The Good Place (Seasons One and Two)

I may have wrapped up Cheers, but I wasn't ready to say good-bye to Ted Danson yet, so I decided I wanted to move on to either Fargo or The Good Place. When I discovered that there is no way to watch Fargo except on Hulu, the decision was made for me and I settled on Michael Schur's NBC comedy.

I'm going to try to go through this without spoilers, which will be difficult as there's no shortage of plot twists along the way, which vary greatly in both intrigue and predictability.

Particularly given that it's in the comedy genre, The Good Place gets extremely high marks for innovation, as the premise is unlike any I've seen before. In the premiere, Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) steps into the office of someone named Michael (Danson). Eleanor learns from Michael that she has died and that the afterlife consists of a "Good Place" and a "Bad Place", and that she has wound up in the "Good Place". The system of how the afterlife works is revealed to not be in accordance with any particular religion (according to Michael, each religion only gets it about 5% right or less, but some stoned guy in Canada figured it out with 92% accuracy). Essentially, every action done by a person earns them either positive or negative points, and only the people with the very highest positive scores at the end of their life make it into the Good Place. Some of the best gags on the show include Michael bringing up screens of significant point-earning actions, such as:

• ATE VEGAN: +425.94
• NEVER DISCUSSED VEGANISM UNPROMPTED: +9,875.37
• FAIL TO DISCLOSE CAMEL ILLNESS WHEN SELLING CAMEL: -22.22
• ROOT FOR NEW YORK YANKEES: -99.15 (Schur is a huge Red Sox fan)

The central problem? Later in the pilot episode, Eleanor realizes that they took the wrong person and that she's in the Good Place by mistake. Realizing that she's a less-than-worthy person in a utopian world, she decides to take lessons from her assigned soulmate Chidi (William Jackson Harper), who was an ethics professor in life. Her hope is that she can pass as enough of a good person to survive in the Good Place without being found out as a fraud.

Eleanor and Chidi shortly meet a socialite named Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and a silent Buddhist monk named Jianyu (Manny Jacinto) and the story eventually becomes just as much about each of the other three major players as it is about Eleanor. All of them have unique challenges in adjusting to the new afterlife in the neighborhood that Michael has created for them. Furthermore, things begin to go awry within the fabric of the neighborhood when Eleanor engages in selfish behavior inconsistent with that expected of citizens of the Good Place.

The show effectively utilizes flashbacks to each of these four peoples' lives, and these add a lot of color to what each is all about. Citizens of the Good Place are served by some sort of computerized being called Janet (D'Arcy Carden), who repeatedly insists that she is neither a woman nor a robot. Despite not initially appearing to be a being with human emotion, Janet is developed into someone with almost as much personality as the rest of the gang, and her popping in and startling characters with her trademark, "Hi there" is a wonderful running gag.

The acting in the show is superb -- especially for a comedy. Danson is obviously great, as he might be the greatest sitcom actor of all time. The way Michael reacts with glee to unfamiliar human objects and conventions is delightful. Plus, there's a scene in which he tends bar! If seeing Ted Danson behind a bar doesn't give you all the feels, you've....never seen Cheers, I guess. Still, despite Danson's excellence, Kristen Bell's performance is the best; she slips perfectly into her Eleanor character and captures all the right emotions and quirks of a sorta crappy person trying her damnedest to care about other people and the underlying ethics of the things she does. I found myself saying aloud, "She's so good" many times during our viewing, usually in-between the excellent laughs that the show delivers.

This is pretty bare-bones, as it's really hard to talk at length about The Good Place without this getting spoileriffic. This is the rare comedy that makes you care just as much about the plot as getting a good laugh. I guess that makes sense, given that the stakes for the characters often involve eternal damnation. The ethical dilemmas presented on the show are consistently interesting to think about and really make you ponder both our life and the afterlife at a level deeper than you'd ever think from a network sitcom. It manages to carry that weight despite being consistently funny and charming. You can watch Season One on Netflix and Season Two on NBC's website. I don't know what you're waiting for.

Seasons One & Two Grade: A-

Cheers (Full Series)

I started watching Cheers sometime in November and have finished it with about a week to go before White Sox opening day, so it was a pretty effective way to nuke the offseason. Cheers is 11 seasons and 275 episodes long. Not counting re-watches (which would make The Wire king), I have now spent more time watching Cheers than any other show in history. At about 105 hours, that's going to be a difficult record to top.

