To Space And Beyond #TheOrville #FOX #3weekroundup #review #recap #premiereweek

To Space And Beyond #TheOrville #FOX #3weekroundup #review #recap #premiereweek

All pictures courtesy of FOX 

It’s that time of the year again, ladies and gentlemen. That’s right, it is time for us to sift through the good, bad and downright putrid refuse that is the new crop of TV shows to find out if there’s anything new worth watching this 2017-2018 season. That’s right, it’s Premiere Week! Well, OK, technically premiere week came, like a week or two ago and I’m doing my first TV review on a show that has been out for the last four or five weeks, but you get the point and you know why. “Why?” You ask. You must be new here. For any new readers, let me say that I do a review of the first three episodes of a series, rather than the first one, because I (unlike other reviewers) see the benefit in letting a show build to something. Judging an entire series by its first episode—an episode that is already going to be overstuffed by its very definition and struggling to set tone and pace and wow-factor—to me is a little over-reactive. There are tons of shows that, frankly, don’t catch on with audiences or critics the first episode out and take a little time to build before people are truly wild about it. Case in point, the first season of Seinfeld. The ratings for the first episode of that were terrible because few people knew who he was and it came on as a late spring/summer show. So, I always say that it may be excruciating at first, but give a show at least three episodes before tossing your viewership to some other mindless show.

So, with the yearly disclaimer and explanation on why I do a three-week/three-episode roundup of new shows, what do I have to say about FOX’s new Seth MacFarlane-created The Orville. Is it a fun space adventure into the unknown and great beyond, or does this thing crash and burn back to earth before ever reaching the stratosphere? Let’s find out together!

As I said, The Orville was created by Seth MacFarlane who, in another unexpected twist, decided to also star in the show himself. But wait, you’re saying that’s not unexpected as he voices all of his show’s lead characters with the exception of the defunct The Cleveland Show. You’re also thinking, “Another unexpected twist? What the hell was the first one?” Ha! The first one is that this show is not an animated comedy like Family Guy but is actually an hour-long live-action dramedy that tries to straddle the line between Seth’s trademark humor and the weightiness of a primetime sci-fi drama in the vein of Star Trek or Battle Star Galactica. So now we’re going from that first twist and leap-frogging the second twist (which I revealed first) to go to the main thrust of the show, you follow? After the second to last sentence where I referenced those two other sci-fi shows, you’re saying, “Star Trek? Battle Star Galactica? Really?” Yes, your thought is correct. This is a show about a newly-appointed space captain and his crew who voyage around space encountering new species, visiting new planets and going where no man has gone before... and a lotta places that man apparently has gone before. This is Seth’s ode to Star Trek, Star Wars and any other interplanetary sci-fi geekdom allusion you can conjure. Or is it? Hold on to that question until the end because it plays a very important role in my overall critique of the series.

We begin with Seth’s character Ed “soon-to-be Captain” Mercer walking in on his wife cheating on him with a blue alien in their New York apartment in 2418 (or 17; doesn’t really matter). His wife, played by Adrian Palicki (fresh off of Marvel’s Agents of Shield and the never-was spin-off of that show), is cheating with a blue alien who has blue juice burst from his pores, covering his own face. While this can be interpreted as a reaction to the shock of being caught, your mind immediately goes first to the other thing that happens during sex and we are straight-way given the baseline of how this series is supposed to go and the level of jokes to expect.

Anyway, Ed and his wife Commander Kelly Grayson get a divorce and we zoom ahead one year to see that the Union (this series’ Star Trek Federation) is in a mode of Manifest-Destiny-type expansion and needs to fill 3000 exploratory and combat spaceships to cruise the galaxy. Only because they are in need of so many captains does Ed get the call/promotion. And while he can’t choose his first mate (protocol, I assume) he can choose his first driver (forgot the name the show uses and it’s really just easier this way). The man he chooses to helm his ship is Lieutenant Gordon Malloy played by Scott Grimes. He is supposedly one of the best pilots in the Union but was recently demerited for doing some kind of badassery that helped to save his previous crew but damaged a spaceship. He’s also the hard-drinking, wise-cracking red head that seems needed in every spaceship film or TV show these days.

Now that we have the three main white characters, we fill out the cast with the Union-provided doctor played by veteran actress Penny Johnson Jerald; the Klingon-knockoff Lieutenant Commander Bortus; the second pilot Lt. John LaMarr or the black guy that’s supposed to actually look like a black guy and not an alien; and the young strong alien girl who is fourth in command, Lt. Alara Kitan played by Halston Sage. Kitan is there because she is super strong because the atmosphere on her planet is a lot denser and there’s more gravity, so she was able to move quickly through the ranks in the Union military.

Oh, and we also have an Iron-Giant-looking (it also looks like the original Iron Man suit that Tony made in the cave in the first movie) robot. It looks super-primitive and is an ode to Lost in Space’s Robot, mixed with a little bit of HAL and that robot that Matt Damon voiced in Interstellar. The robot comes from a planet filled with nothing but robots (ala Futurama’s Chapek 9, an all-robot planet; knew there’d be some hat-tip to Groening somewhere) that think they are superior to all organic beings. Yet, this bot does not get sarcasm. Stupid, robots.

Anyway, with all the key players met, they embark on their first mission to a planet that they use their warp-drive to get to, so it’s a fair distance from earth. A routine supplies-drop, upon arriving they are told by the guy who contacted them that the planet needs no supplies. Instead, what they need is protection. This planet is an outpost planet that serves as a “scientific playground.” Filled with researchers, all they do is make scientific discoveries and study various things that are brought to them from around the galaxy. Their most recent breakthrough has come in the form of a machine that can create a time bubble around things and then speed-up the time within said bubble. For example, they take a freshly-picked green banana, put it under the bubble, then watch as it goes from green to yellow to black and finally a flattened, juice-less peel. Though time for them has passed in seconds, inside the bubble a full month has passed. Well, they see the military application for this and are afraid that these white aliens who look, literally, exactly like that white alien woman from that last Star Trek Beyond film, will come and take it and use it to wipe out entire armies by aging them rapidly. I’m not sure if these are supposed to be the big baddies in this series like the Borg or Vulcans or Klingons or what have you, but I do know that they are defeated rather easily.

