Homicide Rewatch: The True Test

 

Written by Noel Behn ; story by Tom Fontana & Noel Behn

Directed by Alan Taylor

 

It's keeping with how Homicide has always operated that what is arguably the most anticipated the moment of Season Five – Frank finally passing the firearms exam and being able to return to active duty – is essentially moved to the background for what is the main plot. Indeed, the moment Frank learns about only happens at the end of the third act and our attention has to go back to the real climax of the episode.

Not that we don't get a good hint at what the stakes are in the first act. We see Al go to pick Frank up at the Pembleton home. This is the first time in the show's run we've seen Giardello visit the household of any of his detectives. We cut to Frank watching Al show up but Fontana and Behn make it clear the stakes are by having Al talk to Mary. The usually calm Mary is more nervous around Frank's boss when it comes to making small talk. When Al says he’ll be fine Mary tells us that Frank can't keep going through this limbo. There's something so subtle you might not see it. Mary asks what happens if Frank doesn't pass the test. When Al says he'll take it again Mary says: "In another month. Another long thirty days." Because our focus is on Frank the viewer might miss this but that's because we get a sense as to just how nervous he is. The fallen Catholic kneels down and holds his hands in silent prayer. That's how desperate he is to return to the street. He's willing to get back on first name basis with God.

We then spend the episode after it happened with Frank unsettled and unaware of the result. "The system is designed to torture me," he tells Munch. And when he learns the truth we find him in the most undignified place: on the john. "This isn't the right time," he tells Gee. But when Al tells him he passed, he lifts his head over the men's room door, confirms its true and lets out a cry of sheer joy that we've rarely heard him say. (Typically when a hungover Kellerman passes bye he looks around as if he's baffled.)

This is one of the subtlest episode in the show's history of dealing with race as it is set an exclusive prep school in Baltimore. Yet this episode demonstrates in the most brilliant way possible the difference between how society views African-American children. Marshall Buchanan has managed to find his way into what should be a path forward and finds himself the victim of an upper class white student. Marshall is very much the model student who represents the best of what America should represent; McPhee Broadman is clearly the ultimate problem child whose is nevertheless protected both by his white privilege and his powerful mother. What makes this the most striking is that the woman protecting him is there to uphold the law.

Homicide doesn't look away from this: we've actually met Judge Susan Aandahl a couple of times in Season 4 and she seems very much a stickler for procedure. The True Test reveals yet another subtle way the justice system works in favor of white people more than African-Americans. Aandahl knows just how dangerous her son even before she put him in prep school, has clearly been covering for his pranks and behavior long before the murder of Marshall and knows full well just how dangerous her son is.  She even knows to an extent how McPhee is using his mother to protect him from the consequences of his actions. The final horror at the climax of the episode is not merely that Aandahl knows the true nature of her son's darkness but that even then she's determined to keep him safe. This is a future serial killer in the making and Aandahl seems fine letting him get away with murder.

This is a contrast between our brief scene with the Buchanan family. Marshall couldn't afford to attend the school but he won a scholarship. He didn't want to go to Larchfield Prep but his mother, desperate to protect him from the violence of the streets, forced him to go. Heartbroken she tells Bayliss and Lewis that she cried when he got there: "Our child is safe."

Larchfield Prep is, as we are told by Bayliss, a prep school for 'the finest blue bloods in the South'. He holds both it and the headmaster in contempt from the start. In another part of Bayliss' back story we learn that he and his cousin Jim (who we met back in Season 3) used to live right around the corner. Jim wanted to get into Larchfield more than life and he was smart and from money. "But he wasn’t the right kind of WASP for Larchfield." The implication is that Jim Bayliss was from 'new money', the kind that prep schools then and sadly now still hold dear too. Tim argues that Jim changed significantly after he was rejected.

It's not that Larchfield is that admirable to begin with. Marshall is one of only three African-American students in the entire school ("Congratulations. Now you've only got two," Bayliss digs in.) And its clear the headmaster, for all his overtures of cooperation, cares far about the reputation of his school far more then helping the investigation. He clearly doesn't think much of Marshall and only reveals that he knows who 'Cheeks' is when Lewis forces his hand.

I should mention that while Bayliss spends most of the case acting as though he's in charge, it's clear his contempt for the school clouds his judgment and his attitude. Meldrick, not having that same baggage, spends most of the episode with a cooler head and does a better job investigating. (He is the primary, after all.) Secor is superb throughout but this is the first episode all season where Johnson really gets to show his mettle and its refreshing. It's really the first time since Scene of the Crime – another episode that dealt with race – that we get to see the good detective Lewis is.

And that's before we get to the draw for this episode. 'The True Test' originally aired on November 22^nd 1996, then and now sweeps month. NBC managed yet again to get a major film star though back then no one could have predicted how big Elijah Wood would become. Wood had made his film debut in Barry Levenson's Avalon and was already a prominent child star. He'd already starred in North, one of the worst movies ever made and was about to appear in the remake of Flipper. Even while he was making this episode he was about to appear in Ang Lee's prestige drama The Ice Storm. But even those of you who know him from playing Frodo Baggins will be hard pressed to see his work as McPhee.

At the time I was very familiar with Wood's work and I was stunned by the way he radiated smugness and arrogance in every scene. We first see him looking inside Bayliss and Lewis's squad car before they know who he is and there stunned by how smug he is. When Aandahl makes it clear that she doesn't want anyone looking at her 'baby boy' Bayliss makes it clear he doesn't care. He actually oversteps his bounds, something Meldrick doesn't appreciate. And even when he's warned by Gee to watch his step, he nevertheless feels the need to needle him while Meldrick remains calm throughout. Bayliss is more than prepared to get at him, and while his instincts are right his approach is all wrong and he ends up in Aandahl's office the next morning.

By this point we know that McPhee is responsible for multiple pranks, the firebombing of the headmaster's car. When he confronts Aandahl about what happened he doesn't back down and she seems to respect it. She tells him her son is a clever and cruel child. "I'm a mother but I'm also a judge. I make impartial rules." McPhee went to live with his father after a divorce and Aandahl admits she was glad when he left.  She knows McPhee is capable of 'reciting endless formulas for blowing up the world. What would you do with a child like that?" But then she says: "I'm a judge but I'm also a mother." She makes it clear that her son might be one of the most dangerous and broken person she knows but she has every indication of keeping him safe from the criminal justice system.

McPhee is very much a bully and a racist. We learn that Derek who actually killed Marshall did so after two days of hazing on a forced march, which McPhee more or less did. We also he manages self-defense class, which we assume is just a way for him to beat up students and get course credit for it. And he ordered Kemp to throw Marshall into the lake even though he couldn't swim. He has no problem when his lies are called and is certain his mother will protect him.

In the final interrogation sequence Bayliss and Meldrick run a bluff.  And again we get to see Meldrick in the box we haven't before. He plays on McPhee's racism and wheedles him using the words he wants to hear about 'knowing your place' and using that word uppity when referring to Marshall. He goes out of his way to say he's in awe of McPhee – and maybe he even is, McPhee does seem to have the ability to convince everybody to follow him.

The truth comes out: McPhee wanted Marshall to kill someone. He asked him five times and on the last occasion actually had him bound and whipped in an effort to do so but Marshall refused. And it is then we learn the truth: the person McPhee wanted dead was his mother.

Sagan Lewis has two incredible moments: when we see through the observation room that her son has confessed to wanting her dead and when he talks to her son's attorney and tries to find ways to make sure he can't be charged with it. Wood's performance is terrifying throughout and watching it again, I have one question I don't know how to answer: is the only reason he confessed was because he knew his mother would be there and he wanted her to know just how much he hated her? That's the reason Bayliss is right: Judge Aandahl lost.

