DOA On TV: Paradise, Best Medicine, Doc, Young Sherlock, The Pitt, Starfleet Academy

 

Paradise A Holy Charge

While much happens in the episode, the part that keeps coming to mind is Xavier traveling on horseback to Atlanta with Annie’s baby in a little pack.  Teri has been “taken” says her friend, while an angry Xavier holds a gun in his direction.    That mayday message of Xavier’s where he gives his name, Teri’s name, and the coordinates of the bunker and her last known location have got to be coming back to haunt him.

 

Best Medicine    Doc Martin

Martin Clunes, the original British Doc Martin comes to Port Wenn with his wife.  Martin is mostly cowed by the appearance of his parents, but the time he’s spent in town is beginning to rub off on him and he defends his adopted town from his scathing parents.  As the locals say, now we can see why Martin is the way he is.

 

Doc   The Best We Can Do

Richard Miller has forced his way back to working at the hospital, and he get’s a cold reception from nearly everyone.  Even so, he somehow gets under your skin and rooting for him a little bit.  I wouldn’t have thought that was possible.

 

Young Sherlock   The Case of the Missing Scrolls

I was looking forward to this, as I enjoyed just about every Sherlock incarnation I ‘ve seen.  The music, though! It screams and crashes and shrieks.   It in no way fits the time period, and if this show was set in modern times, I’d still not like it but wouldn’t notice it as much, I think.

I don’t mind Sherlock as a too smart for his own good teen, or having James Moriarty as his new best friend, they are oddly a good match.    

I’m not going to continue watching, though.

 

The Pitt 3 pm

July 4^th escalates as the first firecracker victim is brought in, his hand now missing two fingers.  He’s only 12, and seems awfully brave till we learn he’s legally intoxicated.

An old school nurse is brought in to help run the ER in it’s analog state.  She takes charge right away, and sorts everything out.  Can we keep her?

 

Star Fleet Academy    300^th Night

The first year is done for cadets and they’re graduating, with everyone traveling to Betazed, the new Federation capitol to celebrate.

Everyone but Caleb who, with Sam’s help, unlocks two years worth of encrypted messages from his mom.   Caleb, again  with Sam’s help, steals a shuttle to go find her though Braka is dropping mines at the edge of Federation space, making the trip just outside of it perilous.  Sam rather cruelly, I thought, traps Genesis and a drunken Darem in the shuttle.  

This episode could easily have been a season ender/ cliffhanger but there’s one more episode.

DOA On TV: Tiny Tidbits: The Rookie, Doc, Best Medicine, Will Trent, The Pitt, Starfleet Academy

 

The Rookie Burn 4 Love

The Rookie, formerly one of the many Tuesday night shows has moved to Monday nights.  I watch it on Wednesdays though, with the usual Tuesday lineup.

This week featured sweet Valentine's moments, a curse which shouldn't have worked but seemed to be quite devastating, and a romantic pair who were causing small Swan Lake themed fires.  As if that weren't a busy enough episode, the ending was positively explosive.

Doc Trust

Poker, transplants and Sonya & TJ snooping into their boss Joan's personal business, more memories from the past for Amy, and the truly awful return of Dr Miller as part of a settlement with the hospital.  Everyone knows that he tried to hide his actions that led to the death of a patient, how's that going to go?

Best Medicine  Eyewitness Blues

Port Wenn's annual Blueberry festival is covered for a tiny audience by Elaine, with poor Doctor Best wielding a camera for her.  It puts him right into the thick of things, though, after he refused to be a judge in the blueberry pie baking contest.  The resident's are out for blueberry glory and are unusually ruthless as they compete.  Though I claim I could drop this show at any time, when I'm doing my Tuesday night show watch, I watch Doc first, then Best Medicine second every single time.

Will Trent     You're Not That Person Anymore

Part two of a set wherein poor Faith finally finds a really great guy who she thinks she might love, though they haven't known each other long.  Unfortunately for her, Malcolm is part of a gang that has been robbing banks while in costumes.

Angie is the one who isn't that person anymore.  She's about to have a baby and a good life she doesn't think she deserves.  Luckily Will, who has known her forever, convinces her she deserves all the good things.  Spoiler alert, Angie plans a surprise wedding ceremony in the place where she and Seth met, officiated by her longtime friend Franklin, with no one other than a bicyclist who happened by as their witness.  (sniff) It was so lovely.

