Television Review - 2017 (Part 4): #3 Viewing Experience of 2017, Cheers, Season 1-4+

When I picked up Alan Sepinwall's TV book, in which he ranked the top 100 shows of all time, I expected to see The Wire, Breaking Bad, The Simpsons, and The Sopranos in the top five.

I did not expect to see Cheers.

I was born in the mid-80s, and as a friend of mine put it, Cheers is that show that you had to wait for to end so you could watch Full House or whatever else was going to come on afterwards. It's a show that has been regarded as a classic, along the lines of stuff like All in the Family, The Cosby Show, Happy Days, etc. In other words, it has always felt to me like pure Nick at Nite fodder, the kind of show that you might expect to enjoy somewhat if you watch it, but nothing over-the-top great.

Then, I read that damn book.

If two reputable TV critics are going to throw Cheers up there with four of the very best shows I've ever had the pleasure of watching, then I simply had to check it out. As of this writing, I'm in the middle of Season Five of Cheers, and intend to continue to plow through until the end. I was a skeptic because it was set in the 80's, and ugh, old TV must be bad! I was a skeptic because it was a sitcom. I was a skeptic because of the main Season One cast, I had never heard of any of them except Rhea Perlman, whom I actually mistook for Frau from the Austin Powers series. That's right, I've seriously never heard of Ted Danson before late 2017.

And well, yeah, it's sort of an imperfect show. There's occasional episodes where the plot is actually pretty uninteresting. There's total flops that distort the characters into ridiculous caricatures of themselves. In particular, the Halloween episode in which Cliff extremely awkwardly courts a similarly extremely awkward woman was hard to watch, because people that bad at speaking to people of the opposite sex legitimately don't exist. Many of the plots can be of low emotional stakes, Diane is occasionally written to be unrealistically (and annoyingly) weird/artsy, and sometimes the dialogue can be so mean-spirited without redemption that it's fair to wonder whether the show even likes some of its own characters. Specifically, I've wondered that quite a bit about Cliff, until the Season Five episode ""House of Horrors with Formal Dining and Used Brick", which presents what is by my count as the first positive interaction between Cliff and Carla after years of nothing but one-sided verbal abuse.

That's about where the negatives end. I'm only halfway through, but I'm acutely aware that I'm watching what is one of the best sitcoms of all time -- possibly the best.

As a sitcom, the discussion begins with the quality of the comedy, and even though it's been off the air for 25 years, the wit is still extremely sharp. A running gag like Carla picking on Diane has the potential to become tired fast. Instead, thanks to the writing and the acting, I find myself eagerly anticipating those lines when they're set up. The humor is simple, but executed far better than what you'd remember from any of the beloved 90's sitcoms. Cheers is similar to any show that goes for this form of comedy, but it takes the formula to perfection.

Since I've consumed more than four seasons of this show, there's almost too much to talk about. I was a big fan of Harry "The Hat", the con artist that kept returning to screw the Cheers gang out of their cash and possessions. The old guy who sits at the rear of the bar and delivers one-liners a couple times per season is a nice repeat gag. Carla's ex-husband Nick always provides great material for an episode here or there as well.

Norm Peterson, the accountant barfly, is one of the best sitcom characters I've ever seen. Every time he enters the bar, the staff and customers greet him with a resounding, "NORM!" (while Diane says a more polished "Norman").  There were a few moments in the middle of Season Three in which I thought the gag was waning, and they would say his name less enthusiastically. When the "NORM!" was less fervent, I actually got a little sad watching the show, because I love that gimmick. Cheers is all about a place where one feels happy, comfortable, and among friends. That Cheers was actually able to make me feel a little down when they wouldn't yell a sitcom character's name all that loud is a testament to the sense of community that they've created in that bar. The viewer feels it too.

Back on Norm, one of the strongest episodes was in Season Four, when Norm is up for a promotion against a co-worker, whose wife has been sleeping with the boss (who must make the decision as to who will be promoted). Norm becomes very tempted to use the information, even more so after it's revealed that he doesn't get the job and that the reason is because the executives' wives don't get along with his wife, Vera. Still, despite being a noticeably flawed man, Norm passes the trial of character and keeps the rumor to himself. It's one of several times that he's tested during the first four seasons and he usually finds himself on the right side of morality. Norm can be gruff, insulting, rude, and something of an absent husband, but Cheers makes him one of the two most likable characters anyway because of great writing and George Wendt's outstanding performance.

The other of the show's most likable characters? That'd be the lead, Sam Malone (Danson). The character is drawn and played perfectly by Danson. He's a total ladies man who, despite his many relations with beautiful women, is fighting himself over his attraction to the brainy, often grating Diane. Sam is often portrayed as unintelligent, but it's clear he has a good heart and that he's there for his friends. It's obvious how much he loves his bar without him ever having to come out and say it. His charisma and wit often carries the show, and the will-they-won't-they relationship he has with Diane is often at its heart (and inspires many subsequent TV shows). Sam is treated like a hero by the bar's patrons and Carla. Despite Diane's highlighting of his issues, he sort of feels like one to the viewer, too (albeit for different reasons).

Cheers had to deal with a tragedy early on in its run, as Nicholas Colasanto's (the actor portraying Sam's bartender, "Coach") health began to fade during Season Three and the actor sadly passed away. On screen, Colasanto was very endearing as Coach Ernie Pantusso, and even though most of the comedy was in the form of him misunderstanding things, Cheers was often able to elevate that somewhat mundane comedic formula to something consistently entertaining. Even better, when the show turned to Woody Harrelson's Woody Boyd to take Coach's place in Season Four, they didn't miss a beat, as Woody's rural-kid-in-the-big-city act has provided a natural replacement as the resident character who doesn't quite get what everyone else is saying.

There are a ton of episodes of Cheers and picking this up shortly after having my second daughter has ensured that this project won't end anytime soon, but I can't wait to see what the show's back half has to offer. It's a truly wonderful show that is rightfully considered a timeless classic.

Seasons One Through Four Grade: A

Television Review - 2017 (Part 3): #4 Viewing Experience of 2017, Master of None

I spoke fondly of Season One of Master of None, Aziz Ansari and (former Fire Joe Morgan writer) Alan Yang's show about a small-time actor who's the son of Indian immigrants. The show's premise lends itself to exploration of several things, such as the difficulty of adapting to living in a new place, how the associated culture clash affects children of those who carry old traditions with them, and racism both inside and outside of the entertainment industry. However, while these themes are very important to what makes Master of None work, it's Ansari's work as Dev Shah that makes the show such an addicting watch. Dev navigates situations that are completely ordinary, yet very in tune with the human experience and Ansari has a somewhat difficult-to-describe way of getting the viewer invested in it all.

Dev's character is extremely engaging; he seems able to communicate comfortably with just about everyone and is very willing to try out new experiences. In fact, if there's one knock on the realism of the show, it seems like Dev is a little too good at social interaction. He's "on" all the time, which makes it a little too noticeable that you're watching a TV character. However, I guess I've met a person or two like that in my life, so maybe that sentiment is just me being envious of people who can pull that off.

Master of None Season Two picks up a little ways after Season One left off. Dev moves to Italy and he's in an apprenticeship as a pasta maker. The journey to Italy is short-lived, but it introduces us to Francesca, a woman who will eventually become a charming late-season love interest for Dev despite her engagement to another man (with whom she's clearly not satisfied). The season premiere, which is shot in black and white, is one of the seasons's strongest episodes. It's supposed to be a nod to Italian cinema, and I'll confess, all of that was totally lost on me, but still, it was a lot of fun watching Dev and the boy, Mario, troll around Italy to search for Dev's stolen phone so that he might reconnect with Sara, a woman with whom he had a successful first date. Another standout episode was "Thanksgiving", which follows Dev's friend Denise and her changing relationships with her family as she comes out as gay, told through a series of Turkey Day flashbacks.

Also excellent was "New York, I Love You", which shifts the focus away from Dev entirely and puts background characters at the forefront. It was a great moment for Master of None, as it proves that the show is great at storytelling even without relying on its charismatic lead. Similar to Louie before it, Master of None doesn't set any boundaries for itself and is free to follow its whims to tell whatever tale it likes. With Ansari and Yang at the helm, there's plenty of reason to believe they'll be successful no matter what they'd like to try.

In this age of limitless shows to check out (seriously, there are too many, we need to have an agreement to hard-cap the number of shows so that we can actually talk to each other about common viewings again), Master of None continually pops up when recommendations for Netflix stuff are solicited, so I think that says a great deal about how good it is. If you haven't seen it, give it a go.

Season Grade: A

Television Review - 2017 (Part 2): #5 Viewing Experience of 2017, BoJack Horseman

5) BoJack Horseman (Season Four)

This is a step back for BoJack, as it's ranked second each of the last two times I've made this list. I did full reviews here of the first seven episodes of the season before finally accepting the idea that I'd come to dread thinking about having to write something meaningful and lengthy about each episode, so I stalled a little bit. There were a few winners among the earlier Season Four, most notably "The Old Sugarman Place", but by and large, the season dragged until the ninth installment, "Ruthie".