Of course for all of this the other storylines are followed up on. The episode features the first meeting of Kellerman with Juliana Cox. Its worth noting that maybe one of the things that draws Mike to Juliana is not only doesn't she know about the grand jury subpoena but that when he tells her he's not guilty she just lets it go. "You have that kind of face," This is the first time since the ordeal started that someone just blanketly accepts his declaration of innocence.

And he has reason to. In this episode he learns his colleagues at arson Goodman, Connelly and Perez have all copped pleas for reduced sentences. Kellerman is understandably shocked: Roland has pled out to testify against Goodman, Connelly and Perez and now that they've pled out, the only one left is Mike, who's the only innocent one in the bunch. When he confronts his attorney she tells him the one thing he doesn't want to hear: take a plea. Kellerman and Juliana then indulge in a flirtation at the Waterfront where he tells her he's afraid of not being a cop. Juliana's reaction is telling: "So you're one of those people who think their job is their life." We've been told for four and a half seasons that homicide is the highest of callings; there's something refreshing about someone who can just let her work go at the end of the day in a way that we rarely see the other cops do.

The episode ends with Frank getting his weapon back and being assured by Giardello that he knew he'd pass the test. Its then we hear him show none of the bravado he showed to Tim when he said he'd be out on the 'first death tomorrow'. "The true test is in there." He's looking at the box. He denies it he said anything but we know he's thinking it.

And there's one last foreshadowing. Bayliss says he's glad to have Frank back but Pembleton says: "The easy days are over…I'm meaner then ever." We think the status quo has been restored. It turns out Fontana and company are almost immediately going to shake it up far worse.

And we're not just talking about on the job.

 

AUTHOR'S NOTE

'Detective Munch' A much smaller role then usual save to try and reassure Frank that he passed his firearm exam. Except when Kellerman asks to find Brodie. "Look under a rock. He'll be there." That's because….

Brodie is On the Move! Kellerman learns Brodie is homeless and offers to put him up on his boat. "It's a big boat," "The Queen Mary wouldn't be big enough," Munch says. "How bad could he be?" "Well, I threw him out, Bayliss threw him out, then Lewis, the three of us don't agree on much." Then Kellerman says: "My life's already in the toilet. How bad could it be?" (Cut to next week's episode.)

Hey Isn't That… I assume that are a few of you who saw Elijah Wood in that small, low budget arthouse trilogy shot in New Zealand where he played a dwarf or something. So let's talk about what he did before and after all things connected to Peter Jackson.

Wood had a very successful career as a child actor actually playing Huck Finn even before he played Frodo Baggins. I myself had seen him in such films as Radio Flyer, Forever Young and The Good Son before this episode and he started in Deep Impact after it. He played the monstrous killer in Sin City and has done a lot of voice work whether it is video games such as the voice of Spyro in those video game series, Kratos's brother in God of War III and Mumble in Happy Feet.

His television debut came in the TV movie Day-O and he later played the Artful Dodger in the 1997 TV version of Oliver Twist. He played Ben Gunn in a miniseries of Treasure Island in 2012 and the voice of Sigma in the TV series Red Vs. Blue. His live-action series debut came in Wilfred, the FX comedy series where he played Ryan, the man who owns a dog who only he sees as human. The show ran for four seasons. After that he played Todd Brotzman in the BBC America adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, based on the classic Douglas Adams novels. He can currently be seen as Walter, the fellow citizen detective and possible love interest for the grown up Misty on Yellowjackets. He and Christina Ricci played boyfriend and girlfriend 25 years earlier in The Ice Storm.

On the Soundtrack: The hymn that the choir at Larchfield is singing at the start and end of the episode is Jerusalem, an old English spiritual.

 

The Left Has Always Taken an 'America First' Position To Foreign Policy And For the Democrats To Thrive in a Post-Trump America They Must Find A Way to Reckon With It

 

When Donald Trump ran for President the first time one of the hallmarks of his campaign was the idea of a near isolationist approach to foreign policy which he labeled 'America First'. Critics rightly made the comparison to that of the movement that happened starting in 1940 of the 'America First Committee led mostly by isolationists who didn't want America to get involved in World War II. Once having as many 800,000 members with Charles Lindbergh one of the most famous, it disbanded four days after Pearl Harbor.

A decade later there are multiple ironies that occur to me on both sides of the political aisle. On the right there is the current movement by the President to increase his level of foreign intervention to the increasingly dismay of many members of the MAGA base who voted for him in three consecutive elections. On the left there is the historical one that they used the parallel at the time to argue the office racial parallels when it came to racism – and that, to put it generously, they've been backing away from that particular parallel for the last three years as part of being a dealbreaker.

But the purpose of this article is to deal with the issue the Democratic Party has been facing for a very long time: the fact that a large part of their constituency is vehemently anti-war and by this point there's a small but influential branch of the Party that has for all intents and purposes an isolationist plank in its platform.

I need to be clear upfront about what I'm saying and what I'm not saying. I'm not going to pretend that in my time American's interventionist foreign policies have become expensive boondoggles that have cost the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and did immense damage to America's reputation long before Trump became President. And while foreign policy in the Cold War has its share of bipartisan clusterfucks, the ledger has to come down on the Republican side when it comes to damage ever since Nixon took office in 1968. But as a student of history its worth noting ever since at least the 1952 election the Republicans have managed to make their biggest victories whenever they've accused the Democratic Party of being weak on foreign policy. And the last Democratic Presidential candidate to run to the right of a Republican on foreign policy was John F. Kennedy in 1960. He also won the largest percent of white working class voters of any Democrat in history with just over 64 percent. That's not entirely a coincidence.

So as we deal with the leadup to the midterms I think we have to look at one of the critical weaknesses with the Democratic Party and its relationship with the left and that is their foreign policy. And that's simple: they don't really have one and indeed haven't had once since the end of World War II.

For much the last half-century the Republican party was dominated by neoconservatives who believe that the purpose of the American military was to act as the world's policemen. It wasn't until after the dual disasters of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan they began to even slightly back away from this and not until Trump's candidacy that they abandoned it more out of a desire for political power than any real conviction for it.

Ever since the Vietnam War the Democratic Party has to reckon with a left-wing constituency that has made it crystal clear that they will not vote if the party even hints at a non-interventionist policy. Despite the disaster of the McGovern campaign in 1972 the Democrats basically followed that policy and it kept leading them to electoral disaster. Only when Bill Clinton came along did he manage to find an alternative and the left very quickly chose to vilify him as part of the same brush. They have done the same thing in the 21^st century, first with Obama's presidency and then Biden's. Part of the reason that eleven percent of those who voted for Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary and voted for Trump in the general may very well have been for his isolationist policy which has been close to the left than they want to admit.

Reading the left's scholarly journals along with multiple films and documentaries on the subject one can only reach the conclusion that the only reason the world has not beaten its artillery into plowshares and is singing Kumbaya is become of America's actions no matter who becomes President. They have rewritten history so that the Cold War only started because Stalin acted defensively against Truman's foreign policy (which as I've written extensively is not the case) argued that multiple Presidents have engaged in regime changes to further American interests abroad and that all of this is done to further the military-industrial complex.

I don't deny the truth in many of their statements: our intelligence community did spend the second half of the 20^th century overthrowing many Marxist governments to create allies during the Cold War and the Vietnam War was a disaster because of an attempt to containment in Asia the same way we had in Europe. But it leaves out the critical fact that after the Second World War ended there was no other country left to take up the battle against the Soviet Union and dictatorships abroad. I don't deny that we've screwed up being the world's policeman far more than we've succeeded, but there were no other applicants for the job.

The left then proceeds to use as a cudgel that every other democracy in the world has a far greater safety network than America does. They conveniently leave out the fact that, particularly in Europe, the main reason they can afford to spend as much money as they can on social policy is because they knew during the Cold War America was going to be doing the bulk of the work.  They were able to spend much of their money on butter because they were spending almost none on guns. When LBJ tried to do both after winning in 1964 it led to a disaster and not coincidentally the rise of the Republican revolution. (The left's hands are far from clean on that accord, but I've written about that before.)

