You Don’t Always Have to Start from the Beginning of a Series

By

Scott D. Parker

 

A few years ago, I was shopping at Kroger when my eyes landed on the cover of a book. It was The Race by Clive Cussler. Here’s the cover.

 

I was immediately captivated. Old-fashioned planes! Cussler’s name! And was that trailing plane firing weapons at the leading plane? I picked up the novel and read the description and discovered the Isaac Bell series.  

The Race was the fourth one and I made the decision to start from book one and make my way forward from the beginning. With all of my other reading, it took me months to get to The Race but I read, listened to, and enjoyed every book in the series ever since.  

 

 

Daredevil: Born Again

 

Cut to this spring’s television. I didn’t immediately jump on the new Daredevil series on Disney+ because I had barely watched the Netflix series nearly a decade ago. I watched maybe two or three episodes and then just never kept going. Ditto for Luke Cage. Never even watched Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, or the Defenders. With so much content, I picked and chose what I wanted to watch and, well, these never landed in my queue.

A co-worker of mine talk Star Wars and Marvel movies and the Reacher TV show and books. After Reacher’s third season ended, he asked if I was watching Daredevil. I said no for the reasons I just listed. He told me it was quite good so I watched the trailer.

And was intrigued. Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk sitting in a café, just talking? Both Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio were born to play their respective roles. I last saw D’Onofrio in the Hawkeye series and for Cox, it was She-Hulk. So I said why the heck not give episode one of Born Again a try.

I was hooked.

It took me a few weeks—Daredevil is a show my wife doesn’t watch so I had to fit it in—but I caught up in time to watch the penultimate episode and the season finale when they debuted. I thought the season was fantastic. 

I loved the emphasis on Murdock and Fisk both trying to absolve their former selves to do something different only to be drawn back to what makes them themselves. I appreciated that we got basically a two-episode arc of Murdock just being a lawyer. I savored D’Onofrio’s portrayal of Fisk, including his peculiar way of speaking. And I loved the judicious use of action.

Stan Lee’s Famous Mantra

Stan Lee, creator of many of the mighty Marvel heroes, always had a mantra: every issue is someone’s first issue. As a result, nearly every Marvel comic in the 1970s and beyond featured a short bio, bringing a new reader up to speed on the character. From there, the new reader is empowered to read the issue and, hopefully many more.

When I read a few articles and listened to a few podcasts that ended up talking about Born Again, I discovered some disappointment. More than one person commented that elements of Born Again was a rehash of one of the Daredevil seasons from the Netflix era. That the Netflix version was better. That there wasn’t enough action.

But for me, Born Again was my real re-introduction to the TV Daredevil. I barely have any memory of the episodes I watched on Netflix nearly a decade ago. Now, it acts as my own template by which to judge any future Daredevil show, including the Netflix version if I choose to go back and watch those shows.

As my co-worker and I discussed each episode of Born Again, he extolled the Netflix series as something I should go back and watch. But, again, there’s just too much content out there that I want to watch. Andor season 2. Paradise season 1. The final season of Bosch. Mobland, Friends and Neighbors. The Studio. Heck, I didn’t even bother rewatching Ander season 1 because there’s just too much content and too little time. 

Go With the Book Whose Cover Grabs You

So, my experience with the excellent Daredevil: Born Again reinforces what I’ve started doing ever since I went back to the beginning of the Isaac Bell series: If a book captures your attention and you pick it up, read that book. Watch that show. Watch that movie. Listen to that album. It doesn’t matter if the book is the seventh in the series, it’s season three of a TV show, or if it’s the sequel to the hit movie you never watched. 

You can always go back. But you don’t always have to. 

Let's Talk About “The Residence” and the Viewing Experience

by

Scott D. Parker

Just over three weeks ago, Netflix dropped the eight-episode series “The Residence” (not “The Resident” so don’t let your phone autocorrect). It’s a funny, quirky, delightful, highly entertaining whodunnit set in the White House during a state dinner when the head usher is found murdered.

And the show wears its influences on its sleeve. Each of the episodes is titled after an older story/book/movie. The characters even namedrop famous detectives. And, of course, the story centers on a unique detective.

Cordelia Cupp, played by Uzo Aduba, is brought in by the Metropolitan police to solve the case. She’s a birder and brings her patient, no-BS style of investigation to the most found house in America. She’s not what anyone suspects a detective should be, which enables her to keep everyone off balance.

And by everyone, I mean the stellar cast. Randall Park’s “Watson” who goes along with Cupp and rarely knows the right thing to say. Jason Lee’s wonderful performance that seems to channel his characters from those Kevin Smith films, reminding everyone just how funny and acerbic he can be. The understate Giancarlo Esposito, who, as head usher, is more than a mere victim. And so many more. Excellent casting.

Interspersed into the main state-dinner scenes are flash-forward scenes of a congressional hearing (chaired by Al Franken) about the murder. The editor must have had a field day putting this together (or many, many late nights) but the quick cuts usually serve as punchlines to setups.

I do not binge TV. I prefer to watch my shows at a leisurely pace, often watching a single episode per week. When my wife and I opted to try out the first episode, we became so hooked that, four hours later, I surrendered to tiredness and had to go to bed. But I didn’t want to. For a traditional TV watcher like me, that is a big deal.

Which brings me to how it is being presented.

It’s a Netflix show, so first of all, thank you, Netflix, for greenlighting this show; thank you, Shanda Rhimes, for getting it up and running, and thank you Paul William Davies for writing the show. I look forward to a new season next spring.

But I wonder if this show might’ve caught a little bit of a zeitgeist if it had been presented weekly. It would have had a chance to breath, maybe get mentioned on SNL, and maybe had more blogs talk about how good it is. It could build up a head of steam and get more casual viewers who happened to hear about it in the office kitchen.

Still, it’s a wonderful way to spend 8.5 hours (the last episode is nearly ninety minutes). I rarely re-watch a TV show, but I’ll be re-watching this one as we wait for season two.

What Saturday Night Live Can Teach About Failure

By

Scott D. Parker

Failure sucks, but failure isn't all bad.

After rehearsal on Thursday night, I came back home (with McDonald's food!) to find my wife watching a new four-part documentary on the history of Saturday Night Live. I missed the first episode and most of the second, but I ended up watching the last two.

The third episode is an entire deep dive on the Cowbell sketch. That was fun. The fourth, however, was brand-new to me. Entitled, “Season 11: The Weird Year,” it details the new-to-me saga of that year. And there was a lot I didn't know. Randy Quaid was a cast member?!

Full disclosure: I didn't start watching SNL regularly until my college years. Thus: the late 1980s and early 1990s. I was either too young for the show or didn't know it was on or whatever. 

This episode fascinated me. Everyone interviewed for this documentary talked about how they knew, in real time, that the season wasn't good. It wasn't connecting with the audience or even the folks working the show.

Yet they had to keep going. What other choice was there? 

By the end of the 1985-1986 season, rumors were rampant that SNL would be canceled. They even aired a semi-cliffhanger as the season finale, which is pretty interesting. 

The conclusion of the documentary episode has the same folks talking about the changes that were made for Season 12. They hired new writers, brought in new cast members skilled at sketch comedy, and, with an eye to what went wrong in Season 11, they moved forward.

And never looked back.

What Can We Learn?

We creatives not working in front of a camera like to hide our failures. Especially writers. All of us have drawers full of finished manuscripts that may not deserve to see the light of day and that's fine. 

But what about those completed stories that we're just too scared to share? What's holding you back? Fear of failure? 

Get over it.

Unless you are in the business of just writing and never selling stories, get your work out there. Get it out in front of readers. Let them read it.

Yeah, they may hate it and you'll have to deal with their reviews, but how else are you going to learn? Those same readers also might love what you wrote, and how good would that feel?