Still, even if it didn't ascend to the heights of Seasons Two or Three, Season Four of BoJack Horseman was yet another wild emotional ride. The show typically builds to heavier stuff in the later episodes of a season, and Season Four was no exception. It's just that the ride to get there wasn't quite as fun this time around and several of the non-BoJack storylines dragged along. Those of you who followed my episode recaps know that I didn't care for the "Mr. Peanutbutter for governor" storyline, and as it has in the past, when BoJack Horseman goes political, it tends to lose what makes it special and becomes just another voice in the echo chamber, making the same statements and jokes that you see retweeted into your timeline every day without any additional creativity. There were a few pretty great jokes along the way ("Tonight, we dine on Zach Braff!"), but for the most part it was a storyline I could have done without.

Todd was mostly his goofy Todd self this season, which is enjoyable, but I liked that the show dove deeper into his life as an asexual person. As I've mentioned before, this is an under-explored element in popular culture and it was interesting to see Todd both come to terms with it and explore relationships with other asexual people.

Most of Princess Carolyn's arc this season was forgettable until "Ruthie", one of the more gut-wrenching episodes that the show has pulled on us during its four-season run.  The reveal that the happy future was just something she made up to deal with her struggles was the not-so-insignificant cherry on top of watching all aspects of her life come crashing down in sequence (though thankfully, we finally got the follow-up from the Judah/Admiral Witherspoon meeting). By season's end, with some help from Todd, she's able to pull herself out of it and start anew. Overall, I was a little let down with how little I was engrossed with her storyline, but "Ruthie" was damn near good enough to make up for all of the lulls.

Finally, we come to BoJack, who yet again had an excellent season-long arc. They teased us last season with the possibility that BoJack had a daughter, and this season we got to meet Hollyhock, who seems like a good kid but is confirmed to have some of BoJack's unfortunate tendencies, most notably having a voice in her head telling her that she's worthless and stupid and ugly. One of the best scenes of the season is when she asks BoJack if the voice ever goes away, and BoJack doesn't have the heart to tell her the truth -- that the voice has been dragging him down for his whole life.

The root of BoJack's issues, however, is revealed in a series of flashbacks involving the childhood of his mother, Beatrice. To this point in the series, Beatrice has been portrayed as an awful mother who just put BoJack down and treated him like garbage his whole life. That BoJack Horseman was able to turn Beatrice into something resembling a sympathetic character was truly remarkable. She's the way she is because of her father, Joseph Sugarman, who's suddenly the biggest villain of the entire series. Joseph had his wife lobotomized rather than deal with her thoughts and feelings and his attitude towards women and girls essentially poisoned Beatrice. She never had a chance to turn out halfway decent, so it's ultimately Joseph's shittiness that is the root of much of what is wrong with BoJack. 

In yet another crazy twist, it turns out that BoJack's father, Butterscotch, is actually Hollyhock's father as well (which is probably for the best, as BoJack isn't much of a parent). In the last scene of the season, Hollyhock and BoJack have a heart-to-heart about this realization, and both approach the discomfort with great maturity that shows growth in both characters. Hollyhock reiterates what she's been saying all along -- that she doesn't need another dad, but then she speaks the line that gives us possibly the happiest moment of the entire series:

"But...I've never had a brother."

For just a single moment, all of the pain and sadness that we've seen in BoJack for four seasons is washed away, and the beleaguered horse puts a genuine smile on his face. This was a necessary ending for the season, as we've seen BoJack progressively sink lower and lower over three years and this single moment points to a possible recovery and maybe even a happy ending for the character. I don't know how long BoJack Horseman will be on TV, but I do know that it couldn't go on forever on that trajectory. This points BoJack's life in a new and interesting direction, and for anyone who's gone through this strange, weird, journey of agony with BoJack for four years, the conclusion of Season Four was truly satisfying to watch.

Season Grade: A-

You're the Worst, Season Four

First off, this is a standard review. It is not part of my Top 5 Viewing Experiences of 2017.

Also, there's probably mild spoilers and stuff.

You're the Worst is one of the most refreshingly entertaining comedies I've ever picked up and the first three seasons were side-splitting, heartfelt, and totally great. However, much like other memorable comedies before it (The Office, Archer), Season Four is when the cracks start to show. Comedies don't typically build out deep ensembles and once a story with huge plot moments plays itself out (think about the big Jim/Pam moments from Seasons Two and Three of The Office, Archer's breast cancer arc in Season Two, and space-marooning of Barry in Season Three), it's hard for the show to ascend to greater heights or even equal those that were already achieved.

Still, You're the Worst was able to fight regression better than either of the two aforementioned shows, and though there were problems with Season Four, it still delivered a reasonably entertaining string of episodes. With Jimmy having run away from Gretchen after proposing to her, the series' big moment has essentially passed and we're left to deal with the falling action. Unfortunately, the falling action involved the four main characters (Jimmy, Gretchen, Edgar, and Lindsay) largely going their separate ways and rarely winding up in the same place together. You're the Worst works the best when these four (along with Vernon) are in the same place and can play off of each other. The tangent storylines had, at best, mixed results.

Lindsay embarks on a career as a fashion consultant and actually seems to have her shit together for the first time in the series. At times, it can be hard to reconcile Lindsay's occasional perceptiveness in Season Four with how unrealistically stupid she's been in previous seasons, but I guess I can't blame the show for wanting to push her growth. She comes to realize that none of her new co-workers particularly like her (which makes sense) and, unrelatedly, that her mother is the reason that her and Becca (who's been a very weak character this season) are so screwed up. By the end of the season, she commits herself to helping other people and actually sort of succeeds at it. Even if she's always going to be "the stupid one", at least it seems Lindsay is moving away from being the actual worst on a show called You're the Worst.

In complete contrast to Season Three, the Edgar plotlines were boring and terrible. It was evident from the very start that his comedy buddy Max was a piece of garbage, and it was totally unappealing to have jerkish tendencies develop in the man who was previously the show's most likable person. His relationship with Lindsay made sense and was enjoyable, but that aside, nothing made me want to check out more this season than an Edgar story. At the very least, they ended Edgar's season-long arc on a good note. The scenes between him and Jimmy in the finale were great, and the moments of mutual respect between the two seemed earned after all they've been through, both with each other and elsewhere.

Gretchen got a ton of focus this season and much like for the character, the viewing experience was a set of major peaks and valleys. We've already seen Gretchen depressed before, and while her Season Four spiral makes complete sense given what Jimmy did to her, it doesn't feel fresh or interesting. Her relationship with Boone was largely "meh" because Boone wasn't a very interesting character. However, it did lead to the pretty great episode in which she meets Boone's ex-wife. Gretchen's trip to her hometown and re-connection with her old friend Heidi was also stellar, as it became further fleshed out what a trainwreck she is and always has been (and man, those poor high school kids are scarred for life). The best version of Gretchen is when she's with Jimmy. As was shown by the excellent movie theater scene, Jimmy needs her as another voice when chewing out random strangers (honestly, I will never get sick of watching Jimmy and Gretchen simultaneously tell off the people who are unfortunate enough to cross their path). They were apart far too much this season.

Finally we come to Jimmy. I honestly couldn't care less about Jimmy's writing career and I feel like too much of the last two seasons has focused on that. The season premiere, however, in which Jimmy was living in the trailer park community and hanging out with Bert (who might as well have been labeled "The Ghost of Jimmy Future") was truly great. He spent much of the rest of the season working on moving on from Gretchen and his isolation from the rest of the cast didn't serve the show well. Chris Geere is both hysterical and somehow amazing at getting us to feel for such an asshole of a character, but he's at his best when put in situations where he can play off of the other leads. We didn't get enough of that.

Bullet Points

• Poor Killian. Guy can't catch a break in life.

• Vernon was in the background too much this season. Season Three's "The Seventh Layer" is still one of my favorite episodes of the series. I get that his act could wear thin if over-exposed, but in semi-regular doses, he's close to the best character on the show

• Ummm...why is Honey Nutz gone?

• Lindsay popping out of a garbage can a-la-Oscar-the-Grouch was one of the best gags of the season

Season Grade: B+

Television Review - 2017 (Part 1)

Welcome to my annual review of television shows I've watched during the year.

For reference, here's a list of shows I've watched this year, in no particular order. Unless otherwise indicated, I'm only considering the episodes released during 2017 (or the most recent season).

Suits (almost all of the most recently-completed season)

BoJack Horseman

Silicon Valley

Top Chef

The Big Bang Theory

Catastrophe (a few Season Three episodes)

You're the Worst

Archer

The Sopranos (Seasons Two through Six)

South Park

Better Call Saul

Master of None

This Is Us (Season One, half of Season Two)

Billions (Seasons One and Two)

High Maintenance (all webisodes and full-length HBO episodes)

Cheers (Seasons One through part of Season Four or so, still in progress)

Ozark (two episodes)

Rick and Morty (Season Three, various Seasons One & Two episodes)

Shows That I've Dropped, and Why

I was particularly aggressive about dropping shows this year. With my first daughter staying up later and my second daughter arriving in the fall, the amount of time I've had to watch TV decreased steadily this year, and as a result, my standards have increased for what shows justify me spending that precious amount of time. So here's a list of all the shows that were on the list last year and no longer appear, or some others that do appear and I have decided to stop watching.

1) Suits. This show was once outstanding, but it's just been on too long and they no longer have an interesting story to tell. Meghan Markle leaving the show to become the Queen of England or whatever probably will only exacerbate that problem

2) Modern Family. Reasons were described last year.

