57 Channels and Only This Is On: March 26, 2023

  

Your Honor:   Episode 10:  I was right that the judge spilled everything at trial, but I was wrong with the fallout.  I thought everyone would go to prison.  Instead the gangster’s wife managed to take out her husband and her father in one fell swoop.  Well, she tried except apparently her father cannot kill someone at point blank range and her husband woke up.  This kind of felt like a set up for another season.  Brian Cranston did say this was the last season in an interview for it came up, though I do not believe Showtime has made any kind of announcement.  Could they possibly try a season without Cranston whose character should be in prison for a while?  Hopefully not.

 

The Mandalorian:  Some serious laps in logic this week.  Like how did the Mandalorians beat the bird dinosaur back to her nest?  And if Grogu was able to shoot off three darts in a row, why did the other kid just shoot one at a time when Grogu was looking confused at the game?  He picked the game; he should know he could shoot multiple shots in a row.

 

Wu-Tang: An American Saga:  This was probably the best of all the movie episodes but wild we got three in the final season.  But I guess that is it and next week will be the Clan spread out but reteams for the finale to record Wu-Tang Forever.  Disappointing that we will not get a Pharma Bro episode.

 

The Challenge: World Championship:   The show needs to bring back the advantage for whoever comes back from elimination because when the same people get nominated every week, it just gets boring.  Why even watch next week when it will most likely be the last remaining Argentina team goes in and probably goes home?

 

Survivor:  Another week, another young women goes home.  Frannie better watch her back next week.  Lucky for her, it looks like the one dude with the limp arm might be pulled.  I am surprised he made it this far.

Scooter's Note:  Since Showtime has been putting new episodes on streaming on Fridays for a while, I am going to start writing about those show in the following day's 57 Channels instead of waiting a week to write about them because they air linearly on Sundays starting with the season premiere of Yellowjackets.

Yellowjackets:   Everyone has been wondering when the first taste of cannibalism was going to happen, but, wow, I was not expecting it would be Shanna just popping Jackie’s ear like it’s a Skittle.  But now I fear for the safety of Tai’s wife.  I would not be threatening someone who cut off your dog’s head and to make an altar of it.  Though it seems like Tai was just as shock to see it as her wife.  A shout out to Callie for watching the greatest scene in The Challenge history and was much more interested in that than her mother coming home.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: March 19, 2023

 

The Blacklist:  So this guy was able to find the greatest pickpockets in the world, but could not find anyone who could hit a target?  For a mastermind, that was a very big oversite.  I did recognize the guy Red tried to poison, but cannot place him at all.  This show really could use “Previously On” montages when they bring back people like this.

 

The Last of Us:  Well that was a horrible finale.  If you have to sacrifice one person to save all of humanity, you do it.

 

Your Honor:   So this is how the show is going to end?  The judge is going to get on the stand and answer all the questions truthfully, exposing all the criminality, from police corruption that killed his wife, everything he did that kept his son out of prison, and all the gangster activities was the two warring factions.  Everyone but the young mother goes to prison.

 

The Mandalorian:  Um, did we really need an episode of Andor inside of this show?  Unfortunately I really do not care about two characters I barely remember.   So all of that was just an elaborate way to zap the doctor’s brain?

 

Wu-Tang: An American Saga:  Why were they wasting an episode on RZA’s brother this late in the series?

 

The Challenge: World Championship:  Seriously, they waited until the end to do the elimination?  This show really should stick to a one challenge and one elimination per episode  But poor Jujuy, stuck with someone giving the single worse elimination performance ever.  Everyone was helping Nelson and still he did not listen.

 

Survivor:  Is a dude ever going to be voted out?  I wonder what longer streak for one gender being voted out is?

 

School Spirits:  Why does the teacher have the cheerleader’s number?

57 Channels and Only This Is On: March 12, 2023

 

The Blacklist:  I am trying to do the math on the new agent.  Just how old was her mom when she had her?   Though I guess there were some time jumps so maybe it has been more than ten years on the show since season one.  But the Whaler really looked like Lizzy’s mother, for a second I thought she returned.

 

The Last of Us:  Yippie, another lets meet another dead person of the week.  They really leaned into the video aspect this week with Joel getting antibiotics and his health meter instantly getting full. But where exactly did the rest of the resort people go as one of the buildings got burned down?  The resort just seemed to turn into a ghost town the moment Joel arrived even though there were at least twenty people at dinner.

