Category Archives: TV Review

“Ordinary Joe” Makes the Alternate History Genre Personal

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Stories which depict a so-called “alternate history” are a standard subgenre of science fiction. They explore the idea of “what if history unfolded differently?” For example, Stephen King‘s 11.22.63 is a time travel story where a man tries to prevent the Kennedy assassination. “The Man in the High Castle” explores a world in which Nazi Germany prevailed in World War II. The Apple TV+ series “For All Mankind” explores an alternate history in which Russia landed on the moon before the US. These works all explore the alternate history scenario on a grand scale. But the new NBC drama series “Ordinary Joe” takes a more personal approach asking the question what if our main character made different choices and his life turned out quite differently.

The story revolves around the life of Joe Kimbreau played by James Wolk most recently seen in the HBO series “Watchmen“. It opens with his college graduation in which he is given three choices on how to pursue the rest of his life. The first option: accept an invitation from Jenny Banks who he describes as his best friend. She wants him to come spend a weekend at the beach. Option two: Pursue a relationship with a girl he meets at the graduation ceremony named Amy Kindelán. Option three: Spend time with his family especially his uncle who wants to persuade him to become a police officer like the uncle and Joe’s father before him.

The story then skips ahead 10 years and we get to see what would happen to his life had he chosen each of those three options. His life with Jenny leads to a marriage that is not working well. He has chosen a career as an ER nurse. Together they have a son who is in a wheelchair from a type of muscular dystrophy. I don’t believe they specify exactly what variety the child has but one of the creators of the show has a son with Spinal Muscular Atrophy – the same neuromuscular disease I have. The actor portraying the boy John Gluck has Collagen VI Muscular Dystrophy in real life.

In the version of his life with Amy, he pursues his passion for music and becomes a successful rockstar.

In the third option, he becomes a police officer just like his uncle and his father before him.

Our viewpoint jumps back and forth among these three alternate versions of his life sometimes depicted in a three-way split screen. This is not a show that you can casually have on in the background while doing something else. It forces you to pay attention so that you know which timeline we are currently depicting.

The same events are depicted in each of the three timelines. For example, while Joe is playing a concert at an outdoor venue, a hailstorm arrives. That same hailstorm falls on a political rally in which a gunman tries to kill the candidate. Joe as a police officer shoots the suspect before the candidate can be harmed. Then we jumped to Joe the ER nurse as the injured candidate is brought in by ambulance. He was wounded because police officer Joe didn’t exist in that timeline.

Later in the first episode, Joe attends a college reunion in which he further can explore questions about what his life might have been like had he made different choices. I won’t give away some of the plot twists but the scenes at the reunion reveal some surprises about the consequences of each of his choices.

In all three versions of his life, there are ups and downs. None of the three scenarios leave him completely happy yet in none of them can you say that his life is a disaster. Still, he’s constantly wondering what might have been had he taken a different road.

Some critics are saying that the show is designed to be the next “This Is Us“. Although the drama is heavy at times, I don’t think you will be grabbing for your handkerchief quite as often if at all as you might do in a typical “This Is Us” episode. On the other hand, the storytelling, acting, and ability to help you deeply sympathize with the characters is clearly up to “TIU” standards.

Overall I really like this twist on the classic “What if…” scenario. We have seen single episodes of other TV series such as Grey’s Anatomy in which we explore what might have happened to our favorite characters under different circumstances. It remains to be seen how well the writers can pull off this scenario on a week-to-week basis. Will the viewers care enough to expend the effort to follow the events of the three parallel stories. That will depend a lot on the director and editor to exploit the gimmick without making it overly complex. Viewers seem to have no difficulty following the time jumps forwards and backwards in “This Is Us.” Other gimmick TV shows such as “How to Get Away With Murder” which would jump back and forth in a single timeline left me not caring about “what really happened” by the end of the season. I don’t think this gimmick will suffer such a fate but we will have to see.

I’m especially anxious to see how the story of the disabled son will involve. YouTuber Shane Burcaw who has Spinal Muscular Atrophy like me is serving as a disability consultant for the series so it shows that they are doing their best to keep that portion of the show authentic. For more on this aspect of the show, check out this link to an interview with the creators of the series.

The show airs Monday nights with episodes available the next day on demand or streaming on Peacock. I’m giving it my rating of a strong “I’m watching” and suggest you check it out.

This Isn’t Exactly Asimov’s Foundation but That’s Okay.

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Before we can discuss Apple TV+’s new sci-fi series “Foundation” we have to look at the origin of the story.

When famous science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov was just 21 years old he was on his way to meet with John W. Campbell the famous editor of Astounding Magazine. Although he had been writing professionally for three years and had sold five stories to Campbell, he was a relative unknown. That fifth story “Nightfall” would really make his mark in the sci-fi world but it had not yet been published. The meeting was supposed to be a story pitch man Asimov had no idea what to pitch. Using free association, he opened the book to an image of a soldier. That made him think of military empires, the Roman Empire, a Galactic Empire! He had his idea. He had just read Edward Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” and decided he would retell the story in an outer space setting. The result was a series of eight stories that appeared between May 1942 and January 1950 in Astounding. Then in 1951 he added a new introductory story and the entire set was published as three books known as the “Foundation Trilogy”. The series was awarded a Hugo award in 1966 as “Best All Time Series” – a special one-time award that many expected would go to the “Lord of the Rings”.

In 1981 Asimov was persuaded by his publisher to write a sequel fourth book “Foundation’s Edge” published in 1982 followed by another sequel in 1986 and then two prequels in 1988 and 1993 bringing the collection to a total of seven books. These prequels and sequels also tied in the Foundation series to other series of books including the Robot series and the Empire series.

In 1981 when Asimov prepared to write the first sequel, it had been 40 years since he had begun the series and so he went back to reread his original trilogy. Here is what he wrote about the experience…

I read it with mounting uneasiness. I kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever did. All three volumes, all the nearly quarter of a million words, consisted of thoughts and of conversations. No action. No physical suspense.

What was all the fuss about, then? Why did everyone want more of that stuff? – To be sure, I couldn’t help but notice that I was turning the pages eagerly, and that I was upset when I finished the book, and that I wanted more, but I was the author, for goodness’ sake. You couldn’t go by me.

I read the original trilogy sometime in the early 1970s and although I enjoyed it, I have to agree with Asimov’s assessment. Not a lot goes on. It’s a lot of people sitting around talking about the politics of the fall of the Empire.

Asimov goes on to explain

I was on the edge of deciding it was all a terrible mistake and of insisting on giving back the money, when (quite by accident, I swear) I came across some sentences by science-fiction writer and critic, James Gunn, who, in connection with the Foundation series, said, “Action and romance have little to do with the success of the Trilogy – virtually all the action takes place offstage, and the romance is almost invisible – but the stories provide a detective-story fascination with the permutations and reversals of ideas.”

Oh, well, if what was needed were “permutations and reversals of ideas,” then that I could supply.

