57 Channels and Only This Is On: April 21, 2024

  

Shōgun:  We finally get Crimson Sky and it was… someone killing herself at sundown?  Definitely not what I was expecting.  I thought the ninja at the end were going to be Crimson Sky, but they were there to get Mariko. 

 

The Challenge All-Stars:  Poor, Cyrus, shows up only to be sent in.  I really wish there was a 40 year old age limit floor so the old folks like Cyrus could actually have a chance.  But I wonder if that elimination is the new, safer version of Hall Brawl.  They tried and failed by adding puzzles and other lame things, but this is more interesting alternative.

 

Survivor:  We have had plenty of bad players to play this game, but no one has a further gulf between how bad they are and how good they actually think they are playing that Q.  I never thought anyone would surpass Coach in this category, but here we are.  That was just a clusterfork of a Tribal.

 

Ghosts:   It was kind of lame that a basement ghost was sucked off and no one even noticed just to hide that Flower was still around.  But now we have a crazy Chekov’s Puritan Ghost floating in the ground somewhere.  And just where was this hole they all fell into?

 

A Gentleman in Moscow:  Just two short episodes Lena was a precocious little girl, and now she is leaving a precocious little girl in the hands of Rostov.  This show is moving really fast.  I assumed the narrator of the show was Lena, but I guess it may actually be her daughter.  Though I am still confused why Lena spent so much time as a child in the hotel and why she had the skeleton key.  And then, what will become of Mishka? They arrested the guy they needed to bring down to save him, but he was spreading news of the famine which I assume the party does not want getting out.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: April 14, 2024

The Regime:  Good riddance to this dreadful show.  It should have been good but just failed the execution.

 

Shōgun:  Considering the next episode is entitled “Crimson Sky” kind of a filler episode with Tauranga sulking around defeated all episode as if he is actually going to turn himself over to the council.

 

Survivor:  Things looked very dire for Venus those first couple episodes, but luckily her tribe never went to council.  Now I think she just may end up being the token no vote finalist this season.

 

Ghosts:   Okay, the Ghost stuck to the person was really funny.  Though we know the car ghost died in a car accident, just how exactly does someone wearing a baseball jersey get stuck to someone?

 

A Gentleman in Moscow:   It is interesting that everyone in speaking English, yet all the text, the book, the signage, is in Russian.  Then the precocious kid has turned into a weird teenager.  Nina also interacted with another person and we saw Rostov’s younger sister in a flashback and it definitely did not look like Nina, so there goes that theory.  So the question with her goes back to just where is her family and how did she get the skeleton key?  Now I am thinking maybe she is the child of one of the workers.

 

I am not sure why they bothered teasing Rostov killing himself.  It is only episode three; of course he is not going to kill himself.  But I do wonder what will happen in the last episode.  He has to leave the hotel one way or another, be it through a door or off the roof.   If it is a door, is it the front of side door?   He got chummy with his jailor; will Rostov help him so much that he will let him leave?

Previewing A Gentleman in Moscow

 

The communist revolution of 1917 in Russia saw the execution of the royal family.  During the next four years the Leninist re-organized the country.  The tsarist aristocracy was eradicated.  This is the setting for A Gentleman in Moscow where Ewan McGregor (Obi-Wan) plays Count Alexander Rostov, whose life is spared after a poem attributed to him is presented at his hearing.  Though he has been sentenced to live the rest of his days in the hotel he had been living in.  Though he is resigned to the servants quarters of the hotel and if he ever leaves the hotel he will be shot on sight.  But hey, he eats for free at the very upscale restaurant inside the hotel. 

 

The story picks up when he runs into a precocious young girl who just happens to know all the secrets of the hotel.  Where are her parents?  Who knows.   That she does not interact with anyone else in the first couple episodes will lead to some speculation.  Is she even real?  It is she is the narrator of the show.

 

Another occupant is Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Asoka).  She is usually good in everything, but she does not really pull of a glamorous Russian actress.  The wig and accent (which, much like The Great is not Russian, but English) really do not work here. Thankfully the wig disappears after a couple episodes.  Johnny Harris (Without Sin) plays Rostov’s jailor with menace.  Fehinti Balogun (Dune) shows up as Rostov’s old friend who was also part of the revolution.

 

A Gentleman in Moscow is a well-crafted miniseries that can humorous as it is heartfelt.  In just eight episodes, the writers get you to get really invested in these characters, even the ones that do not even show up until the second half of the season while the story barrels to a thrilling conclusion after spending decades within the hotel.

 

A Gentleman in Moscow premieres today on Paramount+ with Showtime and will air Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime.