Season 4 Episode 9: Why have we not done this before

Welcome to this weeks post.

It’s been another slow week.
But with a couple of shows returning this week, my schedule is starting to will out nicely.

Not one for turning down anything free. I was on my Instagram account, so I saw they were giving me A £20 credit for advertising and thought way not. I read it multiple times to make sure I couldn’t be left with a bill at the end of the week. I wasn’t, so I boosted last weeks post about the blog update going live. I have no idea if it helps, but hey, it was free. If I get another free one, I’ll do it again. But I’m sure I won’t pay for it anytime soon.

Because this is the weird bit at the beginning, and I still don’t know what I’m supposed to put here. I’ll let you into my planning for each post.

First off, I have a Diary where I note down the show I’ve just seen with the season and episode number. Then on the Sunday, I spend most of the day writing the blog, all soundtracked to the latest Spotify “Release Radar “playlist. This weeks was 5hrs 52 mins long.
Once it’s all ready to go, I get started laying out the post on the website.
And then, finally, I double-check everything is good to go and hit publish.
Oh, and then do the shouty look at this bit’s on the socials.

So once again, thank you for taking a look. If it’s your first time and
Welcome back if you’ve been here before

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If you are new and don’t know already,

I have an Instagram account where I post a small image of the show I’m watching; it’s a complete list, then this weekly blog and also more up to date.

Below is just some of the recent posts to get an idea of how my post’s look; if you like what you see, please think about following me.
I am trying to get to 100, and I’m at 83 at the time of writing. So only 17 more to go.

And now finally On with the news     

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News

Renewed - Cancelled - Ordered

This is an animated sitcom about the antics of a dysfunctional family. Homer is the oafish unhealthy beer loving father, Marge is the hardworking homemaker wife, Bart is the perpetual ten-year-old underachiever (and proud of it), Lisa is the unappreciated eight-year-old genius, and Maggie is the cute, pacifier loving silent infant.

It’s still very slow in the news this week, with only one show getting renewed for not one but two seasons. So congratulations to “The Simpsons” for their season 33 and 34 renewal. I’m sure that if a nuclear apocalypse were to hit, we would still be getting new Simpsons episodes.

In other news, the recent addition to the Disney plus streaming services in the  UK “Star” is about to get a couple of new additions. One being the fantastic Black-ish spin-off Grown-ish which is a surprise to me E4 has Black-ish, so I saw it as the perfect home for both Grown-ish, and it’s other spin-off Mixed-ish. Does this mean that Star will also get Mixed-ish soon and decide to move Black-ish over the “Star” after the current deal with E4 as ended?

Another show Coming to “Star” is American Horror Stories. This is a show I have never gotten around to watching. I even bought the first season on DVD, but it’s never been opened, so now it’s readily available. I might give it a go. And finally “Star” will be the UK home to ABC drama “Rebel.” It doesn’t start in the US until next month, so I’m not sure if they will add episode one by one a few days after the US airing or if they will wait until it’s finished and drop all episodes in one go.

And better late than never, Fox UK must be struggling to fill the schedule as they have picked up Comedy “The Grimder” first shown in the US back in 2015 and Crime Drama “Gang Related” from 2014. Both shows only lasted one season, but I did enjoy the two of them. If you need anything else to watch, try, given there’s two a go, even if it’s only a couple of episode.

The Johnson family's firstborn daughter Zoey leaves the family to go to college. As she attends college while befriending some people, she discovers that her journey to adulthood and her departure from the family does not go the way she hoped.

The series follows the personal and professional lives of the members of the elite Los Angeles Police Department's multi-agency Gang Task Force as they take on the city's most dangerous gangs, including one with which a task force member has ties.

Inspired by the life of Erin Brockovich today, Annie "Rebel" Bello is a funny, messy, brilliant and fearless legal advocate who will win at almost any cost.

The series follows television actor Dean Sanderson, Jr. (Rob Lowe), who returns to his hometown of Boise, Idaho after his long-running television series, The Grinder, ends. Though Dean is not a lawyer, he believes that his experience playing one on television makes him qualified to practice law. He decides to join his family's law firm, Sanderson & Yao, much to the chagrin of his younger brother Stewart (Fred Savage), who is a real-life lawyer. Stewart and a new hire named Claire, who along with Stuart, are the only people who seem to comprehend that Dean's television experience does not qualify him for a job at a real law firm.

American Horror Story Spin-off

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I Have Been Watching

The Rookie S3 E7 “True Crime”

ABC – Comedy/Crime/Drama

Every so often, a police procedural show offers up a different way of presenting a story. One that comes to mind is an episode of “Without a Trace”, where they tell the story from the parent’s perspective. Hence, you only get new information when the team come and visit the parents.