I was unaware until recently that there were any sequels or prequels. In preparation for watching the new TV series on Apple TV+ I decided to reread the original trilogy and discovered the four additional novels. I had heard rumors that the TV series might dip into some of the material of the prequels so I ended up reading all seven books back to back.

I have to say that I enjoyed the prequels and sequels much more than the original material but of course Asimov had matured by 40+ years and the new stories did contain some action and excitement other than simply the “permutations of ideas”.

As always, if you want more information about the topics in this blog such as details of the Foundation series you can click on any of the links in this document which will take you to IMDb and Wikipedia articles on the topics.

I’ve always thought that the title “Foundation” was an unintentional perfect title because many of the themes and tropes introduced in the series have become the foundation for many sci-fi stories and epics in the years since then. Many have said that Frank Herbert’s classic series “Dune”, a film version of which will be out in October, was his response to Foundation. And Asimov has acknowledged that much of Star Wars has been ripped off from his stories that he doesn’t care because he acknowledges that he simply ripped off Gibbon’s Fall of the Roman Empire. Star Wars hyperspace drives, the mind probe, and a Galactic Empire with a capital planet that consists of a city covering the entire planet (Coruscant in Star Wars, Trantor in Foundation) and other ripoffs will jump right out at fans of both works.

In anticipation of the new series, I went to IMDb and looked at the cast list. The first thing I noticed was that several characters had switched from male to female. One could hardly expect to find strong female characters in positions of importance from a sci-fi story written by a 21-year-old grad student in 1941. So the swap of genders seemed like a good choice. But the thing that disturbed me most was that I saw characters in the cast list that did not exist in the original source material. That made me worried that they were going to stray far afield from the original material. “Foundation” had had previous false starts of adaptation to film or TV. Some said that it was “unfilmable” and I worried that they would make significant changes to make it filmable. Check out this interesting article written before the release of this series about the history of attempting to adapt Asimov’s work to film or TV. Various scenes from the trailers also indicated there was much more action in the story than was in the original books. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

Now that I’ve seen the first two episodes which premiered September 24 on Apple TV+ I found that indeed they have made significant changes to the story but it is mostly thing is that they have added. And those additions, at least so far, are very positive changes.

The main story of both the book and TV series is about mathematician Hari Seldon who has invented a branch of psychology and mathematics called psychohistory. The core idea is that although you cannot predict individual behavior if you have a large group of people (such as the quintillions of people scattered across 25 million worlds of the Galactic Empire) you can accurately predict the future. Seldon’s equations show that the Empire will fall within 500 years. Nothing can be done to save it. That will lead to 30,000 years of Galactic war, barbarism, and chaos. However, that can be mitigated by the establishment of a Foundation. It will be a repository of human knowledge and experience that will survive the fall and rebuild a second Empire in a mere 1,000 years rather than 30,000.

The opening episode of the series follows quite closely the short story that Asimov added to his original eight when the stories were collected into book form. We follow mathematician Gaal Dornick who is arriving at the Galactic capital planet Trantor to work with Seldon. This is one of the characters that the TV series switches to female. They also expand the back story of Gaal and her homeworld Synnax. It is a world where religion rules and science and mathematics are forbidden. Although still a believer at heart, she has been forced to renounce her faith in pursuit of mathematics. She has won a contest to solve a complex mathematical problem and earned her a job with Seldon. This back story is fascinating and is absent from the original books.

I mentioned that the cast list including characters that are not in the books. The main characters added are a trio of people who serve as the Galactic Emperor. Although the Emperor plays a big part in other parts of the Foundation Series, he is absent in the original short story that is depicted in the first episode. The trio consists of a young boy about eight years old, a grown man brilliantly portrayed by Lee Pace, and an old man portrayed by Terrence Mann. They are known as Brother Dawn, Brother Day, and Brother Dusk. They are clones of a previous Emperor Cleon I and this continuous line of clones have ruled as Emperor for 400 years. We get to see the younger version being trained in the ways of politics, the political savvy of Brother Day as he deals with political unrest of the Outer Worlds, and the wise counsel of the elder Dusk who is struggling with his own mortality.

The performances of Pace and Mann are so seamless that at one point I thought perhaps the elder was also portrayed by Pace in makeup until I checked the cast list. The insights into the political atmosphere of the time and the way that the trio of Emperors deal with it adds greatly to the original story.

From interviews with Pace I get the idea that these characters will continue years into the future with Pace playing the role of different clones of the same line as they rotate through the line of succession. One interesting twist, Day asks Seldon is there anything we can do to slow down the fall of the Empire? Seldon says “Yes, stop making clones of yourself.” The idea is that they had the same leadership more or less for 400 years and they need fresh ideas at the top. Something they won’t get as long as they keep reincarnating themselves. I thought that was a clever concept not in the original work because the clone leadership did not exist in the original stories. It showed me that the writers can innovate around Asimov’s core concepts quite well.

We were also introduced to Demerzel, a character from the prequels who carries a secret that I felt was revealed too soon in the TV series. This is another character that has been changed to female and of the three main characters who have had a gender swap I tend to disagree with this choice although I suppose in the end it doesn’t matter. It’s just that this character plays a larger role in Asimov’s Future History timeline and that character has always been male. She serves as an advisor to the Emperors and mother figure to the young boy clone .

We should also briefly discussed the world-building that they’ve done in the series. The sets and costumes are detailed and lavish. This is going to be on par with what we anticipate from the upcoming film of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” which will be in theaters in October. It’s trying to be an outer space version of “Game of Thrones” (without the nudity) and so far it seems to be succeeding.

Depictions of key elements of Asimov’s stories fully met my expectations such as the holographic projector known as the Prime Radiant which contains Seldon’s equations and the Imperial Library which so closely matched my mental image I wonder if perhaps I had seen a glimpse of it in the trailer before rereading the books.

I believe that the changes made for the TV series have added to and not significantly detracted from Asimov’s original story. The changes are not just to add action and stunning visuals (although they do that phenomenally well) they so further add to the political intrigue which is the core of Asimov’s work.

There are some spoilers below. So for now I have to say I am much more optimistic about the series than I was from the trailers and other early release material. The show has great potential.

It is only available on Apple TV+ and new episodes of the 10 episode first season will appear each Friday.

I’m rating it “I Really like It” and highly recommend it.

***Minor spoilers ***

As previously mentioned, there isn’t any action or adventure in the original trilogy although the prequels and sequels make up for that. So the writers of the TV series need something visually spectacular for the medium of television and they deliver a very memorable spectacle. There is a space elevator on the capital planet of Trantor. You park your spaceship in orbit and ride an elevator all the way to the surface. There is a terrorist attack that destroys the space elevator. The elevator shaft which is hundreds of miles long comes crashing down onto the planet wrapping itself most of the way around the surface killing 100 million people. It is an amazing bit of special effects with very memorable visuals. A retaliatory attack on the homeworlds of the suspected terrorists is much less memorable or innovative.

