The TV thread

Same. I was watching an episode recently and they took a man unattended baby out of a car. Turns out the mom was in the beauty parlor and let the child nap in the car. She came out and went all Karen on the first responders.

 

Yeah - I like knowing the players backstories, but its like NBC's olympics coverage - everyone is overcoming a tragedy or hardship. The one challenge that impressed me this year was the one where people had to hold their breath as the tide came in - the winners lasted so long the tide began going back out and they called it a tie. That was impressive.

Not really a fan of the shorter duration - I get it, budget cuts - but they cut it by almost two weeks. What I'm not missing? The loved ones visit.

 

Today a famous actor collapsed and was unresponsive on set. The producer saw paramedics arrive and yelled at his assistant "What are these parahoozits? I told you to get a doctor! Why didn't you get someone IMPORTANT?!?" And then after the actor was revived and spent a few days in the hospital the doctor determined that the actor had eaten a lot of Chinese food so he was overcome by the MSG.

Later an old man was trapped in a burning house for a half-hour or so and pulled out unconscious. It was determined that it was "just" smoke inhalation -- he'll be fine.

 

Longtime NBC correspondent Kerry Sanders retires

 

We have been working our way through Three Pines on Prime. Alfred Molina is fantastic, as expected, and I like the idea of having 4 mysteries which are each solved in 2 episodes, along with one case which goes the entire season. That being said, the other actors are mediocre at best and at least the first 2 mini-mysteries seem underdeveloped.

 

Love it. I recently started watching Adam-12 reruns, a show I loved as a kid. The tropes of the '68 drugged out hippies are outrageous, man, like groovy. Until the fuzz shows up. The pigs gotta do what pigs do.

 

I'm enjoy The Traitors on Peacock. It's similar to The Mole. Half the cast is reality "stars," which is unfortunate because a couple players are seemingly only there to be on TV, but the twists are intriguing. I also don't like that the episodes don't have clean endings. You have to go into the next to see who was eliminated.

They dropped all 10 episodes. I'm through six.

 

We caught Ep. 1 of "The Last of Us" on HBO. This is going to be one helluva show. They've got all the set up in place and the show is ready to go on the road, literally. I never played the video game, but this adaptation is getting all sorts of praise since for once they didn't just buy the name of the IP and rewrite everything but a couple of character names. The game has a rep for a very strong story line with some great beats and twists along the way, and the script is not only following those and the dialogue closely but the screenplay was written by the same writer as the game. A few changes but in general it's very true to the original plot.

It's another SF "life after an apocalypse flattens civilization" type plot, but it really is very well done. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in the leads. Strong casting.

 

I knew that Stephen Colbert was a fantasy/SF geek, but he's producing a TV version of Roger Zelazny's "Nine Princes in Amber", a stone classic series involving dimension travel and parallel worlds. This is a very good series. I devoutly pray that they don't F it up. Done right it should be amazing television.

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/st...les-of-amber-tv-series-adaptation-1235492097/

 

The new Night Court sucks. Too many stupid jokes with an annoying laugh track.

They had such strong bailiff characters in the original, and the new one plays an idiot. Other characters are weak or underdeveloped through the first two episodes.

At least John Laroquette is back, but even Dan Fielding seems muted.

 

I haven't had the time to watch the first episode yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I like that I'm going into this one knowing almost nothing about the source material. I'm trying to think of a time when an actor was playing a lead in multiple shows as Pascal is right now. It seems like there are some strong similarities between the two characters even though the settings are so different.

 

The opening sequence is nearly a shot-for-shot remake of the game's opening sequence, though the writing team added some nuance and context that wasn't there in the game. Sarah's classmate twitching as the teacher ends class. The trip downtown to get the watch fixed and the panic from the shopkeeper's wife to close up for the day immediately. The little scene when Sarah is looking through the DVDs and Nana is basically transforming in the background. The foreshadowing with the dog eyeing Nana when Sarah is leaving the Adler house. The game took about 20 hours to play, so that included cinematic cuts and combat/gameplay. There is definitely room for a TV adaptation to flesh out some of the minor characters and add context where appropriate. I have supreme confidence that the Druckman/Mazin team will pull this off beautifully.