A Tournament of Champions Without Alex: A Look Back

 

With all the chaos that Jeopardy has been going through since Alex Trebek passed away last November, Jeopardy has needed a reason to prove that it could still be relevant to its fan base. The Tournament of Champions is usually the highpoint of the Jeopardy season and no doubt many wondered if the tournament could still work without Trebek. In my opinion, the answer was a resounding yes.

It helped immensely that the guest host was a former Tournament winner: Buzzy Cohen, whose triumphs I brought forth in an earlier article. Some fans may have been polarized by his performance behind the podium but standing at the lectern, he was everything Jeopardy needed. For starters, he had the right measure of enthusiasm and gravitas that the series has needed and several of the guest hosts have been lacking. For another, his experience gave the exact tone that was needed to host the show and interview his fellow champions, who were closer to his peers. He knew the right questions to ask, he knew the right measure of seriousness to bring to the game.  When he referred to the contestants as ‘Champions’, it didn’t seem awkward at all. It seemed as though like were addressing like.

All of this would have been lacking if the fifteen champions – dating from as far back as July of 2019 had not been up the challenge. From beginning to end, they pretty much were. And like so many past tournaments, this one demonstrated that nothing can be taken for granted. Going into it, one might have thought that Jason Zuffraneri, who won 19 games and just over half a million dollars in Season 35 and 36, would’ve been the odds-on favorite. But as is often the case, he struggled in his quarterfinal match, was only able to qualify by a wild-card for the semis and ended up losing his semi-final game. Indeed, there were many surprise victories throughout the tournament and several exciting games.

When the smoke cleared, the three finalists would be Veronica Vichit-Vadakan, a Portland librarian (knowing books gives you an edge on Jeopardy) Sam Kavanaugh, a substitute teacher from Minnesota (teachers have always been among the biggest successes on this show) and Jennifer Quail, a wine-tasting consultant from Michigan, who’d won eight games and just over $230,000. (In her semi-final match, she had defeated Jason.)

In Game 1 of the two-day final, Veronica would get off to a fast start, which would eventually be supplemented by Sam responding correctly on a Daily Double in SHAKESPEARE CHARACTER FOOTBALL TEAM. (A very outside linebacker, this guy plays on an island; the son of a witch & a devil, he’s a beast out there. “Who is Caliban?” Only on Jeopardy.) Sam kept that lead and only increased it in Double Jeopardy despite a major effort by Jennifer. By the end of Double Jeopardy, he had $24,000 to Jennifer’s $11,000 and Veronica’s $8200.

Final Jeopardy was an odd category: MUSIC AND GEOGRAPHY: “In a British folk tune, the title lass Maggie May is sentenced to go way down south to this penal colony that rhymes with her name.” Both Sam and Jennifer knew the correct response: “What is Botany Bay?” Sam, however, bet big wagering $14000. He went into Game 2 with $38,000, $23000 more than his nearest opponent.

It was going to take a major effort for either Veronica or Jennifer to win the tournament after game 1, but neither was willing to throw in the sponge. Jennifer in particular fought hard, staying close to Sam for most of the Jeopardy round. She managed to leap into a big lead early on after a Daily Double went her way. However a little later, Sam found the other Daily Double in MATH CHAMPS and wagered the $7800 he had. ”Also known as Leonardo of Pisa, he knew a lot of numbers not just 1,1, 2,3,5,8” Sam knew this referred to Fibonacci, and jumped into a big lead. Jennifer stayed close to the end but by the time Double Jeopardy was over, Sam had locked up the Tournament.

No one ever goes through the motions in a Tournament final and we saw very quickly how fortunate Sam was because of his Daily Double early on. The Final Jeopardy category was EUROPEAN BORDERS and as you’d expect, it was very tough. “It’s still there, but none of the countries that bordered this country at the beginning of 1990 exist anymore. “ Only Jennifer knew the correct answer: “What is Poland?” (Czechoslovakia, The USSR, and East Germany no longer exist. Sam thought it was Hungary. (So did I, for the record.) But Sam had enough and ended up winning the grand prize of $250,000. There were tears in his eyes as the applause rang out. Jennifer won $100,000 for finishing second, and Veronica took home $50,000.

It is events like these that remind us fans of Jeopardy the reason we watch the show in the first place: Alex was a big reason to be sure, but it’s about the clues, the intellectual back and forth and the champions themselves. The producers did their part to remind us of that with the brilliant opening montage which showed footage of some of the greatest Jeopardy players in history – from Chuck Forrest to Brad Rutter and James Holzhauer, and yes, Buzzy Cohen himself – in their moments of triumph. This, as well as the exceptional work of Buzzy, that reminds us of why we stick with Jeopardy and why we’ll watch it. Bravo.

Type Set for the Last Issue: The Bold Type Bids Farewell

 

Ever since I discovered it – a little late, I admit – I have always loved Freeform’s The Bold Type. And really, there’s no reason I should. I’m not the series target audience. The series deals with three twenty-ish women who work at a women’s magazine and talk frequently about their sex lives and fashion, things that I despised when I saw them on Sex and the City (and to an extent, Girls.)  But everything about this show rubs me the right way and delights me in the exact opposite matter that those series failed at.

Perhaps the main reason is because this is, foremost, about a series about friendship. And the bond between columnist Jane (Katie Stevens) stylist Sutton (Meghan Fahy) and political commentator Kat (Aisha Dee) is one of the deepest I’ve ever seen in all my years of watching television. Despite all of their romantic problems, difficulties with the magazine, health issues and their differing politics, these three women are each others soulmates. No matter what problems will visit them at Scarlet or tumult with their complicated romances, there’s always time to go into the fashion closet and drink a bottle of champagne. I think that no matter what your race or sex, gender or political identity, anybody can relate to at least one of them. And let’s not forget that this magazine may have the boss that everybody should have Jacqueline (the incredible Melora Hardin), the woman who puts principles above publication, even when it costs her, who always has her employees backs (not just the trio in question) and who knows she has to try harder, but never seems to mind that much. Forget Michael Scott (who actually worked for Hardin at The Office) Jacqueline is the Best Boss Ever.

But all good things must come to an end and thankfully, after a few months of suspense, the good people at Freeform decided to give The Bold Type a final season to end things on their own terms. As you’d expect, things are in chaos at Scarlet, and for our three heroines. Sutton has separated from her husband Richard (NO!) had an affair with a married friend on a return home, and is now trying to stumble through her job and family situation. Kat, after going through a long battle with Ava, Scarlet board member (and basically her exact opposite) ended up having a one night stand with her and is having trouble dealing with her romantic and political feelings. And Jane is now a columnist, pursuing a story about an abusive boss in the magazine world (who has ties to Jacqueline) and is trying to chase down the story while fighting romantic twinges for her current employee Scott.

I think this is the point to add that The Bold Type can also be really funny. All of the actresses are extremely skilled comediennes (the opening episode featured a hysterical moment where Sutton got roaring drunk and Jane trying to get her back to room, lost her). The sense of humor in the series is always teasing without ever really getting unpleasant, and the biggest laughs are usually on our leading ladies who are always game to do anything to humiliate themselves (though most of the time its off screen). And the series has always done a good job with its supporting cast. Oliver Grayson, Sutton’s mentor has always been good for some brilliant storyline, and the season opened with Alex Crawford bringing up a particular relevant story about just how much we should weigh our old tweets against us.