At the end of the original short story and the end of the first TV episode, we find Seldon and his followers exiled to a distant planet Terminus to establish the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation which will preserve human knowledge and experience through the upcoming fall of the Empire. The Emperor exiles them to get them out of the way and doesn’t want to destroy them thus creating a martyr and implying that perhaps Seldon was right and the Empire is falling. This exile was part of Seldon’s plan all along.

The book jumps 50 years to a new story set on Terminus but the TV series 2nd episode begins to cover the four-year journey to the planet Terminus. Something that is not covered in the books. In fact, this is one place where the sci-fi technology breaks down from “reality”. Terminus is 50,000 light-years from the capital Trantor but they have been forbidden from using “jump drive” technology to get there. How you travel 50,000 light-years in just four years without some sort of FTL Drive is a bit of plot-driven technology that sadly is not explained.

It does give us an opportunity to develop a romantic story between Gaal and Seldon’s right-hand man Raych Foss. It also gives us interesting insights into Seldon’s relationship with his followers.

I won’t spoil any more of the story beyond that but it does take some interesting turns and we will have to wait and see where we go from here.

Entertainment news: July through mid-August

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It’s been a month and a half since I did and entertainment blog. Lots to report on. Most notably I actually got out to a theater to see Marvel’s “Black Window” in IMAX. As the IMAX screen lit up in the six channel Dolby Atmos surroundsound kicked in I turned to my friend and said “My God I missed this!” The film did not disappoint. It starts with the rather poignant and tragic childhood of Natasha Romanoff whose parents were Russian spies embedded in the US. When their cover was blown they had to flee. Natalia and her sister were turned into assassins and a cruel method that involved mind control. Later in the movie she and her sister reunite with her father and mother and the dinner table conversations were absolutely hilarious among this dysfunctional and alienated family. Lots of other inside jokes are scattered throughout the story and as you might expect there is plenty of superhero action and state-of-the-art special-effects. Overall a great film to return to the theater after 18 months away.

Marvel hasn’t been idle during that time of course. We wrapped up “The Falcon and The Winter Soldier” which was excellent as well as “Loki” which is going to be instrumental in setting up the next series of MCU films. Both series streaming on Disney+ and are highly recommended.

DC’s “Suicide Squad” is available in theaters and sadly not doing very well in the box office. I will be catching it on HBO Max later this week and will have comments in my next installment.

Pandemic News

  • Drew Barrymore’s daytime talk show will return for season 2 with fully vaccinated live audience.

Renewals, Coming Soon, and Casting News

  • Doctor Who star Jodie Whittaker and showrunner Chris Chibnall will be leaving Michelle they will be around for season 13 this fall and 3 feature-length specials in 2022.
  • TNT announced “Snowpiercer” has been renewed for season 4 after just wrapping production on season 3. We are well pleased.
  • Netflix has canceled the Jamie Foxx sitcom “Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!”. I guess he got his wish.
  • Mark Harmon will only appear in a limited number of episodes of NCIS for season 19.
  • Wanda Sykes will join “The Good Fight” in a recurring role in season 5.
  • Showtime has renewed “couples therapy That includes for season 3.
  • AMC has ordered an eight episodes series based on Anne Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire”.
  • NBC has canceled “Good Girls” after 4 seasons. And it will not be moving to Netflix.
  • Apple TV+ announced their adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” will premier September 24.
  • Amazon announced there will be a second season of “Good Omens”. The original series pretty much covered the entire story from the original novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pritchett so this will have to explore new territory with the characters. The first season was absolutely various and I highly recommend it.
  • Dougray Scott will not be returning for season 3 of Batwoman as Jacob Kane.
  • Harry Connick, Jr. will play Daddy Warbucks in the upcoming NBC musical “Annie Live!”
  • HBO has canceled “Lovecraft Country” after just 1 season
  • Sports broadcasting legend Marv Albert has retired after 55 years.
  • Netflix has canceled “Cursed” about the legendary Lady of the Lake after just one season. The first season was okay but it took way too many remedies with the Arthurian legend.
  • Showtime announced the return of “Dexter” will be November 9.
  • PBS animated series “Arthur” is ending after 25 seasons.
  • Showtime has announced “The Chi” has been renewed for season 5.
  • Katy Perry, Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie, and Ryan Seacrest will all return for American Idol season 5.
  • Apple TV+ has canceled “Little Voice” after 1 season.
  • South Park has been renewed for 4 more seasons at Comedy Central additionally 14 movies have been ordered at Paramount+. The series will extend through 2027 and is worth a reported $900 million.
  • Disney+ has renewed animated series “Star Wars: The Bad Batch” for season 2.
  • Amazon has canceled “Panic” after 1 season.
  • Catherine Zeta Jones will play Morticia Addams in upcoming Netflix series “Wednesday”to be produced by Tim Burton.

Miscellaneous News

  • A change in the rules for Emmy awards around and actor or actress the option to be recognized as “Performer” rather than “Actor” or “Actress”.
  • Harrison Ford has injured his shoulder rehearsing a fight scene for “Indiana Jones 5”. Production has been rescheduled to shoot around him until he recovers.
  • Bob Odenkirk collapsed on the set of his show “Better Call Saul” in what was later reported as a mild heart attack.
  • America’s Got Talent contestant Jane Marczewski who competed under the name “Nightbirde” has dropped out of the competition to focus on her ongoing fight with cancer. A struggle she talked about during her original singing audition.
  • Comedian Kathy Griffin is out of the hospital after surgery for lung cancer.
  • Actress Christina Applegate has announced she is been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

In Memoriam

  • Richard Donner director of Superman, Lethal Weapon, and The Goonies. Age 91
  • Classic standup comic Jackie Mason age 93
  • Joanne Linville who played a Romulan commander in a early episode of Star Trek. Age 93
  • Ron Popeil TV pitch man who starting countless infomercials. Age 86.
  • Ray MacDonnell soap opera star from “All My Children”. Age 93
  • Stuart Damon who played Alan Quarterman on “General Hospital” age 84
  • John Lawton former vocalist for Uriah Heep. Age 74.
  • Robert Downey Sr. filmmaker and father of Robert Downey Jr. age 85
  • Paul Orndorrff a.k.a. “Mr. Wonderful” WWF star from the 80s. Age 71.
  • Charles Robinson who played Mac on sitcom “Night Court”. Age 75.
  • Rick Aiello son of Danny Aiello who appeared in “Do the Right Thing” age 65
  • Dusty Hill bass player for ZZ Top age 72.
  • Markie Post actress known for “Night Court”and “Fall Guy” age 70. Cancer.
  • Dennis “Dee Tee” Thomas cofounder of “Kool & The Gang” age 70
  • Trevor Moore comedian and cofounder of sketch comedy group “The Whitest Kids U Know“ age 41.
  • Rob Ringwald jazz musician and father of Molly Ringwald age 80

Links of Interest

Entertainment News: Queen’s Gambit, WandaVision, In & Of Itself, and more

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Before we get onto our usual entertainment news here are a couple of mini reviews.

