Hi there and welcome to the Tuesday TV Touchbase, my weekly post where I write about what I'm watching on TV.
We're kicking off this week's Touchbase with Dead Boy Detectives. Based on a comic book created by writer Neil Gaiman and artist Matt Wagner, Dead Boy Detectives is about a pair of boys who are dead (ghosts) and work as detectives.
I hope that settles things for you.
While the comic book version of Dead Boy Detectives was part of Gaiman's Sandman universe, the TV version of the DBD made their debut in an episode of the Max series Doom Patrol and it's the writing/producing team from that series that is behind Dead Boy Detectives.
Originally commissioned by Max, they passed on the series and it went to Netflix, home of the TV version of The Sandman. So DBD is free to connect to Sandman once more. For example, Kirby Howell-Baptiste who plays Death in The Sandman is also Death in Dead Boy Detectives.
Who pray tell are the Dead Boy Detectives?
Edwin Payne was killed in 1916 when his classmates performed a sacrifice ritual as a prank to scare him, inadvertently summoning a demon (Sa'al) who took him to Hell. Edwin spent 70 years on Hell. No, he is NOT happy about that.
Charles Rowland died in 1989 from hypothermia and internal bleeding.
They avoid being seen by Death and taken to the afterlife. They wanna stick around this ol' Earth for awhile longer.
Because they are ghosts and cannot be seen by human beings, their clients as detectives are other ghosts who need help only they can provide.
But a case of demonic possession leads Edwin and Charles to cross paths with a young woman named Crystal Palace, a psychic who can among her various abilities see ghosts.
Crystal wants to be a part of their detective agency and help the living as well as the undead with their supernatural problems. Charles is OK with this but Edwin is a bit testy on the subject of her joining the Dead Boy Detectives as she is NOT dead and NOT a boy.
For the record, Crystal thinks "Dead Boy Detectives" is a stupid name.
Suffice to say, the duo becomes a trio and act as detectives for the living and the dead. Dead Boy Detectives brings it's world to life with the absurdist dark humor we came to know from Doom Patrol matched up with the ethereal wonder of Neil Gaiman's Sandman.
Elsewhere on Netflix....
John Mulaney has a talk show called Everybody’s in L.A..
Why?
John Mulaney asked the same question of special guest Jerry Seinfeld about his Pop-Tarts origin movie Unfrosted.*
Seinfeld's answer: “I don’t know. Because they (Netflix) let me. Probably the same reason why you’re doing this. It makes sense to them, I guess, why they wanted to make it.”
*For more about Unfrosted, see this weekend's Cinema Saturday post.
Everybody’s in L.A. ran for six episodes. And ONLY six!
As John Mulaney explained, "This show will NEVER find it's groove."
Everybody’s in L.A. has all the working parts of a talk show. The host has a monologue (mostly John riffing on how life in Los Angeles is just so fucking weird), a sidekick (an off the rails Richard Kind), recurring bits (Saymo, the food delivery robot), musical guests, first guests who are A-list celebrities and later guests who are not quite as well known and other guests with specific expertise (what's a talk show without at least one wild life expert?).
Is this... for real? Or is this some kind of satirical parody of the talk show format.
As John Mulaney says in episode 3, "We have received feedback. Look, this is really me trying to actually do a good job."
What is Everybody’s in L.A. and why does it exists? Mulaney’s issues with substance abuse may provided some context as he explained in the first episode: “Why even do this show? I dunno. But it gives me something to do. And structure is key for me." On screen, a graphic identifies him as John Mulaney: Recovering Alcoholic and Other Stuff.
Jerry Seinfeld remarked at one point that it “does seem a guy coming out of rehab would do a show like this… someone who’s going through something, and this is how they’re expressing it.”
Whatever the reason, Everybody’s in L.A. is an amusing and unusual experience to behold.
Next week's Touchbase, the series finale of Young Sheldon.
PLUS in the weeks to come....
The return of Hacks and Interview With the Vampire.
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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