I really want a happy ending for all three of our leading ladies on The Bold Type. I’m not sure whether that would be romantic or career fulfillment, or both. But in a sense, Jane, Sutton and Kat have their happy ending already. They have each other and that friendship is bone deep. I actually wouldn’t mind a Bold Type movie a few years down the line. But until then, let’s raise on last glass of champagne to the women of Scarlet. They’ll always be our soulmates.

My score: 5 stars.

 

If You're Just Going to Send Your Best Shows to Streaming, Why Bother Making Them At All?

 

 

Back in the Paleozoic Era – otherwise known as the fall of 2019 – CBS debuted Evil, a series which had the impeccable credential of Robert and Michelle King, creators of The Good Wife. An exceptionally well done horror series with some brilliant moments of satire, it may have been the closest thing television has had to The X-Files in the 21^st Century. Featuring brilliant performances from Mike Colter, Aasaf Mandvi and particularly Michael Emerson as a man who might very well be the devil himself, it was one of the best reviewed series of 2019. Though the ratings were not high – especially for the Tiffany network – CBS renewed it for a second season.

The season finale aired in January 2020. Then the pandemic and quarantine hit. Producing television series became increasingly problematic for everybody. Production eventually resumed on Evil, but a premiere date never came for the 2020 season. Finally, this past May, CBS announced that Evil would return for a second season – but on its streaming service, now known as Paramount Plus.

For the past ten years, there has been a major outcry from the broadcast networks as to how the Emmys and other awards groups have decided to honor pay and basic cable and eventually streaming services with nominations, but basically ignore the networks. This criticism is not entirely unwarranted. I myself have spent many columns raging against the Emmys utter refusal to recognize brilliant dramas like The Good Wife, Parenthood and more recently series like A Million Little Things as well as hysterical comedies like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Mom and most excruciatingly Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. (I won’t dig up the old saw of how the Emmys were willing to acknowledge lesser comedies that weren’t, strictly speaking, on television, than acknowledge a better series on an actual network). I could never understand why Downton Abbey and Girls were worthy of recognition and these shows weren’t.

But a huge part of the blame must go to the networks themselves.  Over the past decade, their reactions to the Peak TV on other networks have been to produce remakes, procedurals and rely constantly on one showrunner for an entire nights programming. Dick Wolf, Greg Berlanti and Shonda Rhimes would occupy space that could’ve gone to better series. Then there is the fact that we are glutted with reboots and continuations of old series on every single network. There was no reason for a new Equalizer, a new Magnum P.I. or a new series of Will & Grace, except that they came with an initial built in audience. And with few exceptions, most of these series have little imagination or reason for being and very quickly had very diminished audience. Yet despite that, every year we keep getting a new bunch of these reboots and remakes rather than, I don’t know, original television.

I realize that network television needs to make money, but unless diminished ratings are supposed to somehow to this, I don’t see how it’s working. Next year, NBC will have two entire nights devoted to Dick Wolf programming; one to the Law & Order universe; one to the Chicago universe. None of these series have been able to crack the five million mark in ratings for years, and SVU is now in season 22. NBC has a history of being unable to cancel series until they’re long past their expiration date, but this is becoming ridiculous. ABC and Fox are at least trying to get away from these issues, but it doesn’t seem to be paying off, either.

And CBS is by far the most frustrating of these networks. NCIS has occupied so much real estate for so long even though it is difficult to find anyone who watches any of them. And now, after canceling the New Orleans franchise, they’re setting up a new spinoff in Honolulu. And it actually gets worse! One of the series they’re bringing back is CSI, the procedural that started this whole mess. This is what they think we’ll get better response than Evil? Really?

Which actually brings me to an earlier point. One of the best series currently on television is NBC’s Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. I’ve raved about it multiple times at this column. It’s been nominated for multiple awards and is most likely to one of the main contenders for Emmys for NBC. Its ratings are not great and it’s on the bubble. A network exec was quoted as saying the show will continue “if not on the NBC, then Peacock.” So this is how networks will deal with critically acclaims shows that don’t bring in a mass audience from now on. I’m willing to bet those few show-runners who are still considering bringing products to networks will probably think long and hard before bringing series anywhere if that’s the best they can expect.

And it’s not like being on a streaming service is a guarantee of recognition either. The Kings know this better than anybody. The Good Fight – which is just as good as The Good Wife – has been airing on what will be now known as Paramount Plus for the past four years. Critics love it; the Emmys don’t.

So networks, if this how you want to play it, fine. You want to try and draw audiences in with reboots of Hart to Hart and continuations of ALF, go right ahead. But you don’t get to keep complaining about how Netflix and HBO keep dominating the Emmys. You forfeited that right when you decided your streaming services are better served for your premium shows.

 

 

The Doctor Will See You...Again: In Treatment Returns. Is the World Ready for It now?

 

 

A theme that I have come back to repeatedly in this column is that is not the success stories that need to be rebooted or brought back but the series that either didn’t quite work or had a cult following. Over the past decade we’ve seen a couple of examples of this: Arrested Development was brought back by Netflix for two daring but increasingly uneven seasons and Veronica Mars which fans brought back for a movie and came back on Hulu for a season that ultimately horrified the fans who had been faithful to it. But never has a network actually brought back a series it has cancelled. Until this Sunday.

To explain what’s happening, I’ll need to go into a bit more detail than I usually do. In 2008 HBO introduced a series called In Treatment which had one of the most radical approaches to TV even for a network known for it. From Monday to Friday, the network would air one half-hour episode that focused solely on a therapy session between Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) and one of his patients. These included a teenager who had a crush on him (Melissa George) a couple going through a marriage problem (Josh Charles and Elizabeth Davidz) and in its most brilliant case, a pilot undergoing a major case of PTSD (Blair Underwood). The Friday session dealt with Weston’s own therapy with a mentor of his (Dianne Wiest). Week after week, we just watch each half-hour session as Weston tried to unravel the psyche of his patients. Sometimes it work; sometimes it went very badly. Underwood’s character would kill himself by the end of the season. We would also see the cost on Weston and his wife (Michelle Forbes); by the end of Season 1, they would divorce.

This was an approach TV was utterly unused too, and critical response was favorable. It received four Golden Globe nominations and Byrne would triumph for Best Actor. In 2008, Dianne Wiest would take an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress. The major problem with the series was that HBO had no idea how to schedule it. The show would stay on the air for two seasons, but the network would keep changing how they aired it. In 2009, they put it on two nights a week, one day having three sessions, the other day having two. In 2010, they would cut it to two half-hour episodes for two nights. But despite continuing to have brilliant actors giving great performances (future seasons would feature John Mahoney, Amy Ryan and making a return to acting Debra Winger) the ratings never worked out and in 2010 In Treatment was cancelled.

