This week starts the return of a lot of shows for me from the primetime channels which means my few remaining favorite sitcoms are coming back. And in order to get ready for that I’ve been getting through a few other things I’ve been watching. Before digging into that, one of my off-network shows came back with the POP series Hot Date. I had found the first season through Netflix earlier this year which is based on the College Humor series that the two creators had done for awhile. It’s basically very exaggerated relationship material with an actual married couple taking on various characters throughout it in order to show different things. The first season was set in New York and this one has moved them to New Orleans. The first two of ten episodes hit and it delivered the exact kind of absurd comedy I was looking for.
With one more episode to go, I’m almost done with the second volume of the Chef Show. The first few episodes were great but I loved the Hog Island episode that delved into how they deal with oysters and environmental issues there all while Jon and Roy ate probably a hundred oysters each across it. The second to last episode is a lot of fun as well as it takes place at Skywalker Ranch, which is expansive as hell, and has the pair working with Dave Filoni where they use the things grown on the ranch to create a meal for the chefs and firefighters that work the property and take care of the creatives that come in to work on film and TV projects. Filoni’s not as involved as some of the other guests they’ve had and feels reluctant to get too hands on but he and Jon got along well years ago and worked well with The Mandalorian.
Starting up watching Miranda during the quiet period of early September looks to have been a smart idea. I wrapped it up this past week just as it was announced as getting a domestic version on Fox for the 2020 fall season as Carla. Working with Jim Parsons’ production company, it’ll star Mayim Bialik from Big Bang Theory and Blossom in the lead. it’ll be a very different show because she and Miranda Hart are very different people but the concept could transition well to here. But I suspect that a lot of the things that made Miranda work in the UK just won’t fly here, so it’ll be a watered down version of itself. Still, with Fox going all-in on a series commitment and the push they can make with the BBT connection, it’ll do fairly well.
Finishing off Miranda was fun with the two specials that it had and bringing things full circle with Gary, though I do think she would have been better off with her reporter boyfriend.
I saw a piece talking about the latest season of Fear the Walking Dead recently that went on about how fans hate the new showrunner and everything that’s happened since Madison left. I’ve got a rough relationship with this show that changed around that time myself. I liked the initial idea of the series in focusing on the early days of the outbreak, which they promptly skipped. I liked the more family focus of it, which then went out the window as the actors got gigs elsewhere and bolted outside of one of them. One thing that kept me watching during the early seasons was getting this story told in the southwest and the visual design that came with it since it wasn’t more filming in Georgia. There was a bit more chance-taking in how things worked and how the group moved.
I’ve loved the show since the changes that ended Madison’s run and then brought on characters like Morgan and then Dwight. Morgan brought plenty to the show himself with his style, Lennie James is a treasure, but the arrival of Dwight added some wonderful new nuance to the redemption arc concept. I like all the characters that are here and don’t want to see any of them dead. I’m surprised it works in bringing Daniel back but the dynamic is in the plus for it. I get why people who were invested in Madison and the family side of things but the showrunners and writers weren’t utilizing it well and the actors were getting more and more checked out as time went on. With this season wrapping up soon, some neat ideas in the mix, getting some time with Matt Frewer in the show, and now this new group? I’m looking forward to the sixth season.
