"Ted Lasso" Characters, Ranked

The Cheese Fry is extremely late to the "Ted Lasso" party.  Only recently did we finally finish the third season.  No big deal, right?  It's only been about three years since that final episode first aired on Apple TV.   But season four is coming this summer - we'll watch that one a little sooner.

"Ted Lasso" is a national treasure.  Put simply, it's one of the best television shows, full stop.  You just don't see this kind of high quality sustained for that many seasons.  We haven't watched everything that's out there, but the only other show we've watched in its entirety that was this good for that long, so perfectly cast and written and directed, was FX's "The Americans." 

Beyond just admiring the show's elite level of execution, it's the upbeat, feel good vibe of "Ted Lasso."   This is a show with heart.  These characters are good, decent people working through everyday challenges.  Just think about how so rare that is in a television landscape chock full of cynical themes (criminals run amok, housewives run amok), missed opportunities (so many shows start strong only to fizzle), repetitive premises (we love post-apocalyptic stories, but it's enough already) and tiresome formats (reality TV, for the most part, is a cultural blight that does no one any good).  

There's echoes of NBC's "This Is Us" in the way "Ted Lasso" manipulates your emotions and skillfully surfs sad and happy moments alike, but "This Is Us" was deadly serious and self-important whereas "Ted Lasso" is chipper and frothy.  The best comparison we can come up with is NBC's "Friday Night Lights," a similar show where everyone was so dang likable and interesting and fully realized that the plots were almost beside the point.  You just wanted to hang out in that world for an hour.   Even better, "Ted Lasso" is in so many ways an old-fashioned workplace comedy like "The Office." "Friday Night Lights" never made us laugh out loud.  With "Ted Lasso" there's always a gag or a joke, but it's not following a cheesy, laugh track sitcom set up/punchline structure.  The jokes and humor here flow naturally from these screwball characters.  Nothing ever feels phony.  It's a polished gem of a show.

If you haven't seen it, give it a shot.  Full disclosure: this is one extremely profane show that loves the F-bomb.

And now, we present the main characters ranked in order, starting with the most layered, complicated, and funny one at the very top.

1. Roy Kent, obviously
2. Rebecca Welton
3. Jamie Tartt
3. Coach Beard
4. Leslie Higgins
5. Ted Lasso, how crazy is it that the supposed main character barely cracks the top five; that's how stacked this show is
6. Keeley Jones
7. Nate Shelley
8. Trent Crimm of The Independent
9. Sam Obisanya
10. Dani Rojas
11. Isaac McAdoo
12. Zava
13. Sassy Collins
14. Colin Hughes
15. Dr. Sharon Fieldstone
16. Rupert Mannion

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Doctors from "The Pitt" Ranked in Order of Who We'd Prefer as Our Doctor

If you haven't already heard, HBO's "The Pitt" is peak television, a fantastic 2020s update of NBC's late, great "ER" but with more gore and an appropriate workplace sprinkling of four-letter words.  This is the sort of perfectly polished show that's clicking on all cylinders - the writing, the directing, the acting, the production design.  It's like alchemy the way everything comes together.

Our question: if you ended up in the emergency room, which doctor from "The Pitt" would you most like to see whip open that curtain with a laptop in hand?

1. Dr. Cassie McKay (Fiona Dourif) - The perfect mix of sincere empathy and seasoned "seen it all"
2. Dr. Michael Robinavich (Noah Wyle) - Always grumpy, but the guy cannot be stumped; he's the big boss for a reason
3. Dr. Samira Mohan (Supriya Ganesh) - Full disclosure: Cheese Fry crush bias
4. Dr. Jack Abbott (Shawn Hatosy) - Medical rock star; bro spends his free time riding along with the SWAT team; additional points for being a grizzled war veteran
5. Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi (Sepideh Moafi) - Yes, she came in season two hot and heavy, ruffling feathers with her patient passports and AI nonsense, but admit it: she's way underrated
6. Dr. Melissa King (Taylor Dearden) - Quirky, yes, but pretty sharp; she seems detail-oriented to a fault, which seems important in an ER
7. Dr. Frank Langdon (Patrick Ball) - Solid, but falls in our rankings here due to the whole recovering addict stuff
8. Dr. Dennis Whitaker (Gerran Howell) - Close second to Dr. McKay when it comes to caring and bedside manner, but he's still pretty green; he's going to make some big misses
9. Dr. Trinity Santos (Isa Briones) - Horrible attitude, chip on her shoulder, hard pass

Honorable mention goes to bad-ass charge nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa), who's probably the most competent, unflappable person in the whole day ER shift at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center.

Not ranked, for obvious reasons: med students Victoria Javadi and James Ogilvie.  They're a mess.

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Notes on the Mid-80s Bob Barker Era of "The Price Is Right"

We've known about the 24-hour "The Price Is Right Bob Barker Era" channel for a while now, but a recent household change to the DirecTV Stream provider (our roof dish is now just a useless artifact of technologies past) has made it much easier for us to tune in.  It's pretty much what the name implies: an unending string of "The Price Is Right" reruns from the Bob Barker years.  The channel has been playing as background noise around Cheese Fry Headquarters for about three weeks now.  We've slowly progressed from 1982 to 1985, which is right in the heart of the Cheese Fry's formative years where watching Bob Barker meant either: A) you're home sick from school or B) it's summer vacation.  Childhood nostalgia overload, audio-visual comfort food.

Here are a few thoughts about our ongoing experience with "The Price Is Right Bob Barker Era" channel.