After a few members of the crew point out that the guy who called them for help had a dog licking its balls in the background of the video-call, the aliens do invade and the crew escapes back onto their ship where they then devise the plan to give the aliens precisely what they want. But what they do is send the aliens the machine with a redwood tree seed already lodged in the aging mechanism. They turn it on, set it for 100 years, then send it to the aliens who are quickly destroyed by a 100-year-old giant redwood growing through their ship. Admittedly, I thought this was pretty cool and an inventive way to defeat an enemy without having to fire a single shot of some strange phaser or photon-blaster.

And surprise, the person who helped come up with this genius idea was Adrian’s character, Ed’s ex-wife. At this point some of you who are still reading this (maybe even some who have seen the show) are pissed not just because you think, “Gosh, this guy can’t write,” but because you think I totally buried the lede and that I should’ve mentioned that Ed’s ex-wife was made his second-in-command earlier. However, the setup was so obvious from jump that this, to me, should’ve been assumed. Plus, it is in the actual description of the first episode, so...

What’s interesting is that not only did she request the assignment to apologize and basically fem-blame (when a woman blames a man for all her problems) him for her cheating—the usual “you were distant and worked a lot” shtick—she was also the one who went to his superior and suggested that Ed be given a captain position, vouching for his lethargic and unprofessional behavior for the past year as being totally influenced by her cheating. In the end, Ed half-forgives her enough to no longer object to her being his second officer. And so begins the voyage of The Orville (named after Orville Wright).

In the second episode, we are treated to more couple’s bickering and forced getting along when The Orville is contacted by a ship in distress. As it just so happens, the ship has Ed’s mother and father on it who, instead of properly explaining why they were on the ship, delve into something to do with a colon exam and seeds getting lodged into the folds of the rectum and you’re supposed to laugh but... eh! So, in order to see what’s going on, the captain and his ex-wife/first officer leave the ship (they take a smaller ship, and here it should be noted that it doesn’t seem like they have the advanced power to beam-up to something, but this other ship does). With the third-in-command nesting on an egg (yeah, we’ll get back to this in the third episode), they turn to the young Kitan to captain the ship while they briefly step off.

The brief step-off becomes anything but when they get on the ship and find it empty, then step into an elevator which locks them in and beams them away to places unknown. Suddenly, back on board the Orville, the crew see that what they thought was this huge ship is nothing more than an oversized ring pop floating in space. On Kitan’s command, they tractor-beam it toward them only for it to blow up before they can get it on board and examine it. This is her first big mistake and it knocks out some of the power. She gets treated like a child by the older parts of the crew and she is told by the doctor lady to stand up for herself and actually be in command because they left her in command for a reason.

Meanwhile, as the Orville tries to figure out what happened to Ed and Kelly, the two exes awake in what looks exactly like their old New York apartment and I have an immediate recognition/premonition of what this is. For a full day they look out the window and see the New York skyline and I am amazed because I just keep wondering how much their apartment cost and how much money they were making in 2417 because this place has a serious view. You can’t even get great views in some million-dollar apartments in New York now (trust me, I watch Million Dollar Listing New York), I can only imagine the astronomical prices 400 years from now.

The Black Guy

Anyway, as it turns out they spend a night reminiscing and not having sex until they finally awake the next morning to see that the familiar apartment view has been replaced with what’s actually outside: a bunch of red-skinned aliens staring back at them. Yep, this is a zoo. As it turns out, there are at least two races of beings that think themselves so advanced that they are superior to almost all other life: that being the robots of which Isaac is a part, and these red-skinned aliens. You can see that they clearly are more advanced because they have the beam-me-up technology that has, up until this point in the series, been absent. The crew discovers at the same time that the red aliens put out space-lures to fish for new animals for their exhibits and have finally caught some humans.

Disobeying the orders of Union command, Kitan orders the crew go rescue Ed and Kelly and wade into the dangerous territory of these red aliens. Luckily, she takes Isaac with her to speak with the red alien zookeeper, as the red aliens see the robot’s people as equals. While the alien at first wants to kill Ed and Kelly after Kitan and the robot make up a lie about the two being infected with some disease, Kitan makes a deal with him for their release. The deal: instead of keeping the live humans they get hours and hours of reality television to show in that animal cell block, beginning with The Real Housewives of New Jersey. And it is here that I let out a hardy laugh for the episode.

With all restored, the episode ends with Bortus finally hatching his egg and discovering that the child that comes out is a... girl, and this leads into the third episode.

A little background on Bortus and his people. These Klingon-looking people are apparently a race of all males. A joke is made early in the series about them not squabbling over having to put the toilet seat down or not and it is revealed that Bortus only pees once a year. They are an efficient people and highly logical and emotionless. So, Bortus and his partner (also a male) decide to have a baby. They do this by Bortus laying an egg and hatching it, which, as I previously said comes out female. Apparently, this anomaly happens at least once every 75 years but luckily Bortus and his people have a gender-change procedure that they do right after the baby’s birth. And here was where I started to take offense to the show.

Bortus and his partner initially agree that this change needs to be made but the doctor on the ship won’t perform it (she being a woman herself doesn’t see the problem). Captain Ed also won’t order the doctor to do it, so Bortus and his partner call a ship from their home planet. And things get political. Bortus, after seeing Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, changes his mind about the procedure and believes his partner will change his mind too, only for the revelation that his partner was also born female to surface. Bortus’ partner had the operation as a baby and had only recently learned of this. He wants the child to not be ostracized from society by being a female.

So, the crew follow Bortus’ people back to their home planet where more eye-rolls came to me as they flew to the surface. Apparently, the entirety of the planet has been industrialized as these people are huge exporters of galactic weaponry. It looks bleak, red and marred by destruction and weapons testing. Anyway, they land and have a tribunal or court case concerning whether there is need to do the surgery or not. Naturally, Commander Kelly is the one to defend Bortus’ new decision to not have the surgery, mainly floundering with arguments that have almost no bearing whatsoever on the actual court case or Bortus’ people. This is one of the reasons why I disliked it so much but I digress. I’ll save my critique until after the grade.