3) Mr. Robot. Ditto

4) Catastrophe. My wife really likes this show and I tried to get into Season Three but I just wound up falling asleep a lot. This is probably the show of highest quality (currently, at least) that I've dropped. I don't know why, but I'm just not that stoked on it.

5) The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Explained last year, but it bears re-mentioning: Lillian is probably one of my least-favorite TV characters of all time.

6) Ballers. The review explains it pretty well. It's just not very good.

7) Archer. This one's been on thin ice with me before and I didn't care for the Dreamland concept. It's time to say good-bye to what was one of my favorite shows a half-decade ago. I haven't actively stopped watching it yet, as I've seen all of the most recent season, but I won't pick it back up in the spring.

8) This Is Us. This one has been a victim of my waning attention span. I don't think the show got that much worse from Season One (though it has been a slight downgrade). Kate and (to a lesser extent) Kevin are still very weak characters and Sterling K. Brown can't carry the present-day portion of the show all by himself. I might jump into it again at some point, but for the time being, I've told my wife to carry on by herself with this one.

9) Ozark. I may pick this up again. I was very interested in the only two episodes that I watched, but this was around when we had our baby. We didn't keep plowing through.

Shows That Didn't Release New Episodes or Are Complete

1) It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 

2) Louie

I'm spacing this out a little more than I have in past years. Over the course of the next few weeks, I'm going to be rolling out reviews of my favorite five TV viewing experiences of the year. Stay tuned...as a change of pace we'll have some actual content around here in the month to come.

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode Seven: Underground

Well, we got a Mr. Peanutbutter political storyline that didn't completely suck. This episode of BoJack Horseman was heavy on the silly and light on the critical character moments, but it did give us the long-awaited Bojack/Diane reunion. Despite all the damage there, there's a mutual understanding between these two characters that intertwine them in a way that's deeper than anything Mr. Peanutbutter could possibly be for Diane. Sure, Diane stresses that Mr. Peanutbutter is the best thing that ever happened to her, and maybe she's right, but that doesn't mean that he's always going to be the person that gets her best. It's clear that Diane -- deeply depressed, broken Diane -- only truly gets to be herself around BoJack. Whether the consequences of that relationship make it worth it or not, there's an importance there that can't be overlooked.

The primary plot of this episode, however, involves the main cast along with a glut of Mr. Peanutbutter's boosters getting trapped underground in his house when the fracking done under the foundation causes it to sink into the earth. The survival story has all of the classic elements: collective loss of sanity, discussions about cannibalism, desperate power struggles, and alternating feelings of hope and despair. BoJack Horseman manages to make it entertainingly ridiculous with the arrival of Governor Woodchuck, who has the leadership and organization skills necessary to get the group through the situation. Mr. Peanutbutter, however, quickly turns the crowd on him, which leads to a quick devouring of all of the food and assorted craziness thereafter.

Zach Braff as himself was great in this episode, as the writers both had him desperately search for someone to validate his parking for his Prius (which makes him a good person, dammit!) and played off of his episode-ending monologues from Scrubs. I've also thoroughly enjoyed Andre Braugher's turn as Governor Woodchuck, who offers intermittent dry commentary to the situation once he's taped to a ceiling fan for the heinous crime of trying to lead everyone to survival. And who could forget Jessica Biel's lunacy, in which she gets the entire band of survivors to worship fire?

The "C" storyline, involving Princess Carolyn and Todd and a weird adventure with anthropomorphic ants in the underground was a little too strange for my tastes. Princess Carolyn has been the show's second-strongest character after BoJack since the beginning of the series, but she has been sorely lacking in interesting plots this season. It was Season One's "Say Anything" that began to get us to take her seriously and that episode was the moment that BoJack Horseman transitioned from a goofy romp about an alcoholic horse to a show with deep, fully-formed characters that felt like they really matter. This show needs Princess Carolyn, and not the version who's only on screen to comically negotiate with ants or drop Courtney Portnoy tongue-twisters.

Bullet Points:

• Best one-liner of the episode, at Biel's expense: "Okay, settle down, you future hard Jeopardy question."

• The joke about Whole Foods and gentrification was already made by South Park. I don't know that South Park has elevated to "Simpsons Did It" status, so that sorta feels like robbery at worst, and tired at best.

• Hey, in defense of Season Two of Friday Night Lights, it didn't get to finish properly thanks to the writers' strike. This is sort of a popular punching bag and I don't think it's fair.

• I've been underwhelmed by this season so far and have only truly been blown away by The Old Sugarman Place. I've heard the closing cluster of episodes is great, and I'm very much looking forward to them, but the disappointment is palpable.

Episode Grade: B

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode Six: Stupid Piece of Sh*t

We know BoJack Horseman doesn't like himself and we have a pretty good idea what's going on in his head at any given point in the series because of how well-drawn he is. However, BoJack Horseman gave us some audio of his train of thought in "Stupid Piece of Sh*t", and damn, it is intense. Not only do we get to listen to all the crappy things that BoJack says to himself on a second-to-second basis, but the episode provides crude cartoons of what's going on in his head and how his brain processes the people around him. It's a creative and entertaining method of storytelling that elevated what would have been an otherwise mundane episode (save for two great scenes).

The "A" plot of the episode centers around the deteriorating Beatrice asking "where the baby is", so Hollyhock gets her a doll to treat as her baby and Beatrice can't tell the difference. When Beatrice shows love and support for the doll, BoJack loses his shit. He's seeing the treatment that he never got as a kid and it's paining him because he blames so much of his life on his awful parents. He hurls the doll over his deck and Beatrice breaks down in tears. This is going to sound weird because all BoJack did was toss an inanimate object off a cliff, but the show really makes it feel like a baby was murdered. And of course, from Beatrice's point of view, one was.

BoJack is able to get the doll back with the help of Mr. Peanutbutter and gives it back to a less-than-appreciative Beatrice, but then the real problem comes. BoJack has to talk to Hollyhock about how horribly he acted. Throughout the episode, BoJack's train of thought reveals how terrified he is of ruining his daughter and protecting her from him despite something of a growing attachment between the two. He explains to her as honestly as possible that the reason he's not present is because he's a shitty person and it's not Hollyhock's fault. She seems to get that, but at the same time, she reveals that she's got a lot of the same deep insecurities as BoJack. She, too, has a train of thought telling her that no one likes her and that she's stupid and ugly. She asks BoJack whether that's just a teenage girl that'll go away over time, and despite completely believing the contrary, BoJack says that it will. It's a sweet moment in which he decides to protect her innocence. Plus, BoJack doesn't really know whether it will go away for Hollyhock or not. He suspects not because she's his daughter, but everyone is different and there's no guarantee that this state of perpetually feeling terrible about oneself is hereditary.

Elsewhere, Princess Carolyn is forced to work with Rutabaga Rabbitowitz again. They actually make an effective team despite how badly he screwed her over in Season Two and how aggressively they competed with one another in Season Three. Their plan to have Courtney Portnoy marry Todd blows up when the latter realizes that (duh) he doesn't want to have a sham marriage. Rutabaga leaves to take care of his family, but not before telling Princess Carolyn that she'd be "hilarious" at being a mother because of how dedicated she is to her job. Judah kindly reassures her once Rutabaga leaves, which is good because it is revealed that Princess Carolyn is pregnant. Also there was some nonsense with Meryl Streep tossed in there. I'm kinda meh on this whole storyline; so far, the Princess Carolyn material has not been strong this year.

Bullet Points:

• "These are cookies. This is not breakfast. You are eating cookies. Stop it. Stop eating cookies, go make yourself breakfast. Stop it. Don't eat one more cookie. Put that down. Do not eat that cookie. I can't believe you ate that cookie."

• As expected, Beatrice and Tina (the bear-nurse) now appear in BoJack's house in the opening credits.

• "Mom is "totes" into a baby? Is it possible the baby got dipped in brandy at some point? Or cigarettes, or regressive ideas about immigrants?"

• "Also, Eddie Money doesn't do the taking home in "Take Me Home Tonight," so if you're taking me home, then I would be Eddie Money."

• "I got seven kids and a wife who's really into me co-parenting, or, as she calls it, "parenting."

Episode Grade: B+

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode Five: Thoughts and Prayers

BoJack Horseman once again came up short while trying to be something it's not: a show about politics.

In the one sense, it's totally understandable, because ever since Donald Trump became a thing, everything has become politicized. It's hard to turn on a late night talk show, watch a football game, log on to social media, or even have a conversation with friends and family without hot-button issues creeping in. The problem is that BoJack Horseman doesn't have the biting satire and nuanced storytelling of South Park, nor is it equipped to comment on hot-of-the presses stories (or tweets) like the late-night hosts. When BoJack Horseman tries to veer into this territory, it provides nothing that you can't get from the Twitter echo-chamber and the writing comes off pretty flat as a result.

Take the following lines from this episode:

• "Thoughts and prayers." This is repeated nine times during the episode, and it's meant to be a shot at the hallow virtue-signaling done by celebrities and normies all over social media (i.e., a person is not posting their feelings on social media because their sadness compels them to, they're posting because they want other people to think they're compassionate, and/or get likes/reactions). However, it's a joke that's been made many times before and far better. As a one-off, this might have worked, but they kept going back to it with diminishing returns.

• "I am totally unqualified to cover a news story this important. But as a straight white male, I will plow forward with confidence and assume I'm doing fine." The underlying message here from A Ryan Seacrest Type isn't wrong, it's just something that's been beaten ruthlessly to death.

