DOA On TV February 16, 2025

 

A big week for TV.  All good episodes, and a peek at an FX series called The Old Man.

 

NCIS Origins:  Monsoon

 

Monsoon is another largely Franks episode.  He steps in to help a homeless veteran whose friend is "gone".  The man leads Franks to a homeless encampment where they find his friend has been murdered, hit in the head with a brick.

As the team fans out trying to piece together what happened, we see in flashback Franks running drugs after his return home from the war.  His motorcycle and the stash are stolen at a gas station and he starts the long walk home.  He meets Tish as she needs help with a flat tire, and afterward she helps him with a haircut as she's a stylist.  

In the present day, he's been stalking a laundromat trying to find the man who attacked her, lying about being at work.  When that all comes out, she packs her things and leaves him.

For Gibbs, a lot of memories of his time overseas come up while working with the homeless vets, and he takes a brochure about a support group where vets can talk about their experiences, then sits in with the group  at episodes end.  For all he's been through, and all he's been learning working at NCIS, there's still a vulnerability and a type of innocence about Gibbs.

 

Will Trent: No Faith In Second Chances

This was an action packed episode, full of twists and turns.  At the end I'm going, oh no, you're not ending with that.

I have to note there are two cases this week, with Will and Faith trying to identify a completely burned body, and winding a narrative through a tale of a man who wants another man's wife.

The key story is a shocking episode opening with a farmer who hears pounding on his door, so he gets his gun and calls 911 to say someone is breaking in.

Next we find Angie and Ormewood at the farm, trying to figure out why someone broke in and killed the farmer.  Fanning out across the property looking for evidence, and they find a girl dead, her tongue cut out.

The scene mirrors the crime scene where John Shelly's high school girlfriend was raped and murdered identically, the crime he was sent to prison for.

Though warned not to get too involved in cases anymore, Angie digs in on the case, and John tells her he was innocent, and that he confessed because his mother was dying.  A box of notebooks kept by John's mom are what makes Angie think he may be innocent, but there's another killing, identical to the others.  John tries to escape his apartment with a cooler with a tongue in it.

In side bits, Will and Marion, his new love interest share a salmon dinner at Will's place.

Sunny defies Amanda and invites her dad to the apartment for dinner. When Amanda busts in, there's a huge confrontation.  You invited him into my home, she says.  This is laden with, all his enemies could find her place and come for Sunny and Amanda.  I love Sunny and her dad and wish they could be together.

 

So, at episode's end Angie asks Will for help.  She feels the answer is in the notebooks and she missed it.  She tells Will she never felt anything off about John when she met him, and her instincts would have told her he was a bad guy. 

It seems obvious to me John's brother in law is the culprit in the old killings and the new ones.  There's a possibility its a lawyer who is a dark and sketchy guy, but nah, the Brother in law has means, motive and opportunity.  Let's just fast forward to next week and take that man down.  Bingeing is simpler. Just keep going till the end!

 

Elspeth: Tiny Town

I've caught up to the weekly release of episodes.  This Valentine's Day episode is completely charming! 

There's a street installation in NYC  called the Iris which gives New Yorker's a peek at a street in a small Scottish village, and the village a peek at a busy New York street.

A musician sits and watches the NYC street and he and the waitress from the pub nearby have been watching a couple meet and hope their romance will thrive. Instead, another man enters the scene and appears to threaten the woman who falls and drops a heart shaped box of chocolates, then suddenly she's choking and falls dead. The musician can't get anyone's attention to help her.  

Soon enough the NYPD is on the scene, with Kaya, Detective Edwards, and Elspeth leading the investigation.  It's totally charming the way Angus is watching this scene anxiously, when suddenly Elspeth does what she does, suddenly peeking in from the side of the screen.  She's in pink with a fuzzy hat with hearts.

 

Angus is smitten immediately, and as they communicate by phone, each from their own side of the screen, Elspeth begins to be charmed as well.