The Writer's "Five Minutes"

Episode 1 of the documentary features cast auditions. My wife said it was fun to see the younger versions of these actors we've come to know and love being given five minutes to prove themselves. Five minutes. In front of Lorne Michaels and others. Could you do it? 

You can, and you should. The writer's version of those five minutes is the preview chapters, the book description, and the cover. Make them the best that you can, get it out to the public, and then move on to the next project.

And if one of your books turns out to be like SNL's Season 11, suck it up, figure out how to fix it, and move forward. 

A Podcast Interview Reignited a Desire to Revisit HBO's Perry Mason

By

Scott D. Parker

(I listened to a podcast interview with Michael Begler, the showrunner for season 2 of the reimagined "Perry Mason" TV show. I really liked how he described coming to the project, what excited him, and his vision for a season three that will never happen. Give it a listen here. 

Naturally this put me in a Perry Mason mood and I think I'll be revisiting this excellent series. Here's my review of the second season.)

The second season of Perry Mason played more or less like how the original series television show used to: introduce some characters you don’t know, witness a crime (but conceal the culprit), and bring in our main characters. There will be a courtroom scene and there will be a confession of the real culprit on the stand in front of…

Okay, so the analogy only goes so far, and that’s why I am really enjoying HBO’s revamping of Perry Mason. I say revamping because it many ways, it’s not an update, but a throwback. The TV show was broadcast in the late 1950s and early 1960s and the stories were all contemporary. The original books started in 1933 and went all the way up to 1973. As far as I can suspect, author Erle Stanley Gardner kept Mason up to date with the times.

The HBO show is set in 1933 and serves as Mason’s origin to be attorney and man we know him to be. What makes this show special is that the creators do not attempt to press all the existing characters into the existing boxes we all know. Mason is a divorced dad, Della Street is studying to be a lawyer (and not just Mason’s secretary) and is a closeted homosexual. Ditto for district attorney Hamilton Berger, character traits that are explored and exploited. Private investigator Paul Drake is African-American so race comes to the fore often. 

When I think of this modern Perry Mason, I think about the Sherlock Holmes TV show Elementary. Unlike BBC’s Sherlock—which merely updated the old Conan Doyle stories to the present century—Elementary reimagined Holmes and Watson and changed their story. Same with HBO’s Perry Mason. And I have zero issues with it. If I want something traditional, the old TV is airing everyday on MeTV and I can go watch an episode. Or I can pick up one of Gardner’s books. I don’t want a warmed up retread. I want something new. That’s what this show is.

The writers of season 2 do take a page from Gardner’s often intricate plots. Brooks McCutcheon, son of a wealthy father, who has some shady dealings along with his philanthropy and driving desire to be Major League Baseball to Los Angeles. He is the one murdered in episode 1 of this eight-episode season. The accused are Rafael and Mateo Gallardo, poor Mexican-American young men who live in one of the Hoovervilles. (Historical note: I loved the use of “Hoovervilles” among the characters but none of them felt compelled to have an “As you know…” aside.) 

As with any good Gardner story, the more Mason digs into a case, the more oddball things crop up. This one has a few, but the highlights of this series are the individual moments that serve to mature and grow the characters. Mason, trying to make up for being an absent father really tries to be a part of his son’s life and ends up dating one of his teachers. Della meets and falls in love with a rich screenwriter and sees what it’s like not to have to live in a boarding house and be able to go to nightclubs that cater to lesbians. Paul’s story is not as happy, as the case compels him to do things he doesn’t want to do, putting pressure on his marriage and his living arrangements with his wife’s brother. 

Like the intro to this post, a key feature to any Perry Mason story is his courtroom theatrics. There are some in this show that are really good, including one fantastic one, but you’ll have to watch the show to see it because I’m not spoiling it here.

When you get to the end and the culprit is revealed, it will likely cause you to reflect on the entire series and think back to moments and if the writers telegraphed the ending. I’ll leave that up to you, too, but I’ll say that it makes sense. 

With the TV show, by the time you got to the end of an episode, there were clear winners and losers and the end result was as black and white as the film used to make the show. But we’re in the 21st Century now and few things are crystal clear. Both seasons of Perry Mason mirror the era in which we find ourselves living, and I’m perfectly fine with that, too. It’s more real, more nuance, and harkens back directly to a quote Mason heard in season 1 and repeats in season 2. 

I have grown to really like this series and it hangs on a point where a potential season 3 could show us the modern version of the old TV show. Boy, I hope we get a third season.

Reacher Season 2 Reaches Back into Reacher’s Past

By

Scott D. Parker

I’ve now watched the second season of Amazon’s “Reacher” and not only am I caught up, I’m all in.

Let’s be fair: I was all in back in the first fifteen minutes of the pilot episode, when Reacher did the Sherlock Holmes thing to the local police detective. Alan Ritchson’s portrayal of Reacher is fantastic. He has the brawn to take on anyone and be scared of no one. He has the brain to outthink any opponent, usually before they even realize it. But it’s Ritchson’s gentle demeanor that is probably my favorite part of the character on screen.

Season 1 is Reacher the Wanderer, the guy who literally walks the earth (a modern day version of David Carradine’s “Kung Fu”?). In this season, we get strangers who question Reacher’s lifestyle choice. In Season 2, we get Reacher’s backstory in the form of his old army unit.

Getting Most of the Band Back Together

The main plot of Season 2–based on the novel Bad Luck and Trouble—involves a mysterious group taking out the members of Reacher’s old army unit, the 110th Special Investigations Unit. Reacher’s ally from Season 1, Neagley, sends Reacher an SOS (in the form of a particular dollar amount on an ATM receipt). Fearing that the entire 110th is on someone’s hit list, they join forces to figure out who’s behind it all.

As a Reacher newbie, I really enjoy this season specifically because we get backstory. Interspersed with the main plot, we get flashbacks to when Reacher commanded the military police unit. We get to see the big man actually be part of a team of people he can rely on to have his back just as he has theirs.

Particularly funny are all the comments his former soldiers give him in the present. Other than Neagley, we are introduced to David O’Donnell who is now a lawyer with a family and Karla Dixon, a forensic accountant and one who pined for Reacher back in the day. I particularly liked O’Donnell because he’s a smaller guy, married (in direct opposition to his earlier life), and who is perfectly willing to stick his neck out for the team, but knows he cannot withstand all the punishment that Reacher can…but still does it.

O’Donnell and Dixon both haven’t seen Reacher in years and they pepper him with questions about his current life, why, and what his future plans are. His calm replies typically broach no follow-up and they just find it odd. As most of us do, to be honest. 

Seeing these four operate together is fantastic. They’ve each acquired new skills since leaving the army, but they remain steadfastly loyal to each other. That kind of camaraderie is something we all would like in our lives. 

Taking No Prisoners

As you can imagine, as Reacher and his team learn more and get closer to the bad guys—lead by Robert Patrick, a guy who can do smarmy with ease—there are numerous set pieces where the bad guys send out ruffians to take out Reacher and his friends. Love every one of them! It’s great to see the different fighting styles of the four former army cops as they dispatch the bad guy, but not always without injuries. 

A New Ally

Season 2 also features an NYC detective, Gaitano Russo, who initially thinks Reacher and his pals are up to no good but, ultimately, comes around to helping them. Russo is played by Dominick Lombardozzi, an actor I know from “The Wire.” The way Lombardozzi reveals what kind of cop he is and why is wonderful and is a great part of this season.

What’s Next?

I know that Reacher Season 3 has been greenlit so when it debuts, I’ll be there on Day One. Both seasons of Reacher are great and I recommend them.

