Tuesday TV Touchbase: Star Trek Picard

I'm going to start this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase about a TV show that I have never seen one single episode despite the fact it debuted 42 years ago and has produced 857 episodes.

We're talking about Grey's Anatomy. 

The medical drama starring Ellen Pompeo as Dr.Meredith Grey hit a very significant milestone last week when Ellen Pompeo left the show.  

Given the show was named after Dr. Grey (the title being a variation of  Gray's Anatomy, a reference book of human anatomy written by Henry Gray and first published in 1858), it stands to reason that last week was the last episode of Grey's Anatomy.  

It was not.  Not only is the show going to continue but it is likely that ABC will renew the show for another season. 

Grey's Anatomy is not the first show to go on after the titular lead actor left.  The cult BBC sci-fi show Blake's 7 continued after the actor who played Blake left the series after 2 seasons. 

But it really seems like ABC should accept reality and bring Grey's Anatomy to an end. Like I said, I don't watch the show and for I know there is enough of an audience for the show to keep it going without it's star. 

Anyway, it was a side thing about TV that I thought was kind of weird.

On to the main topic. 

So Star Trek Picard had a LOT to answer for. 

Look, my wife Andrea is fairly easily entertained. I'm not saying she doesn't have any discriminating taste  but she is willing to cut certain movies or TV shows a bit more slack and give creative types some benefit of the doubt. 

When season 2 of Star Trek Picard came to an end, her reaction was "Wait a minute, that's it? We went through all that for.... that?" 

When you've made Andrea question the expenditure of her time to watch your TV show, you have well and truly fucked up.   

And a lot of Star Treks fans (including me among them) thought the 2nd season of Star Trek Picard was indeed well and truly fucked up. 

When it was announced that season 3 was going to be the last season of Star Trek Picard, it seemed like a mercy killing.

When it was also announced that Picard would be reuniting with his old Next Gen crew, well, at least the show might go out with giving the fans what they want.

When Patrick Stewart first agreed to return as Jean-Luc Picard, he made it clear he didn't want this to be a pure nostalgia trip.  Which that made sense to me. '

One of the reasons I was excited to see Star Trek Picard in the first place was to actually see Star Trek move forward.  For nearly 2 decades, Star Trek was subject to various prequels and reboots and was not moving forward. Star Trek Picard was an opportunity for the franchise to move forward.

We still wanted some appeals to our sense of nostalgia and season 1 served up just enough with the guest appearances of Will Riker, Deanna Troi and Data.   But season 2 seemed totally cut off from any element of Picard's legacy. Yes, we had Q back but except for a couple of brief scenes between Patrick Stewart and John DeLancie, Q was both woefully underused AND misused as a character. 

OK, enough rants about the past. What about now? 

Season 3 of Star Trek Picard opens up with Beverly Crusher and a young man named Jack fighting off space pirates. Well, that's a good start. 

Beverly gets a coded message through to Jean-Luc with a desperate plea for help. She explicitly tells him to trust no one and do NOT involve Starfleet. 

What happens next does not bode well for Star Trek Picard avoiding some of the plotting mishaps of season 2. Jean Luc immediately meets up with Will Riker where they formulate a plan to rescue Beverly by using Will's old command, the USS Titan. 

What part of "trust no one and do NOT involve Starfleet" did you not understand, Jean Luc? 

Well, getting to the Titan does give us a chance to reconnect with Seven who is the ship's commanding officer. Except the ship's captain insists on addressing her by her human name, Annika Hansen. (Seven has issues with that nomenclature which was covered in an episode of Voyager which explained why the person freed from the Borg wanted to be called by her Borg designation.) 

And speaking of the captain....

Captain Shaw is a total dick. He's rude and petulant and dismissive and I guess we're all supposed to hate him for not capitulating to Picard and Riker asking him to switch the Titan's destination.

Except...

He is not wrong. Every objection he has to doing what Picard and Riker want him to do makes perfect sense. And when Picard and Riker do get what they want thanks to insubordination from Seven, damned if Shaw isn't proven correct as the Titan finds itself in the crosshairs of a threat that way outclasses anything on the Titan.  

Speaking of which....

Amanda Plummer is on hand as Vadic, a bounty hunter with an obsession of getting her hands on Jack who is revealed to be Beverly's son. Amanda Plummer is the daughter of Christoher Plummer who was the villain in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.   

So if Beverly is Jack's mother, who is his father? Well, young Jack has an English accent but drops some occasional French phrases into his speech. Go on, guess? 

Meanwhile, there is a subplot with the only other Picard centric character to continue from the first two seasons, Raffi. Michelle Hurd does her best with what she's given but damned if her subplot rooting out a terrorist conspiracy against Starfleet is a bit of a snooze. In episode 2, we finally get to connect her with the Next Gen crew when Worf shows up. 

About damn time! 

Despite some shortcomings in plot and pacing (it's taken us 2 episodes to get where we should've been in 1), season 3 of  Star Trek Picard is off to a markedly better start than we saw in season 2. 

There's still a lot to do. Somehow Worf and Raffie have to be connected into whatever shit Picard, Riker and Beverly are now in and we still need to bring in Deanna and Geordi. (Although we've met his daughter who is the navigator on the Titan.)  

