The TV thread

As a plus, this feels like Walking Dead when Walking Dead was good. Cool opener to explain society’s breakdown, a well done jump ahead and quality world establishing. Can’t wait for next week.

 

The only twist they had to lean on was Melissa Rauch being Harry Stone's daughter. And I got tired of that before the pilot was finished.

And yes, the secondary characters are more annoying than anything else.

 

Selma Diamond was Canadian but she had the perfect voice of a New York Jewish woman who smoked two packs a day



Noted Mr. and Mrs. Rauch are EPs and Laroquette is the producer

 

Whatever Happened to the USA Network?

 

It surprises me that you don't even really see shows LIKE Psych, Monk and the rest on streaming services, which have been where most networks are placing their new programming.

 

They haven't really needed to make new ones, because people are still nuts over the existing ones. Like, the Top 10 of Netflix is often filled with shows like "Criminal Minds," and Peacock had a "Columbo" craze. I think we'll get some stuff down the road, eventually, but it's probably cheaper for them to just license even B-tier shows ("Without A Trace") than make something from scratch.

 

I still watch the annual Psych movies Peacock puts out.

 

Not replaying the original, but I'm probably halfway through Part 2 and it's insane. To the point where there's only so much I can play before chilling out and doing something else. Dark as shit.

 

I tried hard to like it. Some parts were just absurd, like a judge picking a public defender. The original had great ongoing stories, like Fielding trying to bed Christine Sullivan (ah, Markie Post), the relationship between Bull and the other bailiffs, etc. Unless the writers have something up their sleeves, that ain't happening.

 

I want to like it, too, because I was a fan of the original and I would like to see Melissa Rauch get a hit show on her own. But, yeah, the first two eps were pretty meh for me.
FWIW, the TV Guide reviewer thinks the initial episodes were kind of rough but the show picks it up quality-wise in the later episodes: https://www.tvguide.com/news/night-court-review-nbc-sitcom-revival-old-school-comedy/
I'll probably give it a couple more weeks, and we'll see. However, I did browse YouTube later last night and came upon some clips of the original show, and the comparison is really not kind to the "newboot."

 

My wife and I watched the first two episodes last night, and yeah, she's pretty "out" on it. I'll probably stick with it for a few more, just because there isn't much else new this time of year besides scattered continuations and (mostly bad) replacement shows.

I might be mistaken, but I think the biggest difference between the two Night Court versions so far is such a hard focus on the staff dynamics, and especially Rauch and Larroquette. The latter is still a damn good actor - he doesn't overplay Dan Fielding's quiet respect for Harry Stone, for example. But Rauch was obviously never on the original, and the "will they won't they" with Stone and Christine Sullivan never struck me as a hugely prominent storyline like in other shows. Also, to get morbid for a second, a surprising amount of people from the original are dead (Anderson, Post, Selma Diamond, Florence Halop, Charles Robinson). John Astin is in his 90s, but I imagine we'll see Richard Moll and Marsha Warfield at some point.