The main reason the progressive wing spends so much time on its domestic policy is because it's foreign policy is all but nonexistent. The Justice Democrat platform is almost entirely devoted domestic policies. Indeed in its entire ten year history it has only two planks that deal with foreign policy. I'm going to quote them here:

Ending arms sales to countries that it says violate human rights

Ending the practice of unilaterally waging war, except as a last resort to defend U.S. territory.

It's that second plank I'd like to focus on.

Now I'm more than willing to admit that in my lifetime Congress has all but relinquished one of its major powers: the ability to issue a declaration of war. And I'm all in favor of recent Congressional efforts to try and reaffirm teeth in the War Powers Act. But until that's done – and I'm not optimistic it can be for the foreseeable future – what will happen if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ends up running for President?

By the definition of the plank of her party she's essentially saying that a future successor to Putin or Kim Jung Un could theoretically attack multiple countries in Europe or Asia with either ground troops, air power or even nuclear weapons – and by the terms of her wing of the party until they bomb New York City she or a similar candidate doesn't believe its America's job to intervene.

I'm not saying that will happen – I personally don't believe AOC will ever get anywhere near the Democratic nomination, much less the White House – but the fact remains there is a small but vocal contingent of my party right now who believe that any American intervention abroad is immoral and the Democrats should be primaried if they don't actively endorse this policy.

In the decade since Trump's first election there has been much hair-pulling by many people about his foreign policy. I'm in agreement with a fair amount, for the record, but I've always thought the left's attitude has always been the least sincere and most based in their opposition to all things Trump.  If anything the fact that he was promising an end to American intervention in wars should have made them their candidate considering how much their loathing of internationalism.

And its not like they're attitude for human rights abuses abroad – another one of their biggest sticking points – has always been limited to selling weapons. They've talk about the human rights abuses in so many countries over the years but they've never really thought that strongly about foreign aid either. They'll argue for charities to do more, make speeches advocating for them in awards shows, but that is as far as they want us to go. If people are dying in Tunisia or Belarus or any of a dozen other horrible countries, they basically think those countries have to life themselves up by their bootstraps and do the work.  America's job is to help Americans. Leaving the feeding of the poor overseas to Sally Struthers.

So when they started crying about all of the international norms that Trump was tearing down in his first term, it now looks like something of a hypocrisy.  They think America should be helping Americans. It's only because he wasn't spending the money on social services either that they were pissed.

Even their attitude about Trump's admiration for dictators across the globe has always smacked of hypocrisy considering their own admiration for them ever since the Cold War began. They continue to argue the Soviet Union was 'a failed experiment', still admire Cuba and everything that Castro has done and it is worth remembering the Green New Deal is based on the model of a woman who famously wrote an article in 2004 that she voted for Hugo Chavez.  The left spent much of the decade before Trump's election in open admiration of the socialist rise in South America and chose to excuse the numerous human rights abuses that were going on. Famously John Oliver once said about Venezuela's government: "It was not socialism" when it fact it very much was.

So much of the left's attitude towards foreign policy can be seen in reaction to Trump. Putin invaded Ukraine. Putin is a friend of Trump. Therefore the left must support Zelensky. Netanyahu is a friend of Trump; therefore the left must support Gaza. They've never cared anything for human rights abuses throughout the Middle East – they never said word one about Iran all through the last year and a half. And while they supported Machado when she won the Nobel Peace Prize, the moment she tried to win Trump's favor – something that Venezuela will need now that Maduro's gone – they turned on her in a heartbeat.

Even their own moral standard about right and wrong is flexible. No one even bothered to pretend that Nicholas Maduro was a good guy or that Venezuelans were suffering under him. And no one is going to argue that Iran has undergone forty-five years of horrible rule under the various Ayatollahs since the Revolution in 1978. But Democrats keep saying: "There's a right way to do things."

The problem is that in the nearly sixty years since Nixon took power the Republican party has been able to wrap itself by combining military action with patriotism while the left increasingly argues the military action is wrong and barely bothers to argue a difference between the soldiers and the Army. This has enabled Republicans to win over blue collar workers by arguing that the Democrat party isn't patriotic and is unamerican. They’ve managed this message successfully since 1972, a full quarter of a century before Fox News came on the scene. The left wing has increasingly – and even more since Trump's election – argued that all things associated with America, whether they are the military, the police, or even Olympic athletes – are things that should be worthy only of their contempt. The Democrats have always struggled with being seen as intellectual snobs or elitists and all of this has been leading to Trump's election in the first place. For the left that is represented by the Squad isn't one. For a Democratic Party that has been losing with middle America and blue collar voters long before Trump arrives, it's increasingly becoming an obstacle they may not be able to overcome unless they meet it head on.

There are signs they may coming to this. Abagail Spanberger and Mikey Sherill, both of whom won the gubernatorial elections last year, spent their lives in public services before running for Congress. Spanberger worked in the CIA as a case officer, and Sherill as a former Naval Officer. They represent a kind of Democrat that is different then the ones of the Squad, those who have served their country and want to enter politics to further that service.

Considering that one of the major draws for Republican congressional candidates for the 21^st century has been military service running as part of the military is a sign of patriotism. The DNC has been looking for Congressional candidates as part of their 2026 campaign (a future article will deal with this) that involves military or public service. This stands in stark contrast to the Justice Democrats who to this point have mostly been activists before they ran for Congress the first time.

For better or worse, wrapping oneself in the flag has been one of the major factors in both the conservative rise and the Republican revolution ever since Nixon's election in 1968. Ever since that time and even before the Democrats have been reluctant to do so increasingly out of fear of isolating the far left of their constituency. In a post-Trump America they must be more concerned with meeting people in the middle than trying to reach out to the people who have basically made it clear they're not willing to meet the Democrats even halfway on anything. And that can only be helped by not being afraid to that you're proud to be a citizen of this country, no matter who's in the Oval Office.

 

 

 

 

 

My Predictions for the 2026 Actor Awards: Emmy Watch 2026 Phase One Conclusion

 

 

On Sunday night we will officially reach the end of Phase One of the Emmy Watch for 2026 with the presentation of the newly christened Actor Awards as SAG-AFTRA gives its yearly awards.

It's certain that even with the presence of Kristin Bell there will be more of an air of melancholy over this year's awards particularly given the recent passing in just the last two months of several exceptional performances. This will be felt in TV awards as Catherine O'Hara, nominated for her work just this past year for her work in The Studio tragically passed away last month. Combined with the deaths just this past few weeks of the iconic Robert Duvall and Eric Dane, who will within less then two months be seen in one of his last performances in the third season of Euphoria, expect the In Memoriam sequence this year to have a sadder feeling.

Acknowledging this reality will be tough to handle but I engage in my duty as a critic to try and predict this year's winners in all major acting categories. I acknowledge my track record is far from perfect, considering how shocking it was that Only Murders in the Building was the big winner in comedy last year rather than Hacks. Still this show, no matter what name the award has, does have the capacity for surprise.

Here are my predictions.

 

OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE IN A COMEDY SERIES

This is an easy one to predict even before recent events. The Studio has already swept every major awards show to this point and it was the heavy favorite to win in this category. With the passing of O'Hara, it's now the sentimental favorite as well.

Should Win/Will Win: The Studio

 

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A COMEDY

Again this one was a lock before. Seth Rogen has already won every major award leading up to this. Look for him to join such names as Jeremy Allan White and Jason Sudeikis to sweep all four acting awards for television. Considering his triumph at the Emmys he will do quite well.