And we know Brent Spiner is coming back eventually as Lore so we've got that coming.   

And Daniel Davis as holographic Moriarity? Now I can't wait to see how and why that happens! 

So Star Trek Picard, you have my attention. Please do not let me down. 

Next week, we've got... well, at this writing, I have no idea. 

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.   

Jimmy Carter

About a week ago, it was announced that the 98 year old former President Jimmy Carter was entering home hospice care in Plains, Georgia.   

The statement from the Carter Center revealed that Carter had “decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention.”

Jimmy Carter was President when I first started high school and well, I didn't like it. 

I was young and uninformed and all I really knew about Jimmy Carter was what I saw and heard. And what I saw and heard did not look or sound like what I thought a President should look or sound like.   

It wasn't just the southern accent but Carter had a sort of soft, almost gentle way of speaking, like Mister Rogers or something.  I mean, nothing against Mister Rogers but the President of the United States shouldn't sound like Mister Rogers. 

His slight build made Jimmy Carter seem overwhelmed by the office. 

And it didn't help that a lot of shit went down during his single term in office with double-digit inflation, an energy crisis thar sparked long lines at gas pumps and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran.  A failed rescue of the hostages cost the lives of 8 Americans, a bleak moment that sealed Jimmy Carter' electoral fate when Ronald Reagan came along. 

I was young and I was a sucker and I bought what Ronald Reagan was selling. Reagan stood tall with broad shoulders and spoke out with a commanding voice that assured us that America was a shining city on a hill and we were gonna by God kick ass again! 

Translation: AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!!!

So Jimmy Carter got his ass kicked but hard in 1980. 

But here's an interesting thing that I was too stupid to be aware of at the time. 

OK, I knew Jimmy Carter was very open about his Christian faith so dummy that I am, I figured he had the vote of the good Christian people in America, right?

Oh hell no! 

Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, a socio-political movement of the Evangelical Christian right worked double time to seal the deal for Ronald Reagan because Reagan told Falwell and his racist, sexist and homophobic ilk what they wanted to hear, about restoring American values which to the Moral Majority meant "Christian" values or more to the point, their particular brand of "Christian" values. 

Self described Christian voters swarmed to Reagan's campaign. I can't throw stones here. I was one of them. 

Ronald Reagan, former TV and movie actor, put on the performance of a lifetime to win the role of a life time. 

Jimmy Carter was never more than who he said he was and got drubbed out of office. Yes, Jimmy Carter was devout in his Christian faith but he never lost sight that he was President of the United States of America and never acted like he was  President of the United States of Evangelical Christians.  

Which of course pissed off the evangelical Christians. 

In his years out of office, Jimmy Carter has lived humbly in the same modest home he and his wife Rosalyn shared for decades while working with the Carter Center to promote democratic and humanitarian initiatives around the world.  And Carter could frequently be found at worksites for Habitat For Humanity, working to build homes for families in need.  

Jimmy Carter didn't simply express his faith. He lived it.  

Looking back on the inanity of my youth, I regret my assessment of Jimmy Carter as President. Yeah, he could've been a bit more of a forceful speaker and conveyed a more decisive image. Part of the power of the Presidency is motivation. And I think Carter struggled with that. 

But I think it was inherent in Carter's nature that perhaps he grasped a fundamental truth that the President of the United States is more a role of ultimate service than it is about ultimate power.  

God bless Jimmy Carter and his family.    

Cinema Sunday: Amistad

 

Today's Cinema Sunday post concludes our month long theme of social relevance with a film that recounts a seminal moment in black history. From 1997, we take a look at Amistad. 

Amistad is about the events that took place aboard the Spanish slave ship La Amistad in 1839 during which Mende tribesmen abducted as slaves managed to gain control of their captors' ship off the coast of Cuba and the international legal battle that followed their capture by an American ship. 

And the protracted legal battles that held the lives of those tribesmen in the balance for two years.   

Amistad is not an easy movie to watch with scenes of the utter depths of the depravity of man towards man as Africans are herded onto an over capacity slave ship, stripped naked, beaten, shoved into dark cargo holds with no ventilation, forced to subsist on watery gruel poured into their desperate hands.  

There's a sequence of outright murder when the slavers seek to reduce their cargo by sending a group of chained Africans into the ocean to drown. 

Cinqué has had enough.

Cinqué is a Mende tribal leader who manages with bloody brutal effort to free himself of his chains and instigate an uprising against the slavers. They leave two of them alive on the condition they sail the boat back to Africa. Instead the two Spanish sailors betray Cinqué and sail La Amistad in the opposite direction into American waters where the Cinqué and his fellow tribesmen are arrested for piracy and mutiny. 

What ensues next is a tangled web of legal claims over the Mende tribesmen. 

The US government insists the Mende are theirs to punish for their crimes of piracy and mutiny.  

Sailors on the US vessel claim the tribesmen as their property by right of salvage.  

The two Spanish sailors claim the tribesmen as their property, a claim supported by the the Spanish government of Queen Isabella, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Spain and the United States. 

Wading into this legal morass are abolitionist Lewis Tappan and his black associate Theodore Joadson, a former slave.  They resolve to help the captives. But the best lawyer they can get who is willing to take on this thankless task is Roger Sherman Baldwin, a young and somewhat eccentric attorney.  

