Whatcha Bleedin' Watchin'?

[Dr. Insomniac]

So I've been watching more of X-Files on and off over the past year. And having seen more of it, my opinion hasn't really changed overall. It's still the same "First few seasons are pretty good, but then the movie comes out and you can tell the steam is lowering, then Mulder leaves and the steam is fucking gone, and then that other movie and the revival seasons come out which reveal why Chris Carter hasn't had much success in the last two decades." And the passage of time reveals all of the show's more unimpressive production values, not to mention episode plots. There's one where a serial killer kills black people and steals their melanin, an arc where Joel McHale plays an Alex Jones knockoff and it's about as stupid as you'd expect, the Brady Bunch crossover, the COPS crossover, the one where Mulder has to fight Native American spirits or something and it's filmed exactly like a Neil Breen movie, and one where Mulder and Scully have to travel into a video game and play a first person shooter (which I vividly remember as the first ever episode I watched as a kid, and it colored my view of the show for years). And this series is absolutely a terminal case of introducing a huge mystery box that goes nowhere and not even the writers have any clue what the answer is. Though I did eventually discover why X-Files fans revere Darin Morgan so much, because all of his episodes are great, Clyde Bruckman, Jose Chung, Humbug, and he's the only writer in the revival seasons delivering new ideas instead of recycling the same hits. This guy's episodes are why X-Files has an enduring legacy, because those other episodes I described... ugh.

I also tried X-Files' sister show Millennium, because a darker, moodier X-Files that replaces the sci-fi with apocalyptic urban fantasy and stars Lance Henriksen sounded much more like my kind of thing. And this one was a lot more interesting and it's kinda sad but understandable why it's become significantly more obscure over the years. None of the banter or chemistry that makes X-Files so appealing to mass audiences appear here, and the dream that there's something more than what we know out there is replaced with a constant reminder that we're in the end of days. There's a Vince Gilligan interview where he cited the show's unrelenting dark tone as a writing lesson, one that led to him deciding Breaking Bad needed to have comedy in order to work. And granted, almost 30 years means this is hardly anywhere near the darkest show. We've got Mindhunter and Chernobyl these days. But still, Millennium is pretty morose barring a rare comedy episode (including a 2nd Jose Chung appearance). Eschatology's a huge running theme throughout most of what I've seen from this show, with any endings that even seem kind of happy being covered in the reminder that death is nigh and the only thing we can do is pray it won't be a painful one. Shocking that this was competing with Sabrina the Teenage Witch on primetime. But like X-Files, it also has the problem where it gets wildly inconsistent, every season's helmed by a different showrunner and they've all got wildly contradictory ideas for where to take Frank Black's character or what the show should be about. Fucking KISS shows up in one of the aforementioned comedy episodes, without reason too. It's ironic that the one season I found the most coherent and ambitious was the one co-showrun by the guy who directed Dragonball Evolution. Reminds me how Angel never had much of a consistent tone across its 5 seasons either beyond the obligatory "If nothing we do matters, what matters is what we do" theme.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Been a while since I did an update on Wrestling but I mostly just stick to WWE now since AEW's booking has been dog-shit for a couple of years now and match quality alone can't get me to commit my limited time to keeping up with it for several hours a week. Likewise, I just don't have the time to watch a bunch of stuff like NJPW and TNA, among other promotions, outside of clip highlights and the occasional match if I hear that it's good enough.

With WWE, I tend to watch an odd Raw or Smackdown if I have the time, but I also kind of just stick to YouTube highlight clips since these shows feel so padded at 3-hours (I really miss the 2-hour shows). Raw has gotten slightly better in pacing on Netflix since it seems to average about 2 and a half hours now instead of a full 3, but it's still too long for my taste.

Now, I do keep up with the PLEs pretty regularly, and outside of feeling way too padded between matches (they should really add a match or two to each card instead of having so much filler in-between), the PLEs have genuinely been pretty strong for the most part. Even the lower-card wrestlers tend to still get pretty good matches in with interesting stories leading into them.

Recently we had the Royal Rumble, which I enjoyed for the most part. To get the elephant out of the room: No, neither winner of the Women's or Men's Royal Rumbles is who I personally would have been interested to see win, myself, but also part of the fun of this is seeing how things shake-out for the winners between now and Wrestlemania. For the Women's side, I didn't need to see Charlotte win a Rumble again. She's kind of treated like how the crowed used to treat Roman Reigns before he adopted the Tribal Chief gimmick. On the one had I feel that it's uncalled for, since she is an excellent worker and feels like she has the main event star power that so few other women on the roster can match at this point. On the other hand, I do get how her getting such blatant favrotism can be frustrating for fans who want to see other up-and-coming talent get a more significant push in her place. That said, I must admit that while I'm not thrilled about her winning, if she ends up challenging Tiffany Stratton I believe that we will get a pretty great match out of it, and possible a double-turn since the crowd will naturally turn Charlotte heel while Tiffany is getting babyface reactions already.