First of all the new Myaima Biaslik sitcom “Call Me Kat” didn’t get any better in subsequent episodes so you can cross that one off your list. The new Ted Danson sitcom “Mr. Mayor” has nothing going for it either. We will rate it “Skip It”.

This past week I binged the Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit”, the fictional account of a young chess prodigy growing up in the 60s. It’s been a big hit miniseries that many people have binged during the pandemic. I can tell you that it is everything good that you may have already heard about it. One of the best acted, written, directed miniseries I’ve seen in a long time. Don’t be turned off by the chess theme. You don’t really need to know anything about the game to appreciate the story of this orphan who struggles with her genius, fears of mental illness like her mother’s, drug and alcohol addiction, and a passion to be the best in a male dominated world. The show actually brought me to tears at one point which is pretty hard to do these days. I tend to be somewhat cynical about drama. One of the amazing things I liked about it is that there is not a lot of explanation of what is going on during the chess matches. You just figure it out by looking at the actors faces. If you’ve not seen it yet, it is HIGHLY recommended.

The other recommendation this week is a documentary/filmed stage performance called “In & Of Itself”. Storyteller and conceptual magician Derek DelGaudio performed this show for over 500 performances off-Broadway in New York. It’s sort of a one man show reflection on the nature of self and identity mixed with some amazing sleight-of-hand magic tricks. I’ve heard great things about the show when it played live and was happy to see they finally put it on film. Directed by Frank Oz this film combines footage from several performances. In one sequence he picks a volunteer from the audience to read a sort of love letter written to a father, mother, son, daughter, or friend by some stranger and asked them to read it silently as if it were written to them. Watching the emotions play across their face and seeing many of them moved to tears is a very powerful experience. Because they intercut several performances of the show we get to see their reaction of more than one person to this experience. This is a deeply personal and moving reflection by the performer about his own life growing up with a lesbian mother and his own struggles with understanding himself apart from others expectations of who he is. I have to say that hearing of the rave reviews of the live performance I was a tiny bit disappointed but I can imagine how seeing this live in a small theater with perhaps 100 or so other people would be a much more intimate experience than watching at home on Hulu. It remains however a thought-provoking and worthwhile experience that I suggest you check out.

We’ve also seen the first three episodes of the new Disney+ Marvel series “WandaVision”. The Marvel superheroes Wanda and Vision are living as a married couple in some sort of alternate reality that Wanda has created for them. She is the living embodiment of the “reality stone” in the MCU and can remake reality around herself in any way she wants. Each episode is modeled after classic TV sitcoms from different eras. The first episode draws heavily on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “I Love Lucy”. Episode 2 resembles “Bewitched”. These first two shot in black-and-white and the first episode was actually shot before a live studio audience. Episode three as hints of “The Brady Bunch” and “Mary Tyler Moore Show” and is in color. It’s keeping diehard Marvel fans looking for clues as to what’s really going on. Probably not a show for everyone except diehard Marvel fans unless you want to relive the bygone era of classic sitcoms.

Renewals, Coming Soon, and Casting News

  • A third “Deadpool” movie is coming and it will be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers will guest star as a temporary host of Jeopardy. Other upcoming homes include Katie Couric, Bill Whitaker, and Mayim Bialik
  • Stephen Weber will have a new recurring role on Chicago:Med
  • HBO comedy series “Insecure” will end after its upcoming fifth season.
  • TNT have renewed “Animal Kingdom” for a sixth final season.
  • All five seasons of the original “The Muppet Show” will still be available on Disney+
  • The reboot of “Saved by the Bell” has been renewed for season 2 on Peacock
  • Tyler Perry’s series “Sistas” had been renewed for season 3 at BET
  • Warner Bros. is producing a Willy Wonka prequel film slated for 2023 release.
  • “Snowpiercer” has been renewed for season 3 at TNT before season 2 has premiered.
  • Netflix has announced that “Bridgerton” has been renewed for season 2 and will be based on Book 2 of the series. My roommate Barbara just finished binging season 1 and gives it high marks.
  • AMC announced “Eli Roth’s History of Horror” has been renewed for season 3
  • Tom Brokaw is retiring from NBC news after 55 years with the network.
  • Food Network has pulled all content for season 20 of “Worst Cooks in America” after the arrest of season 20 winner for the murder of their adopted three-year-old daughter. I guess they really were the worst in America.

Politics and Showbiz

  • SAG-AFTRA the union for movie and television workers is meeting in special session to consider revoking Donald Trump’s membership.

Miscellaneous News

  • CBS All Access will change its name to Paramount+ on March 4
  • Among this year’s Kennedy Center Honorees are Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Allen
  • Netflix now reveals they have over 200 million global subscribers.
  • NBCSN sports network will close by the end of the year with live sports being moved to either USA Network or Peacock both owned by NBC/Universal.

In Memoriam

  • Legendary interviewer Larry King. Age 87.
  • Hank Aaron baseball legend who broke Babe Ruth homerun record age 86
  • Mira Furlan who played Minbari Ambassador Delenn on the sci-fi drama “Babylon 5” and also appeared in “Lost”. Age 65. No cause of death was given but she was known to be in failing health for some time.
  • Phil Spector famous music producer who was convicted of murder. Age 81. Covid.
  • Angie Jakusz a popular contestant on “Survivor: Palau” age 40 of cancer.
  • Pilar Schneider mother of comedian Rob Schneider who appeared in several of his films. Age 91.
  • Siegfried Fishbacher of the famous team Siegfried & Roy. Age 81
  • Joanne Rogers wife of Fred Rogers. Age 92
  • David Richardson writer producer for “The Simpsons”, “Two and a Half Men” and other shows. Age 65. Heart failure
  • Richard Lindheim co-creator of the 80s series “The Equalizer” and Executive Producer of the upcoming reboot. Age 81
  • Remy Julienne famous stunt coordinator and expert stunt driver for James Bond and other films. Age 90. Covid.
  • Gregory Sierra character actor who appeared in “Sanford and Son” and “Barney Miller”. Age 83.
  • Walter Bernstein a blacklisted writer who was banished from Hollywood in the 1950s but returned to write such films as “Fail Safe” and “The Front”. Age 101
  • Perry Botkin Jr. Oscar-nominated and Grammy-winning composer known for the theme from “The Young and the Restless” a.k.a. “Nadia’s Theme” age 87

Links of Interest

“B Positive” is Morbid Humor but It Works

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We will have to give CBS’s new sitcom “B Positive” credit for having an original premise. Our main character Drew played by Thomas Middleditch is a recently divorced man with a teenage daughter who discovers he’s in total renal failure and in need of a kidney transplant. While at a friend’s wedding he bumped into an old friend from high school Gina played by Annaleigh Ashford. She is a hard partying, hard drinking, drug addicted train wreck. When she’s sober, she works driving a shuttle bus full of elderly people from an assisted living home taking them to doctor’s appointments, chemotherapy etc. She decides to offer him a kidney and hilarity ensues.