Should Win/Will Win: Rogen

 

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A COMEDY

Here we might very well see a change in plans. I still think Jean Smart will end up winning in this category: just as with the Emmys and the Critics Choice Awards she's won every year she's been nominated. But we can't rule out the possibility for support for Catherine O'Hara for what is now clearly her final performance for The Studio. Since the other two awards are going to go to that series regardless, it might very well pull a sweep. That said, I don't know when the voting ended in this category.

Should Win: Smart.

Will Win: Smart/ O'Hara.

 

OUTSTANDING DRAMA ENSEMBLE

This one is easy. The Pitt has already won every major award to this point in the drama category and its absolutely going to follow the line this time. Combined with the fact its second season has already debuted to record setting numbers for HBO Max it will almost certainly be a valediction – and a sign for what is to come. With that said The White Lotus did manage an upset in this category three years ago for its second season – and it fits far more easily in the Drama category this year.

I think The Pitt will prevail but don't be stunned if The White Lotus pulls it out.

Should Win/Will Win: The Pitt

 

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A DRAMA

This one is even easier. Noah Wyle has already won every award in the book for the first season of The Pitt and I suspect he's the frontrunner for Season 2. I'd really like to see Walton Goggins or Sterling K. Brown win but Wyle has this locked up.

Should Win: Goggins.

Will Win: Wyle.

 

 

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A TV DRAMA

Even easier. Rhea Seehorn has already won the Golden Globe and the Critics Choice Awards over far tougher competition. If Kathy Bates or Carrie Coon had been nominated I might hesitate. With them not present watch Rhea Seehorn continue to her path to world domination for Pluribus.

Should Win/Will Win: Seehorn.

 

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN  A TV MOVIE/LIMITED SERIES

This could be trickier as for the first time Stephen Graham and Owen Cooper are competing against each other for Adolescence.  Obviously they can't both win.  And there is a possibility they may split the vote. Cooper survived those vote splitting when he was up against Ashley Walters but this is a tougher fight.

I think there is a chance Matthew Rhys, who I honestly think was better, in The Beast of Me could slip through. We have seen these things happen at the SAG Awards before. But I'll give the barest of edges to Cooper as it will give him a chance to make history.

Should Win: Rhys.

Will Win: Cooper.

 

OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A TV MOVIE/LIMITED SERIES

All right. I'm not sure if Adolescence can pull off the same trick here that it can with the previous category. Yes Erin Doherty has won every award in the book to this point but she's going up against two actresses who have already won in a category that is more in favor of them than Doherty. Her role was a supporting one where as Sarah Snook and Michelle Williams each have a trophy for their work earlier this year. And while an argument could be Cooper was a lead performance its harder to argue this for Doherty. (Again I really think the Actors should expand to supporting performances across the board.)

My personal pick is Snook who has the benefit of a more recent show. I think Doherty has a small edge but as with Cooper its just not as big as before.

Should Win: Snook.

Will Win: Snook/Doherty.

 

 

OUTSTANDING ACTION PERFORMANCE BY AN ENSEMBLE

This one is trickier considering the pedigree of the nominees. I'm inclined to think Last of Us should win this one but I think it'll go Stranger Things. This show has a better record with the Actors going back to its win for Best Ensemble in a Drama in 2017. Winning here would close the circle and I know awards shows like that.

Should Win: The Last of Us.

Will Win: Stranger Things.

 

This weekend will be a busy one for award watchers as the Image Awards will be airing a condensed version of their show tomorrow. I'll be back Monday with the official results of the Actors to conclude Phase One. Later this week I'll give an official report on all of the other awards show that affect TV that are part of Phase Two, from the Images to the various guild awards.

 

 

 

Howard Gordon & Vince Gilligan on The X-Files, Part 1: How The X-Files Helped Make Howard Gordon A Great Writer – Very Slowly (2700th Article)

 

If a time traveler was going to go back to 2002 from twenty years in the future (something an X-File fan would have no problem going with) and told one of those fans that in twenty years' Vince Gilligan was going to be the creative force behind two of the greatest shows of all time, none of us would have been shocked one bit. We might have been slightly surprised that he had done so with some of the darkest dramas in television history and the details would have been odd to the fan but we wouldn't have been shocked. Well before the show was over everyone who'd seen his work knew that Vince Gilligan was arguably the greatest writer the series had ever produced and the ones who didn't would have been arguing for Darin Morgan, which no Gilligan fan would have fought.

However if a time traveler had come back to 1997 from fifteen years in the future and told us that by that point Howard Gordon would have been part of two series that had won Best Drama I'm pretty sure all of them, including me, would have summons our inner Scully and asked us to pull the other one. Because not even Howard Gordon ever thought he was the best writer on The X-Files.

This is something he's been very public about. When he was interviewed by Alan Sepinwall he talked about his tenure very frankly. He said when it came to writers like Glen Morgan & James Wong (who I've written about before) he admired their work and figured out how he could 'reverse engineer it to come up with a story of his own'. When it came to Gilligan and Morgan he knew he was outclassed and was in awe of their genius. That interview took place in 2012 when Gordon had already won his first Emmy for 24 and the one for Homeland was just a few months in the future.

This may seem like I'm saying Gordon was a hack at the time he wrote for The X-Files. He wasn't. There have been worse writers during the series long tenure (I'm not going to mention them here, fans know who they are) and while Gordon did write some bad episodes in the series early going he rarely wrote absolute stinkers.  It's mainly a case that there were a lot of great writers working on The X-Files during the four seasons he was on the staff, hitting it out of the park on every script or almost every script they wrote.  Gordon's episodes were good – and to be clear some of them were absolute classics -  but speaking as someone's whose rewatched the show multiple times over the years he doesn't have as many masterpieces as Gilligan and Morgan did during that seem period.  All of four Morgan's episodes are absolute masterpieces and even though Gilligan had only written five scripts on his own by the time Gordon left in 1997 three of them are among the greatest in the show's history.

And as someone who wrote more scripts, either in collaboration or on his own then Glen Morgan and James Wong did during their two separate tenures on the series it's not even a close question. Morgan & Wong did more than anyone to make the show a breakout hit during its first two seasons then even Chris Carter himself and three of the scripts they wrote when they came back in Season 4 are utter masterpieces. Gordon just doesn't have that same track record and I suspect he himself would admit it.

But in retrospect it looks like Gordon may have been figuring out during his tenure certain things that none of his colleagues ever got a chance to really doing that period. Unlike all of these writers Gordon, whether working with his colleague Alex Gansa, with Carter or on his own, actually wrote far more scripts that were either foundational to the mythology or about government conspiracies, if not exactly connected to the alien mythos. Many of his scripts involve the military in ways far more direct then even Carter himself was willing to go at this point in his writing and indeed years later. Carter was always about the idea of a shadow government, with men in dark suits giving vague orders. Gordon, by contrast, was all about the military and just as often the human repercussions played out by those who have to live with the consequences.

And anyone who has watched and loved 24 and Homeland knows that these shows have a far more direct link to The X-Files that Gilligan's (at least until recently). 'Trust no one' could just as easily serve as mantras for Jack Bauer and Carrie Matheson then they did for Mulder and Scully.  Both series deal extensively with moles in the government who are willing to sell out their country for profit or political advantage. They feature men and women who are working along side our heroes day in and day out and it is only when horrible things begin to happen that people like Jack and Carrie realize they never knew them at all. Both of them are more loyal to their country and government than Mulder it is – for him it's just a means to the truth -  but even before we meet any of them in the Pilot of the series they are very aware of the kinds of horrible things their government and military are capable of, in large part because they've done it themselves.

Gordon is also very interested in the wreckage these actions, done in the guise of patriotism, leave behind. And I think the best way to illustrate how Gordon learned his craft is to look at one script from each season he worked on The X-Files that deals with both the evils of the government and the carnage it leaves in its wake. Three of them are among the best episodes of the early years, one is a mediocrity but all of them serve that larger theme to the point that we can see Gordon becoming the kind of man who has greatness in TV not long after he leaves The X-Files.