So when I realised that this weeks “Rookie” episode was going for a different style, I was all for it. The type that went for was the true-crime documentary. With them telling to story of a child actor turned cult leader—the idea of moving the story along by having interviews with the police officers.

Corey started an acting school and began using the people in his classes to perform robberies, telling them that they have to know what it feels like to make people believe they are robbers.

What made this an exciting episode was that they gave you a few people who could have been the murderer. Starting with Corey, the child actor or maybe his acting partner Charlotte and even Corey’s mom.

In this episode, because of the documentary makers doing some research, they discovered that Jackson’s boyfriend Skipper Young was once part of Corey’s cult and used to participate in the robberies. Still, after leaving the cult, he changed his name and put on an American accent. This put an end to their relationship.

The Rookie is one of my go-to shows, as regular readers will know each day. I see what I have to watch and pick the order by what I want to watch first. This means some shows get left behind, but it also means when I have a free slot, I ave a great backup of episodes to pick from. But The Rookie is never left for another day. It’s always picked first.

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Debris S1 E1 “Pilot”

NBC - Drama/Mystery/Sci-fi

I’m generally not a sci-fi fan, but when one of my favourite musicians (Scroobius Pip) started to get into acting and, as it turned out, was very good, I have started to watch anything he’s in. that’s why a few years ago I watched the brilliant Taboo (BBC/FX). So when I found out he would be in his first-ever US network show, I was ready and willing to give it a go. And this week saw its debut.

Debris has an interesting look and feel about it; it’s very dark and gritty. Even better, Pip was in the opening scene. The show centres around two agents. One is MI6 from the UK, and the other is a CIA agent from the US. Both tasked to track down fragments of a crash-landed spaceship and is coursing strange effects in humans.

To balance out the good guys, this opening episode started with a group of guys trying to buy a part of the spaceship. Only for the deal to be interrupted by the agents tracking them down to intervene and prevent the fragments from getting into the wrong hands. It also has lovely to see was that the bad guys may or may not be human as they could swallow a pill that allowed them to teleport. Not always to great effect, as one of them got stuck inside a concrete pillar and had to be shot dead.

With Mondays being a busy day in terms of viewing, I was shocked that Debris may be the first pick for what to watch, beating out the likes of Bull and All Rise.

Another surprising thing is that it’s already made my list for “Show of the year.” So maybe a show this early on in the year can take the crown for this year.

It’s going to be an exciting story, and Im looking forward to where it’s going to go, but I am a little worried that they may not be able to stretch it out over more than a few seasons

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New Amersterdam S3 E1 “The New Normal”

NBC - Drama

So the final medical show on my weekly schedule returned this week, and all I could think about was how they were going to address the covid-19 pandemic. Would the writers use the first episode to catch us up on what happened between the end of last season and where they are now, or just start from the current day?

Well, I needn’t have worried as, in my opinion, what they did in the opening scene was terrific and got the tone just right. Both Chicago MED and The Resident used a full episode to tell New Amsterdam’s same story that only took them a few minutes and described it better, I believe. All without any dialogue, just to the cover version of “What a wonderful world” by Jon Batiste. We get to see the struggle and how hard it was only by them taking off their masks and showing the marks they left on their faces, also by the times they had to go and hide just to cry.

The main story for this season opener was a plane crashing into the East River. Everybody had to prepare for an influx of people needing treatment. It was nice to see a story that was not directly liked to the pandemic.  

The other story within this episode was that during the outbreak, Dr Kapoor was admitted to the hospital with Covid and was due to be taken off his ventilator. It is only for Max to discover they have run out of something they needed to help Dr Kapoor transition off the ventilator. This news got Max working hard and fast to see if any local hospitals had and spare that they could borrow. This turned into an evergrowing swap tree. With everyone needing something that another had going space. This interaction ended with a line I can still remember. “why have we not been doing this before” which sums up the state of things. It took a global pandemic for the local hospitals to start working together.

In the end, Max got what he needed, but I may have been too late. Could Dr Kapoor be for the chop this season? I hope not.

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The Goldberg’s S8 E13 “Mr. Ships Ahoy”

ABC - Comedy

Ok, let me start by saying I love The Goldbergs and watch every episode on day one, but I don’t know how long they have left. With both Barry and Erica now at college and Adam in his final year, it can’t be long until they are no longer in the ’80s

They are currently airing season 8, so next season would be there 9th. If they stick to one year = one season, then the 10th would likely be there last unless the producers decide to keep telling the story but move the decade on and into the ’90s. If needed, they could use some of the storylines told from “Schooled” to help round out the world.