• "I can't believe this country hates women more than it loves guns." This was probably the laziest line of the episode, as that sort of message was plainly clear by the immediately preceding banning of guns in reaction to Diane's speech. In of itself, it's an arguable statement to make that's presented as fact, despite nothing but a ridiculous congressional (I think?) scene to earn it in the context of the episode.

This country does need more responsible gun control laws. Women deserve to live as safely as men do, and men absolutely take their relative safety for granted. Straight white males exist in a state of relative privilege that most of them fail to recognize and all of them fail to deserve. These messages are all true, but in this episode, BoJack Horseman wasn't able to deliver any of them in a meaningful, creative, or nuanced* way. In fact, they didn't even try to do that; they just had their characters directly speak the messages. It would be unfair to expect BoJack Horseman to illustrate these points via extended and powerful storytelling a-la-The Wire. However, their chosen method of trying to extract a laugh by flatly observing these societal problems isn't worth a full episode of TV. 

*The one thing I did think was interesting that did add some nuance was the way that Diane's worldview was warped by the power of holding a gun and that her stance on their usefulness flipped once it became a source of empowerment rather than a threat. Diane's not one to compromise her morals easily and it was a nice way for the show to at least acknowledge the seductive hold that guns can have on people.

It's completely fair, on the other hand, to expect BoJack Horseman to understand what it is at its core and develop content accordingly. Fortunately, the BoJack plot in this episode was on point and kept the episode from completely floundering. It's been a long time since BoJack has actually interacted with his horrible mother, Beatrice, and he tracks her down in a retirement home (with some not-so-eager help from Princess Carolyn) only to find that she has dementia and doesn't remember him. "The Old Sugarman Place" did a great deal to humanize (heh) Beatrice, and that pays off here. There's something tragic to Beatrice's condition when it could have seemed more like "horrible woman is on her way out".

BoJack just wants her to remember him so that he can give her a straight "Fuck you, Mom" to the face. That particularly hits home because BoJack Horseman to this point has only used the word "fuck" once per season, all in critical moments. Beatrice recognizes BoJack in re-runs of Horsin' Around, so BoJack tries to put on a live Horsin' Around skit with Hollyhock to jog Beatrice's memory. That backfires when Beatrice has a bad reaction to the skit and winds up getting herself kicked out of the home, ultimately leading to her living with BoJack. It's a very interesting way to set up future episodes.

Unfortunately, the gun control storyline (and its associated offshoots) is possibly the weakest that BoJack Horseman has ever done. This was the worst episode of the show since early in Season One.

Episode Grade: B-

I can't believe this country hates women more than it loves guns.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=bojack-horseman-2014&episode=s04e05

I can't believe this country hates women more than it loves guns.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=bojack-horseman-2014&episode=s04e05I can't believe this country hates women more than it loves guns.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=bojack-horseman-2014&episode=s04e05

I am totally unqualified to cover a news story this important.
But as a straight white male, I will plow forward with confidence and assume I'm doing fine.

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=bojack-horseman-2014&episode=s04e05

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode Four: Commence Fracking

With my daughter being born a little over a week ago and so much time having elapsed since I watched this episode, I won't really be doing a full recap of it because nothing about it stuck out to me either way. When I don't have a lot to say, these recaps can be a roadblock to me continuing on with the series, and I don't want that. Maybe I'll flesh this out later. Probably not though.

Episode Grade: B

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode Three: "Hooray! Todd Episode!"

The writers of BoJack Horseman have always had their work cut out for them when it comes to the character of Todd Chavez. The first six episodes of the series made me think that the show was mostly going to consist of frivolous humor and Todd was the biggest goofball of them all. Todd was created as BoJack's naive deadbeat roommate whose silly antics were usually good for a laugh. His stories were largely on the periphery of Season One and as the show drilled heavier into the characters of BoJack, Diane, and Princess Carolyn, it seemed that Todd was just going to be used as a comic relief character.

Of course, the show has evolved to take all of its major characters seriously. That gets tricky at times with Todd, a character who once built his own amusement park out of trash. Todd's penchant for screwing around means that we spend most of his screen time thinking "what sort of kooky caper will he cook up next?" BoJack Horseman somehow has to balance that image with its desire to treat Todd as a person with feelings that we're supposed to care about. That's tough to do, but they've been able to pull it off, especially of late.

"Hooray! Todd Episode!" is the latest installment that threads the needle perfectly. Since near the beginning of Season Three, the show has done a great job of developing the "Todd is asexual" story and despite all the goofy dancing and obtuse behavior, they manage to make us the serious moments resonate. His reunion with BoJack, who has either backstabbed or left Todd hanging in at least one major moment in each season, perfectly encapsulates all the pain that he's experienced as a part of that relationship. His coming-out-asexual moment really feels like a strong moment after all of the B-plots he's been given over the last season or so that have been building towards it. In hindsight, though, it makes all his attempts to connect with women over the internet in Season One seem out of place, so I do wonder whether this was intended from the beginning or whether that's something that the writers will spin in hindsight as Todd trying to figure himself out before he actually found himself with a real live woman in Emily who was interested in him.

Aside from the serious stuff, this episode is great fun as Todd and his typically-helpful demeanor tries to fulfill the demands of his various friends while BoJack's probable daughter Hollyhock enters his life to complicate matters. When we first caught a glimpse of Hollyhock late in last season, I was thinking that we'd get some broken girl who had never felt complete because she'd never met her father (and since we just met Hollyhock, I'm not completely ruling it out), but instead we get a total waste of space who has inherited most of BoJack's worst traits. Todd puts it best when he says, "Um, we may not need that DNA test."

In addition to being a great Todd episode, we get a couple nuggets that set up the plot for later. Obviously, BoJack connecting with his daughter is going to be the big one, but the pending conflict between Diane and Mr. Peanutbutter feels inevitable. Diane's back in activist mode, and despite what she takes from her encounter with Todd-as-Channing-Tatum, you can't help but feel that exploiting her husband is going to be a tempting way to get people to read her articles.

Bullet Points

• It feels like Princess Carolyn has been taken out of focus for the most part this season. I bet she'll be featured heavily in a soon-to-come episode

• I legitimately did not know what fracking was before watching this episode. Is that bad?

• "It's me, Channing Tatum. I'm busy channing right now, but you can come back...Tatum?"

• "Less of course."

Episode Grade: A-

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode Two: The Old Sugarman Place

Now that's more like it.

As the story turns back to BoJack, the series also takes the opportunity to delve into an under-explored character, Beatrice Horseman. BoJack's mother's cruelty has long been pointed to as a reason that BoJack's so messed up, but before now, we didn't really get a good sense of why she's such a bitch. "The Old Sugarman Place" clears it up, and true to BoJack Horseman, the truth is unfathomably sad.

BoJack, not really knowing what to do after alienating everyone in his life, drives to his mom's parents' summer home in Michigan (which I hear has had its tourism hurt by the advent of air travel). The place is a dump, and we get some great comedy out of BoJack trying to fix the place up while doing a very poor job of assuming a fake identity. For the record, if I had to fix up an old place like that, I probably would have been just as ineffective as BoJack, with the exception of when I got to the hardware store, I wouldn't have had a damn clue what to buy. BoJack lived my nightmare in this episode.

The structure of the episode is very clever. It interweaves BoJack's story at the house in present-day and Beatrice's childhood with her family. Her older brother CrackerJack, (voiced by Lin Manuel-Miranda!) is headed off to war, which doesn't end well, as he's killed in battle. The family, particularly Beatrice's mother Honey, is never the same again. Honey falls into a manic depression trying to fill the new hole that's been punched in her life, but nothing works, and her husband Joseph is basically an embodiment of stereotypical male attitudes towards women in the World War II era. He actually utters, "As a modern American man I am woefully unprepared to manage a woman's emotions. I was never taught, and I will not learn."

That sort of ridiculous admission takes a turn for the dark when, later in the episode, Honey pleads with Joseph to make her better, saying that she doesn't know how to fix herself. Joseph, in turn, does one of the most unspeakably awful things I've ever seen in real life, live action TV, or cartoon TV. It's a crushing moment when Beatrice encounters the "new" Honey. Her personality is muted and there's stitches across her forehead. The bastard made her get a lobotomy because he couldn't deal with her struggles. As if that wasn't hard enough to watch, the last line Beatrice says -- echoing an earlier quote in the episode -- is, "Why, I have half a mind...". It ranks as one of the most brutal moments that BoJack has ever done.

In the present, BoJack actually gets his house repaired thanks to the generous help of the Sugarmans' neighbor, Ed, who is a dragonfly. It's clear Ed's wife passed away some time ago and that he's still in pain from that, and BoJack and Ed actually form a sort of bond as they work to fix the house. There's a great scene in which they overlay the past and present and Honey and Ed perform the same sad song for a crowd. The experience sort of unhinges Ed and when BoJack stupidly falls off a roof in a weird attempt to get Ed to fly again, it works, but culminates in Ed exclaiming that he doesn't want to live anymore after BoJack saves him from drowning in a lake.