 

Your Honor:   Wait, the baby mama is only seventeen?  For some reason I thought she was in college.  But I am beginning to think that trail is what will bring all the corrupt people in New Orleans down.

 

Quantum Leap:  Oh yeah, other leaper is back.  That guy was missing for too many episodes.  But where was he the whole episode?

 

The Mandalorian:  Why did Mando send Grogu to Bo-Katan?  Little dude has made much bigger creatures go to sleep with the force.  Why waste all the time traveling to the moon when he could have easily dispatched the eye robot?  But I could not tell is Mando put the Dark Saber back on his suit.  Doesn’t Bo-Katan have a claim to it?  The eye robot won it in battle from Mando and she won it in battle from the eye-robot.  If she refused it from Mando because it has to be won in battle, kind of seems like this satisfies the prophecy.   

 

Wu-Tang: An American Saga:  Yet another very special episode.  I wonder just how many more of these will we get.  Will Method Man get one?  He was conspicuously absent from this episode and really has not been in the season that much. 

 

The Challenge: World Championship:  Some questionable non-winners included in this cast.  I do not even remember Justine.  Ben was “medically separated” from his season and still seems hurt.  Neither Australia player even made the finals.  No comment on Argentina because for some reason The Mount is not airing that season until halfway through this season.  Then I do not like that the Global MVP’s are paired with “Legends” ( I had to put that in quotation marks because, c’mon… Theo? Nelson?  Kacee?).  Hopefully the MVP’s do not let the “Legends” dominate the game and let the same boring alliances from the main show dominate.

 

Survivor:  Here is the problem with modern Survivor.  All the smart players what to sit next to someone annoying at Final Tribal so it will be easier for them to win.  So when the annoying people used to go out first, now we have to spend an entire season them with them.  I was just flabbergasted that the one dude whose name I have not bothered to learn yet sided with the two most annoying people this season.

 

School Spirits:  I was not expecting high art, but the acting was somehow worse than I was expecting.  Okay, I do have to admit the gay homosexual dying from a nut allergy was pretty funny.  That chick really should have laughed at that.

 

57 Channels and Only This Is On: February 26, 2023

 

The Last of Us:  They really just yadda yaddaed half the country.  Did they really walk all the way from Kansas City to Wyoming?  But I do not understand why the brother was willing to go to Colorado but then just did not go when Joel decided he would go.  Why not both of them go if the brother knows the way?  He would have come in handy with the raiders at the university.

 

Your Honor:   So I was right, the judge was not able to cover up his wife’s murder.  But I had a good laugh when the detective, who has been trying to nail the judge all season, seemed so quick to believe his, another detective was the one that killed his wife theory.  The detective should have believed that as much as a one-armed man theory.  Then you had the little kid with the gangster’s kid, who he tried to kill last season, dead to rights, and just walked away.  Then was murdered trying to leave town.  Geez.  These people are so stupid.  So is this going to start a war between the gangster and the queenpin?

 

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches:   I have no idea what is going on with the dude who was watching over Rowan and the spirit dude.  Is he attached to the watcher guy and that is why he did not show up when the other witch got captured?  Where exactly are the watcher and the spirit dude?

 

La Brea:  I had to laugh when the one sister said the other one never left her.  Well, aside from the time she went 10,000 years in the future and did not come back for thirty years.  But I guess for the other sister, it was only a couple days.

 

Wu-Tang: An American Saga:  I did not get around to it until this week, but that blacksplotation film with the ODB was quality entertainment.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: February 19, 2023

 

The Last of Us:  So is this show going to be the people who Joel and Ellie meet and then die of the week kind of show? 

 

Your Honor:   Wait, are they implicating the judge in the murder of his wife?  That is coming out of nowhere.  So is the cop grasping at straws or did he really did that too?  Probably the former because as we saw last season, he is very bad at covering up crimes; there is no why it is taking the cops years to catch him.

 

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches:  I have been paying less and less attention to this show and then all of the sudden I look up and a circle of women are kissing what looks to be a skeleton baby.  What the fork?

 

How I Met Your Father:  This reminded me of the time in college where I swore off taking the elevator for health reasons.  But I had to drop off paper work in the twentieth floor of a building.  Around the tenth floor, I realize that maybe I should change the elevator ban to just if I need to go five flights or less at around the tenth floor.  Except when I decided to finally go the rest of the way in the elevator, I leaned that the middle floors were blocked off to the general public and it was not until the eighteenth floor when the doors were unlocked.  Well, at least I got my steps in that day.