Now for the men's side of things, I get that having John Cena or CM Punk go over at the Rumble would have been more in line with what people expected and wanted. That said, Jey Uso was a more unexpected choice for many (funny enough is that I always thought he had a good shot at winning given how much of a push he's been getting). I must admit, I'm not a big Jey Uso fan. I think he has some good charisma and really does a great job of getting the crowd behind him, but his work rate and mic work both leave a lot to be desired for me. That said, the whole point of the Royal Rumble is to make new stars, not to push already established stars. Both Cena and Punk, as well as Roman, Seth, and other big names are already former multi-time world champions and frankly don't need that win. Also, there's just more story potential if their road to Wrestlemania is unclear. In this case you can do anything with them and it's almost guarenteed to be a big deal from their star power alone. Jey is popular but he needs that credibility to be treated as a bigger star, so this win was probably a good idea for trying to get him more over at a higher level. Granted, I'm not thrilled about him seeing face Gunther again since we literally JUST saw that at SNME a couple of weeks ago, and I want to see Gunther face other opponents given how good he is in the ring, but it'll be a great moment for Jey Uso fans if he wins.

Also, the Internet backlash on Jey from a small but vocal part of the fanbase is one of those things that makes me shake my head at the IWC. It's a bunch of angry, emotionally-immature idiots who can't stand when things don't go exactly the way that they picture it in their heads. Like I said, part of the fun of wrestling is trying to predict the outcomes of certain stories or matches, or which wrestlers will get pushed, and it needs to be a little unpredictable at times to be entertaining. If anything, I found that WWE has been playing it way too safe for the most part lately, so even if the results here weren't what I personally wanted, it's still refreshing to see them mix it up with the booking recently.

On a side note, I am still bitter that LA Knight never got the Jey Uso treatment given how over he was for such a good amount of time. It does bring up the fan speculation (not even really speculation when it comes to the Vince Mcmahon era since it has been confirmed on several occasions) that the company is reluctant to push superstars who get over on their own. They like to have credit for being the ones to make a new star. That, and apparently Knight has heat with some of the decision-makers of that company for no apparent reason that I have been able to find (to be fair, it's just a rumor), so for one reason or another he gets kept square in the mid-card no matter how popular he gets. You can see that his popularity is starting to finally cool off a little (not really through any fault of his own) given his lackluster booking, so it's one of those times that it's really frustrating to be a fan of someone's work and not see them get pushed the way that you feel they deserve to be.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Found myself watching a lot of that new show High Potential, and I'd say it's surprising, but then I see the credits and go "Oh, hey. The guy who made Veronica Mars. And oh hey, it's the guy who directed Cabin in the Woods and wrote a bunch of late-stage Buffy and Angel episodes." And that's not a criticism at all, but it is very "What if a 90s/00s WB show had a midlife crisis?". Which is sorta welcome in a TV environment where the CW is now a skeleton of its former self. Look at that CW schedule. Literal skin and bones there.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, the first couple of books are especially light in basically every sense, and from what I recall, the movies are pretty faithful to them. The one that makes the most changes is Prisoner of Azkaban, which is also the best because it has a real director even though diehards hate it the most due to its changes.

And I guess we're getting John Lithgow as Dumbledore? Guess every British actor either didn't want to or said "I've already been in those movies". Or both. I saw Rowling feuding with David Tennant recently.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Holy Shit! John Cena just turned heel! I have to admit, I didn't think that WWE would actually pull the trigger and do it, especially not in his retirement year. The crowd reaction said it all. People were fucking stunned, and it's awesome.

[Avaitor]

Found myself watching a lot of that new show High Potential, and I'd say it's surprising, but then I see the credits and go "Oh, hey. The guy who made Veronica Mars. And oh hey, it's the guy who directed Cabin in the Woods and wrote a bunch of late-stage Buffy and Angel episodes." And that's not a criticism at all, but it is very "What if a 90s/00s WB show had a midlife crisis?". Which is sorta welcome in a TV environment where the CW is now a skeleton of its former self. Look at that CW schedule. Literal skin and bones there.

I didn't know that High Potential was a Godard joint, now I have to see it.

Glad to see Kaitlin Olson receiving attention recently though, between this and her work on Hacks, which is pretty good. I get the feeling that the Sunny crew is ready to move on but they're getting too high of a paycheck to stop. Considering the last couple of seasons, it may be time.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I read an article once where Larry David told them to never end the show. And they've abided by that rule so far, but yeah, IASIP's definitely become more of a side-hustle to the cast and crew these days. What didn't help was Lynne Marie Stewart's death a few weeks ago, because now everybody but Mac is an orphan (maybe they'll recast Dennis and Dee's dad one day, it's not like anybody will really care if he doesn't look like the 7th Heaven dad anymore).