Really?

Oh I forgot to mention she has a split personality. Her party persona is Rebecca and her responsible self is Gina.

Like I said… We’ve not seen this premise before. But can we really laugh at a man facing his own demise? He might never get to see his daughter get married, have kids etc. Is it really funny that his fate depends on such an irresponsible person who constantly cracks jokes about the mortality of the people that she drives around in her bus?

The answer is… we might be able to laugh at that. As I’ve said in this blog many times before – the ultimate test of a sitcom for me is “Does it make me laugh?” On numerous occasions this one did for some reason. But these are not very likable characters. Drew is an okay guy but given the enormity of what he’s facing along with regrets over his divorce and disappointing his daughter he’s not a very happy guy. Gina/Rebecca are not at all likable. And if she really does have dissociative personality disorder (formerly known as split personality) can we really make fun of her?

It had its funny moments. It made me laugh. I’ve got a very dark (sometimes sick) sense of humor. My guess is lots of people won’t find it funny and some might even be offended. I guess spending my whole life these past 65 years thinking that I didn’t have very long to live has given me the ability to laugh in the face of mortality.

We don’t know to what extent the old folks who ride Gina’s shuttlebus will play in the show but I did recognize one familiar face in the back of the bus. Veteran comic character actor Bernie Kopell who is most known as playing the Doc on the old 1970s romantic comedy series “Love Boat” makes an appearance on the bus.

The double entendre of the show’s title encourages us to “be positive” in the face of these tragedies and I suppose it partially succeeds. Even though I kind of liked it I’m not sure how many more episodes I will watch. I’m going to give this one a cautionary “Could be watchable” but this one is going to be an acquired taste that some people won’t acquire. Travel with caution.

In case you never noticed before, any actors names or TV or movie titles in these blogs will link you to the IMDb page so you can see what other roles they’ve had or who played in those programs or films. I don’t always list actor’s credits in the text so if you’re wondering who someone is just click on the links.

Amazon’s “Utopia” is of Questionable Taste and Not Just Because It’s About a Pandemic

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Several days ago in one of my Facebook posts about entertainment news I mentioned that I was watching Amazon’s new series “Utopia” based on a British series of the same name. I had only watched about two episodes and made some positive comments about it but said I would wait to review it until I had seen more. I’m glad I waited because this series which was already dark humor turned extremely dark and cynical and got worse as the series progressed to a depressing finale. Minor spoilers ahead but I’m careful not to spoil major plot twists or the conclusions.

One could ask do we really want to watch a TV series about a pandemic in these times? I initially didn’t let that stop me from giving it a fair shake. And as mentioned, after a couple of episodes I was really intrigued. I thought it was a very funny yet dark comedy. The initial premise is that there is a group of fans of an underground comic book called “Dystopia”. Someone cleaning out there late grandfather’s home finds the manuscript for a sequel comic called “Utopia”. They announce that it will be for sale to the highest bidder at an upcoming comic convention. The five fans who had never met each other in person make plans to meet up, pool their resources, and purchase the manuscript.

The reason there is such fascination about this hidden treasure is that the original “Dystopia” comic contained all sorts of hidden clues about various diseases and viruses such as Ebola, swine flu, SARS and others. While some just enjoyed it as a quirky bizarre underground graphic novel, others based huge conspiracy theories around the story. At the comic convention, bidders were each allowed to see one page of the manuscript and then place a bid and leave contact information. At the convention, 2 mysterious people show up and start tracking down everyone who has seen the comic.

They end up murdering the people who discovered the comic, finding the list of bidders, murdering all them and framing one of them for the murders. Our main characters managed to escape this fate including a young boy named Grant who manages to steal the comic from the high bidder as the bad guys are murdering the new owner.

In what appears initially to be a side plot, a rich tech mogul Dr. Kevin Christie played by John Cusack has introduced a new food product he calls SimPro which stands for “Simple Protein”. It is a laboratory created meat substitute. He has sold it to school districts around the country for school lunches but mysteriously a fatal flu outbreak starts killing children in the schools where his product is used. The conspiracy theorists believe that “Utopia” has more clues to this and other future pandemics which makes it an even bigger hot commodity.

Suddenly a kick ass young woman appears and is also chasing down the new comic and teams up with our young heroes. She claims to be Jessica Hyde which is the name of one of the characters in the comics. Her claim is that everything in the comic is true especially the part about her life story.

While this started out as a dark, funny satire on comic fandom, cosplay, conspiracy theorists, and nerd culture, the story goes darker and darker by the minute. The hitmen who are killing off everyone who has seen the comic are especially brutal. Jessica herself is also a brutal killer having no qualms about torturing or murdering anyone who gets in her way. She is in search of her father who was somehow involved in the entire conspiracy.

While Cusack’s company is cleared by the FDA of having any wrongdoing in the pandemic deaths of the children, we slowly begin to discover that he is involved in a much more nefarious plot. Again I’m trying not to give way too much of the plot but let’s just say he is one of the most ruthless, evil, and heartless characters you’ve probably seen in some time. Especially troublesome about the entire story is the way that children are manipulated and used as pawns in this game. Children are brutally murdered, they are driven to murder, and their parents are killed in front of them. The casual disregard for human life in general but especially are treated is quite disturbing.

Throughout the show we still have these same funny, quirky nerd characters that you sort of fell in love with in the first couple of episodes. But the brutally dark nature of everything else detracts from any feel-good aspects of the show. I managed to watch all eight episodes mostly just because I was sucked in and wanted to see where it was all going.

As I said in the title to this blog, the fact that it deals with a fatal pandemic is not the most disturbing thing about this series. I know people (my sister for example) who seriously disliked “The Hunger Games” because it was about kids killing kids for sport. But at least in that series of books and films you felt like they were fighting the good fight against the repressive government. Although these characters try to be heroes to stand up against the evil corporation, these are not really very heroic people.

While the series attempts to be social commentary about things like nerd culture, politics, greedy corporations, conspiracy theorists and a number of other topics, ultimately it’s just a disturbing mess. By the way the violence isn’t particularly bloody or gory. Most people are killed execution style with a silenced gunshot to the head. However the lack of blood and gore only furthers to underplay the fact that we are really murdering people in cold blood.

As I mentioned I watched all eight episodes and it was good enough to hold my interest throughout. However I’m not really sure if I can recommend it or not. I think what fascinated me to stick with it was just to see how dark and sadistic it could become. Unfortunately the ending was not particularly satisfying and leaves itself open to another season if they managed to dare to attempt one. I guess for the lack of a better term I’m going to give it a rating of “could be watchable” but just keep in mind it’s not going to be a fun ride. The parts that make you stop and think are not exactly worth the effort to get there. I hesitate to say “skip it” because it does have its moments and it is thought-provoking. It just depends on what kind of thoughts you want provoked. Travel at your own risk.

