The Wonder Years reboot aired last night on ABC. I was busy watching Survivor, so I just watched it this morning.
The Premise
The show is set in the late 1960s and looks back at the life of the Williams family, a Black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama. As with the original, the show is narrated by the adult version of the youngest kid in the family.
Tater’s Thoughts
I was in college during the run of the original. I’m sure I saw episodes of the show, but I don’t recall watching it regularly, so I was able to look at this one outside…
Our Kind of People aired on FOX last night at 9pm. I watched it live which might have been a mistake because I might have been too tired to remember everything. I thought about rewatching it this morning but decided to stick with my first impression instead.
The Premise
The show centers on Angela, a Black single mom with a haircare business who decides to move to the elite community of Oak Bluffs on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. …
Ordinary Joe aired last night at 10PM on NBC. I’m old and tired so I had to wait until this morning to watch it. Here are my thoughts.
The Premise
Joe is late to his college graduation. This leads to him bumping into another graduate, Amy, with whom he shares an instant connection. After the ceremony he has three choices: pursue Amy, go to the shore with his best friend/sometimes more than friend Jenny, or leave with neither and have dinner with his family. We then flash forward ten years where we see three different timelines, one for each of these decisions.
Tater’s Thoughts
This is the last week before the new network TV season begins. We spent all of our TV time trying to catch up on shows and clear the DVR. I did watch a new show when I was alone as I am already caught up on everything I watch without my wife. My reading has slowed because the book I am currently reading, while good, is not one you can read quickly. Here are the details.
Movies
I noticed last weekend that Taps was on one of the movie channels. I checked for upcoming airings and saw it was on early Sunday morning. I noted this in case I was awake that early. I was, so I watched it. I loved Taps when I watched it years ago. I still liked it this time, but it did seem kind of slow in the middle. It was fun to watch Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise, Evan Handler, and Giancarlo Esposito in a movie together when they were all late teens or ealry twenties.
TV
As I mentioned above…
The Big Leap was on my list of new shows I thought looked promising. I already have the series set to record on my DVR. I discovered yesterday that the first two episodes are availabe to stream now on Hulu. That cemented my plans for this afternoon.
The Premise
A group of diverse, down-on-their-luck characters attempt to change their lives by participating in a potentially life-ruining reality dance show that builds to a live production of “Swan Lake.”
The Characters
The story begins with a flashback to seven years ago. Gabby and Justin are a high school dance team couple about to head off…
I watched the new episode of Jeopardy last night. This week is the one week Mike Richards hosted before he was fired. He was not fired due to old tweets, but for alleged actions while working for The Price is Right and for things he said on a podcast. With the Jeopardy hosting gig once again vacant, there have been more articles about the hosting search. Several of these were about Ken Jennings losing the job because of “problematic” tweets. He has apologized for the tweet but it still seems like it might be what eliminated him from contention.
Yesterday…
Movies
We watched The Suicide Squad last Friday night. It was much better than the first movie. I expected it would be considering James Gunn was the director. I thought it had a Guardians vibe and I am a fan of the Guardians movies, so that worked for me. It had a good cast and a good mix of superhero action and comedy. I hope we see more of these characters.
I also watched The Half of It on Netflix when I was awake way too eary Sunday morning. Ellie Chu is a shy, straight A student who makes money writing…
Updating this very old post because it has been on my mind with the news about Sirhan Sirhan being approved for parole. I wrote the post when Hinckley was approved for release and people were angry that he would ever be allowed to be released. I’m sure many people feel the same about Sirhan Sirhan. There will always be people who believe that there is no such thing as rehabilitation and redemption. We want prison to just be punishment with no release if they committed certain crimes. People released from prison have trouble getting jobs and are treated like they…
Happy Labor Day! The unofficial end of summer. Bummer. Read on to see where it falls on my list.
- Christmas — the best time of the year. Presents, Christmas music, family, people are happier and nicer.
- Thanksgiving — food, family, and football. Plus it is the start of the Christmas season.
- 4th of July — friends, food, and fireworks. The only holiday besides the first two where I do anything special.
- President’s Day — this one gets a high spot on the list because of its proximity to my birthday. …
I was away last week so I had a week of mostly reading and relaxing. Now that I have returned and my daughter is back at school I’ve been spending time catching up on TV shows we watch without her. Movie viewing is still basically nonexistent. Here is my last couple of weeks.
Movies
I almost forgot that I did watch one movie in the plane, I was happy to find Nobody with Bob Odenkirk as an option. I’ve been wanting to watch it. Odenkirk plays a seemingly ordinary man with a boring life. We learn there is more to him when someone breaks into his house and events lead to him being targeted by a Russian mobster. It is an action movie, but it is well done with interesting musical choices for the action scenes. Odenkirk is good in the role. I enjoyed it.
TV
We have watched quite a bit of TV this…