In Season One understandably not even Chris Carter had a clear idea about what the mythology was going to look like. This is understandable considering no one thought the show was going to survive the first season. So throughout you can see the writers trying to come up with versions that work. 'Fallen Angel' is Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa's first attempt at it and they come out swinging in what is without question their best effort of Season One.

The title reference is a military code to an alien craft used by one of the military officers in charge. Critically we never get a real look at the pilot of the craft and there's no clear link to any of the aliens we'll see later on. That's not a flaw of the episode as Gordon (with Gansa's help) is not interested in aliens but how the military reacts both in terms of the coverup and the collateral damage. This episode is the first time we get a real look as to just how far the government is willing to go to keeps its secret and how the lost of human life is irrelevant in terms of the bigger picture.

This is seen the teaser which takes place in an air force base where a controller points out what is clearly a foreign craft and is told in no uncertain terms that what she is seeing is a weather balloon. When she protests she's told not to defy her superiors. The General then tells his superiors about the alien craft and that they have to send a salvage team. Mulder is informed by Deep Throat (Jerry Hardin) about the crash and that he has only twenty-four hours before the military has covered his tracks.

This episode demonstrates more than any to this point not only how reckless Mulder is but how little he cares for procedure. He's immediately captured and thrown into the stockade and when Scully comes to bail him out she tells him that a Section Chief has convened a disciplinary hearing and that if Mulder isn't there on time to defend himself he will likely be thrown out of the bureau.

A viewer in 1993 would have instinctually known that Mulder's job at the Bureau was safe: that's how TV worked. But its still striking to see how little Mulder genuinely seems to care about his job r even Scully's during the episode. He's already in trouble and staying on the scene can only make things worse for him, yet he spends the entire episode flaunting authority and essentially dragging Scully along for the ride. Viewers might have turned against him were it not for the fact that Gordon and Gansa make it very clear that Mulder's not wrong.

Early in the episode a strike team goes after the alien no doubt completely unprepared. They are attacked with some kind of unknown weapon and they end up at a hospital, suffering from fifth and sixth degree burns. Most of them die on the scene and we see just how little the military cares. They lie to the families of the deceased and tell the doctor who is treating them that he can never tell what they are doing and threaten him when he asks to learn how they got this way, By the end of the episode at least a dozen soldiers have died and both the military and the FBI are far more concerned with punishing Mulder for speaking out about it then all of the loss of life.

During this episode we also see our first living reflection of that damage, Max Fenig (Scott Bellis). Max is a slightly problematic character because he's clearly a conspiracy nut but the show argues that he's harmless rather than a problem.  Mulder meets him in the stockade and Max becomes a focus of the episode. The show makes it very clear that Max is the other side of the coin from Mulder in terms of his beliefs and determination to get to the truth. That's why he (and the viewer) connect with him. Mulder eventually realizes that Max is an alien abductee and has experienced this multiple times. He then realizes Max has been drawn to this site by the aliens and that their purpose is to take him.

At the climax of the episode we see Max being held in a tractor beam and disappear. The official story is that he shows up dead in the wreckage but Mulder doesn't believe it. (He's right as we'll see in a later story) When he angrily confronts his superiors you can tell that Mulder really doesn't care if he keeps his job or not.

The episode ends with Mulder being saved when someone goes over McGrath's head – Deep Throat.  The viewer is inclined to argue that this is an act of his informant trying to save him. But it's just as likely that Deep Throat is doing so to keep himself safe or perhaps doesn't even have the best intention. When he says: "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer," we have reason to wonder: Is Deep Throat using Mulder as a means to an end himself? Later episodes will reveal Deep Throat had connections to the conspiracy himself and by the end of the second season it will be clear that Mulder's father was connected to it. (That's true whoever you think Mulder's real father was.) Looking back this may be the first time that Mulder might be more important to the conspiracy then you think.

Gordon's first solo script in Season 2 is also one of his best in his entire tenure. 'Sleepless' has no direct connection to the mytharc but its about as close as you can get. It deals with a government conspiracy and shows how the shadow government reaches everything. It's also the very first story to deal with the Vietnam War and considering that is where so much of our conspiracy culture begins we're honestly surprised it took until Season 2 to go at directly. It's even more related to the military then Gordon's previous script and is one of two episodes that deals with the rank and file soldiers. And we also our introduced to two characters who will be vital to the show going forward.

The story itself is a fascinating one. In it we meet a man who seems capable of killing men in impossible ways – the first victim believes his apartment has caught on fire and suffers immense burns even though there is no fire to be found, the second apparently is killed by a firing squad but no bullets are in the body. By the time of the second killing we know who the 'monster' is – and he's arguably the most sympathetic we've met to date: Augustus Cole.

Cole is played by Tony Todd who at that point in his career was not yet the horror film icon he would become in the Candyman and Final Destination franchises. Viewers who know him from those films would be stunned by his work here. Cole is the victim of a series of government experiments done during the Vietnam War which led to soldiers being able to function completely without sleep.  Most of them ended up dying but Cole we will eventually learn hasn't slept in twenty-four years.  He's clearly seeking justice as the murders he commits are done solely to kill the doctors who did the procedures that rendered him and his fellow brothers-in-arms this way.

This story demonstrates what was already becoming a familiar model for Gordon: the supernatural revenge storyline. To be fair even by this point in the series multiple writers had gone to this format: depending on your point of view there were at least four stories like this in the first season. But it takes on a different approach when it comes to Vietnam where no one can argue how badly we failed our troops during that war and in the aftermath. In that sense Cole's final act of revenge, when he summons the ghosts of every former member of his platoon to take a knife to the doctor whose brought the horrors on them is haunted and sympathetic. The fact that we've seen him kill one of those men makes all the more memorable.

In the final sequence by the time Mulder tracks Cole down there's a certain ambiguity to his final fate. (I'll get to that in a minute.) There's no doubt the government wants to shut Cole up so that he can never tell the truth about what happened. But one can't rule out the possibility that Cole wants release from all the horrors he's seen and this is the only way to get it. The term 'suicide by cop' was not part of the lexicon in 1994 but Cole's final words almost sound like he's giving a blessing to the people who killed him.

Now as to those two characters I mentioned. The first is Mulder's new informant who we heard on the phone two episodes ago but didn't see: X played memorably by Steven Williams. X is responsible for Mulder learning of the case in the first place and goes out of his way to guide him and Scully to get the information they need. But when the two of them finally meet, there's a clear difference in tone between him and Mulder's previous informant Deep Throat.

X clearly knew Deep Throat and its implied he's carrying on his work by assisting Mulder. But whereas Jerry Hardin always had an almost avuncular attitude towards Mulder even when he misled him Williams makes it very clear from the start that he doesn't want to do this job and is only doing so out of loyalty to 'my predecessor.'  When he informs Mulder of the experiments that were done on these soldiers he does so with a sense of menace and only gives so much before he leaves. Mulder doesn't seem clear of the rules and X makes it very clear: "The truth is still out there but it's never been more dangerous." Many of the characters on The X-Files will be forced to deliver ridiculous purple prose. X is one of the only ones who always talks bluntly with a threat of violence in his words – and as we shall see he is more than willing toc carry it out.

The other characters of significance is Alex Krycek. In his first appearance as the character who would fondly be nicknamed 'Ratboy' by fans of the show Nicholas Lea does everything he can to make Krycek seem like a fresh-faced rookie. He seems nervous meeting Mulder, is pissed when Mulder does his landmark 'ditch' and tries to act like he has some respect for him. During this period Mulder and Scully have been reassigned and Mulder is now working with a partner. Lea does much to make us seem to trust him.