 

La Brea:  Wait, that dude had a wife?  And just when did the Exiles find a way to blackmail him? 

 

The Challenge: Ride or Dies:  How nice that they brought back the two teams that were medically eliminated to come back and watch the ending of the final.  Though, maybe they should realize if half your teams cannot even complete your final, that maybe your final is not say.  They have a similar issue on The Challenge: USA.  This franchise really needs new producer before someone dies.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: February 12, 2023

 

The Last of Us:  So what exactly did the black dude do to Shauna from Yellowjacket’s brother?  Was he just simply a rat?  But shooting a doctor in the middle of a pandemic seems really extreme even if he was a rat too. 

 

Your Honor:   Okay, so there is a bigger gangster than Jimmy, his father in law.  If Jimmy and the judge team up to take down his father in law and they end up living as one big happy family by the end of the season I am going to be mildly disappointed.

 

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches:  I have dream sequences.  They are a complete waste of time and I can never figure out what exactly what we are supposed to make of them.

 

The Challenge: Ride or Dies:  Wait, so this is a three episode finale?  Ugg, why do they drag these things out?  This was a complete waste of an episode unless you really enjoy watching people throw up.  And if you enjoy watching people throw up, you have real problems.

 

57 Channels and Only This Is On: Februvry 5, 2023

 

The Last of Us:  Oh joy, another “very special episode” of a prestige TV show.  But when every prestige TV show has a “very special episode” they just become less special.  And why would I spend almost an entire episode with two people we have never met and will be dead by the end of the episode when we barely know the two leads?  This just killed any momentum before they could even start any momentum.

 

Your Honor:   So the gangster is just now wondering how the judge got out of prison?  But I guess it was best to have the conversion in a public space because who know what would have been said or done had no one else been around.

 

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches:  Who dreams of having sex fully clothed?  I know this is basic cable, but c’mon.  And I still have no clue who the lurker dude is and why he keeps tying himself to whoever wears that key.  They need to explain him soon.

 

Quantum Leap:  Way to just ruin the set rule that if a leaper dies during a leap, they die in real life.

 

La Brea:  I have no idea who that dud who died was.  They turned him over and I was like… okay.  But really, I do not really remember anyone not in the main cast except the dude with the wild hair.  I guess I vaguely remember the guy with the knife.

 

The Challenge: Ride or Dies:  Is Olivia unlucky or does this show need better safety requirements?  She pulled apart her finger why tossing something and then almost put her eye out during the slingshot.  Then the inconstant rules on this show just continue.  Devon can drink all the sabotage fish drinks, but Horatio could not do all the sling shots.  Maybe if they would stop making things up on the fly, people will not constantly get seriously injured.  

 

57 Channels and Only This Is On: January 29, 2023

 

The Last of Us:  It was obvious that lady was not going to last long, but man, that maybe the creepiest television death of all time with the infected kiss. 

 

Your Honor:   I was wondering after the first episode just who knew about that baby.  Clearly the judge did not.  But what exactly did they talk about in prison if not that?  It is not like they were together very long.  I did not even realize they got so close that they were having sex.  Now the question is do her parents now?  They have yet to mention their grandkid.  But how awkward that the kid has the first named of a person killed by the person who provided the last name?  Though I forget if she knew about that whole thing.  If not, does the judge tell her?

 

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches:  It is hilarious that even though they are speaking English, they put on subtitles for the Irish ladies.

 

The Challenge: Ride or Dies:  Good riddance Fessy, please never come back.  And take all those Big Brothers with you.  But with the 100 hour finale, hopefully that not mean they do not stretch out the two episode finale is already too much.

Previewing Your Honor Season Two

 

Many Limited Series that get renewed are accused of doing so for category fraud reasons though you really cannot lob that accusation at Your Honor because it managed to rack up zero Emmy nominations.  While critics and award shows did not warm up to the show, Showtime did tout that it “ranks as the top debut season ever” for them.  Not Dexter, not Homeland which won Outstanding Drama Series its debut season, not Yellowjackets that had a lot of buzz last yet, but Your Honor.  But according to star Bryan Cranston, this season is definitely the last.

 

For those that need a refresher on season one: Judge's son kills gangster's son accidentally, judge gets black guy to steal the car in hit and run but gets caught, gangster thinks black guy did it, gangster's other son kills black guy in prison and gangster blew up his house, black guy’s little brother was not in the house, tried to kill gangster's other son but hit judge's son.  That little brother has been promoted to the main cast this season along with the two living Baxter children, as well as Big and Little Mo. 

