main problem remains that Pam & Tommy continues to struggle to convince the audience that it’s telling a story that needs to be stretched out of over 8 episodes.  If ever a true story was meant to a 90-minute TBS production, this is it.

 

Lisa Marie’s Week In Television: 2/6/22 — 2/13/22

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s been quite a week.  The Oscar nominations were announced.  The creepiest Winter Games ever have been playing out in China.  South Park revealed that some people apparently didn’t understand that Tolkein was named after the author of The Hobibt and Lord of the Rings.  (Like, seriously, you guys…..)  And the z-list celebs on Celebrity Big Brother revealed themselves to be taking the show way too seriously.

Here’s a few thoughts on what I watched this week:

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

Chaos on a train!  Rene thought he and Yvette were going to elope on the Geneva Express but unfortunately, his wife Edith found Rene’s note and thought that it was meant for her.  While Rene wandered the train, trying to hook up with his two mistresses without his wife noticing, Herr Flick, Lt. Gruber, and a host of others wandered the train in search for the valuable original copy of the painting known as The Fallen Madonna With The Big Boobies.  Things got a bit chaotic on the train and they were even more chaotic back at the Cafe, where Officer Crabtree and his mangled French offered up very little in the way of help.  I laughed, I always do.

The Amazing Race (Wednesday Night, CBS)

I wrote about the latest episode of The Amazing Race here.  The Amazing Race has been a bit odd this season.  Due to the COVID lockdowns, two of the strongest teams ended up dropping out of the race.  As a result, we are late into the race and there are currently three strong teams and then two teams that basically can’t even read a road map.  The two weaker teams would never have lasted this long in a normal season.  I’m going to laugh and laugh if one of them somehow manages to win.  As of right now, though, it seems as if the oddly robotic but hyper competent team of Kim & Penn have to be considered the favorites.

BBC World News (Tuesday Morning, BBC)

I watched the Oscar nomination announcements on the BBC because, unlike ABC, the BBC actually showed all of the categories instead of just showing the major nominees.  (Add to that, why would anyone want to watch Oscar analysis from George Stephanopoulos?)  I have to admit that I enjoyed the BBC’s take on the nominations, which basically amounted to, “Quite a few nominations for Belfast, that’s a win for our side.”

Celebrity Big Brother (CBS and Paramount Plus)

I wrote about Celebrity Big Brother for the Big Brother Blog.  I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of celebrity reality competition shows to begin with and Celebrity Big Brother tends to be the worst of them all.  Since celebrities really don’t have much at stake in these games, most of them just leave the House when things get too intense, like Chris Kattan did earlier this week.  As for the remaining celebrity houseguests, Todd Bridges is an idiot and Toddrick Hall seems to be taking this whole thing just a little bit too seriously.  Don’t ruin your brand just to give Julie Chen something to talk about.

King of the Hill (Weekday Afternoon, FXX)

Among the episodes I watched on Monday afternoon, there was one where Hank got to carry the Olympic flame and Dale got a chance to use the flame to light his cigarette.  Go, Hank!  Go, Dale!  That was back when the Olympics were something special.

On Thursday, after getting disgusted with all of the propaganda at the Winter Games, I again turned over to FXX and watched a few episodes of King of the Hill.  I watched five episodes, from Lucky trying to sue Dale to Launne getting married to Boomhauer surfing at Corpus Christi.  It was fun and took my mind off what Boomhauer would call “the dang ol’ enormity of it all.”

 The Love Boat (MeTV, Sunday Afternoon)

Yay!  It was a 70s Valentine’s cruise!  Love was in the air and cocaine was probably backstage.  Sailing on the Love Boat were Patty Duke, Frankie Avalon, Barbie Benton, Denny Evans, Jamie Farr, Ricky Nelson, and Carole White!  A computer program that was designed to link everyone to their ideal Valentine’s Day partner caused havoc on the boat but everything worked out in the end.  That’s the important thing.

Pam & Tommy (Hulu)

Because I have the world’s worst martyr complex, I wrote about the latest episode of Pam & Tommy here.

South Park (Wednesday Night, Comedy Central)

For the record, I always knew his name was Tolkien.  I don’t know what the Hell was wrong with the rest of you.