* Obviously, there's a very appealing time travel effect at work in watching these episodes.  The crazy fashion; the poofy, teased haircuts; the charmingly low-tech prizes (lots of grandfather clocks and groovy stereo systems) are all from what sometimes seem like a different universe.
* It's always tricky to evaluate legacy media from a contemporary perspective.  Bob has that polished, tanned, Johnny Carson-style charm. He's got a quick wit and a pretty dry sense of humor.  But, as a product of that era (he was born in 1923 and started hosting the show at age 49), he's also... a little sexist and condescending to the women contestants.  Just when we think we're imagining it and being overly sensitive, Bob says something overt and we'll do a "did he just say that?" double-take.  Lots of housewife jokes, lots of "husbands are the boss" jokes.  Sometimes he leers, sometimes he flirts.  This came as a shock to us, spoiling our 1980s innocence.  It also probably runs counter to America's more recent fond memories of Bob as the spry, white-haired elder statesman during the last few years of his run.
* All these youthful contestants jumping and running around in their 20s and 30s?  They're all now senior citizens. 
* Kind of a bummer to consider that the show no longer tapes in the CBS studio in Hollywood.
* Some things never change: the show today still uses a lot of those goofy synth music cues.  And a lot of the games are not only still being played, but look the same.  Like, zero facelifts or redesigns of any kind.
* In elementary school, our crush was redhead "Barker Beauty" Holly Hallstrom.  But now, looking back, there's no question that it's blonde Dian Parkinson who was truly deserving of any and all schoolkid crushes.
* The "Ten Chances" game has always seemed really to hard to play.
* This stretch of episodes includes the rather unexpected death of genius announcer Johnny Olson in late 1985.
* There are almost no cars given away that cost more than four figures.  
* A lot of these prizes remind us of our fashionable aunt and uncle who lived in a swanky part of Houston.  The brass beds, the chrome and steel dinette sets (is "dinette set" even a term any more?), the polished cherry wooden secretaries (remember those?), the mustard yellow garbage disposals, the big color cabinet TVs.  These are the 1980s trappings of the upper middle class.
* The show gave away a surprising amount of mattresses and carpet.  Were those also considered luxurious perks?  Maybe back then there wasn't a mattress store on every corner.
* Apparently, the presence of air conditioning and power locks are distinctive enough to be merit mention in Johnny's "a new car!" script.
* So there's this big green train that the models use pretty regularly to present the items for bid for the folks in contestant's row, slowly rolling out from the wings and onto center stage.  (Trivia: that game the four contestant prospects play has a name: "One Bid.")  There's a green engine that pulls a green platform.  There's fake steam.  It's all steeped in mid-80s cheese.  But the best part is the "waaAAH-waaaahhh!" wolf whistle sound effect.
* We can verify here that Bob does indeed sometimes wear the same suit more than once.  This is a detail that would only become apparent to a screwball like us watching multiple episodes.
* These shows are really, really old, but we still recognize almost all of the pricing game grocery store item brands.  The breath mints, cleaning products, soups, spaghetti sauces, snacks, cold medicines.  These things you can still find on the shelves at your local grocery store.
* In those days, for whatever reason, the contestants definitely skewed to white women.  Also, we're not hardcore obsessive Drew Carey-era fans, so we are speaking with very little authority, but it certainly seems like the Barker shows welcomed a lot of military folks in uniform.
* We're all the way up to 1985 and still we're not seeing any gag T-shirts with funny "pick me!" text and pictures.  When did that become a thing?

Another treat on this 24-hour "The Price Is Right Bob Barker Era" channel is that sometimes they'll show really old episodes from the early 70s when it first went on the air.  Bob looks and sounds really young; the contestants all tend to be sheltered, slightly dim housewives; the color scheme are these horrible yellows, oranges, and browns; and - get this - there is no Big Wheel.  Three people play and the top two stick around for the Showcase.  Heathens.

Come on down to the the rabbit hole!

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Notes from a "Wheel of Fortune" Taping

If there is a club for game show geeks who have attended a taping of the Big Three, we are in that.  We attended a "Price is Right" taping in the final weeks of Bob Barker's reign back in the mid-2000s and shortly thereafter, we attended a taping of "Jeopardy" when Alex Trebek was the host.  On our recent trip to Los Angeles this spring, we got tickets to "Wheel of Fortune."  We're definitely more hardcore "Price Is Right" and "Jeopardy" fans, but one cannot deny the longevity and appeal of "Wheel of Fortune."

1. This was what we were most excited about... when the contestants glance off camera during the game, what exactly are they looking at?  Well, there's two giant flatscreen TVs on the wall just to the left of the puzzle board.  On the top vertical screen, all three contestants are listed by their corresponding wheel "pointer" color.  This tracks their cumulative winnings throughout the game, plus also the money they have in the bank during the current game.  The bottom horizontal flatscreen provides a list of all the available letters.  When someone calls a "C," for example, then that letter disappears off the list.  Vowels are grouped together below the consonants.  That bottom screen also reminds the contestants of the puzzle category.  "What Are You Doing?" seems to be pretty popular right now.  
2. So during the game if someone flubs a line or there's a technical problem, after the episode ends, they'll go back and do retakes as if it were a scripted show.  That was a big surprise to us.  There was a microphone problem when Ryan Seacrest hugged a contestant goodbye, so the two of them had to totally recreate that spontaneous moment for a retake.  The best moment came when there was a problem with the overhead shot of the wheel (should that be capitalized Wheel?) when it landed on a specific wedge.  After the episode ended, the prop guy - there is apparently one guy who is charge of the wheel - had to spin the wheel just right so that it would land on that specific wedge for the camera.  It took him about eight tries to nail it.  The audience cheered.
3. They do pipe in the sound effects you hear on the show, like the slide whistle bankrupt sound and the "doo-doo-do-do" chimes for a new puzzle.
4. No, the audience doesn't shout "Wheel!... of!... Fortune!..."  That's recorded.
5. We saw three episodes taped.  Each one took about an hour.  Not just for the redos, but there's also a lot of adjustments to be made to the wheel - replacing the prize amount wedges - during the commercial breaks.  The biggest delay came when a flashing plastic wedge wasn't flashing.  They had to take it apart and repair some wiring.  Also fun was to watch the one guy whose sole job during the breaks was to come wipe down the padded vinyl contestant railing.  He did it every time.
6. There's apparently a very active alumni group of past contestants who seem pretty obsessed with the show and also very impressed that they were on it.  We stood in line with a couple of them and then later had the misfortune of sitting behind them in the bleachers.  They were shameless in making sure everyone around knew they'd been on the show.  One of them even wore her game day name badge.  "Look at me!"  It might be interesting to talk to a contestant, but not these obnoxious characters.  They were pretty loud and abrasive in the bleachers, almost acting like they were special guests - the stage manager had to ask them to knock it off at one point.  There are no repeat contestants (we think), so these two are essentially milking a single 30-minute appearance.
7. Before each game, the contestants all shoot short promos for their hometown station.  That's when we were reminded by the stage director that it's "Wheel of Fortune" not "The Wheel of Fortune."
8. We can't be 100% sure, but there was a stagehand near our section of the bleachers holding up laminated sheets for Ryan.  We think this was to help cue him which contestant was due to spin next so he doesn't have to keep track of that.
9. Vanna came out and talked to the audience, of course.  She told us that she's worn thousand of outfits over the years, but never the same thing twice.  They're all loaners from designers.  Vanna does repeat the shoes, though.
10. Apparently, they're looser with solving the puzzle these days.  Seems like in the Pat era you had one shot and God forbid if you fumbled your words.  But now you have a set amount of time to solve, phrasing and rephrasing as needed until time runs out.  But that timer failed on one of the puzzles we saw, so they threw that whole puzzle out and did that segment over again with a new one.
11. There's a whole other set-up during the final prize puzzle what with that little prize wheel.  It gets wheeled out from backstage on a special cart and three guys then slide it into position next to the larger wheel.  After the show is over, they load it back into the cart - securing it with several bolts - and wheel it backstage.
12. The stage is pretty wide but not very deep.  In that familiar wide shot you see of Vanna standing at the puzzle board, there's about three cameras crammed together just out of the shot to the left, all pointing at the contestants.  They've framed it perfectly.  One inch to the left and you'd see them all.
13. Vanna no longer has to even touch the puzzle board.  Apparently, there are lasers that sense her hand and reveal the letters.
14. It may be blasphemous, but we think Ryan is better at this than Pat Sajak.  He's smoother and more genuine.  Pat could sometimes seem a little above all of that gameplay nonsense.  Like he just sort of tolerated all of this.
15. The show can control the height of the riser the contestants stand on - if you're too short to reach over that railing (sanitized during every commerical break!) to spin the wheel, they'll lift the platform for you.
16. If you're in the audience, you're doing a lot of clapping.  We never noticed this watching the show, but you clap when the contestants spin, you clap when they get a letter, you clap when they solve.  The show told everyone that when Vanna claps, you clap.  Plus there's one of those old-school flashing "Applause" signs hanging over the bleachers.
17. As you might imagine, there's a camera on a ceiling mount pointing down at the wheel.  Pretty cool.
18. At no time did the wheel spin by itself.  Those "beauty shots" (as they call them) of the spinning wheel was initiated with a hard yank by that prop guy in charge of the wheel.  By the way, unlike "The Price Is Right" there is no penalty for not spinning the wheel all the way around.

