Hello and welcome to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, a Downton Abbey blog bobbing along on the waves of a Top Gun internet.
I'm Dave-El, he who is trapped in a world he is not designed to cope with. And for a the last few days, my poor coping skills were at a particularly low ebb. I wish I could be dramatic and plead something big ("Egads! I had COVID!") but no, I was brought low by the most common virulency of the common cold.
I have never denied it before and I will not now: I am a total wuss.
Hence no blog posts. So my apologies to my readers, all two of you as well as the Russian bots that periodically monitor this space.
OK, it's Tuesday. Let's talk TV.
Law & Order finished off it's 21st season and the first season of it's revival. As I wrote here before, L&O did not get off to a great start with a poor conceived story and a cast that included what I described as the worst character not just in the history of Law & Order but in all of television, detective Frank Cosgrove, a blunt and crude representation of the political right.
As much as I despise Cosgrove, the real weak link of the revived L&O is Nolan Price, the Executive Assistant District Attorney. He seriously lacks the intensity of previous Exec ADA's like Ben Stone, Jack McCoy and Michael Cutter. Price seems uncertain of his own convictions as he seeks convictions of the accused.
L&O has been renewed for a 22nd season but one cast member is not returning. Anthony Anderson as Detective Bernard is not returning for another season. Sam Waterston as Jack McCoy is also still up in the air for coming back another season.
And my returning to watch one more season of this revived series is also up in the air.
As much I enjoy glomming reruns of classic Law & Order, this revival of the O.G. L&O is just not working for me.
Moving from new episodes of something has been done before, let's move on a totally original concept that is unlike anything on TV.
My daughter Randie has been bugging me to watch Our Flag Means Death. Repeatedly.
Finally, Andrea and I acquiesced to watch Our Flag Means Death and let me say how much I hate this show.
It's a stupid pirate show about stupid pirates and I hate it that it so damn funny and worse, I hate that I give a damn and care about these stupid pirates.
Our Flag Means Death is set in the early 1700s during the Golden Age of Piracy, the series follows the misadventures of pirate Stede Bonnet and his crew aboard the Revenge.
Bonnet is far from the idea of who a pirate should be. Brutal, ruthless, tough are words what you would NOT use to describe Bonnet. A fragile, sensitive person of aristocratic birth, Bonnet's story of how he finds himself on on the path of piracy unfolds in a series of flashbacks showing his humiliation at the hands of his father and his classmates and his unhappy subjugation to his own wife and children.
Suffice to say Stede Bonnet has issues. Becoming a pirate captain is perhaps not the best way to cope with those issues.
The word "dysfunctional" can be applied not only to Bonnet but to his crew as well.
And it applies to the infamous and most feared pirate of them all, Blackbeard, who has taken an interest in Bonnet, the self proclaimed "Gentleman Pirate". Blackbeard, beat down by the same old same old of a pirate's life is quite intrigued by Bonnet's unique style of being a pirate. Bonnet's methods are stupid and incompetent but the outcomes are not exactly dull.
Our Flag Means Death is at turns uproariously funny and uncannily thought provoking, often moving in unexpected directions.
A show that makes me laugh and think? Who the hell needs that? So yeah, I hate Our Flag Means Death!
Next week, the Tuesday TV Touchbase looks at the season 2 finale of The Flight Attendant.
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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