The Winter Olympics (All Week, NBC and Other Stations)

On Sunday night, I watched figure skating.  Even though I’m not as into the Olympics this year as I’ve been in previous years, there’s still no way that I would miss figure skating, curling, yeti hunting, and that weird sport where they ski and shoot a rifle.

On Monday morning, I watched that very sport, with the skiing and the rifle shooting.  It still seemed like a strange sport to me but, as I watched, I also realized that it was probably the only Olympic event that James Bond would have enjoyed (and, by that, I mean Roger Moore’s joyful Bond as opposed to Daniel Craig’s whiny Bond) and I was happy about that.  Later, I watched some curling and I seriously think I could do well with that sport.  I know how to work a broom.

On Wednesday, I watched some skiing and that totally freaked me out, just because I’ve heard so many stories about people slamming into trees.  Agck!  Then, on Thursday, I watched a bit more curling and that definitely left me less freaked out than the skiing.  You can’t hurt anyone with a broom, unless you’re Jackie Chan in an 80s movie.

Saturday morning, I watched some figure skating, which I loved.  I also watched some ski jumping and I marveled at how fake the snow looked.  Apparently, they’ve been using fake snow for the Winter Olympics because it’s not actually that cold or snowy in Beijing.  That’s weird and strange and yet somehow appropriate for these uniquely uninspiring games.

WKRP In Cincinnati (MeTV, Sunday Afternoon)

Radio DJ Johnny Fever got a job hosting a television dance show and sold out his soul to play disco music.  Fortunately, Johnny was able to vanquish his evil Rip Tide identity at the end of the episode.  At one point, Johnny’s TV boss said that she loved the 60s and would love to “get mellow and listen to the Dead” after the show and I was like, “Oh my God, they allowed people talk about weed on TV back then?”  You learn something new every day.

TV Review: Pam & Tommy 1.4 “The Master Beta” (dir by Lake Bell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

That was my thought after I published my review of the first three episodes of Pam & Tommy.  Don’t get me wrong.  I stand by everything that I wrote in that review.  The first three episodes were relatively well-made and they captured as specific point in time and Lily James was likably earnest as Pam.

Instead, my concern came from the fact that, by reviewing the first three episodes, I had now committed myself to watching and reviewing the entire series.  And, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was no way that Pam & Tommy could remain interesting for a total of 8 hours, not unless the show abandoned its Ryan Murphy-lite approach and did something really unexpected with its recreation of the story.  There’s just not enough there.  This is a good 2-hour story but Pam & Tommy is an 8-epiosde miniseries.  That’s 8-plus hours of Pam getting upset, Tommy acting like a dumbass, and Rand being every creepy guy who has ever approached you in a bar and started asking you about the book you’re reading.  (It would, of course, never occur to him that the main reason you’re reading the book is to avoid talking to guys like him.)

Having now watched the fourth episode, it’s hard not to feel that I was very much correct in my concerns.  Don’t get me wrong.  The fourth episode had its moments.  It featured an enjoyably intense performance from Don Harvey as the legendary Hollywood private investigator, Anthony Pellicano.  Once Tommy finally discovers that his safe has been stolen and Pam reminds him about the videotape, Pellicano is the man who they approach to track down the perpetrator.  This leads to a scene of Pellicano beating the crap out of Rand and it’s fun to watch.  Some of that is because Don Harvey is a master of portraying urbane menace.  But I have to admit that a lot of it is because Rand himself is such an annoying character.  This episode opened with Seth Rogen, as Rand, wandering around a porn set and trying to reconnect with his estranged wife (Taylor Schilling), who significantly was just trying to read Anne Rice’s latest book when he approached her.  Just the sight of Rand, with his mullet and his sad-sack facial expression, was so annoying that it was actually cathartic to see him get tossed around his apartment.

The problem is that the show wants us to feel some sympathy for Rand but there’s nothing sympathetic about him.  He’s a loser and the fact that he still loves his wife and still wants to take care of her doesn’t make him any less of a loser.  He’s a thief, a guy who accidentally stole a sex tape and then decided to put it online.  The fact that he later feels guilty doesn’t change the fact that he did it.  There’s as scene in the fourth episode where Rand is upset to see someone else selling bootleg copies of the tape.  On the one hand, it’s not a bad scene.  There’s an enjoyable irony to Rand discovering that someone has essentially stolen the tape from him after Rand went through so much trouble to steal the tape from Tommy.  But the show doesn’t seem to be sure whether it wants us to laugh at Rand’s misfortune or to sympathize with him as he realizes that the consequences of his actions are out of his control.  As a character, Rand is not compelling enough for both to be an option.

