(TV/streaming video) New & Leftover Items, a Touch of 2024, and some Nostalgic Forensics

    So much else calling out for attention, and with watchables already piled up, finding even more things to watch doesn't seem like much of a sane prospect. I'm not even fishing around for new things at the moment, as I need to get some other things done and make some attempt to round out my life a little.
     This week on Paramount+, the fourth season of the animated Star Trek: Lower Decks came to a satisfying end. A manic pace of in-universe nods continues to give it the Star Trekiest of Trek feels with the casual, plot-essential trivia drawn from decades of Star Trek shows, woven throughout.
     Also there, the contemporary Frasier series' first season hits its halfway point with episode five. I'm enjoying it, but it continues to walk a wobbly line as some of it works smoothly while other moments reek of formula, with some of each overlapping. I'd be very interested in seeing how well or not this new series works on its own for someone who'd never watched the old series and so would be taking these characters and situations all on their own.
     On Max, this week saw the penultimate episode of Doom Patrol, as the team engaged in sets of time-displaced missions looking for a cure, and then regroups for whatever series finale we'll be getting next week. The show could have used - should have had - more time, but the current corporate masters' "bottom line" emphasis won't countenance that.
     Back on Amazon Prime and Freevee, several series I'm following are continuing today:
     The season one close of Gen V, the super-powered sex, drugs, and conspiracies series set in the corporate-ruled, super-powered world of The Boys, arrives. I'm hoping that word of when season four of The Boys is finally forthcoming, as this first season of Gen V is meant to feed into that.
     The next two episodes of Upload.
     The next two episodes of Bosch: Legacy, advancing new plotlines while blowback from the previous season catches up with some of the leads.
     ...and the single-episode debut of season two of the animated, long-delayed Robert Kirkman comics-sourced Invincible.

     Following the brutal revelations that closed out season one, Mark's wrestling with his own concerns - and those of nearly everyone around him - while still trying to do the best he can.
     As mentioned last week, this new season will, like the first, be eight episodes long. They've split the season in two, so we'll be seeing the first half - one episode each Friday - between today and Black Friday on the 24th. The second half of the season is set for early in 2024.
     So, just with my hitting that streamer, I'll have six episodes from four different series. I'll likely be rolling from one to the next in fairly rapid order, as I seem to have little self-restraint, much less the self-discipline to break them up and use them as rewards for myself for attending to some of the many, many things I should be getting done today.
     I still haven't made the time to watch a couple things mentioned last week, namely Five Nights At Freddy's (which ended up having a stellar weekend last week, btw, not only proving to be a good draw on Peacock but performing wonderfully for them at the box office, too), and the NBC procedural series The Irrational, which now has six episodes piled up on Peacock -- and presumably as On Demand items for those taking such things in via cable.

     Two media anniversaries came to mind for November 3rd:
     Six years ago today was the broad U.S. release date for Taika Waititi's first Marvel Cinematic Universe film, Thor: Ragnarok. As was typical for me and the MCU film release process, I came through the first viewing with reservations based on conflicts between events as they played out in the film versus events and character behaviors in the source material. These are those typical "but in the book..." moments everyone goes through when seeing a screen adaptation of something that was familiar in print. Every unexpected sharp corner, every time something's anticipated but doesn't appear -- essentially every change registers while watching it the first time, no matter how much I try to just relax and let this new thing be whatever it is. On the whole I enjoy the film, but the mental list of changes is fresh and distracting. This was all the more so the case with this film, as it not only played games with Thor's family tree and changed who some of the characters were (including Hela, goddess of death), it also folded in a version of a Hulk story, along with using the film to bring us a defining character moment for at least one other character -- Skurge -- as he rises to a heroic sacrifice. Many, many, "But... but..." moments for this audience member that first time through.
     Inevitably, at least so far, a later revisit allows me to watch these films without the jolts and lurches of the changes, each time seeing my estimation of the film rise. So it was with Thor: Ragnarok.

     Obviously available on Disney+, I may make the time to revisit it this weekend.
     Another, older anniversary - this one from 62 years ago - was a third season episode of The Twilight Zone. Based on a 1953 short story by Jerome Bixby, starring Billy Mumy and Cloris Leachman, it's the classic "It's A Good Life". (All episodes of The Twilight Zone are clear to watch on Paramount+, or over on freevee with ads.)
     Here's a little under nine minutes of Bill Mumy recalling when he was seven years old and the episode was being made.

