Tuesday, October 9, 2018

The New Season

Now that fall is here, favorite TV shows are returning and new ones are vying for my heart.  I've tried a few of them and am pleased that I seem to be liking a handful of them.

I'm sad that this is the last season for The Big Bang Theory but think they are very wise going out on top.  They have reached a point where the story line could become mundane and I would hate to get to the point where I felt "this isn't as good as it used to be."

Chicago Med is back but those guys are getting tricky. They are trying to con us into watching not only Chicago Med but also the other two Chicago shows, PD and Fire by making it a triple crossover plot.  Things started with Chicago Fire, which I've never watched before, moved on to Med and the plot ended, sort of, in PD.  I have enjoyed Chicago Med ever since it began 2 seasons ago.  As I have said before, I'm a sucker for a doctor show and this one is great.  I particularly like Oliver Platt, but I've enjoyed him in anything.

I also enjoyed Chicago Fire, but I think that  I'm not up to guys fighting fires every week.  I tried watching Chicago PD in its first season (5 seasons ago) and just couldn't get into it.  I watched its part of this triumverate, but again didn't feel drawn into it.  I hope it won't be necessary to watch it again.

New Amsterdam is another new doctor show.  I wonder how long it will last since the main character now has cancer.  But I like this show.  And, interestingly, I had just seen Ken Burns' story of the Mayo Clinic and the philosophy that started it and keeps it going and so recognized that this is what they are trying to do with this show--a doctor show where the focus is on the patient doctors are on salary so there is no incentive for ordering unnecessary tests or prescribing expensive meds, and they don't worry about the cost to the patient.  Totally impractical in this day and age, of course, but it will be fun to see how it develops.

The jury is still out on Manifest, that Lost - like show about a plane that has been missing for five years and suddenly shows up, the passengers and crew having no idea they have been gone for so long.  I've only seen one episode so far and I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I'm not sure where it's going and if it starts getting as "Lost-y" asLost I probably won't stick with it, but I'll give it a couple more weeks.

Out of curiosity, I checked out something called God Friended Me, which I thought was going to be pretty silly.



It turns out to be kind of a modern day Touched by an Angel, with an athiest pod caster whose father (Joe Morton, who used to be Olivia Pope's dad in Scandal) is a priest, gets a friend request from God which leads to all sorts of things that are too complicated to explain, but I find that I like it and have set the DVR to record it.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the new Jim Carrey show, Kidding.  With Carrey at the helm, the story about the TV host of a kids' program with a crazy hair style, and all the promos that I've seen, I expected it to be a comedy, but it's definitely not.  Carrey's character is suffering from depression over the break-up of his marriage and the possible loss of his show (his father, the producer, feels he's lost his edge and wants to replace him). The whole thing is actually very dark, and definitely R-rated, with some partial nudity

I think I'm enjoying the return of Murphy Brown, though I'm wondering if the writers for Rachel Maddow are in on the script writing of this show too!  The old Murphy Brown did battle with Dan Quayle over her becoming an unwed mother.  I am assuming that it is only a matter of time before Trump catches wind of this show and starts tweeting about it. So far I'm enjoying it, but it does feel like it's trying to get its footing again and I hope that it does because it would be fun to have this thorn in Trump's side.

A friend recommended A Million Little Things, which I had heard of but which sounded like a This is Us wannabe, so I didn't check it out but she had talked about a "twist" she had not expected and so today I decided to catch up on the two episodes that have already aired.  I liked it a lot.  The group reminds me a bit of our Pinata group, only in that they have been friends for many years but we definitely have not encountered the kinds of situations that they have in only two episodes  At least I don't think we have.  By the end of those two episodes, I was hooked and have set the DVR to record upcoming episodes.

And it was fun last night to see the return of Madam Secretary.  Best part of it of it was the finale with the reunion of secretaries of state, called to give Elizabeth advice -- Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, and Colin Powell.  In their scene, the trio suggested that what terrorists wanted was to divide the country over its diversity and advised her to seize this opportunity to highlight those differences instead.


“I think what we’re all saying is talk about what unites us. Even at this moment of peril, remind Americans of our nation’s original motto, something that I think about a lot and which seems more important today than ever,” Clinton says. “E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one.”

Hmmmm.....  No tweet about that one either, though apparently there was much unhappiness on social medial.  “After last night, I’m no longer watching this show. It was disgusting to see Hillary in a position where she would be giving you advice! Then I have to listen to the bias script about nationalism? So what we should become globalists?? I’m DONE here,” one viewer wrote.
Owell...we'll see where it goes.  Personally, I loved it.

All in all, this is a more promising season than I have seen in a couple of years and we all know what I need is more TV to watch.

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