As for the title characters, both Sebastian Stan and Lily James do their best but I get the feeling that we’ve already learned all the we need to know about them.  There was one good moment that examined Pam and Tommy’s different reactions to the release of the sex tape but otherwise, neither Tommy nor Pam are really that interesting as characters.  I ended the fourth hour of Pam & Tommy very much aware that there were still four more hours to go.  What else, I found myself wondering, could be left to be said?

Lisa Marie’s Week in Television: 1/16/22 — 1/22/22

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I made a specific decision not watch too much TV this week (and next) so that I could concentrate on getting caught up on the films of 2021.  I made an exception for The Amazing Race, because I write about it for another site.  And, on Thursday, I did turn on the TV because I’ve had a long-standing argument with a friend of mine about whether or not The United States of Al is real show or just a twitter meme.  It turns out that it’s real!

Anyway, here’s a few thoughts on what little I watched.

Allo Allo (Sunday Night, PBS)

In occupied France, the search for the stolen money was replaced by the search for the stolen landmines.  Rene continued to try to run his cafe and cheat on his wife in peace while Michelle and the Resistance continued to insist that, as the bravest man in all of France, Rene had a responsibility to continually put his life in danger.  Along the way, Michelle said, “I shall say this only once,” and Herr Flick and Van Smallhousen disguised themselves as monks.  The comedy on this show is very broad but it’s also very well-acted so I can’t help but laugh.

Crabtree referred to the bombs as being “bongs.”  Again, it made me laugh.

The Amazing Race (Wednesday Night, CBS)

I wrote about the restart of the race here!  I shall miss Anthony and Spencer the most.

B Positive (Thursday Night, CBS)

This is one of Chuck Lorre’s many depressing sitcoms.  Imagine Mom but instead of being a bunch of drunks, all of the characters are terminally ill.  Anyway, I watched this week’s episode just to confirm to myself that this show actually exists.  And it does.  I didn’t pay much attention to the episode, though.  For some reason, what I did see reminded me of those annoying commercials that Kate McKinnon does for Verizon.

Who doesn’t love a comedy about people dying scared and alone?

Football Game: Cowboys vs 49 (Sunday Afternoon, CBS)

My initial reaction to Dallas’s loss went something like this: “Congrats on cheating your way to victory, San Francisco.  Must be great to have the officials on your side.  Well, you guys got the victory but at least my city is a nice place to live so we’ll call it a draw.”

Fortunately, it has since been explained to me what happened during the final minutes of the game and I now understand that the Cowboys lost because they made a lot of sloppy and stupid mistakes.  So, a sincere congrats to the 49ers and to the Cowboys: Stop screwing up!

Full House (Sunday Afternoon, MeTV)

MeTV showed four episodes of Full House as a part of their tribute to Bob Saget.  I watched all four and My God, that was a bad show.  Saget was likable, though.  And I liked both John Stamos and Lori Loughlin and even Candace Cameron did her best to bring some sort of reality to the over-the-top cutesiness of the show.  But everyone else was pretty obnoxious and the dialogue was so painfully sweet that it was impossible to listen to without cringing.  I do have to admit that the audience’s habit of responding to everything by going, “Awwwww!’ did make me smile a little.

Ghosts (Thursday Night, CBS)

Ghosts is about a couple who live in a haunted house with a bunch of quirky ghosts.  Cute concept but it gets old quickly.  Why can’t the scoutmaster ghost take that stupid arrow out of his neck?  This week, one of the ghosts discovered that she had the power to end people to Hell which … eh.  Like I said, it got old quickly.

Open All Hours (Sunday Night, PBS)

Arkwright was obsessed with Nurse Gladys Emmanuel.  Granville was depressed.  I’m pretty sure that Sunday was not the first that I had seen this episode.

The United States of Al (Thursday Night, CBS)

I watched an episode of this show just to see if it actually existed.  Apparently, it’s been on the air for a year or two but I have never met anyone who has actually watched the show.  Earlier this year, there was some twitter excitement over an extremely mawkish commercial for the show’s new season but that was pretty much it.  I always suspected that the commercial was actually some sort of viral prank but I guess I was wrong.

