March Catchup

Time to catch up on a few things.

First, television and what’s good for viewing and what’s not so much. I say again, there’s just too much to watch. All networks, big and small, are now making their own movies and series, and then there’s the streaming of original movies and series on Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Netflix. We would need about a hundred hours a day to see all that’s worth seeing. My assessments will be directed mainly to the major networks with a little peak at TNT and FX. I watched the pilot of The Alienist on TNT and decided it was just too grimy and with dialogue too hard to understand. FX’s The Americans will soon return, but without me. I loved the show when it first came out, but then there was such a long time between its brief seasons that I forgot what was going on. I still have too much to watch without worrying about what Elizabeth, Phillip, and daughter Paige are doing. I no longer watch American Idol or The Voice because both seem to be more interested in the judges’ shenanigans than on the talent they’re supposed to be judging. Who needs it? ABC’s For the People, the latest law and lawyer show, has too many main characters with too many plot lines racing from one to another. Don’t need it. Deception on ABC has an FBI magician working his illusions to help solve various crimes. Don’t need this one either. Taken (NBC) is just too stupid to watch. All right, what are the good ones? The two new medicals, The Good Doctor (ABC) and The Resident (Fox), are excellent. On Fox, 9-1-1 keeps getting better and better with more and more complicated and interesting plot lines. The Seal Team (CBS) is good but still not as good as The Brave (NBC), which may not be renewed for a second season. Rise (NBC), the second coming of Glee (FOX), looks and sounds very good, but where Glee was in many ways a parody (think Jane Lynch as the too hateful Sue Sylvester) with an unrealistic cast of great singers, Rise is trying to show us a high school with vocal and dramatic talent that no high school could possibly have. I hope it has as much success as Glee had. We’ll see.

          Quick Trump comment. I read one of the letters to the editor in the Arizona Republic a few days ago that railed against the students at Stoneman Douglas High School, saying they were too young to realize what they were doing to the Second Amendment and his right to “bare arms.” Yupp, that sounds exactly like a Trump supporter who wants to keep his arms bare. Trump and his supporters apparently aren’t very good spellers. Trump recently tweeted that he’d like to create a space “core.” Donald and his tweets. Doesn’t he realize that what he writes shows the world how stupid he is? Apparently not.

          And finally, what’s up with Tiger. It now looks like he really can come back and win more PGA events as well as one or two or more majors. I and all other golfers hope so. He’s very good for the game. I can’t wait to see what he does at Augusta in April.