What are you watching/Random TV thoughts

For anyone that misses the heyday of MXC on Spike, the revival of the original Japanese show “Takeshi’s Castle” is now on Prime.

I will always think of one of the great late 20th century Japanese actors and auteurs as “Vic Romano” first.

Hahaha that was perfect.

I also liked the reveal that Guillermo's been coming by to say goodbye to his mom like, every week. That guy needs some freaking boundaries.

Based On A True Story: (Peacock, Season One): Someone noticed true crime podcasts are a thing and thought to make a sitcom based on that. No, not that one--this is different. The basic premise is the killer himself is co-hosting the show through some elaborate blackmail plan cooked up by some friends who crack the case and decide to profit off it rather than turn him in. It was . . . underwhelming. There are a few okay jokes here and there poking fun at the pop cultural obsession with murder (two episodes center around a Las Vegas convention for serial killer "fans"), but in general I found the characters to be too bland and uninteresting and there was too much other shit going on that the whole premise was largely being pushed into the background. The worst aspect was a heavy reliance of "it was just a dream/fantasy sequence" fake-out reveals that got extremely tiresome as the story wore on--by the third one you know what you're watching isn't "real" and you want to just skip back to the narrative.

I haven't heard anything about it getting renewed (although with the whole production industry being shut down I don't think it's any indication it won't be), but the ending clearly set up a second season. Plenty of room to improve, but I don't see the show realistically correcting any of its major flaws.

I watched the opening two episodes of S3 of Only Murders in the Building

So far, so good. Lots of funny lines. Really liked Martin Short in these two episodes. That was a much bigger role for Meryl Streep than I imagined. She was really good, shockingly. Paul Rudd also is giving a fun performance as an asshole actor.

The premise here is not nearly as funny as the S1 true crime parody was. But, it looks like it should be fun.

The ER/walk-in clinic for familiars was some inspired writing. Nice to see Nadia sort of sticking up for Gitmo.

Even angels and demons need to unlearn toxic masculinity.

The teams weren’t done in the same way but some of those were absolutely MXC material: radiology department,
postal workers, CEOs, middle-aged fitness enthusiasts, college girls…all out of the show. There was even an Arab guy! As were the girls’ vocalizations.

I do revisit MXC episodes now and again but while they still make me laugh there’s the odd joke that really hasn’t aged well. I’m also definitely curious about the originalmoverall too. I’ve found the original on Internet Archive (don’t trust my phone to do straight quotes and don’t want to go into desktop mode so I’ll boomer link it archive.org/details/003-1986-05-16) but no clue whether they’re subbed.

Finished the third season of Superman & Lois. Really good stuff. The big thing I like about the show is the villains having human motivations (most of the time), and at least some conflicts being resolved by more than just Superman punching things.

And amazing to have an entire season about

I watched episode 3 of "Only Murders in the Building". I have three reactions to this.

1. Aw, I love that this show is giving Martin Short an actual serious story to play, that still lets him be over-the-top, and there is a sweet romance in it, and Meryl Streep is wonderful in this.

2. OMG, why the hell would any actress stay in this doomed play rather than take a main cast gig in a network tv series?? It was MONSTROUS that Oliver even tried to block that. And it is INSANE that after he reversed that, that this woman decided to give up that tv acting gig. INSANE

3. Folks, Meryl Streep cannot sing. I love her but she cannot. I mean, she is fine for an untrained singer. But I'd never call her good. And it really hurt me, like, physically hurt me to hear the autotune and pitch correction they used to try to make it seem like she can sing. It may as well have been a robot.

OMG, sometimes I wish my ear training weren't this good, because I wouldn't notice this stuff. But, yikes.

Or suspicious. It feels like the murderer almost has to be one of three people: Meryl Streep, Jesse Williams, or Paul Rudd's brother, and it's probably one of the first two. And given that

I don't like Streep's singing either, though I'm not so bothered that it ruined the scene for me. I quite liked it and felt it was yet another example of the show being more daring and interesting than I'd maybe expect from a Steve Martin and Martin Short production in 2023. OMITB is really a neat show. But your comment highlights one of the bigger problems I have with Death Rattle Dazzle: you can't just turn a play into a musical and keep the same cast ... on Broadway. Not that it has to be realistic, but none of these performers was hired to sing in the show.