The phrase ‘ahead of its time’ is used so often that its practically clichéd, but in the case of In Treatment, not only is it true, we also know exactly how far ahead of its time.  I am generally opposed to binge-watching any series, but in the case of In Treatment, I actually think that it would have worked much better had it debuted on Netflix or Amazon five years later.  One can easily see how someone who liked one character more than another could simply choose to watch every episode that character appeared and decide to ignore the rest if they so chose. And for those who might make the argument: “Who just wants to see two people talk for thirty minutes?” the answer is everybody. Therapy shows have become more popular in the past several years – Showtime’s reality series Couples Therapy has become a phenomena for the network – and it is far more engaging than most of them.

HBO seemed to realize that, so in a rare mea culpa for the network they announced earlier this year the ‘return’ of In Treatment. Technically, they are listing as Season 4, but considering that the therapist is completely different, it’s essentially a reboot. They are sticking to same format that they did for Season 3 – two episodes on Sunday and Monday. Two questions remain: does the new version work and will people be drawn in this time?

There are some fairly different changes. The first version of In Treatment took place in New York; the new version takes place in California. This version also changes the therapist: this time, it’s Dr. Brooke Taylor, an African American woman. It may tell you something – it may even tell you enough – that she is played by Uzo Aduba, one of the great television actresses of the past decade. She’s won three Emmys in the past six years; two for playing her signature character Crazy Eyes on Orange is the New Black; one last year for playing another icon, Shirley Chisholm in Miss America. If the difference between the two major roles wasn’t enough to show her range, Aduba is completely different from the previous performances; she is calmer, warmer and compassionate. And unlike the early days of the previous incarnation, we get more of a look into her psyche even before she goes into therapy. After dealing with one particularly difficult patient, she goes into her kitchen (like Weston, she seems to operate out of her home, but there’s more to that which I’ll explain in a moment) selects a bottle of Scotch and swallows a healthy amount. The series also acknowledges the reality of Covid in this world; for one patient, she sees him from a video chat; for another, she has to go through paperwork acknowledging he’s been vaccinated.

The patients offer varying cases. On Sunday, we met Eladio (Anthony Ramos) who called her late at night after a nightmare. When they had their regular session, we learn that he’s a caretaker in quarantine with a patient with MS and has been suffering from severe insomnia. Initially, he pushed her for medication, but as he opened up, we learnt he had been diagnosed as bipolar and hadn’t revealed it to the people who’d hired him for this job. He is deep to Latino written fiction and heavy sci-fi and we almost casually learn, he has problems with his parents and that he’s gay.

The second session dealt with Colin, a tech billionaire who had been discharged from prison because of overcrowding, clearly has anger issues and is attending these sessions as a necessity for his probation. Colin’s sessions are by far more the fascinating, in part because he is playing by the mesmerizing John Benjamin Hickey, one of the most underrecognized actors of the new Golden Age. He plays a character not that far removed from the one he played on The Good Fight (he was the founder of Chumhub, that world’s Facebook), but from the start, we can tell he keeps deflecting everything. He loves therapy, he was an ex-hippie – and he’s also very clear got anger issues, relating to sex and possibly race. He spends much of his session trying to fend off Brooke’s questions, but we know she isn’t fooled for a minute.

On Monday, Brooke has therapy with Laila, an eighteen year-old on the verge of going to college whose grandmother hauls her into therapy because she doesn’t like that she’s a lesbian. Laila (Quintessa Swindell) goes out of her way to try and shock Brooke, saying casually that she’s a sex addict, that Brooke’s generation let the world burn and that she has no use for anyone. Casually Brooke managed to get her to admit that she is having sex with a fourteen-year girl and Laila doesn’t really seem concerned about it. How much of her attitude is a front we can’t tell yet.

The last session was traditionally the therapy session. Here, it turned on its head. Brooke is about to hook up with an old boyfriend when Rita shows up upset because she didn’t honor a commitment.  As you’d expect we learn the most about Brooke in this session. Rita isn’t her therapist, she’s her sponsor, and Brooke was an alcoholic whose been sober for ten years – until we saw her take a drink during Colin’s session. Brooke’s father has passed away, and the man she’s going to meet Adam (Joel Kinnaman shows up near the end) was one of the major factors in her becoming an alcoholic in the first place. As you’d expect in this ‘session’, Brooke reveals the most and we see her at her most raw. The façade is gone, and we can tell even more than with Paul Weston just how close she is to an explosion.

I can understand why some critics and indeed some viewers will have problems with In Treatment; this is still not typical television, even for HBO. There are still problems that have not been neatly resolved, but as anyone whose been under therapy, your problems don’t get resolved in a week, or a month – or maybe ever. What holds it together is the exceptional work of Aduba, who will be a revelation for those who only know her from Orange is the New Black.  The coolness she shows running sessions compared with the rage she shows in her own is the greatest example of her range the date. It will not shock me if Aduba immediately launches herself into the frontrunners among Best Actress for an Emmy.

As for the questions I asked at the beginning, yes it does work. I don’t know if it’ll connect with audience the way it did with critics now or then. This is still not a series for fans of Peak TV; it’s still more like those who prefer theater. But considering that we’ve spent the last year in a complete absence of theater, In Treatment will fill that void. And in that sense, it’s good theater too.

My score: 4.25 stars.

If The Golden Globes Disappeared, Would It Matter? Conclusion

 

Bottom line: do I want to bury the Golden Globes or praise it? Honestly, having learned some new info, my opinion has changed a little. As if I heard wasn’t bad enough, there’s the fact that the members of the Hollywood Foreign Press have spent much of their careers demanding tributes from so many of the people who work in the industry. Many publicists have gotten exhausted giving the same speech excusing so many of the practices the HFPA members have made. And that’s before you get in to some of the more bluntly racist attitudes that many of the members have made to African-American actors.

Despite all of that, however, I have a very hard time rejecting the Golden Globes as irrelevant. They may not mean to do it, but the fact is they still do recognize a lot of great television that the Emmys have decided to ignore for more than twenty years. Maybe it’s something as simple as their acknowledgment of the WB and the five nominations in major categories they gave to it during its existence – nominations that Sarah Michelle Gellar and Lauren Graham never got from the Emmys and an award for Keri Russell for Best Actress for Felicity way back in 1999. Could they have done more? Maybe, but that’s still five more nominations than the Emmys were ever willing to give it.

I don’t know if the Golden Globes can survives the blows they have taken in the next year. But Hollywood, which as we know is all about the here and now, is more concerned about what award show to put in the gap that they well be facing this coming January.

The obvious answer is the Broadcast Critics which do everything the Golden Globes do, tend to make just as many interesting nominations and award, and have the possibility for genuine surprises. (You can’t get more shocking than a tie, which the average Critics Choice manages at least once a broadcast.) Now there are good reasons why this might not work – it’s always struggled for ratings on smaller network, but the major problem, according to Hollywood, seems to be no one will watch an awards show with ‘critic’ in the title.

OK, I’ve been calm this entire project, but now I think I do have to vent, because I do view this as an attack on my profession. Deep Breath:

 

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

The Broadcast Critics and the Golden Globes are basically the same show. They give out the same awards – hell, the Broadcast Critics actually have resolved the very problems I have with the supporting awards. They take place in a banquet hall where drinks are served. The Broadcast Critics have a bigger and probably (I won’t say for sure) more diverse membership than the Hollywood Foreign Press. They have a better record with diversity in all the definitions of that term than the Golden Globes does. And honestly, the last several years, they’ve been much more entertaining. And you’re hung up on the fact CRITICS give the awards?