Anyway, this is about a veteran who lives with Al, who was his interpreter in Afghanistan.  It’s a culture clash comedy.  The main theme seems to be that Al is annoying af.  It’s also a Chuck Lorre sitcom so the show actually deals with serious issue in a cartoonish way.  This week’s episode featured Al getting addicted to online poker.  His roommate sprayed him with a garden hose until he snapped out of it.

Yep, this is a real show.

Oh!  And the episode ended with one of those stupid Chuck Lorre title cards for people who want to hit pause and discover what Chuck thinks about the world.  It was something about Liz Cheney.  It was like five or six words long but that proved to be too many for my ADD.  Oh well!

Miniseries Review: Ford: The Man and The Machine (dir by Allan Eastman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Henry Ford changed the world, for both the better and the worst.

Starting from his own small workshop in Dearborn, Michigan, Henry Ford designed the first mass-produced automobile.  He transformed cars from being a luxury item to being something that nearly every family owned.  He created the concept of the assembly line.  He argued that workers needed to be paid a livable wage and he also advocated for an 8-hour workday.  At a time when every facet of American life was heavily segregated, he encouraged his factories an auto dealerships to hire black employees.  He was a pacifist, who took part in a widely-ridiculed but apparently sincere effort to try to convince the leaders of the world to just stop fighting.

Unfortunately, Henry Ford was also something of an unhinged lunatic, a man whose skill at engineering and his empathy for his underpaid workers did not necessarily translate into a sophisticated understanding of anything else.  When the workers in his factories tried to unionize, Ford employed violent strike breakers and he felt that most of the population were like a children and therefore incapable of governing themselves.  He understood how to make car but he also fell for all sorts of quack science and was a believer in reincarnation.

Worst of all, he was a rabid anti-Semite, who blamed almost all of the world’s problems on “Jewish bankers” and who played a huge role in popularizing a scurrilous work called The Protocols of Elder Zion in America.  Claiming to lay out the details of a Jewish plot to secretly control the world, The Protocols were a ludicrous document but many people believed them because they were promoted by Henry Ford, who was as big a celebrity in the early 20th Century as all of the social media influencers are today.  All these years later, The Protocols are still cited by anti-Semites.  A series of anti-Semitic editorials (which Ford later claimed to have signed off on but not actually written) were published in Germany under the title The International Jew, the World’s Foremost Problem.  Hitler wrote of his admiration for Ford in Mein Kampf.  Ford, it should be noted, did keep his distance from Hitler, though whether that was due to a personal distaste or the threat of an economic boycott is not known.  (Jewish leaders had already organized one successful boycott of Ford in the 20s, which led to Ford closing down his newspaper and offering up an apology.)  At the Nuremberg Trials, many of the Nazis said that they had first been introduced to anti-Semitism through the writings of Henry Ford.  Reportedly, when Ford saw newsreel footage of the concentration camps, he was so overcome with emotion that he collapsed from a stroke.

(Two years ago, when Nick Cannon regurgitated the usual anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on a podcast, he was pretty much saying the exact same thing that Henry Ford said at the start of the 20th Century.  Later, under threat of economic boycott, both Ford and Cannon would off up half-hearted apologies for their statements.  Ford continued to make cars.  Cannon continues to host a handful of television shows.  How does that work?)

First broadcast over two nights in 1987, Ford: The Man and the Machine was a Canadian miniseries about the long and controversial life of Henry Ford.  Cliff Robertson played Henry Ford.  Hope Lange played his wife while Heather Thomas played his mistress.  R.H. Thomson played Ford’s son, the sensitive Edsel.  Michael Ironside played Harry Bennett, a sinister figure who was hired to break up union activity and who eventually became Ford’s right-hand man.  If I remember correctly, I believe Canadian law actually required that Michael Ironside appear in almost every Canadian film and television show made in the 80s and the 90s.  His glowering presence and menacing line delivery practically shouted out, “Don’t mess with Canada,” and he does bring a note of genuine danger to his performance here.