The Pitt 12 pm

High noon on the Fourth of July and nothing is slowing down.  The episode focuses quite a bit on the nursing staff, and the many roles they play.  The alcoholic patient Louie, who has been an ER visitor for a long time and is known by everyone, didn't make it.  Everyone is affected, and there's a scene where head nurse Dana shows a new nurse how to clean and prepare a body for possible viewing by friends or relatives that is so touching.

Santos gets busted by a surgeon from upstairs after two AI related charting errors are caught and questioned.  I'm glad nobody died.

Starfleet Academy   Come, Let's Away

Excellent episode.  The cadets are on a training mission at a space graveyard.  They have one hour to bring a damaged ship called the Miyazaki online.  Cadets are in sets, some are on the bridge, some go to the ship.  65% is the best anyone has done over the years trying to complete the task.

Almost immediately, a hostile group of aliens called The Furies surrounds the ship and the Athena, boards the Miyazaki and takes the cadets and their mentor captive.  They're savage and are cannibals. While the mentor sacrifices himself, the cadets make their way to the bridge and try to defend it hoping the Athena will rescue them. Sam is able to interface with the ship and bring it more fully online.  They use a comic to show the confused ship computer what happened to her crew, very cool.

Back on the Athena, the Betazoid Tarima, who can reach Caleb telepathically, helps the cadets prepare to be rescued once they get the singularity online.  

With information from the villainous Nus Braka, she's able to be on the ship in real time and, having pulled out her ability dampener, she destroys the furies.

I don't like ongoing seemingly all powerful villains, and I don't like Braka.

DOA ON TV The Rookie, Will Trent, Doc, High Potential, Fallout S2 Ep 4 The Demon In The Snow, The Pitt 7 am

 

 

Whoa what a huge week for TV.  I have now have six scripted television series I watch.  Four came back Tuesday night, while Matlock and Elspeth won't return till late February.  I tend to watch the day after episodes air so I can watch them when I'm ready, and without commercials.  The only "live" TV show I generally watch in real time is Survivor, which I will not be watching this time around.  Suffice it to say I don't enjoy returning player seasons in general, but in a big season 50 with returns from all eras, there are way too many irritating people I never want to see again, including the two entrants from season 49.  

The Rookie S 8 Ep 1 Czech Mate

 

I last watched The Rookie in May of last year. I binge watched all of the seasons till I caught up with current episodes in May.  I loved the characters and the wild situations often portrayed.  My three favorite characters are Detectives Lopez and Harper and Lieutenant Wade Gray.  I live for their scenes.  Nathan Fillion's lead character John Nolan is likeable enough, but he's always at the right place at the right time and has low level "super powerish" abilities to save the day.

In season 8's opener, the staff is spread between simultaneous operations in Prague and Los Angeles.  We go back and forth between the two, catching up on characters and their lives since last season.  The episode simply wasn't very interesting.  Part of the shows appeal for me are the outrageous situations and crimes our characters face on a day to day basis.  It just felt like not much went on here.  I'm certain once everyone is home it will be full bore exciting again.

 

Will Trent S4 Ep 1 : Speaking of Sharks

 

The new season of Will Trent jumped right back into the many crazy things that happened at the end of season three: Amanda shot and fighting for her life, Angie being pregnant, Will and his real father finding their footing, and Ormer's brain tumor.

In addition to this, Will's nemesis James Ulster escapes from prison with an accomplice, leaving a trail of bodies.   Will is struggling in all ways and having the man he once thought was his father on the loose and taunting him is almost too much.

 

Doc  S2 Ep 10   Chief

 

Returning from mid season break, Doc delivers a sad episode in which two kids and a homeless man are treated for symptoms that can't be figured out until it's seen that they had a connection that is making them ill.    

Amy continues to deal with the hacker who seeks vengeance, and with Sonya's jealousy and dislike of her that puts a patient at risk. 

In the past, Amy seeks the position of Chief and she's ruthless with anyone standing in her way.  There are parallels between past Amy's ambition and current Amy's frustration with being a resident instead of head of the department.  There's always the fear on my part that the better version of Amy today will be subsumed by past Amy as she gains her memories.