And oh, what a journey it has been. I reviewed the first four seasons of Cheers here, as part of my year-end 2017 television review. The most remarkable thing about Cheers is how consistent the show really was. I largely expected a drop-off in the later seasons, but it never came. There were clunky episodes scattered throughout the series (for instance, I would not recommend the Season Ten episode "Madame LaCarla", in which Carla takes over for her psychic), but they were isolated problems. The comedy stayed fresh. It was funny even when it was predictable. You could anticipate many of Carla's disparaging one-liners or minor plot developments and they'd still be great because of how the actors delivered them.

Ted Danson (portraying Sam Malone) is particularly outstanding in that regard, especially the way that he reacts so resigned and calm when dealing with difficult and/or offensive people*. When Rebecca's father comes to town to try to bring her back to San Diego in Season 11, he reprimands Sam upon meeting him for trying to have a baby with Rebecca even though they aren't married. Later, Sam tries to convince him to let Rebecca stay...

Sam: (approaching Rebecca's father) "Excuse me for a minute, sir. You know, if you don't mind me saying so, I-I don't think you're being fair. You can't ask her to pack up and go just 'cause you don't think she made it." 

Rebecca's father: "Was it that kind of persuasive arguing that got my daughter into trying to conceive your bastard child?" 

Sam: (turning away, accepting defeat) "Boy, you-you really just can't see your way past that, can you?"

*The exception is John Hill, the late-seasons' owner of Melville's, the restaurant upstairs, who seems to be the one person who can get under Sam's skin and drive him insane. Over time, John Hill's introductory trademark "Saaaaaaammmmm" became just as entertaining a gimmick as the bar yelling "Norm!" upon the barfly's entry. Final comment: John Hill getting left out of the finale is a damn crime.

The later seasons of Cheers are packed with tons of excellent moments. The annual "Bar Wars" episodes, which pitted Cheers against Gary's Olde Town Tavern in a never-ending prank war, were consistent highlights. The final episode of that subseries featured the return of con-artist Harry the Hat, my favorite (okay, maybe second to old Al) minor character from the early seasons. Then there's know-it-all blowhard mailman Cliff going on Jeopardy! and almost winning due to an assortment of favorable categories, then screwing it up on Final Jeopardy due to some combination of a poorly-worded question and his own incompetence. The two-part Season 10 finale featuring Woody's wedding was a blitz of fast-and-furious gags as the gang desperately tried to fix the many calamities (both self-induced and not) that all aligned perfectly with Carla's superstitious premonition that the day would be a disaster. I don't know that I've ever laughed harder at a sitcom episode.

At its best, Cheers could be more than just a comedy. The Season Five finale, in which Diane leaves Cheers (allegedly for six months) to pursue a writing career was punctuated by Sam saying aloud to himself with an air of acceptance, "Have a nice life." That's a moment that hits home after watching their relationship progress for five years. Despite Carla's repeated jabs at the other members at the bar, she has a lot of genuinely tender moments with Sam that make for one of the greatest platonic opposite-sex friendships ever seen on television.

And then there's the series finale, which is one of the greatest episodes of TV I've ever watched, and certainly a contender for best finale of all time. There's been mild spoilers in this post to this point, but I really don't want to ruin the finale for anyone who hasn't seen it, so I'm typing out my comments on the finale in black text below, so highlight it if you want to read it.

CHEERS FINALE:

Sam had been struggling with his place in the world for some time, even going to a sex addiction therapy session to try to get past his obsession with chasing women that, in his mind, has been inhibiting  his ability to find true happiness. He thinks he needs a wife and considers Rebecca as something of a backup, but his words show that this isn't what he truly wants.

And then, Diane returns to Cheers. Sam, confronted by his own loneliness, decides to reboot that relationship and leave Cheers forever to be with Diane. When the bar's patrons (in part fearing the loss of their ringleader) point out that this is an awful idea, he calls them all out for their own stagnation, their dependence on the bar and himself, and how they never progress forward in life.

"You know, you should need more than this! I am not your mother! This is not your home! This is ridiculous."

Sam eventually comes to his senses and returns to Cheers, wanting to smoke a celebratory Cuban cigar with his friends. However, one by one, his friends leave him, citing an excuse ("it's getting late", "gotta get home to Vera", "I have kids", etc.) that never seems to otherwise be enough to get these people to leave the bar. As Sam stands there, dejected, all of them open the door and come back, joking that they were tipped off by Diane and decided to have some fun with Sam.