So when the episode ends with Krycek killing Cole Lea has done a good enough job to make us think that maybe he was fooled by Cole. Cole has the power to make men hallucinate and we see a gun before we realize its his Bible. That's thrown into question in the chilling final scene when we see Krycek reporting to the Smoking Man. He makes it clear that despite their separation Mulder and Scully were closer than ever. The Smoking Man has the final word: "Every problem has a solution." Considering immediately after this Scully is abducted by Duane Barry the implication would seem to be clear – although keeping with the series we never know for sure.

In Wanting To Believe  Robert Shearman argues that the episode reveals Krycek's treachery to early. "Nicholas Lea is so convincing as a junior agent keen to impress Mulder and run around in his mentor's shadow, that you just can't help but wish there was more time to see the two of them in action. And to wonder what greater impact Krycek's treachery might be if he built up greater trust in the audience."  He has a point. If we hadn't seen this last scene then Krycek's first overt act of violence – when he kills the cable car operation in Ascension – would have been far more shocking. We'd have believed that Mulder had an ally to help him and the impact of Krycek's betrayal in that episode would have hit both him and the audience simultaneously and been all the more powerful.

But there's an argument that if the series didn't necessarily learn that lesson Gordon himself did and would use it later shows. By the time he and Gansa moved to 24 in seven years they would do a much better job at hiding moles in CTU and building up the trust in the viewer and Jack to perfection so that when the betrayal came it had this impact. And by the time they created Homeland they had it down to an artform.

While he wrote better solo scripts in Season 3 the most significant one to Gordon's career was a collaboration he did with Carter and Frank Spotnitz: 'Nisei'.  Combined with the follow-up '731' this is arguably the best two-parter in the entire mytharc because it builds on the theme from the opening of Season 3 that the conspiracy has nothing to do with aliens but rather something far more insidious: experiments on humans.

Mulder spends most of this two parter following the trail of an alien autopsy video that leads him across the country and on to a train. It’s thrilling stuff and Duchovny is superb in it. But the reason it's an unquestioned masterpiece is because Scully is following her own trail – and its far more terrifying because of how personal it ends up becoming.

During the episode Scully goes to the address of a MUFON meeting in Allentown, looking for a woman named Betsy Hagopian. When she rings the doorbell, the woman who answered Penny Northern looks at her with recognition. “She is one,” she tells this group of women. Scully has no memory of them (she has no clear memory of what happened to her) but all of the women in this group know her instantly.

Scully tries to deny it and then they ask her about her implant. One of the most frightening scenes in the entire series comes when one by one each of these women removed a small vial from their person, each of which contain an identical implant to Scully’s. It looks like the world’s weirdest book club – and then it takes an ever darker turn. Betsy Hagopian is in the oncology ward suffering from cancer. Northern then tells Scully matter-of-factly that they all have it. “We’re all dying,” she says. “Because of what they did to us.”

The series has basically told us in no uncertain terms what is going to happen to Scully. It’s a measure of the pace of the show that we’ll have forgotten about by the time it actually happens. Scully does what she has done so often, she buries what might happen to her. But she can’t deny what she sees before her eyes.

In the midst of Mulder’s inquiry he has been told of the story of four Japanese scientists who worked during World War II in a unit called 731. This is also based in reality: Japanese scientists also engaged in the similar kind of experiments that the Nazis did during World War II. Four of these scientists were killed on American soil doing the autopsy. But then Scully looks at the picture of one still alive: Shiro Zama and she recognizes him, even though he’s been missing for twenty years. She looks at the autopsy video where he is clearly pictured – and she has a flashback to her abduction and sees him standing over her.

With that being said I think that Gordon's contribution has to do more with Mulder's side of the story. Looking at Gordon's contributions to The X-Files as a whole the overwhelming majority focus on Mulder and frequently try to frame him as an action hero. You get this sense following Mulder's actions in the story: he chasing after a Japanese courier who knocks his service weapon from his hands and at that point Mulder reaches for a sidearm clipped to his sock. "I got tired of losing my gun," he says afterwards.  This could seem like a corny action line but at this point in the show it's happened often enough that it seems like a precaution.

Many of Mulder's actions very much seem like a typical episode of Jack Bauer; tracking down evidence from a diplomatic attaché to the Lone Gunmen for analysis; going to a ship to get information, following the path and being forced to dive into the ocean to escape and the climax where he tracks down our government's secret railway and ends up missing, choosing to leap from a bridge as it passes by. And the fact that moments earlier Scully has been warned by X not to get on that train and just as Mulder does he loses his cellphone, leaving a cliffhanger exactly the kind of crisis Jack would end up in. For that matter even though Gordon didn't write 731 the entire scenario that follows where Mulder ends up on a train tracking down a Japanese scientist and ends up trapped in a boxcar that is triggered to blow up really does seem like the kind of crisis Jack would have to survive.

The Season 4 episode 'Unrequited'  is one of the last he would write for The X-Files.  He collaborated with Chris Carter on it, which by that time was a common practice: in addition to Nisei Gordon would work with Carter on five different scripts before he would leave.  Most of them are superb episodes for good reason: both men were superb at writing about distrust of the government, even when they weren't per se writing about the mytharc. 'Unrequited' has no real connection to the mythology and is a flawed episode for many reasons. Yet in hindsight so much of the story seems to be an ancestor text for the impetus of Homeland  fourteen years later.

The central story involves an assassin who is killing off generals who have connections to the Vietnam War. The assassinations are tied to a paramilitary group known as the Right Hand. The leader is an ex-marine named Denny Markham. Skinner is put in charge of the task force and Mulder and Scully are pulled in because of the circumstances of the first death.

A three-star general entered his limousine and found a playing card on it. We see him killed by a gaunt-bearded man. By the time the drivers turns around the killer is gone. The driver claims he didn't kill him and the paraffin test indicates he didn't fire the weapon.

Mulder and Scully question Markham, who is very much the kind of militia leader that was unfortunately becoming common by 1997.  He gives Mulder and Scully a speech about one day their organization will take up 'an armed resistance against the government'. He denies responsibility but identifies the playing card as part of a group called the Bloody Sabers. The man is Nathaniel Teager. The Right Hand rescued him in 1995 at a Vietnamese prison camp – 23 years after the government declared all P.O.W's from Vietnam had been released. The government attempted to recapture Teager but he escaped. Markham has no idea how.

Nathaniel Teager spends the episode on a path of destruction to kill three generals. We learn via Mulder's newest informant, Marita Corravubias.  These men employed South Vietnamese soldiers as spies and commandos, leaving them behind to face capture or death. The operation had been disavowed but it has recently become public and if these men face charges it would be an embarrassment to the government.

The biggest shock to Mulder comes after learning the government wants them dead. "Why would they ask to protect us?"

Covarrubias's response is simple: "Because they know you can't."

This mission has a dual purpose: maintaining the policy of denial about POWs and silencing those men and as a secondary protocol, to further discredit the FBI and by association The X-Files. It is the kind of convoluted plot that we would later see on both 24 and Homeland. And that's part of the problem.  On those series Gordon would have several episodes to deal with the ramifications of these kinds of betrayals and see it play out. Here he has less then twenty minutes to deal with it once we learn the truth and by this point we know enough about The X-Files to know that if it doesn't involve aliens we won't be dealing with the story in a future episode.

This would be enough to undercut the episode. But that's only part of the problem. The first is that the episode begins in medias re with Mulder and the FBI walking through a speech a general is giving to Vietnam veterans looking for the assassin. This is the opening teaser and we don't understand what's happening. At the last minute Mulder sees the assassin and just as he's about to fire on Him he disappears. Then the episode flashes back twelve hours and the real story unfolds.

Then we see the entire sequence again basically shot for shot during the final act of the episode and only then do we see what happens in the aftermath. In 1997 this gimmick was still new enough that it had power. Problem is its used badly so that it takes up nearly a quarter of the entire episode's runtime, making it by far the worst kind of padding.