There are romantic side stories for the Captain who has been taking dance lessons to surprise his wife for Valentines Day, and for Kaya, whose hunky new Coroner roommate brings her a cupcake from "work".  

Matlock: A Traitor In Thine Own House

Sarah is still angry at Matty's betrayal last week in giving her case to Billy at the last minute.  She teams up with Shae, who'd like to lay Matty out on The Rack and get a few secrets from her.

 

While working on a case of corporate espionage, the two do everything they can to make Matty uncomfortable.  Matty fights back by reporting Shae to HR for harassment and ageism.  Edwin and Alfie help set up a ruse that has Shae flying to Georgia to talk to an old coworker of Matty's, only it's Edwin in disguise.

In another twist, Edwin and Matty are wanting to try to find Alfie's father.  They've no leads or clues, except Edwin does have one, which he lies to Matty about.  It looks like Edwin wants a case of his own.

 

 The Old Man

 

Jeff Bridges play the titular old man.  When we meet him, the show emphasizes his age by having him get up to go to the bathroom multiple times a night,  he has trouble putting on his socks, and he constantly makes what I call "old man noises".  Don't ask Mr DOA about those, nope. 

He calls his daughter, and he says something feels "off" lately.  He sets up a string trap with cans outside his bedroom door. That night, he hears something downstairs and carefully makes his way down. His two rottweilers have a man cornered in a hall downstairs.  Dan just pulls out a gun and kills the guy, then calls 911.

After talking to police, he gets a go bag ready and leaves the house with his two rottweiler dogs.  Dan gets a call from an old fellow spy, John Lithgow's Harold Harper.  Harper appears to want Chase to go to ground, disappear, and never be heard from again as it would bring up a past Harper doesn't want known.

I only watched the first episode but I liked it. Fast paced. Fun to see Bridge's character take down much younger men, with the help of his faithful dogs.  Lithgow's character is hard to read. Is he really helping or is he just trying to shut Dan Chase up.  I like how Chase refuses a deal that includes never contacting his daughter again, because they're important to each other, clearly, and it sounds from their conversations as if she know his past.

 

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 February 2, 2025

 

 

Time to turn to the smallish screen, adjust those bunny ears, and talk about my TV week.  I finished The Night Agent, saw new episodes of NCIS Origins, Will Trent and Matlock, and dipped into Elspeth, episodes 1-3.

NCIS: Origins  Flight of Icarus

It's an episode for Mike Franks, featuring the boots he wears every day and how he got them.  It's a scandal at work when Franks shows up to work wearing the sneakers he uses to mow the lawn. His usual boots are apparently beyond repair.

The boots were given to Franks by his mom and his older brother, during a tough time when Franks was drafted and his brother wanted him to go to Mexico instead of going to Vietnam.

 

In the current day, the team investigates the suicide of a general's son who is certain the young man's death was a homicide. 

Will Trent: Floor is Lava

While there was plenty of drama in this weeks episode, there was also plenty of humor.

The main story featured lonely individuals who had been contacted by a man named Cutter who claimed to be with the CIA.  He made them special agents, and convinced them to kill innocent people in service to their country.

When the real CIA enters the scene to help track down sensitive information being potentially sold by Cutter, Ormewood pops out his sunglasses and tries to follow his onetime dream of being CIA.

Amanda and Sunny knock heads at home and Sunny is fighting in school.  Amanda thinks using her usual commanding presence will make the girl do as she asks, but it gets her nowhere.

Whoa I don't remember Betty in the episode.

Matlock: Friends

Matty and Olympia work closely together on a case.  It starts in a bar where Matty just hustles a man sitting at the bar and eating.  She's over the top flirtatious, and even sneaks food from his plate and munches it seductively once Olympia rescues him from his other side.

As the episode title implies, by the end of the episode the two women have declared themselves friends.  Matty horrifies Edwin by standing by her statement that they are friends, and Olympia is innocent, and down comes her picture from the crime board.  Julian is clearly guilty, she says.