In the meantime, however, I’ll be doing two things. One, I’ll revisit the two Tom Cruise movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know they’re not like the books, but I’ve already seen them and enjoyed both. Now I just want to rewatch in light of Ritchson’s portrayal of the character that’s more in line with the books.

And the second thing I plan on doing is the thing Lee Child wished I did twenty-eight books ago: read a Reacher novel or two. Anyone got a Top 5 they’d like to share?

True Detective: Night Country Asks an Interesting Question: What if The Thing Was a Murder Mystery?

By

Scott D. Parker

I’m a True Detective newbie but I was all-in on the fourth season, True Detective: Night Country. Why? Jodie Foster. And the setting.

I know Foster moved behind the camera for a long time and she did some great work. She directed an episode of the science fiction show “Tales from the Loop” a few years ago and I really enjoyed that series. Last year she co-starred with Annette Bening in “Nyad,” a movie I’ve not seen (but will now). Thus, Night Country is the first acting performance I’ve seen in a long time. 

She’s fantastic! She’s hard, stern, dogged, determined, and occasionally unlikeable. In a recent podcast episode, Marc Bernardin mentioned that Foster was enticed by the script written by Issa Lopez but wanted her character, Police Chief Liz Danvers of Ennis, Alaska, to be more irritating. I suspect Lopez was initially surprised at the request, but fulfilled it nonetheless.

The other main actress is Kali Reis. She plays Trooper Evangeline Navarro. Navarro and Danvers have history—because of course they do—but must work together again to solve the case with deep ramifications to the town. Navarro has some indigenous heritage that she draws on and deals with, a theme I’ve noticed with lots of recent shows I’ve watched (like Reservation Dogs, Tin Star, Resident Alien, and Alaska Daily). Like Foster, Reis is excellent with saying a lot but not always with words. 

The Setting

The story takes place in Alaska at the Winter Solstice. In this portion of Alaska, the Winter Solstice means the sun doesn’t rise for weeks. As someone who gets irritated when it’s merely cloudy here in Houston for a few days, I could not live in that environment. At all. There’s a foreboding when it’s always dark. It’s claustrophobic. It’s unnerving. And people live in places like that all the time.

This setting pretty much makes the town and the surrounding environs another character. The show puts nearly every viewer in a situation wholly unfamiliar, and pieces out bits of information in dribs and drabs. It was wonderful to be immersed in something so new yet so foreign.

The Story

If you watched the trailer, you probably got instant vibes from John Carpenter’s The Thing. I really appreciated how Lopez drew me into the show and its main crime—the murder of a group of scientists in a research lab—with the possibility of the supernatural as well as good old-fashioned natural violence. I’ve read that along with The Thing, another inspiration for her story was the original Alien (1979) and its ominous setting. Well, it worked.

The other thing that worked was the ending. I didn’t see it coming, and that is a huge testament to my enjoyment of the six-episode series. Too often, the tried and true tropes come out to play and you just go along for the ride, especially if you like the characters and actors. I’m fine with those types of stories, but when something new and original comes along, it’s so refreshing.

A Maverick Pathologist (Mostly) Seeks the Truth: Harrow Season 1

by

Scott D. Parker

I actually laughed when I watched the first fifteen minutes of the pilot episode of the Australian TV show, Harrow, that ran for three seasons from 2018 to 2021. I then chuckled at the last minute as well.

Why? Because the script did exactly what a pilot is supposed to do: Introduce you to the character(s) and then hook you good enough to watch the next episode. Done and done.

The Characters

Daniel Harrow (Ioan Gruffudd) is a forensic pathologist based in Queensland. He is a maverick in the department, brilliant of course, lives on a boat, and always rankling the higher-ups and his more uptight peers. He always wants to know the ‘why’ of a case and doesn’t always go for the simple answer that would clear the case from the books in an efficient manner. He is divorced but still keeps in contact with his ex and his teenaged daughter is, well, homeless and a wanderer. 

Harrow is often teamed with police officer Soroya Dass (Mirrah Foulkes) and they work well together. Naturally sparks begin to fly as they do in TV shows (and real life). Remy Hii plays Simon, the young protege of Harrow and Damien Garvey plays the gruff, older detective who is a bulldog on his cases.

The Setting

While this might all sound like typical police procedural TV show stuff—and it is—what makes it cool is the setting and the larger story arc of Season 1. Australian shows don’t always make it to America and, as a fan of British TV shows, it’s great to see something different. And I never tire of the accents. 

The Season-Long Story Arc

The folks who created Harrow have taken their cue from The X-Files and other successful programs and created the nice blend of murder-of-the-week and a larger, bigger story. 

Remember that hook I mentioned at the end of episode 1? Well, it serves as the entry point to the entire season. It set up ten episodes of “how will that affect things?” and “Oh crap, that’s not good” and other moments that keep you engaged and interested. 

Man, I really want to say more, but to do so would put this in spoiler territory. And I’d like you to watch the first episode (on the CW streaming app; yeah, they have one and don’t ask my how or why Harrow is there) and experience it for yourself.

My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed the first season, all the way up to its cliffhanger ending. You see? Good creators always know how to set the hook and reel you in.

When Reacher Did the Sherlock Holmes Thing, I Was Hooked

By

Scott D. Parker

It took a pair of podcast hosts and Sherlock Holmes to finally get me to watch Season 1 of Reacher. By the time I finished the first episode, I wondered why it had taken so long.

Setting the Hook

Kevin Smith and Marc Bernardin host the Fatman Beyond podcast and in the first episode of this year, Smith discusses Season 2 of Reacher. He was his usual ecstatic self when he loves something and that finally tipped the needle. Granted, when Bernardin mentioned it last year, that should have been my cue to watch because Bernardin is one of the brightest guys I listen to, and his understanding of story and structure is deep and I constantly learn when he talks.

So I tuned into episode 1 of Season 1 on Amazon Prime. All I knew about Reacher going in was a pretty short list. He was a drifter (a “hobo” as he says on the show); he was in the army but now wasn’t. He kills people. Lee Child wrote the books. And Tom Cruise played the character in two movies that I enjoyed.

Cut to an early segment in the TV show. After Reacher has been arrested and then released, he’s walking out of the police station, ready to get the hell out of dodge, when the lead detective, Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin) makes a challenge to Reacher, our hulking hobo turns around and does the Sherlock Holmes thing. He says all the things he’s learned about Finley just by observation and deduction.

My reaction? A huge grin on my face. A guy who is super smart and can kick your ass? Sold!

The Plot

As the last minute or so of any pilot episode does, the cliffhanger gives Reacher the situation where he chooses to remain in Margrave, Georgia, and help Finlay and patrol cop Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald) figure out what’s really going on in the small town. 

I’m always a fan of stories where a seemingly small thing is actually just a single layer of a wider, larger plan by the bad guys and this season is certainly that. In fact, I actively kept processing the clues and how they relate as I watched each of the eight episodes. This was because I was curious how original author Child and the folks that adapted the first book, Killing Fields, into this season’s storyline into a coherent thread. 

And there are multiple threads. It’s all well laid out and explained a few times but as I watched the show, a fact I know about Child’s writing process returned to my mind. Unless he changed, he writes every Reacher story without an outline. He just goes and trusts his creative mind to figure it all out. If that’s how he did it, more power to him.

The Actor and the Character

Alan Ritchson plays Reacher and he’s a giant. I think he mentioned he was six, five at least one time in the season. What I found fascinating was how Ritchson could, with barely changing his face, have Reacher go from kind to determined in a heartbeat. 

His size is intimidating and I appreciated how he would give his opponents the chance to walk away. Few did, but all believed after the fight. Reacher moved with precision. It wasn’t necessarily graceful. It was quite brutal, but his fighting style was efficient. 

