Last week’s Tuesday TV Touchbase was focused on the letter “M”.
Today, the Tuesday TV Touchbase is brought to you by the letter “L”.
Is my blog being written by the writers of Sesame Street?
Let’s start with Late Night With Seth Meyers which isn’t producing new episodes right now due to the writer’s strike.
Long story made short: Studios are trying to screw over writers on programs and movies produced for streaming.
Anyway, when it is new, Late Night With Seth Meyers remains probably the best source of information on what the hell is going on through it’s “A Closer Look” segment. OK, it’s supposed to be a funny look at the news but these segments are remarkably well researched and a lot of the humor comes from the sheer stupidity and/or audacity of people like Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Taylor Greene and more.
It proves the axiom of “It’s funny because it’s true.”
While “A Closer Look” is both funny and informative, it can be quite depressing when you’re confronted by the incessant torrent of sheer stupidity and/or audacity that seems to be unending. And it’s also a bit of bummer when you realize that the only people watching “A Closer Look” are the people who can already see the truth and it’s not reaching anyone caught up in the delusion that everything is fine.
When not being a bulwark between sense and insensibility, between truth and dishonesty, Seth has some really funny recurring bits that are just there to be funny with no greater purpose in mind. And the stupider they are, the funnier. There’s “Surprise Inspection” based on the premise that some of the writers on his show are just padding their joke numbers with some really bad jokes so Seth reveals those jokes and mines a lot of comedy out of just how unfunny and dumb these jokes are.
Seth had the same premise with “Popsickle Schtick” where the worst jokes a dad or a 5 year old could tell and re-enact them with poorly animated popsickle sticks.
I hope the writer’s strike will be resolved soon. I miss Seth’s company during these times of political and social uncertainty.
Next up for the letter L is Lucky Hank.
On one hand, this series is wickedly funny with moments of heart wrenching pathos. It’s a roller coaster, this series.
But sometimes I have trouble with the man at the center of this show. Hank Devenaeux is so self obsessed with his pain. Bob Oedenkirk makes Hank tolerable and engaging as a character but damn, Hank can be a real pain. He’s the antagonist as protagonist. He may be the star of his own story but he is not the hero of it. As much as he whines and complains about his place as a professor and department chair of a middling liberal arts college in friggin’ Pennsylvania, when his wife Lily has a really good opportunity to take up a position at a prestigious private school in New York City, Hank doesn’t want her to take the job because he doesn’t want to go. It’s clear that a lot of Hank’s pain is self inflicted.
When Hank finally takes the opportunity to confront his father on abandoning him when he was a child, he finds his dad in the throes of dementia. Hank pours out his heart on how much his old man hurt him and the old man is very much an old man and has no idea who this guy talking to him is. Dad also thinks he’s in Florida.
We've got 2 episodes to go in this first season. More on that in a later post.
I can’t say I like Hank very much but I like Lucky Hank, a series that challenges me.
Next up is Lucifer, a series about what happens if the Devil quits Hell, buys a night club and helps fight crime. Andrea and I began making our way through this series on Netflix from the beginning and quite frankly, I was surprised by how well she took to this series. OK, the devil is played by the disarmingly charming and very British Tom Ellis so there’s that.
Mostly the show was a cop procedural with the standard “murder of the week” as Lucifer and police detective Chloe Decker on the case. By the time we get to the end of the 5th season, the mythology of the show, the concepts of Heaven and Hell as real places with various celestial beings at busy doing shit, moved to the foreground. As much as the exploration of the celestial side of things was interesting and entertaining, I did sometimes come to miss the simplicity of Lucifer and the Detective solve crimes premise.
Over the course of the series, we not only get the character development of Lucifer learning (with a LOT of effort) on how to be a better man, we get an evolution of Chloe Decker who really learns to lighten up and embrace some of Lucifer's chaotic approach to life.
Watching Lucifer became a Friday night ritual for us. So when Andrea and I reached the end of the series, we were genuinely confused on what the hell we were going to do with our Friday nights.
So I decided to introduce her to (in keeping with the theme of the letter “L”) The Librarians.
Now I have seen some of the episodes of The Librarians on my own but not all of them and not in order. Plus I had never seen the movies starring Noah Wylie that launched that franchise.
Basically the Librarian franchise has a strong Doctor Who vibe with protagonists who are more apt to outsmart and outwit opponents as out fight them. Knowledge is power.
The made for TV movies are a revelation with a look and feel that evokes a epic cinematic feel. Noah Wyle's Flynn Carsen is is a likeable character with a Doctor-like propensity for knowing stuff and a knack for getting into trouble if not always quite being in sync with other people. These movies do provide a bit context in the series episodes I saw. I'm looking forward with getting back to the series once Andrea and I are done with the movies.
And Bob Newhart as the mysterious quasi magical head of the Library just kicks ass.
Next week, the Touchbase is bringing you.... well, I have no idea. I watch too much television so I'll think of something.
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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