I know they've said Matty will be exposed by season's end, but I don't see how she could repair things with Olympia when that happens.

The Night Agent Season 2 episodes 5-10

Though the overall storyline remained compelling, and Noor's arc was a nail biter, the last three episodes bogged down for me a bit with the  crime family focus.  There wasn't a single relatable soul in that family, and their terrorism was just brutality.  They felt they had a "cause" but it wasn't convincing.

On the other hand, it allowed for some intricate plotting that leads to season three's story.

Elspeth

Elspeth is featured in commercials while you're watching CBS shows like mad.  Once I had a subscription to Paramount+ it's was my plan to watch an episode.

In each episode, we see the crime being committed and we know who is guilty.  Enter Elspeth onto the crime scenes where she's only to observe.  She just scoots right in, though, and looks at the crime scene, asks questions, and soon she's honed in on who she thinks the killer is, even if she doesn't know why.

Once she has someone in her sights, she follows them, listens in on them, and looks at them like they're a juicy piece of meat she can't resist.  They can't help see her interest, and soon they try to match wits with her, but she just runs them to ground and they're done.

 

It wouldn't be as entertaining if she didn't project such a sweet, pure, utterly wacky persona.  She's like the dog in Up when he sees a squirrel. Oh, look at that tall building!  She's from Chicago and was a defense attorney.  New York is a delight for her.  

She is teamed with a police officer named Kaya, who is supposed to keep Elspeth out of trouble, but Kaya sees the logic of Elspeth's theories and supports her.

Elspeth is really in town to investigate Captain Wagner, head of the precinct.  I've only watched three episodes, but I love the guy and hope he isn't guilty of anything.

DOA on TV December 22, 2024

 Baking cookies badly and trying to get every ornament I own on the tree has taken up all my energy this week, so I only watched two shows this week.

NCIS:Origins   Blue Bayou

In the mid season finale, we see Gibbs in the aftermath of having killed Pedro Hernandez, in revenge for killing his family. This takes place six months before Gibbs joined NIS. He’s full of rage instead of being fulfilled by the revenge. Tearing up his apartment and punching holes in walls gets him evicted by his tough landlord Ruth.

He’s working bagging liquor at a store and Franks and his girlfriend are in line. He tries to talk to Franks but is shut down as Franks does not want to be any further connected to the killing than he is for giving Gibbs the file on Hernandez.

On a rough rainy night that sees Gibbs sleeping in the back of his truck, Ruth sees him and gruffly says he can come home. Slowly they bond over working on jigsaws together. They don’t talk, they just puzzle and listen to Linda Ronstadt sing Blue Bayou.

They finally have a conversation one night in which Gibbs tells her what he did. She shares her own regrets and they become good friends. It’s Ruth who talks to Franks about his treatment of Gibbs and opens the way for a job with NIS. 

A sweet, melancholy episode.

Survivor 47

It’s all over, and Rachel wins! Sitting at the end with Sue and Sam, it looked a bit dicey for a moment as Sam gave a pretty convincing argument for his game. Even so, he got a single vote from Kyle, Sue got none, Rachel got all of the rest.

Often, the person I want to win doesn’t make it. This time, they picked a great player.

DOA On TV: December 15, 2024

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NCIS Origins: Vivo o Muerto  (CBS)

The episode begins with Gibbs six months ago obsessing over his family's killers.

In his current day, a female Navy corpsman has disappeared in Tijuana, Mexico while on a date with her boyfriend who was drugged.  Franks isn't available so Lala takes Gibbs with her to go down and investigate.

She lets him know she's been going down there once a month to try to find and kill Pedro Hernandez, who killed his wife and daughter.  

They find that a young woman has been leading couples or women alone to a bar called Puerto Gris, where they are drugged and the women are taken away to be sold.

Franks comes down and the trio track the kidnappers to a gas station a place where Dana and other women are being held while waiting to be sold. They overpower the guards and release everyone.  