There were a few times in which I saw how Ritchson played Reacher and I wondered if the character was somewhere on the spectrum. When a character asked Reacher what took him so long to meet up, Reacher was direct. “I killed five men.” Indeed, as I searched for the IMDB page to verify how to spell actors’ names, one of the top searched phrases was that very same thing. So I wasn’t the only one.

But I’ve come around to thinking that, no, Reacher isn’t autistic. He just takes no BS from anyone. The direct approach was his only approach. Why bother speaking extra words with the exact number will suffice. 

I thoroughly enjoyed Season 1 of Reacher and will start Season 2 soon. What are your thoughts on Reacher?

When a Show is Cancelled, You Get to Write the Rest of the Story

by
Scott D. Parker

Well, that sucks.

Whenever my wife and I start watching an older show on streaming, I don’t look the show up on the internet. I don’t want to be spoiled about things the world already knows. For example, when I started watching “Brothers and Sisters,” my wife did look up the show and discovered Rob Lowe departed the series before its end. I just like to keep the watching as pure as possible.

Which can make for a great viewing experience. It can also lead to heartbreak.

We recently watched the Hulu series, “Reboot.” It follows the cast and crew of a fictional 1990s TV show that was cancelled and their attempt to, um, reboot it for the 2020s.

The excellent cast featured three adults and a now grown-up co-star. Keegan-Michael Key is always funny. Judy Greer is stellar in everything she does. This counts as my first show where I watched Johnny Knoxville. Calum Worthy plays the former child actor with an earnestness that might be drawn from real life. And Paul Reiser! The dude is so good and there are moments in this show—especially the final episode—where you are reminded of just how well he can speak and command a scene. Made me want to go back and start a “Mad About You” rematch.

The writing on “Reboot” is spot on, especially as the writers—lead by Rachel Bloom playing Reiser’s daughter—riff on things that made old TV shows funny that would never fly nowadays. And the characters actually had interesting arcs as they came to terms with their life choices and how they live their lives now.

And it’s pretty darn hilarious.

We got to the eighth and final episode…and it ended on various cliffhangers. Each character faced a decision moment, and it left you wondering what path they’d take.

End of the Line

Moments after the credits rolled, I picked up my phone to see when season two would be premiering. Imagine my shock and dismay when I learned that Hulu had cancelled the show. There would not be a season two. That was it.

And it ended with unresolved issues? Seriously? I guess that’s the gamble you take as a writer of a new TV show. Do you ended the first season on a cliffhanger and dare the network to renew the show or do you just end on a happy note in case.

Use the Muppets for Inspiration

Remember the ending of 1979’s “The Muppet Movie”? As the gang was frantically trying to get all the sets prepared to tell the story *of the movie you just watched,* everything came tumbling down. They stare at the destruction and then Kermit breaks the fourth wall and tells us “Life’s like a movie. Write your own ending.”

That’s what we’ll have to do with Reboot. Write our own ending. And I know how I would steer the characters.

Still, despite how it ended, I thoroughly enjoyed Reboot. It’s only eight episode of about thirty minutes each. It’s certainly worth your time. If you do watch it, let me know how you’d keep the story going.

Will Streaming TV Evolve to a Network TV Model?

by
Scott D. Parker

A few weeks ago, my wife started watching “Brothers and Sisters,” the family drama/comedy that ran on ABC from 2006 to 2011. It stars Calista Flockhart, Sally Field, Matthew Rhys, Rachel Griffiths, Rob Lowe, and Dave Annable. Like much of network TV I didn’t watch at the time, I kinda remembered it as “that show with Sally Field and Ally McBeal.”

But I sat down to watch a few episodes with her and it’s quite enjoyable. Having Rob Lowe speak political words (like he did so well in “The West Wing”) is something I always enjoy. And now that I’ve watched both seasons of HBO’s “Perry Mason,” I now know who Matthew Rhys is. I really loved him in Perry Mason and he plays a lawyer in this show as well so I’m locked in.

I drift in and out of watching—she watches an episode or two when I’m at work—but always ask questions like “What’s Ally up to now?” or “How’s Perry Mason doing?” or “Hey, I know that actor…” [and then pull up the internet to figure it out].

When I reviewed the show’s IMDB page, I noted that, other than the 16-episode second season, the other four seasons aired 22 or more episodes. It was the reliable network schedule: start in September and go all the way to May.

When premium shows started, the number of episodes usually shrank. The Sopranos had 13 per season. Ted Lasso was ten. Shrinking had eight. Depending on the streaming service and the number of episodes, after eight weeks or so, you were done. Or a weekend.

There’s a certain comfort-food type quality to an old fashioned network TV drama. Yes, I’ll admit that some of those twentysomething episodes were filler. If you don’t mind, then you get nine months of content.

Then again, I know some folks who, say, hear about Ted Lasso and how good it is. They’ll wait until all the episodes are available, subscribe to AppleTV for a month, binge the show, and then cancel.

As evidenced by the current writers’ and actors’ strike, the people who make our content are going to have to reckon with streaming and the future, and not just AI. Prices will most likely go up. Content might be reduced or removed.

So here’s a thought: as someone who subscribes to the basic Hulu, Peacock, and Paramount, I still get commercials. I don’t mind at all. And I still have cable TV that are chock full of commercials. I suspect more streaming services will ultimately offer an ad-supported offering for a lower fee. When they do, that’ll be the option I’ll gravitated toward.

When that happens, and in an effort to keep subscribers subscribed for longer periods of time, do you think streaming networks (that’s what they are) will deliver a traditional 22-episode season?

Season 2 of Perry Mason Continues to Reimagine the Characters

By

Scott D. Parker

The second season of Perry Mason played more or less like how the original series television show used to: introduce some characters you don’t know, witness a crime (but conceal the culprit), and bring in our main characters. There will be a courtroom scene and there will be a confession of the real culprit on the stand in front of…

Okay, so the analogy only goes so far, and that’s why I am really enjoying HBO’s revamping of Perry Mason. I say revamping because it many ways, it’s not an update, but a throwback. The TV show was broadcast in the late 1950s and early 1960s and the stories were all contemporary. The original books started in 1933 and went all the way up to 1973. As far as I can suspect, author Erle Stanley Gardner kept Mason up to date with the times.

The HBO show is set in 1933 and serves as Mason’s origin to be attorney and man we know him to be. What makes this show special is that the creators do not attempt to press all the existing characters into the existing boxes we all know. Mason is a divorced dad, Della Street is studying to be a lawyer (and not just Mason’s secretary) and is a closeted homosexual. Ditto for district attorney Hamilton Berger, character traits that are explored and exploited. Private investigator Paul Drake is African-American so race comes to the fore often. 

When I think of this modern Perry Mason, I think about the Sherlock Holmes TV show Elementary. Unlike BBC’s Sherlock—which merely updated the old Conan Doyle stories to the present century—Elementary reimagined Holmes and Watson and changed their story. Same with HBO’s Perry Mason. And I have zero issues with it. If I want something traditional, the old TV is airing everyday on MeTV and I can go watch an episode. Or I can pick up one of Gardner’s books. I don’t want a warmed up retread. I want something new. That’s what this show is.

The writers of season 2 do take a page from Gardner’s often intricate plots. Brooks McCutcheon, son of a wealthy father, who has some shady dealings along with his philanthropy and driving desire to be Major League Baseball to Los Angeles. He is the one murdered in episode 1 of this eight-episode season. The accused are Rafael and Mateo Gallardo, poor Mexican-American young men who live in one of the Hoovervilles. (Historical note: I loved the use of “Hoovervilles” among the characters but none of them felt compelled to have an “As you know…” aside.) 