 

The second season opens up with the judge in prison looking like Ted Kaczynski.  It has been a year since the events of last season and the judge is being force fed because as the guards tell him, “We’re not gonna let you die here.”  There is about five minutes of this before we get some flashback on how we got here and why the judge is there.  Things start to pick up when Rosie Perez arrives as a Assistant US Attorney who gets things set in motion of where this season is going forward.

 

For critics, and any viewers out there, that were not that into the first season, not much has changed this time around.  All the characters are still inherently stupid for the sake of pushing the plot forward.  Then giving more screen time to the kid who killed the judge’s son seems like an unnecessary detour.  Also unnecessary was the plot twist at the end of the premiere that is really forced just to add tension to the second season.  While the first season might have been the top debut season, I do wonder how many will turn into season two.  It may be best that Cranston already announced that it is ending.  Hopefully they do not reverse course again.

 

Your Honor airs Sundays at 9:00 on Showtime, but episodes will be available to stream and view On Demand for subscribers the preceding Friday.

57 Channels and Only This is On: February 21, 2021

 

Shameless:  I would say Terry surviving a bullet was the most absurd gunshot survivor bit the dude from Big Sky was shot right above the eye. Then we got a surprisingly earnest discussion about consent that I certainly would not expect from this show.  But the big kicker was Frank being diagnoses with alcoholic induced dementia.  Sure, this is a guy that got some dire diagnoses over the years, but since we have a couple episodes left, I think this may actually be the end for the Gallagher patriarch.  Though, maybe they might keep him alive for the inevitable reboot in five years.  But I do have a sinking suspicion this may be the end of the Gallagher homestead.  But what ever happened to the house in Wisconsin?  Couldn’t Lip get money from selling that?

 

Your Honor:    So despite the overwhelming evidence, the defendant getting caught lying under calling the prosecutor a naughty worry, the jury found the thug not guilty solely because the played the audio of his brother dying?  Seriously, that is all it took.  Then I see how poetic that the judge’s son was accidentally killed by the brother of the kid that was murdered for what he did, but did the little brother need to be that bad of the shot that he missed someone so bad that he hit someone who was not even in the shot of the thug hugging his mother?  But honestly, when I saw the little brother buying the gun, I was actually hoping he would get an assault riffle just so he would gun down everyone at that party, I really wanted to see more of the horrible people o this show die.

 

Snowpiercer:  So we do not get to see Jennifer Connelly this week but supposedly she made it to the station to ping the balloons.  Do they not have any other way to make contact with her why she is there?  I cannot imagine it was that easy.  If I were a betting man, I would say there is someone, or something, at that station.  I wonder how long until we see her again.

 

Big Sky:  Wow, when we got the flashback of Drew Carey’s brother bashing his wife with a hammer which turned out to be a dream sequence, I thought they were going to do it again but switch the characters, but she actually murdered her.  Man, survive a bullet to the brain only to be murdered by your wife.  Well, he was a horrible human being.

 

The Challenge: Double Agents:  Ugg, the wrong Amber won.  But is she going to be back next week?  They was that same thing in the previews that they used to bring Smashley back.  Is Lolo really going to quit like they kind of make it seem?  She seems to be irrationally going over the edge just because she has a partner that has a language barrier.

 

Wandavision:  So they just made Kat Dennings into some escape artist?  Meh.  But that was a funny car ride with Vision.  I liked how they had him do a testimonial outside the van.  Nice touch.  But we finally got the reveal most people have been expecting: it was Agatha all along.  But the big question is: did she have help?

 

The Blacklist:  Yet another Lizzy-less episode?  But it is weird she is working with so many Blacklisters just to get at Red.  Seems like there would be easier ways to get to him.

57 Channels and Only This is On: February 14, 2021

 

Your Honor:  So last week we had one sole person wearing a mask in the middle of a pandemic in all of New Orleans and this week the judge is worried about social distancing?  If you are that worried, put on a forking mask and require them in your courtroom.  But I feels like this show has gone on forever yet with one episode left, it feels like nothing is close to being resolved.  Except it looks like the end of the teacher student relationship.  Yet that felt anti-climactic, it feels like she may come back all Fatal Attraction next week. But at least that will be it.  Hopefully this is not another mini-series call that mostly for award show fraud and get renewed anyway.