One of the men who were holding the women confesses that Pedro Hernandez was killed six months ago, by a sniper.  Lala confronts Gibbs with this knowledge, but he says nothing, and the trust between them is shattered.

It's apparently part of Gibbs lore from the original series that Franks ID'd the killer and his location in Mexico, and Gibbs went down and took the man out.  I guess we will see what the consequences are for the team with the knowledge of Gibbs having killed the man out in the open.

Survivor  (CBS)

They are keeping things exciting this season.  In this two hour episode, there are two challenges and two tribal councils.  In the first part, Rachel loses immunity to Genevieve, with the added burn that there's a Sanctuary reward. Sue and Teeny go along to enjoy the feast and Genevieve has an opportunity to try to win them over.

Back at camp, Andy is full of himself and he tries some "jury management" on Rachel, listing his many moves and flips.  He's certain she's going home so he hopes she will share his game skills with the rest of the players at Ponderosa.

Nobody knows Rachel has an idol, as she's never told anyone about it, but at the last she tells Sue, to keep her from digging around the well for a possible idol.

When she uses it at tribal, it's Andy who is voted out, thanks to the good job he did of convincing Rachel he's been playing a much better game than anyone thought.

 

Part two of the two hour show featured Genevieve and Rachel trash talking/yet admiring each other for being such excellent foes.  Rachel refers to them as Harry Potter vs Voldemort.  I think even Genevieve knows she's Voldemort in that face off.   Sue, Teeny and Sam were insulted to be considered no threat to the dynamic duo.

In a nail biter of a challenge that involved swimming, digging, then stacking balls while standing on a bouncy board, Rachel pulled off a win with Genevieve right behind the whole time.  I was so glad to see the snake slither away after being voted out at tribal.

Down to four players.  I am leaning towards Rachel, as she's played brilliantly, but don't want to jinx her.

Matlock  No, No Monsters   (CBS)

The case this week involves a nanny who has been photographed at a park in what looks like maltreatment of her charge.  Olympia takes on the case and the mean nanny cam moms at her kids schools.  

Julian puts Maddy in an awkward spot by asking her to kind of watch over Olympia.  Things have been tense between Julian and Olympia since he confessed he had cheated on her while they were separated.  I'm not understanding why this is so hard for Olympia to take since she was seeing her co-worker for quite awhile and planned to marry him (?) after her divorce was final.  Does Julian not know about that?

In any case, I thought the episode was really slow moving and I was a bit disappointed in it.  Thinking it through afterwards, I wonder if Maddy isn't just gaining Olympia's trust, but is she also becoming fond of her without realizing it, and might she begin to see her as a daughter figure as they go forward?

Also, Maddy continues to try to dig into the Wellbrexa case that will reveal who killed the information on Wellbrexa in the past.  There was an emphasis in the episode on the assistants for Howard senior and for Olympia.  A bit more on Howard's assistant since Maddy is getting passwords and other information from him by tricking him in various ways.  Olympia's assistant is very protective of Olympia's files and any access to Olympia.   Howard's assistant could have signed for the Wellbrexa documents, writing Howard's name.  Also, printing from Howard's desk computer sends the copy to a main copy room rather than the printer right in the office.  Odd, isn't it?

 

Tracker   Klamath Falls  (CBS/Paramount)

My spouse watched about six episodes of Tracker season one, then stopped watching.   He's been eager for me to watch it so we could talk about the show.

I enjoyed Justin Hartley on This Is Us, and really liked him as The Green Arrow in Smallville.  I did not think his new series, Tracker, looked appealing from commercials, so I never watched it.  This week I watched episode one.

Here Justin is Colter Shaw, who called himself a "Rewardist" because he locates people for the reward money.  His mom and her wife send him the cases to follow up on.  His father is deceased, but he taught the three kids in the family survival skills which have served Colter well in his current profession.