As with any good Gardner story, the more Mason digs into a case, the more oddball things crop up. This one has a few, but the highlights of this series are the individual moments that serve to mature and grow the characters. Mason, trying to make up for being an absent father really tries to be a part of his son’s life and ends up dating one of his teachers. Della meets and falls in love with a rich screenwriter and sees what it’s like not to have to live in a boarding house and be able to go to nightclubs that cater to lesbians. Paul’s story is not as happy, as the case compels him to do things he doesn’t want to do, putting pressure on his marriage and his living arrangements with his wife’s brother. 

Like the intro to this post, a key feature to any Perry Mason story is his courtroom theatrics. There are some in this show that are really good, including one fantastic one, but you’ll have to watch the show to see it because I’m not spoiling it here.

When you get to the end and the culprit is revealed, it will likely cause you to reflect on the entire series and think back to moments and if the writers telegraphed the ending. I’ll leave that up to you, too, but I’ll say that it makes sense. 

With the TV show, by the time you got to the end of an episode, there were clear winners and losers and the end result was as black and white as the film used to make the show. But we’re in the 21st Century now and few things are crystal clear. Both seasons of Perry Mason mirror the era in which we find ourselves living, and I’m perfectly fine with that, too. It’s more real, more nuance, and harkens back directly to a quote Mason heard in season 1 and repeats in season 2. 

I have grown to really like this series and it hangs on a point where a potential season 3 could show us the modern version of the old TV show. Boy, I hope we get a third season.

Sometimes Spoilers Are Fine AKA I Knew How The Last of Us Ended Before I Started

By

Scott D. Parker

I never thought I’d watch The Last of Us, the popular show by HBO based on a video game of the same name. In fact the closest I’d gotten to the show was the hilarious Saturday Night Live spoof of MarioKart done in the same, post-apocalyptic style. I’m not a huge fan of the genre and I was completely fine with skipping out on all the excitement.

In fact I was so okay with missing out on everything that when one of the recent episodes of the Fatman Beyond podcasts dropped and co-host Marc Bernardin began talking up the ending, I didn’t skip ahead. I just listened. Bernardin is a gamer, he played the original game and watched the series. He enjoyed the show, which can come as a surprise if you know Bernardin.

When my wife suggested we give episode 1 a try, I was reluctant. She knows my aversion to the genre, but it her turn to pick a show—I selected Apple TV’s Shrinking—I opted to give episode 1 a look. I fully expected to have my usual complicated feelings about a world after everything goes to hell and bow out.

But I didn’t. In fact, I rather enjoyed it. And, knowing the ending, the major events of episode 1 were still hard to watch, but I had already been conditioned to understand that these events in the premiere episode had to happen if what we see in all the trailers and online ads is true: Pablo Pascal’s Joel has to get Bella Ramsey’s Ellie across the devastated country to a place where they can use her immune blood to create a cure.

Here is the crucial fact about this show and knowing the ending: the characters, the choices they make, and the ramifications they inflict on others is immensely compelling. I found myself eagerly waiting to watch the next episode (we staggered the show, usually one per night, over the entire 9-episode run.

The two leads are stellar. There was one particular scene in which Joel gave a monologue and, afterwards, I told my wife that’ll be the clip they play at the Emmy ceremony. Because Pascal and Ramsey should both earn nominations for their acting. Unlike a typical show with this kind of content, these two actors ground their characters in real life. Side note: the pandemic-like event takes place in 2003 and the show occurs in 2023 so all the stuff we’ve come to know in the past twenty years never happened.

If I characterize the ending in any way, that might be a spoiler for you, so I’m not even going to try. But evening knowing the ending before I started, I was still deeply invested.

Maybe it’s because The Last of Us isn’t a franchise I know and love well, like Star Wars or Star Trek. I stayed away from most of my usual sites on Thursday so I could go into the series finale of Picard fresh. I often wonder what it’s like for younger folks to, say, watch the original Star Wars trilogy knowing in advance Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father or that Leia is his sister. I may get around to HBO’s other popular TV show, Succession, but I’ll go in knowing what happened in last week’s episode.

Are we too fixated on spoilers?

I mean, all we really have to do is stay away from the internet on the day of a release if you want to view something without knowing anything. That’s not a big deal. It’s not like Lester Holt is going to spoil the ending of The Last of Us on his nightly broadcast.

Back in the 1970s, my parents and I would just go to a theater and walk in, sometimes in the middle of a movie. We’d watch the ending, wait for the show to start again, watch until we got to the spot where we came in, and then leave. As a storyteller, I can’t imagine the thinking, but that was a real thing. I know I’m not alone.

I like a movie or show or book to capture me with its content. I barely ever read movie reviews ahead of time (I read them after I’ve watched the show and made my own conclusions. Ditto for TV, music, and, of course, books.) The trailer has me or it doesn’t. Or an actor and a role has me or it doesn’t, like Nicholas Cage as Dracula. That was all I needed to know I wanted to see Renfield.

Still, even if you are spoiled, the quality of the show can give you a deeper appreciation of the story, like The Last of Us did for me. It’s a quality program and one I’d certainly recommend.

Alaska Daily and The Company You Keep Prove Network TV Is Not Dead

By

Scott D. Parker

Remember a few weeks ago when I lamented the end of New Amsterdam and wondered if there would be any more network TV shows I’d watch? Well, it didn’t take long before two very different shows landing on my viewing schedule.

Alaska Daily

Curious about the throughline of the series—the disappearance and murder of indigenous women in Alaska—the wife and I watched the pilot of Alaska Daily, the new show starring Hilary Swank. She plays Eileen Fitzgerald, a famous New York investigative reporter in New York who gets fired for asking too many questions. Amid her public humiliation, her old boss, Stanley (Jeff Perry) shows up. He has a job for her: investigating the systemic crisis of murdered and missing indigenous women in Alaska. The sticking point is, obviously, that the new job is in Alaska. Stanley knows Eileen and all he has to do is get her hooked on the story.

She gets hooked and she moves to Alaska where we promptly have a fish-out-of-water story mixed with a this-is-how-we-do-it-in-the-big-city story. But it works well.

The indigenous women story is the season-long arc and little pieces are uncovered in each episode. But you also get a story of the week. In each episode, you’ll see some of Eileen’s fellow reporters either get rubbed the wrong way because of her or learn something from her that they can then use. It’s a good push-pull dynamic.

Two things particularly stand out. One is obvious: the importance of journalism, especially local journalism. In episode 7, Eileen has a long conversation with another character who thinks all she does is twist facts around. She counters the argument by pointing out things that reporters have contributed to society. It’s a general “If not us, who?” argument that I find matches the tone of 2023.

The other aspect of this show I really dig is Eileen herself. She’s single-minded in her devotion to her job, so much so that she sacrifices personal relationships. She’s a loner, and her lover is being a reporter and uncovering the story. We’ve seen characters like this before, but they’ve almost all be male. With Eileen, you get the female version of it, and it’s refreshing.

I find it fascinating that the topic of violence against indigenous women is featured not only on this American network TV show but also on Amazon’s Three Pines. Perhaps with more exposure, more can be done to stop this crisis.

The Company You Keep

On the other end of the ledger is another new show, The Company You Keep. We saw the trailer while watching America’s Funniest Videos one Sunday evening and were intrigued. I didn’t watch This Is Us but I knew the Milo Ventimiglia starred on it. Milo’s also in this show opposite Catherine Haena Kim. He’s a con man named Charlie from a family of con artists: mom, dad, and older sister. She’s a CIA operative named Emma, daughter of a retired senator whose brother is running for his dad’s seat, and no one in the family knows she works for the government.

In the pilot, Charlie’s family earn $10 million from a job but Charlie’s fiancée steals it. Emma discovers her partner is having an affair. Charlie and Emma meet at a hotel bar and a weekend of passion ensues. But they are both secret about their real selves and real jobs. Naturally, they fall for each other but still keep up the mysterious fronts. Cut to the end of the pilot where the bad guys who used to own that $10 million show up at Charlie’s family bar. They demand repayment plus interest, and you have this show’s schtick: A Con of the Week.