 

Snowpiercer:  I really thought the daughter was going to go with Jennifer Connelly to the station.  Really bizarre that she is going alone.  Plus I am not entirely sure what happened at the end.  Were they supposed to just dumb her like that?  Wasn't something supposed to take her to the station?  But when is Layton going to exchange Mr. Wilford frostbite ability to cure his friend?  And just what is he going to give up for it?

 

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist:  Ooo, a very special episode.  But really, Tobin doing Tracks of My Tears may be the second best thing this season after Zoey rapping.  And the new girl is starting to grown on me, give her some more screen time and some ninties angst heart song to go with her vibe.

 

Big Sky:  Man, things went off the rails from the trucker and quick. The walls are closing in on him for kidnapping the girls and what does he do?  Kidnap another kid… and kills a priest.  Not to mention the whole Norman Bates homage in his freezer.  Might be time to hit the rode buddy and move to Maine.

 

The Challenge: Double Agents:  Amber on Amber violence!  But Amber M, is the clear winner as she got the best line of possibly the season when she backhandedly called Amber B. a bench.  But as great as that was, how did they manage to ruin trivia?  C’mon T.J., you do not give them a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right even if they have no clue.  But a lackluster really sums up what has been a season of lackluster challenges.

 

Wandavision:  Awesome, Kat Dennings got sucked into Wandaland.  If she does not show up next week working at the local diner in a hideous mustard uniform, I will be irate.  But boy, are the writers toying with us with one of the kids saying “kick-ass,” followed by Wanda lingering on the phrase.  Kind of makes me wonder is Kick-Ass, who also played the MCU Quicksilver, will actually show up before the end of the season.  But this Quicksilver is still a big mystery.  I originally thought someone at S.W.O.R.D., or maybe a yet to be seen villain, sent him in to mess with Wanda.  Or did Wanda conjure him back and is taxing her powers too much (the people furthest from her are just on super slow-mo) that she cannot control him like everyone else?

 

The Blacklist:  Oh yeah, the DMV guy died in real life.  But this was a pretty good send off for him.  But they ruined the Huey Lewis surprise by putting his name on the guest star list at the beginning of the episode.  They really need to do away with that.

57 Channels and Only This is On: February 7, 2021

 

Your Honor:  So people are people now just wearing masks in court now?  That was just ransom for a show that I do not believe has referenced the Coronapocalypse up to this point.  And the judge says the gangsters son is easily going to be convicted even while dismissing the juror?  So is he lying to her or is he really going to let the jury convict him?  But we did get the teacher back for the first time in maybe a month.  I originally said I found this relationship more interesting than the one on A Teacher, but now that show is over, it feels like this relationship just got ickier.  Granted the lady teacher wants to move to New York to be closer to her even though that relationship was severely undercooked since she disappeared for about a month.

 

Snowpiercer:  So to stave off global warming, they shot something into the atmosphere to cool the planet but it did too good of a job?  Huh?  This is why it is a bad idea to try and explain a sci-fi plot; you are just going to sound silly.

 

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist:  More drugged up Zoey please.  If that is a way they get more musical numbers with her, so be it.  But what is up with the neighbor and his Aussie accent so thick that it even comes through when he sings?  Is he originally from there and moved next door as a teen?  Did he spend so much time Australia after school he picked it up?  Did they hired the actor because he was hot and when they realized he could not do an American accent they just said fork it?

 

Big Sky:  So if you are shot in the head, the frontal loab is the place to be hit?  Got it.  But just when I thought the show could not get any any weirder, here comes Dre Carey’s brother’s lawyer with her story of biting the head off a chick. And she said it to a doctor.  Oh my.

 

The Challenge: Double Agents:  Just how incompetent is Meechie that Josh just kept on hilariously throwing balls at places in te wall that had a brick wall against them and still lost?  Ugg, I really need Josh gone.  But after that performance, everyone left without a Gold Skull will want to send him in to take Josh’s.  But we finally got out first challenge this season that did not completely suck, yet they almost screwed it up with that stupid rule that they would keep going until both partners won in the final round.  I wonder if CT just gave up because no way Big T ever wins a round so why waste your energy?

 

Wandavision: Well, that was shocking.  Sure, with all the talk of her brother over the last couple episodes, it is not that surprising that Quicksilver showed up, but it was completely shocking that it was that Quicksilver who showed up.  I was not expecting mutants to show up this soon and on Disney+ and definitely was not expecting they were going to do the Fox X-Men.  But gotta love Darcy’s line about Wanda recasting her brother.  Though it would have been even better had they did the old soap opera troupe of having the announcer say, “This week, Quicksilver will be played by Evan Peters.”  

