Welcome to my Monday newsletter! This week, I am looking at The Chair Company and 9-1-1/9-1-1: Nashville plus the latest episodes of The Lowdown, Task and Only Murders in the Building, my next entry in my To 25 Shows Since 2000 and a Pilot Re-Review of Blue Bloods.
WHAT'S NEW
I only recently had my first experience with Tim Robinson when I watched the movie Friendship starring Robinson and Paul Rudd. I sort of liked it but felt like his brand of cringe didn't quite work as a feature film and would be better off as a weekly TV series. And here we are. A weekly TV show on HBO that is a conspiracy thriller mixed with Robinson's patented unique brand of humor.
I was very into the vibe of this pilot. I thought it was really fun to mix the cringe humor with a show that has some actual stakes (however ridiculous those stakes may be). There will probably be some comparisons to The Curse because it's another scripted comedy from a cringe artist who usually plays a version of himself. But this is much less surreal than The Curse and I think that makes the awkwardness work that much more (and I liked The Curse). It's fun to know that we're going to get some real awkward Tim Robinson moments while also getting a propulsive story. Like, I'm genuinely curious to see what the result of this plot is.
I don't think the rest of the cast beyond Robinson was developed much in the pilot but it's hard to know how much that is going to matter in the long run. This was really the Tim Robinson show and every other character sort of felt in service of him or the plot. It doesn't feel like it will be as much of a character study as The Curse which had Emma Stone and Benny Safdie as major characters alongside Nathan Fielder. I don't know how I'll feel about this show when all is said and done but I was sold on the premise to start things off.
The name of the game for broadcast dramas these days is franchises. The network schedules are littered with shows that start with NCIS, Chicago or Law & Order, end with the word Country or have Blue somewhere in the title While it can be frustrating from those of us interested primarily in new and original projects, these shows are reliable to the degree that they are rarely outright bombs even if they don't tend to eclipse the original in popularity (Law & Order: SVU is an exception to that latter rule).
ABC is getting in on the game this season with 9-1-1: Nashville, the second spinoff of 9-1-1 after 9-1-1: Lone Star aired for five seasons on FOX. I watched a few episodes of Lone Star but didn't stick with the show because it's real hard to replicate the wackiness that is the charm of 9-1-1. 9-1-1 is a procedural drama but it has a whole lot more fun than any other procedural drama on TV. Just in this ninth season premiere we had a whale swallowing a billionaire, a cop blasting off into space and a group of ten year olds getting served shots of alcohol to combat poisoning from antifreeze. You just don't get that kind of stuff on a Chicago show. The cast has also always been a bright spot for 9-1-1 even with the departure of Peter Krause last season.
So while there are charms in 9-1-1: Nashville with its southern setting and soapy elements, it's just hard to replicate the fun of 9-1-1 with a different cast in a different show. Sure, it still had some crazy things - there was the line "bachelorettes are bleeding all over Broadway." But it's just hard to get accustomed to a new firehouse and a new set of characters when I'm pretty sure the show is never going to be as fun as the original. I'll give it a few episodes but the soapy elements (the long lost brother who is up to no good) didn't pull me in and the rescue scenes didn't top anything 9-1-1 does on a regular basis. I also found Chris O'Donnell to be a bit of a wet blanket and his on screen son (Michael Provost) even worse. LeAnn Rimes was fun but this cast has a long way to go to win me over.
Also...
I didn't get a chance yet to watch the premieres of Matlock and Elsbeth but I look forward to watching last night's episodes and their second episodes this Thursday. I gave up on The Last Frontier partway through the first episode. This is the kind of show a few years ago I would have given it a couple episodes only to feel like I wasted my time. But I just don't have that time anymore so a show that I know I'm not into (and reviews indicate there's nothing special about it) get a quicker hook from me.
LAST WEEK ON...
The Lowdown is growing on me with each passing week and quickly becoming one of my favorite shows. After being only lukewarm on the two episode premiere, I have really loved the last two episodes. A huge part of it is Ethan Hawke. No matter who he is interacting with, he is electric on screen. This week, there were more fun moments with his on-screen daughter (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) but the bulk of the episode was spent with Jeanne Tripplehorn as Marty's widow, Betty Jo. Tripplehorn didn't make much of an impression on me in the first couple episodes (granted she wasn't in a lot of it) but as soon as she starting getting to play opposite Hawke, she became a great character. I can't wait to see where this show goes next.
Task
SPOILERS AHEAD if you aren't caught up with Task. I have really been enjoying Task because it seems more about telling a complete story than about the twists or mysteries. That was never more true than this week when the first scene of the penultimate episode was the type of scene you'd usually see towards the end of a finale. How many times have we seen a show twist itself into knots just to prolong the big moment until the season finale or something like that? This show killed off multiple important characters, most notably Tom Pelphrey's Robby, in the first twenty minutes when there was still more than an episode and a half to go. Very few shows would have done that. And yet it all felt very natural. I love that this show isn't going to end with a showdown between Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelphrey, which is what a show in lesser hands would have done. But that showdown happened in episode five and then Pelphrey's character was dead partway through episode six. So I love that because what is the rest of the season about? Well, we got some of the answer in a much slower paced rest of the episode but it's all set things up well for the finale. If Pelphrey's character was still alive, I'd be able to guess how the series might end. But I love that I don't know what story Brad Ingelsby wants to tell. Also, Mark Ruffalo was fantastic at the end of the episode (he's been fantastic throughout this series but especially in his last couple scenes).