And it’s so much fun. It doesn’t hurt at all to have Milo and Catherine look so dang good and look good together. As the credits rolled from the pilot, I said to my wife, “Ah, so it’s pretty people doing cons every week. I’m in.”

The supporting cast is fun, especially William Fichtner as Charlie’s dad. He’s good in just about everything he’s in, but a particular favorite is his role in the 1999 movie, Go. James Saito plays Emma’s dad, an actor who has been in a ton of things, but I particularly enjoyed him in the old Eli Stone TV show.

If you are a fan of heist stories, you’ll probably get a kick out of this.

Pushing the Old Guys Aside: HBO's Perry Mason Season 1

by
Scott D. Parker

I finally finished Season 1 of the updated and re-imagined Perry Mason TV series on HBO Ma. Yeah, I know: I’m two years behind. There’s just too much good content to watch and not enough time.

Here’s a funny thing: when I pulled it up on HBO Max late last week, my time stamp was halfway through episode three. I asked my wife if she’d be up for watching. She was and, without going back to re-watch the opening two installments, we forged ahead.

The cheeky summation I’ve heard about this show is that it is not your grandfather’s Perry Mason. That’s certainly true, both in the language and the personal relationships. The moment where Della Street, assistant to E.B. Jonathan (Jonathan Lithgow), the nearly-too-old-for-this lawyer defending Emily Dodson, climbs into bed with her girlfriend, my wife asked about it. Cue said cheeky comment.

I enjoy the old TV show quite a bit, but I’m nowhere near an expert. It’s just good comfort television. As for the books, I’ve only read the first one. What’s fascinating about the first book and the 2020 series is how much alike they are. If the only Perry Mason you know is Raymond Burr, well, he’s not like Matthew Rhys but Burr is also not exactly like the character we first see in 1933. Rhys and 1933 Mason are scrappers, not afraid to poke a hornet’s nest and see what happens. It’s rather remarkable how well that type of character fit both in the Depression as well as ninety years later.

This being an origin story, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how far down Mason was when this series began. Employed by E.B., Mason drinks way too much, is estranged from his wife and son, and constantly is threatened to have his family’s house taken away from him.

But the core quality of Perry Mason is his drive for justice. He can’t let things go when he knows there is something just under the surface. To quote Mason’s own self description when asked what he does, “He snapped out two words at her. “I fight!””

Rhys fights, both with his fists as well as his brain. The problem is that he often goes a few steps too far and says things to people like Della or his investigator, Pete Strickland, who are trying to help. I appreciated seeing Rhys try and smooth over Mason’s rough edges by the end of the season and never quite finishing the job.

It’s also fascinating to see how they inject 21st Century themes into a show set in the Depression. It’s obvious that same sex relationships and racial prejudices existed in the 1930s (and the 1950s era of the TV show) but it’s good to see it out in the open. Paul Drake, Mason’s main investigator by the end of the 2020 series, is now portrayed by Chris Chalk, an African-American. That itself brings up a lot of possibilities of narratives and themes. But I liked that Drake, a beat cop when we first meet him, has an inner integrity that is stronger that any position or job. Ditto for Della. The old TV show always showed her as all but an equal partner, but she always remained a secretary. The 2020 Della is an assistant, but she’s already enrolled in school and plans on becoming a lawyer. “A woman lawyer,” Mason says at the end. “A lawyer,” Della replied. “No modifier.”

Author Erle Stanley Gardner’s books are famous for their intricate nature. This 2020 season lives up to that bar. I did not see the ending coming and I really liked how the trial was resolved.

Oh, a quick shout out: Stephen Root, known for his comedy chops, plays the smarmy, publicity-hungry DA is all of his greasy glory. It made me want to see how many other non-comedy roles the actor has done. Loved him as I did Lithgow.

I suppose, with any origin story, you have to have older characters in places of authority that the younger characters seek to overcome. It’s pretty much the same in Season 1. So, in a very literal sense, the young Perry Mason beat a couple of old guys. You know, so it really isn’t your grandfather’s Perry Mason.

Poker Face and the Spiritual Reboot

By

Scott D. Parker

Poker Face had me at Rian Johnson. But had I not known it was his brainchild, the show would have had me at the title font. 

That yellow font on the title card, the year represented by Roman numerals. What decade are we in? Well, the headspace of creator Rian Johnson was the 1970s and 1980s with shows like Colombo and The Rockford Files. I suspect he gets nostalgically triggered when he sees the title cards of those shows and others and wanted to bring sensibility forward to the 2020s.

What sensibility is that? A traditional crime-of-the-week series. But not just that: a new crime every week with a whole new cast. Which brings me to another 1970s TV it reminds me of: The Incredible Hulk. Both feature a lead who is being chased across the country, meeting new people every week.

Now I know what you’re thinking: there are plenty of crime-of-the-week shows from Law and Order to Castle to all those shows on CBS I don’t watch. That’s not new. No, it’s not, but the laid-back aesthetic is a refreshing return to a modern TV landscape full of season-long streaming shows to modernized takes on old tropes.

Both of those things are fine, and I enjoy them, but I also appreciate the slower paced TV shows that used to dominate networks with stakes that are not really that high. And I very much applaud Johnson for channeling that vibe into something new rather than a modern reboot of an old franchise.

He could just have acquired the rights to, say, Colombo (the obvious ancestor to Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie Cale) and created a story around Colombo’s grandkid who is a rumpled detective just like Peter Faulk. I’d watch that and chances are, you would, too. But we’d constantly be comparing the new actor/actress to Faulk, much to the detriment of the new show. Also, we’d probably have the admittedly fun “sequel” to some random episode that no one remembers save the dedicate Colombo fans.

No, what Johnson did was take all those elements and, crucially, made something new, unique, and his own. That last bit is probably the key factor for Johnson. Given the opportunity, he’d probably make a Colombo sequel or adapt some Agatha Christie novel in to a movie, but with Poker Face and Knives Out and Glass Onion, he gets to revel in all the stuff he loves while playing in his own sandbox.

The End of New Amsterdam and the Twilight of Network TV for a Gen Xer

by

Scott D. Parker

One of my favorite TV shows ended its five-year run on Tuesday and I’m wondering if it’ll be the last great network show I watch.

New Amsterdam

Like Castle, New Amsterdam had me at the trailer. The show starred Ryan Eggold (whom I knew from The Blacklist) as Max Goodwin, the new medical director at New Amsterdam, the oldest public hospital in America (based on the real Bellevue hospital). Eggold’s performance on The Blacklist stood out, especially when he was in the same show as series star James Spader, but with Max, Eggold had a role to which he could bring his considerable charm and humanity. It didn’t hurt that he had Max’s mantra as a north star: How can I help?

If you watch the trailer, you get what the series was about: helping people despite the massive forces standing in the way. Over five years, and through a pandemic, Max and his colleagues kept running up against seemingly insurmountable odds. Sometimes they’d win, other times they’d lose, but they kept trying, striving to do what they can.

New Amsterdam ran on Tuesday nights on NBC right after the massive hit This is Us. My wife watched that show from the jump and, like many viewers, often ended episodes with tears in her eyes. I didn’t watch that show, but New Amsterdam proved to be my weekly dose of heartwarming tears.

Storytelling-wise, the writers of New Amsterdam often used a very small story—often a single patient—to tell a larger tale. Like all good TV shows, the supporting cast each had their time the spotlight. A particular favorite was Tyler Labine's Iggy Frome, a psychiatrist, who often ran up against the pillars of big medicine just as much as Max did. A season 5 recurring theme for Iggy was the crumbling of his marriage and having to come to terms with himself before reaching out to his ex-husband and asking him for a simple date, to try again.