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The Ghosts in CBS' "Ghosts" Ranked

1. Pete
2. Thorfinn
3. Hetty
4. Isaac
5. Sassapis
6. Trevor
7. Alberta
8. Flower
9. Nigel

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A Few Words About Season Three of Paramount+'s "Picard"

 * It's of course 100% fantastic to see the "Next Generation" cast back in action, spouting technobabble, working together, debating big ideas around a conference table.
* But boy do they all look old.  Have we gotten that old, too?  Yikes. Gray hair and wrinkles galore or, in some cases, startling cosmetic surgery.
* Without question, the best character in this go-round is Worf.  Genius.
* The writers always seemed far more interested than us in Data's complicated backstory (ugh, again we have to endure a subplot with Lore), the unending kill-him-no-wait-bring-him-back cycle, and making Brent Spiner play either his creator or one of his creator's relatives.  But while it's good to have Data back doing his Data thing, it's little hilarious to see an android with the puffy features of a 60-something.
* Sorry, we know everyone is very invested in helping Jack Crusher and saving him, but we had a hard time caring about his grating, whiny character.  
* We won't spoil the show's many twists, but suffice to say that some worked better than others. Indeed, some are quite inspired.  In so many ways, the show plays like a "Next Generation" greatest hits package.
* Amanda Plummer will always be Honey Bunny to us.
* We get the need to tell one long serialized story to create high enough stakes to justify getting the band back together, but after we got a delicious taste of one-off, mostly self-contained episodes of "Strange New Worlds" we're definitely getting tired of stories stretched across multiple episodes no matter if it makes story sense or not.
* Big 1990s crush on Michelle Forbes' Ensign Ro.
* Todd Stashwick steals every scene as the Titan's ascerbic Captain Shaw.  So it got a little annoying when our "Next Generation" heroes started having big meetings on Shaw's ship with him nowhere in sight.  Shouldn't Shaw at least be invited?
* A fellow hardcore Star Trek fan watched all of the seasons during the COVID lockdown and declared that "Deep Space Nine" was the best one.  We really should go back and watch it.  We gave up midway through the first season way back when.  There's a fairly significant "Deep Space Nine" tie-in here.
* Guess they couldn't find a way to fit in Chief O'Brien and Keiko.
* We never liked Lieutenant Shelby.  What a tool.
* Weirdly, the climax had some big Return of the Jedi vibes.  We're not sure if that's a good thing or not.
* Who wouldn't want to visit the Starfleet Museum?
* "Make it so."

Here are our thoughts from 2020 about the first season of "Picard."  We missed season two, but may circle back and take a look.  We'll keep you posted.

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Eight Thoughts on Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building”

1. The show's layered mystery narrative - chock full of red herrings and dead ends - gets more than a little convoluted, especially in the escalating illogic of the second season.  But you're not going for the plot.  You're going for the effortless charm among the three leads and the way the show peels back the layers of their characters.  As clumsy as the overall story may get at times, the writers take great care with their characters' sad backstories.
2. Steve Martin, as one of the Cheese Fry’s OG fans recently put it, is a genius.  His unique brand of dry, sophisticated self-mockery is baked deep into this show.  As long a career as Martin has had, he still feels underrated somehow.
3. Great shows all have great theme songs.  You ever notice that?
4. For us, a little Martin Short goes a long way.  He’s a bit... much.  That he’s so engaging here is completely surprising.
5. To put it mildly, all these popular true crime podcasts can be very overwrought, which makes them a very worthy (if very niche) pop culture phenomenon to satirize.  Ms. Cheese Fry loves the “Dateline NBC” podcasts and it’s hard not to roll our eyes just hearing occasional snippets of that show.  Keith Morrison's "you'll never believe this" style this of narration is a genre onto himself.
6. There’s something strangely cozy and inviting about this sort of upper-crust Manhattan story where everyone lives in posh apartments, wears stylish clothing, attends swanky parties… without ever having an actual job.  And those who do have jobs are working on Broadway or owning art galleries.  They’re not from our world.
7. Selena Gomez is a big surprise here as well, even more deadpan and dry at times than Martin.  She more than holds her own.  The show predictably mines great humor out of the generation gap between her and her costars.  It’s what you expect, but executed so well.
8. Brazzos totally would have aired on NBC, don’t you think?

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Musings on Paramount+'s "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds"

* This is the Star Trek we've all been waiting for.
* As well done as they may be, to us there's just something dour and unpleasant about the recent Discovery and Picard shows.
* It's a sign of where we are with television right now to feel this kind of joy for a show that relies on tightly-written, self-contained episodes that clearly conclude at the final fade out.  We've grown tired of suffering through seasons-long slogs of tangled mysteries and twists and cliffhangers that are extended across way too many episodes simply because that's what shows do now.
* Ethan Peck has definitely captured the Leonard Nimoy vocal vibe.
* As other critics have noted, this show did a better job in ten hours to flesh out Uhura than was done for the character in the previous fifty years.
* Extra credit for the subtle little touches that tie this show to the original series, like the door whoosh sound effect or the little strange viewer that Spock uses at his science station.
* Anson Mount is fantastic.  We can't decide if we want to be just like his Christopher Pike character or just make him our boss so we can work for him and attend his awesome cookout meeting dinners
* We liked Seth MacFarlane's The Orville because it captured the ensemble essence of Star Trek: The Next Generation despite a number of very annoying characters and a vague sort of smugness about it.  But Strange New Worlds is so top-notch on every level that it makes The Orville look like sad, stale fan fiction mimeographed after hours in an office supply room.
* The show was much pretty clicking on all cylinders right out of the gate.
* A whole lot of the fun in this show comes from the interaction of the characters.  As with The Next Generation, this is a group you'd like to hang out with.  It's not about shocking plots or gee-whiz special effects.
* All of this, plus a return of the Gorn.