The group sits around in a circle, discussing the meaning of life and appreciating the little family they've created for themselves over the years at Sam's humble bar. The phone rings and each of them worries that the caller is one of their family members. Frasier somewhat profoundly says,

"Say, you know what, wait, don't answer it. Just let whoever it is think that we're on our way."

The group leaves the bar, but perpetual barfly Norm stays behind to deliver one of his rare-but-powerful serious moments in the series. 

Norm: Sammy, I didn't want to say this in front of the others, but you know what I think the most important thing in life is? It's love. You want to know what I love?  

Sam: Beer, Norm?  

Norm: Yeah, I'll have a quick one. 

... 

Norm: I don't think it matters what you love, Sammy. Could be a person, could be a thing. As long as you love it totally, completely, without judgment.

.... 

Norm: Well, I'm off. But, um, Sammy, can I let you in on a little secret? 

Sam: Sure. 

Norm: I knew you'd come back. 

Sam: You did?  

Norm: You can never be unfaithful to your one true love. You always come back to her. 

Sam: Who is that?  

Norm: Think about it, Sam. (::taps on the door, and leaves::)

Sam is left alone to look around his bar. He smiles and chuckles to himself.

"Boy, I'll tell you I'm the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth."

Then, Sam runs his hand along the bar and taps on it, casually walking around, much like he did in the pilot episode. A prospective customer knocks on the door, and Sam utters the last line of the series:

"Sorry, we're closed."

He walks over to the picture of Geronimo on the wall and straightens it (in a sign of respect for the late Nicholas Colasanto), and walks down the back hall, going full circle back to the pilot's opening scene before the cut to black.

Cheers is very clearly divided into the Diane years and the Rebecca years. I'm asked a lot which I prefer. I think that the quality of the show is about even through its two "halves" (sort of a misnomer, as there's a lot more Rebecca episodes), but that Rebecca is a better character than Diane. I sort of have issues with both, though. Diane often felt as jarring to me as she must have to the folks at Cheers and she was arguably downright evil in the later stages of Season Five. Rebecca didn't have a consistent personality throughout the years (compare strong-willed and composed Season Six Rebecca to the mess that she was at the end of the series) and whose flaws could be difficult to watch, but she was ultimately more interesting. That being said, Shelley Long was a much better actress than Kirstie Alley. Long was written as an irritating character, but she could sell emotion and comedy much better than Alley. For most of the second half of the series, I had to cringe whenever Rebecca "cried", because Alley was horrible at cry-acting and she was asked to do it a LOT. Still, Alley's voice had a good amount of bite to it and she was better for sarcastic humor.

Ultimately, Cheers is a show about several running themes. One of them is aging. Some of the strongest episodes of the series focus on Sam's acceptance that he's no longer the ladies' man he was in his early thirties and how his perspective continues to change over the course of the series as he gets older. Second, there's family. We get snippets of the core cast's family lives (most notably with Frasier, Lilith, and their son, Frederick, but also with Carla's kids, Cliff's mom, and Norm's nonexistent relationship with Vera), but it's clear based on where these characters choose to spend their time (particularly on the holidays) that they consider each other to be their true family.

Third, and most debatably, the show deals with self-acceptance. This is by and large a group of losers. Sam's an alcoholic who washed out of baseball and isn't notably good at anything besides attracting cheap women (and even that fades). Diane's so out of touch with non-intellectuals and normalcy that her presence is obnoxious and grating. Norm's a beer-swilling slacker who bounces from job to job and is perpetually content with the thought that his life is going nowhere. Cliff has no sense of self-awareness, is too unappealing to attract women, lives with his mother, and repeatedly over-inflates the importance of his humdrum career with the postal service. Carla is raising eight (mostly) degenerate kids as a (mostly) single mother on a waitress' salary due to a series of failed relationships. Woody's a farm kid in the big city whose slow wit puts him on a different wavelength than everyone else. Coach is an older version of Woody. Frasier's a pompous ass whose credentials don't translate to effective psychiatric work and whose sense of superiority over the other Cheers patrons is very clearly rooted in nothing. Rebecca fails at basically everything she does (which, as Carla is quick to remind you, is very little).