 

The Blacklist:  I feel like we have done this episode before where Lizzie needed to testify in court to keep a Blacklister behind bars.  That is the problem with a show that has gone on for this long.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: January 24, 2021

 

Your Honor:  So the judge was able to get a reprieve from the gangster by saying he could get his son off by preceding over his murder case.  Um, so now that he is not, why doesn’t the gangster just kill him?  Were the cops pulling over the black lady judge their bidding?  We already know the gangster has the cops in his back pocket when they kidnapped the kid he originally thought killed his son and interrogated him before he was even booked.

 

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist:  Meh, after Zoey sang the song to start the episode, I thought we were going to get another full episode of just her singing, which was my favorite episode of the first season.  But she still heard other people sing and just kept singing the same song over again.  I wonder if they are saving a full glitchy episode for later this season even though this seemed like the perfect time as the stress of her dad dying and stress from her new job overwhelmed her.

 

The Challenge: Double Agents:  Um, I thought T.J. hated quitters.  I wonder if his speech was at the behest of some producer who wanted this to be a teaching moment on mental health or if that actually came from the heart from a guy who loves seeing contestants fall from very high heights into water.  But seems right that right after being reinstated, Smashley goes right back out in her very next chance to be sent into elimination.

 

Wandavision:  I am quickly realizing a weekly half hour mystery box show may not be the best idea.  These decade parodies are already getting tiresome.  Making it worse is that I think most people can already guess the mystery: Wanda broke mentally, created a sitcom world where she and Vision can live happily ever after and S.W.O.R.D. agents, like the black lady, are trying to break her out of it.  But all will be forgiven if next episode one of the twins grows up to be a young Republican and the episode after that the other twin gets sent to live with his auntie and uncle in Bel-Aire.

 

The Blacklist:  Um, why does the FBI have easily available bombs that they can check out?  That is not something I want our intelligence agency on hand.  And is car bomb the best idea Lizzie came up with to kill Red?  Even worse, when that plan failed she thought, well, I still have this bomb, might as well use it to sneak into the hospital where Red was admitted.  Seriously, why not inject him with something if you are that close that you can plant a bomb on his hospital bed?  That was just some Bond villain level of stupidity.

 

57 Channels and Only This is on: January 17, 2021

 

 Shameless:  Yet another Showtime show that features a teacher forking their student right now?  Last decade, Game of Thrones kicked off a decade of shows that features siblings hooking up, is this the new official taboo for this decade between this, Your Honor and A Teacher?  I hope not because I am ready for this topic to die.  Never a good sign when the Milkovichs move next door and that is not the grossest thing that happens in the episode.

 

Your Honor:  I knew last week this was not going to be the finale, because, you know, six more episodes, but it sure seemed like it because of the gangster would have no problem killing a judge.  And he almost did, but the thing that saved him was the judge knew his son was going to be arrested. Kind of a cheap play to extend the episode. 

 

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist:  Last week’s musical selections were not great but they corrected that this week with an influx of nineties music.  And it seemed like I was not the only one who thought the workplace was turning into a bit of a sausagefest.  But if Zoey poached three chicks from the fifth floor, isn’t that place a sausagefest now?

 

The Challenge: Double Agents:  So that makes Natalie the second people in two seasons to come on the show pregnant.  Though Melissa last season made it all the way to the finals without realizing.  And with her took the only female Gold Skull with her while three dudes had one.  Guess it is going to be much easier for the females to make it to the finales, but the dudes are going to run out of Gold Skulls soon unless someone who already has one gets sent in next.  Hopefully Fessy just keeps getting thrown in after all the Gold Skulls are passed out.

 

Search Party:  That new dude is extremely annoying.  Really everyone is extremely annoying this season.  Portia is the only entertaining part of the show so far.

 

Wandavision: They have been saying this show is going to be weird for a while but I still was not prepared for it.  I wonder if they are just going to continue doing a new decade every episode or if they will speed thing up.  Hopefully by episode five, Vision gets sent off to live with his auntie and uncle in Bel-Aire.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: January 10, 2020

 

Your Honor:  So is next week the series finale next week because the fifties mob boss is not forking around.  Dude blew up the house of the people he thought carries out a hit on his son; he does not seem like a guy who would have problems taking out a judge.  Or is fifties mob boss actually going to take the time to figure what exactly went down before administering his own type of swift justice?