Strange New Worlds episodes ranked
1. "Spock Amok" - The one where Spock and T'Pring switch bodies.
2. "The Serene Squall" - The one with the space pirates.
3. "The Elsyian Kingdom" - The one where everyone is in a fairy tale.
4. "Quality of Mercy" - The one with Captain Kirk and time travel.
5. "Lift Us Where the Suffering Cannot Reach" - The one with the creepy ascension ceremony.
6. "All Those Who Wander" - The one with the Gorn eggs.
7. "Children of the Comet" - The one with the comet.
8. "The Ghosts of Illyria" - The one with the light addiction virus.
9. "Strange New Worlds" - The one where Starfleet invents the Prime Directive.
10. "Memento Mori" - The one with the Gorn ships.

Sam Lindbergh at The Ringer also loved the show and we 100% endorse his endorsement.

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Eight quick notes on HBO's "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty"

1. Many pundits - including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - complained loud and long about the ridiculous, exaggerated vibe of the show.  To us, that was a feature, not a bug.  The show works as a fable, a larger-than-life fictionalized spin on true events that were already a little ridiculous.  HBO and the producers just gave the whole thing a little nudge into crazy.  It's practically satire in some ways.  No reasonable person should ever consider this thing a documentary.  At this point, in fact, we have Google or Wikipedia open on our phone anytime we watch a movie or TV show that's supposedly based on a true story.  An instant fact check is often essential.
2. That said, it is curious that the show made Jerry West such a wild-eyed maniac.
3. John C. Reilly was born to play Jerry Buss.  Phenomenal.  We always remember Buss as the old-timer covered in locker room champagne with Shaq and Kobe during the 2000-2002 three-peat title run.  The depiction of him here as a creepy ladies man horndog - which, apparently, does have truth to it - was rather shocking.
4. On paper, a shaggy, montage visual style seeking to create a late 70s/early 80s vibe would seem like a pretty obvious choice.  Lots of movies use different film stocks and styles and jump cuts to create a period mood.  Yadda yadda yadda.  But there was something different about this.  The grainy film stock with 8mm-style sprocket holes, the glitchy TV video images, it all came together beautifully.  Along with the wardrobe and the set design, "Winning Time" may not be 1980 accurate, but it feels 1980 accurate.
5. Was Larry Bird really that surly and angry?  Dude.  Bonus points for using a beer car to catch the tobacco spit.
6. Fun fact: so it turns out HBO didn't want to call the show "Showtime" - which was what the Lakers of the 80s called themselves and what the book was titled on which the show is based - because of the competing Showtime pay-TV service.  HBO's Showtime.  Sort of be like Showtime's HBO, we suppose.
7. Aside from Reilly, the actors who played Magic Johnson and Kareem (Quincy Isaiah and Solomon Hughes) walk that line between perfectly evoking the real person without ever lapsing into an cringey impersonation.  Like much of the show, they feel exactly right.
8. All of that tedious business with the Buss family and the dying matriarch Sally Field seemed very important to the producers, but for us it paled in comparison to the layered drama and intrigue of the players and coaches trying to make this whole thing work.

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Ten Disappointing Things About "The Book of Boba Fett"

1. A formidable, genuinely scary antagonist - Cad Bane, what a name! - gets a truly fantastic introduction only to get immediately killed off in the next episode.
2. Temuera Morrison is 61 years old.  Maybe that age works out within the timeline of the Star Wars universe and the whole crazy complicated history of the Boba Fett character, but he just seemed old and slow.  And it's not like the show played up an Unforgiven sort of "I'm too old for this" angle, which might have helped.  Then again, the old guy did spend much of the first half of the series sleeping in an antibiotic tank.
3. It's enough of Tatooine already.  Between "The Mandalorian" and now this series, we've spent hours and hours in the desert.  Coming up next on Disney+, a spinoff with Obi-Wan Kenobi presumably set mostly on... wait for it... Tatooine.  And this is supposedly the armpit planet of the galaxy, remember.  Let's mix it up, Disney.  A conspiracy thriller on Hoth, an action comedy on the Death Star, a political drama in Cloud City.
4. All of this work was supposedly about fighting the Pike (by contrast to Cad Bane, the Pike as an alien species is most definitely not formidable nor scary) keeping the spice trade off Tatooine, but the series spends zero time explaining just what the big deal is.  What are the stakes exactly?  Why does Boba Fett care?  How is the spice trade hurting residents of Tatooine?
5. The series seemed at first to want to spin a Godfather-style web of underworld gangster intrigue with black markets and protection rackets and warring families, but it only half-heartedly committed to that plot.  Then the last couple of episodes sort of leaned into a spaghetti Western-slash-Magnificent Seven vibe with a motley band of misfits outnumbered and outgunned.  But it didn't really develop that thread either.
6. Obviously, it was deeply weird to take that big narrative detour into what was essentially a third season of "The Mandalorian."  That those episodes provided some welcome zing and zip - aside from our ongoing "huh?" when it comes to the Mandalorian religion - just underscored how "The Book of Boba Fett" paled in comparison.
7. Why cast Jennifer Beals if she's only going to get about three or four lines?  Ditto the incomparable Stephen Root.
8. What seemed like ten minutes of screen time in the finale was spent with the characters futilely blasting away at giant attack droids even though the droid shields were clearly impossible to breach.  It was more tedious than exciting, a statement also works as an overall criticism of the entire series.
9. The show tried to milk a big twist out of Boba Fett learning the Pike were behind the Tusken massacre, but shouldn't a battle-hardened bounty hunter have already figured that out?  Boba Fett too often seemed like your confused old uncle trying to keep up with the kids, when the whole reason his character is so popular is that he's this shrewd bad-ass who managed to capture Han Solo.
10. Another big selling point for Boba Fett: his armor and his helmet, yet he spent almost the entire series walking around with his helmet stuck under his arm.

We stipulate that some of these issues may have been caused by production problems related to COVID protocols.  That may explain, for example, the strangely empty streets of the big finale or the way the Beals and Root characters vanished from the action after a big introduction.  But all we can do is watch the show that gets made, not the show the producers wanted to make.

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A Few Words on Freeform's "Cruel Summer"

What seems at first glance to be a standard teen-in-peril Lifetime potboiler is elevated by a knockout cast, a complex plot spanning multiple timelines, and a nuanced exploration of some pretty heavy themes.  The Freeform "Cruel Summer" limited series (available on Hulu) tells the story of what happens to a group of suburban teenagers in the mid-1990s when a local girl is kidnapped and then later claims a classmate knew where she was being held but chose not to alert authorities.  That crazy, convoluted sentence doesn't do the series justice.  This is a layered look at teen girl angst and jealousy, media bloodlust, sexual predation, post-traumatic stress, and dark family secrets.  There's a whole lot going on here.  As the narrative slowly peels back the mystery of what happened to who and why, audience perceptions of the characters are constantly shifting.  More than once, a hero is revealed to have a mean streak, while the person who seems to be the bad guy shows an unexpectedly benevolent side.