These people are content to never change year-in and year-out. You get the sense that they're no worse for the wear. Carla's content with being a mean-spirited person who doesn't let her considerable fertility affect her behavior with men. Norm's happy never doing anything productive or being a worthwhile spouse to Vera. Cliff won't cut the cord with his mom or accept criticisms about his irritating personality. Frasier won't get off his high horse, and so forth. Yet, we wind up loving them all exactly the way they are. Their stagnation isn't frustrating to watch; it's practically endearing. It's all part of the sense of the comfort the show creates. Both our world and that of the characters of Cheers keep changing, but this band of misfits and rejects stays the same. 

In that sense, watching Cheers becomes a lot like what being at Cheers must feel like to Sam and the gang; it's retreating to a place that's familiar, pleasant, and filled with people you feel like you've known forever. That's basically what the famous Cheers opening theme is all about, and all it takes are those few opening piano notes to slip into that wonderful state of mind. I'm going to miss my almost-daily trips to this fictional place, and the only thing that isn't sad about this journey being over is the knowledge that I've now fully experienced the greatest live-action sitcom of all time.

Series Grade: A

Everything Sucks! (Season One)

Cheers is taking a damn long time to finish, but I'm finally in the last season. Despite occasionally tiring of that being the primary show to watch in my spare time for the past 4-5 months, I'm definitely going to miss it when its gone. That said, I have been eager to check out something new for quite some time, and I had a chance to do just that earlier this week, so I dove into a new Netflix series, Everything Sucks!

The basics: Everything Sucks! is a high school dramedy that is set in the mid-90's and is jam-packed with nostalgia. Between all the references to technology, doodads, lingo, and the AWESOME soundtrack, the show makes sure to never let you forget what decade it is. It deals with some common themes (peer pressure, parental-teenager relationships, and cliques), and tackles others in a less-conventional (for TV) way (faculty-student interactions and [unrelated] sexuality). The setting is the town of "Boring, Oregon", which is something of an ironic running joke.

Truth be told, I haven't seen too many high school shows that didn't feature a laugh track. The Wonder Years and Malcolm in the Middle sort of qualify, but they were both arguably at their best when their main characters were in middle school. Glee suffered from getting progressively more ridiculous as time went on and also from using actors that would have had to flunk for about a decade to be considered "high schoolers". That last bit also applies to Friday Night Lights, but that show was so superb that the use of inappropriately-aged actors was but a minor distraction. Finally, there's Freaks and Geeks, which many consider to be the gold standard for high school shows. I guess you might say that I'm no connoisseur of the genre, particularly since I have not seen many of the critically-acclaimed shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer or My So-Called Life.

Still, Freaks and Geeks has a lot in common with Everything Sucks!, and I think that many will find the two shows comparable on plenty of levels. Both shows are set in a time period decades prior to their production. Both do a far better job of utilizing actors that look like they could actually pass for  high school kids, which is actually a pretty damn big deal when you're trying to draw characters that seem relatable. And finally, both of them are excellent at cutting to the core of the adolescent psyche and showing reactions to life's problems (both the exaggerated kind and the serious kind) in a way that's completely understandable to someone who has moved on from that particularly confusing stage of life.

Everything Sucks! has two fantastic characters leading its ensemble in Jahi Winston's Luke and Peyton Kennedy's Kate. Luke is about as independent as a well-adjusted teenage kid can be; his dad ran out when he was seven and his mom is a flight attendant who's frequently away for days at a time (I particularly enjoyed Luke's joke about using a fake mustache to trick child protective services). Despite his confidence and proficiency at "adulting" that would be the envy of many a 24-year-old, Luke is still a 14-year-old kid, prone to letting the emotions of difficult situations get in the way of his better judgment and blind him to the way his actions affect others.

Luke joins the AV Club in his second week of school and meets Kate, to whom he immediately takes a liking. Kate is generally reserved and somewhat uncomfortable with attention, in part because she's the principal's daughter. Kennedy's the best of all the actors on the show, and her brooding, often cold mannerisms make for outstanding (and often heart-warming) moments when Kate smiles, laughs, or shows any sort of animation.

Luke's best friends are Tyler and McQuaid, whom at first seemed like surface-level replicas of Freaks and Geeks' Neal and Bill before the show developed a sense of what to do with them. The primary plot line of the season involves Kate, Luke, McQuaid and Tyler joining forces with the drama club (who are interestingly painted as the "cool kids" for the first few episodes before the show begins to essentially ignore high school's social pecking order) to create a movie. The lead actors of the drama club, Oliver and Emaline, reveal themselves to be more than just the stuck-up jerks they were at first and even develop surprising relationships with Tyler and McQuaid.

