DOA on TV

 

Welcome to Tiny Screen Adventures.  For some reason, the Live TV option just wasn't there on Paramount + this last week so in order to watch Survivor, I ended up watching it on the CBS app, but the picture on the screen was about the size of an iPhone screen.  I know nothing.

Survivor

 

Despite some desperate moves by Kyle, when he didn't get immunity, he got the Tribal vote.  It was a good move, as he just was a challenge beast.  He hugged everyone including Jeff on the way out.

Sol wore his sexy vest again but with a shirt under it.

Genevieve continues to slither, but everyone sees it now, so hopefully she goes next week.

The Great British Baking Show

Another exciting finals week as the three last competitors gave all they had to win.  The showstopper was to be a set of hanging cakes that you see at a garden party, apparently.  They were pierced with a rod to hold each on a framework (?)  I can't picture why they didn't all just slide right off.

Georgie

Christiaan

Dylan

And the winner was Georgie!   She was a very consistent baker, and her showstopper was much more spectacular than the competition.

Man on the Inside

 

Netflix's new mystery/comedy series stars Ted Danson as a retired widower who is leading a rather shallow, lonely life.   When his daughter  who lives a couple of hours away encourages him to find hobbies or activities that will get him out and making friends, he finds instead a job.

A private detective named Julie hires him to go undercover in a senior residence that's super posh to investigate the theft of a necklace.  He's quite enthusiastic, but also awkward as his undercover skills are non existent.  He blurts out truths and tries to back track them.

Luckily, he's welcomed into the community by two women who make him feel welcome, and who show him around so he can fit in a bit better.  He makes another man jealous unwittingly.  He tries a Shakespeare class but is unable to relax and try to read it aloud.  He finds a backgammon pal.  A woman in an apartment near his appears to be declining mentally, but she's very sweet an reminds him of his wife who recently died of complications of Alzheimers.

Julie poses as Charles daughter, and gets updates via little recordings he does or via video chat.  Things get a little complicated when his real daughter drives up to see him and she locates him using Find My Phone.  She's not happy at all that he's taken on a potentially dangerous job.

There are eight episodes which I watched all in an evening.  The show is funny and sweet and sad at times.  

DOA On TV November 17, 2024

 

 NCIS: Origins

In episode six Incognito, Petty Officer Greg Piccolo is found dead in his apartment with salacious love letters from a pen pal lying near the body.  According to these, he was supposed to meet his fantasy girl, but he ended up dead.  Complicating things is the fact he works with top secret documents.  A co-worker of Piccolo’s points out that microfiche with Tomahawk missile plans have been replaced with blank fiche pages.

There never was a girl, but the team finds they can get to the person who is now selling the plans for 30k.  They just need to send Lala and Gibbs incognito into a private club, working closely with the FBI to get them in and out safely as they go in unarmed.

It’s Lala’s story this week as she is feeling boxed in at home and at work by the expectations of others.  She’s uncharacteristically emotional in many scenes, but this isn't as we’ve come to know her,  usually she’s got a hard tough shell.  That crumbles a bit this week.   There’s a bit of sexual tension between Lala and Gibbs and Lala and a guy from a bar.  She has issues this week alright.

This is Gibbs’ first time out in the field undercover, and he is anything but relaxed.  He’s almost robotic, in fact.  Better luck in two weeks, everyone, when the next episode airs.

Survivor

The last nice person in the game got popped this week,  Sol Yi. 

Targeted by the low snake Genevieve for getting her pal Rome out, she managed to get the vote for Sol through, though Sue and Kyle also had their names tossed about.  It’s frustrating the other players still see Genevieve as a quiet unassuming girl.  Other than that, there was a good four part challenge with the first four to lose also losing their vote at tribal, with a chance to earn it back.  The last four players still in the challenge at the end went head to head, or rather foot to foot trying to stay on increasingly narrow bits of wood without dropping. It looked painful!

 

Matlock

In episode six Sixteen Steps, Julian and Olympia are getting a chance to re-try a case where a baby formula manufacturer was responsible for the poisoning death of a nine month old.  The last time they tried the case it failed.  They feel it was partially because the mothers of the baby were not put on the stand.  This time, the warmer snugglier of the pair has agreed to testify.  When she falls ill from the stress of the upcoming trial, her wife who is very hard and angry and self protective says she will testify.  You can see in the practice sessions with Olympia and her team that the woman will not engender sympathy, particularly as the defending attorney is determined to make the mothers seem neglectful and responsible.

 

Somehow, they need to find a way to get her to show how this affected her, and when Olympia talks to Matty about her daughter, she sees a way. 

The team does find the answer to how the formula was contaminated, but it is the testimony of the mom talking about her child and walking sixteen steps back and forth at night when he’d wake that is so heartbreaking.

 

Great British Baking Show

Things are more competitive than ever in the tent, and Illiyin’s cake top just slid right off.  I felt so bad for her.  She left the tent this week.  Here’s a case where all the contestants are wonderful, so I’m happy to see any of them win.

 

Downton Abbey The Motion Picture

 I wanted some comfort TV this week so I finally watched Downton Abbey The Motion Picture (awkward title).  The King and Queen will be stopping at Downton for one night and the household and staff are beside themselves trying to prepare.  No need, it seems, as the Royal staff come with the King and Queen, from a Housekeeper to valets, to a chef.  Downton staff are rudely told to stay out of the way.  With a bit of plotting schemed up by Mr and Mrs Bates, the Royal staff is supplanted at the last with household staff and all is successful.  

There are side stories for Edith, Mary, Violet and Thomas. 

Lovely to see them all back.

 

DOA On TV: November 3, 2024

 

NCIS: Origins

In episode four, All’s Not Lost  a school teacher’s home has been entered by an assailant who shoots her.   The 12 year old girl who lived with her is missing, presumed kidnapped by the killer.   Was the teacher the target or the girl, whose father is serving overseas?