The true genius of the show, however, is its structure.  "Cruel Summer" tells its story across three years.  Each episode covers the same calendar date, but in different time periods.  Clever editing allows for some pretty powerful dramatic contrasts.  An upscale neighborhood July 4 party, a birthday celebration, a family outing, all have very different vibes and subtexts when we see them take place during each of the three time periods: before the girl went missing, right after she was rescued, and during a very ugly year when girl she claimed didn't rescue her is now suing for defamation.  It's surprisingly easily to keep all of this straight - incredibly, the time jumps sometimes happen within in a single scene in a single location - thanks to smart cinematography and the physical appearance of the two leads.  Indeed, while the cast is uniformly strong, it's the two powerhouse performances of Olivia Holt and Chiara Aurelia that really kick things into high gear.  Their work is the sort of thing that would undoubtedly get a lot more buzz had this run on a higher-profile platform like HBO or Netflix.

But here's the problem.  This story - as rich and complex as it may be - simply cannot sustain itself across ten 45-minute episodes.  This is, of course, not an uncommon complaint.  You've probably experienced similar frustration watching one of these limited series that seem to have an episode-count mandate whether the story warrants it or not.  And so "Cruel Summer" starts with a bang for those first few episodes, droops into a mushy middle run of episodes where nothing really happens (it can't start solving all of the mysteries just yet, you see, it's still too soon), and then suddenly makes a mad dash for a satisfying conclusion in the last two episodes.  Had this been converted into a leaner set of five or six episodes, it would have been much more engaging and effective.  

(Case in point: we submit to you Netflix's "Fear Street" a similarly complex story - albeit one that is more straight horror than thriller - told across different timelines, but clocking in at only six hours it feels much leaner and more focused.  It may not be as culturally relevant as "Cruel Summer," but it's ultimately more satisfying.)

"Cruel Summer" also sort of falls into the trap of cramming as many final act plot twists and reversals as possible.  Those turns can be entertaining, but too often they have the potential to undermine everything that came before.  There's a whopper of a twist here in the final few moments that we won't spoil, but the giddy visceral "OMG!" kick it provides sort of sours once you realize how it sort of undercuts the rest of the story.  It's tricky to lead an audience on a satisfying journey with so many characters - for ten episodes, remember - only to pull the rug out at the very end just because pulling the rug out is what these shows do.

"Cruel Summer" trailer

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Six Thoughts About Netflix's "The Squid Game"

1. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know the basics of this show.  The premise is an engaging high-concept variation of a familiar plot: for their own amusement, the rich and/or elite get the unwashed masses to fight to the death.  The Hunger Games was played straight, but those movies didn't come close to this kind of exhausted, grim hopelessness.  The marbles episode packs a devastating punch.  It's not a particularly fun experience.
2. We're not familiar with the style and format of Korean television.  Are all K-dramas this overwrought?  The villains are complete one-note caricatures, one all obnoxious bug eyes, the other sneering and scowling through every scene.
3. "Netflix bloat" is a real thing and, frankly, we're tired of it.  This show runs nine episodes (most of them almost an hour long) when the story could have easily been streamlined and told in four.  Just about every twist and turn gets talked to death by the characters, dragging the plot out to absurd lengths.
4. We suggest watching it in the original Korean with English subtitles.  Don't rely on the histrionic English actor voice dub that makes like it play like a bad episode of "Star Blazers."
5. As fascinating as it is to consider an underground death game sponsored by billionaires, the logistics here are utterly implausible.  Over 400 hundred people die in this first season, all of them seemingly with families and friends and living in big cities like Seoul.  They will be missed.  But, okay, this can maybe work.  Oh, but the contestants can vote to end the game, so it's possible that you have hundreds of people out there alive who know about the game and could talk.  Hmm.  Okay, we'll go with it.  But it's a bridge too far when later we learn this contest has been happening for years.  That's thousands of people who just vanish, their bodies disposed of in secret, and no one starts asking questions except for a single police officer?
6. In the end, we're trying to puzzle out the point to it all.  There's some dark themes about the "it's either you or me" evil people will do to survive, of course, and the resilience of the human spirit in the face of death.  There are also some last-minute meditations on wealth and classism that might have resonated better had they been introduced sooner.  And then there's the epilogue, which suggests that despite winning, victory for the surviving character was a hollow one.  The character won, but they're broken.   The end most definitely did not justify the means.  Again, that's an interesting notion but one that could have maybe been clearer.  It's all mushy, which seems inexcusable given the producers had nine hours to make it less mushy.  Then again, as a Cheese Fry colleague suggested to us, this show may have been more about the morality of the game rather than the arcs and journeys of the contestants.

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A Few Words About CBS All Access' "Star Trek: Picard"

As a matter of habit, we don’t binge television shows.  This frequently creates conflict in the Cheese Fry screening room (a.k.a. the sectional couch in front of a Vizio flatscreen).  Ms. Fry always wants to watch “just one more” episode, but the more appropriate viewing process, obviously, is to soak afterglow of each episode to carefully mull everything over.  Then, and only then, can one watch the next episode.  What is the root of our peculiar 20th-century preference?  It could be just a lingering preference from days of yore when folks only got a new episode once a week or it could be that we perhaps expend so much mental energy undertaking painstaking, useless analysis of story structure, acting performances, cinematography, plot holes and the like that we’re simply too exhausted after 48 minutes.

And yet... over the recent Fourth of July weekend, we binged all ten episodes of “Picard” in less than three days.  That's a big media bite for us.  We don’t subscribe to CBS All Access, but our father-in-law does.  So we had to avail ourselves of the show while we could.  It was an intense experience, but not altogether unpleasant.

Here are our disjointed musings and comments.

* “Engage.” Be honest.  How often have you said that in your car when you’re about to begin a trip?  Or maybe when the light turns green?  Just us then?

* There’s a pretty complicated backstory here about a failed species-wide Romulan evacuation linked somehow to a massive android sabotage of the Starfleet shipyards on Mars.  It all feels unique and appropriately big, but the scope grows so vast that the story sometimes felt overwhelming.  This may be an unpopular take, but not every science fiction story has to grapple with fate-of-the-universe stakes.

* “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987-1994) played a big part of our high school and college years (1986-1994), both the first-run episodes that ran on weekend evenings on KTXA 21 and the reruns that played every weekday evening in the 90s.  We came of age right alongside the show, which – like us – started with some rather clumsy and awkward moments before soaring with some classic masterpieces later in its run.

* Honestly, we’d probably prefer to watch a domestic drama on CBS All Access about the Riker family living on a farm on Nepenthe raising their precocious daughter.

* Name-dropping sidebar – we once sat behind Jonathan Frakes at a Beverly Hills Sunday morning church service.