Sandra Mae Frank's Dr. Elizabeth Wilder was the Chief of Oncology. The actress is also deaf. She became a love interest to Max in the last season and I found it wonderful not only to see how a deaf surgeon navigated the world of the hearing in the operating room but also how the writers showed a burgeoning love often in silence and sign language.

I enjoyed seeing Jocko Sims's chief surgeon come to terms with things he could not easily fix--like his personal life as well the relationship with mostly absent father--and how Jocko imbued Floyd Reynolds with deep grace and understanding. And Janet Montegomery's Lauren Bloom, a character who grappled with addiction and showed how the messiness in life can be dealt with, but that it's hard and it takes one day at a time, one decision at a time, and the struggle never ends.

The writers and directors brought all their resources to bear in fun way, sometimes using time-honored tropes quite effectively. They did so for the finale episode, adding a nice twist that pulled all the tears from my eyes. [I’ll add my thoughts about the finale at the bottom of this post.]

But what really got me thinking about the end of New Amsterdam is what it might signal for me as a viewer: Would this be the last network TV show I watched on a regular basis?

Network TV for Generation X

Born in 1968, I remember when there were three networks, PBS, and a local UHF station here in Houston. By the time I got to middle school, we had two more local stations, but that was it. Every fall, the three networks would roll out their Saturday morning cartoon lineup, showcasing them in specials that aired the previous night. There'd be articles in the local papers for the new fall TV shows (including a side-by-side grid) and big splashes on TV Guide. I remember scanning all those resources and then making a schedule for what I'd want to watch.

This practice pretty much continued through the publication history of Entertainment Weekly and the birth of the internet when information was much easily found. I'm always game to see what the Big 3 had planned.

With the birth and rise of streaming TV, however, things began to change. Netflix would drop every episode of a new show and you could binge them all in a weekend. Other services followed suit. It was a different way to watch TV. Not wrong, mind you, but different. Just because I grew up in the weekly format doesn't mean I don't appreciate having all episodes of a season at my fingertips. Ever since last summer, my family has been watching the entire run of Friends, an episode a day at dinner, something that would have been difficult prior to streaming. But there is something to having a week to think about and digest plot elements and revelations of any given episode. I remember when Lost was airing, the morning after, a group of us would discuss the newest episode over coffee. It was quite fun.

Things change and I change with them. That's how life is, but I will say I dug when Disney+ opted to drop episodes of its Marvel and Star Wars TV shows on a weekly basis. Sure, it meant the company would secure subscriptions for a longer time, but it was fun to think and read about what the latest revelation about Wanda (WandaVision) or The Mandalorian or Andor might mean.

As Fall 2022 approached, I did my usual thing that I've done all my life: I scanned what was returning and what new shows would debut. New Amsterdam was top of my list even though I knew going in it would be its last. And a shortened 13-episode season at that. It was, however, the only returning show I watched and cared about. The only other network show I watched live--SyFy's Resident Alien--wouldn't be returning until 2023.

That left the new shows. As I read about them and watched previews, I experienced something foreign to my experience: none of the shows appealed to me. Granted, I'm a middle-aged guy now so that might be a thing, but you'd think the shows at CBS would be in my wheelhouse. Some of them probably should be. I'm looking at NCIS or FBI, but for whatever reason, I just never started.

The Future of Network TV

So what's next? Network TV is not going away, but perhaps that majority of its viewers are. The Boomers are slowly dying and us Gen Xers are now in middle age. Millennials grew up in the 1980s and 1990s so they remember what it was like to be in front of a TV on Thursday nights (or set the VCR) but for Gen Z, the ones born in the late 1990s, I don't think network TV barely registers. My son, now twenty-one, rarely watched anything on "live" TV after he stopped watching Blue's Clues. His network is YouTube and streaming. When he moved out of the house, I made sure to load the apps of the local TV stations on his smart TV. "It's for the weather at least," I told him. He just showed me his phone. "I get the weather here."

And he gets his TV there, too.

Now that New Amsterdam is gone, network TV is now the place I watch Stephen Colbert every night. And football until the Super Bowl and then golf on Sunday afternoons without football. If you throw in ESPN, it's also the place I'll catch NBA games, but I think you're seeing the trend. Network TV might become the place for live events where scripted TV shows are things I'll catch on a streaming service.

Might network TV have lost a viewer? Unlikely. Come next fall, I'll still read about the new shows. There might be another New Amsterdam, a new This is Us, or a surprise sitcom that comes out of the blue. I will always be curious to see what network TV has to offer.

But it has been a fascinating realization that the end of New Amsterdam likely marks a point in my lifetime of TV watching.

What about you? Do you still watch network TV or are all your favorite shows on a streaming service?

The New Amsterdam Finale with Spoilers

One of the tropes the writers used in the finale was to give each character their origin story via flashbacks. We see how Max, Elizabeth, Iggy, Lauren, and Floyd each found their way into the practice of medicine. I'll add that I kind of hoped for a flashback to Anupam Kher's Dr. Vijay Kapoor but, as my wife suggested, perhaps the show and the actor didn't part well. Ditto on both accounts for Freema Agyeman as Dr. Helen Sharpe, Max's previous love interest.

In one of those tricks via editing, you see Max's last day at New Amsterdam with his young daughter, Luna, as they try and get out of the hospital. Max has resigned the position of Medical Director in order to spend more time with Luna. There is, of course, a major emergency that will harness the powers and abilities of all the staff and it forces Max to miss the mermaid parade yet again (it's something Luna always wants to attend but they kept missing it because of Max's job, thus the resignation).

 

The editing trick is where you see what is presented as the next medical director, a young woman who showed up and has to deal with whispered rumors about her. Halfway through the show, as Max's edict of "How can I help?" has been uttered more than once, I looked over to my wife and said, "If the final four words of this entire series isn't 'how can I help?', then the writers will have missed a golden opportunity."

They didn't, but they went one better. My wife figure it out first and suggested it: "I think that new medical director is Luna all grown up."

Boom! That is exACTly what it was. Some writer I am. I didn't even see it coming (although, to be fair, I rarely try and guess stories while I'm in the middle of them because in that moment, I'm a viewer/reading rather than a writer).

Turns out, Luna's origin story was Max's last day at New Amsterdam. And it is she, looking directly at the camera, who speaks those famous four words: How can I help? Cut to black and cue the tears.

Oh, and props to the writers for not showing us older versions of the same characters. I first thought I might've wanted to see a gray-haired Max, to see him be proud of his daughter, but then realized my error. And here's the veteran writer tip: you don't have to see Ryan Eggold in old person makeup to know he's proud of his daughter. If you've written characters well, stuff like that is understood and doesn't always have to be shown. Besides, New Amsterdam no longer belonged to Max. It's Luna's story now.

The Surprising Depth of Ted Lasso

By
Scott D. Parker

I expected the laughs. I kind of expected some drama. I did not expect the characters and their relationships.

The wife and I finally watched both seasons of Ted Lasso, the Jason Sudeikis-fronted program on Apple TV. From the outside, it looked like just a sitcom about an American football coach brought over to England to coach a soccer team with the end goal being to drive said team into the ground. This being the plan of team owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) as a get-back to her ex-husband who left her for a younger woman and loved the team.

That might serve as the how-it-started part, but that’s nowhere near where it ended up. By the end of the 22 episodes to date, what we got was a show that could make you crane your ear at the TV to make sure you got the joke a character said in an off-hand manner and then next moment have you mute with emotion, with tears likely rimming your eyes.

Each character has a moment to shine, usually in multiple episodes. With Lasso himself, I expected a overly optimistic, shuck kind of guy where nothing much phases him. That’s certainly Lasso’s exterior, but on more than one occasion, Sudeikis lays bare the coach and reveals him to be a man who hides much behind his veneer of happiness.

