The TV thread

I have thoroughly enjoyed the Criminal series on Netflix. There's a Great Britain, Germany, France and Spain version. All of them take place almost entirely in the same interrogation room. Very simple but I think very well done.

 

TBH, I looked it up while watching the first episode because I wanted to be sure he wasn't!

 

I kept crabbing at my wife through ep 1 of this because of all the obvious plot holes. I shut up and enjoyed the ride once it became apparent that every character had multiple hidden motives and was lying to all the other characters in a free form game of screw your neighbor. It was ok.

 

I really enjoyed The Recruit. I also liked the first few seasons of The Rookie (fell out of watching after it changed nights), one of showrunner Alexi Hawley's other projects.

 

Loved “Lincoln Lawyer” the movie. Didn’t even want to glance at the Netflix show. Finally gave in, binged this weekend. Kinda like it MORE than the movie. More time to develop characters.

 

I really liked the show too, but I give the edge to the movie.

 

The wife also played a girlfriend of Dr. Watson on "Sherlock." I once saw Kingston at a comic book convention panel discussion with Karen Gillan.

 

I'm 5.5 episodes into Midnight Mass. Took a bit but now its downhill to the conclusion. Very interesting take on Christianity; it gets a little long winded on what believers believe about Christianity but I think I'm finally past all that (of course I'm a lapsed Christian so heard it all before).

 

3 episodes into Slow Horses. Really enjoying it.

We are also bingeing Home Economics on ABC with our 14 year old. Low stakes, but a very enjoyable cast.

 

I've been watching "Call Me Kat" on FOX, mainly because my wife has. But no longer.

As you know, Leslie Jordan passed away two months ago. So beginning last night, they have tried to "cover" for his exit with adding Vicki Lawrence to the cast as his aunt.

I've always liked Vicki Lawrence, but it was just a very cheap way to handle it.

 

I always hate when shows do this, because it's so transparent. Unless it's an incredibly small cast, you can just focus on the remaining cast members, instead of trying to shoehorn someone new in or graft the ideas that were obviously meant for someone else on them. Lovitz in "Newsradio" comes to mind as another example.

 

One of the more egregious examples was John Ritter's final show, "8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teen-Age Daughter," when they tried to account for his absence with the additions of James Garner AND David Spade.

And of course, "The Conners" and Katey Sagal.