Anyway, Captain Ed has this brilliant idea to scan the planet and he finds female life. In fact, there is a female of Bortus’ race that is living high up in a nearby cave from the city in which they find themselves. They bring her to the tribunal where she testifies that she was born female and her parents escaped to the city’s limits to raise her, opting not to have her sex changed. And she lived this amazing life and is happy. The opposing attorney rightfully points out that while she may be happy, she is living the life that the parents precisely wanted to prevent for Bortus’ baby: she is ostracized and has no connection to actual society. Then, in the most “gimme a frickin’ break” moment in the series so far, she quotes from the planet’s greatest author and everyone is offended that she would sully this author’s words, only to then realize that she was actually that author the whole time. Puh-lease!

In the end, her testimony does nothing and the baby still undergoes the gender reassignment so that Bortus and his partner are left with a beautiful and healthy baby boy.

What’s my score? I give The Orville a C- to a D+. Yes, two grades. I know. I try not to do that, but in this case it seems necessary. For starters, this show has a lotta issues, so many that it’s hard to know where to begin. Let me give it credit in the one thing that it is trying to do right, which is stay true to Gene Roddenberry and other futurists’ idea of humanity being able to come to a point in time in which we can all get along and explore and learn more than we war and churn. The swift-moving, heart-pounding action of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate or even the newest Star Trek movies and shows ain’t nowhere near this series. It is not an action/adventure series. However, that doesn’t make it boring. Again, this was the original intent of Star Trek: to explore. So, older fans that are nostalgic for the non-shoot’em up style of the original Star Trek might find this to be a happy equivalent.

I will also give this show props in the design of its various creatures and aliens and even the costumes and effects, though I have a slight gripe in that the way the show is lit makes it feel too much like it is being shot on a sound stage. Holy crap, I just realized exactly what it feels like. It feels like some of the old skits that Mad TV and/or SNL used to do to make fun of Star Trek. It is lit the exact same, so even though you can clearly see that they’ve spent some money getting the costumes and special effects right, the lighting still makes it all look a little cheap.

Ultimately, the two biggest gripes I have with this show is that it is not funny/doesn’t know what it wants to be, and that the writing is so subpar that any exploration of today’s social or political ideas comes off as being more bumbling than a Three Stooges episode.

Beginning with the comedy, we already thought we knew what to expect with Seth MacFarlane not only being the creator but the lead star of the show. And while we do get a lot of his brand of comedy, what we also get is a lot of his brand of recent comedy which is not very good. Let me break this down for you: When Family Guy first premiered way back in 1999 (oh my god, that’s seriously been on almost twenty years? Man, where does time go?) Seth could stay with a plot throughout a full season of the show and through one full episode. The cancellation and subsequent renewal only strengthened the funny. But in more recent years (and the reason I stopped watching Family Guy) the show has become moreso a collection of different scenes that serve to setup the next gag rather than a cohesive plot. Don’t get me wrong, they do all still have plots, but there are so many cut-aways, fourth wall breaks and clips that scream “laugh at this” that you end up not laughing as much as you maybe should. The same went for Ted 2 and A Million Ways to Die in the West. Seth has settled into a tone of gag-comedy that diffuses the intelligence and satirical acid of early Family Guy episodes for a “don’t you find this funny” type of nudge in the gut at every joke. To me, this is what Twin Peaks did in similar fashion, except it insisted “don’t you find this deep and thought provoking?” It was because of this that I really only laughed once or twice an episode which is a terrible time/influence ratio for an hour-long dramedy. It just isn’t funny, plain and simple.

This problem is made even worse by the ill-delivered lines of the actors. The funny thing is that while I’ve seen almost all of these actors in something else and enjoyed what they did there, here I find that each episode feels like someone else’s turn to see if they can outdo the bad acting of someone from the previous episode. I thought Adrian was bad on the third episode, Halston on the second and Seth on the first. And, this in no way is an offense against Seth’s looks because I actually think he looks decent, I don’t think he should be in front of the camera. Most scenes he’s in, he is like a vanilla ice cream cone in July—he melts into the background. The supposedly witty lines he delivers are meant to come off as charming or even endearing in some instances but never quite make it past that Frat-boy level of snark that is programmed in all of us to just accept or ignore. He’s like that coworker who thinks that everyone else thinks he’s funny so he’s constantly making jokes, and then his coworkers keep giving him pity laughs which only feed into his idea that people think he is funny. Bottomline: there’s something about his performance that just does not work here.

The other reason and partial first reason why I said I gave this show such a low score is because of the writing mixed with the show’s identity. This show doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. You hear the name Seth MacFarlane and you immediately think, “Oh, comedy! Of course.” But as I stated, the comedy parts really aren’t that funny. What’s more, there really aren’t that many comedic moments per episode, whether that be one-liners, gag-setups or visual ha-has. Actually, there are more dramatic and semi-dramatic moments in the show than there are truly comedic moments, or at least more dramatic moments than those moments where you ask yourself if you should be laughing or not. You could almost say that this is more of a poorly-executed drama with comedic elements thrown in sparingly rather than a melding of the two genres. The fact that the show takes itself too seriously while floundering in the comedy is no more apparent than in the third episode.

I had so many gripes with this episode not just because I’m not a feminist but because I don’t know what the hell it was trying to ultimately say about gender identity, personality changing, choice, feminism, masculinity and the like. As an environmentalist and someone who loves nature, I always find it highly offensive when it is shown that it is solely men’s fault for polluting or ruining nature such as on Bortus’ all-male planet. There are plenty of men who love nature just as much if not more than women just as plenty of women have no problem destroying the environment. Then finding one of probably the only females on the planet and giving her the honor of being the planet’s/species’ most famous and thought-provoking writer was such poor writing that I almost turned the show off and I never do that for anything (I think I can count on one hand how many movies I’ve turned off because I couldn’t take it anymore). Forget the sexism stuff and just consider these questions because apparently the show would have us believe that: this hermit woman who has no contact with society, lives in a cave that looked like it had little to no electronic hook-ups to the city a few miles away, and who no one even knew existed, somehow became the PLANET’S most famous author and nobody knew she was female, or have never seen a picture of her or have never talked to her even over the phone? Even if she was writing under a pen name some of my fellow authors have to know how illogically stupid this is. And this is supposedly 400 years in the future.

The even bigger problem is that the show jumps back and forth between trying to go for a fun and light-hearted spoof or parody tone to after-school special at the drop of a dime. The episode with Kitan commanding the ship and her going to the doctor for advice felt less like a woman to grown-ass-woman talk and more like an after-class talk between Cory and Mr. Feeney, or Mr. Kotter and any of his troubled students (I know, that’s reachin’ back, right?). The show feels like it wants to make bold statements about things but is too timid because it doesn’t have the glossy armor of being “just a cartoon” to allow its audience to sponge out whatever message they want to glean.