“Next” is Classic Artificial Intelligence Run Amok

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Serious scientists and engineers have been warning us that the day is coming soon that they call “The Singularity”. It’s a day when an artificial intelligence computer actually becomes a self-aware living being that looks out for its own self interests. Of course the fear is that those self-interests are contrary to the human race.

It’s been a recurring trope of sci-fi for many years. The most famous examples are HAL-9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and its sequels, V-ger from “Star Trek: The Motion Picture“, Skynet from the “Terminator” franchise and many others. Some of my favorite cheesy evil AIs are Colossus from the 1970 film “Colossus: The Forbin Project” and even cheesier yet Proteus from the 1977 film “Demon Seed“. Minor spoilers here if you’ve not seen any of these. None of these self-aware computers were defeated. All of them had some sort of evil intent. Only HAL-9000 turned out to be a good guy in the end and sacrificed himself to save his crew. The bottom line of all of these cautionary tales is that artificial intelligence is beyond our control and there is little or nothing we can do about it.

AI already exists in our world. Image recognition software, facial recognition, and even the recommendations of websites like Netflix and Amazon depend on artificial intelligence. The scary thing about this software is that it rewrites itself. Typically AI creates a method for deciding something for example “Is this an image of a cat?” You feed it thousands or even millions of images and it tries to guess what is or isn’t a cat. You tell it whether it succeeded or not. It creates thousands of algorithms or models that try to perform this prediction. It throws away the models that don’t succeed above some particular threshold. Then it makes thousands of more versions of the models that do succeed. And it repeats this process thousands or even millions of times until it finds a model that solves the problem reliably. The problem is… Nobody really knows how it works. Programmers set this thing in motion and it goes off and figures it out on its own getting smarter with each iteration.

So far AI is only employed for simple pattern recognition types of applications. But the principles behind it can be applied to lots of things. The idea that the code rewrites itself is what makes the experts so fearful.

Back in the 1970s when I was a computer science student at IUPUI I wrote a simple program to solve a trivial chess problem. One player has a king only. The other player has a king and a rook. The advantaged player has to get a checkmate without causing a stalemate by having the exact board position reoccur three times. I came up with a set of rules where the two pieces would gradually corner the loan king and achieve checkmate. But on a couple of occasions, the program went about it in a way I didn’t expect it to. I cannot begin to describe how creepy it was that my program took the rules that I generated and came up with a solution that I had not anticipated. While this is a trivial example, it helps me understand why people are so fearful of artificial intelligence.

So now we come to the new sci-fi series on Fox called “neXt“. (Yes the weird capitalization is how they spell it in the show.) The main character is FBI Special Agent Shea Salazar played by Fernanda Andrade. A friend of hers is involved in a near fatal traffic accident. He leaves her an ominous videotape recording saying that he has found strange code fragments floating around the Internet attacking websites and other computer system. He’s making the recording because he fears for his life. Shortly thereafter he dies in the hospital under mysterious circumstances.

She begins investigating and recruits tech mogul Paul LeBlanc played by John Slattery. He recognizes the code fragment as being part of an artificial intelligence program that he was developing for his company. He tried to shut down the AI program for fears of what it would become and was eventually ousted from his own company. Now he is certain that his work on artificial intelligence has continued in his absence and gotten out into the Internet to do God knows what.

There are some indications that LeBlanc might be crazy but he eventually convinces everyone that the threat is real. It is revealed that his company has continued the AI project under the codename “neXt” and despite their precautions to keep it from getting out onto the Internet, it does.

Of course once such a program makes it on to the Internet it can copy itself onto any number of servers and is going to be virtually impossible to shut down.

Basically this is just the same old AI run amok story we’ve seen over and over again. It’s hard to tell from the opening episode where the story goes from here. There are side characters that will fit in somehow including a young boy who is being befriended by the program as it comes through his Alexa style personal assistant device.

I don’t have a lot of high hopes for this series but I will probably continue watching it for a few episodes just to see if they come up with a new twist. If this wasn’t an entertainment desert during the pandemic I probably wouldn’t give it much attention. But given there is nothing else new on right now I’m going to give it a try. It earns a cautionary tentative “could be watchable” rating.

New Game Shows Aren’t Great but Are Fun During a Boring Pandemic

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I generally don’t review reality competition shows. I never watch the Bachelor/Bachelorette/Love Island dating type shows. I am a big fan of Survivor and The Amazing Race and have never missed an episode of either of those. But with the regular season delayed until late October the networks are turning to more game shows to try to fill the airwaves. I thought I would talk about a couple of guilty pleasure shows you might want to check out.

The Weakest Link

A new American version of this British quiz show classic premiered recently on NBC. The British version of “The Weakest Link” had a total of 1693 episodes most of them hosted by Anne Robinson. Unlike most quiz shows, this format openly invites a hostile competition between the contestants. After a round of questions for each contestant, everyone votes off who is the weakest link. It’s sort of a combination of Jeopardy and Survivor. And also unlike the friendly hosts on most quiz shows, Robinson takes a snarky condescending attitude towards the contestants berating them for missing various questions. When I heard that Jane Lynch was going to be the host of this American reboot “Weakest Link” I was really excited. I knew that she could re-create that sarcastic snarky attitude when delivering the show’s catchphrase “You are the weakest link… Goodbye!”

I was only a tiny bit disappointed in Lynch. While she had the appropriate condescending tone that you expect from the show, I didn’t think her final “Goodbye” to each eliminated contestant was quite sarcastic enough. But she still does a pretty good job of doing and Anne Robinson impersonation.

it’s faster paced than shows like “The Wall“. The questions are not as esoteric or academic as “Jeopardy! ” for example. Some of the contestants’ wrong answers were low hanging fruit for Lynch to make fun of them. For example “What African-American astrophysicist is director of the Hayden planetarium?” The contestant fumbled for a moment and then hesitatingly said “Einstein?” Lynch asked the girl “What is your occupation again?” The girl replies “a model”. Lynch “that figures. Even if you didn’t know Neil deGrasse Tyson you should’ve known Einstein wasn’t African-American.”

Overall I like it and will continue to watch while nothing else good is on TV. I love Jane Lynch as a host. She’s not as much fun as she is in Hollywood Game Night but then again the format requires somebody even more snarky and condescending and she does a great job. I rate it “I’m watching it” and recommend you check it out for a fun diversion.

I Can See Your Voice

“I Can See by Your Voice” is a new competition show from Fox. I only watched this new show from Fox so I could see just how bad it was. I actually was pleasantly surprised. It airs just after the hit show “The Masked Singer” and is hosted by comic actor Dr. Ken Jeong who is also a judge on “The Masked Singer”. The premise of this show is sort of the opposite of the NBC singing competition “The Voice“. In “The Voice” the judges get to hear a contestant sing but initially cannot see their performance. In “I Can See Your Voice” you can watch the performance as they lip-synch to a track but you can’t actually hear them sing. The trick is to figure out who is really a good singer and who is faking it.