 

High Potential S2 Ep 8  The One That Got Away Part 2

 

We're still trying to find the missing Rembrandt painting, and return it to it's rightful owner, once art thief Jean Baptiste is uncovered.  Morgan, who isn't officially a member of the police force plays by her own rules, as she often does.  Usually she's right to do so, because she sees a wider picture.  Here, though, she betrays the trust and respect her partner Karadec has for her, and it's kind of hard to take.

 

Fallout S2 Ep 4   The Demon In The Snow

 

The show opens with Cooper and his friend Chuck in T45 Power Armor fighting on the Alaskan front before any of the events we've previously seen.  Chuck's comm is out and his armor is emitting wild electrical charges.  The men are told to move forward, but Cooper tells Chuck to retreat and he'll be right behind him.  Almost immediately enemy soldiers attack and shoot at Cooper in his armor, which shorts out and forces him to fall to the ground.  In moments, the Chinese soldiers are attacked from behind by a giant clawed creature who comes in close to examine Cooper, then runs off toward more gunfire.  It's our first look at the Deathclaw.

Lucy and the Ghoul rest up with the NCR Rangers who are going to move on. They've had Lucy hooked up to an IV with something called Buffout which heals her but leaves her addicted.  She feels they're too close to Vegas to wait out the drug addiction, so she takes more and has a wild scene with ghoul Elvis impersonators, just gleefully blowing them up with a sawed off shotgun.  They're only ghouls, right, she says?  Farther down the deep path for Lucy.

In the Vaults, Betty and Steph meet and Betty asks for help with 33's water problem.  Steph takes a hard line and says the experiment is over, shrugging at the thought 33 won't survive.  She does try to get Betty to go back to Vault 31 to get a box of personal possessions that belonged to Hank, and she might consider helping Betty.  Is this box the box of toys Barb Howard was packing and sobbing over?  Why does Hank have it?  My bet is on Betty to keep her people alive, whatever she has to do.

Norm and Bud's Buds walk through a town, snacking like there's no tomorrow, though Norm tries to tell them to conserve.  Bud's former personal assistant (errand boy) teases that he overheard talk of Phase Two of the experiment being run in vaults 32 and 33.

Maximus returns to Area 51 with Thaddeus disguised poorly as Xander in power armor.  He plans to kill Quintus, but isn't able to do it though Quintus shoots at him.   The other faction leaders try to talk Xander (Thaddeus) into making a deal with them, but they all turn on each other and the cafeteria they're talking in becomes a shootout.  Dane steals the cold fusion and gives it to Maximus to run away with.  As Maximus and Thaddeus run from Area 51, the airships are shooting at each other and falling from the skies.

Beginning as it ended with Deathclaws, Lucy and the Ghoul find out why the streets of Vegas are deserted when a Deathclaw emerges from a casino, and another steals up from behind. 

The Pitt 7 am

Last season I didn’t watch the Pitt till all episodes were out. It’s always fun to try a new show and just watch one episode after another.  This season, it’s one hour of a fifteen hour day over fifteen weeks for me. Yikes. 

Everyone is back on the job, including head nurse Dana who looked like she might be packing it in after a patient assault, and Dr. Langdon, ousted for stealing drugs from patients last year.  Langdon confesses to a favorite patient that he stole from him and goes on at length about it.

New this season is Dr Baran Al-Hashimi, who will take Robby’s position when he leaves for a three month sabbatical after today’s shift.  She comes from a Veterans Hospital and it’s a struggle to see how she would be able to take charge of a hospital with a constant flow of disasters. She seems confident that she can use her organizational skills to make everything run smoothly and on budget, those being her chief concerns.

Robby’s impulse is immediately to evade being in her presence.  That won’t hold up long, but perhaps neither will she.

DOA on TV:Doc (New), Longmire, Paddington 2, Sister Act (Rewatch), Sweet Home Alabama (Rewatch), Absentia (TV Series)

 

It's another week of ranging around trying out shows I've never seen, and re-watching a couple of older films.

 

DOC (Season one is on Netflix, Season Two is broadcast on Fox on Tuesday nights)

 

This isn't the cringey old Doc series with Billy Ray Cyrus my mom watched weekly. This is a brand new series about an arrogant doctor who is brilliant, but has no bedside manner and she's terrible to staff.