BoJack eventually talks to Diane and I like to think that how much he misses her, rather than her pep-talk, is what drives BoJack to head on home. I'm thoroughly convinced that we haven't seen the last of a BoJack / Diane romance, and this episode went a long way toward fueling that fire. The next thing we know, BoJack has the Sugarmans' house destroyed and a bewildered Ed is just left there trying to figure out what the heck this was all for. BoJack simply says that it was all a big waste of time, and quotes Sarah Lynn with a solid "suck a dick, dumb shit" before vacating the premises. Ed was simply another victim of BoJack's self-serving behavior. He destroys everything he touches and while the show doesn't provide any further updates on Ed in this episode, there's potential for darkness here.

"The Old Sugarman Place", while packed full of gut-wrenching moments, is what BoJack Horseman is at it's core and how it works at its best. The creative storytelling, the stellar voice acting, and the way that Raphael Bob-Waksberg & Co. give such depth and vivid angst to their animated characters never ceases to amaze me. We didn't have to wait long for the first fantastic BoJack episode of Season Four, and after a shaky premiere, it's a relief to see that this show hasn't lost itself.

Bullet Points:

• Maybe we should all be just a little bit more concerned about Joseph's secretary's self-esteem, huh?

• "Oh, of course, the twelve hundred pound horse will shimmy up a drain pipe to get it, that makes more sense than the dragonfly, who has the word "fly" in the name of what he is."

• The easiest way to get BoJack's goat remains talking about how fat he is.

Episode Grade: A

BoJack Horseman Season Four, Episode One: See Mr. Peanutbutter Run

I don't know how well I'm going to be able to keep up with these because my second daughter is due to be born literally any day now. So if these stop abruptly at some point, please know that it is because my life has been turned upside down once again and I would probably rather be sleeping.

My single greatest fear coming into this season of BoJack Horseman is the plot line teed up at the end of last season involving Mr. Peanutbutter running for governor. These days -- thanks to Donald Trump -- comedy shows, late night talk shows, and an unhealthy percentage of social media has devolved into people trying to tell the same jokes in different ways. Trump sucks, and the underlying issues are important, but I often find myself longing for the days when there was something else to say. BoJack Horseman is a special treasure; it has something unique and important to say about self-worth, happiness, and the struggle for both. I don't want to see it become Family Guy. Shit, I don't even want to see it become South Park, a show that handles the nuances of hot-button political issues better than any other I've seen. That isn't what BoJack Horseman is at its heart. I hope it does not become just another voice in the echo chamber.

The opening episode of Season Four doesn't feature the titular character at all. BoJack has gone all Luke Skywalker on everyone and only Diane seems to care. Diane's struggling with Mr. Peanutbutter's campaign and just wants it to end while appearing supportive of her husband's aspirations. While the premise at hand is ridiculous, I'm sure that many have found themselves in lower-stakes versions of that situation and that makes it relatable. We know from last season, though, that Diane's new blogging gig is going to pressure her to expose dirt on Mr. Peanutbutter, so I'm sure a lot of her concern isn't just the coffee-snatching annoyances invading her house, it's a desire to avoid that conflict.

The central plot of the episode is crazy; Mr. Peanutbutter wants to be governor, but there's no election at hand; he needs to oust the current governor, Chuck Woodchuck. In the spirit of true Hollywoo craziness, he challenges Woodchuck to a ski race for the rights to be governor of California. That, of course, doesn't make any sense. The rather level-headed Woodchuck pays it no mind, but obviously the Hollywoo media and general public is all about it, and heck, there's a State Legislature, dammit! So of course, the law is changed such that the outcome of a ski race with poorly drawn rules determines the governor. I say "poorly drawn", because Todd drops out of the sky from his "drone throne" (a truly great and hilarious Todd concept) and crosses the finish line first, and that apparently counts.

Todd refuses the gubernatorial bid, as he's still not feeling all that sure of himself following Emily's labeling of him as asexual. That refusal makes the seat vacant until the completion of a general election, thereby setting up the plotline we thought we'd get from the beginning: Mr. Peanutbutter vs. Chuck Woodchuck in a heated election race.

I want to jump back to that Todd subplot, because I think the show can do some great work with it. There hasn't been a lot of attention paid to asexual people in pop culture; it's sort of an unexplored territory (at least in my experience). I think that it could be interesting, particularly because there's probably a lot of struggles that haven't been exposed to the public eye. In just this premiere, we're faced with two: Emily distances herself a bit from Todd once she understands that he's not going to be a sexual partner and Todd himself rejects getting slapped with the label, as he at least says that it's not quite the right descriptor of his situation. The Todd scenes were the strongest part of this premiere and I'm intrigued by what they might do with this going forward.

As for my greatest fear coming into this season? Well, there's references to Mr. Peanutbutter not really knowing what he's doing, being completely unqualified, never really thinking things would go as far as they do, verbally berating an ostensibly competent counterpart, etc. It's the same shit South Park did with Mr. Garrison last year, only with someone who's easier to like (and also: a full year later). BoJack Horseman deserves all the benefit of the doubt in the world, so I'll give them a chance to see how they want to play this one out. Hopefully they understand that telling a tired story with their excellent characters doesn't make the tale any less stale.

Bullet Points:

• "GO WOODCHARLES!" (in an episode with plenty of solid jokes, that landed the best for me)

• "Ski Race" is not one of the "Constitutional and Democratic Paths to Governorship" but dammit, "Lawful Elk Duel" can get you that office, fair and square.

• It wasn't immediately clear to me whether Princess Carolyn had a miscarriage or an abortion, but maybe I missed something. 

• I'm honestly curious as to how the BoJack / Mr. Peanutbutter relationship will play when BoJack inevitably comes back at some point. Mr. Peanutbutter was the only major character with whom BoJack didn't have a major falling out (though he and Diane seemed to have reconciled), and I thought that was an under-explored element of the falling action of Season Three.

• Maybe a spin-off of Todd traveling the world on a drone throne, eating kettle corn? Please?

Episode Grade: B-

High Maintenance Season One & Webisodes (Spoiler-free!)

High Maintenance is a show with a very unique structure that's pretty tough to sell. Honestly, I'm surprised I gave it a try at all, as I'm big on serialized character arcs and it was very clear from a simple overview of High Maintenance that this is not what it's all about. I think the reason that I actually wound up taking the recommendation to check it out was that I was a fan of Louie and that show had just one frequently recurring character (if you don't count the one played by Pamela Adlon). So, at least there was some precedent.

There's 19 (I think) webisodes of High Maintenance that run typically between 8 and 15 minutes of length. These were released between 2012 and 2015 and should be watched first. HBO then picked it up as a regular TV series and released 6 episodes (half-hour length) in 2016. High Maintenance follows the adventures of The Guy, a nameless marijuana dealer that travels by bike around New York City and delivers weed to his clients (hence the very clever name for the series). Though he's the closest thing that the show has to a main character, The Guy is not the principal focus of very many episodes. Rather, the show focuses on different clients of his in each installment and how his periodic visits for a sale fits into their lives.

Though the storylines in each installment are mostly are separate from the rest, High Maintenace does a decent job of world-building, as a few of The Guy's clients have cameos during unrelated episodes or get more than one full-length plot over the course of the series to-date. The biggest reason that the show succeeds is that creators Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld have a great eye for talent and they utilized a slate of mostly anonymous  character actors (on the other hand: hello, Kether Donohue and Amy Ryan!) that really make The Guy's clients come to life. 15 minutes is not a large amount of screen time, but it's all High Maintenance needs to make viewers feel like they really know these people and get a sense of their stories.

If I have a criticism of the show, it's that when you essentially create your characters and story for each episode from scratch (except The Guy), you can't draw from past episodes to create intrigue and that allows for the potential for individual installments to fall completely flat. I liked all 6 episodes of the official HBO TV series, but a couple of the webisodes didn't do it for me. That made the experience of watching those isolated episodes essentially worthless since the characters and stories don't carry over. Those were a small minority, though; most were very good. Given the non-serialized format, I wouldn't be shocked if the stories that are "duds" differ from viewer to viewer.

For those who have seen the series, my favorite of the webisodes was the one centering on comedian Hannibal Buress and my favorite of the full-length HBO episodes was "Grandpa", which is basically told through the point-of-view of a dog. For those who have not seen the series, I'd recommend giving it a try if for no other reason than that the short length of the webisodes allows you to do so with minimal time commitment. Some of my favorite recent TV experiences (Master of None, Louie) have done a good job of making relatively mundane situations very interesting via great writing and acting. High Maintenace fits pretty neatly into that mold.

Webisodes + Season One Grade: B+

This Is Us - Season One

Big-network dramas are effectively going the way of the dinosaur when it comes to top-notch programming, but last fall, when we heard that This is Us was about to kick off and that it was drawing a lot of comparisons to Parenthood (which we really liked), we figured we had to at least give it a try.

Now, it's a year later and the second season of This Is Us is about to start, so it's a pretty weird time for us to be wrapping up Season One. We actually watched everything except the final three episodes as they were released and then just put the finishing touches on the season this past week. A big reason for the delay is that This is Us has a serious knack for dropping sad-bombs, and with two of the saddest bombs possible hovering over the season's final episodes, we had a hard time working up the desire to watch something that was inevitably going to bum us out. That's excluding the fact that This Is Us had to compete for our attention with our rampage through The Sopranos. Hardly a fair fight.

By now, I've pretty much conceded that I can't truly write what I'd consider a good review of TV without dropping some spoilers, so feel free to check out here if you truly don't want anything ruined.

