Let's Talk Television: Back from Hiatus

My advice is don't take advice from television.

I watch terrible television so you don’t have to.

A Quick Primer

I’ve been doing these recaps in one way or another for over ten years. Each Sunday post encompasses the previous Sunday to Saturday, and I only include the shows I watched, the ones I’m invested in. So expect a lot of crime and medicine. I do take suggestions, though! I switch up the format sometimes, but for now, I sort episodes into Good (meaning worth watching), Bad (meaning meh), and Ugly (meaning it annoyed me). I watch everything on streaming, so I list the series by those, even if they’re broadcast. For completion’s sake, I list anything else I watched—older series, whatever I’m rewatching, the Trek series we recap on my podcast, competitions, award shows, etc. My thoughts on the best or worst (usually worst) takes on psychopathology or mental healthcare are found in the Mental Illness Sidebar, and finally, I award Ship of the Week and Show of the Week. All of this is entirely my biased and personal opinion, and in turn, I welcome yours.

New This Week

• Brilliant Minds two-episode season 1 finale (Peacock)

• High Potential (Hulu)

• Chicago Med (Peacock)

• The Pitt two-episode series premiere (Max)

I thought that taking December off would be safe but there were actually many new episodes that got skipped over as a result. I recommend catching the interim Elsbeth episodes, we meet her son and they troll SVU, both of which are delightful. And after all my complaining about Carisi’s plots on this season of SVU, the midseason finale was great for him and a good solid episode so I also recommend that.

The Good

These are the episodes I recommend watching.

Brilliant Minds

In the first episode, Oliver (Zachary Quinto) and Josh (Teddy Spears) rush to the scene of a collapsed apartment building that happens to be where intern Erica (Ashleigh LaThorp) lives. Do real surgeons go out to assist at collapsed buildings as much as they do on TV? Or at all? I’m pretty sure there’s at least one collapsed building in every medical drama ever. Anyway, there’s another doctor randomly on the scene, played by special guest star Mandy Patinkin, who (GIANT SPOILER) turns out to be Oliver’s bipolar dad, who Oliver was told died thirty years ago. YIKES MOM.

In the second episode, Oliver finds out and reacts about as well as anyone could. He gets drunk with his interns, yells at his best friend, yells at his boyfriend, drives too fast, threatens to leave the hospital, goes to church, sees a wolf that may or may not be real, yells at his mom, reconciles with his best friend, ghosts his boyfriend, yells at his dad, preemptively apologizes to his interns for being a distracted jerk while he’s dealing with the fact that his father isn’t dead after all, and finds out his father is dying. Not in that exact order.

So, Erica was trapped in an elevator, but she survived and saved the life of a sweet grandpa with an undiagnosed neurological condition (of course), but not his sweet granddaughter, who she watched plummet to her death right after she said Erica should be rescued first. Since her apartment is rubble, Erica moves in with Dana (Aury Krebs) and sneaks one of Dana’s meds (for her previously established anxiety or ADHD). Van (Alex MacNicoll) and Jacob (Spence Moore II) stop fighting over Erica—she and Jacob seem to be headed to a romance tho—and become besties. We meet Van’s son, and he tells him and his ex about his Mirror Touch condition. Dana hooks up with hot EMT Katie (Mishel Prada) once she’s no longer her patient. And Muriel (Donna Murphy) takes time off from being the worst mom to suspend Carol (Tamberla Perry) for that time she kept treating her husband’s mistress. That was bad and worth a suspension, but Oliver doesn’t need that on his plate, too, y’know?

This is all a bit absurd but the Not Dead Dad Twist was well-played and the Not Dead Dad is Dying Twist sets up much drama for season two so I would like it to be renewed, please.

The Pitt

Obviously, I am very excited about a new medical show that brings ER’s John Wells and Noah Wyle back together. And it’s centered on an understaffed city hospital ER. I am not totally sold on the gimmick of each episode being one hour in the life (med shift) of Dr. Robby (Wyle), but I’m willing to see how it goes.

These first episodes are very much a pilot as we are introduced to a bunch of people new to the hospital (intern, resident, med student, they’re all here) and the hospital administrator shows up to exposit about all the department’s defects while yelling at Robby. The characters are introduced through setup and quirk. Robby’s rival Dr. Collins (Tracy Ifeachor) is hiding her pregnancy but charge nurse Dana (Katherine LaNasa ) knows. Medical student Victoria (Shabana Azeez) is a prodigy and the daughter of a senior attending. Resident Cassie (Fiona Dourif) is a single mom who started late. New resident Mel (Taylor Dearden) transferred from Vet hospital and is super excited to be here. Intern Trinity (Isa Briones) gives everybody a nickname. Senior resident Langdon (Patrick Ball) already has one: Dr. Ken. Today is the anniversary of Robby’s mentor’s death from COVID. Robby’s shift starts with talking his peer Dr. Jack (Shawn Hatosty) down from the ledge, literally. And of course, there are many too many patients who need help and have to wait up to six or eight hours to get it.

It’s fast-paced and tropetastic and I’m hooked. Though since it is just one shift across fifteen episodes I wonder if it would be worth waiting to binge. I definitely won’t, but I wonder.

The Bad

Bad equates to “I don’t have much to say about this.”

