Max's Musings

What we've been watching on TV, birthday edition

Today is a state holiday in Texas when everyone celebrates my Sam Houston's birthday. My ex wrote and asked me what we were doing to celebrate, so responded with what we've been watching onTV lately.

In the unlikely event anyone cares, here's my response.

We’ve been watching Reacher, on Amazon, recommended by a former co-worker. It’s not terrible.

We’ve also been watching The Pitt. It stars Noah Wylie as the head of an ER—as nearly as I can tell, it’s supposed to be the grown-up Noah Wylie character from the old ER series. It’s not bad, and I'll watch anything with Noah Wylie, even The Librarian.

Also, The Irrational with Dennis Green (from Law and Order) isn’t bad. He was in “Rent” on Broadway, but i don't think he was in the production we saw years ago--the only Broadway show I've ever seen live on a Broadway stage.

For another, Doc turns out to be interesting. The premise is that the POV character was an over-bearing physician in charge of surgery at some hospital, then she had an auto accident and lost ten years of memory. She has to re-certify as a physician, deal with the fact that she’s now working for her ex-husband (who she remembers still being married to) and doesn’t remember the physician she was having an affair with in the first episode, where she was in the accident. So, we’ve got this soap opera going on in the background on each episode, while the main story line is a disease-of-the-week, kind like in House. I’m sure it will get tiresome, but for now, it’s interesting.

We’re also watching Tracker. The lead is way cute. The stories are pretty far-fetched and repetitive, but I can tolerate them just to watch the lead character.

Finally, I absolutely love Elspeth, Thursday nights at 9. Thursday starts with the Big Bang spin-off, Georgie and Mandy’s first Marriage, goes on with Ghosts, then to Matlock, and ends with Elspeth. All of the lead-ins are watchable (and, in ascending order, range from tolerable to excellent), but the best is the last. Elspeth is a quirky-but-smart “consultant” with the NYPD whose veering approach solves crimes. The guest-star criminals have all been kind of interesting—Nathan Lane, in particular, was funny in his role. It’s kind of like Columbo, but with a female detective who’s even more quirky. I’d have to say it’s my favorite new show on TV right now.

We’ve also recently re-watched all the old seasons of Fargo and True Detective. All good.

Finally, Mr. Gene loves Penn and Teller and all things magic, so that’s been on our TV, too. I’m usually playing solitaire, though.

So now you know what I watch on TV. I'm sure that's been high on your list of things to know.