Nor is the only flaw. Aside from the killings he commits Teager only appears in two other scenes. The first when he tells a grieving widow that her husband is still alive before disappearing in front of her. The second is when he's actually on his final trip and another veteran recognizes him and follows him. The two men have a civilized conversation where he tries to persuade Teager the war is over and Teager says its not before handing him a list of names. This particular story isn't followed up either.

While this doesn't work in context of the episode it does a lot to make it clear that Gordon might have used the character of Teager when he created the character of Nick Brody for Homeland in 2011. There are clear similarities: Brody was left behind for eight years and his family believed he was dead. And as with Teager he has been 'turned' by spending eight years with terrorist Abu Nazir, who has convinced him to return and exact a terrorist attack on the U.S. intelligence community.  In his final conversation with his fellow veteran Teager makes it clear 'the war isn't over', which is very much why Nick Brody plans to strap a suicide vest and kill, among others, the Vice President.

We can also see signs of the corruption within the U.S government itself perhaps more clearly then most of the other X-Files episodes. Late in the episode when the surviving General, who knows he's the final target, confronts Markham who is in custody. Markham sneers at him and even when Bloch attacks him Markham is unfazed.  "Whatever you do to em won't change his mind, General. He's sending a message. And making damn sure everyone hears it loud and clear."

Markham is a domestic terrorist and he's making it very clear that nothing the government can do will stop what's to come.  

This is a frustrating episode because it almost works. There are individual scenes that are very exciting, such as when Teager walks into the Pentagon and is visible on the cameras – but when he sets off the alarm no one notices. (Teager has the ability to make himself invisible to the naked eye, but the show can't come up with a realistic explanation as to why or how he learned this skill, another issue.) We know by this point he's stalking another general and Mulder has sent him to the Pentagon and asked for an armed escort. His escorts walk him into the room and seeing no one the General enters his office. However we see that playing card.

The General then calls Mulder and tells him what he's found and Mulder tells him to call the men back in his office. We then see Teager behind him and Mulder hears the shot over the phone.  By the time he reaches the office the General is dead. Mulder spots the killer out of the corner of his eye  and whirls around – and then he's gone.

Also working is Teager's death scene when as he dies, he follows the habit of P.O.W's saying name, rank and serial number. The final scene when we learn the government is covering up who the assassin was and that the Right Hand has gone along with it is also powerful. And it helps the final conversation is with Skinner who is a Vietnam vet.

Mulder's final words have power that wouldn't work with any other killer. "They're not just denying this man's life. They're denying his death. And with all due respect sir, he could be you.:"

The line is a powerful indictment of are policies in Vietnam and the Cold War and they could just as easily apply to the 21^st century. And its worth noting in both 24 and Homeland Gordon would frequently deal with storylines where the primary 'villain' was a veteran of intelligence or military hung out to dry (multiple seasons of 24 deal with this as well as several of Homeland) or a government conspiracy to cover up a failed mission. (Both the first seasons of Homeland and 24 involve revenge plots based on these actions.)

Not long after this Gordon ended up leaving The X-Files to strike out on his own. But in these stories and others we shall look at later on, it's more than clear that The X-Files was the proving ground for the man who led the adventures of Jack Bauer and Carrie Matheson for eight brilliant seasons each.

 

 

 

Scrubs Is Back!

 

 

During the 2000s I was starting to watch TV at a more regular clip but I still wasn't sure I was going to be a critic of it. I didn't write my first real professional column on the subject until at least 2011 on a site that no longer exists. That doesn't mean I didn't have opinions, particularly when it came to the Emmys.

There's healthy debate as to which of the great dramas of the 21^st century didn't get nearly enough recognition from the Emmys or other awards shows. The Wire and Battlestar Galactica are basically in a tie for lack of nominations altogether, and Deadwood and The Shield compared to their quality got a ridiculously little number of nominations if not awards. I can see the logic for that, and I could make arguments for shows like Alias if I wanted too. But when it comes to comedies that got lack of recognition by the Emmys and other awards shows, there's only one contender for the most overlooked comedy of all and that is Scrubs.

And compared to all the arguments for dramas Scrubs' track record  is the most inconceivable. It was a network comedy in the era when networks were still rivaling cable for comedy classics; it was an NBC comedy, during the more the three decades they basically owned the nominations, if not most wins in that category every year, and it was a workplace comedy, right about the time the world was about to fall in love with the model. And yet the show was only nominated for best comedy series once during its entire seven seasons on NBC and of the incredible ensemble only Zach Braff ever receiving an acting nomination.

If I had been asked what was the best comedy series of the 2000s at the end of that decade, I wouldn't have said The Office or Everybody Loves Raymond or Will & Grace, I would have said Scrubs and that's a hill I'm still willing to die on. It's not just because I really didn't like any of the other comedies; that's true of the lot of the shows during that period and still today. It's because I truly believe at its peak – which I'd say basically goes from its first season to its sixth – it was the most consistently humorous, wistful and enjoyable series I ever watched. The only contenders to the title in my opinion are Arrested Development and 30 Rock and while both of them are among the funniest shows I've ever watched, Scrubs works for me on a different level because it also has the greatest emotional resonance.

Looking back that maybe the reason the Emmys never knew what to do with it or why it was never as big a hit even when it aired after Friends during the 2002-2003 season is because Scrubs was also one of the darkest comedies of that period. I don't mean that there was any debate like the ones we have today with shows like The Bear whether it was a comedy; generally I laughed more hysterically in an episode watching the antics of JD than any show during that period. But this was also a show set at Sacred Heart, which was a hospital. And let's not kid ourselves: I don't think there was any network comedy during the decade that dealt with such grim subjects in such a humorous matter. I could make an argument that it was as close as the 21^st century ever got to MASH and I don't think there'd be much debate. This was a show where so many of the antics were happening while the staff was doing everything in its power to stop patients from dying and more often then not, they lost the battle more than won it.

This was also a show where we saw the characters suffer more than we wanted to. Consider Dr. Perry Cox, played by John C. McGinley in a performance that every year the Emmys seemed to go out of their way to shun. Every line out of McGinley's mouth was a blistering gem as he went out of his way to deride everyone around him as being an idiot or incompetent, whether it was 'Newbie', 'Doctor Barbie' or any one of the wonderful nicknames he could come up with at a moment's notice. But with each season the episode went out of its way to show that this was someone who was doing everything in his considerable power not to show he had a heart. We saw it in his real friendship with Carla (Judy Reyes); every interaction he had with his ex-wife and soul mate Jordan (the fact that Christa Miller has been sleeping with the showrunner for thirty years doesn't change the fact she's an extraordinary talent) and the way he took the deaths of so many patients badly. We all remember the heartbreaking episode he spent trying to deny the death of his brother-in-law Ben which still brings tears to your eyes nearly 20 years later. You got the feeling most of the time the characters were engaging in the hysterical antics so they didn't cry. That was a balance I don't think TV viewers were ready for in the 2000s, certainly on network TV.

There's also an argument that, for the first two decades of this century, TV has never known what to make of Bill Lawrence. During that period he was the most consistently brilliant maker of comedies, whether it was Scrubs, the awkwardly named but deeply funny Cougar Town and underrated gems like the canceled too soon Ground Floor. Everyone of his shows was a magical experience and they were also watched by too few people and given less recognition.

And then right at the time we needed it – the winter of 2020 – America suddenly realized just how brilliant Bill Lawrence was.  First we found it when the entire world fell in love with Ted Lasso, both the character and the entire show. For its first two seasons it won every award in sight for its actors, its writers and producers. It was as if the Emmys had suddenly realized what a genius it had overlooked and decided to make up for it all at once.

