The TV thread

You'd think regular TV would be happy with something that pulls around 3 million people per week

 

Probably because the strike dragged on so long. The cast is well-known / established enough that it probably isn't cheap to keep them under contract, and the actors are still on strike. At best they'd have new episodes in like January or February, because the show was also a late renewal.

 

First 2 episodes of Season 3 of The Morning Show were decent.

They gave Crudup some of his balls and bite back after neutering him last season.

They’ve added Jon Hamm as a Musk-like character.

 

The switcheroo plot twist in the final act of episode 1 was so ridiculous it’s really made me question the show’s writers. I’ll give them another shot but they are on a short leash. Plus, the series really misses Carrell.

 

Finished Only Murders in the Building last night, which was renewed for a fourth season. Thoughts below:

Spoiler

The mystery was incredibly easy to figure out. I had thought Cliff since early on and as soon as Donna threw up and adjusted her wig in the bathroom scene with Meryl Streep, I guessed the sequence of what happened (it was the producers, just not The Producers) . It was a fun mess as always but I didn’t really but the Steve Martin or Selena Gomez romance storylines. Martin Short was great as always, but was missing the sadness which had been there in prior seasons, even with his health scares. I thought that Matthew Broderick was really funny.

I really don’t like the Jane Lynch character or portrayal at all, and I’m guessing that she will be a big part of the next season is flashback.

 

Really enjoyed this season and can’t wait for the next one. The season had messy parts but there was a lot of heart too.

Spoiler: More thoughts

I think this season focused more on relationships than the mystery for better or worse. Meryl Streep was a really good addition because she added a piece to the story they weren’t going to get with the original three. They also hemmed themselves in with only a few possible suspects and needed a distraction.

It was still pretty good. I really liked the bit when they start to come back together and come up with a suspect. Martin Short wants some dip and Steve Martin says there’s Norwegian red herring in the fridge.

 

I like the camaraderie between the three leads, and Rudd and Streep were delightful additions to the cast. The rest, kind of meh. You can see how formulaic the show is in some ways as it goes along. (At the end of the episode, tease someone as the suspect for the next episode, who is revealed by the midway point of that episode to not be the person, but now there is a new tease about someone else...) I hope they radically shake up how the case proceeds in the fourth season.

 

They basically stopped doing podcasts, which was the entire point!

 

I've heard that it is basically The Bachelor but with old people - meaning, the same overdramatic edits and super cheesy dates, not any kind of reinvention of the show.

 

Bomani Jones shows up on Billions.

 

UCLA, USC and Dodgers all at home today, within about a 10-mile radius. At least the Bruins got an early start at noon. Dodgers at 6:20 and Trojans at 7:30.

Add: The Kings played Vegas at home, too, at 1 p.m. That's right in the middle of the cluster.