“But you haven’t explained the two grades,” you say. OK, the two grades is because I felt like I was grading two different series in one, which ultimately brought both series down. I think that this show actually has a lot of potential. With Star Trek being exclusively on CBS All Access, this could fill a niche that fans have been craving for over a decade and end FOX’s reputation for getting semi-quality sci-fi shows and canceling them after one season, but it needs to do two things and neither, surprisingly, is getting rid of Seth as the lead. If I were to give advice, I would tell the show to get a new showrunner for starters, then decide on one style, which I know would be difficult to do for MacFarlane. I think deciding the style would be difficult because, and this seems crazy, but I actually think that the show works better as a drama with quirky characters than as a comedy and definitely better than the dramedy it is trying to be. I think getting a new showrunner—maybe someone off the Syfy channel or see if the District 9 director would be interested in doing TV (hell, it looks like that planned Aliens sequel ain’t goin’ nowhere)—would really fix both issues. A new showrunner could get in new writers who can write snappier dialogue and new, more creative situations as opposed to old Twilight Zone retreads—I mean humans caged as animals for alien viewing? Really? The ZONE did that 50+ years ago, and people still indulge in their Zone marathons every July 4^th and New Year’s so you’re not fooling anyone.

But if they were going to go with the comedic tone, then they need to get some of (read: all of) the people behind that old Galaxy Quest movie, which is probably what a lot of people thought they’d be getting when tuning in to The Orville. The writers, producers and director behind Galaxy Quest were all able to make an exciting and funny film out of a ridiculous concept. The Orville is taking a well-worn concept and playing it too straight-faced and the writing isn’t smart or well-informed. Again, I think this could do really well if they re-tooled to choose either drama with two funny characters in Seth and the redhead (make everyone else serious or give them biting humor), or going all-out hilarious. But what it is now is not working for most people.

Should you be watching? Eh! While I don’t really think it was boring, it was very predictable. And I think that regardless of what tone they go with for the show, the actual lighting needs to be changed so that it doesn’t look so sketch-comedy-show-ish, but I do see it being a time killer for people who love Star Trek and aren’t willing to pay for CBS All Access quite yet. The Orville airs at 9pm on Thursdays only on FOX. Catch previous episodes On Demand and on FOX.com.

What do you think? Have you heard of The Orville? If so, have you seen it? If not, do you think you’ll check it out now? If you have seen it, what did you think? What improvements, if any, do you think the show should make? Who is your favorite character? And what the hell is Norm MacDonald doing voicing that strange snot-blob thing? Let me know it the comments below.

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking

If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Seasons 1, 2 and 3 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 4 coming summer 2018. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary on Amazon. Season 2 of that coming real soon. And look for the mystery novels The Knowledge of Fear #KnowFear and The Man on the Roof #TMOTR coming this fall/winter. Twisty novels as good as Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train, you won’t want to miss them. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, “Space. It’s big and... black, and seems to stretch on forever.”

‘Hey, I know somethin’ else that’s big and black and stretches on forever! Ha!” – a quote from Big D*** Willie

P.S. Crude, I know. That was a test. If you didn’t laugh at that line, then chances are you probably won’t be laughing too often at this show. And if you did, then chances are that you still won’t be laughing very much at this show. I’ll try to think of a better sign-off line next time. 

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Zombies are Set to Walk Any Day Now, Pumpkin Spice is Everywhere and That TV Show You Totally Didn’t Expect To Come Back Is Totally Back! #PremiereWeek #ABC #FOX #NBC #CBS

Zombies are Set to Walk Any Day Now, Pumpkin Spice is Everywhere and That TV Show You Totally Didn’t Expect To Come Back Is Totally Back! #PremiereWeek #ABC #FOX #NBC #CBS

That’s right, laids and gents, the time has come for another crazy fall premiere week/season. Why season instead of just one or two weeks? Because the political shenanigans that have threatened to not only upend our country and current society as we know it under the leadership of orange-skinned or pant-suited tyrants are only now getting to the debates, which have frightened the major networks (and a few cable channels) into premiering their new shows at ridiculously staggered intervals. Because of Monday night’s first presidential debate, NBC has chosen not to premiere Timeless until October 3, while ABC has decided to do a similar thing with their new drama Conviction. While I think that delaying the premieres may be good in this case, I say that with a huge caveat: many of the new shows that premiered later into the season last year didn’t have a good chance to catch on, or couldn’t break preset viewing patterns. With the exception of Supergirl, ABC’s Wicked City, AMC’s Into the Badlands and a few other crap shows not worth mentioning struggled to find audiences. And while Into the Badlands may have gotten a renewal, most everything else did not. While I am well aware of the binge/Netflix-culture of today’s gotta-have-it world not being as tied down to certain norms, I still think that all shows benefit from one set deluge in the fall and again mid-winter after New Years, rather than a new show premiering each month, then going on hiatus, replaced with something for a few short weeks then back and forth and back and forth. While it encourages bingeing, I’m still not convinced that we as audience members enjoy the show more or as much as we think we do when bingeing. It makes water cooler talk way harder. But anyways...

Wait a minute, was that whole thing my opening paragraph? Oh my god! That was way too long. And then I went too deep into the subject matter of the schedule and... That definitely should’ve been in the second paragraph. Now I’ve wasted a second paragraph talking about how the first should’ve been at least two paragraphs, completely missing the point that this post is to inform people about some of the new shows coming this fall. Yeah, still knockin’ that rust off. Let’s get to the shows.

This year, let’s begin with the wimp of the major networks and go from there. I’m talkin’ about NBC.

NBC

For whatever reason—either because they think they’re returning shows are so fantastically great that they don’t need any new stuff or because they really couldn’t find anything that great to put on after all the really good shows went to FX and AMC, the good shows to ABC and FOX, and the decent shows to CBS—NBC has decided to premiere just three shows this fall. Frankly, none of them float my boat all too well, even after seeing countless commercials for them during NBC’s wonderful coverage of the 2016 Summer Olympics. While I keep an open mind for all shows, I can’t figure out which one of the three is the least appealing, so we’ll begin with The Good Place.