Unlike almost every creative force who derided streaming Lawrence has embraced it and openly spoken in favor of it. It doesn't hurt that his collaboration with Apple TV has been berry, berry good to him. While Ted Lasso was filming its third and what was meant to be its final season, he began working on his next collaboration with Brett Goldstein Shrinking. This series is much more keeping in the Lawrence mold; it’s a lot darker in its subject matter with its lead and the characters around it and has a similar mentor-protégé relationship between Jason Segel and Harrison Ford. Indeed its sometimes difficult for me not to be reminded of Perry Cox much of the time I see Ford's Paul on screen. Paul isn't as mean-spirited and he can be more openly compassionate (though he'll deny it) but he puts up a very gruff façade to those around him and its clearly cost him. And just as with McGinley every line out of Ford's mouth is a gem. (Unlike McGinley Harrison Ford has been nominated by the Emmys and other awards shows and it’s a matter of time before he wins.)

A show created by Lawrence has been nominated for Best Comedy every year since 2021 and its almost certainly going to happen again this year. (Shrinking is a frontrunner for Emmy nominations across the board for Season 3 and I will get to it eventually.) And just like with Ted Lasso  I think the decision to bring back Scrubs for what the show is officially calling a revival rather than reboot comes exactly when we all need it. That ABC rather than Hulu or Apple is doing is a sign of the network's confidence in the project. It may have a shakier foundation with ABC bringing it back then NBC would (it aired the final two very shaky seasons of the show after NBC dropped it in 2008) but having watched network TV in recent years this is absolutely the right call as it is ABC which currently is the unquestionable king of great network comedies during the decade. They brought us Abbott Elementary, the underappreciated Not Dead Yet and the reimagining of The Wonder Years. And having seen the first two episodes, it couldn't be in better hands.

It's clear from the opening that we're right back where we were as we open with a sequence where J.D. is in the middle of a thoracotomy and life-saving procedure that is clearly a John Wells' production. We know it’s a fantasy even before it becomes ridiculous because JD is now a concierge doctor.

He's still living less than an hour from Sacred Heart (and no we still don't know what city its in) when he shows up during a Code Black and Carla is taking charge. (Glad Carla Reyes had the time to show up for the premiere.) As is always with this beautiful relationship (I'm pretty sure 'bromance' has a picture of JD and Turk next to it) Turk senses JD is near and they immediately go into 'Eagle'. Except now their both nearly fifty and Turk's back goes out. And when JD tries to call time of death, he can't read his watch without his glasses.

The series makes it clear what it's going to be right away when Dr. Cox shows up after JD needs help with a patient. JD is dealing with something Scrubs never really had but absolutely needs, a villain: Dr. Park (a wonderful Joel Kim Booster). Its not clear what Cox's relationship is with Park but he immediately says he needs help with another problem: the new group of interns who are so clueless and sensitive they make JD look like Vic Mackey. (Though the show goes out of its way to prove that the only police he would part of is the 'Feelings Police').

Perry can't deal with it the way he used because the times have changed and they haven't so much left him behind as ridiculously overcorrected. The Kelso in this version is played by Vanessa Bayer who is the complete anti-version: Kelso famous had two thumbs and didn't give a damn, Bayer's character makes it ridiculously clear that everyone's feelings are valid, even if they get in the way of the medicine. I really hope that we get to see more of the two because it was just so much fun to see them interact. "Don't I get three strikes?" Cox asks. "You have 900," Bayer says back.

And sadly there are fewer happy endings then we think. JD and Eliot did end up getting married at the end of the original run – and they're divorced now. Honestly this shouldn't really come as a shock as the two of them always worked far better as friends (with or without benefits) then they ever did as boyfriend and girlfriend. I honestly thought when the show made them finally get together by the end of Season 8 (the series is, thankfully, denying that Season 9 ever happened) it was the kind of think a conventional comedy series did, which Scrubs never was. By having the two of them now having gone through a very rocky divorce, the show has restored the status quo – and let's not kid ourselves, that was always the fun.

The fun part of the revival of Scrubs is that the three major characters: JD, Eliot and Turk (the only official regulars in the cast) have grown older but not necessarily matured. JD is less emotionally needy but still incredibly sensitive, Eliot is more in charge but still a hot mess and Turk may be married with four kids but he still is capable of doing the robot dance when he needs to. And its clear that even though some of the regulars are gone, Sacred Heart is just as weird as ever.

But some of the familiar faces are still there, in spirit if not in body. Nurse Roberts has long since gone but now we have a group of African-American charge nurses going "Mm-hmm". Todd is still as much a handful as he was before even though he's trying to be better. "You should see me go deep," he says. But when every women looks at him he goes: "With consent five." And a lot of the older characters will be there and we've seen some of the older faces such as Hooch, who is still crazy.  (Sadly we won't be seeing Ted as Sam Lloyd passed away a few years ago.)

JD ends up coming back to be the Chief of Medicine, the job held by first Kelso and then Perry. And its watching him work particularly with the new breed of interns that you get the sense why we need Scrubs now more than ever. Nothing has changed about emergency medicine in the fifteen years since Scrubs went off the air and if anything its got even worse. Scrubs famously showed awareness of all of the problems and with far more humor and grace then any medical drama did years ago with the exception of ER (which was still on the air when Scrubs premiered). Now it makes it return just as the most critically acclaimed show and one of the most watched series on TV in any form is The Pitt, a series which looks at every possible crisis at every level over a single shift.

Scrubs is no different now then it was in the 2000s and does it with far more grace then those dramas did. We see it in the first episode of the revival when an aggressive intern tells a patient who he thinks has a stomachache to wait in the car or go to an ER, not even willing to leave the hospital. At the end of the season premiere, that patient has a heart attack and dies and the intern realizes in a way he hasn't how badly he's screwed up.  The show also has JD finally dealing with the kind of issues he never had to at any point on the show, budgeting and trying to instruct.  JD seems to have become more pragmatic at this point.

During the second episode when a patient is dealing with heart issues because he can't afford medicine one of his interns decides to argue with the insurance agent to get pills. This leads to trouble and JD tells him to see more patients. Eventually JD does make some deals and tries to get the guy the meds he needs. In the old show this would be seen as a victory and the episode would leave it be as a triumph. In the revival JD tells the intern that he's going to face hundreds of these cases every year and if he cares too much he's going to burn out quickly. JD lets the intern have his victory.

None of this makes the show any less funny or prone to the fantasies that made it wonderful. In dealing with his rivalry with Park JD frames himself in a James Bond story and makes Park the villain. ("So I'm the Asian villain who doesn't have any dialogue?" Park says before throwing a bowler hat to decapitate JD.) Later that episode JD realizes he's a villain to and throws his own bowler. "Want to hit the buffet?" he tells Park. And at the end of the episode we see JD spending the night he should be celebrating his return waiting on hold – and we see that play out as a fantasy too.

The only thing that I have doubts about after two episodes is the numerous group of interns that we've met in the first two episodes. This ended up weighing down much of Season 8 and when it came back trying to focus entirely on them in Season 9 (which did not happen!) it took a way a lot of goodwill fans had with the show.  The new writers are doing a better job then they did in the first couple of episodes they did in Season 8 but that's not a high bar to surpass.

That's a minor quibble. Scrubs was ahead of its time when it debuted during the 2000s and honestly on network TV in 2026, the rest of comedy TV still has to catch up with it. It does have the same nostalgia factor of every reboot and revival, much of which I have little use for in most cases but somehow doesn't apply here.  Like Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke, I'm also twenty-five years older than I was when I first saw them as interns in Sacred Heart and while I've matured a lot in my viewing habits I still know a classic when I see one. And the message that's still in his opening lyric – "I can't do this all on my own" – could be a mission statement for every show he's done since.  I need the show just as much now as I did twenty five years ago and I think that could be said for all of us.

My score: 4.5 stars.