* We read somewhere a suggestion that the entire Borg subplot of “Picard” could have been completely removed without ever being missed.  As crazy as that sounds given the huge amount of screen-time spent on the machinations inside the reclaimed Borg cube, that person is absolutely correct.  It’s a cool idea that really doesn’t go anywhere.

* We never liked the “Next Generaton” Klingon or Romulan “culture episodes” where the Enterprise crew had to navigate ridiculously intricate customs and complicated alien political intrigue and subtitles and dark lighting and dozens of extras in latex face makeup.  Worse, those episodes always seemed to be two-parters.

* As expected, the best part of this show was watching Picard assemble his ragtag crew of mercenary malcontents. (Echoes of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock in which Kirk asked Starfleet for help with a mission, was turned down, but Kirk went anyway.)

* The two Romulan heroes who work on Picard’s vineyard are charming and complicated, while the two Romulan villains are complete one-dimensional duds.  Further demerits for the show by insisting that the scruffy-looking Romulan spy was somehow alluring.  Having female characters call him “hot” as a way to somehow convince the audience this was so was particularly hilarious.

* The best episode of the season was the stand-alone Freecloud (how well will that name age?) episode in which our heroes had to pull off an underworld Mission: Impossible sort of con on what seemed to be a Las Vegas planet.

* That we enjoyed that episode so much perhaps points to our overall fatigue with serialized television, where a single story is dragged out, er, told over multiple episodes.  That sort of thing certainly has its place for deep dives into complex characters and byzinatine plots.  But sometimes don't you just want a self-contained story without a contrived cliffhanger?  There's a reason "Law & Order: SVU" has been running 20 years.  We hope season 2 is more episodic.

* Although Data is an ageless android, the 71-year-old actor Brent Spiner most decidedly is not.

* Name-dropping sidebar – Ms. Fry by chance ran into Brent Spiner one evening on the Paramount lot and engaged in a lengthy verbal joust with him regarding both what she was doing there and what he was doing there.

* Honestly, this thing probably should have been six episodes.

* The four-letter cursing feels completely out of place on a “Star Trek” show.  It’s so glaring and strange, in fact, it totally took us out of the story and reminded us that this is a new, edgy, streaming-service version of “Star Trek.”

* Patrick Stewart is one of those actors that can probably find a way to make anything cool and interesting.

* Interesting stuff layered in here about the myth of Jean-Luc Picard, Starfleet hero, and how he must cope with all that baggage, whether it’s trying to not believe his own hype, subtly using it for leverage to get what he wants, or swallowing his disappointment when someone doesn’t show him the expected respect based on reputation.  We wished the show had dug a little more into that mythbusting angle.  

* We haven’t watched many episodes of “Deep Space Nine,” “Voyager,” or “Enterprise.”  We’ve missed all of the “Discovery” series.  Yet we call ourselves rabid “Star Trek” fans.  Is that right or wrong? Discuss.

* Surprising parallels to the overrated The DaVinci Code, what with the secret society protecting a crazy conspiracy theory for thousands(!) of years.  Dan Brown should get a "story by" credit.

* If you’re going to kill someone off and wring big emotion and catharsis out of that moment, then you really need to let that person stay dead.  Otherwise, the moment is cheapened and the drama totally undermined.  Better idea: just don’t kill them off.

* You can grumble about the plotting, but you certainly cannot criticize the strong work of the cast (especially Allison Pill).  

* We did sometimes have hard time getting a handle on Picard.  He didn’t always ring true.  For example, no matter how pained and lost he may have felt after leaving Starfleet, it’s hard to believe in fourteen years Picard never once checked on the last executive officer he served with.

* This is the kind of show that inspires interweb commenters to point out after Seven of Nine and Picard share a warm reunion that the two characters never had a single previous onscreen scene together.

* The show ended pretty strong, but the middle was more mushy than we would have preferred.

Top ten “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episodes: 

1. "Yesterday's Enterprise" - the one where a time rift allows Tasha Yar to die a noble death

2. "Best of Both Worlds, Part 1" - the one with the gut-punch OMG cliffhanger where Picard is a Borg and Riker opens fire on him

3. "Lower Decks" - the one told from the point-of-view of the low-level Enterprise officers

4. "Starship Mine" - the one that's Die Hard on the Enterprise

5. "Tapestry" - the one were Q gives Picard a chance to make different choices as a young officer

6. "The Inner Light" - the one where Picard lives a whole other life via an alien probe

7. "Timescape" - the one where time is frozen just as the Enterprise is about to be destroyed

8. "Q Who?" - the one where we first meet the Borg

9. "All Good Things" - the series finale with Picard bouncing between three timelines

10. "The Measure of a Man" - the one with the trial to determine if Data is sentient

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What We've Been Watching (in 50 Words or Less)

In the grip of COVID-19 lockdown, days run together, bored children drive you to drink evening cocktails, weeks are measured solely by the Wednesday mornings when the lawnmower man visits, you find the elementary school online learning platform more confusing to operate than the recording timer on a 1985 VCR, and the kitchen table becomes the place where you eat and also the place where you work.  

The Cheese Fry has recently ramped up television consumption and we've been musing about how long the list might be if we looked back at the shows we've been regularly watching (or fully binged) since the fall season started back in 2019, all of them full of people touching and hugging and standing very close to each other.

Here's a rundown.  Each title gets only fifty words.

American Housewife (ABC) is a funny family comedy about classism in spite of the grating lead character - the titular "American housewife" - played by Katy Mixon.  We can't tell if she's insufferable because of the way she's written or the way Mixon plays her.  She's the worst part of the show.

Black-ish (ABC) is very much a descendant of the great Norman Lear sitcoms of the 1970s. So determined to use humor to explore complex issues of race, the show can be preachy, but there's a fun absurdist bent that leavens any heavy hand. Essential viewing.

The Conners (ABC) finds black humor amid financial hardship. It's shocking to see this kind of gritty realism on network television when most shows feature ruggedly perfect hero cops, paramedics, and doctors.  But more people in America are like the Conners than the folks on the endless Chicago shows. 

Ellen's Game of Games (NBC) is a good one for the kids, a series of elaborate games that treat the contestants - most hysterically, inexplicably in love with host Ellen DeGeneres - pretty badly, dunking them in goo or yanking them up into the rafters or dropping them through trap doors.

Emergence (ABC) is one we almost gave up on. We worried it was making it up as it went along and we're still recovering from the trauma of mistakenly believing Lost knew what it was doing. This show ended strong. Bonus points for quirky lead Allison Tolman.

Evil (CBS) is a 21st century spin on The X-Files, pitting a believer (theology student Mike Holter) and a skeptic (psychologist Katja Herbers) together to investigate mysteries for the Catholic Church. Like the producers' previous show, The Good Wife, this ingenious series is too good for CBS.

Jack Ryan (Amazon) is like an eight-hour Jason Bourne movie, all exotic locations,  sweaty foot chases, and shocking shoot-outs. We can't stop thinking about the production budget.  It may seem impossible to think of The Office's schlub Jim Halpert as a spy, but John Krasinski pulls it off.