[Avaitor]

I'd honestly rather have another season of Curb than Sunny at this point. I'd like to see if Cheryl would leave Ted Danson for an RFK Jr stand-in, or if Danson or even Larry would run for president.

It'd be weird without Richard Lewis, but I mean, we already lost Bob Eisenstein.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Personally, Funkhouser's absence was more noticeable than Richard Lewis being gone. So another season wouldn't be that jarring to me. Whereas IASIP is mostly just around as an excuse for the cast to get together and hang out. It's not bad, but feels like it's been a while since we've had an interesting episode. Last one I can think of was the Mac dance one.

Oh yeah, speaking of the 7th Heaven dad, I got bored, thought "You know, for someone who watched a ton of Kids WB as a child, I rarely did touch the primetime WB shows at the time outside of the sitcoms, some of Charmed, Smallville, and Supernatural, and the Buffyverse shows years after the fact", and decided to see what I missed out on there. Because there used to be a time when everyone wanted a piece of the WB pie, even Dick Wolf for reasons unknown. Or Felicity, a show starring Keri Russell and created by JJ Abrams and Matt Reeves, and I have heard nobody talk about it in years outside of vague mentions of "that show that jumped the shark because the main character cut her hair".  And after watching a few episodes, I understand why nobody talks about it anymore despite the "Who's who" of household creator/actor names in the credits. Ironically, I liked what I saw of Popular more, and that's a Ryan Murphy joint. We used to live in a time when Matt Reeves was less interesting as an artist than Murphy or Whedon. The 90s was confusing.

Same with how 7th Heaven has no legacy anymore thanks to Stephen Collins' crimes and the show already being a punching bag to critics back then and now, even though I think it was one of the WB's biggest programs at the time. Or Dawson's Creek being everybody's first example of what a teen drama was, and now, who really cares? When watching the show, I hated every character (especially Joshua Jackson's) and thought "How did this last 6 seasons when Freaks and Geeks only got one?" It's funny how time's been kinder to Buffy and less so everything else on the network (even people I know who hate Whedon as a person and an artist watch the show for the first time and go "Why didn't I watch this back then? Wow.").

That MadTV skit on the Gilmore Girls was 100% accurate.

And on CW, The Vampire Diaries is a mess. Found out it's a very loose adaptation of a bunch of YA books from decades ago, and the showrunners just turned into a thinly-veiled Buffy remake. The big difference being "the creator got impatient and introduced their version of Spike in episode 1". Maybe it's my fault for watching random episodes instead of giving it a proper watchthrough, but it almost felt like a culmination of every WB/CW cliche. Only thing missing was a random DC character popping up and going "Hi! I'm here too!"

[Avaitor]

I've tried Gilmore Girls recently and I don't really get it, Amy Sherman-Palladino's writing is like Whedon's with even less restraint. And I can't stand any of the characters.

[Dr. Insomniac]

It felt like going through an ultra-quirky Hallmark movie.

Thought about giving Gossip Girl a shot since Trachtenberg was a main character in it, but this does not look my kind of show at all.

[Avaitor]

I tried a little bit of Gossip Girl, as The OC was always a guilty pleasure of sorts, but it didn't do anything for me. It felt like Josh Schwartz split up the two core elements of The OC (teen soap opera, nerd-oriented humor) between GG and Chuck, while the appeal of the prior show was that while yes, it did delve into a lot of those cliches, it always felt closer to Buffy and Freaks and Geeks than Dawson's Creek. Gossip Girl is just spoiled rich kid problems.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I'm reminded of what Cosmonaut said in his 50 Shades of Grey video, that at least in Twilight, there's the threat of death and vampire fights, while 50 Shades is just about some rich asshole who likes to slap people during sex. And that's why even the worst Arrowverse shows have something that's kinda fun to them, while Gossip Girl is whatever. Didn't help that the advertising marketed it as the scandalous teen drama, and to me back when it was out, I thought that was quaint because Skins was brand new at the time and I already knew that the latter was gonna be more edgy than anything a CW show could do.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Oh yeah, in terms of actual TV people are talking about now, I'm finally doing Severance. And maybe it's because I was sleep-deprived when watching it, but it takes forever for this show to get going. There are like 3 whole episodes that are just Adam Scott and the staff talking about how much work sucks. Genuinely wondering when this becomes the show fans insist is the best sci-fi series of the decade. For what it's worth, I did really like the last ep I saw.