The episode begins with Colter rescuing a woman who had been hiking alone in the wilderness.  He finds her and encourages her to walk out of the canyon with his help and her leg stabilized, telling her the odds of her survival/and keeping her leg if she makes her way out with him rather than waiting the hours it would take for a rescue crew.

The actual case is a boy who has been contacted by his biological father has met up with him, then the  boy disappeared.  

At one point, Tracker tells the boy the odds of surviving a drop into some rough waters or waiting to see if the truck doesn't go over the cliff's edge before crews can stabilize it.  

There's apparently some formula to the episodes.  As a carryover from This Is Us, Colter has shirtless scenes, and females tossing themselves at him at the drop of a hat.

Also perhaps woven into the episodes will be the story of the night his father died.  It might have been that a family member pushed dad over a cliff in the pouring rain, but which one?

I may watch more, as I appear to be as charmed by Hartley as ever.  I liked the way he treated the people he had been hired to find.  He set them at ease and seemed to care about them genuinely.

Skeleton Crew   This Could Be A Real Adventure  (Disney+)

I watched episode one, and was taken immediately by the adventure dreaming boy Wim.  He's supposed to be doing school work and prepping for a big test, but all he can think of are Jedi's and the lives they must lead.  His friend Neel is a completely charming creature who looks like a small  blue elephant.  He's a good friend to Wim and follows him on his adventures.

Rounding out the adventurers are Fern, the rebellious daughter of a local dignitary, and KB, who has a visor she can raise and lower, and some sort of an implant who is Fern's best friend.  She looks like Geordi from Star Trek when the visor is down.

I love the planet the characters live on, with cybernetic teachers, and school guardians who are also cybernetic.  It looks earth like but with scientific upgrades galore, and many species are in Wim's class, including an Ithorian.

Wim, taking a shortcut when he's late to school, falls into a ravine and finds a buried metal door.  When he gets to school and is in trouble, he tries to tell his father he found a Jedi Temple buried in the woods.  His father sternly brushes it off but Fern, sitting on a bench next to him is very interested.

That night the four kids converge on the site, dig their way in, and accidentally start up what appears to be a ship which soon whisks them into space.

Charming characters, good science fiction.   

DOA On TV 12/8/24

 Down to three regular shows now that the Great British Baking show is done.  Survivor will be doing two episodes in the next two weeks, then it's just NCIS Origins and Matlock.  There are lots of shows coming on that I plan to watch:

 

Star Wars Skeleton Crew on Disney Plus which is described as a throwback to 80s movies featuring kids having adventures like ET and Goonies.  My son likes it, so it must be good.

 

 

 Black Doves on Netflix with Keira Knightly as a spy.

The Agency on Showtime/Paramount is another spy thriller.

The Six Triple Eight on Netflix, a story of the only all women, all black batallion in WWII.  Though it had a theatrical release, it will stream on December 20.  There has been a trend in historical fiction featuring women in World War 2, and I love the stories, and can't wait to see this one.

NCIS Origins: Sick as our Secrets

It's Randy's story tonight as a  Navy priest John Larkin is shot in the confessional.  It might be that the wrong victim was killed, because Larkin subbed in for "Father Bobby" a hard drinking, swearing kind of priest who was visiting a parishioner.  

Randy and Gibbs end on a protective detail, sequestering with the priest in a cheap motel room while the rest of the team tries to find the killer.  Randy apparently volunteers for protective details all the time, so he shows up with guns, ammo, supplies.  He's in a different mode altogether.  He's sharp, but extremely on edge.

When the lights go out in the motel, he's in overdrive, and goes out into the hallway alone, taking out both attackers, one he chokes till the man passes out.  Rough Randy has arrived.

In a conversation with Father Bobby, he confesses that he wasn't able to do a protective detail, and the man who subbed for him was shot and killed. Now he lives with guilt, particularly because the man had a small child just like Randy, and now that child is alone.

Gibbs has the smallest role in this week's episode he's had so far.  He's my favorite so I missed his way of seeing things, and his innocence of the world of crime he's entered.