She wasn't always cold and cruel, as we see in flashbacks.  She had a young son with heart problems who died on a school museum trip she was supposed to be on.  Likely if she was there, he would be alive.

Dr Amy Larsen's grief has no bounds or end and is consuming.

Then, she's in an auto accident and there's brain trauma.  She's lost her memory of the last eight years of her life.  She doesn't know her son died, her daughter is estranged, she's divorced.   She doesn't understand why everyone hates her.

Her medical knowledge is out of date, and if she's to be reinstated in any capacity, she's got to learn what she doesn't know, and start all over as an intern even after passing the boards.

She's still "the smartest person in the room" and her medical instincts are excellent.  Her personality is more as it was before her son's death, and she tries hard to navigate relationships.   Problematically also, she made enemies in the eight years she doesn't recall, and those folks want her to fail.

Memory and recall figure largely into the episode plots, and there are many flashbacks which I think work really well here.

I was able to binge season one Netflix, but season two is just unfolding on Fox weekly.  It's so hard to transition to not just clicking Next Episode!

There is a real life case of a doctor in Italy with this same experience, only he lost 13 years.

 

Longmire (Paramount+) 

 

If you read lots of mystery blogs and related posts about mystery TV shows, Longmire often comes up as a huge favorite.  Based on a series of novels by Craig Johnson, Longmire ran for six seasons, first on A and E, then on Netflix.

According to Reddit,  (r/Longmire), the Longmire character in the books and in the show are very different.

The show takes place in Wyoming, and Walt Longmire is the county sheriff. He's been grieving his wife for the last year, and according to one of his deputies named "Branch", he hasn't been doing the job at all, and the rest of the staff has been carrying his weight.

 I don't feel it is stated why he starts coming back to himself, but he does.  Maybe it's seeing a road sign showing his deputy is running for his job in the next election that rouses him.

He uses old fashioned tracking skills and investigative methods.  He has more friends than enemies.  He never carries a cell phone but relies on the radio in his SUV.

A new deputy, Vic Moretti, finds Longmire frustrating and inspirational.  She gets out of the office and into investigations with Walt anytime she can because he's so good. 

I've not finished season one.  I'm not sure I'll keep watching as Walt is a bit too much of a loose cannon who does whatever he wants, pretty much, and I prefer my law enforcers to be sticklers for the law and justice.

 

Paddington 2 

 

I enjoyed the first film, and also Paddington in Peru.   While Paddington always triumphs, I was not so fond of the little bear being sent to prison in this one.   Even though he won everyone over, produced marmalade and changed all of the prison uniforms to pink, ...yeah he felt sad and abandoned.  Poor bear.

Sister Act  (Re-watch)

 

I find this movie to be so fun, and love the music.  There are a string of films about nuns I've loved going way back.  I'm not fond of any of the part of this film featuring the mob guys from Reno, but everything else!  The contrast between the religious versions and rocking secular versions of the featured songs is just magical. The Pope rocking out in the balcony, Maggie Smith's prim and grim Mother.  Such a feel good movie.

 

Sweet Home Alabama (Re-watch)

 

My husband remembers my son and I seeing this at the theater (2002) .   I do not believe I've seen it since then. 

Reese Witherspoon never disappoints!  She has changed her name to hide her background as a poor girl from a small southern town.  Her current love, (played by Grey's Anatomy's Patrick Dempsey), is wealthy and wants to marry her.  Melanie slips home to get Jake, her childhood sweetheart, to finally sign divorce papers so she can move on.

Melanie thinks little of her family and former friends, and is ashamed of the town she grew up in.   What a fun romantic comedy.

 

Absentia TV Series Ep 1

 

I thought this series about an FBI agent missing for six years, then recovered from her captor might be really engaging.   Instead, I was horrified at the six years of torture she endured, only to come home to her husband's remarriage and her child not knowing who she is.

As if she hasn't suffered enough, she's now the suspect in a series of murders, that she somehow committed as soon as she was released.

I looked at the episodes ahead, and it looks like they never give her a break, and just keep piling on the horror.   Too cruel, too mean. Can't watch this one.