Ford: The Man and the Machine opens in the late 20s, with an aging Henry Ford already starting to lose control of his mental faculties.  A series of flashbacks then show how Ford built his first engine, his first car, and eventually his first factory.  We watch as Ford goes from being an enthusiastic, self-taught engineer to being one of the most powerful men in the world.  Along the way, Ford grows arrogant.  The same stubbornness that led to his early success also leads to his later problems.  For all of his ability, Ford’s ego and his refusal to reconsider his conclusions leaves him vulnerable to both flattery and manipulation, whether it’s coming from the White House of Woodrow Wilson, from his own executives, or from the authoritarians who rose to power in Europe following the first World War.  As portrayed in the movie, he’s a loving father who also flies into a rage when Edsel designs a car on his own.  He loves his wife but he keeps a mistress.  He loves his family but he’ll always prefer to spend time working on his cars than spending time with them.  Henry Ford changes the world but his own hubris makes it impossible for him to change with it.

The miniseries is built around Cliff Robertson’s performance as Ford and Robertson does an excellent job in the role, convincingly playing Ford as he goes from being an enthusiastic dreamer to a paranoid millionaire to a doddering old man, a Bidenesque figuredhead who is only nominally in charge of his own company.  Neither the film nor Robertson shy away from showing us Henry Ford’s flaws.  Instead, both the production and the actor offer up a portrait of a complex man who transformed the way that people lived but who couldn’t escape from his own prejudices and resentments.  Ford: The Man and The Machine is a history lesson but it’s a valuable one.  If you’re a student of history, you’ll find much to think about in this miniseires.

For the record, I do drive a Ford and it’s a good car.  However, I tell myself that it’s named after Gerald Ford.

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.10 “Sins of the Father” (dir by Marcos Siega)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve been thinking about the finale of Dexter: New Blood for about three days now.  I’m going to guess that if you’re a Dexter fan, you’ve already seen it so I’m going to just talk about what happened without posting any spoiler warnings.  I hate spoiler warnings anyways.

Harrison shot and apparently killed Dexter.  Now, I have to admit that, when Harrison first showed up during the first episode, my initial thought was that Harrison was going to end up killing Dexter for the same reason that Dexter had killed so many others.  And, as other have pointed out, the entire show was pretty much leading up to either Harrison killing Dexter or Dexter being forced to kill Harrison.  So, really, I guess I should be happy that the show followed its storyline to its only logical conclusion.  I can certainly respect the show for staying true to itself but respect and happiness don’t always go together.

To be honest, even though I knew that it should happen, I really thought there was no way that the show would actually do it.  I was so used to Dexter being able to get out of any situation that I just naturally assumed that he would be able to do it again.  And if Dexter had managed to escape from the jail without killing Logan in the process, I think Dexter probably could have pulled it off.  But, by killing Logan, Dexter broke Harry’s code.  Dexter revealed that the code was really just a part of his own sociapathic ritual.  It wasn’t something that he truly obeyed,  Instead, it was something that he used to justify his dark urges.

Harrison realized what Dexter had done and, as a result, Harrison shot him.  I didn’t necessarily buy the idea that Dexter would just stand there and encourage his son to kill him.  That was a bit convenient and it required Dexter to have a conscience, which is something that we all know he didn’t have.  Even Dexter’s comment that he had never felt love until the minute Harrison pulled the trigger felt like another case of Dexter what he knew the audience wanted to hear.

My main issue with the episode wasn’t so much Harrison shooting Dexter as it was what happened next.  Allowing Harrison to escape and agreeing to cover up what he did was totally out-of-character for Angela.  Angela, who has shown that she’s willing to arrest anyone in town regardless of how close she may be to them, had no problem wiping Harrison’s prints off the gun and tossing him some money for his journey.  It didn’t make any sense.  Angela barely knows Harrison.  How does she know that Harrison didn’t help Dexter with the murders?  Also, after Angela discovered that Dexter was a murderer, did it not occur to her that there might be something strange about the stabbing at the school?  Is Angela okay with Harrison driving off to freedom while the kid that Harrison tried to murder is destined to always be remembered as a potential school shooter?  I can accept Harrison shooting Dexter.  I can even respect it.  But I cannot accept that Angela would let him get away with it.

There were other loose ends that bothered me.  Why was Edward Olsen such an important character in the first few episodes?  Why did he mysteriously vanish?  Why did the show seem to building up to a twist about Audrey’s parentage, just to abandon the whole thing an episode later?  How did Kurt manage to capture Molly, who was more or less aware that Kurt was a killer and certainly wouldn’t go anywhere willingly with him.  Considering that this episode appeared to be the definitive end of Dexter’s story, those loose ends are frustrating.