Key to the claims of the American and Spanish sailors to the captives as property is that they are from Cuba, not Africa. Even in a time of slavery, the transatlantic slave trade is banned.  Apparently it's illegal in 1839 to kidnap and transport Africans across the ocean as slaves.

Well, we know they're from Africa but Baldwin doesn't; there is a the pesky matter of a persistent language barrier. 

But Baldwin has his suspicions they are not from Cuba as the claimants insist.  Baldwin and Joadson poke around La Amistad and find documents which prove the captives were kidnapped and transported across the Atlantic aboard a Portuguese slave ship before being transferred to La Amistad in Havana. 

Impressed with this discovery, the judge indicates he is prepared to dismiss the US and Spanish governments' case and release the captives.

To preclude that from happening and to head off that diplomatic crisis with Spain, President Van Buren replaces the judge with a younger man whom he believes will be easier to manipulate to deliver the desired verdict.   

Baldwin and Joadson have facts on their side but they need an edge. They need Cinqué's side of the story.  

Baldwin and Joadson recruit freedman James Covey as a translator, enabling Cinqué to testify directly before the court. He relates the story of the capture of he and his tribe and their hellish experience on the boat.   

The prosecutor looks to poke holes in Cinqué's story, escalating tensions within the courtroom.  It's in this time of stress,  Cinqué abruptly stands and demands, "Give us, us free!". 

The new judge rules as the previous judge was going to, that the Africans are to be released and for additional good measure, the two Spaniards are to be arrested and charged with illegal slave-trading.

Yay! Cinqué and his tribe win and they're going back home as free...

Not so fast, scooter! 

Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, representing the slave-holding interests of the American South, pressures President Van Buren to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. 

Shit! The Mende have to go through this again?!?

Cinqué is pissed! He doesn't understand American politics or its court system! All he knows is Baldwin told them they won, they were free and now they did not win and are not free. Cinqué is not happy with Baldwin. 

Never mind that Baldwin is the only guy in his corner despite being ostracized and receiving countless death threats for daring to represent slaves who murdered white men.  

Baldwin finally gets Cinqué to understand he is on their side and he's no happier with this turn of events but he will keep fighting. 

Although he could use some help. It seems the majority of the Supreme Court justices are from slave holding states so yeah, this could be a problem,  

Baldwin and Joadson manage to appeal to John Quincy Adams to help them to take up the case of the Mende. 

Yep, former President of the United States. THAT John Quincy Adams.   

After meeting with Cinqué, Adams agrees to take up the case before the Supreme Court and his impassioned and eloquent speech convinces the court to confirm the judgement of the lower court and release the Africans.

Which ended slavery and racism forever and... well, no, it didn't. 

In casting the role of Cinqué, director Steven Spielberg had very specific requirements that the actor must have an impressive physical appearance, be able to command authority and be of West African descent. The casting of this role was extremely crucial to the point Spielberg was prepared to delay production for years if needed until the right actor was found. An audition by Djimon Hounsou came to his attention and Spielberg knew he found Cinqué. It was a bit of a gamble as Hounsou was relatively new and unknown. 

But they made right call as every moment Djimon Hounsou is on screen as Cinqué, he is an imposing force of strength and leadership and passion. 

Morgan Freeman was cast on a first-hired basis as Theodore Joadson, one of the film's few fictional characters. Chiwetel Ejiofor  made his film debut in the role of translator James Covey.  

Most of the reviews of Amistad at the time were positive although the general consensus at the time were that Spielberg's earlier work on Schindler's List and The Color Purple were stronger films.  

There was a discussion printed in The Atlantic 2014 that dismissed Amistad as "sanctimonious drivel" for perpetuating the white savior narrative. I've seen this complaint about other films that have dealt with issues of race and while I can't speak to all of them, I'm not sure what anyone expected to happen in Amistad. A group of Africans have been captured as slaves and are caught in the gears of a legal system that was not designed to act in their favor. Yes, some white guy from within the system needed to step up and say to the other white guys within the system "Oh hell no!" 

Was Cinqué supposed to learn perfect English, get a law degree and defend himself before the Supreme Court?  

But even within their cells and their shackles, Cinqué and his tribe still exert their agency as best they can within a system that is arrayed against them. And yes, an old white man wins the day in the court but as John Quincy Adams credits after the case is done, he won it with Cinqué's story. 

Amistad is a bit frustrating in that the excuses and shenanigans employed by the pro-slavery forces are still being used today to justify the transgressions of our past. The prosecutor in the trials seeks to justify American enslavement of Africans on the basis of Africans enslaved each other.  I believe pundits like Tucker Carlson have suggested African Americans should just get over their issues with America's slavery past because Africans did it to themselves.   

Amistad reflects how far we have come and sadly, how far we haven't.   

Next week, Cinema Sunday moves on to a film of less social and political portent as I have seen a movie that came out here in 2023.

Next week: Ant Man & the Wasp - Quantumania! 

Songs For Saturday From A To Z: The Bangles, Foo Fighters, Fleetwood Mac & U2

 

Well, today Songs For Saturday From A To Z reaches the end of our 2 month experiment and the end of the alphabet. 