 

Survivor

Operation Italy, baby.  Andy, having gone from weeping that nobody liked him and wouldn't cheer when he opened coconuts betrayed his "Underdog Five Alliance" to  work with Genevieve the Snake and Bumbling Sam.  There is a fake idol, the Three doing some fake acting to make everyone think Snakey has the idol.  Why does everyone have beads out there to create fake idols with?

 

The other standout section is Teeny going on and on about not being asked to go the food reward.  I've seen nothing where she should feel so empowered that Sam's now a dead man (not her words) because he didn't recognize she should have gone.

Operation Italy worked, and Caroline went home since the main target, Rachel, won immunity.  

There's a two hour episode next week.

Matlock Belly of the Beast

Matty is in on the pharma cases now, and gets a shot working on a case defending Welbrexa against a young woman with a streaming audience.  

The girl was on a pharmaceutical trial from which she got kidney disease.  Welbrexa's doctor insists that Jessie never reported any symptoms at all, and thus the company can't be held responsible for her time in the trial and the alleged results.

 

Matty is in the meeting and tries her sympathetic techniques on the girl, but they don't work.  The girl has been recording the meeting and she brings her phone up to film everyone, telling her followers she's being scammed.  Luckily Matty covers her face with a folder, as she doesn't want to be exposed.

Subsequent efforts to settle the case with the girl result in more social media exposure and Matty and Julian are taken off the team by the law firm's CEO.

With Edwin and her grandson in Florida for the holidays, Matty is alone and has to cross an ethical line for herself.  Does she find a way to defeat the girl and ruin her life as her daughter's was ruined, or does she let the girl win and the firm flounders?  

Matty is nervous throughout and wears a bracelet made by her daughter, which breaks at one point.  She listens to an old voicemail of her daughter calling to say she's clean, and she's pregnant.

It breaks Matty's heart, but she finds a way to controvert the girl's evidence concerning the doctor and a colleague, and the firm wins the case. 

Honestly, Kathy Bates is just such an extraordinary actress.

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 10, 2024

Here we are with another week of TV.  I watched my regular series and tried out a couple of new ones.  We're getting to that season where curling up with a good book or binge watching a show is just the thing.

NCIS: Origins  Last Rites

This week belongs to Mike Franks and an old case he solved.  Solved the case, never found the body. 

 

A husband who killed his wife and lover in a grisly mess then buried their bodies in separate locations is on Death Row and due to be executed in two days.  At some point in the past, Franks promised the woman's twin he would find the body.  He became obsessed with it, and attacked Hope, the killer, in prison.  

Anna's sister was contacted by Hope to get "absolution" and then he would reveal the location of her body.  Franks worked the case alone in the past, but now he has Lala and Gibbs and Randy to help.  It turns out Hope murdered yet another person, giving the team a pattern to the burials which leads to Anna's body.

Franks is out of control in several scenes, and even fights with his wife Tish over the case.  At the last, he races to the prison where Hope is getting lethal injections just to let the man know he won, they found the body.

Survivor

This week's episode featured that fan favorite The Survivor Auction.  After scrabbling in the morning for tubes in the jungle that contained money, the players had to spend down their money as fast as they could.  The person who had the most money at the end of the auction would lose their vote at tribal.

For once, the food was really great stuff.  It didn't look to me as anyone was just really digging in and eating, though.  Don't they know once the auction ends your food is gone?

Just two gross things this time around: those giant fish eyes that are the size of a small cake, and live wriggling grubs on a plate.  Gack.

This week there was a male and female who were immune: Sue and Kyle (his third in a row).  Lots of scrabbling before and at tribal.  A tie between Sam and Sierra resulted in a re-vote and Sierra left in tears.

Matlock  Episode 5 Claws

Olympia's team is working on a class action suit for prison inmates who were in particularly gruesome conditions before recent changes at the prison, including a new warden.

