The TV thread

Bob Dylan was like a homeless guy brought off the street. And he brings Stevie Wonder to help him. Wow.

Cindy Lauper was a huge star at that time. She had a big solo at the end. With her big solo, they kept hearing noise in the background. It was all her frigging necklaces.

 

My "We Are the World" story.

Our rural elementary school had a music teacher who didn't do much of anything. Then, when I was in fifth grade, a new teacher, fresh out of college, arrived. And it was the weirdest thing. She, like, actually cared? And was passionate? She left the school 25 years later as, along with my cousin the barber, the most beloved person in town. I hated music classes and had no skills but even I liked her in elementary school and she later transformed the school's choir into one of the best in the state.

But that first year. Fifth grade. The 1985-86 school year. For our Christmas program each grade did their thing as normal, K-6. That's usually when everything wrapped and all the moms in the tiny gym would have to wake up the dads. But on this day, all of us elementary kids scattered throughout the gym and every aisle. It had seating on the floor and then bleacher type seat except they were concrete. Kids littered every spot. Lights went down. All of us lit up the tiny flashlights we had been holding. And as one we belted out "We Are the World."

The place went fucking nuts. At the end all the parents stood up and applauded like they were at Hamilton on debut night. There was whooping. And our new teacher had been the wizard behind all of this. For weeks people wrote letters to the editor of our local weekly praising her and the performances. Nearly 40 years later my classmates still remember this as do my folks. The power of "We Are the World," and of a teacher who shocked the world by giving a shit.

 

It's so sad that Huey Lewis can't perform anymore due to his Ménière's disease. He and that band could, as Donald "Duck" Dunn said, turn goat piss into gasoline.

Steve Perry can really sing. So can Dennis DeYoung. Both of their bands turned out some terrific songs and horrific schlock. Great ingredients in a Chopped basket can translate to a dish that sucks (even if that basket includes the god-like Steve Smith).

That Waylon anecdote had me howling but man I would have loved to see a 30-second montage of outtakes of him trying to do it.


Hell yes.

 

Sorry, Kim Carnes should not have gotten a solo.

Did you catch after Cindy Lauper did her solo, they panned the room, and everyone was clapping... except Tina Turner, she is just staring straight ahead.

The Geldof speech was tremendous. That was some Nick Saban shit by Quincy Jones.

 

Al Jarreau too drunk to sing his lines.....

 

And the cameraman bringing his own invoice.. only to realize he was volunteering..

 

Saw the end of Season 2 of the Quantum Leap reboot. Great ending.

Hopefully, NBC renews for a third season, and if not, at least there’s some sort of ending.

 

I'm completely out on the Law & Order reboot. It's absolutely awful on every level, from the acting to the writing to the plots. But I did check out Waterston's finale tonight.
Meh.
They tried to give a heroic send-off to an iconic character and Waterston did his best. But much like the show itself he just didn't seem to have enough left in the tank to pull it off and the acting around him wasn't good enough to elevate it. I appreciate the effort but Waterston, and Jack McCoy, deserved better.
One of his final lines was, "I've been thinking about this for a while. It's time." And it was hard to argue. Waterston looked tired from the first episode of the reboot up through this one.

 

I thought it was mostly a meh season - trying to shoehorn in a love triangle and focusing hard on the team dynamics kind of makes it just like every other procedural to me - but yeah, they really stuck the landing in the final two episodes.

 

I agree with that assessment. The reboot needed more familiar characters.

I watched last night for maybe the fourth time since the reboot started. Sam Waterston has aged a lot.

 

They sprinkled in a few early on. Anthony Anderson and Waterston both were back at the start, and they even brought back Carey Lowell for a cameo in the first episode. Anderson dipped out pretty quickly, though, and it was obvious that Waterston's scenes were on a pitch count. That was the one good thing I'll say for his farewell, was that they got him back in the courtroom one last time and he finally showed some energy. But it felt like when you have an old dog who's about to cross the rainbow bridge and they rally one last time for a game of fetch. It should have been fun, but you know what comes next and there was a real sadness to it.

The plot of McCoy butting heads with a vengeful mayor, which leads to his resignation, didn't help, either. I think they could've gotten to the same point much more quietly and dignified, where he simply retires after a long career in public service. They didn't have to push him out the door. It felt forced and over the top — which, honestly, can be said for most of the reboot episodes that I've seen.

 

Wasn't that also how Schiff left the show? Power struggle with the mayor or governor. I realize that was literally decades ago, but still.

I don't know if they needed more characters from the past, but in my cherry picking of episodes, Manheim was the only full-timer that was consistently bringing it. They certainly have some relatively famous names cast, but a lot of them just don't work with the show. Also, everyone is so damn old! Like the junior detectives recently have been Reid Scott (46) and Jeffrey Donovan (55). The show just feels kind of inert and lifeless, deathly serious, and I think that's part of it.