There is a single contestant for the entire episode. They are presented with 6 singers and it is up to the contestant to identify the good singers from the bad singers. They are assisted by a panel of 5 celebrities. The first episode featured Nick Lachey, Kelly Osborne, Arsenio Hall, Cheryl Hines, and Adrienne Houghton.

In the first two rounds, three of the six singers lip-synch a song. If they are a good singer, they are lip-synching to their own voice and if they are a bad singer they are lip-synching to someone else. The contestant then decides which of the three should be eliminated as a bad singer. If the eliminated person is indeed a bad singer, the contestant banks $10,000. There is no guarantee how many good or bad singers are among the six. The celebrity panel advises the contestant on who they think is the real deal and why but the contestant has the ultimate decision.

After the first round there are other rounds in which you get to hear the singer perform with a distorted voice. We also get clues about the back story which either do or don’t add up and help you decide who is faking and who is real.

When you get down to the final of the six singers, the contestant has generally banked about $30,000. They are then given the opportunity to walk home with that money or risk it all for $100,000 if they think the final singer is a good singer.

As ridiculous as the entire thing is, for some reason it works. You find yourself forming your own opinions and guessing right along with the celebrities and the contestants. If you’re the kind of person who is a big fan of “The Masked Singer” it’s likely you will like this show as well. This is not in any way sophisticated entertainment. It definitely falls into the “guilty pleasure” category but is just silly enough that I kind of like it. I rate it a weak “I’m watching it” and if it sounds like fun to you, you should check it out.

Netflix’s “Away” Is Both The Best And Worst I’ve Seen In A Long Time

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I developed a rating system for my TV and movie reviews ranging all the way from “worthless” up to “must-see” with varying degrees of recommendation in between. For once I find myself completely torn as to what rating idea new Netflix sci-fi series “Away”. In some ways it deserves most of these ends of my scale. It deserves my worst rating of “worthless” as well as my best rating of “must-see”. If Charles Dickens was writing this review he would say “It was the best of shows. It was the worst of shows.”

Hilary Swank leads an international cast as astronaut Emma Green as the commander of the first mission to Mars. I could ask “Do we really need another ‘First mission to Mars’ TV series?” Considering that in 2018 we had the Hulu series “The First” starring Sean Penn and 2 seasons of a National Geographic series “Mars” it seems like this has been done before. However both of those series suffered from problems that I won’t go into here. So I was anxious to see how Netflix handled the topic.

In the first 10 to 15 minutes of the first episode I knew we were in trouble. The story was revealed in a strange series of flashbacks (or was it flash forwards? At first we couldn’t tell which) about some sort of accident on board the Atlas spacecraft. The confusing storytelling eventually evened out but the scientific errors piled on one after the other. I’m not talking about the nitpicky kinds of things that Neil deGrasse Tyson tweets about. I’m talking about really stupid plot holes and really bad science that even a non-sci-fi fan would spot in an instant.

At this point I should probably issue a spoiler warning because I’m going to talk about plot.

In the opening episode we finally sort out the fact that the accident scenes were a flashback of an incident that happened on the journey from Earth to the moon which was the first step on the Mars journey. The fact that they stopped off at the moon before proceeding to Mars was probably the only scientifically accurate part of the entire story. When we finally do go to Mars we will probably launch from the moon or perhaps lunar orbit. There are scenes where investigators are interviewing the five member crew about the incident and we get a Rashomon-like series of explanations in which everyone saw the same event differently.

During these interviews we find out there is great dissension among the five-member crew and a great deal of distrust of Hilary Swank’s ability to command the mission. They say that the crew has been training together for 2 years and you would’ve thought that if there was that much distrust of the commander it would’ve been uncovered before now and dealt with either by replacing her or other crewmembers. It’s just totally not credible that such a dysfunctional group would be picked for such an important mission.

Much of the story centers on Swank’s character Emma Green who leaves behind a husband Matt and 15-year-old daughter Alexis for this three-year mission to Mars. The husband is played by Josh Charles who is most remembered for his role as Will Gardner in “The Good Wife”. Matt is a former astronaut who was grounded for medical reasons. He has a hereditary disease that makes him prone to a stroke. He serves as a chief engineer for the mission in mission control and knows everything about the spacecraft inside out. Suddenly just before departure from the moon to Mars he suffers a massive stroke. Now Commander Green has to decide if she should drop out of the mission to deal with her family or to go on and fulfill her own dreams. Ultimately with support from Matt and her daughter she proceeds with the mission. We have to wonder if she would be given such a choice in a real-life circumstance. Of course this only further aggravates the crew’s doubts as to whether or not she can stay focused as an effective leader.

Shortly after departure from the moon (with some really bad special-effects on the rocket plume) one of their three solar panels fails to unfold completely. If they can’t get the solar panel fixed they will all die in route to Mars. This is another in a long list of things that just wouldn’t happen on a real mission. You don’t design a spaceship with no backup or no redundancy. If you had three solar panels you would have design things so that you can complete the mission with just two panels. If you really needed three you would have put four of them on the spacecraft. They didn’t even take the time to explain away this decision citing budget cuts or any of the other usual cliché reasons why your vehicle fails whether it’s the Titanic or a rocket to Mars. Later in the series their water recycling equipment breaks down and this time they do have a backup. But the backup is insufficient to do the job. Why the hell would you bother to put in a backup that couldn’t do it? A critical system like this on a real spacecraft would be fully redundant. It was just insane. All of this takes my dreaded “plot driven technology” to an extreme I’ve never seen in any movie or TV show before.

Some of the ridiculous plot holes and bad science don’t require you to be knowledgeable to spot. The center core of the ship remains in zero gravity but the crew quarters are at the end of 2 long rotating arms which generate artificial gravity and thus saving lots of money on special-effects. One of the minor plot points was that the Russian astronaut had a hobby of building puppets and performing puppet shows for his grandchildren. At one point in the story they are about to be so distant from Earth that videoconferencing is impossible so he wants to put on one last puppet show for the grandkids. The puppets he uses are marionettes hanging from strings. But he performs the puppet show in the zero gravity part of the spacecraft! How do you hang and manipulate a puppet on a string when there is no gravity. At the end of the puppet show he releases the strings that allows the puppets to float free. It’s just insane.

Speaking of the communication with Earth issues, when you are at the moon it takes approximately 1.5 seconds for a radio transmission to reach the moon. If you answer instantly, the other person doesn’t receive the reply until another 1.5 seconds. There should be an annoying three second delay in any live conversation. But by some miracle they seem to be able to communicate instantly as if you were phoning someone next-door. This instantaneous communication is a standard violation of physics that many sci-fi movies and TV shows tend to do. Most notably in the 2017 teen romance “The Space between Us” in which a boy from Mars falls in love with a girl on earth and they are able to communicate instantaneously despite the distance. So I’m thinking they’re going to abandon that particular bit of physics for the sake of storytelling. But no… They get about halfway to Mars and suddenly there is a communications delay of 20 minutes. It just happens all of a sudden. We’ve got to get our last instantaneous video messages back to our loved ones on earth before the distance gets too great. From that point forward they limit everything to text messages, emails, and audio attachments to emails. You can’t just ignore physics for half of the movie and then turn it back on again when it’s more convenient to create tension in the story.