At least you know up front what critics do. You may not like it, but they’re honest about it, and frankly, many of the recipients of the prizes are grateful to them. I’ve been watching the Golden Globes for more than a quarter of a century and I’m still not sure who the Hollywood Foreign Press is and what they do. And not for nothing, the Hollywood Foreign Press is made of journalists choosing winners. How is that any different from what Broadcast Critics do? Why are critics doing the same job and not causing any trouble somehow worse than journalists who are?

It’s bad enough that so much of what movies and TV has become over the last couple of decades has rendered criticism harder and harder to make relevant. How can anyone hope to say film criticism matters when all that matters is box office? And not for nothing, the Golden Globes took a lot of abuse over the films it’s nominated over the years even though they tend to recognize the same films that critics associations do. Don’t pretend that critics are a dirty word; just beside you’ve decided it is.

 

Venting over.

 

Now I know there will be ramifications throughout Hollywood the next several months without the Golden Globes which may end up doing a lot of damage to both the institution and the business that may be hard to repair after everything else that has hit the movie and TV business hard this pat year. But despite all of this – maybe I am being a cock-eyed optimist – I still think the Globes, at least when it comes to TV, are worth saving. It may take a lot of hard work – something I know the world and the HFPA in particular has been loathe to do – but I think its worth trying. The only thing about the ceremony I wouldn’t miss is Ricky Gervais. Otherwise, try and fix it. The TV part of it does need, at least a little, the Golden Globes.

 

You Might Not Want to Live There, But It's Still A Great City: City On A Hill Season 2 Assessed

 

I thought City on a Hill was a great show when I raved about a few weeks, but the current season did a lot to make a case for being in the pantheon of great television. In Season 1, the series was a lot more about black and white - not necessarily literally – but this year, there were far more shades of gray.

Never was this more clear than with the character of Jackie Rohr (Kevin Bacon continues to do some of his best work). In my initial review, I basically laid out that Jackie no longer had the shreds of being a hero; he was a pure villain, a relic of a bygone era. But a funny thing happened halfway through the season. Perhaps seeing the walls finally closing in around him, Jackie became a lot more human. Granted, he showed in weird ways – after bullying a teenager to testify against Decourcy for two episodes – which started by getting his alcoholic mother loaded, he repented at the last minute even though it cost him. Then, as his daughter Betty – who spent much of last season in rehab – made a genuine attempt towards reformation- Jackie did something he hadn’t done in the entire series. He got honest. In a monologue that features some of the best work Bacon has ever done, he told with no bullshit a telling incident about his childhood and how it scarred him in ways he can’t imagine. Then he said his daughter was full of courage – one of the purely nicest things he’s ever said to anyone. And after spending much of the last year and a half treating his wife like dirt, they began to make general steps towards repairing the marriage that, frankly, I didn’t could be fixed. There may actually be something resembling a soul in Jackie, something I would’ve thought implausible at the beginning of the season.

And it’s interesting to contrast this with the arc of Decourcy. For half the season, Decourcy was at odds with his own wife Siobhan, as they found themselves on opposite ends of the murder trial of Anton Campbell. That all changed in a heartbeat when Anton freed on bail, took a shot at Decourcy, missed – and hit Siobhan, his own defense attorney. She would recover, but ultimately suffer a miscarriage of the baby she’d worked so hard to fight for. (Both Aldis Hodge and Lauren Banks did superb work as well) By this point, we’re inclined to suspect the worst of Jackie when he shows up anywhere, so we naturally didn’t believe when he showed up in the ICU that he wanted to help catch the man who Siobhan. And maybe Jackie, facing transfer, was trying to throw a Hail Mary. But it’s really hard to see the bad even in Jackie when he goes after someone who really seemed willing to spit in the face of everything his own mother had stood for. His mother believed in him, was willing to embezzle to save him, and that’s the first thing he does.

The entire story around the Campbell family was a compelling one. Anton was the least intriguing character, a thug who really didn’t seem to believe in anything and its hard to understand how he grew up in Grace’s house, much less was willing to be so utterly soulless to everything else. Kelvin was the more intriguing brother, a boy who genuinely wanted to try and help his own mother and twisted everything his brother did. His final act was actually truer to his character – he couldn’t stand to hurt his mother anymore, even if meant spending the rest of his life in prison. Which he did. Near the end of the episode, we learn almost off-handedly that he died in the prison yard, the final bitter twist of the knife.

And yes, maybe it was naïve that their mother was so blind to what her own sons were doing. But Grace Campbell was someone who believed in the good in everyone. That was her great strength and with her own sons, an Achilles heel. And it may have had more impact than she thought – after all her struggles to be a high-priced lawyer and a possible political run, Siobhan has decided to go back to work for the ACLU.  City on a Hill tapped into the cycle of violence and hatred that we already knew about, but only seemed to care about it when white people are hurt. There are definitely links to The Wire this year, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that John Doman and Peter Gerety, both of whom played critical roles on that show, had important roles showing how badly the system of justice works in the season finale.

And admittedly, Jackie to seems to have found his soul too late to save his own job.  The Board of Review in the Bureau did what we all saw coming and Jackie was terminated. Jackie seemed to acknowledge as much in the final moments of the episode; after going through the motions of fighting, he took of his badge and threw in the Charles. Thing is, he was right about some things. We’ve been pissed off him for awhile for going after a priest who was trying to help Jenny in the early days of the series. Jackie wanted to get him, and it just seemed petty. Now we learned that the priest is an IRA supporter and has been embezzling funds from the church to do so. That scene between them showed you that before the bullshit and cynicism overwhelmed him, he was a good investigator and we see just how much of himself he lost.

I don’t know yet if City on a Hill will come back for a third season. What I do know is that has proven that is one of the best series of 2021. The procedural has been in trouble for awhile, but shows like this give me hope that there can be a way forward. And considering this is going to be a year that, by design, there will be a lot of room for new faces in the Emmys, this is a show that deserves of boatload of nominations, from Bacon and Hodge on down. This is a series that we need as television goes forward.

My score: 5 stars.

If The Golden Globes Disappeared, Would It Matter? Part 3: Nominations and Category Problems

 

As those of you who have been following my column over the years are aware, one of my biggest bugbears with the Emmys has always been the fact that year after year, they always seem to nominate the same people and more often those same people and series win year after year. This complaint predates Julia-Louis Dreyfus by a considerable margin; one of my earliest published articles was my frustration that Helen Hunt was winning every year for increasingly inferior work in Mad About You.

For a long time, one of the reasons I actually preferred the Golden Globes TV nominations was that, for the most part, the HFPA tended to work around this rule. At the time, I liked the idea of seeing new faces every years, something that the Emmys (and to an extent, the SAG awards) had decided would not be a factor when it came to nominations. I’ve already spent my previous two columns praising the Globes for the results of that process. But in hindsight, this may have been one of the Golden Globes biggest flaws. With rare exceptions the HFPA didn’t acknowledge continued excellence by a series over a period of time, but rather what series were bigger critical (and more importantly, popular) successes.