 

Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist:  Oh how nice to have the show back.  I have been calling Jane Levy the Emma Stone of television since her Suburgatory days so I was really giddy when Mo called Zoey, “a sad Emma Stone Halloween costume.”  But I will say the songs were a bit lacking in the premiere.  Hello Dolly was fun and grand, but I did not even know what song that new guy was singing.  But is the love triangle now over?  Simon did sing a lust song so there is still a flame.  I really hope Zoey does not go back and forth all season.  But there really is much of an option for Simon.  Joan just left, the other two women on the show are married or recently widowed.  Maybe the new guy should have been a woman to break up the sausagefest at Sparkpoint.  But I guess there is always Ava Price two floors up.  Oh yeah, I guess there is always Mo.

 

The Challenge: Double Agents:  I have always found Nelson boring but I am beginning to feel bad for him.  Last season he went home late, going into elimination so his body Corey did not have to.  Now he got blindsided by someone who he thought was a friend, such a close friend he went to Corey’s gender reveal party (wait, did Corey knock up yet another chick).  I really hope Fessy keeps getting thrown in until he loses.  Maybe he can go in against Josh and have them eliminate each other some how.  Oh, and that drone challenge sucked massively.

 

57 Channels and Only This Is On: January 3, 2021

 

 

Your Honor:  So they are just blowing up houses now?  It is not enough to murder the person you think killed your kid, but you have to take their whole family?  And just how does the OPP (yeah you know me) plan on covering up a murder?  It seems hard to turn blunt force trauma to the head into a suicide.  I also do not understand how the judge just completely deflected a bloody rag in front of a detective and a senator.  But that kid is going to start blabbing some more at some point.  I thought he might try to pick up the sister at the memorial.  Maybe next episode.

 

 

His Dark Materials:  Oh hey, James McAvoy, finally for the first time this season.  Though no explanation of where he was all season.  But we did learn that Lyra’s is prophecized to destroy fate… which is a bit of irony, I guess.

 

 

A Teacher:  What a waste of time.

 

 

57 Channels and Only This is On: December 27, 2020

 
Shameless:  Once again Carl’s day on the job was the most entertaining part, though I thought maybe he would end up losing another partner who would get suspended for police brutality.  But once again, that was really the only entertaining part of the episode.  Worse was that it really got dark this week with the kid that had a hole in his heart and Lip calling Debby a bad mother.
 
 
Your Honor:  Good thing the judge knew what was going on because I was lost when they switched out the guards at the funeral.  Though I do not understand why.  Did momma send her son to avenge the other son?  Why have him kill someone with only two weeks on his sentence.  Why not send low level thugs.  Was that not what the people in infirmary doing?  Though Kofi is kind of just Schroeder’s Cat right now because we do not know if the brother actually kills him or not.  Maybe momma just wants her son to deliver another type of message.
 
 
His Dark Materials:  So there are no real rules in the middle rule?  The specters were supposed to kill adults.  But Snake Dude and Lyra’s mom were just able to walk through, Lyra’s mom can now control them, and even the English professor can walk freely.  But I did laugh when the one girl asked to hug her after admitting to attempted murder.  That is the point I turn and run from those psychopaths.  But I have to wonder, if all the adult went up to the mountains, why did they not take their children with them?  But I feel that will just be added to the already long list of answers to questions we will never get.  Number one right now is what ever happened to James McAvoy?  Is he just not going to be in this season?  Lyra went into the gap after him and he just disappeared.
 
 
A Teacher:  My favorite scene in this show, okay, the only one that I probably did not hate was when the FBI chick from Mr. Robot said the student did not look old enough to be buying alcohol.  C’mon, that dude looks like he is pushing thirty.  Him looking way old enough to buy beer is what keeps this from being the worst show of the year.

The Challenge: Double Agents:  I know we are in the middle of a pandemic, but c’mon, they really could not find anyone else besides Josh to fly to Iceland for a chance to win a million dollars?  They were able to get an Olympian, a WWE wrestler, a bunch of people from European shows I never heard of, but they still had to call Josh to fill out the cast?  It is a shame this episode did not happen a decade ago because that CT eats Josh whole and spits out the bones.  But what was LeRoy thinking?  After Fessy wimped out what was obvious a physical competition against someone half his size, LeRoy wimps out against probably the second weakest guy there.  There are only five skulls going out to dudes this time, might want to get one sooner than later.  I really hope TJ sends people home skull-less this season to teach people not to wait.