The Good Place

The Good Place follows the life—er... I mean, death and afterlife of Eleanor Shellstrop played by Kristen Bell. After living a far-less-than-stellar life rife with misanthropy, apathy for others, self-centeredness and a slew of curse words, she dies and goes to heaven or... The Good Place. Ha! Get it! Because it’s the name of the show. The joke’s probably funnier on the show. Her first overwhelming instinct is that she has somehow ended up in the wrong place. Not only should she not be in heaven, but she makes the argument that she shouldn’t even be dead yet. She makes this argument to Ted Danson in his return to goofy comedy after stints on more serious CBS dramas. Ted plays the mayor of the city in which Kristen’s character now resides. While he promises to look into the mystery behind her appearance in heaven and if her death was warranted, Kristen is paired with dorky black guy Chidi played by William Jackson Harper. Not only is he her guide to the new heaven where everything is roses, rainbows, lollipops and drunken nights with non-hangover mornings, but he is also revealed to be her soul-mate. Surprise, fool!

From here, the show seems to roll along in the same vein as most fish-out-of-water sitcoms as Eleanor explores/learns what it means to truly be a good person. Based off the commercials alone, I can’t figure out who this show is quite for. I can’t see it appealing to actual Christians as the spectrum of afterlife belief is so varied amongst all of them, that I’d find it hard to believe they would watch something like this for an extended period of time. Also, the euphemisms and funny twist-of-words for all the curses that she tries to employ through the show, while cute in a 30 to 60-second commercial, may grow immensely annoying over the course of a season, though I’m sure the writers would tone that down. Even worse, the show seems to be very much about nothing, and not in a good Seinfeld way. Again, I haven’t seen an episode and will give you my judgment after three episodes as always, but at the moment I can’t see this turning into a full series (maybe a full season) of comedic shenanigans that sitcoms so often thrive off. For instance, because it is heaven there shouldn’t be any random hookups—a singles’ sitcom staple. Eleanor is not married with children so the kids/family angle is gone, and she really isn’t a detective/sleuth so things like iZombie or other out-there concepts are also gone. This is really just laughing about the bad surrounded by good, which, at some point, can get old and feel more like we’re laughing at someone because they're different than us. Not that great of a message for a show billed as a wholesome comedy.

The strength of this show is in the casting as Kristen is everywhere right now and I’ve always loved her, and Danson is an old pro. Harper, while I’m not familiar with his work, also looks good. Ultimately, I think this show will be successful or fail based on the NBC network’s viewership’s eagerness to find a laugh amidst the drama-heavy slate of shows across the network. Other than this, the returning Superstore is the only real comedy that NBC has invested in after the critically-acclaimed but ratings-disappointments of Parks and Rec, Community, A to Z, Bad Judge and a slew of other shows over the last seven years. Will you tune in for a Good laugh or are you a soulless, heartless atheist with no chance of ever getting to meet Ted Danson in the afterlife? The Good Place airs Thursdays at 8:30pm on NBC.

That was a far too long preview of a show. I’ll try to cut it down to my standard from last year.

Next, This is Us.

This Is Us

Similar to The Good Place, NBC’s Olympics coverage bombarded viewers with advertisements for their new drama This Is Us. Fresh off his Emmy win for his role in FX’s American Crime Story: The People vs OJ, Sterling K. Brown was front and center for much of the commercials and promotion material. However, the sad thing in all of this was that even though they showed countless commercials for this series and even showed a reaction clip of people who watched the first two or three episodes and talked about how moving and heartwarming it was, I still have no idea what this show is actually about. That’s right, it’s another show that cannot communicate its draw within a commercial. I am flabbergasted by how someone in Hollywood would’ve elevator-pitched this successfully, but somebody did. So... Anyway, Brown is joined by Mistresses and Revenge alum Justin Hartley who, I guess plays some kind of Hollywood type, maybe an actor, though this isn’t made clear in the advertising. Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore play a young couple on the cusp of starting their family as she is in labor with triplets. Then there is Chrissy Metz who plays a fat woman who is friends with Justin’s character. She meets a fat guy and wants to lose weight and can’t get involved with a fat person right now, and being a fat guy he’s funny and lovable, and laughs all around. The commercial then ends with Brown’s character revealing that he was orphaned at a fire station by this old black guy who he confronts on the stoop of some apartment building. Angry, he tells the man that he turned out alright without him, then seems to quickly forgive him and invite him to meet his grandkids.

All of this is supposed to be heartwarming (as said by the beta-viewers on the commercial) and really make you feel for these people going through life. Apparently, there is supposed to be one strand uniting them all, but with each commercial I found myself caring less and less. Again, what is the show about? Why would I care about these characters? The commercial is so nondescript in a bad way (not in the American Horror Story good way) that this has to be my least anticipated show of the fall. It might be as fantastically touching as a Hallmark holiday movie, but.. eh! We shall see. This Is Us airs Tuesdays at 10pm on NBC. Will This Is Us become a part of you?

Lameee! I tried to do something slick and funny with that last line and it fell completely flat. Stupid words, always messin’ up what I wanna say! Moving on!

Timeless

Probably one of my most anticipated new fall shows, NBC’s Timeless stars Goran Visnjic (previously of ER fame) as a sinister time traveler who seeks to alter the history of some of America’s (and the world’s) greatest historical events. While not all of these alterations are bad (he helps the Hindenberg land safely, thusly saving the lives of three dozen people), they all have consequences that ripple through time’s expanse and effect us today. It is up to a team of three... or four or however many they want for that week to chase him through time with their own time machine vortex-thingy to stop him. See? See how easy it was to explain the concept of that show? And you can get all of that from the commercial. You’re probably even plotting in your head all the ways the series could go, the events they could cover. It’s simple, yet can get so complex. Granted, this is about concept more than character but it still has potential for great execution.

The team is filled out by Abigail Spencer (she’s a familiar face from multiple series), Matt Lanter and funnyman Malcolm Barrett. It promises fun period-piece adventures while reminding us of just how much things have changed and stayed the same. As already stated, Timeless will have a later premiere than the other two shows already mentioned. It premieres Monday, October 3 at 10pm.

ABC

Home-cave of the cancellation bear, the alphabet network always comes with a plethora of new shows to sub-in for the shows decimated by the previous season’s slaughtering of decent TV. While NBC has only three shows to premiere over the course of three weeks, ABC has a new show for nearly each night on its schedule. We’ll begin with Monday where the surprise cancellation of Castle left an hour-long hole in the 10’clock timeslot after Dancing With the Stars. In this slot, they’ve placed Conviction.