The key witness is a former inmate who works in a beauty salon as a nail artist.  Before she can testify, she relapses and begins taking drugs again.  Matty recognizes she's high and tells Olympia the girl can't be a witness.  They talk to several other potential witnesses, but once they hear Katya has relapsed, they're afraid and won't testify.

  

Matty goes to a drug house to find Katya to see if she can identify her dealer, maybe he was a guard at the prison?  This is a huge horror for Matty and her husband who have been to places like this before looking for their daughter.  It's almost more than they can do.

No luck there with Katya, but back at the beauty salon, Matty asks to see the tape of the day Katya relapsed, in particular a woman who was with Katya a long time and was disturbingly rude.  Matty recognizes the woman though she's wearing a hat.

Matty and her husband are trying to keep their grandson out of the cases now so he can have a normal school life.  It's tough without him!

On the other hand, Matty's office mates Billy and Sarah are starting to feel left out of the action as Matty shines in every case.  It's as if the writers don't quite know what to do with them now.

The Great British Baking Show: Dessert Week

This week it was meringue, spotted dick, and a tiramisu showstopper.  Aside from a few cracked meringues, it was all spectacular stuff from everyone.  I confess it's been a rough week, so I made it to the part where they said One Minute Left! on the showstopper, then I opened my eyes and the credits were rolling. zzzzzzzzz. 

Dylan has been really working hard each week and he got star baker.  Sumayah was done in by a mix of lemon curd and coffee that didn't go over well with the judges.

Her work is spectacular, but the talent this time around makes it so hard to eliminate anyone.

Christiaan's Showstopper

Yellowjackets

I've heard about the show for a long time, and now that it's on Netflix, I watched the first episode, which was its pilot.

The Yellowjackets are a high school soccer team that gets a spot in the Nationals.  They're getting a ride to the Nationals on the private jet belonging to the parents of one of the girls.  Diverted to airspace over Canada to avoid storms, the plane crashes.

The show is split into two timelines: 1996, the year of the tournament and airplane crash, and 2021 where the survivors of the crash carry on with their lives and dodge a reporter who wants the real story of what happened during the nineteen months they were stranded in the wilderness.

Each timeline features a teen and an adult actress for each character.

It isn't clear what goes on after the crash, though there are a few scenes from that time showing the girls dressed in bizarre outfits as if they were primitives.  It's pretty clear there's cannibalism.

There's quite a bit of character reveal before the crash.  There's a lot of competition and cruelty in the girls as a group.  Everyone seems to have a terrible home life.  Lots of sex. I can't say I liked a single character in the past or present.

Because of that, I will leave my viewing at one episode, and not watch more.

Territory

Not having seen any version of Yellowstone, I was curious and thought I'd start with a fresh new series that features a family and its challenges running a cattle station in Australia.  I have seen the first four episodes, and will watch the last two.

When the heir apparent to Marianne Station is injured after falling from his horse, and then is devoured by dingoes, the Lawson family is thrown into a scrabble for who will be next to run the ranch.  Everyone wants the job, nobody seems capable.

I don't understand why patriarch Colin Lawson doesn't just step back into the role, polishing his apparently rusty skills a bit.  While keeping the place afloat, he could be training in several of the family members vying for the role.  He could see who is actually capable.

Nah, he decides a ne'er do well grandson who doesn't want the job is his new heir.  The kid is a thief and allows himself to be a lackey for a truly slimy fellow thief.

Here's another show where it's hard to find likeable characters.  I like granddaughter Susie and think she's a much better bet than Marshall, her half brother.  I liked Emily, wife to drunken Graham, till she revealed her ruthless nature.  I was really rooting for her.  I also like Nolan Brannock, an indigenous cattle station owner who wants to compete with bigger cattle stations but keeps having bad luck and bad people coming his way.  Colin the patriarch is a monster, let's just say.

Even so, beautiful country, fascinating culture, I hope something good happens in the last two episodes.

