This week's Tuesday TV Touchbase is brought to you by the letter "M".
The same week Star Trek Picard presented the finale to it's 3rd (and final) season, we also got the 3rd season finale of The Mandalorian.
The 3rd season was a sort of a mixed bag for this Star Wars series. For a lot of the season,Din Djarin was almost ancillary to his own series.
Yes, Grogu ("Baby Yoda") is still around for reasons other than... merchandising?
It seems most of the emphasis was on Katee Sackhoff's Bo-Katan Kryze, erstwhile Mandalorian and ruler of the planet Mandalore. And Bo-Katan is not one of those super religious Mandalorians who insists on never, ever taking their helmets off which is because well, damn it, we're not going to keep Katee Sackhoff's head under a helmet all the time.
There is other shit going in the Star Wars universe. Moff Gideon, defeated and captured at the end of season 2, is not so defeated and captured and has a clone farm filled with Force sensitive clones of himself.
The Empire is not accepting it's defeat at the end of Return of the Jedi graciously and looking to worm and connive it's way back into power; I guess these elements of the Empire will become what we know of as "the Order" from The Force Awakens.
Bo-Katan, uniting all the factions of the Mandalorians (helmets only during work hours AND the fanatical helmets on all the time) to take back Mandalore which is, damn all the luck, is where Moff Gideon is up to his fuckery of cloning and also outfitting Stormtroopers with Mandalorian armor and gear.
The season finale finally puts Din Djarin firmly in the center of the action as he goes head to head with Moff Gideon whose all decked out in shiny black armor complete with black cape. (Darth Vader wannabe much?)
Long story made short: Moff Gideon blowed up real good while Din Djarin and Bo-Katan do NOT get blowed up real good thanks to some handy dandy force stuff from Grogu.
The episode ends with Din Djarin formally adopting Grogu and moving into a mobile home on the outskirts of Nevarro's capital, taking up an offer make by Greef Karga, Nevarro's magistrate. The last scene is Djarin kicking back on the front porch of his mobile home (helmet still firmly in place) while Grogu plays in the front yard.
Most redneck scene in Star Wars ever.
Season 3 The Mandalorian shifted from it's simple premise of "space western", the Star Wars show for people who may not like Star Wars. Season 3 was steeped in the mythology of the Star Wars franchise from the movies and all the TV series. It was not completely impossible to follow but it was a bit tricky without a detailed knowledge of the more arcane bits of the Star Wars bible.
The letter "M" also stands for the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel which kicked off it's 5th and final season.
It's 1961 and Midge Maisel has scored a gig on the writing staff of The Gordon Ford Show, a top rated talk show. It's not quite the stepping stone Midge thought it would be towards making her a super star stand up comic.
We know she does become a success because the 5th season introduces flash forwards to the 1980's where we learn that Midge's adult children are not always in sync with their famous mother. Adult Esther is super smart in science but for everything else, she desperately needs therapy. And adult Ethan has run away to work on a kibbutz in Israel. We've also learned that at some point, the close relationship between Midge and her friend/agent/manager Susie Myerson has ended on not good terms, her ex-husband Joel is in prison and by the 1980's, her mother is dead.
In 1961, her parents are still very much alive and frequently bewildered by life spinning out of control around them. Seems their cook and housekeeper Zelda has a boyfriend who just randomly appears in the apartment and begins fixing things. Neither Abe nor Rose Weissman seem to know who he is, what he's doing there or anything until it's explained to them that he's Zelda's boyfriend. Then they get married and Rose may need to learn how to work the vacuum cleaner.
We finally get some deets on Susie Myerson's sexual orientation which has been the source of some confusion. We get an awkward meet up between Susie and Hedy, Gordon Ford's wife and it seems Susie's ex girlfriend.
The show continues it trademark rapid fire dialogue and descents into absurdity (in episode 5, Midge is charged with piracy? Really?). Midge Maisel does get arrested a lot on this show.
Halfway through season 5, we're still not quite there in 1961 in establishing the success of Mrs. Maisel that we know she attains via the 1980's flash forwards. I am very intrigued to see how The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will wrap up this series by the end of season 5.
Also beginning with the letter "M" is Miss Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries. Oh, as if I really needed another crime drama to follow.
But this one is unique.
1) It's made in Australia, set in Australia and is Australian as fuck. "Aye, mate, there's a body floatin' in the river, fair dingum" and shit like that.
2) It's set in 1964 so lot of 1960's fashions to oggle.
The series is a sequel to another series called Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries which featured Phryne Fisher, a glamorous private detective in 1920s Melbourne. I've seen a few random episodes of that series.
The sequel series with 1960's feminist appellation of Ms. Fisher follows Peregrine Fisher, Phryne’s neice, who inherits a fortune when her famous aunt goes missing, presumed dead. Peregrine sets out to become a world-class private detective.
Peregrine pairs up with police detective James Steed to solve crimes. It's a bit awkward at times. Peregrine and James were a couple, he asked her to marry him, she said "no" because she's a thoroughly modern woman (it is the 1960's after all) who does need to get married RIGHT NOW. James is a bit of dick about like a lot of men get when they're told "not right now" and somehow translates that to "never".
Which is stupid because even as the two make efforts to move on, man, they clearly still have the hots for each other.
Oh, and the murders. There's a shit ton of murder going on in Melbourne, Australia and only Peregrine Fisher can solve them and only James Steed can arrest them.
Sadly there were only 12 episodes of Miss Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries produced and the last one was in July 2021 with no word that any more will be forthcoming.
- The great Lucifer watch project is finished. What I thought of it and what will Andrea and I replace it with?
- The Librarians is what we're replacing it with. I've watched several episodes of this and now I'm introducing Andrea to it and we're taking it from the top
- Lucky Hank. Am I still watching? And why?
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