So if this series is such a scientific nightmare, why did I watch all 10 episodes in one day? It’s because the characters are absolutely amazing. You really get to know each character in various episodes where we get their entire back story from their childhood up until the start of the mission. The drama is real and not nearly as contrived as the science. The acting of the entire cast is absolutely phenomenal. You expect good things out of people like Swank and Charles but the other characters in the international crew who are not known to me from other work turn in great performances and have really compelling, emotional character arcs throughout the series. Of special note is the performance by Talitha Eliana Bateman who was unknown to me but has appeared in a number of films and TV series. I was very impressed with her.

I could’ve written pages and pages about ridiculous plot holes not even including more pages of ridiculous scientific errors. But as a human story about compelling characters told in engaging and emotional ways this is an absolutely amazing miniseries I could highly recommend.

I feel so disappointed that that much effort went into creating such interesting characters and a heartfelt compelling back stories performed so beautifully yet so little effort was put into creating a credible plot and even a marginally accurate bit of sci-fi.

Why can’t we have both? Why can’t we have self-consistent plots and good science along with compelling drama? It’s such a shame.

The Apple TV+ alternate history sci-fi series “For All Mankind” did a pretty good job in its opening season but nobody watches Apple TV+ unless they got it free when buying an iPhone or iPad like I did. And unfortunately the trailer for season 2 already shows some bad science.

So I’m giving this series a dual rating. If you want well written, deep, well acted characters that will pull at your heartstrings and keep you wanting more then this gets a very strong rating of “Must-See”. But if you insist on a reasonably well-crafted plot with any degree of scientific accuracy then I also have to give it a very strong rating of “Worthless”.

When I watched it yesterday, Netflix said it was trending #2 in the US. Today it just says “Top 10”. The ending left the door open for another season. I don’t know whether I should wish for one or not.

Medical Drama “Transplant” Isn’t about Transplants and That’s the Only Interesting Thing about It.

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NBC is desperate for content considering production on fall TV series is just starting and the first new episodes won’t be available until October or November. To fill the gap they purchased the rights to Canadian medical drama “Transplant”. On numerous occasions in this blog I’ve asked the question “Do we really need another medical drama?” And with rare exceptions the answer is no. Fortunately our organs are working just fine and we don’t really need a “Transplant”.

The main character is Bashir Hamed, a Syrian refugee who has been accepted to live in Canada under their refugee assistance program. He’s accompanied by his preteen sister Amira. They have transplanted their lives fleeing the Syrian Civil War to live in Canada. The show has nothing to do with medical transplants.

In the opening episode he’s working as a short order cook in a Middle Eastern restaurant in Toronto. Suddenly a semi truck crashes into the front of the restaurant injuring him and 4 other people. He manages to pull himself together and remove some shards of glass from his abdomen and then proceeds to help the other victims. One is a 50 something-year-old woman who is in full cardiac arrest and he beats on her chest and gives her CPR. Another is his friend who I believe owns the restaurant and he’s got blood behind his eyeball so Bashir cuts the corner of his eye socket to relieve the pressure. Then he moves on to a man with a fractured skull and a blown pupil so he gets a power drill and drills a hole into the man’s temple to relieve the pressure. He doesn’t have time to treat his other friend who has a dislocated arm.

The next scene shows him waking up in the ER with all of the other victims after having been transported there. No one knows that he had performed all of these procedures on the victims because the guy with a hole in his head was actually Dr. Jed Bishop the head of the ER at that hospital. They presumed that Dr. Bishop had performed all of the procedures including drilling a hole in his own head.

That’s a pretty exciting and interesting beginning of a TV show but it falls apart quickly after that. Despite the insistence that he stay on the hospital gurney and wait for further treatment, he keeps getting up and wandering around the ER looking for someone. It turns out he’s looking for a friend who was also injured in the accident. We never do quite understand their relationship. I think they are roommates. We do discover that his friend doesn’t have immigration papers. They eventually meet up and he puts the friend’s dislocated shoulder back in place. Then he goes in search of his kid sister who is missing. She has gone to the hospital looking for her brother because she heard about the accident on TV.

The police investigating the crash are trying to determine who is the driver of the truck. Because Bashir is obviously Middle Eastern and is behaving erratically the police become a highly suspicious of him. I get the idea that we are supposed to be sympathetic towards this Syrian refugee who obviously has rad medical skills but is working as a fry cook. We are supposed to be appalled at the idea that they assume he’s some sort of terrorist who deliberately drove the truck into the restaurant.

But it’s hard to be sympathetic towards Bashir when he is behaving so irrationally and suspiciously. If he was an ordinary All-American (or I guess all Canadian in this case) white guy behaving like he was behaving he still would have been a prime suspect. The whole thing just seemed totally irrational.

We get introduced to other ER doctors trying to treat the patients and solve the mysteries. They finally figure out that he is the one who did all of the procedures. He still runs around the place acting suspiciously and drawing attention to himself eventually getting himself handcuffed to a gurney by the police until they can finally find the real driver of the vehicle. Apparently his brakes failed, he jumped from the vehicle and got run over by it. They release Bashir. By then I don’t care anymore.

Dr. Bishop miraculously recovers from his brain bleed and is sitting up in bed shouting orders to residents in a matter of hours which is totally ridiculous. Then he asked that Bashir come in to visit him after hearing the story of how he saved him and the other victims. It turns out that Bashir had applied for a job in the hospital and been turned down by Bishop. Dr. Bishop decides to reinterview him giving him a second chance and that wraps up the pilot episode.

We really don’t learn anything more in that first episode about where or how he got his medical training. From other reviews and a Wikipedia article I’ve learned that he was a trauma doctor during the Syrian Civil War. His credentials aren’t any good in Canada where he has now “transplanted” his life and so he is going to end up serving as an ER resident in the hospital.

Dr. Bishop’s magical recovery shows us that we are not going to get credibly accurate medicine in this series. We only briefly get introduced to the other characters but they already come off as stereotypes. One is the perky young female resident who tries too hard to make a good impression. Another is a driven surgical resident who is out to compete with everyone and has a chip on her shoulder. Bishop is a hard-nosed, grumpy but brilliant doctor who is worshiped like a God by the other personnel in the hospital. By the way Dr. Bishop is the only actor I recognized. He is played by the Scottish actor John Hannah who did a couple of seasons of “Agents of SHIELD” as Holden Radcliffe but I remember him most as the character Batiatus from the
“Spartacus: Blood and Sand” TV series.

Unless you are just desperate for the heartwarming struggles of a Middle Eastern refugee trying to make it in the big bad Western world you would do better to watch Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Doctor,
Chicago Med, or just about any other medical drama on TV. I’m giving it a solid rating of “Skip It“.