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 October 27, 2023

 

 

NCIS Origins

Another good episode, cementing this as a new regular show for me to watch.  In Bend, Don’t Break, a man is found by the road, clearly having died somewhere else. There are plastic eggs with drugs inside near the body.  The investigation leads to a nearby mall which has had thefts in a toy store and a sporting goods store which sold guns.

Gibbs goes off the rails and entraps a mall security officer in a glass elevator, trying to tie him the thefts and the murder.

 

On the personal front, Gibbs goes to his home to see if he can sort out the belongings of his wife and daughter, but he leaves distraught without making any progress there.  His father, still staying at Gibbs’ apartment goes to Mike Franks and demands Leroy be given a desk job, as he’s not ready to be in the field.

Gibbs behavior at the mall makes Franks ask Gibbs to sit this out.  That doesn’t work, does it?

I’m liking Randy even more this week, as he’s unexpectedly loyal to Gibbs. Lala is much more composed and business like this week, not adding to the people harassing Gibbs.

 

Only Murders in the Building

In Escape from Planet Klongo, things finally heat up with another murder, and a very funny scene where Martin and Short get to be extras on a Ron Howard film set, but break into an argument, wearing blue performance capture outfits that make them look like aliens on a small monitor nearby.   Ron Howard’s cameo doesn’t disappoint.

 

 

Survivor

It’s the Merge, with the usual shenanigans about it not being the real merge until there’s been a competition to earn the new buffs. In a bit of a twist though, only the person ultimately earning individual immunity is safe, every other person can be voted out.

Thankfully Rome Cooney managed to get on everyone’s nerves in the new enlarged group.  The guy just never stopped talking, lying, bragging.  Out he went.

 

There are so many sharks this season, it should be interesting to see who falls next.

 

Matlock

In the episode A Guy Named Greg, Matty, it turns out, was a contracts lawyer, but never a trial lawyer.  Even so, given a sympathetic relationship with the client, and the favorable impression she’s made on the jury, Matty ends up in court trying the case.  The trial is about workplace sexual harassment. 

Matty at first has trouble grasping that the client wasn’t able to brush the guy off, as working women did back in her day.  Then she remembers Greg, and her husband does too.  It turns out Matty wanted to be a trial lawyer early in her career, but it was easier to move into contract law to avoid him after an incident in the break room.

 

Armed with that memory, which she had suppressed, she is able to go into the courtroom and deliver a powerful argument for her client.  Her character just gets better and better.

 

The Great British Baking Show

It’s Pastry Week on the show.  Where do they get these foods?  Spanokopita, a Greek dish with a spinach/feta cheese filling looked nice, but I can’t imagine it being tasty.  I did like seeing the pastry attachment on a Kitchen Aid Blender, though, how slick was that?  The group this time really is exceptionally talented, and the show stoppers were amazing.  I feared my second favorite baker, Illiyin, had some bad luck and was one of those on the bottom, but she continues on.   Nelly wore a beret this week, for luck, provided by her son.

 

 

Girl Haunts Boy

In this Netflix film, a girl named Beatrix from the 1920s takes half of a ring from a display at a museum.  Outside the museum, she’s hit by a car immediately.

In the present day, Cole and his mother are moving into a Victorian style home after the unexpected death of Cole’s father.  Everything is new here for Cole, particularly the discovery that the house is haunted by the ghost of a girl named Bea from the 1920s.  He finds a scrapbook and an old ring in the closet in his room. Once he places the ring on his finger, he can see and talk to Bea.

 

She thinks she’s been dead perhaps 30 years, but it’s been a century.  She is so happy to have someone to talk to, and he’s happy to introduce her to the modern world.  She’s been trapped in the house unable to leave, but they find if he wears the ring, she can go out and explore the world with him.

Taking her to New York and showing her the modern world takes Cole out of his grief a bit.  When he finds out it is possible to remove the curse of the ring and send her on to her fated after life, how can he say goodbye?