This Is Us centers on the Pearson family, which consists of triplets Kevin, Kate, and the adopted Randall, Randall's immediate family, his sick biological father William, and a married couple, Jack and Rebecca. In the fantastic first episode, the stories of the various characters seem unrelated until it's finally revealed that scenes with Jack and Rebecca are actually taking place in the distant past and that they're the parents of the triplets. The show jumps back and forth between the present and past, often with storylines intertwining and events of the triplets' childhood proving relevant to what's going on in their lives.

The structure of the show largely works, because even if the triplets aren't around one another in the present, they're linked by the scenes involving themselves as 80s/90s kids, so it never feels like the show's telling three different, completely unrelated stories. As far as plot-driven drama is concerned, This is Us does a great job of sucking you in with dramatic twists. Talent-wise, the cast is pretty deep and they make the big moments feel earned, even if the underlying character work is occasionally lacking. Scenes like Dr. K trying to help Jack cope with the death of his child, Jack's saving of Thanksgiving with his 'Pilgrim Rick' spiel, and the good-bye between William and Randall make for unforgettable moments that will always pop back into my head first whenever anyone brings up this show.

The characters on This is Us are somewhat hit or miss. Randall (played by a wonderful Sterling K. Brown) is easily the best character on the show, as he's often the dramatic heart of the present day scenes and adds some sneaky-good comedy as well at the right moments. His relationship with William (an also-great Ron Cephas Jones), who abandoned Randall at the hospital at birth, is consistently the best feature of the show and the writers get a lot of mileage out of Randall meeting such an important figure in his life with very little time left to truly get to know the man.

Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) is also very compelling throughout the struggles of raising his three kids and the ups-and-downs of his relationship with Rebecca (Mandy Moore). It's really easy to like Jack, and that helps us forgive the fact that for most of the season, he's essentially written as the father and husband that's meant to make the rest of us look like shit. The show explores SuperDad's flaws later on in the season, but it feels sort of disingenuous that This is Us shows him as nearly perfect for so long before we start to see that. It's not like the events of the earlier episodes shouldn't have tested his character. Even if she's written to be less likable, Rebecca winds up being the stronger, more relatable character and Moore delivers some great scenes, particularly in the later episodes.

Where the show fails is with Kevin and Kate, two people who've failed at every turn to justify the amount of screen time they're given. Kevin is an entitled man-child who skates through life on his looks, the help of Kate, and the fact that he landed a gig on a highly-rated big-network sitcom, "The Manny", a show that's apparently just as creatively lacking as you'd think it is. Throughout the season, he gets opportunities and privileges simply because people recognize him as "The Manny". He initially struggles to succeed as a "real" theater actor and we're supposed to care, but can't. He's in a relationship with a co-worker played by Lily from the AT&T commercials (just Google that), and isn't satisfied with her, ostensibly because he thinks that she's not as attractive as another co-worker that seems to have few other redeeming qualities. Kevin's "big moment" of the season involved actually leaving the theater minutes before his opening night performance to be with Randall, apparently because he sensed something was wrong. He abandoned a theater filled with people who payed for tickets, critics from The New York Times, his aforementioned friend/love interest, and everyone else who worked on his show to run to console his brother. Randall actually was having a breakdown and really did wind up needing consoling, but what Kevin did was arguably not a "hero" move at all given the other stakeholders. Also: it's fucking ridiculous.

Kate is a woman who struggles with her weight, and I bluntly point this out up front because the show has no time or desire to delve into any other aspect of her life. With the exception of the end of the season, in which she reveals that she's either responsible for, or blames herself for, her father's death, she's lacking in storylines that are not weight-centric. She has a mostly awesome boyfriend, Toby, who's a great combination of funny and genuinely sweet. In return, Kate behaves standoffish, often rude, and confusing towards Toby. The show doesn't bother to treat Kate like a fully formed person, so it's unclear why Toby does.

Despite two of the major characters being so weak, This Is Us pulled off a successful first season. If I have one concern about the show going forward, it's that they're overly dependent on the aforementioned huge twists and "very special" moments. Shows like that tend to find themselves reaching for plot moves to hold interest unless they have a very strong character base, and with William deceased, the ratio of strong characters to weak ones takes a hit. Had they dealt with Jack's death in the season finale, as would have been natural, I could have pretty easily considered the story of these characters complete. Instead, they kicked that can down the road and tacked on some potential future plot lines (Kate pursuing a singing career, Kevin moving to work with Ron Howard and the associated fallout with his oldest/newest love interest, Randall wanting to adopt a baby) that all feel somewhat contrived. Despite the weak finale, we're excited to see what Season Two will have in store.

Season Grade: B+

Billions (Season Two)

The single biggest issue with Season One of Billions was that all of the characters except Bobby Axelrod were either underdeveloped, thoroughly hateable, or both. That problem dropped the stakes of what was an oft-exciting plot. For Season Two to be a success, that problem absolutely had to be fixed. Did they succeed?

Um, kinda.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

Chuck Rhoades was probably the character that needed the most work due to his prominence and he actually got fleshed out quite a bit more. His couples therapy sessions with Wendy brought out some deep insecurities within him (I particularly enjoyed the scene where he explained why he always wears his suit to social occasions) and it did quite a bit to humanize him. The rare scenes involving Chuck and Wendy's children gave Chuck the chance to stick up for his wife when she wasn't around. In all, he came across as slightly more likable in spite of some horrible stuff he does. We'll get to that.

The results were mixed for the rest of the ensemble. Connerty, for one, got a little more attention as his relationship to Rhoades was tested and we got to follow his personal life for a little bit. I don't know that I'll go so far as to call him compelling, but at the very least he's a little more noticeable than he was in Season One. They did a little better job with the general employees at Axe Capital, particularly Dollar Bill and Mafee, but it's still a largely blah group of people.

I think where Billions lets us down are the female characters, who are essentially still either a go-between and point of conflict for the male leads (Wendy), crazy (Lara, more on that later), or nondescript (Sacker). I think the writers failed most with Wendy. Like Sacker, it seems like they were too hesitant to write Wendy with significant flaws or side distractions (in contrast to someone like Axe, who's more interesting because he's far from perfect and has plenty of interests outside of his job and a pseudo-love-triangle) and she therefore becomes difficult to relate to. This is another Suits comparison, but I liken her to a less entertaining version of Donna Paulsen. Wendy's portrayed as an indispensable asset to Axe Capital, which rings hallow given the additional legal attention she brings to Axe and just how implausible it seems that no one else could do that job (Wags' goon notwithstanding).

Despite those failures, Billions came through big time with the introduction of Taylor, a gender non-binary intern whose acumen is quickly picked up on by Axe. The show handles Taylor's backstory well and executes what felt like a mostly realistic portrayal of the spectrum of reactions to their presence. You have the people who are immediately accepting (Axe, Mafee) and others who are well-intentioned but sometimes slip while trying their best to get used to the unfamiliar (Connerty). Then, you have the bigots (Dollar Bill, Krakow) who are prone to saying hurtful things. People like Dollar Bill are plentiful in this world, no doubt about it, but Billions disappointed me with one hilariously bad telling-not-showing line he dropped to Axe when the latter passed him over for Taylor to participate in a poker tournament: "Everything I measure myself by has been called into question." It was a pretty unnatural thing to say out loud and would have been easy to express via a couple subtle facial expressions or gestures over the remaining of the episode. You know, "acting".

Back to Taylor. Probably my favorite subplot of the entire season was Taylor being asked to choose someone to fire in the season's penultimate episode. The rapid increase in authoritative responsibility would have been difficult for anyone to handle and it even rattles the typically composed Taylor a little bit. Further still, it had to be difficult for the remainder of the employees to watch someone -- even a person as deserving and qualified as Taylor -- rise from an intern to their direct superior in a very small amount of time. The interview scenes actually got me to feel for some otherwise uninteresting characters (Ben Kim tearing up at Taylor's questioning without a word was a particularly powerful moment). Taylor's handling of the emotional experiences and developing ability to look beyond the numbers made for a great moment for the character.

I want to jump back to that poker tournament I mentioned above, which was a personal highlight of mine for the season. I used to play poker a great deal during the post-Moneymaker boom. One thing that's always bothered me is its portrayal in TV shows and movies. Poker subplots typically pander to the crowd that is only casually familiar with the game. As a result, there's problems such as nonsensical dialogue, dumb bet amounts (e.g. "raise to $200" / "re-raise, all-in for $10,000"), and uncommon monster hand vs. monster hand situations that are portrayed as either misplays or products of skill, when anyone who's played a million poker hands could tell you that they're actually just inevitable situations that aren't all that interesting (The final hand in Casino Royale being a prime example).

By contrast, in Billions, they spoke the language of serious players and the writing seemed to grasp the history of online play, modern terminology, and proper game flow. In particular, the final hand between Taylor and Krakow was a showdown between ten-nine and four-five in which neither player hit anything on the board, but both players still found themselves all-in. The hand was pretty well-constructed* and entertaining to watch and think about. Phil Hellmuth made a guest appearance in the episode, and I imagine his hands were probably all over the design of that scene.

*For those who have seen it, I feel like trips make up a decent portion of Krakow's range there, unless we're to take his agonizing over what to do on the river as genuine. Given Taylor's ability to read people throughout the season, maybe that's how we rule out Krakow coming from a position of strength.