Kicking off today's play list for the letter "W" are The Bangles with "Walk Like An Egyptian".

You may think there are NO song titles that begin with the letter "X". 

Here are the Foo Fighters are "X Static!" to prove you wrong. 

Fleetwood Mac has made several appearances in our A To Z playlist for these 2 months and here they are one more time with the late great Christine McVie with "You Make Loving Fun".

U2 is back to bring this epic A To Z play list to an end. Representing the letter "Z", here is "Zoo Station".

This whole Songs For Saturday From A To Z experiment is dedicated to my daughter Randie. When we're on a road trip, we play a game of assembling a play list as we drive of song titles in alphabetical order. It can be quite a challenge but it's also a lot of fun. 

That's it for today. 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.  

Your Friday Video Link: The Wednesday Addams Dance

 

I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You is not a blog that keeps up with the zietgeist.  

The zeitgeist 

is over 

here....

...AND

...I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You

 is over 

here. 

So this week's edition of Your Friday Video Link features a dance sequence that burned up Tik Tok months ago.

From the Netflix series Wednesday, here is Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams doing her very unique dance to "The Goo Goo Muck".   

A Non-Stupid Sign Of the Times

So I saw this story online yesterday about a pizzeria in Ohio that put out a help wanted sign. 

And caused a kerfuffle. 

Apparently this sign enraged a lot of people who have spoken out against Santino's Pizzeria for it's "Now Hiring Non Stupid People" sign. 

Now I understand that people who run food service places like this can be total jerks, cruel taskmasters looking to get as much as work as possible out of as few people as possible for as little recompense as possible. 

If my daughter Randie is reading this, I can guess she's turning all shades of red recollecting her time in food service hell. She was rather happy to get the job when it first started but a series of micro managing, penny pinching martinets managed to beat that joy out of her. 

And I gotta think that putting out a sign that reads "Now Hiring Non Stupid People" can come off as some raging asshole engaging in some next level passive aggressive shit. 

But...

Is it really a bad thing to want to hire the NON-stupid? 

I mean, the sign could've been worse:

"Now Hiring Non Black People"

"Now Hiring Non Female People"  

"Now Hiring Non Jewish People" 

Which a little more than a half century ago was perfectly legal to put up in your shop window.  

But what about "Now Hiring Non Stupid People"?  

One one hand, I would very much like to work in an environment free from the terminally stupid. 

On the other hand, I might be out of a job.  

Changing the World

So I was at my local grocery store recently. 

And for the record, just assume I was in a bad mood. 

It was late and I was tired. I'd put in a full day in at work and where I want to be is on my sofa watching whatever the hell happens to be on TV at that moment.  

Also our local grocery store is too damn expensive (even before recently inflation kicked in hard) but that lack of economy is offset by the fact it's only a few blocks from my house. 

Another detriment about my local grocery store is it's too damn loud which I once wrote about here.   

So suffice to say I'm tired, I'm paying too damn much for food and it's TOO DAMN LOUD so yeah, I'm cranky. 

Please don't talk to me. 

This old guy in line in front of me tries to talk to me. 

On the magazine rack in the cashier's line is this book from Life, 100 People Who Changed the World.  

So the old white guy says to me, "I don't know how the hell she's supposed to have changed the world!" 

Now there are three women on the cover of this magazine but I'm guessing I know whose presence he's irked by. 

Nonetheless, I mutter, "Er, who?" 

The old white guy gestures to the lower right corner of the cover, "You know, her, Oprah." I feel like he's incredulous that I didn't narrow it down for myself. 

Under the best of circumstances, do not ask me to engage with people in line for anything. And these are not the best of circumstances. Nonetheless, I stumbled through an answer. "Well, I understand she is a positive role model for a lot of women!" 

The old white guy dismisses this with "Hmph! Hardly call that changing the world."     

At this point, he decided I was not someone to be conversed with and left me the hell alone. 

Which was good. 

But...

Look I can blame my failure to speak up more emphatically on behalf of Oprah Winfrey on being tired when in fact I am a coward when it comes to public confrontation. 

I feel bad that I did not say more.

"Look, bub, Oprah Winfrey found success with a multi media empire after breaking barriers that had restricted others due to their sex and color. Her success inspired others to find their own voices, to forge a path for their own success. Oprah's message is one of hope and positivity in opposition to others who trade on hate and fear. Oprah Winfrey is a force for good who is admired by millions of people the whole wide over and I can't help but wonder, you old fart, that of all the people on that cover, you singled out the successful black woman for critique while ignoring fucking Adolf god damn Hitler who is on the same cover!" 

Of course that would not have gone well if I had said all that but damn it, I wish I had the courage.

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Wednesday

 

This week's Tuesday TV Touchbase is my timely post on the Netflix series Wednesday.

OK, not so timely. The series dropped in November and it took Andrea and I until the middle of February to finish it. 

Look, if you're looking to I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You for up to the minute reporting, well, you are a sad, strange little blog reader and you have my pity. 

Anyway, today I'm going to post about Wednesday.  

The series follows 16 year old Wednesday Addams as she is sent off to a boarding school after putting piranha in the pool of the high school swim team (they had bullied her brother Pugsley and nobody tortures her brother... except Wednesday.)  