I’m not saying this was always a flawed process – sometimes this led to discoveries of some genuinely brilliant series that many would otherwise ignore. To state a recent example Homecoming, Amazon’s exceptional half-hour drama series is one of the most exceptional shows to come out in recent years. It may only have been recognized because of the presence of Julia Roberts, but that doesn’t mean in didn’t deserve recognition, and I think overlooking was one the Emmys biggest mistakes.

But with few exceptions, continued excellence always seemed to be a hard thing to be considered by the Golden Globes, and in a lot of cases, they were late to the party. To state one of their biggest errors, they completely ignored Breaking Bad and Bryan Cranston the first three seasons it was on the air. During its first three years of eligibility, the Best Actor prize would go to, respectively Gabriel Byrne for In Treatment (one of their most questionable decisions) Michael C. Hall for Dexter (a pretty good choice) and Steve Buscemi for Boardwalk Empire (also questionable). I will admit, a fairly big part of the reason I ignored Breaking Bad the first three years it was on the air was because the HFPA did the same. It was only after Cranston’s third consecutive Emmy that he and series started getting nominated; even then, neither he nor the series would triumph until the final season when it would have been impossible to ignore its place in television history.

Another flaw that has frankly bothered me a lot more over the years has been the HFPAs collective decision to put all Supporting Actors in Drama, Comedy/Musical or Movie or Limited Series in a single category. This no doubt came from the decision to do basically the same thing with all Supporting Actor/Actress awards in the Movie category (which doesn’t really make any sense either; either split all the winners or none at all). And over the years, it has been one of the biggest flaws in the Golden Globes. I don’t think it makes any sense to have actors in a drama, comedy or TV movies competing against each other. It may have been a practice during the early years of the Emmys, but they had gotten rid of it by the late 1960s. What the hell is the HFPAs excuse?

Leaving aside that having dramatic and comic actors competing against each other is fundamentally unfair, the fact is over the past twenty years, the lion’s share of the Supporting Acting awards have gone to performers in TV Movies or Limited Series. Essentially, the HFPA has been saying that the best performances are in TV Movies or Limited Series with nearly no exceptions. And frankly, some of the times they have made exceptions have been the oddest choices the HFPA has ever made. Joanne Frogatt for Downton Abbey? Jon Voight for Ray Donavan? I’ll admit there have been some pretty decent selections as well – Chloe Sevigny more than deserved some recognition from the Emmys for Big Love, as did Chris Colfer for his sterling work on Glee. But usually these awards don’t give any insight into the Emmys because, well, it’s already a confusing field, and it’s hard to tell if anybody among will get nominated.

And don’t get me started on the unbelievable fetish the Golden Globes for the entire cast of Will & Grace. Year after year, the entire cast would be nominated and never win. It was a ridiculous move that even fifteen years after the fact, I just don’t get.

I realize the HFPA has a lot of other, smaller problems that they have to deal with now but at the very least, they could separate the Supporting Actor and Actress awards into categories for Series television and Movie/Limited Series. It’d probably add another five or ten minutes to the ceremony, but frankly I’d rather have that another stilted routine or Ricky Gervais’ headwaiter routines.

 

In my final article, I decide whether the Golden Globes should be saved and if it isn’t, what award show should take its place (at least for this year.)

If The Golden Globes Disappeared, Would It Matter? Part 2: Drama about Drama

 

To be fair to the Golden Globes, they led the way nearly as much in recognizing great drama as they did great comedy. Three months after the Emmys basically short-changed The Sopranos brilliant premiere season, the Golden Globes gave it the recognition it fully deserved, giving it prizes for Best Drama, James Gandolfini as Best Actor, Edie Falco as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress to Nancy Marchand. It would be part of a long string of the Golden Globes great record of acknowledging Peak TV, giving the Best Drama prize to Six Feet Under in 2002 (something the Emmys would never do) and The Shield in 2003 (the Emmys would never even nominate it for Best Drama. Throughout the next several years they would be far above the curve when it came to the Emmys, giving 24 the Best Drama prize three seasons before the Emmys did and acknowledging Grey’s Anatomy in 2007 (something the Emmys has never and probably never will do) They also gave trophies to Actors who would never duplicate their success at the Emmys, such as Ian McShane for Deadwood in 2004, Sandra Oh for Grey’s Anatomy in 2006 and Hugh Laurie for House in 2005 and 2007. (His speeches have often been the high point of the ceremony.

All of this would seem to indicate that the Golden Globes was doing a fine job when it came to recognizing Great Television. Unfortunately, their biggest blind spot is one of the great omissions in TV history. It is all the more glaring because even though the HFPA were willing to recognize three of the greatest shows at the forefront of HBO, they were never willing to acknowledge The Wire. And it’s a lot harder to justify the Golden Globes refusal to acknowledge the series many great actors when years later, they were more than willing to nominate Idris Elba and Dominic West – two of the shows breakout stars – with nomination for multiple series, but not the one where they gave their best work.

This pattern becomes even clearer when you consider their similar refusal to recognize Treme, David Simon’s follow up drama set in contemporary New Orleans. Bluntly speaking, this is the kind of show the Globes are more inclined to acknowledge in their Best Musical or Comedy Series category. Considering they were more than willing to recognize Glee (two years running) and were even willing to go so far as to nominate Smash one of the biggest trainwrecks in TV history, it’s frankly appalling that Treme was completely shut out. Treme was clearly not as good as The Wire, but it sure as hell was a as good as Glee and it was beyond better than Smash. What did those shows have that Treme didn’t?

(To be fair, David Simon has never had a great track record with the Globes. They basically ignored The Deuce, a more imaginative and star-friendly series, Show Me A Hero and The Plot Against America. The latter series, which had a predominantly white cast, was shutout across the board. There’s something about the work of David Simon that major awards groups just can’t get a handle on.).

But perhaps what makes this particularly group of slights all the  more appalling is that, to be blunt, from the mid-1990s to roughly 2015, when it came to the TV the Hollywood Foreign Press was basically sucking on HBO’s teat. Again, this is not entirely either groups fault. Three of the major categories of the Globes – Best Movie/Limited Series, Best Actor and Best Actress in a Movie in a Limited Series – were basically completely controlled by HBO during that period. This was basically less because HBO was that good – though many of their projects were – then the fact that almost every other network was getting a score of ‘absent’. The broadcast networks would basically abandon the field altogether by 2001; Showtime would try for several years before more or less surrendering in 2005; TNT would compete for awhile, but give up around the same time and FX would not become a serious competitor until 2011. When one company has a monopoly on the goods, there’s nothing the buyers can do.

It doesn’t, however, excuse the fact that during this same period, the Golden Globes would nominate a group of series multiple times that were clearly inferior. Big Love and Boardwalk Empire were undervalued gems, but it’s hard to argue for the nominations of True Blood, In Treatment and most egregiously Hung an utterly forgettable series about a male prostitute were  quality choices. (Paradoxically, HBO’s biggest success in the past decade, Game of Thrones was basically ignored altogether by the Golden Globes, only winning a single prize during its entire run.) I have often wondered the HFPA and HBO had some kind of backscratching arrangement during those years. Considering some of the other scandals, I might not be far off.