The principal, Ken, is also given a pretty interesting role and the show explores the complications involved with being both Kate's father and an authority figure at the school. Ken's wife has been dead for years and he's initially (okay, perpetually) painted as a dweeby dude whose lameness holds him back until by chance he gets another shot at love, and much of the season is spent watching him fight for that genuine feeling of happiness to match his oft-artificial cheery disposition.

The show is an incredibly quick watch; Season One has ten 23-minute episodes and you could cruise through the whole thing in the time it takes a playoff baseball game to reach the 8th inning (zing). I'm not much of a binge watcher (I start to get antsy after watching two consecutive episodes of almost any show), but Everything Sucks! was addictive (and digestible) enough to regularly disrupt my regular Cheers-watching schedule. The show is compelling enough for the first few episodes before it finds itself and the back half was too much fun for me to go to bed and save it for the next day. There's no shortage of show recommendations being hurled at people these days, so sorry for adding one to the list.

Season Grade: A-

Television Review - 2017 (Part 6): #1 Viewing Experience of 2017, The Sopranos (Seasons 2-6)

That other television shows had to compete with five seasons of The Sopranos in these rankings really isn't fair. I don't know of anyone who's seen the full run of the show and doesn't consider it one of their top ten or so favorite shows ever, and most critics believe it to be one of the best five or so shows to ever hit the air. Many even have it as THE best show, which I'd disagree with, but not fervently so.

Watching The Sopranos for the first time in 2016-17 means that I went into it with all the hype that a TV show could possibly have. I recapped Season Two here, Season Three here, and Season Four here, before completely running out of steam. I had a little bit on Season Five, in which I did nothing more than wax poetic about Steve Buscemi's performance as Tony Blundetto, but it never went to publication. In any event, the last two seasons of The Sopranos were fantastic.

I've read a lot of debate online about the ranking of the six seasons of The Sopranos, so I'll toss my thoughts out there.

SPOILERS ABOUND!!!!!!!

1) Season Five

Season Five had the aforementioned Tony B. arc and tensions between Christopher and Tony over Adriana, who was herself battling her situation as an FBI informant throughout. With a show this consistently great, it's hard to choose one season that stood out above the rest, but I'll give the edge to Season Five's cohesive storyline, much of which is satisfyingly wrapped up by the final episode. It's also about when you can become certain that there's no redemption for any of these characters. At the beginning of the series, Tony is someone who can be occasionally influenced by Dr. Melfi, Carmela, or his own conscience to do the right thing ("right" is always relative on The Sopranos). Season Five is when it becomes clear that there will be no saving Tony Soprano -- a realization Melfi speaks out loud in Season Six. Similarly, Christopher goes back on drugs, Carmela goes back to Tony, and everyone's doomed to be stuck in their ways. A major theme of the series is these characters' inability to change for the better, despite their circumstances repeatedly demanding it.

2) Season Three

Season Three had "Pine Barrens" (the one where Paulie and Christopher are lost in the freezing woods), which for my money is one of the best few episodes of the series, and certainly the most memorable. It also introduced Ralphie, who provided strong villain material for much of the season, and had the episode "Employee of the Month", which presented an extreme test of Dr. Melfi's moral compass. Had it not been for the Jackie Jr. storyline, Season Three would be practically flawless.

3) Season One

A couple of the highlights here are the excellent "College" episode and "I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano". Though it doesn't have the depth of some of the later seasons, the story was engrossing enough that I knew I'd be able to plow through the remaining 73 hours of television with ease. Tony's college trip with Meadow, in which he makes it his mission to track down and kill an FBI informant while showing his daughter around Colby College, is one of the top-rated episodes of The Sopranos and establishes the difficulty of the double-life that Tony leads. It was also enjoyable to watch Tony before he lost pretty much all sense of morality.

4) Season Six

Season Six starts out somewhat slowly, with Tony being in a coma, Christopher developing his movie, and Vito on the run from his past life, but the back half of the season makes it all worth it. The series' final nine episodes include "Soprano Home Movies", an excellent hour in which the Tony, Carmela, Bobby, and Janice adjourn to a lake house, with amusing conflicts. The violent mob war between Phil Leotardo and the DiMeo family comes to its bloody conclusion, a couple of beloved characters meet their tragic demise, and Dr. Melfi finally realizes the uselessness in treating Tony. Then there's the ending of the series finale; I think I should expla

5) Season Two

Season Two earned an "A-" grade from me, so ranking it fifth is no insult. I especially enjoyed the Pussy storyline that ran through most of the season and Christopher's foray into the movie business was still a novelty, so I enjoyed it a little more here than I did later in the series. However, there were a couple weird plot devices used (the airline tickets turned out to be much ado about nothing), Silvio and Paulie had yet to be well-developed characters, and there was way too much Janice, who is terrible.