That said, it was a well-directed episode.  Michael C. Hall was riveting and genuinely frightening in the scenes where he manipulated Angela and Logan.  The final montage of the faces of everyone innocent person who died as a result of Dexter’s actions was an emotional moment and I’m glad to see that Doakes was included with Deb, Rita, LaGuerta, Lundy, and all the rest.  Doakes always got a raw deal.

Dexter: New Blood was a success.  Even the fact that I have mixed feelings about how it ended is proof of how well executed this revival was.  (Trust me, I could have hardly cared less when Dexter sailed into that hurricane, so fed up was I with the show at the time.)  And, between you and me, I’m not convinced that Dexter’s dead.  Yes, he was shot.  Yes, he didn’t look good.  But Harrison drove away before the paramedics arrived.  Dexter’s survived a lot.

At the very least, Ghost Dex would be amusing….

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.9 “The Family Business” (dir by Sanford Bookstaver)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

We all knew that, at some point, Dexter would have to welcome Harrison into the family business.  It finally happened on this week’s episode of Dexter: New Blood.

Set on Christmas day (but, oddly enough, airing during the first week of January), the ninth episode of Dexter: New Blood found Dexter and Harrison finally bonding.  Dexter told Harrison the story of Wiggles the Clown though, at the insistence of Ghost Deb, Dexter said that he just told Wiggles to stop doing what he was doing.  Even when Dexter was telling the story, it was obvious that Harrison knew there was more to it than just Dexter giving a stern lecture.

Harrison also told Dexter that he had stabbed his friend and that he wasn’t the hero that everyone made him out to be.  Yeah, we all figured that out a while ago, Harrison!  Still, it was interesting to watch Harrison discover what the rest of us take for granted.  We’re so used to the idea of Dexter tracking down serial killers and murdering them that it’s easy to forget just how weird and traumatic it would be for someone to learn about it or witness it for the first time.  One of the big problems that I had with the final season of Dexter’s original run is that Deb never seemed to be truly shocked at the discovery that her brother was a serial killer.  Fortunately, the reboot did a better job with Harrison than the original did with Deb.

And yes, Harrison did learn the truth.  He and Dexter tracked down Kurt’s secret lair and saw Kurt’s “trophies.”  And when Harrison announced that Kurt needed to die, just the slightest smile came to Dexter’s lips.  Dexter managed to bring Harrison over to his side without actually having to confess to all of the people that he had killed.  Only after Harrison had announced that he was on board with the idea that some people deserved to die, did Dexter admit to killing Wiggles the Clown and Arthur Mitchell.

Kurt met his end in this episode.  Harrison watched as Dexter killed him and then, somewhat ominously, had a flashback to Rita’s murder.  Is Harrison going to realize that, for all of Dexter’s rationalizations, his father is a serial killer as well?  If Harrison truly buys into the code, then Dexter could be in some trouble.

Actually, Dexter might be in trouble regardless.  Angela appears to have figured out that Dexter killed the drug dealer.  And, at the end of this episode, she received a letter telling her that “Jim Lindsay Killed Matt Caldwell” and one of the titanium screws that was left behind after Dexter burned Matt’s body.  If Angela learns the truth, will she arrest Dexter or will she let him and Harrison go free?  Angela has sworn to uphold the law but Kurt also murdered Angela’s best friend.  And, as we learned on Sunday, Kurt also murdered Molly.  Angela might be tempted to let Dexter escape.  I guess we’ll find out next week.

It was an excellent episode, though I have to admit that I was really disappointed when Molly showed up as one of Kurt’s trophies.  When Molly first appeared, her character annoyed me but, as the season progressed, I came to appreciate both the character and Jamie Chung’s performance.  In many ways, she was the stand-in for the viewers.  It was hard not to feel that she deserved better than to be killed off-screen.  Indeed, considering that she knew that Kurt was probably a killer, you have to wonder how he managed to ever get to her in the first place.

Still, that aside, The Family Business was Dexter at its best.  The deliberate pace and the atmospheric direction all reminded of the classic early seasons of Dexter.  Michael C. Hall perfectly captured Dexter’s love of his work while Jack Alcott played Harrison with the right mix of fascination and fear.  Still, I have to wonder what the show’s end game is going to be.  Ghost Deb was pretty adamant about Dexter not bringing Harrison into the family business and Ghost Deb usually know what she’s talking about.

We’ll find out next week!