Conviction

Starring Hayley Atwell (formerly Peggy Carter of Agent Carter/Captain America-fame) as a defense attorney with a heart of gold, from what I understand the show follows her and her team as they try to solve the crime of their clients and dig into the truth of what really happened before their clients are convicted of wrongdoing... or slide when they actually did do something wrong. Either way, it puts her into a tough kick-butt-worthy role similar to her days as Carter, while giving her a softer, more nurturing edge—testament to the female-leaning edge of the network. While I am glad to see more of Hayley... Mmm, more Hayley (and there’s your sexist comment of the day. You’re welcome!), I am a little taken back by the tone of the show. Castle dominated the Monday timeslot not just because it had two lovable, charismatic leads with great chemistry, but because it played well to the drama/comedy aspect that people often like to see to wind down their first day back into the workweek. Reality shows tend to do so well on Mondays because people don’t want heavy mental fare after the exhausting Monday. But since CBS hasn’t had a problem with its shows, I’m sure conviction can do just fine. Still, after my three viewings, if I feel it is better suited for a different day, I will tell you.

Conviction airs Mondays at 10pm on ABC. It will premiere one week after the first presidential debates. Next up, American Housewife.

American Housewife

Sitcom veteran role player Katy Mixon (of Mike and Molly fame) gets her first starring role as a typical American Housewife in this new 30-minute sitcom. While the commercials haven’t quite made it clear if this is a multi-cam or single-camera show (a la Modern Family), it does have the vibe of a new-age Roseanne. Joined by veteran actor Diedrich Bader (of Drew Carey Show-fame) who plays her eccentric husband, the two navigate life as a typical American Middle-class family situated somewhere in middle America. Katy is sure to bring her down-south sass to the role and the commercials look promising, though typical of such a show.

The polar opposite of NBC, ABC has decided to go heavy on the comedy and feature, not one but two nights of back-to-back comedies on Tuesday and Wednesday, all geared toward family viewing. With American Housewife sandwiched between the likes of Fresh Off The Boat and The Goldbergs, it should play well to the same audience and eke out a modicum of success for the network. American Housewife will air Tuesdays at 8:30pm on ABC and premieres October 11^th after the second presidential debates.

Speechless

Sticking with comedy, but moving to Wednesdays, we have ABC’s Speechless. Headed by Minnie Driver in yet another attempt of hers to break into the steady paycheck of the American sitcom market, she plays matriarch to a family whose life revolves around their handicapped son. While he has siblings, the family has been forced to relocate and change schools countless times as the son struggles to fit into a society that still has lots to learn about disability adjustments. The commercials I’ve seen of it don’t delve into the boy’s affliction, but I may have missed such a diagnosis in the few times I’ve watched. The boy, however, seems to have MS as, similar to Theorist Stephen Hawking, he is confined to a wheelchair and cannot speak for himself. Here is where Reno 911! vet Cedric Yarbrough comes in to serve as some sort of speech surrogate (hence, the name of the show).

The sassy, take-no-BS, angry but lovable black man shtick on full display here, much of the comedy will be mined from the relationship between Cedric and the boy as he interprets what the young man says, and between Minnie and Cedric as he interacts with the overbearing mother. What Black-ish tried to do with modern blackness, this show will try to do with the trials and tribulations of being handicapped and being the family/caretakers of someone with a disability. Truthfully, I’m not very interested in sitcoms these days and the ones that I did like from Fox last year both got canceled. Regardless of how good these shows are, I probably won’t tune in regularly to Speechless and American Housewife. Speechless will air on Wednesdays at 8:30pm on ABC. It premieres Sept. 28^th.

Designated Survivor

Ending the comedy additions to the network, Designated Survivor ends the Wednesday night with another political drama that has promised to be unlike previous DC-centered productions. The always committed Jack Bauer—er, I mean Kiefer Sutherland returns to TV in yet another riveting role. Based around the very real idea that during large political speeches (not just the State of the Union) in which the majority of the top federal governing body is cloistered into one area (think President, Vice President, Secretary of State and on down), one person from the President’s cabin is chosen as a designated survivor to stay within a plan of succession in case something horrific happens to the entirety of the top staff. Well, something terrible happens. From the commercials we see that a bomb goes off during the State of the Union address, killing the President and pretty much everyone in the federal government. Because of this Kiefer is sworn in as President when before, he had never been elected to anything in his life—a fact we learn from Kal Penn’s character. Oh yeah, Kal Penn is in this thing, too, though I don’t know what role he plays yet. While I can see this making for a great movie concept, thinking toward the future, this show could become very stale and similar to any other political drama by the end of the first season. With that said, I still look forward to the insanity of a guy who has no idea what he’s doing becoming president amidst the country’s greatest tragedy and how he will handle that, as he and everyone around him has to know that whoever dared kill the federal government deserves a war, but more importantly wants a war. And how will his family deal with it? Obscurity to the most protected, scrutinized family in the world? Only time will tell. Designated Survivor airs at 10pm Wednesdays on ABC.

Notorious

Thursday night sees an unexpected entry in the TGIT lineup. With Kerry Washington toting around another gut-full of her NFL-baller husband and that not playing into the plot of Scandal, Rhimes and her cohorts have decided to delay the premiere until midseason. This move has made way for another scandalous show, Notorious. Hoping to feed off the OMG-crowd of Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder, Notorious follows the working relationship between a high-powered celebrity attorney and a national news show producer as they decide what will and won’t be the biggest news stories. Very similar to my own novel A Negotiation of Wounds (sequel coming soon), the show feeds on public perception and how a court case plays out in the eyes of the public, and how that makes or breaks the news and vice versa. As an example, if the news producer wants to paint the lawyer’s client in a bad light, make him America’s newest villain a la Nick Dunne in Gone Girl, then that just makes everything much harder for the lawyer. And with TV vets Piper Perabo as the news producer and Daniel Sunjata (of Rescue Me fame) as the lawyer, things promise to get hot and downright devious as they work to control the narrative at every turn.

ABC clearly has high hopes for Notorious as they have slotted it in a fantastic slot at 9pm on Thursdays right behind the long-standing Grey’s and before How To Get Away. The biggest problem I see with this is that if the writing is subpar and less than emotional, it could damage the entire brand of TGIT.