6) Season Four

The season-ending breakup between Carmela and Tony was a long time coming and made for some excellent viewing. I also liked the added focus on Bobby Bacala, who was consistently one of my favorite characters. However, the Carmela/Furio storyline was problematic from the start and had an anticlimactic ending. Similarly, Artie's get-cash-quick scheme was uncomfortable to watch just because it was pretty obvious how it would end. This was a weird season that certainly had its moments despite a couple of weak storylines. I still gave it a B+; this show is still really good even at its worst.

Television Review - 2017 (Part 5): #2 Viewing Experience of 2017, Better Call Saul

There's spoilers here, so stop if you don't want anything ruined.

After a third season, my opinion is unchanged. Better Call Saul is the best active show that I watch on TV.

Given that the same man is behind it, it's no wonder that Saul is able to replicate the tension that we saw on Breaking Bad, and I'm wondering whether there will be legitimate debates at the end of the series as to which show is better. Unfortunately for Saul, they just killed off one of the best aspects of the show in Chuck McGill.

Chuck sort of had to vacate the show, having exhausted any sort of useful relationship with Jimmy and having been ousted from the firm that sees his condition as a detriment to its business. His story was largely complete, but the loss will still be felt. Characters as well-written as Chuck are hard to find on television, even among very good shows. He felt real, yet transparent enough for viewers to understand exactly how events, circumstances, and other characters' words would affect him. Michael McKean (who absolutely owned his character) was often able to transmit Chuck's reactions to things with just the slightest facial changes, and it was always clear what those little ticks meant because of how well-drawn the character was. Chuck was petty, a hypocrite, nit-picky, spiteful, selfish, and just plain mean-spirited throughout his arc on this series, but he's one of the 15 or so greatest characters I've ever seen on TV.

Elsewhere, Season Three treated us to Giancarlo Esposito reprising his role as Gus Fring. This was teased via a hidden message in the episode titles of last season, so it wasn't exactly a surprise, but it was still awesome to see. The season focused on Fring's rivalry with a pre-disability Hector Salamanca, and we learn about the contentious history between the two that led to the animosity we saw on Breaking Bad.

The season was loaded with excellent moments, but I'll recap three of my favorites.

First and foremost, the courtroom scene in which Jimmy interrogates Chuck might be the best thing this show has ever done. The entire time I was convinced that Jimmy was holding some sort of electronic object to prove that Chuck's issues are psychosomatic, but the reveal that Huell Babineaux (Huell!) had actually planted a charged cell phone battery on Chuck and there was no adverse reaction was some kind of twist. The entire courtroom episode is one of Better Call Saul's best.

The second involves Nacho, whom the show has transitioned from a frightening character into a sympathetic one. Faced with Hector trying to invade his father's business, Nacho decides he has to take drastic action and make a covert attempt on Hector's life by swapping Hector's pills with something...less amenable to living. We're shown Nacho unsuccessfully practicing swapping a pill bottle into a jacket pocket and despite not getting it quite right, he's essentially given one chance to do it for real, during which his life is basically at stake. The scene in which Nacho executes the switch is one of the most tense I can remember seeing on television.

Finally, we got a chance to see what happens when Fring's drug business crosses over into his chicken restaurant management business. Hector Salamanca and his guys come into Los Pollos Hermanos to intimidate the employees and get in Gus' face. The way that Gus handles the whole situation is masterful (even if the explanation of who the intruders are was a little shaky from this end). He treats his employees with care and respect and it's clear that they both look up to him and are concerned for his safety. Gus isn't just a master earner on the drug side, he's damn good at running his fast food restaurant and treats the business as more than just a front.

Better Call Saul has just kept getting better through three seasons. I think it'll be tough to repeat that feat without Chuck, and as I've observed lately, Season Four is when a lot of great shows tend to go down the tubes. However, Vince Gilligan is at the helm of this one and Breaking Bad only continued to get stronger as the series went on. I have little fear of Saul suffering the Season Four curse.

Season Grade: A

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