Once again Lala tries to intervene to keep Gibbs from working a case. She feels Gibbs will be undone trying to rescue the child when he had been able to do nothing to save his own child.

It turns out Gibbs is more motivated than anyone, and he finds her while the team is out looking in the woods.  Despite efforts from Lala and the Office Manager (?) Mary Jo to talk to Mildred about the killer, did she see him, can she describe him, the girl shuts down their efforts.

When Gibbs steps in, completely comfortable taking to a little girl in just the way a father would know how to approach a tough topic, she feels safe enough to help him with a description using a flip book with different facial features in it.

Unfortunately, the killer finds the girl and a tense fight ensues in a dark basement, with the girl hiding under the steps.

Lots of heartbreaking moments for Gibbs in this episode.

Only Murders In The Building

In the finale of this season My Best Friend’s Wedding the murderer is revealed.  Interestingly, the trick of how the killer shot from the west wing of the building, then made his way over to clean up and hide Sazz’s  body is solved.  The killer was her stunt protégé who could easily scrabble along a ledge nobody noticed all along.

Charles and Oliver bravely want to break into Dudenoff’s apartment to rescue Mabel using the same path. They do, taking a shorter route.  The two of them on the ledge is pure slapstick comedy.

 

All is wrapped up, Oliver and Loretta get married, though she’s off to New Zealand for a new show.

Tossed in at the last is the victim of season five, seemingly dead in a fountain of wine (?).

 

Survivor

People may complain about advantages, but they can be great.  While everyone is dozing, Sol finds a hidden advantage at the reward feast.  He is on a team who is safe from tribal.  The advantage asks him to give the advantage to someone on the team which will be going to tribal.  Rachel is the recipient, and she can use it to leave tribal safely and not vote or be voted on (she was the one going), or she can block a vote.  She only reads aloud the part at tribal that allows her to leave.

Brilliantly, this leaves the Tuku tribe members stunned and at a loss, because they all had plans that included Rachel, the only non Tuku in the group.  They scrambled quickly, and voted out Tiyana, the stewardess who had just emotionally spoken about how important it was for her to make the jury, which she did not.

During the entire process Sol gave an award winning performance, looking and sounding surprised and astounded by this turn of events.

 

Matlock

With episode four The Rabbit and the Hawk, Matty figures out who in the law firm was responsible for hiding opioid information for a big pharmaceutical company.  The guilty party pulls off a particularly dirty move that affects the current case for Olympia and company.  Then he goes golfing, happy with his work.

Matty now has to find a way to prove what he did.

 

The Great British Baking Show

Featuring an Autumn theme, with pies and cakes using traditional fall ingredients.  What spectacular work for all of the bakers, but my beloved Nelly went home. Though her showstopper looked great, the flavors proved to be very much disliked by the judges.

Illiyin's cake.

DOA On TV 10/20/24

 

Welcome to DOA on TV.  I'm actually watching numerous shows right now, and love to share them with you :)

 

NCIS Origins

I saw ads for this while watching Survivor.  I’ve never watched a single episode of NCIS, or any of its breakout franchises.  I like a good origins story, though.  The framework of a military investigative unit appealed to me.  It takes place in the faraway year 1991.  I don’t recall the nineties being so…old. Low tech!  They use pay phones and pagers.  The cars are fun. Clothes a bit cringy.    I looked for reviews and forum discussions of the show after I watched it because I really enjoyed the show.  Ha!  All they talked about was Mark Harmon, and the long running series.  Hmmpf.

I like Leroy Gibbs, just a few months after losing his wife and daughter to a murderer, he’s starting fresh with the NCIS Unit.  His boss Mike is a real pistol of a character.  He’s barely contained.  The woman is the group is a bad ass named Lala, but I don’t like the way she treats Gibbs.  She worked on his family’s murder case, and should be giving him some space, but she goes after him relentlessly and talks about him failing his psych eval, and not being a safe member of the team to work with.  She fears he will be promoted over her.  Then there’s this little teddy bear of a guy “Randy”.  He’s a kind of a perfect, head on straight investigator compared to everyone else.

Survivor   

This season has an unusual number of “villains”.  There are so many unlikeable characters for me.  I’m struggling to think who I’d like to win.  Of those remaining, I think I only like Sol and Kyle.  Hang in there, guys!

Matlock

 The premier episode was as wonderful as the preview.  Kathy Bates is a joy to watch.  What an expressive face, and she modulates her voice so well to take charge of any situation.  Love her husband and grandson.  Of the supporting cast, Matlock’s boss Olympia is my favorite, as she tries to be tough but is a smoosh underneath, and will fight for the underdog any chance she gets.  I don’t think she’s the guilty one in the office.

Great British Baking Show

Up to Caramel week this week.  The baker’s this time around seem remarkably talented.  So fun to watch them work.  As always, everyone is likeable.  My favorite though is Nelly. She’s warm, funny, charming and talented.

Only Murders In the Building

This season is a real slow burn for me.  It’s just kind of dragging.  There's nothing about the making of the movie version of the Podcast that appeals.  Melissa McCarthy was a blast in her episode though.

Northern Exposure season 1  Amazon Prime    

I’ve seen lots of comments over time about how good this show was. I’d never seen it, but found season one is available free on Prime, then you need to buy other seasons.    I was ready to be in love with the show.  The main character, Joel, a doctor who expected better things than being a small town doctor in exchange for his medical school being paid for by the State of Alaska is just a drag. A whiner.  Lazy.  The cast surrounding him is excellent.  I’ll finish the season but would not watch more.  The opening scene with the moose needs to be able to be fast forwarded though, gack.