Category: TV Shows

Doctor, Where Are Your Pants?

~ James Viscosi ~ 12 Comments

So recently I was watching the third Doctor Who special of 2023, AKA The One Where the 15th Doctor Shows Up. Although my wife is not, as a general rule, interested in Doctor Who, I knew that she was curious about the new Doctor, although she did have some questions.

Wife: “What number Doctor is this? Fourteen?”
Me: “No, this is Fifteen. Thirteen was Jodie Whittaker, and then they brought back David Tennant as Fourteen, so the new one is Fifteen.”
Wife: “But didn’t David Tennant already play the Doctor?”
Me: “Yes, he was Ten. But he’s also Fourteen.”
Wife: “I don’t think they should give him a new number when he was already the Doctor before. He should be like 10A or something.”

But we’re not in charge of the numbering, so Ncuti Gatwa will be Fifteen. Besides, they probably used an integer for this variable, so can’t just go slapping a string on the end of it. Oh and, by the way, in case you need it …

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Not A Review Of “The Haunting of Bly Manor”

~ James Viscosi ~ 12 Comments

So for a while, we had canceled our Netflix subscription, because we were watching a lot of stuff on other services and Netflix didn’t have anything going that I really wanted to watch. (I know, I know, everyone loves Squid Game, but that doesn’t interest me, and the reality show version of it interests me even less.) I finally decided to resubscribe because I wanted to watch Mike Flanagan’s new horror series The Fall of the House of Usher, which is, essentially, an anthology based on Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, novels, and poems. I almost convinced my wife to watch this one, on the basis of the fact that the Mike Flanagan shows I’ve seen on Netflix have been spooky but not gory, and my wife is known to enjoy the spooky creepy stuff on occasion (in fact, she is currently reading The Little Stranger); but then I heard from several friends that House of Usher was, in fact, quite gory, and, yeah, you can kind of see that in the trailer:

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Not A Review Of “The Magicians”

~ James Viscosi ~ 10 Comments

So recently, having just finished the post-apocalyptic science fiction series Silo—which, believe it or not, my wife actually watched:

We found ourselves in need of another “heavy” show, “heavy” in this case referring kinda to subject matter, but also kinda to length. Since I’d had success with Silo, which was, of course, based on Wool, I thought, why not try another series based on a book I ‘ve read? Abracadabra! It’s The Magicians:

Incidentally, if you have neither read nor seen The Magicians, you are going to encounter some

if you keep reading. Granted these are not major spoilers as they appear in the first episode of the show and fairly early in the book as well. But still. Have all you spoiler-phobes averted your eyes yet? You have? Good, let’s continue.

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Your Brain’s In Jeopardy, Baby (Oooh)

~ James Viscosi ~ 13 Comments

I don’t watch Jeopardy! anymore, because, among other reasons, we don’t have cable anymore; but I used to watch it, and once even attended a taping (in the latter part of the Alex Trebek days) with my parents and my aunt.

“It’s only a model.”
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The Last (Arcade) of Us

~ James Viscosi ~ 15 Comments

While I was watching an episode of Fungus Zombies* (better known as The Last of Us) on HBO, and my wife happened to be in the room:

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Knowing Your Audience

~ James Viscosi ~ 9 Comments

So as I’ve mentioned before, whenever something we’re watching focuses on anything like a newspaper or magazine article, source code, a computer screen, a dating profile, etc., I am always compelled to pause the video and go have a closer look. Normally what’s displayed is word-like filler material, but finally—finally!—I found a show that really, really knows its audience. That show would be Doom Patrol on HBO Max.

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So What Do You Want To Watch Now?

~ James Viscosi ~ 16 Comments

As the reader who’s been around for any length of time knows, we are currently in the middle of watching the old medical show House. However, we usually like to have two shows that we’re watching, a “light” one and a “heavy” one. Despite (or perhaps because of) all the sarcasm, insults, and medical stuff that involves my covering my eyes and shrieking, House is our “light” show, not our “heavy” one. The “heavy” slot has, of late, been occupied by limited series, such as House of the Dragon and, more recently, the final season of His Dark Materials, and now we are, sadly, without a show to offset the routine levity of lumbar punctures, catheters, bleeding orifices, and people saying “Maybe it’s vasculitis” that is House; and so, new shows are currently being auditioned.

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And Then Sometimes The Subtitle Mistakes Are Strangely Appropriate

~ James Viscosi ~ 3 Comments

So as I’ve mentioned numerous times, we got in the habit of leaving subtitles on a long time ago, when Dennis became an Old Man Dog and would frequently complain to us that we should stop watching television because he wanted to go to bed; and thus we were introduced to the world of subtitles that are amusing in their own right, humorously inaccurate, or in open rebellion against what the actual dialog is. But this may be the first time we’ve run into subtitles that are humorously inaccurate yet also completely appropriate, and it comes from (you guessed it) the TV show House.

Now, first, a little backstory: In this episode, House takes on as a patient a 15-year-old girl with a form of dwarfism who is suffering from what everyone thinks is liver failure. He correctly predicts that the condition is progressive and that her pancreas is about to fail, but no one listens to him (because reasons), so they proceed with a liver biopsy, or something. Or at least, they attempt to. Before they can even sedate her, the girl slips into unconsciousness as a result of some manner of insulin shock, and the team calls for an emergency insulin drip to save her. OR DO THEY?

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Still, Still Not A Review Of “House”

~ James Viscosi ~ 10 Comments

So, yes, we are still watching House. Given the number of episodes available, we’ll probably be watching it until late spring. And although I’ve editorialized about the improbability of House’s minions doing everything around the hospital, up to and including breaking & entering and digging up the buried corpses of deceased pets, I think that we have, at this point, encountered what must be the most unbelievable thing House has ever tried to get past us. Seriously, I mean, I’m always willing to suspend disbelief, but this time they just went too far. Once you see what I’m talking about, I’m sure you’ll agree.

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Still Not A Review Of “House”

~ James Viscosi ~ 11 Comments

So a while back, I mentioned that my wife and I had started watching House on the Peacock streaming service, thus making us one of the like eight people who subscribe to Peacock. Given the fact that House has caught on with my wife*, and the fact that it ran for eight seasons with around 22 episodes a season, we’re going to be watching it into the indefinite future, and now that we’re some ways into it, there have been some further thoughts and commentary on the subject. For instance:

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