This week they continued the story of Beverly Goldberg working at the school as the “Quaker Warden.” With her new job came something she’d always wanted, and that’s Co-workers.

After all, the Films and TV shows gave Beverly the impression that all co-workers are great friends and get on with each other and love getting together with one another outside of work. She forgot to take into account the past seven years of her matching now to the school the shout at them and making them do whatever she wanted.  After a failed attempt to get them to like her by inviting them to her house for a day of fun. She decided to give up and do what the school staff and Adam wanted and resign.

This news spared Adam to go into the teacher’s lounge and defend his mom. This act of kindness helped rebuild the bridges between Beverly and the teachers she had been tormenting the past few years.

While this was all happening, Barry and Geoff were battling it out to see who would be crowned Mr Ships Ahoy. After seeing the other contestants in the competitions, Geoff realised he had no chance of winning even after consulting with past winner “Pops”, who told him to give them something the others didn’t have. He was almost out of the running to win until Erica took over the competition’s interview portion.Asking him questions what would get the judges on his side. Question’s like when is their anniversary was. When Ericas birthday is and what’s the best day of the week. This made him look sweet and helped win over the judges, who decided to crown him the winner

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B Positive S1 E10 “B Negative: Part 2”

CBS – Comedy

For a show about a man that needs a new kidney who runs into an old friend willing to give I’m her’s. I’m happy to say it’s both funny and sad in equal measures. After watching a few episodes, I am starting to see similarities to another Chuck Lorre show, “Mom.” Both have a tremendous supporting cast, one centred around an AA meeting and the other around getting dialysis.

Also, what going to be interesting is seeing if they swap out the people getting dialysis. They teased this recently when Jerry finally got a new kidney, only for his body to reject it. So if they want to swap some people, they could have them get their much-needed kidney and then have someone new ender the group.

In the recent episode, they concluded the story started last week. After Jerry finally got the call that he was getting a new kidney, it gave Drew the hope that he would be ok and started planning for his future. One way was planning a trip with his daughter to Iceland, but after hearing Jerry’s body had rejected the new kidney, they ended the episode with Drew and Maddie at the airport waiting for a flight to Iceland. This is how they ended last week episode. So at the start of this weeks episode, they were will at the airport wait for the flight. But it turns out that Drew had given up his seat to his ex-wife so she could go on the trip with her daughter instead.

What I loved about this episode was that they used the fact that Drew had missed his dialysis appointment as a way to get him to start drinking Gina’s Beer and go on a drug high like adventure. Making his way down his street, talking to gnomes thinking they were lost, children.  Another similarity to “Mom” was that once it was discovered that Drew was missing, the group searched for him, which is defiantly something the AA group would do.

After being found and taken to the hospital, it turns that it wasn’t the beer that caused his adventure but that he missed his dialysis treatment.

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Call me Kat S1 E10 “Business Council.”

Fox - Comedy

Most people know I watch a range of tv shows. Most days, I like to mix it up by not only watching gritty dramas or shows about the law and lawyers but also watching an excellent half-hour comedy or even a competition show. So Call me Kat has become a perfect show to watch between heavy drama’s. The presentation style is unique, with Kat looking directly into the camera and addressing the viewers. Having been a fan of the original British version, I looked forward to seeing if this remake would do better than recent US remakes.

I’m pleasantly surprised that this one not only takes the best of the UK original but makes it it’s own. The viewing figures have not been going in the right direction, but hopefully, they can get at least one more season.

In the most recent episode, Kat was nominated to fill the vacant spot on the local business council. A group of local business owners trying to make the area better for all of them. When Kat told Carter that he could count on her vote when the subject of extending his bar’s opening hours came up, she was the deciding vote after hearing everyone’s views. She ultimately chose not the allow Carter to keep his bar open later.

Because Kat went against what she promised, Kat spent the rest of the episode trying the think of a way to repair her friendship with Carter. Her first attempted was giving Carter her fathers old jukebox to use in the bar during the day when no one was playing live. The surprise would have been great if not for that tow truck taking her car away and dropping the jukebox into the ground, breaking it in the process. Finally, she looked at a picture of Phil naked; and saw a large area where the bins could be turned into a patio area for the bar. This would mean the bar could serve more people during the day, make more money, and not need to open later than they already do.

With the recent pandemic causing problems with shows having difficulty filming, I’m hoping shows like this that are already set-up to film with current rules in place that they are given another season.

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And there we have it. That’s another update done. Just a quick reminder, please don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and if you have enjoyed that I have been doing here and want it to continue, please consider becoming a patron.

Once again Thanks and goodnight