She narrowly avoids the shame of having "attempted murder" on her permanent record. ATTEMPTED murder? Oh, the embarrassment of being known as having FAILED to murder the high school swim team. 

So Wednesday Addams winds up at Nevermore Academy, a gothic structure that serves as a boarding school for weirdos and outcasts. Think Hogwarts but with less charm.  

Wednesday's roommate is Enid, a golden haired embodiment of happiness and positivity.  

Wednesday says this of Enid: “She’s been smothering me with hospitality. I hope to return the favor. In her sleep.”

Enid's perkiness aside, she has her own struggles as both weirdo (she's a werewolf) and outcast (from her own kind. Enid can pop claws but otherwise cannot fully transform into a wolf.)  

Wednesday makes clear here intent to escape from Nevermore so she won't have put up with this shit. But then she is enticed to stay for a compelling reason.   

The murders. 

Bodies are being discovered in the woods ravaged by a vicious beast.  Sheriff Galpin of the nearby town of Jericho tells the public and the press it's a bear but he thinks it's a monster and he's pretty damn sure that monster is at Nevermore Academy.  

The town of Jericho and Nevermore exists in an uneasy state of detente. Of course the small town residents are bigoted and distrustful of the weirdos and outcasts of Nevermore. But the Academy has a great deal of wealth and contributes a big chunk of change to the town's tax base. Jericho can have nice things because Nevermore helps pay for them.  

Wednesday's investigation into the murders exposes her to more secrets such as some sketchy shit her parents Morticia and Gomez were up to when they were students at Nevermore.  

And there is the matter of the very, very old painting with a girl who looks like Wednesday in it.  Possibly an ancestor of her's?

And if all of that isn't enough, Wednesday has to contend with the damn visions that pop up at irregular and inconvenient intervals, visions of past horror, present danger and terrible portents of the future. 

Wednesday is also forced to interact with the students at Nevermore which she finds distasteful but necessary if she is going to unravel whatever the hell is going on. She joins a bee keeping club but it only has one member, Eugene, who is so happy to have someone else in the club who are not bees. 

And since Wednesday is 16 years old, she's got boy troubles whether she wants them or not (and she doesn't.) Despite being a cold, distant sociopath that makes her seem weird even to the weirdos and outcasts of her school, she's drawn the attention of Nevermore art student Xavier and Jericho barista Tyler who is the son of the sheriff but doesn't share his father's disdain of Nevermore. And Eugene's crushing on her hard.  

(And yes, there are shippers out there who want Enid and Wednesday to be a thing. I can see it but I'm guessing those shippers should not get their hopes up.)  

Wednesday actually dresses up and goes to a school dance. Where she seems to... enjoy herself? I mean, she doesn't crack a smile but she's a really energetic and distinctive dancer. 

(Clips of that dance sequence have been burning up the internet for months. In case you missed it, it's Your Friday Video Link this week.)   

Basically, this series takes someone out of the Addams Family and plops them in the middle of Riverdale.  With some Nancy Drew and Vampire Diaries mixed in.  

Wednesday is the Addams Family as a CW show. 

Which is not me saying this is a bad thing. 

Let's start with the character of Wednesday Addams.  Christina Ricci defined the part in the Addams Family  movies of the 1990s with her deadpan snarker. Alienation from others is not a bug but a desired outcome for the prepubescent Wednesday.  As good as Ricci is as Wednesday, she only has to hold our attention with her brutally cold dead wit for parts of the movie. 

The new adolescent Wednesday has to carry an entire series and that's where Jenna Ortega has some seriously heavy lifting to do and she pulls it off quite well. 

Ortega's Wednesday employs a lot of the morbid and sharp wit of Ricci's version but it's leavened with small bits of humanity that slip through the cracks of Wednesday's practiced persona. For example, she experiences guilt when Eugene goes off on his own to investigate the mystery and winds up being nearly mauled to death by the monster in the woods.  There are no tears or other outward expressions of remorse, just Wednesday standing silent vigil in Eugene's hospital room. 

Ortega's Wednesday is bereft of the support of the Addams Family.  Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán as Morticia and Gomez make appearances in a couple of episodese. Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester shows up near the end. Besides Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday, the one family member with a regular role is Thing, the disembodied hand.

For a disembodied hand, Thing has a lot of personality.   

But this is Wednesday's story, a coming of age where alienation changes from a life goal to something to be overcome. 

Stylistically,  Wednesday is beautiful to behold with it's gothic architecture covered in the sinister dark. Jenna Ortega as the title character is a strong and engaging performance and she's surrounded by a game and interesting supporting cast.

 And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week.

Next week, we've got the start of the 3rd season of Star Trek Picard.   

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.   

What Defines Genius?

I'm getting old.

In a couple of months I will be crossing a threshold I once thought was unimaginable. Like the rules of human biology and temporal physics do not apply to me. 

But they do. Alas they do.

In April, I will be 60 years old.

Damn that doesn't sound right. 

Let me recheck the math. 

Invert the integer, square the hypotenuse, compensate for the phase shift in the...

Oh fuck! I'm old! 

I guess it snuck up on me because all the physical indicators of age have always been with me.  It hurts to go from a sitting position to a standing position? Big deal!  It's always hurt for me to go from a sitting position to a standing position! 