Fridays and Sundays stay pretty much the same with the exception of ABC’s Secrets and Lies making its triumphant return after delaying its spring second season premiere to take advantage of the gaping hole left in the Sunday night schedule. Though not new, it will continue in the vein of an anthology series with Juliette Lewis’ detective character picking up another case rife with secrets... and, uh... lies.

FOX

A network always searching for the next big think, FOX has come under fire in the last few years for canceling shows that had yet to hit their rhythm but was gaining steam in many fans eyes. This included such shows as Second Chance and Almost Human. While it has made questionable decisions like canceling freshman comedies Grandfathered and the Grinder, while renewing the low-rated Sleepy Hollow after one of the two main leads left, and renewing Scream Queens after a season of volatile ratings, it seems to have stuck to a few trends while bucking others. The network which has always skewed younger seems to have veered into nostalgia land to grab a slice of the older demographic this season with the onslaught of shows based on past film franchises. While they started this trend last year (or a few years ago) most notably with Minority Report, they continue it this year with the likes of Lethal Weapon and The Exorcist. With Monday and Tuesday staying much the same as last season (Lucifer moves to 9pm on Mondays), we start on Wednesday with Lethal Weapon.

Lethal Weapon

Yet another procedural that will stick heavily to the case-by-case weekly format while plying the familiar winks from the film franchise, Lethal Weapon stars Damon Wayans as Murtaugh, the freshly 50-year-old cop with a bum ticker that nearly killed him on the day of his newest baby’s birth. Much to live for and trying not to have another heart attack, he nearly retires the day he gets partnered with his newest young partner Martin Riggs (played by Clayne Crawford), a Texas transfer new to the LA scene. Just like in the movie Riggs just recently lost his wife and now has a death wish that causes him to over-commit to the dangerous and deadly in his pursuit of criminals.

So what makes this concept fresh from the 80s where first we saw it? Umm... The black guy is already a proven comedian? Honestly, nothing. The difference between this and the movie looks so negligible that it's a wonder they didn’t just reboot it into a movie. Still, with Wayans in the role of “gettin’ too old for this sh—oh, my bad! Can’t curse on network TV” guy, it could make for an interesting watch. And with the likes of McG behind the camera, it looks similar to a long-canceled show entitled Fastlane. I ain’t got time. Look it up! My biggest hope is that they don’t just have a weekly case, but that they roll with the one overarching big case that all of the smaller crimes feed into at the end of the season, but that may be too much to ask.

Lethal Weapon airs Wednesdays at 8pm on FOX, right before Empire.

Pitch

Speaking of minority capitalization—something both FOX and ABC have been very deft at achieving in the last 10 years—FOX throws viewers a curveball on Thursdays with the arrival of Pitch. Yes, I just pulled that reference out of the stereotypical entertainment-writer handbook for shows that deal with sports. Curveball. Just stupid! Anyway, Pitch, like more than a few other new shows I’ve seen pitched to us (there it is again! When will it stop) has a premise that sounds better as a two-hour movie than a 22-episode seasonal series. Even 10-13 episodes is pushing it. Pitch follows the drama, tragedy, struggle and triumph of Ginny Baker as she becomes the first woman to pitch in Major League Baseball. Played by Kylie Bunbury (I know her from Under the Dome; she is just... breathtakingly beautiful), the show flashes back and forth between her entry into the major leagues now, and what she did as a child to make it there. It is a feminist love-letter to sports. While I see no problem integrating women into the MLB as it is not a contact sport, I would have issue with the same going for football and basketball, as I’m sure plenty of fans would. 

To a larger point, I wrote that last sentence to make the point that this show courts precisely that critique. It will not be subtle about its aim and will field criticism from the point it’s trying to make. The strange part to me is that it looks like a family drama. Strange because shows with political statements to make do better when in categories similar to ABC’s American Crime or FX’s American Crime Story—far more serious and stoic about the subject matter. Again, this is only the tone I’ve gotten from the commercials so it could be far different than what I am envisioning, but we will see if it can weather the storm of critics who will hate it because of what it stands for, as well as the possibly low ratings due to the strength of its competition (it got lucky that Scandal wasn’t coming back because they’d play to a similar demo). Pitch airs Thursdays at 9pm on FOX right after Rosewood.

The Exorcist

Friday sees FOX’s old standby Hell’s Kitchen returning to open the night. We Americans still can’t get enough of the angry Brit who has another slew of men and women to terrorize in his LA kitchen. But to pair with his hellacious outbursts, FOX will air their TV version of The Exorcist. If the summer box office has told us anything, horror is huge right now. FOX Studios not only has American Horror Story playing over on FX (soon to be joined in January by Legion and Tom Hardy’s Taboo) but they also have Scream Queens on FOX. And now comes The Exorcist based on the book/movie of the same name from the 70s. Little info on this one and how it will adapt the novel or movie into a full series, but from what I’ve gathered, it is supposed to follow the exploits of Fathers Tomas Ortega and Marcus Keane as they travel the country/world performing exorcisms. Again, little is known about the full plot of the season, so I can’t tell you if this is a case-by-case procedural or if the season will stick with one or two cases that stretch a large expanse of episodes, but I must say that I am intrigued by this series. The concept of an exorcist by itself is populated with so many possibilities that I can see this series going in a thousand different directions every week, let alone throughout a full season.

The Exorcist airs Fridays at 9pm on FOX.

Son Of Zorn

Last, and probably least, is FOX’s Son of Zorn. In keeping with their Animation Domination Sunday brand that had been recently interrupted with the addition and success of Last Man on Earth, FOX greenlit this animation-live action hybrid. A great cast filled with comedy vets Cheryl Hines, Tim Meadows and Jason Sudekis voicing Zorn, the show follows an animated barbarian from another realm named Zorn. Bored with his life as ruler over this other realm, Zorn returns to our earth where he has a human son with Hines. Gone for much of the boy’s life, only now does he try to bond with him and be the father he never was. He even gets a regular job here as he hopes to stay close to the boy. Another fish-out-of-water concept, Zorn still thinks with his hefty sword first and has the mind of someone on the battlefield even when trying to adapt and adopt modern concepts. To make this simple, I do not want to see this show. I’m sure it has its good points, but... eh! It looks like a show that’ll be good for two seasons, then fizzle/slog through a third season before dying, and that’s my thought based solely off the commercials. But again, time will tell.