Only Murders in the Building
Last week's episode of Only Murders in the Building finally brought the three billionaires (Christoph Waltz, Renee Zellweger & Logan Lerman) back into the fold. One of the problems with this show is there are so many mouths to feed that weeks go by before certain characters return to the story. And while the characters weren't very far out of mind, it was still notable that we haven't seen them for awhile. The episode being set at a rural estate was fun even if I wish they did more with the "game night" theme. I appreciated the creepy child and thought there were a lot of funny moments from the heroes and the villains. I'd also like to give a shout out to Caitlin Houlahan as the Mayor's (Keegan-Michael Key) assistant. I think she may still have a bigger part to play but so far she's been the Tony Hale (from Veep) figure who just does so many funny small things that you might not notice if you're not paying attention.
TOP 25 SHOWS SINCE 2000
What is there to say about Ripley that I didn't already say for my 2024 Benjamonster Awards. The series is a cinematic masterpiece, one of the most beautiful shows to ever hit the small screen. But it's not just about the cinematic triumph. It's a very compelling story. A dark and eerie take on The Talented Mr. Ripley with a chilling lead performance by Andrew Scott. Filmed entirely in black and white, it is unlike any other show on this list. I usually balk at TV shows being called "8 hour movies" or something like that but this is the very best of that descriptor. I was tempted to put it even higher but it was only eight episodes and I feel like that's not fair to a lot of the other shows that ran for years. But it's a pretty perfect eight episodes and one I looked forward to watching again down the road.
PILOT RE-REVIEW
This season, I am traveling back in time to the 2010-11 season, the first season I did this blog. I will be re-reviewing the pilots from that season, at least as many as I can find!
Original Review: Click Here!
What I Think Now: I'm such a sucker for the song "New York, New York" so that opening sequence which uses the song as an underscoring really gets me. It was interesting to go back and watch this show all these years later. Blue Bloods was a very steady show. There's very little that's different in the dynamics between the main characters in 2010 than there was by the time the series finale rolled around in 2024. While the political circumstances of policing have been all over the place in the last 15 years in terms of public opinion, Blue Bloods was a show that was very steady - the highs were not all that high but the lows were certainly not very low. The actors, especially the main family, all seemed to have a good sense of their characters from the jump. The one that seemed a bit of an outlier was Bridget Moynahan. She was fine as an actress but the show didn't seem to quite know in the pilot how to incorporate her and her different position working for the district attorney. The case of the week was pretty standard. I don't remember how long they kept going with the story with Jamie (Will Estes) and the secrecy that involved his deceased older brother, but I don't think it was very long, which was probably a good idea. That was more mythology than Blue Bloods needed.
What Happened to the Show: Blue Bloods was one of the biggest success stories of the 2010-11 season and it was fitting to look back it this week with its spinoff, Donnie Wahlberg's Boston Blue premiering this Friday. The original series, as I mentioned, was remarkably steady in every way. While some of the supporting characters changed, the core family members stayed with the series for its entire run. It spent almost its entire run on Fridays at 10pm aside from a very brief tryout on Wednesdays that didn't go all that well. By the time the show ended in December 2024, it had run for 293 episodes. The series was routinely mocked for being the oldest skewing show on TV and yes, it probably was your Grandma and Grandpa's favorite show. But so many of the shows from the 2010-11 season were gone and forgotten quickly. Running that long, even if it was mostly for the older folks, is an impressive feat. I got away from the series but then came back. It was a comfort, background show for me for much of its run. Check out some thoughts I wrote when the series came to an end last year (you'll have to scroll down a bit).
COMING UP
It's a busy week of premieres thanks in large part to the CBS Premiere Week. That kicks off tonight with the eighth and final season premiere of The Neighborhood (hard to believe its been on that long). That leads into one of only two new broadcast comedies this fall: DMV. The night is followed by the eighth season premiere of FBI and the second season premiere of Watson which replaces the originally scheduled CIA in the lineup. Also premiering Monday is the sixth season of Solar Opposites on Hulu. Tuesday has the 23rd (!) Season Premiere of NCIS leading into the second season of NCIS: Origins on a new night. On Wednesday is the premiere of the true crime drama Murdaugh: Death in the Family on Hulu as well as the third season premiere of Loot on Apple TV+. Thursday has the return of Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage (Season 2) and Ghosts (Season 5) on CBS leading into the time period premieres of Matlock and Elsbeth. Also premiering on Thursday is another true crime scripted show: Devil in Disguise: John Wayne Gacy on Peacock. The biggest premiere on Thursday though is the return of The Diplomat for a third season on Netflix. Friday has two drama series premieres on CBS. First up though is the fourth season premiere of Fire Country. It leads into the expansion of that franchise with the premiere of Sheriff Country starring Morena Baccarin. At 10pm, in the old timeslot of Blue Bloods is the aforementioned spinoff Boston Blue starring Donny Wahlberg. Finally, the busy week ends of Sunday with the third season premiere of Tracker on CBS and the debut of Hal & Harper on Mubi. The latter show was screened at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
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