I suppose the big worry about aging is less about physical condition and more about mental condition. 

I am willing to accept physical degradation as long as have the mental ability to craft a sentence that includes the phrase "physical degradation" instead of plaintively wailing "I'm OLD and it HURTS!" 

I did get some validation on my mental condition from the fine folks at Cracker Barrel. 

Andrea and I were having dinner there Friday night on purpose. So further evidence of aging. 

Get over it! Cracker Barrel has a varied and reasonably priced menu so don't knock it!

Anyway, I was messing with the peg board game they keep on tables and I was able to accomplish this: 

One peg left in the peg board which according to that board makes me a genius!  

OK, it's not the first time I've solved the damn Cracker Barrel peg board game and really, when you solved it once, it should be no big deal to solve it again. 

The problem is that the validation of my mental faculties by the genius certification of the damn Cracker Barrel peg board game is undermined by the fact that I don't remember how I did that.  

Each time I play the the damn Cracker Barrel peg board game, I have to work it out from scratch how to solve it. But is that an issue of aging? 

No, I've been playing the damn Cracker Barrel peg board game for years when my brain was less old and I still had the same problem.  

OK, fuck it! 

Cracker Barrel says I am a genius so there!  

Cinema Sunday: Children of a Lesser God

So today's Cinema Sunday continues with February's theme of social relevance with a look at a movie from 1986 that explores the lives of the hearing impaired.  

Adapted from a 1979 stage play, the film Children of a Lesser God is set at a New England school for the deaf and hard of hearing and follows the relationship between a new teacher (who can hear) and a custodian (who is deaf).   

James Leeds (William Hurt) arrives at the school, a new teacher just brimming with energy and ideas on teaching deaf kids how to speak.  Some of the kids in his class are a bit resistant to learning how to speak. They know that their voices will not sound like those who can hear and they fear being seen as stupid, as lesser than hearing people. 

And there is some hubris involved as some of the deaf students wonder why they should adapt to the hearing world when those who can hear should adapt to communicate with them and learn sign language.

But as James points out, what if you need to communicate with someone while you're holding stuff. Or need help and you're too far away for sign language to be seen.  

It takes time and a lot of patience but James gets his students to speak (even if for one, they only seem to learn profanity). He also gets them to learn dance choreography to a song they cannot hear.

James' successes with his students do not necessarily translate to the school custodian.  

Sarah Norman (Marlee Matlin) was once a student of the school, one of it's best and brightest. There are any number of things that Sarah's intelligence and education would let her do but she's chosen to stay at the school, even if it means working as a janitor.  

James is immediately attracted to Sarah and flits about the school bugging her why she's trying clean it. Alternating between charming and annoying, James finally gets Sarah to agree to have dinner with him. 

Sarah does not want to vocalize and James agrees to not force the issue. But he still brings it up because getting deaf people to speak is kind of his job.   

Sarah has put up a lot of walls around herself. Her mother was cold and distant. As a student, Sarah was the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of multiple boys who took advantage of her. And there's the ever present wall of silence, cutting her off from the hearing world.  Sarah is distrustful of relationships. 

But James keeps up the charm offensive as they eventually become a couple and she even moves in with him.  But their relationship is a contentious one with tensions between them over their differing ideologies on speech and deafness.  

Eventually these tensions reach a breaking point and Sarah leaves James and the school.  Sarah reconciles with her estranged mother and lives with her while working as a manicurist. Interesting choice for a person nominally committed to avoid interactions with the hearing world, working a job that involves using her hands which limits her ability to sign. 

Over time Sarah and James reconcile at the school prom, committing to find a way to stay connected between the world of silence and the world of sound. 

Marlee Matlin is captivating as Sarah, owning the screen in all her scenes, conveying a wide range of emotions with such power and passion, all without uttering a single word.  

William Hurt as James has some heavy lifting to do, delivering his own lines and translating Sarah's fast paced sign language. Her signing is done at such a furious pace, James has to vocalize what she's saying to help him keep up.  

I had some problems with the particulars of James and Sarah's courtship. As much as we may be told that James and Sarah are two consenting adult co-workers, James is a teacher and Sarah is younger than James, a janitor and not that long ago was a student so the yeah, the power dynamic seems a bit lop sided.  

I've also let some troubling information about William Hurt's relationships with women off the set color my perception of his character.  James Leeds may have been a charming goofball but  William Hurt was apparently a hard ass jerk with women. 

All that aside,Children of a Lesser God is a quietly compelling film that delivers a moving portrait of what happens when the lives of those who cannot hear intersect with those who can.

So next week keeping up with the theme of social relevance and since it is Black History Month, next week's movie is about black history and a slave uprising in the 1840's that leads to an historic case for the Supreme Court.

On the subject of movies, if all goes according to plan, Andrea and I will be seeing Ant Man & the Wasp: Quantumania today. The Cinema Sunday write up on that will post on March 5th.   

Songs For Saturday From A To Z: Sarah McLachlan, Brooklyn Duo, Alanis Morissette and U2

 

Welcome to the penultimate edition of Songs For Saturday From A To Z with 4 songs covering S, T, U and V.  

We closed out last week's post with  Sarah McLachlan for the letter "R" and today she's back to lead us off with the letter "S" and "Sweet Surrender".  