That’s not to say his joy isn’t contagious. It was fun to watch his outlook on life wash over all the people in which he comes into contact, ultimately making them better people. Or more real, if you want to get down with the truth of this show.

There are so many things you could say about each character and after I watched the last episode, I got on the internet to read some.

Pro Tip: Never go on the internet when you are catching up on an existing show unless you want spoilers. I learned that lesson long ago and now I watch all my TV shows without my phone in my hand. Well, unless I’m watching the live broadcast of SyFy’s Resident Alien because the cast live tweets and they are hilarious and engaging. (But even then, I put the phone down during the show itself.)

But as much as I enjoyed each character’s moments in the spotlight, what I really appreciated was the depth of their relationships with each other. How great is team owner Rebecca and model/publicist Keeley Jones (Juno Temple). On screen, it’s like their sisters who only discovered each other in adulthood. Unlike other shows where these two might be pitted against each other for, say, to get the same guy, Keeley and Rebecca come to really love each other. They bolster each other when one is feeling down and there’s nary a mean things said between. Super refreshing.

The group of guys surrounding Lasso are also great to see on camera. Dubbed the Diamond Dogs, they consist of Lasso, assistant coach Beard (yup, the character’s real name and not just because actor Brendan Hunt sports facial hair), Director of Football Operations Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift), and Nathan Shelley (Nick Mohammed), the guy who went from being a kit manager to an assistant coach. They also keep things together between them and, most importantly, allow themselves to be vulnerable with each other.

By the end of the second season, I found myself thinking about the show over and over while mowing the lawn or commuting to work. The stories, the characters, the depth just stayed with me. Like I wrote about in a review of Resident Alien a few weeks ago, I’m just glad there are shows like Ted Lasso that demonstrate you can have a light and funny show while still delivering the depth and nuance you might only think exists in dramas.

There's a reason so many people respond to this show. 

Release Order is Best…Or Is it?

By

Scott D. Parker

Over here in America, PBS just dropped the eighth season of Endeavour, the prequel series to Inspector Morse and its spin-off, Lewis. My wife and I have enjoyed this series quite a bit, especially the interactions between the two lead actors. Shaun Evans plays a young Endeavour Morse while Roger Allam plays his superior officer, Fred Thursday. Their chemistry is fantastic, really serving as the backbone of the entire show and cast. That the show is a period piece—1971 in this current season—just adds to my love of the show.

But we’ve never seen either of the original shows.

Which is completely fine. For whatever reason, we only arrived at these characters via this prequel a couple of years ago. But it wasn’t until this week that we both agreed that we’d like to circle back and give the original show a look.

I was the one who voiced what we were both thinking: which characters, if any, appeared in the original Morse show? It was actually in relation to the Fred Thursday character. I wondered if any of the 33 original shows ever had the older Morse visiting with an even more elderly Fred Thursday. A brief glance at the Wikipedia page for Endeavour likely proves the answer. No, Fred Thursday does not appear in the original program.

That’s too bad, but it gives me hope that with the upcoming ninth and final season, the writers will tidy everything up and explain why Thursday isn’t in the original series. There’s the obvious answer. Maybe that’s the arc of Morse’s character. In this current season, he’s drinking more and becoming more aloof, telltale signs that is probably how the older Morse acts in the original.

This got me to thinking about someone in my situation, coming into an existing universe of stories during a prequel. Most of the time, the creators have to invent some new characters and not just have younger versions of the older/original ones. Star Wars did that—a lot—and many of those prequel characters get their own spin-offs.

Star Wars is a special case, of course, but if anyone ever came up to me and asked me where to start, I’d say follow the release order of the films. In that way, there are Easter eggs and shades of what’s to come sprinkled throughout the prequels. I suspect there are more than a few Easter eggs in Endeavour that longtime fans of Morse and Lewis pick up on that we don’t. That’s just good fan service. I wonder if a Morse fan from the jump—the first season aired in 1987—would have told us to start there just like I how I would introduce Star Wars to someone.

Be that as it may, my wife and I finally arrived in the Morse Universe—that’s a thing, right?—and we’re glad we’re here, no matter the route we took.

All the Feels or All the Logic?

by
Scott D. Parker

Why do you consume a story?

I use the word ‘consume’ because you could watch a movie or TV show, read a book, or listen to an audiobook or podcast.

My wife watches quite a bit of the true crime shows on TV and various streaming services. She likes to learn the intricate details of how the investigators discovered the culprit and, in most cases, land the perp in jail. She’s way more logical than I am and these shows give her a sense of order and justice. That drive for order is a large reason why she and I both enjoy BBC TV shows and other crime and mystery programs as well as books and movies.

But when it comes to established stories that have more than a twinge of nostalgia, I really enjoy the feels. How does the story make me feel?

I ran across this twice this week. The smaller version is my re-watch of the 1996 Mission: Impossible movie. My twenty-year-old son hadn’t seen it so we all watched it together. The way the movie is constructed—with its descriptions of how they’re going to break into various places and the spy stuff—is something I really dig. In fact, I found myself grinning like a goofball throughout the entire movie. Well, except for the vault sequence. Watching it again, I was in rapt silence.

By the end, I was buoyed by the story and ready to, I don’t know, hang by a wire from the ceiling. The story works, but the feels are fantastic.

The same is true for the Obi-Wan Kenobi finale this week. And spoilers are coming.

I’ve said it before but I think my favorite time of being a Star Wars fan is that initial era from 1977-1980. In those years, the galaxy was wide open and not some family drama. And I associate that feeling most with the first half of Star Wars, while the action centered on Tatooine. As such, I really enjoyed the Obi-Wan show.

From a logical point of view, the writers delicately threaded  this series through established canon and I think they did a great job. It’s a testament to how much I enjoyed the show that even though I knew who lived, I found myself constantly on the edge of my seat. Will young Leia survive? Will Obi-Wan be killed by Vader?

But the finale proved to be one of my favorite Star Wars things. We got an epic lightsaber battle between Obi-Wan and Vader, complete with Hayden Christensen looking out from a seared-open Vader mask. We go a neat and tidy button on Obi-Wan’s infamous phrase to Luke: Vader betrayed and murdered your father.

And we got some fantastic character moments, a feat especially impressive considering the action. In fact, it was the character beats in the final ten minutes that really struck me and brought the tears. Oh, and the inclusion of Princess Leia’s theme from Star Wars? Icing on the cake. That piece of music ranks as one of my all-time favorite themes in the entire franchise and it was used so well.

That last shot? [won’t spoil this one] Perfection.

So, with Obi-Wan, in my mind, I got the logic of the storytelling but I also got the feels. That’s what often sends a story over the top for me. It’s why I enjoyed Jurassic World: Dominion so much. It’s why I dig La La Land, Toy Story 3, any random episode of New Amsterdam, and John Scalzi’s book, Redshirts.

I want the feels, and any story that delivers is a winner in my book.

How about you? Do you want the feels or is logic more your speed?

P.S. I wrote this piece late afternoon on Friday. Last night, I watched the new Baz Luhrmann "Elvis" movie. Add one more to the feels list. Except this one was tragic. My wife and I just sat there for a few minutes while the main credits rolled. I had teared up at the end. So we just sat and listened and thought about the creative spirit of Elvis Presley. 

I don't know about you, but when I take in a story in which a creative person is tamped down or abused or taken advantage of, I feel my own creative spirit wanting to burst out and soar.

P.P.S. Since I watch every new episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on Saturday morning while enjoying my weekly do-nuts, I only saw the latest episode, The Elysian Kingdom, less than an hour ago. Adding this one to the Feels List. Oh my, did the feels wash over me.