From a plot standpoint, Billions reaches beyond the Axelrod/Rhoades conflict for awhile and doesn't really circle back to it until close to the end of the season. That gives them time to focus on the relationship between Chuck and Wendy, Taylor's ascent, the ambitions of Chuck's underlings, and finally, the relationship between Bobby and Lara. Wendy returns to Axe Capital with the condition that she and Bobby won't have any sessions together. Bobby lets Lara believe that it's his condition, not Wendy's. When Lara finds out that Wendy set the boundary -- even though Bobby has respected it -- she up and runs out on him for a long period of time and takes the kids without so much as discussing the problem first. Did that strike anyone else as batshit insane? I get that Wendy is a major sticking point for Lara, but damn, that reaction was too extreme for even a TV relationship.

That conflict leads right up to the climax of the season, which involved one of the most thrilling plot lines that I've ever seen. Bobby's rigged tanking of the Ice Juice stock was a power play against the Rhoades family that, in one of the best twists I've ever seen on TV, turned out to be completely orchestrated by Chuck. I was absolutely stunned watching the season's penultimate episode. Where I became disappointed was the finale, which really made the viewer understand what Chuck had done. He ruined his father, best friend, and his eight-figure trust fund just to trap Bobby and see him in a jail cell. When I thought about it in that light, it just seemed so far-fetched. Why does Chuck hate Bobby so much that he's willing to go to THAT length to see him brought down? Aside from possible jealousy over how close his wife has been with him throughout the years (which doesn't even seem like a major problem anymore), what has Bobby done to Chuck to make him this angry? Giamatti's "Worth it" line at the conclusion of their face-to-face conflict rings false just because to a rational person, it's very obviously not. In the absence of a well-developed explanation from the show's events, there's no other conclusion to draw here besides "Chuck's a psychopath", which isn't all that interesting.

I imagine we'll be watching Season Three when it comes out, because Season Two had a boost in quality and the writers are flat out good at putting out engrossing plot lines. The issue, however, with a show that's over-dependent on big reveals and dramatic story events is that they tend to jump the shark at some point as they reach to keep things interesting. Billions is always going to be at risk of becoming cartoonish without an ensemble of deep, believable characters. I'll continue to have fun watching it, but I'll never confuse it with a great television show.

Season Grade: B

Billions (Season One)

Billions is a show that has been raved about by many friends of mine as well as by quite a few people on Twitter, so it was only a matter of time before I found myself with little else to watch and dove into it. I finished up Season One last week and felt compelled to write something on this site for the first time in months. That's not necessarily because my review of the show is glowing; it's a show with a lot of strengths and a lot of problems.

First, let's start off with the good. The show's three leads are portrayed by Paul Giamatti, Damian Lewis, and Maggie Siff, and all three are fantastic. Giamatti in particular does great work with his voice, as his mannerisms and inflections are infectious. For lack of a better comparison, he's a poor man's Dark-Knight-Joker in that regard. Giamatti plays Chuck Rhoades, a U.S. District Attorney with an incredible 81-0 track record for putting away white collar criminals. He has his heart set on putting hedge fund kingpin Bobby Axelrod (Lewis) behind bars for insider trading, despite Axelrod's status as a beloved public figure for his philanthropy. Once Axelrod ("Axe") makes a PR slip-up, Chuck sees his chance to start an investigation against Axe that the public won't hate. That's complicated, because his wife Wendy (Siff) is also a psychologist and a prominent advisor of sorts to Axe at the latter's firm, Axe Capital.

The plot of the first season largely revolves around a chess match between Chuck and Axe as each tries to stay one step ahead of the other throughout the investigation. As one might expect, Wendy gets caught in the middle of that and is often cited as a potential conflict of interest for Chuck. Despite her insistence that she's not merely a go-between for the two male leads, that's frequently the situation in which she finds herself, particularly due to her close personal relationship with Axe. From a plot standpoint, the show is pretty engaging. I'd compare the plot devices as similar to (but better than) those used in House of Cards. While those in the know will be skeptical that any comparison I make to House of Cards resembles a compliment, that was actually one thing that House of Cards did quite well.

What makes the show less engaging than it could be is its narrow focus and generally weak characters. One watches Season One with the sense that Chuck can't ever really succeed in locking up Bobby, because without the central pissing match between two men with crazy egos, there's not much else going on. Other people are introduced throughout the season and don't resemble fleshed out characters as much as accessories to the ongoing spat between Axe and Rhoades. Chuck can't put Bobby in jail, because that would simply end the show. Therefore, when Bobby is on the ropes, it's not a question of if he'll wiggle out of trouble, but how. Similarly, Bobby can't get cleared of wrongdoing. This drastically lowers the stakes of the conflict.

Another issue is that Rhoades is a thoroughly detestable man. Sure, he's on the right side of the law, but he's such a fanatic for it that he's merciless (in a bad way) and tries to attain his own ends via truly horrible means. He's actually eerily similar to another Chuck -- Chuck McGill from Better Call Saul. However, where Saul puts a great deal of effort into developing Chuck McGill's backstory and gives us a lot of subtle character moments that make his story compelling, we really have no idea why Rhoades is such a prick. In one episode, he gets pissed at a guy on the street who doesn't pick up his dog's shit, so he bullies the guy into picking it up with his bare hands. It was a little funny, but the show does nothing to help us understand what motivates Rhoades to perform such random acts of assholery. It's remarkable that despite how well Giamatti plays Rhoades, the character still winds up one-dimensional and boring -- a pretty big failure on the part of the writers. His wife Wendy is similarly problematic -- we don't get to understand much of her besides her relationship to Axe and that she's an awesome psychologist. We probably learned more about the Chuck/Wendy marriage from one pretty great scene between Chuck and a dominatrix in a whore house than a full season's worth of their actual interaction.

Axe gets fleshed out far better, as we see what he's like outside of his professional capacity. At his job, I liken Axe to Suits' Harvey Specter in that he wins with gimmick-like frequency and his success earns him absurd lifestyle perks. However, in addition to Axe the investment world demigod, we also see Axe the father, Axe the husband, and Axe the friend. Despite being a criminal, Axe can be a good person sometimes and Rhoades being human garbage often makes Axe the more sympathetic figure in the central conflict. Without spoiling too much, though, he does pretty terrible things to some people around him besides trade on insider information. The writers deserve credit for giving Axe the depth the character deserves; it's just that some of his actions make him tough to root for. We watch these men claw at each other tooth and nail for twelve episodes while sort of wanting both to fail.

 As mentioned above, the auxiliary characters are on the whole pretty bad. Wags, Bobby's COO, is an uninteresting ass-kissing drone who's mostly on screen to be mean to the employees, though he's genuinely funny when he cracks wise. Lara, Bobby's wife, is a little more interesting, particularly later in the season when she encounters adversity (the ruthless, intimidating, wolf-in-sheep's-clothing act wears thin pretty quick). Most of Bobby's employees might as well be the same person and the one who actually has some depth, Donnie, is ultimately just a tool used by Bobby and the show's writers (...to further develop Bobby). Rhoades' underlings are no better; I thought it was super cute that the show was trying to get us to care about a budding relationship between Connerty and Kate, two people who couldn't be more nondescript through this first season.

All that being said, Billions has proven to be clever enough at times that I'm going to stick with it for now. The action in the season's final episodes was very engrossing and they've laid enough groundwork with the characters to hopefully make the supporting cast more interesting going forward. I'm skeptical they're going to start treating all of these people like they're people and not plot tools. But for the time being, I'll just enjoy Giamatti's intensely-voiced analogy-laden monologues and Axe's frequent moments of badassery.

Season Grade: B-

The Pat Hatter Tries to Use Airbnb

I was looking into renting a house for my family over the summer for a nice long weekend of relaxation. It seems that Airbnb is the way to go these days to do something like this, so I went ahead and tried to book a house.  I got to the step where payment was required, where they posted a link to a cancellation policy. Apparently this house has the "Super Strict 60 Days" policy, which means that there's a 50% refund up to 60 days prior to arrival. My wife's a lawyer and we've had issues with rental agreements for houses in the past, but there was no such rental agreement visible on the website. Actually putting in credit card information and clicking "Book" seemed like committing half the fees without being able to read and sign an agreement. This seemed wrong.

An inquiry into the process yielded this result:

Hi Patrick
You can book this property on this site. The rental agreement will be sent after booking. Please refer to the house rules for additional info. Let us know if you have other questions!

Naturally, this seemed disconcerting because this was the exact order-of-operations that we were trying to avoid. I replied back, trying to elaborate further

Hello,

We reached out yesterday because we would like to book this house, and this
morning we received a text message explaining that we could book on the
website and that the rental agreement would be provided after.  We just
wanted to follow-up because we recently tried to book a house in Wisconsin,
and the owner's rental agreement contained an extremely overbroad
indemnification provision that they were unwilling to modify (my wife's an
attorney).  We just want to make sure that in the event that the rental
agreement contains a provision that we are not comfortable with and so feel
that we cannot sign the rental agreement, that we would get the entire
booking amount back.

If you'd like to discuss over the phone, please let me know.

Thanks!
- Patrick

 After receiving an extremely confusing text message in reply that just said.....

Hi Patrick
We are new to AirBnB, however, we have been in business for many years. I have attached the link to our current r...

I then received the following via e-mail, respondent's name X'd out.

