For a person who loves to watch TV as much as I do, can there be such a thing as too much TV? In addition to TV shows that I specifically seek out new episodes, there are the TV series that run on various cable channels, one damn episode after another.
Today's Tuesday TV Touchbase looks at some of those series as I ponder the question, is there too much TV?
My recent obsessive immersion in the world of Gilmore Girls continues. Logo TV (the gay channel) runs it in the morning and I catch an episode before work. UPTV (the... I don't know, positivity channel?) runs it in the late afternoons where I can catch an episode after work.
I'm bouncing up and down the Gilmore timeline. Oh look, Rory's graduating from Yale. Oh, she's in the middle on her time at Chilton. She's just starting at Chilton. It's her first day at Yale.
Lorelei is with Max. Nope, she's not. She's with Luke now. Wait, what happened with Luke? Why is Chriostopher back in the picture?
Yes, I know I could go over to Netflix and watch all this in order but I kind of like this hit or miss approach of catching these episodes in syndication.
As much as I am unto old school Law & Order, I've recently began glomming on to the L&O spin off series, Criminal Intent which is about a major case squad in the New York City Police Department. This squad has Detective Robert Goren, played by Vincent D'Onofrio (Edgar from Men In Black), a detective whose own mental tics and issues help him to connect with murder suspects. Goren will talk up a suspect and completely empathize exactly why so and so had to die; the suspect then just cops to everything.
D'Onofrio alternated with Chris Noth (Jack Robinson from Doctor Who) who revived his Det. Mike Logan character from the original L&O series. While Goren's approach to detective work might be called "quirky", Logan has a more straightforward "no punk ass murderer is getting away with murder on my watch" concept of crime solving.
Classic Law & Order still eats up a lot of time. Some damn channel is running it some damn time of the day. The vagaries of how ever episodes are scheduled have recently aired some of the earliest of the early episodes, before Jerry Orbach joined the show, when the main cast was all male and when the Executive Assistant District Attorney was not Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy but Michael Moriarty's Ben Stone. Stone tends to live up to his name with a stone cold demeanor compared to the more expressive McCoy.
After Waterston comes on board, you can track where you are in the time line by whoever is the female assistant, the whiteness of McCoy's hair and the bushiness of his preternaturally black eye brows. By the series last two season, McCoy's eyebrows were full blown woolly worms predicting a very cold winter,doncha know.
(I am stoked by the news that the original Law & Order is being revived.)
Big Bang Theory still remains a go-to for post work day comfort food TV for Andrea and I. Sometimes it can be a bit disconcerting to figure out where we are in the narrative. Usually it's just a matter of determining where we are in the Leonard and Penny relationship: not dating yet, not dating again, dating again, engaged, married.
My main problem with early seasons of BBT is Howard's unrelenting skeeviness towards women. Bernadette can't get here fast enough to check Howard's worst impulses.
Andrea and I have been catching on the BBT spin off Young Sheldon on HBO Max and now the episodes are in syndication on TBS. Now Young Sheldon is part of our post work day comfort food TV.
The new season of Young Sheldon kicks off soon where it appears George Cooper Sr might be heading towards that fall from grace so frequently referred to by Sheldon in Big Bang Theory. Until now, the George we've seen so far in Young Sheldon has been a good family man. But Mary is a judgmental bitch who does not appreciate the man and no wonder if it drives him to drink more and cheat on her.
Laurie Metcalf's version of Mary on BBT was a religious nut case but there was some small sense of willing to understand or tolerate others not like herself. Zoe Perry's Mary Cooper is a hypocritical control freak.
Well, that is a lot of TV. Is it too much TV?
OK, that's all I've got for today's Tuesday TV Touchbase.
Over the next week or so, let's see where we are so far with Supergirl, Stargirl, Only Murders in the Building, What If..?, Star Trek: Lower Decks and What We Do in the Shadows.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.
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Elsewhere and other when..
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