High Potential

A young woman is left for dead on the beach, and after proving she’s actually still alive, Morgan (Kaitlin Olson) then solves her assault and her late boyfriend’s murder. The murder took place at an elite—read, bigoted—beach club where the boyfriend had been a tennis instructor. He found one of the rich lady members in a compromising position with one of the two brothers who ran the place, and the other brother killed him to keep it quiet. There was very little suspense to the case, so they tried to heighten the drama by having the murderer threaten to throw himself off a cliff, but it would have been more surprising (and more dramatic) if he had done it. And we’ve seen Morgan’s open hostility toward the club play out before, both in this show and in ones with tighter scripts. And, like, Erin Brockovich. There’s movement in the ongoing search for Morgan’s missing ex/Ava’s missing dad, but Ava (Amirah J) wasn’t in the episode, and I struggled to care. Finally, Morgan goes on a date with Tom, the cute janitor (JD Pardo), but she (and the show) puts more effort into building her relationship with Karadec (Daniel Sunjata).

Chicago Med

I feel a little bad that this one is in the ‘meh’ section, but despite Sharon (S. Epatha Merkerson) almost dying and Dr. Charles (Oliver Platt) almost being suspended, the stakes felt low the whole time. Both those plots started in the previous episode, which in fact ended with the attack on Sharon, and I’d forgotten. Nor did I ever worry she would die. And I don’t want her to! But I don’t want to be completely unmoved, either.

I was moved by Charles’s situation: the brief return of his former protege and sparring partner Sarah Reese (former main cast Rachel DiPillo), who filed a complaint against him on behalf of a patient. They end up realizing they were both wrong about her condition and work together to correctly diagnose her and reconcile their relationship in the process. It was great to see Reese again and get closure with her. Charles also has a subplot with Jackie (Natalie Zea), the nurse who was hospitalized for self-harm last year. I like Jackie, but I got potential romance vibes here, and it’s confusing. One, I think she’s married? And two, she was definitely his patient at one point, and she sort of works under him now. As scripted, he was sharing a drink with her because Sharon was in ICU, but even that is a blurred line, especially in an episode where he’s accused of misconduct and bullying by a former employee.

Meanwhile, Archer (Steven Weber) saved Sharon’s life three times. He was the one who found her, called for help, and then broke a door to save her. He carried her to the ER and operated in the hybrid ER to stabilize her. Then, he was her surgeon in the OR and went against her family’s wishes with a more aggressive treatment plan that could have killed her but, of course, did not. And it was, of course, what she wanted, which she told him, thanked him, and then refused his resignation because what the hospital really needs is doctors who go against orders. I was never worried that Archer was leaving, either, because this is the first season where Weber is credited as main cast instead of Special Guest Star, and you don’t finally sign a contract to leave mid-season.

There is also an adorable subplot with Frost (Darren Barnet) and Adams (Brennan Brown) and a saucy foster kid who needs brain surgery. It’s the only part that almost surprised me.

The Ugly

Don’t bother.

Nothing this week!

Also Watching

Having run out of (good) X-Men movies to watch, my son and I binged X-Men ‘97 on Disney+, and GOSH I still really do love the X-Men. And D+ has so many more Marvel cartoons for us! I also decided to rewatch Netflix’s Night Agent season one to prepare for new episodes later this month. And I watched Star Trek The Motion Picture for Antimatter Pod, my podcast with Aussie co-host Liz (the episode will be up Wednesday morning in Australia/Tuesday evening in the US). TMP started out as the pilot of a new TV series so it counts.

Mental Illness Sidebar

If your bipolar ex-husband appears bruised and bloody in your house after leaving your son in the woods with a gun, do not a) give him his meds in the living room and then leave him alone to come to the realization that he is a danger to his son and should therefore fake his death and leave forever or b) agree to his actually insane plan to fake his death and leave forever or c) keep the secret into your son’s adulthood even though he is still suffering from post-traumatic stress thirty years later or d) hide your bipolar ex-husband when he shows up again, medicated and stable and wanting to reconnect or e) try to order your son’s best friend into continuing the charade and when she refuses to, force her to tell him for you or f) tell your son that you did all of this because a child is your heart living outside your body and you didn’t want to lose your heart. There are many, many, many, many, many other better things you could do instead of ANY of that.

Anyway, we got a bunch of recurring flashbacks to young Oliver’s encounters with his dad, who appears mostly bloody, confused, and ranting. In one, he visited his dad in the mental hospital, and I think that even in the 90s, no one would let a ten-year-old wander into the secure ward of a state mental institution like it was the mall. These flashbacks are not inaccurate per se, but they lack any context. And the whole plot is so bonkers. It’s GREAT terrible television but it is a somewhat problematic portrayal of mental health.

Ship of the Week

Oliver and Josh are SO CUTE, but they get sideswiped by Dadgate. Dana and Katie are also very cute, but the show goes out of its way to point at the weirdness of kissing a patient when they could have just ignored it like every other show. Morgan and Tom are also also cute, but they seem doomed because Morgan and Karadec are the relationship with legs (they’re partners, after all), so it’s hard to care. Unless we count Dr. Charles and Nurse Jackie, which I find confusing, there’s no romance in Chicago this week and none in Pittsburgh, either, soooooo I guess I’ll go with comatose Logan murmuring “Jean” and Morph pretending to be Jean Grey to tell him “I love you”— which my son dubbed “pretty gay”, and was PEAK childhood shipping nostalgia for me.

Real Jean kissed Logan, too.

Show of the Week

It’s a lean weak and tbh, the X-Men win this, too, BUT I will give it to The Pitt.

What are YOU watching?