Hi Patrick
We are new to AirBnB, however, we have been in business for many years. I have attached the link to our current rental agreement for you to review. We are in the process of working with AirBnB to update the rental agreement to comply with their regulations as well. (We do not for see any major changes). Please review and let us know if you still have questions. 

XXXX 

(URL HIDDEN)

"URL HIDDEN"? Well that's not super useful, is it......

Hello, 

I received this e-mail, but it appears that the link to the rental agreement was hidden. 

That note also contained a screenshot of what they sent me so that they could understand what was going on. They replied, and it was equally frustrating and comical.

I am assuming certain info is being protected by Airbnb website. I cannot access your email address or see the picture you sent. Give us a call here at (PHONE NUMBER HIDDEN).

Oh for the love of....

Damn it.

Your message appears with "PHONE NUMBER HIDDEN".  I can't see the phone
number.  My e-mail address is xxxxxx@gmail.com  Could you please try to
contact me without going through AirBnB to provide the rental agreement? 

Thanks!
- Patrick

I then recalled what they had said earlier about not being able to see my contact information.  I then checked how my e-mail to them appeared on the messages on the Airbnb website...

Your message appears with "PHONE NUMBER HIDDEN".  I can't see the phone
number.  My e-mail address is (EMAIL HIDDEN)  Could you please try to
contact me without going through AirBnB to provide the rental agreement? 

Thanks!
- Patrick

So this is horrible in both directions. Great.  Let's give this another shot.

Let me try this again. Contact xxxxxx AT gmail DOT com. Maybe that will allow the e-mail to be visible!

After typing that into the message to the host on the Airbnb website, everything looked fine. A minute or two later, I refreshed the page and....

 Let me try this again. Contact (EMAIL HIDDEN) Maybe that will allow the e-mail to be visible!

On second thought, staycations are underrated. 

The Sopranos - Season Four

Season Four of The Sopranos was probably the weakest season to-date (ranking them 3-1-2-4 at the moment) thanks to a couple of problematic storylines and one weird episode (though its poor qualities are exaggerated by some). As always, though, there was still a lot to like.

SPOILER SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The biggest problem with this season was the will-they-won't-they mutual attraction between Carmela and Furio. That was always going to end one of two ways and neither one was happy. The certain negative outcome made the various scenes between them uncomfortable to watch.  It was apparent that the show was setting up that action from the first episode and there were no real developments of note until the twelfth episode, when Furio stops himself short of killing a drunk Tony and then flees back to Italy.

The upside to that storyline, however, is that Carmela finally decides she's fed up and that she wants to split up with Tony. It took almost four full seasons of being walked on and being excessively passive about the way Tony treats her for Carmela to stand up for herself. It was a refreshing payoff that was almost worth watching her be such a frustrating character for the rest of the series' run so far. The viewer has been waiting so long for Tony and Carmela to have the fights in this episode that it's actually a relief to hear all of the grievances (Carmela stealing money, Tony's cheating, Carmela's nagging, the attraction to Furio, Tony's complete lack of attention to their relationship). aired.

During the arguments, both make very good points against the other, and while Tony's primarily in the wrong for all of this, the point I most took away from the fight was his comment that Carmela brings little to the table from a personality standpoint. Tony was attracted to Svetlana in large part because she had a compelling backstory and interesting things to say. Until he called out Carmela for having a dull personality, I never really thought about it. She really is something of a zilcheroo and I spent too much of my attention feeling bad for her because of Tony's cheating to realize that.

The other bad storyline from this season (though it's much lower-leverage and shorter) is Artie's attempt to make some quick cash by loaning money to Jean-Phillipe. We know the deal is going to go bad from the second it's proposed (otherwise, there'd be no reason to introduce it as a storyline). From the moment that's set up, we're just waiting for the inevitable and the inevitable is sad.

Regarding the strange "Christopher" episode, I didn't hate it all that much. There seems to be widespread agreement that it's the worst episode of the series and while I certainly agree that it was on the weaker side, after watching it I didn't think it deserved anywhere near the level of vitriol that it got. That was the episode that Bacala's wife died, and while that was really sad, it was compelling television. I can deal with the fact that Silvio and others had straightforward telling-not-showing lines about the history between Native Americans and Italians.

That about wraps up all I didn't like about Season Four. On the positive side, we got a lot of Bacala. We learn that he's the only one in the mob who was faithful to his wife, which makes his grieving genuine. The only downside to so much focus on Bobby is the fact that Janice (ugh) got heavily involved in his life, but even she had a few strong moments this season.

The show even acknowledged the problematic nature of Dr. Melfi and Tony's therapy sessions. The last time one of those scenes packed a punch was when Melfi declined to sic Tony and the mob on her rapist. Since then, they've been low-leverage scenes that could have been written out of the show with no dip in quality. Tony seems to recognize as much, saying late in the season that he doesn't need the therapy anymore and quitting the sessions.

I've heard Season Five and Season Six are outstanding, so I'm very optimistic about the journey ahead. There's many storylines to be excited about -- the potential fallout/resolution of Tony and Carmela splitting, Christopher's sobriety, Paulie's downward spiral, the tensions between Tony and Johnny Sack's bunch from New York, Adriana's service as an informant that's yet to have any sort of payoff...there's a lot to look forward to.

Are they really never going to tie up the fallout of the missing Russian guy from Season Three's "Pine Barrens"?

Season Grade: B+

The Sopranos - Season Three

The first two seasons of The Sopranos were both excellent with some notable flaws. David Chase and company turned things up a notch, however, and executed a nearly flawless third season.

SPOILER SPACE!!!!!!!!!!!

Season Three contains the two best episodes of the series that I've watched thus far. The first was Employee of the Month, which involves the moral compass of the series, Dr. Melfi, facing the ultimate test of character. Her relationship with Tony has been up and down and riddled with outbursts from the latter, but they're close enough to the point where the viewer thinks of Tony as a possible solution to Melfi getting revenge on her rapist before it's implied in the show. Seeing Lorraine Bracco get furious in her shrink's office and deliver this line was a tremendous bit of acting:

"I'm not going to break the social compact. But that's not saying there's not a certain satisfaction in knowing that i could have that asshole squashed like a bug if i wanted."

Then, she sits in her office with Tony, clearly distraught. She's still not feeling normal because of her rape, sure, but it's clear that the entire time she's fighting herself over the urge to tell Tony what happened. She knows Tony would have the guy whacked and it'd be sweet justice for her. The episode cuts to credits right after Tony asks her if she has something to say and she replies "NO", a response equally strong and painful for Dr. Melfi.

I liked what the show did with Paulie this season. His growing resentment towards Tony filters down to the way he treats Christopher. Even though it's clear Paulie's a little unhinged, the show does a good job at slowly illustrating why he's having such issues with his boss. The climax of this is Tony's decision to force Ralphie to pay Paulie a sum of 12 thousand dollars when Paulie felt he was owed fifty. However, there's an even more successful plot line en route to that moment.

"Pine Barrens" is possibly the best episode of the first three seasons and does a great job illustrating Paulie's descent. First, he reacts far too violently to the Russian, Valery, when the latter makes a relatively benign request to put his remote control back on the shelf. Then, when he and Christopher go on an adventure, lost in the snowy forest of south New Jersey with the aforementioned Valery possibly on the loose and stalking them, it's the starving, usually-furious Christopher who seems like the one who has his faculties in control and the higher-ranking, typically more mature Paulie who's really losing it.

It's a great episode for Christopher as well, whom the show has put into a great deal of effort into developing. He used to be prone to dumbass outbursts and violence, but as the show has progressed, Christopher has used his head a lot more and doesn't seem to be anywhere near as prone to stupid mistakes. "Pine Barrens" illustrates that pretty well, but most importantly, when he becomes a "made" guy earlier in the season, it's a moment that feels earned.

As a side note, I'm still bothered that they didn't tie up anything with Slava or Valery. It seems fairly clear that Valery escaped somehow, but it's not confirmed by season's end if (or how) that happened. It seems like Tony would have faced some fairly immediate repercussions if Valery's story ever made it back to Slava. Maybe they're just deferring this to Season Four.

I don't have much to say about the season-long Ralphie storyline other than that it was effective and that Ralphie filled in nicely as the "villain" for Richie for much of the season. Ralphie's a better character than Richie, though, and even though he can be stupid and a loudmouth, it's clear that he is at least trying to improve himself once Tony's forced to promote him to captain.

Even the minor characters were used very effectively in Season Three. My personal favorite is Bobby Bacala, who mostly serves as the butt of jokes and as Junior's caretaker during the season, but he's a rare thoroughly likable character on this show and the conversation he and Tony had on the way to find Paulie and Christopher in "Pine Barrens" an excellent moment.

The one storyline that didn't really work that well was Jackie Jr.'s relationship with Meadow and subsequent descent into crime. It was always at least a little clear that Jackie was a piece of shit and his inability to stay out of mob business was essentially a given from the start. He drove a lot of the action late in the season, but he wasn't much of a compelling character and Jason Cerbone delivered one of the weaker performances thus far on the series. There was nothing to root for, nor anything to surprise us here (other than an appearance from Omar!).

Despite that blip, Season Three was a riveting experience because of a compelling plot and some outstanding character work. I've gotten to the point where watching this show feels like slipping into the universe of The Sopranos for an hour. Everything feels so real in this show, and that's a testament to the ensemble cast.

Season Grade: A