Now to be clear, a lot of the choices the Golden Globes have made in the past decade were pretty daring. They were willing to recognize Showtime not just for its hit series Dexter and Homeland, but for lesser charmers like The Borgias and The Affair. They’ve been more than willing to acknowledge Starz, a network that the Emmys still hasn’t acknowledged for underrated gems like Boss and Magic City before hitting the sweet spot in Outlander. They were more than willing to acknowledge Mr. Robot one of the greatest creations of the past decade, and The Americans, neither of which the Emmys was willing to let defeat the Game of Thrones juggernaut. And you have to give them credit for giving Emmys to actors the Emmys won’t like Taraj P. Henson for her work on Empire and Katey Segal for her blinding work on Son of Anarcby. Did Billy Bob Thornton deserve to win for Goliath? No, but his speech was good. (Besides, they gave him the grand prize for Fargo so credit where its due.)

So the Golden Globes history when it comes to Drama (and to a certain extent when it comes to TV Movies) is a decidedly mixed bag. In my next piece, I will move away from the specific to deal with some of the more general flaws in the nominations over the last twenty years.

If The Golden Globes Disappeared, Would It Matter: A Look at the Golden Globes during Peak TV: Part 1, cOMEDY

 

As I mentioned in my article predicting the Golden Globes a few months ago, there was already a swirl of controversy about their hiring practices especially among minority hiring. Over this weekend, it has erupted into a fury.

On Friday, 100 publicists announced that they were planning a boycott of Hollywood Foreign Press until there were some major rule changes. A series of similar statements came from such figures as Scarlett Johannsen and Mark Ruffalo. And then, Monday came a one-two punch that the Golden Globes may never recover from. NBC announced that it was cancelling the broadcast of 2022 Golden Globes and any further rebroadcast until major changes were made. That same day Tom Cruise – still one of the biggest, and more importantly, least political superstars in Hollywood – announced he was returning the three Golden Globes has won.

It’s going to take a lot of work for the Hollywood Foreign Press to recover from this. The broadcast of their awards is their biggest event, and given how low the ratings have been not just this year but for the last decade, this will clearly hurt them far more than it will NBC. And it may cause a lot of reflection throughout Hollywood whether keeping the show alive is actually worth it.

As a TV critic, I have had my fair share of arguments with how the Golden Globes deals with TV over my career. And with so many other awards shows around – and many of them, frankly, recognizing better and more relevant series – I think it’s worth considering whether the Golden Globes really does have any relevance as far as television goes. It’s always had the tendency to recognize what is popular more than it was actually brilliant, and its been harder to tell in this whole medium whether it leads or follows. So for the next few days, I’m going to pursue a series of articles trying to figure out where the Golden Globes stands in the era of Peak TV, where it has failed, and how important it is to television.

Trying to give a picture of the Golden Globes throughout its entire history of television would paint with too broad a stroke, so I’ll focus on approximately the last twenty years. To try and stay balanced, I’m going to start with an area that the Golden Globes really have led – Best Comedy or Musical.

The Golden Globes were well ahead of the curb even before Peak TV – in fact, one of my first criticisms about television was a complaint as to just how ridiculous it was Sex and the City and Sarah Jessica Parker kept winning in the Best Comedy or Musical category over, in my mind, better choices. But the fact is, the Hollywood Foreign Press was willing to honor this show for two years before the Emmys was.  (That it may have been part of a larger involvement with HBO is an argument I’ll get into later.)

Indeed, throughout the first decade of Peak TV, the Golden Globes were far hipper than the Emmys managed to be. They were willing to give prizes to Curb Your Enthusiasm and Larry David, something the Emmys still won’t do nearly twenty years later. They were willing to acknowledge the middle ground that dramedies had when they recognized Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty for Best Comedy. And even though I never agreed with its overall popularity, the fact remains they were willing to acknowledge Weeds in general and Showtime as a whole quite a few years before the Emmys got around to it.

And I have to give them a lot of credit when it came to Best Actress in A Comedy. The main reason I was so frustrated with Julia-Louis Dreyfus winning six consecutive Best Actress Emmys was mainly because the Golden Globes, during that exact same span was willing to acknowledge far more talented actresses. I may not like Lena Dunham, but it does seem wrong the Emmys never acknowledged her for Girls. The Hollywood Foreign Press was more than willing to do so. Amy Poehler was always shut out by the Emmys. The Golden Globes were willing to honor her for Parks and Recreation. And I was over the moon when Tracee Ellis Ross took the prize for black-ish in 2017.

And in perhaps the greatest example of how far the Golden Globes were willing to go to recognize talent, they gave two consecutive Best Actress prizes to heroines of series on a network the Emmys still refuse to acknowledge exist. Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend were among the greatest shows of the past decade. The Emmys never even gave the leads a sniff at a statue. The Golden Globes were more than happy to honor Gina Rodriguez and Rachel Bloom in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Don’t tell me they were always going for the more popular shows.

And for those who criticize the Golden Globes for their lack of diversity, its hard to make that argument when you consider some of the major winners in the comedy category over the last several years. In addition to those of my mentioned, the Globes was also willing to honor Gael Garcia Bernal for his work in Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle. (It was one of their more questionable choices, but a win’s a win.) Donald Glover was able to triumph for Best Actor in a Comedy and also managed to win for his extraordinary series Atlanta in 2017. And not even Ramy Youseff thought that anybody has watched his Hulu comedy Ramy when he won in 2020. That certainly isn’t the case now, and without no one – especially me – would have discovered one of the greatest comedies on any service.

So at least as far as comedy goes, The Golden Globes have not only led the way, but demonstrated diversity in source material as well as the more consistent meaning of the term. Unfortunately as we look at Dramas, it becomes a lot harder to make that argument. I’ll go into that in my next article.

 

Jeopardy Guest Hosts Reviewed, Continued

Note: Yesterday, The New York Times published a fairly detailed article basically doing what I’ve been doing the last couple of months. I won’t go into detail about the criticism, save to say that we only agreed about two things: Ken Jennings was a good host, and Dr. Oz was a terrible one.

I don’t necessarily hold with the larger point of view – that Jeopardy has been relying a bit too much on journalists as guest hosts. In a way, they are as qualified for the job as any other major figure. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good at it – my reviews have generally reflected as much  - but some of them have more of the personality for it. Would I like to see more  actors doing the job? Yes, actually. I wouldn’t mind if say, Bryan Cranston, were to take a break from whatever roles they’re doing and show up. (I didn’t pick Cranston out of a hat either. I’ve seen him read clues very well before, so he definitely has the delivery for it and he has the right mix of aplomb and humor that would work well. Just saying.)

And more to the point, I’m not sure the columnist may have been qualified to pass judgment herself. She jokingly admitted she was not a fan of the series, and that the Geico ads that present questions are more her intellectual speed.  Do I think that necessarily disqualifies her? Well, if she really thinks Aaron Rodgers has done the best job so far, perhaps.