Lego Masters (Fox) is awesome, a reality show contest that pits Lego builder teams against each other in increasingly complex "builds." The show is nudged along by the strangest TV co-hosts we've ever seen: two geeky Lego masters who are hilariously self-serious and often seem impossible to please.

Lost in Space (Netflix) may share flavors of the dystopian Battlestar: Galactica reboot, but it's most definitely a family show: it regularly showcases the power of teamwork and resourcefulness to solve any problem. Is it just us or is Parker Posey's villainess Dr. Smith just a little too much?

The Mandalorian (Disney+) has the zip and zing that The Rise of Skywalker could never truly muster.  Characters you care about, high stakes, smart plotting, and a phenomenal score.  Best of all, it leans way into the Western outlaw vibe that partially inspired George Lucas in the first place.

Modern Family (ABC) stopped being genuinely funny years ago; now it's just coasting on reputation. Expect a couple of smiles each episode, but they've exaggerated the characters now to the degree that they're no longer real people. This was their last season.  It was time.

The Outsider (HBO) is adapted from a recent Stephen King novel.  We stopped reading King 20 years ago, but this is all very familiar to us: small town besieged by a supernatural evil that commits unspeakable violence. The great cast and the stylish cinematography elevate everything.

Stumptown (ABC) is fun mostly because of rough charms of stars Cobie Smulders, Jake Johnson, and Michael Ealy. The seedy world of private eyes, ex cons, dive bars, and blue-collar cops recalls the work of our favorite novelist Elmore Leonard, which is sometimes all you need.

Superstore (NBC) has been accurately described as The Office at Walmart what with the oddball characters and the workplace setting. But there's more meat to this show in the way it explores the struggling working class.  It's not as funny as it used to be, but it feels kind of important.

Survivor (CBS) maintains a special place in our heart.  Since debuting in 2000, we have only missed a single cycle. This season features past winners and the show has changed so drastically over the years that there is a noticeable difference in game play between "old school" and "new school."

The Unicorn (CBS) feels genuine, filled with real people who happen to be funny rather than zany "characters." It's strange to see the usually villainous Walton Goggins - playing a widower dad - as a comedic family man, but his dramatic chops add edge. We hereby confess our crush on Michaela Watkins.

Watchmen (HBO) is a masterpiece of television. We were skeptical of the producers' intent to extend the mythology of the landmark 1986 graphic novel, but they delivered. A layered, rich tapestry of characters grappling with race and power, boosted by genius plotting and slick style. Not a single misstep.

Will and Grace (NBC) is a throwback sitcom driven more by sharp one-liners than characters that resemble real people, especially when it comes to the absurdity of Jack and Karen. They almost seem to belong in another, totally nuts show.  Even so, we find it hilarious.

Young Sheldon (CBS) is far more nuanced than The Big Bang Theory, the overrated set-up/joke, set-up/joke show that spawned it.  It would work if it didn't feature the Sheldon character, though it probably wouldn't be as popular. Bonus points: Annie Potts and Wallace Shawn.

We sampled 911: Lone Star, All Rise, Carol's Second Act, The Masked Singer, and Single Parents. One episode was enough.

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"The More You Know" (da-da-da-daaa)

From Mental Floss, a quick history of NBC's famous "The More You Know" public service announcements.  Genius.

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"Love Those Lincolns, Man."

We wish it weren't so, but the recent Lincoln car campaign featuring Matthew McConaughey has completely transfixed us.  One commercial in particular offers that perfect blend of slick imagery, decadent mood, and dreamy music (by Amon Tobin).  When it pops up as we do a DVR-fast-forward we always stop and soak it in.

It's called "The Feeling: Night Out" (directed by none other than indie film legend Gus Van Sant) and shows McConaughey going through his evening ritual getting ready for a night on the town.  We understand what agency Hudson Rouge is doing here.  McConaughey's surrounded by plush affluence - the camel hair shaving brush, the walk-in closet full of pressed suits and shirts and neatly folded towels, the expensive watch - and also owns a Lincoln, ergo the Lincoln is the car of the wealthy and influential.

Knowing that doesn't make it any less effective.  Rarely do guilty pleasures extend to a 30-second spot.  It's a fully-realized fantasy world... one we want to be a part of.

Bonus points to that moment in the car when McConaughey reaches to push the ignition button, then gives that one brief hesitation, savoring the quiet before he revs his engine, gives that sly self-satisfied McConaughey smirk, and takes off on some grand Malibu adventure surely featuring champagne and caviar.

Plus the car shines the logo onto the pavement!

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Seven overused phrases from "Big Brother"

We came late to the "Big Brother" guilty-pleasure party.  Our first season was Season 15 (summer of 2013) when the ultimate do-nothing floater Andy Herren won.  But even in this short amount of time, we've grown quite weary of the in-game lingo that the houseguests lean on so often. We suspect they just want to give the whole ridiculous thing a more serious, strategic vibe.

1. "My game" (e.g. "I need to do what's good for my game")
2. (tie) "Flip the house"
2. (tie) "The other side of the house"
4. "Blood on my hands"
5. "My ride or die"
6. "Comp" (short for "competition" which is just obnoxious - what, you don't want to say those other three syllables?)
7. "Showmance"

Honorable mention goes to host Julie Chen's ubiquitous "but first" phrases used during every live episode.

We've also started noticing a new one.  It's not yet ready to crack the list, but we have our eye on it. "Jury management."

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A few words about the 2016-17 TV season

"American Housewife" (ABC) makes us laugh.  It's "sitcom-my" in that it feels assembled and engineered to crank out punchlines whether the situations all feel completely plausible or not.  But when it's done this well - anchored by a manic, sideways-glancing performance by Katy Mixon - it works.

"The Big Bang Theory" (CBS) offers a textbook example of "habit-viewing" - we watch it because we've always watched it.  The completist in us needs to see it through to the end.  It's mostly enjoyable, often amusing, but rarely hilarious.  [We can say the same thing about ABC's "Modern Family" - a show that does still sometimes hit a home run, but mostly at this point coasts on past success.]

"Black-ish" (ABC) may seem at first like a 21st-century spin on "The Cosby Show."  Upper-class African-American parents try to raise their oddball kids.  But this is a show with satirical bite, an affection for the surreal, and big ambition for social change. Sharp and smart.

"Blindspot" (NBC) remains completely wack in its second season, packed full of twists and double-agents and ridiculous plot leaps and a computer tech who can literally do anything with a keyboard and a mouse and those dumb tattoos.  It's implausible in so many ways.  But we keep watching it.  [For the record, the two-twists-per-episode screeching melodrama of "Empire" (Fox) and "How to Get Away with Murder" (ABC) are equally insane but we gave up on those shows after the first season.  It was just too much.]

