Young Sheldon began it's 6th season a couple of weeks back as the Cooper family begins it's inevitable descent towards self-destruction.
From Big Bang Theory, we know George Cooper Sr. slides into alcoholism, adultery and eventually death. Which is hard to reconcile with the portrait of the Cooper's paterfamilias presented on Young Sheldon. I wonder how much of adult Sheldon's recollections on BBT were a willful misrepresentation of his father, that somehow it was easier to cope with his dad's death by remembering him as an angry, alcoholic adulterer.
Mary's estrangement from the church is an interesting development. Her church's judgmental stigmatization of Mary and her family in the wake of Georgie getting Mandy pregnant actually makes Mary a more sympathetic character. We know by the time of BBT that Mary is all in with the church again but for now, Mary is a lot more tolerable as a person.
Oddly enough for a show called Young Sheldon is the marginalization of young Sheldon. Iain Armitage has gone through a major growth spurt and his voice has gotten really deep. I don't know if that is any factor contributing to Sheldon's own plot lines seeming to be almost after thoughts. Sheldon does get a good moment in the season premiere where he tells off the church congregation for their hypocrisy towards his mother and their family.
I can't help but wonder if Young Sheldon is at it's sell-by date. The problems inherent in a prequel (we already know where things are going to go) and in a show centered around an aging child protagonist (if Iain Armitage's voice gets any lower, I'm gonna think he's being dubbed by James Earl Jones) are pressing down on this series and turning it into something different than what it once was.
CBS renewed Young Sheldon through season 7. Which I think might be 1 season too long.
What else are Andrea and I watching on TV?
Well, we're following the prime time celebrity editions of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.
Celebrity Wheel of Fortune continues to be in it's 3rd season an inexorable time suck. Mostly the "celebrities" get this response from me: "Who are these people?"
OK, I did know Kristen Schaal (What We Do In the Shadows) who got my attention by constantly calling Pat Sajak "Patrick" which seemed to vaguely irk him ("Only my mother calls me Patrick.") which inspired Kristen to call him "Patrick" even more.
Snoop Dogg failed to solve a puzzle that was "Baked Brownies" which we all assumed was in Snoop's area of expertise. Instead he guessed "Baked Onions".
Celebrity Jeopardy debut season has so far been less embarrassing for it's celebrities. No one crapping out with negative scores like we used to see on the SNL skits.
Simu Liu (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) reactions of shock at actually winning the first game and his palatable horror that he would have to come back as a semi-finalist were classic.
The celebrities are fairly knowledgeable about stuff but seem to struggle a bit with betting strategies for Double Jeopardy clues.
In order to pad the show out to an hour, Celebrity Jeopardy has a third round (Triple Jeopardy) which of course has stirred up the purists but this is infinitely preferable to Celebrity Wheel of Fortune running 2 half hour games with the same 3 celebrities over the course of their hour which just adds to slow slog that Celebrity Wheel of Fortune feels like.
OK, that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.
Coming up on future posts, we'll look at the complete first season of She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, the last season of Kevin Can F**K Himself and we'll poke around with what's up with season 3 of Star Trek: Lower Decks.
Coming up on the blog tomorrow, we've got some Doctor Who stuff.
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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