Like I’ve said on numerous occasions, filling Alex Trebek’s shoes will be difficult, and most of these guest hosts haven’t been so much auditioning as they’ve been paying tribute to a man they admired. The people behind the scenes are going to make up their own minds, probably without fan input. So maybe we should judge them on those terms and not any others. Granted, that’s not quite what I’m doing, but then, I’ve got more invested in their choice than a lot of other people.

 

Anderson Cooper:  In my humble opinion Cooper is the best guest host I have seen to this point. He’s been a TV personality like Couric and Oz for a long time, but unlike them he actually seems to have learned from Alex that less is more.

He has done basically everything right in my opinion the past week. He has demonstrated a dry wit that Alex was very good at; he has read out the clues and answer with aplomb, and he has done a great job putting the focus on the contestant where it belongs. He also seems to have a good memory for exciting games; he mentioned the lead changing eight times in last night’s Double Jeopardy. Alex probably would’ve just set it was a thrilling match, but that’s actually a plus for Cooper: it’s more of a personal touch. In that games Final Jeopardy, he also demonstrated suspense along with his lack of experience when he said he couldn’t read the contestants faces, so he was pleasantly surprised that they all got Final Jeopardy right. And it’s helped that he’s had some solid champions though none of them were able to win more than three games…so far.

I admit its unlikely that Cooper will end up being the replacement for Trebek: he’s just so frigging busy and frankly, he’s very good at his other jobs to want to leave. But honestly, he’s the first guest host I actually think could fill Alex’s shoes. Shame he probably won’t.

My score: 4.75 stars.

 

Bill Whitaker: Bill Whitaker has the dubious distinction of being the first guest host I had no idea of who he was. I had to Google him to learn he’s been one of the commentators on 60 Minutes for quite some time. In a way, this gave him a certain amount of latitude because he had no baggage and I could judge him as a blank slate. Unfortunately, after a week he hasn’t exactly done much for me to be encouraged by his abilities.

I’m really not sure why Whitaker compares so unfavorably with Anderson Cooper: they literally have the same job and worked at the same franchise. I don’t why Cooper seems no natural at it and Whitaker doesn’t. Maybe it’s just his delivery is too soft-spoken as compared to Cooper, and just a little too polite. Maybe there’s a certain failure in his delivery in comparison with Cooper (and Alex, for that matter). He has the words right, but not the music. Admittedly, that’s a failing that quite a few guest hosts of the show have had.

To be fair, Whitaker has done a much better job than quite a few of the guest hosts. He has a good rapport with the contestants and the right manner for relating Final Jeopardy in particular, something that a lot of the other guest hosts have failed at. He may be suffering mainly because I have such high regard for how good a job Cooper did. I may actually give him next week to see if my opinion changes. But for now:

My score: 3.25 stars.

 

Possible Jeopardy Contestants as Hosts: Conclusion

 

2004-2013

Ken Jennings has already proved himself more than competent as a game show host. That said, I think there are a couple of other players from his era who are more than worthy to take the job.

 

Larissa Kelly: First female contestant to win more than five games. Initial appearance: 2008. Won six games and $222,597. Second place in 2009 Tournament of Champions: $100,000. Participant in the Battle of the Decades: 2000s. Member of Jeopardy All Star Tournament Winning Team: (Team Brad) shared in $1,000,000 grand prize.

Why She is Qualified: In addition to being a trailblazer on Jeopardy (she had the all time money record for a female contestant until 2014), Larissa also has a history in working in quiz shows. She and her husband run an academic quiz show tournament that, as of 2019, was still active. Has a cheerful demeanor that belies a fierce competitor, which is why she probably understands very well how many Jeopardy contestants feel behind the podium. Could probably explain strategy very well (as we saw in many of her behind the scenes moments in the All Star Tournament). Of course, considering that her records on the show currently have her as the greatest female champion history, she has every reason to turn it down. She might very well want to defend that title.

 

David Madden: Winner of 19 games in 2005 (at the time, the second longest winning streak in the show’s history) Won over $430,000 in regular competition, which until James Holzhauer came along was the second highest amount of won by a contestant in regular competition. Semi-Finalist in 2005 Tournament of Champions. Member of Winning Team in Jeopardy All-Star Tournament (Team Brad). Shared in $1,000,000 grand prize.

Why He is Qualified: Has as much experience on Jeopardy as nearly any other contestant, and holds himself to a higher ethical standard than you’d think. David works for a couple of major academic competition, one of which used the same fact checking service Jeopardy used in 2014. Because of a potential contracting conflict, he didn’t think it would be ethical for him to appear in the Battle Of The Decades, a fact that Alex mentioned in passing, adding: “That’s too bad, because he will be missed.” Even given the level of competitiveness in that tournament, it’s hard to imagine David not doing well, so he really gave up a lot. (Circumstances had changed in 2018, when the All-Star Tournament took place.) In addition to having a very good personality, David’s willingness to put the integrity of Jeopardy before his own financial gain is exactly the kind of thing Alex would be proud of, which is another major reason the show could use him.

 

2014-Present

I fully admit that this group might be the least likely to jump at the chance to host, given that they – like Buzzy – are the most likely to be asked back for a future tournament. That being said, if they wanted the job…

 

Julia Collins: Winner of 20 Games in 2014. Won $428,100 which was the third highest money total in the show’s history in regular play. (It’s still in the top ten.)  Finalist in 2014 Tournament of Champions: $50,000. Captain in Jeopardy All-Star Tournament (Team Julia) Eliminated after initial round: Shared in $50,000 cash prize.

Why She is Qualified: I’ve seen more than my share of Jeopardy Champions over the years, and often when they return they’ve changed their job title. But in all that time, I’ve never seen a contestant change their job description to reflect their success in the show. Yet when Julia returned for her Tournament of Champions appearance, she described herself as ‘a 20-Game Jeopardy Winner’. That reflects pride, not arrogance because she has always approached the game with kindness even towards her fellow competitors. Never was this clearer in the fact that when Ben Ingram defeated her in that same Tournament, she reached out to him not long after and they have become very close friends. When it came time to make her picks for the All-Star Tournament, she picked Ben first. Now whether that level of devotion to the series would be enough for her to surrender the possibility of playing in future tournaments and hosting, I don’t know. But she clearly has Jeopardy in her bones.

 

Austin Rogers:  Appeared in 2017, winning 12 Games and $413,000. (Both marks are in the ten greatest Jeopardy winning-streaks and money won). Finalist in the 2018 Tournament of Champions: $50,000. Captain of Team Austin in Jeopardy All-Star Tournament. Shared in a $75,000 prize for competing in Wild Card Match.

Why He Is Qualified: Even among the greatest of Jeopardy champions, there are very few with genuine performance skills. Austin happens to have that in spades. In his initial run, the whole world went wild over his hand gestures that he would make at the beginning of every introduction. (I already mentioned how that played off Buzzy and Alan when they faced off in the Tournament of Champions.) He also has a very ribald wit that actually had him get bleeped once. What is forgotten amidst the theatrics was how superb a player he was, and that sometimes those same gestures helped him. I remember once he hit a Daily Double in the category PRESIDENTS BORN WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI and he used his gestures to work it out in his head. In addition to being a great player, Austin is witty, gregarious and charming – everything you need to be a perfect game show host. Would he be a real contrast to Alex Trebek? I don’t deny that. But Alex had a lot of respect for his skills and appreciated his humor. That should count for something.