From FOX we move to...

CBS

Another network filled to the brim with returning fair of Survivor, NCIS and Scorpion, CBS has two new notable series. We begin on Tuesdays with Bull.

Bull

Bull stars former NCIS actor Michael Weatherly as Dr. Jason Bull, a jury consultant for the defense. From what was shown on the commercial, his job is to help the defense team and their client to choose the perfect jurors, and craft the perfect story that will get them off. In doing this, he and his team use the latest in psychoanalytic technologies to help predict the voting behavior and thought patterns of each juror both pre-trial and during the adjudication. Think of it sort of as a CSI or Law and Order but focused solely around the jury and not necessarily the victims.

If you’re into the psychology behind why people do what they do and why a jury would vote a certain way (and after watching American Crime Story: People vs. OJ, who wouldn’t be?), then this might be worth checking out, though I don’t know how much mental flossing they go into each week.

Bull airs on Tuesday nights at 9pm on CBS.

MacGyver

Testifying to the fact that Generation Xers still aren’t over their sickening obsession with everything 80s (you know they’re seriously blaming Millennials for this? Ridiculous), we have yet another classic TV series reboot. For those who aren’t in the know, MacGyver, played by Lucas Till this time around, is a clandestine government agent who uses his “unconventional problem-solving skills” (yeah, from the actual IMDb synopsis) to solve crimes and cases and whatnot. While Lucas looks well-suited for the part, and the concept and brand are highly recognizable to viewers, I can’t help but think that this show might fail based solely on the same problem I pointed out last year in my Limitless show three-week review: There is an overload of too many geniuses on TV. There’s just too many abnormally smart people on TV. 

While MacGyver may have been novel back in 1985 when first it premiered, today we see countless genius characters solving crimes using some obscure factoid they learned once in the fifth grade that happens to come in handy right now as a bomb is about to go off. We’ve seen characters use pieces of gum to fix everything from broken heels to blot out security cameras. The very concept on which MacGyver thrived has become routine. But again, name recognition is very strong. Still, with Limitless not able to eke out another season with a much more elevated concept, and MacGuyver getting the cringe-worthy 8:00pm timeslot on Fridays on CBS, I wouldn’t be surprised if it only lasted a season, regardless of how good it may be. Again, we’ll see when I deliver my three-week reviews for these new shows.

The CW

I wouldn’t normally cover the CW but since I did a little of that last year, I can dive in here again. The CW will have a few new shows to go along with the network-switched season 2 of Supergirl. Their two shows that actually have premiere dates so far are No Tomorrow and Frequency.

No Tomorrow

I haven’t seen too many commercials about this show, but from what I do know, it sounds very similar to NBC’s failed Me, You and The Apocalypse—a midseason replacement from last season that tried placing British humor in American primetime. No Tomorrow follows a main female character (again, I don’t even know her name at the time of this writing) who learns that the world is going to end in a set amount of days. From there we see the shenanigans that ensue as she tries to live her life and get things checked off her bucket list before it’s all over. One of those things happens to be fall in love. Enter Galavant—uh, I mean the guy who played Galavant from the now defunct ABC comedy. He’s there, he’s the one who knows the world is gonna end, and he’s gonna die, too, and, uh... there’s some funny stuff. And yeah. No Tomorrow will air Tuesdays at 9pm on the CW right after The Flash.

Frequency

Another new CW show is Frequency. I don’t know if this is based on the movie of the same name but it seems to have a similar concept. Frequency is about a young woman played by Peyton List, who begins to get strange messages from her father through a particular radio frequency. The twist? Her father, a bad criminal/police detective who was said to have murdered people, died over a decade ago. Now, they must band together to stop some future crimes from happening while mending their complicated relationship and figuring out the truth about each other.

All I can say about this one is that it looks interesting, although it is just another twist on the overplayed procedural/mystery/detective theme we get so often on TV. Could be worth a watch, but I’m not holding my breath on me wanting to tune in for this each week.

Last but not least, we have USA’s latest entry, Falling Water.

Falling Water

I know little about this series but am intrigued. From what I can decipher from the commercials, it looks as if this is about the connection between three or more people’s lives through their dreams. The trailer mentions something about being able to step into someone else’s dreams, which sounds similar to Inception and has long been an entertaining concept. Here, however, it seems to hint at a more sinister play between reality and fiction, and bending the will of others as they sleep.

Falling Water will air on USA network, but because it is cable, you will have to check your local listings for the exact time. It is set to premiere Thursday, October 13^th.

AMC and FX will have more new series later into the season near the midseason point in January, along with the rest of the networks. Of course, I will have missed one of your most anticipated series as I can’t cover everything, and I tend not to cover premium channels save for that one time I did Ash vs. Evil Dead. So tell me, what new shows this fall are you looking forward to? What returning shows can you not wait to start watching again? Will you give the new shows a three week grace period like me, or will you knock them from your viewing list immediately if they don’t live up to your expectations? Let me know in the comments below (hint: click the no comments button if you see no comments).

Check out my 5-star comedy novel, Yep, I'm Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend. #AhStalking

If you’re looking for a scare, check the YA novel #AFuriousWind, the NA novel #DARKER, #BrandNewHome or  the bizarre horror #ThePowerOfTen. For those interested in something a little more dramatic and adult, check out #TheWriter. Both season 1 and season 2 are out NOW, exclusively on Amazon. Stay connected here for updates on season 3 coming summer 2017. If you like fast action/crime check out #ADangerousLow. The sequel A New Low will be out in a few months. Look for the mysterious Sci-fi episodic novella series Extraordinary to premiere sometime this winter on Amazon and my blog. Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to and follow my blog with that Google+ button to the right.

Until next time, "Ask the sex question."

‘OK. How often do you two have sex?’

“Never! This therapy didn’t work. We’re getting a divorce. We’ve tried everything, even killing each other.”

‘Maybe you should try that again.’

P.S. I know, that’s a terrible sign-off. For one, it’s too long, and for two it refers back to a movie that came out over a decade ago. Frankly, it’s not even a good joke as I really had high hopes for Ben and Angie. I hope that whatever this craziness is that is going on between the two of them gets worked out and the kids do well through the separation. They really made a good couple. Oh well. Love and marriage are hard.

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