For the letter "T", I'm going with "Take On Me".  I thought about going with the original by A-Ha but man I do love this cover by Brooklyn Duo.    

I've referred to this next song as the best James Bond theme song never used in a James Bond film. Bringing us up to the letter "U", here is Alanis Morissette with "Uninvited".  

Now that I think about it, this next song would also qualify as a  great James Bond theme song never used in a James Bond film.  For the letter "V", here is U2 with Vertigo.

Next week, it is the grand finale for Songs For Saturday From A To Z with 4 songs covering W, X, Y and Z. (Yes, I have a song title that starts with X.) 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive and in alphabetical order.

Your Friday Video Link: Every Episode of Star Trek: TNG In One Video

 

The 3rd season of Star Trek: Picard dropped this week. 

If you need a refresher on everything that led up this series, Your Friday Video Link features every single episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation...

In 3 second increments.

It's really all you need. 

BLOG BIDNESS: the Your Friday Video Link with Benedict Cumberbatch promised for this week will post in two weeks. 

Unless I change my mind again.   

This (Non) Sporting Life: Super Bowl 2023

 

It's another edition of This (Non) Sporting Life, a blog post about sports by a guy who knows very little about sports.

This past Sunday was Super Bowl LVII and I went into this thing with so few fucks to give about who was in it and who I thought should win.  

I suppose I could've pulled for the Philadephia Eagles in that I kind of sort of have a connection to the Eagles through my job. I knew exactly jack squat about the team's stats and skills but I am aware of the reputation of the Eagles fans. 

They are... oh, how can I put this politely? 

...

I can't. 

Eagles fans are assholes.  

How much are they assholes?  They booed a guy winning a humanitarian award.  

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was on hand to receive the Walter Payton Man of the Year award which recognizes NFL players for doing good stuff off the field. The award was for Dak Prescott being a nice guy who does nice things for people when...

Oh fuck that, said the fans from Philly who greeted this player from their hated rivals the Dallas Cowboys with "BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" 

So fuck it! I'm pulling for Kansas City.

In the pre-game, Sheryl Lee Ralph sang "Life Every Voice and Sing" and Lauren Bolbert and everyone else in MAGA-land lost their god damn minds.  

By the way, Andrea and I absconded from the Fortress of Ineptitude to go see the Super Bowl at her father's house. 

Now I don't know much about sports or even care about sports but have committed to seeing this damn game, I wanted to be at least aware and watching when big things happened. 

I missed three touchdowns because Andrea's dad talked over them.   

Anyway, the 2nd half ended with Kansas City down by 10 and quarterback Pat Mahomes with an injured ankle.  

Then it was time for the half time show with Rihanna on stage for the first time in 5 years. 

And MAGA-land lost it's fucking mind again. 

Apparently the all red ensemble was Rihanna's effort to promote Satanism? Really? 

Rihanna did not perform with any guest performers, surrounded by a army of dancers dressed in white like Oompa Loompas or spermazoa, take your pick.  But Rihanna was not alone on her stage as she showed a baby bump. She's got another baby coming May.

Also, Rihanna's lip sync skills were kind of sketchy? Look we know these musical acts with their big production numbers are not singing live but damn, there were too many times when Rihanna did not have the mike anywhere near her face when she was singing.  

That kinda messed up the magic for me, yo.  

After the half time show, Kansas City fought it's way out of a deficit to the lead with Patrick Mahomes making a 26-yard run on that sore  ankle.  Philly pulled things to a tie but a field goal with mere seconds left to play secured Kansas City it's 2nd Super Bowl win. 

OK, so never mind the game. What about the commercials?  

Squarespace gave us an ad with multiple versions of Adam Driver. What more can anyone want but a multiplicity of a that sexy, sexy beast to make John Oliver happy?  

Rakuten served up Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz from the movie Clueless.  Silverstone too old for high school? As if!  

Dunkin' Donuts had Ben Affleck working the Dunkin drive-thru with a cameo from gal pal Jennifer Lopez. This spot had some old school vibes when David Letterman would work the drive thru at Taco Bell to fuck with people. I think the Dunkin spot was my favorite. 

There may be some other important stuff to share from the Super Bowl but my father in law wouldn't stop talking to me and I missed some stuff.  

The game itself was engaging with two equally matched teams paired up. 

But I am glad that Kansas City won. 

At least at this moment. When it comes to sports, my memory and attention are fleeting and...

And...

And who was playing what again? 

Be good to one another and always try to be a good sport.  

_______________

BLOG BIDNESS

Taking a break on Thursday. 

Back on Friday with Your Friday Video Link featuring Benedict Cumberbatch.

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Night Court & Quantum Leap

Today's Tuesday TV Touchbase looks at a couple of reboots that Andrea and I are following, both on NBC. 

We've been watching the reboot of Night Court which follows the classic sitcom that aired on NBC over 30 years ago.  The new series features Melissa Rauch (Bernadette from Big Bang Theory) as Abby Stone, daughter of the late Harry Stone (played by Harry Anderson in the original series) as the new judge of Manhattan's night shift criminal court. Like her father, Abby has positive energy and tries to see the best in the people brought before the bench. 