"Code Black" (NBC) offers a spiritual reboot of "ER."  That either excites you or it doesn't.  We didn't realize how much we missed that "ER" mix of strange medical jargon, workplace politics, guest stars looking for Emmys, and shocking medical tragedy packed as densely as possible into 50 minutes.  Plus, Luis Guzman as a worldly nurse.

"Designated Survivor" (ABC) provides a fictional president that some Americans may be desperately craving: humble, measured, thoughtful President Kirkman (Keifer Sutherland) isn't the type to blast people on Twitter at 3:00am.  The show is very well made and very compelling... but thanks to the efforts of a tireless FBI agent, who's all alone (of course) figuring out who blew up the Capitol, the audience is way way ahead of poor Kirkman and his staff.  This is creating some serious narrative frustration.  This is a show that needs to get things out in the open and kick it up a notch.

"The Good Place" (NBC) may not be the funniest show on the air, but it is without question the most creative and inventive show one the air, taking place as it does in heaven and involving a clerical error that sends there an undeserving person.  Genius all the way around.

"Superstore" (NBC) is quickly evolving into a worthy blue-collar retail companion to NBC's brilliant "The Office."  Quirky characters, workplace setting, snappy dialogue, plus those curious little B-roll vignettes.  It's fantastic.

"Survivor" (CBS) continues to deliver the goods, exploring fascinating social dynamics - you're voting people out who will ultimately decide if you deserve the prize - amid ever-changing gameplay and strategy.  The season that just wrapped was particularly strong.  Yeah, we can't believe it either.

"This Is Us" (NBC) delivers manipulative, contrived schmaltz about the everyday dramas of an extended family.  But it benefits greatly from a clever, time-shifting premise and a surprisingly strong cast.  We hate ourselves for liking it as much as we do. 

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Shows on our DVR (Winter-Spring 2016)

Here's a list of shows we spent the last few months recording on our DVR.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC) - This is a strange one, if only because it's reinvented itself several times partly to line up with the Marvel movies.  That degree of narrative turnover is admirable, but it can be a little alienating (no pun intended).  Sometimes we think it's a show we keep watching just because we always have.

The Americans (AMC) - Soviet spies living in 1980s American suburbia.  What a premise.  Best drama on television.  Period.  If you're not watching it, you're making a big mistake. 

The Big Bang Theory (CBS) - It's always amusing, but never really hilarious.  Comfort food.  The wife/girlfriend characters are usually funnier than the male leads.

Blackish (ABC) - This is our new favorite.  Everyday family foibles reflected through the lens of an African-American family, all of it energized by a jolt of the absurd.  Top-notch.  Bonus points for some important racial/cultural discussions.

Blindspot (NBC) - It's a loud, dumb show full of clunky exposition, ridiculous coincidences, and credulity-stretching plot holes.  But... it's also a whole lot of fun and benefits from a cast that completely sells the crazy.  Guilty pleasure.

Fear the Walking Dead (AMC) - The ocean setting is novel and actor  Ruben Blades is magnetic.  But it's a show that's mostly needless.  The only people eager for this sequel show were AMC executives.

The Good Wife (CBS) - Just ended its run as probably the best network drama on TV.  It jumped the shark a couple of years ago when the show inexplicably wasted one whole season on Alicia Florick running for office.  But when it was good, it was HBO good.  Layered, quirky, plush, smart.

How to Get Away with Murder (ABC) - We're losing interest fast.  Probably shouldn't even be on this list.  There's something fascinating about the way the show burns through twists and plot turns that other shows might milk for a whole season, but storytelling tricks like that aren't enough when the entire cast of characters are this skeevy.

Modern Family (ABC) - About as slickly produced and well-oiled as a sitcom can be.  Dependable, reliable, it's the Volvo of comedy.  But there's only two reasons to watch, really: Ty Burrell and Ed O'Neill.

Orphan Black (BBC America) - It can be impossible to keep straight the many plot twists and knots of conspiracy in this tale of clones and genetic engineering.  But the work by actress Tatiana Maslany - who plays all of the clones - is nothing short of amazing.  You'll forget it's the same actress.  She should be winning Emmys.

The Price is Right (CBS) - There's nothing better to put on when you're washing dishes, making dinner, or folding laundry. 

Supergirl (CBS) - As many others have noted, it's a welcome antidote to the sour bleakness of the Zack Snyder DC superhero movies.  A fun, fizzy show with entertaining villains, cute dialogue, and a fantastic lead performance by Melissa Benoist.

Survivor (CBS) - Since its debut in 2000, we've missed just one edition.  We're just as surprised as you are that it's still compelling and engaging.  The last few editions have been among the very best.  Jeff Probst has the best job on TV.

The Walking Dead (AMC) - A grim show that too often revels in its grimness.  But we're fond of many of the characters and more and more the story has (thankfully) turned more toward community-building rather than zombie-killing.

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Knee-jerk review: Fox's "The X-Files" revival

1. The ridiculously complicated UFO conspiracy mythology that so clearly excites writer-director-creator Chris Carter has always been, to us, one of the more frustrating and unsatisfying elements of the "X-Files" experience.  We loved the standalone procedural cases, which were often quite brilliant, but to get to those, each season you always had to sit through 3 or 4 ponderous episodes about this byzantine mythology that kept getting more and more convoluted.
2. That's the problem with this first episode of this... whatever this is.  Reboot?  Revival?  Mulder and Scully are immediately and abruptly back drawn into this same world of lies and coverups and aliens and evil government conspiracies.
3. But what's most upsetting is that in this new revival, Carter is now suggesting that the entire "X-Files" mythology that unspooled for all those years on Fox was just a smokescreen, a lie covering up an even bigger, badder conspiracy.
4. Stop it.  Just stop.
5. And all of that vague double-talk dialogue about who's doing what and why and how it's all so important to everything.  It just makes our head hurt.  Bring back the monsters of the week.
6. David Duchovny's Fox Mulder was always low-key, but here it's like he just woke up from a long nap.
7. At least Gillian Anderson is trying.  Kind of.
8. Whoever decided to cast Joel McHale in a serious role... what were you thinking?  Seriously.  What?
9. And big demerits for lending even a little credence to the idea that the 9/11 attacks was committed by the U.S. government.  That's not funny.  A lot of people - fueled by real-life Fox Mulders on the internet where being a crackpot isn't charming but actually dangerous - really believe that nonsense and it's hurting the country.  Not cool, "X-Files."  Not cool.  End of rant.
10. The same vintage opening credit sequence reminds us how far television and pop culture have come since those creepy Friday nights on Fox.  This isn't exactly a good thing for "The X-Files."
11. We also forgot about the incredibly moody score by Mark Snow.  Those mournful electronic strings are just so distinctive.  A big part of the "X-Files" vibe.
12. There are all kinds of ways that the show could have reunited Fox and Mulder and reopened the X-Files unit.  This is definitely one of those ways.  We just don't think it was the best way.
13. Will it get better?  We're hopeful.  But realistic.

Update: the second episode is better.

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