DOA On TV February 9, 2025

 

Greetings!  Here we are with the usual suspects.  All broadcast tv shows, though I cheated in each case and watched them streaming.

 

NCIS Origins: Touchstones

 

This week's episode focuses on a break-in that finds the evidence room torn apart and 40k stolen from the safe there.  The gruff Kowalski who wants everyone to use neat handwriting for all requests from the room is crushed by the trashing of his work and he has to leave and go home.  It's an opportunity for background on the man who was once a priest, and also a prisoner of war.  The team is given a bit more of a mystery than usual to solve.  Though I love the characters on the show, the narration is starting to wear on me.  I don't usually care for a voice over, anyway, but this one often threatens to put me to sleep.

 

Will Trent: Breathe With Me

 

This weeks episode feature Faith's mother Evelyn, who has an injured leg and can't be on her own at home.  Faith has many issues with her mother, and though while she lets her stay, she also tells her off in no uncertain terms about feeling never good enough for her mom.

When Evelyn sees a neighbor through her binoculars being assaulted, she goes to dial Faith, but them remembers their earlier conversation.   She dials 911 instead.

When Faith comes home, she finds the police all over her apartment and the place has been torn apart.  Evelyn is missing.

There's a flashback to when Faith had her son as a teen, and the mother daughter relationship is a little different than Faith has been remembering.

Evelyn, a former police captain, uses her wits to try to escape.  There she is, with her foot in a huge boot, in pain, doing all she can to survive.

 

Matlock: Crash Helmets On

 

Matty has decided in consultation with Edwin that facilitating the divorce between Julian and Olympia will help with her investigation.  She subtly tries to undermine the two.

This week's main case is the firm taking the part of a nursing home over that of a patient who may have died of neglect.  Olympia wrests the case away from Julian by appealing directly to the representative for the home.  It doesn't seem like the rooting for the underdog type cases she has been taking on recently.  In fact, they have little luck finding any evidence that the man was responsible.

In a second case, a man Matty had encountered on another case is being forced out of his apartment by a neighbor.  Olympia lets Matty decide who handles the case, Sarah or Billy.  First she tells Sarah the case is hers, then she changes her mind and gives it to Billy.  I didn't follow the reasoning of it, honestly, and thought Billy was just ok in court though he won the case.  I continue to think these two characters aren't being written well.

Elspeth Season Two

 

I'm going to catch up to the current season episodes soon.  Nooo. Then I'll have to wait for each week's episode instead of happily bingeing along.  The second season follows the same mystery format as last season--you see who did the crime, and then it's Elspeth figuring out all of the details and laying out the evidence.  These are good mystery stories, and Elspeth always has surprises in store for everyone, particularly the killers.

DOA On TV January 19, 2025

 

 

All I have is this week's episode of Will Trent.  I watched another show but dozed through it, through no fault of the show.  I will need to re-watch.

Will Trent Sunny-Side Up

We found out last week that Rafael's daughter had been kidnapped, and this week the team works to find her.  Rafael and Amanda work together to contact Sunny via a hand held game she has with her. Asking the girl about her surroundings, Amanda guessed she was in a police safe house, and the kidnapper was a cop.  Telling Sunny to use the phone under the bed, they kept her on the phone while her kidnapper took her out of the house and stuffed her in a car trunk.

 

The actress playing Sunny did a great job of portraying a teen who was scared, but determined.  Once she was rescued, she went to Amanda's apartment to stay with her, but Amanda's tight rules right off the bat may have soured things between them.

Angie, still stuck at the gatehouse to a gated community as a security officer, used an AI to help her find the right words to use when she had to go before a police board to ask to come back to the force.

Will finds a new woman of interest in Marion Alba, with the DA's Office.  She's ok.  I think Angie and Will were never going to make it, so I'm ok with them separating.  I'd just like to keep Angie's character on the show because she's fascinating.

My favorite scene is Will getting back to his own self in a super sharp suit. Then he attempts to get Betty to take the Pips part while he channels Gladys Knight singing Last Train To Georgia.  Will is back to stay.

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #2)

 

Nancy's father has a huge case involving a railroad claim that results in threats against his life.  

Issuing the threats is Nathan Gomber, who comes to the Drew house and tells Nancy her father is in danger.   She'd better stick right by him or she'll regret what happens to him because she doesn't care enough to be there.

Nancy has just agreed to help her friend Helen with the strange case of a haunting at her aunt's home called Twin Elms.  The haunting is recent, and old though the house is, there's been no history of ghosts there.

Furniture moves, music plays, food is stolen from the kitchen by the ghost.  A chandelier sways. 

Carson insists she go help her friend, as he needs to go out of town for a few days to work on his railroad case.  With misgivings, Nancy agrees.

Arriving at Twin Elms, it isn't long before Nancy experiences the disturbances that Rosemary and Flora have asked for help with.

Nancy is on the job immediately. checking all around the outside of the house for foot prints, looking for unlocked doors or windows.  With no luck there, Nancy decides this old house could have a secret passage that someone very human is using to terrorize Rosemary and her mother.  She conducts a thorough search of the house. Every room, every wall, every piece of furniture that could conceal a secret door.  She searches the outbuildings and the cellar for underground tunnels.

To her surprise, the awful Nathan Gomber appears at the mansion, trying to cajole Flora into selling the house to him cheaply, as no one would want a haunted house.

Nancy has to find out how the "ghost" is getting in and out of the rooms of the mansion, disappearing at will after frightening everyone.

She becomes frantic when her father is kidnapped on his way to the house after arriving at the local  train station.

Logic, steel nerves, quick thinking, that's Nancy.

I wish I'd read these when I was young.  So far, Nancy's a great amateur detective.