57 Channels and Only This Is On: December 20, 2020

 
Shameless:  I would have never thought Carl’s boring first day at work would be so entertaining.  Unfortunately none of the other storylines this week were.
 
 
Your Honor:  Just a lot to unpack here with someone so stupid about stealing a car he runs a red light, dirty cops torturing a kid yet no one asked why he does not need an inhaler, the dog is still trying to get that blood covered rag that he inexplicably was able to get under that table, a judge stripping a seventeen year old in court, all this seems like it is going to start a gang war, just straight up bird murder for no apparent reason, but really all I want to talk about is that the kid turned out to be forking his hot teacher.  And they were doing it before school?!?  Somehow that is already infinitely more interesting than A Teacher.
 
 
His Dark Materials:  Just what does Snake Dude do in the real world that he is able to just amass that much valuable artifacts?  And he can just shut down the park with security at a moment’s notice?  Granted not the best security if he is just letting anyone in with any actual ID.
 
 
Big Sky:  I did all the eye rolls when a silly fly fishing memory mad the PI think that there may be a basement only to come back shortly after the girls were moved.  And why did no one think to check for DNA in the creepy shipping container that was underground for no apparent reason?  But as stupid as that was, another random epiphany lead the PI to the diner where she shockingly shot Drew Carey’s brother right between the eyes.  Killing off what was presumably the main character was shocking enough butt to follow that up a couple episodes later by killing off the big bad was just as shocking.  If only anything in-between was entertaining.  So what happens now?  They have to get the creepy partner, but how long could that take, an episode or two?
 
 
A Teacher:  So not only do we not get to see the arrest, we do not even get to see prison time?  Ugg.
 
 
The Flight Attendant:  The gay best friend turned out to be in the CIA?  I guess that makes the scene where Cassie took him to the wake funnier.  Though, maybe instead of hooking up with the help, maybe he should had spent more time following her because she almost got herself caught.  And maybe he should have followed up on the shredded stuff she stole.  But I guess that was an FBI matter and as we know they do not really talk with each other.  But Cassie helping the CIA may make the second season interesting.  Unfortunately every show that has gone past its source material does not really have the best track record.
 
 
The Mandalorian:  Sooooo, is that it for this show?  That was my first impression, it does not seem like there is a show without Mando and Baby Yoda.    So with Yoda to go train with Luke and… um, Ben Solo, there does not really seem like a way to get those two back together unless Jedi Adolescent Yoda and an older Mando are traveling around the galaxy.   Bu then was the Book of Boba signaling that Boba will be the focus of season three as the show transitions into a sort of anthology about different Mandalorians?  There was a lot of debate after the show whether that was a tease for a spin-off or season three  and surprisingly no word from Disney yet.

Previewing Your Honor

The first episode of Your Honor is so generic, take out the partial nudity and a couple naughty words and you probably could have mistaken it for a basic cable show from about fifteen years ago. The show follows the unfortunately even where a asthmatic runs over someone on a motorcycle while searching for his inhalers during an episode. But this is not just any asthmatic; he is the son of a judge. A very sympathetic judge, played by Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle) who will stop by a house where a crime was committed to see if a testifying beat cop could possibly see what he claims he saw before arresting someone.

Oh, and the kid on the motorcycle is also not just any kid, but the son of the most vicious crime family in the history of New Orleans despite being very religious. I guess some of those Commandments, like Thou Shall Not Kill are just suggestions. You can see exactly where this is going. Well, at least for the first episode. For as clichéd as the first episode was, the second episode is packed full of surprises, none more so than where we first see the girl the judge’s kid was forking in the premiere. Though that may be the most inconsequential part of the plot.

Crime shows like this usually feature smart people keeping one step ahead of the law and/or just barely one step ahead the antagonist, but what sets Your Honor apart and keeps itself somewhat interesting is that people start getting really dumb in the second episode. Seriously, if you are driving a stolen car, how about not run a stop sign, especially if you are black in a place where cops sometime do not even wait for a reason to pull you over.

While sometimes these stupid acts keeps things entertaining and unpredictable (see The Flight Attendant who has been great at this so far), sometimes plot contrivances can be too much like when the dog finds a blood rag, somehow loses it under a cabinet and then spends multiple episodes trying to retrieve while the owner just tells him to shut up. Almost half way through the season and I am still not sure if Your Honor is good enough, but thankfully it is billed as a limited series so I will not have to spend multiple seasons trying to figure it out.

Your Honor airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.