From the original series, John Laroquette returns as Dan Fielding, the court's cynical and snarky district attorney. As a younger man, Dan was an unrepentant horn dog who would chase anything in a skirt. Now age and experience has changed Dan in the regard. (As Laroquette has said in interviews, no one wants to see a 75 year old man acting that way.)  Another thing that has changed is Dan is working as the defense attorney at Abby's request. What hasn't changed is Dan is still cynical and snarky. 

The rest of the cast (district attorney, bailiff and court clerk) are rounded out by newbies whose names I have trouble remembering. They're kind of stock sitcom caricatures who fill their functions in the show but still need some much needed depth. 

Abby Stone has gotten some of that depth. Despite the perky positive exterior, we find that Abby is repressing some serious rage. In a rather tender scene with Abby and Dan, we find out Abby is a recovering alcoholic and among her regrets is the time she lost with her father during her darkest descent into the worst of her addiction. 

In many ways, the new Night Court looks and sounds much like the old Night Court with some groan worthy bad puns passing for humor coupled with moments of genuine humanity. 

So far no one other than Harry and Dan from the old show has been referenced. I think it would be funny if former bailiff Bull Shannon is a captain or commissioner in the NYPD.  And I'm really hoping someone can get Brent Spiner back as perennial bad luck defendant Bob Wheeler.   

Now I want to touch base on Quantum Leap, another reboot on NBC.  Recently the show presented a couple of episodes that I found very engaging for different reasons. 

Every sci-fi show has to do a time loop episode. "Cause & Effect" is considered one of the finest episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  "Eve of the Daleks" was one of the best episodes of Chris Chibnall's run on Doctor Who.  Now Quantum Leap wades in the troubled waters of a time loop and in doing so does something unique with the show's format.

Typically, the leaper (in this case, Dr.Ben Song) leaps into a person and has until the end of the episode to help that person put right what went wrong and then it's on to the next leap.  

In the episode  "Leap. Die. Repeat", in the year 1962, Ben leaps into a colonel in an elevator with four other people who are there to witness to start up of an experimental nuclear reactor. Then things go Ka-boom! and everyone dies. Including Ben. Before we even get to the opening credits. 

The Ben leaps into a different person in that elevator.  Things go Ka-boom! Everyone dies! Back in the elevator in a different person. 

Don't worry, it will all work out. 

But his next leap to the next episode makes dealing with an exploding experimental nuclear reactor look easy. 

It's Ben vs. bigotry and hatred.  

It's the year 2012 and Ben finds himself in Carlos Mendéz, the coach of a high school girl's basketball team which is down by a basket and the team's star player has twisted her ankle. Still trying to orient himself to this new life he's leapt into, Ben needs to make a quick decision. Spotting a player on the bench, he send her in as a replacement who scores the winning basket and the team is on it's way to the regional play offs. Everyone's happy, right? 

It's not that simple. 

The player the coach sent in is Gia, his daughter but it's not the nepotism that has everybody all in a tizzy. The "problem" that has the principal, some of students and parents all shook up is that his daughter is trans. 

Addison, Ben's hologram companion, tells him that if Ben can't change things, Gia is going to run away from home and disappear. Worse, Gia will eventually be found dead but was mis-gendered by the police so the parents never knew what happened to their daughter for years. 

The objections to Gia being allowed to play on the team are distressingly familiar to anyone who is aware of the vitriol being aimed at the trans community today. 

(Sadly that animosity was on display in online comments after this episode aired.)  

The hatred and fear from others is hard enough for Gia to deal with but then she finds out a secret about her parents. 

Her parents are very supportive and are trying to do everything in her power to keep Gia safe. Maybe they're doing too much to keep her safe? 

When Gia finds out her dad made a deal with the principal that allowed Gia to be on the girl's basketball team but only for practice, not for actual play, well, that's a bit too much for Gia to bear and causes her to run away.  

Thankfully she has a trans support group we met earlier in the episode and Gia goes to one of them to help her with her plan to run away. This person tells Gia being a runaway is hard enough, but for a trans person, it can be a death sentence. A reunion between the parents and daughter is arranged and Ben decides even if it cost him his job, damn it his daughter's playing in the next game. 

Gia takes the court and sure enough, there are protesters with their signs of hate filled messages. But also gathered with posters and banners are students and parents in support of Gia. Three teenage boys paint the letters G, I and A on their chests and roar with approval for every basket Gia makes. 

The team wins, Gia has found herself and a broader base of acceptance and Ben makes his next leap.   

Josielyn Aguilera as Gia delivers a very powerful performance. And a shout out to Mason Alexander Park as Ian who shares their story with Addison. The tale of Ian's youth is heartbreaking but from pain and despair, Ian found their purpose which led them to be Project Quantum Leap's super genius.

And maybe more? 

In our present, Magic and Jenn have tracked down a trans poet named Dottie who told Ben to leap. Dottie has no recollection of ever meeting Dr. Ben Song and has been troubled with some missing time. Dottie has a subconscious memory of someone else in control and has a sketched images of this person. 

And that person was Ian? 

What the...? 

And that is that for the Tuesday TV Touchbase this week.

Next week, I'm going to finally write about Wednesday.   

And on the subject of things I've watched on TV, yes, I saw the Super Bowl and that post will be coming up tomorrow.   

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.