     While I occasionally check in on select segments of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, I haven't had a late night talk show that I've made a real habit of since The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson ended nearly nine years ago. Craig often chafed at the traditional structure, and found fun in alternately playing with it, mocking it, and generally deconstructing it. I was hooked early on, and back in the days when I would mostly sleep through the night (which feels like at least one lifetime ago) I had the DVR catch it for me and I'd get up all the earlier to watch it while getting ready for the workday.
     On Stephen's show Wednesday night he made the announcement that early next year, stand-up comedian Taylor Tomlinson will becomes the host of the new show After Midnight, which will be both follow Colbert's show and be co-produced by him and Funny Or Die. Here's the announcement from Wednesday.

     I've been enjoying Tomlinson's standup material for months, having first come across clips posted as Reels on facebook (which so far is as close to TikTok as my 62 year-old self has gotten), which then led me to watching her two specials (Quarter-Life Crisis and Look At You) on Netflix. That a young (she'll be turning 30 this weekend) woman will be on a late night platform like that is an interesting development. I'm looking forward to seeing how that rolls out, and how she is with guests. So far the closest we've gotten to that has been watching as she would work a crowd, interacting with several of the audience members. Really, I'm interested to see how the show's structured, and hope that she's able to go with whatever format she feels suits her. 

   Obviously, we won't know how it will work until we see it, and then there'll be a period of adjustment, but I really hope that she doesn't end up buried under CBS executives' "notes." Being both female and roughly half the age of everyone else working in this arena, this could be a significant step in terms of representation, all the more so arriving in what will be a huge political year where so much may be riding on getting younger voters involved.

    Among my bad habits when I'm feeling stressed - and I'm generally feeling stressed - is to avoid dealing with the source of the stress and, instead, losing myself in something, more often than not a series. Sometimes it's something new, more often it's a revisitation. I'll fall into watching it, and will binge it in a fashion that only a loner could.
     My days fragment, with me falling into a few hours of exhaustion-driven sleep in the evening, then waking up anywhere from a little before midnight to heading for two AM, in that wonderful, safety zone between the days, diving back into the watch for a few hours before, maybe, getting myself to shut it off so I can try to catch another hour or two of fitful sleep before prying myself out of bed to shuffle off into another generally unwelcome working weekday.
     My odd comfort viewing choice for the past couple weeks has been revisiting the Showtime series Dexter (2006-2013), eight seasons, 96 episodes, tracing the life and career of Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), blood-spatter analyst for Miami Metro's Homicide Division, and his covert life as a serial killer who had been secretly-weaponized by his adoptive father Harry, a police detective.
     The show had its ups and downs, almost certainly ran longer than it should have, and increasingly depended upon the audience dialing back their analytical skills so as to allow plot holes for the lead to repeatedly escape fatal detection. The final episode, I maintain, has been unfairly maligned by many fans, being much better than it's given credit for -- the real problem being more with that back third of that final season as a whole. The series had been sustained for too long, the fabric of Dexter's universe stretched so far and so thin, that it devolved into a weird nightmare, complete with dream logic to allow our beloved serial killer to continue to evade detection and capture.
     Anyway, that's getting ahead of where I am in my rewatch, which is early in season six.
     This time through, things I hadn't paused to notice the previous time through include how detective and father figure Harry, dead before the series began and initially only present in flashback scenes, didn't becomes Dexter's imaginary Jiminy Cricket until well into season three, as Dexter's prospects for becoming a father himself came into consideration. That other voice in Dexter's head, alternately guiding him and arguing with him, became so much a part of Dexter's inner life that I'd forgotten that it only emerged that way in season three.
     Dexter's inner monologue, augmented from a bit into season three on by the inner dialogue with Harry, is essential to the series. As Dexter's over-taxed, stretched-beyond-all-saving world finally was coming apart late in season eight, the stilling of those voices becomes a key plot arc as Dexter's long experimental attempt to fake it till he'd make it to a human condition comes to an increasingly tragic end, is vitally important. So it is that it almost makes me angry when I see someone singling out the last episode, especially the final, mute scene of the series, and holding it up derisively.  His inner monologue stilled, Dexter's long experiment with trying to be human seems, very tragically, over. To linger any longer would be to invite the sadness over that loss to be replaced by the fear of being that close to something that is no longer even attempting to be human. Is all that's left the Dark Passenger?
    I'll be interested to see if I end up rolling out of the end of this series rewatch into a rewatch of the 2020/21 single season sequel series Dexter: New Blood.

     That's all for now. I've things to watch, and other things to hopefully do... or perhaps continue to avoid doing. - Mike