 

 

 

 

Jeopardy Champions Who'd Make Good Hosts: Part 1, 1984-2003

 

After some genuine thinking, I’ve decided to narrow my choices for the Jeopardy Champions who, I believe, are the most qualified to take over the job permanently. There are a fair number of contenders, so I’ve decided to narrow the choice to the two best from each calendar decade in the series run. Again, I’m not necessarily saying they’ll want the job (given the opportunity to host the show or compete on it, I think quite a few would prefer the latter; there’s less work and more money involved). But I honestly think they would be exceptional at it. It’s not like they don’t know the series after all.

 

1984-1993

Frank Spangenberg: Original Appearance 1990. Ser five game record for most won - $102,597 – that stood for more than thirteen years. To date, has appeared in more Jeopardy tournaments than any player in history – 1990 Tournament of Champions, Super Jeopardy 1990, 10^th Anniversary Tournament 1993 (Winner) Million Dollar Masters 2002 (participant) Ultimate Tournament of Champions 2005 (semi-finalist) Battle of the Decades 2014 (1980s Participant.)

Why He’s Qualified: He certainly has the resume for it. In addition to his long career with Jeopardy, he’s also one of the most distinctively looking contestant ever to play to game – he’s very tall and has a walrus like mustache that would not be out of place on a 19^th Century Policeman. (He is a policeman with the NYPD.) He’s also continued to have a good history with many contestants (he tutored Cindy Stowell, a six day champion in 2016) and has a marvelous sense of humor, mostly self-deprecating. The major drawback is, Frank is a bit on the old side (he’s in his mid-sixties) but perhaps he’d like to consider this a better retirement package for him – working in the game he loved.

 

Jerome Vered: Original Appearance 1992. Broke Frank Spangenberg’s one day record with new total of $34,000 – a figure unmatched until two years after the dollar figures were doubled in 2001. Finalist in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions and first contestant to go head to head with both Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Also Final in 1992 Tournament of Champions and Participant in Battle of the Decades The 1980s.

Why He Is Qualified: Jerome’s qualifications are not as obvious as Frank’s, but he has a similar connection with the series early days and arguably the series two greatest players. He has an impish sense of humor that fits the show very well, and he always been a little more showman like (during Final Jeopardy, I remember him moving in time with the ‘think music’) He has an engaging and charming personality that was frequently present in the stories he would tell when he was invited back, and he’s often been friendly even to his fellow competitors (which including Frank on one occasion.) Besides, Ken and Brad have both hosted game shows before. I think it’s far to offer it to someone whose played against them.

 

1994-2003

Pam Mueller: Original Appearance 2000. (College Tournament Winner) Additional Appearances: 2001 Tournament of Champions (Semi-Finalist) Ultimate Tournament of Champions (Semi-Finalist. Her total of $102,201 was the fifth highest total out of a field of 145.) Battle of the Decades: The 1990s Participant. (Semi-Finalist). Jeopardy All-Star Tournament: Member of Team Colby, which finished in the Finals)

Why She Is Qualified: Over the past twenty years, there are few competitors who’ve appeared in more tournaments more successfully than Pam. She’s competed against some of the all time greats, including eight Tournament of Champions winners and has been their equal – and in quite a few cases, their superior. She’s always been a lot of fun in her interviews and always seems completely unbowed by the pressure of these tournaments. There’s also the added bonus that she’s young – she hasn’t even turned forty yet. So if the show wanted to go for a host who could go for ten or twenty years, Pam would be more than up to the challenge. Of course, that last fact might be the biggest argument against her becoming a host – there might be two or three more tournaments in her future.

 

Brad Rutter: The single highest money winner in game show history. Original appearance: 2001.Has won (deep breath) 2001 Tournament of Champions, Million Dollar Masters, Ultimate Tournament of Champions, Battle of the Decades, Jeopardy All-Star Tournament (as captain of Team Brad.) Until the Greatest of All Time Tournament  in 2020, Brad was the only player in Jeopardy history to have never lost a game… well, to a human.

Why He is Qualified: If anything, Brad is overqualified for this position. He’s already hosted a game show in Pennsylvania, he played a game show host in a TV pilot that never went to series and he’s been playing a variation on it in this year’s The Chase. It’s safe that he may know more about Jeopardy that all but a very few contestants. He’s never been as charming as some of the other players, but he’s always had a great sense of humor about his winnings, his position in the show’s history and his relationship with Ken Jennings. And as good as he is, he always seems a little overwhelmed when he managed to pull out a victory and incredibly gracious to all of the contestants he often manages to thrash. In all honesty, I’m kind of surprised that when it came to ask former contestants to guest host, they didn’t go to Brad first. But as Brad himself said on one occasion about this: “Story of my life!!

 

I’ll be back tomorrow with my group from the past eighteen years.

The Category Is...Bold! Pose is in its Final Season. It Will Be Missed

 

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Ryan Murphy’s work. While he is definitely a genius, he has a tendency to go so far towards overkill that its often hard to focus on anything else. I’ve never been able to buy in to American Horror Story and the lion’s share of his work for Netflix, most notably Ratched, has always made me wonder why they got made at all. But when he tries to tell – pardon the expression – straight narratives, his work is exceptional. 9-1-1 may be disaster porn, but character-wise, he goes out of his way to just let his actors do their thing. And both his incarnations of American Crime Story – the first about O.J. Simpson; the next about Gianni Versace and Andrew Cunanan – used some of the most notorious crimes of the 1990s to tell larger stories about race, sexual orientation and celebrity. (I await the third incarnation on the Clinton impeachment with bated breath.)

But arguably his most brilliant and consistent narrative has been Pose, the story of the African American LGBTQ community in late 1980-early nineties New York City. Cast entirely with African American gay and transgender actors, it tells a story that is pure period and entirely universal. I’ve had to wait nearly two years for the third season, and I was suddenly deeply to learn that Murphy intends for it to be the final one. If the last year has taught us nothing else (and for a lot of people, it probably didn’t) it’s that we need stories like these being told as much and as loudly as possible. Murphy has always insisted that he was only going to tell a three season story (odd, considering how frequently he tends to overextend the lion’s share of his series), but if this in the final act, there’s no question we need it.

It’s 1994. Rudy Giuliani is mayor and his war on crime is tearing apart every aspect of the way so many of our favorite characters have lived. In the opening minute, the Hellfire Club, which was Elektra’s (the incredible Dominque Jackson) home base, for better (and in one mesmerizing instant, for much worse) has been shut down by the cops. The AIDS epidemic continues to rage, and its getting harder and harder for so many of the community to attend the funerals of the lost. Even the ballrooms, which were sanctuary for everybody, have become harsher places to deal with. New houses that care nothing for tradition, only for money are walking the ballrooms at night. And they don’t like it when they are stiffed.

This is taking a toll on everybody, especially Pray Tell (Billy Porter stakes his claim to one last Emmy). Unable to deal with the death and the change in time, he is now barely able to function without a flask in his hand. The funerals are driving him mad and he can’t keep up with the new breed. In the opening episode, he resigns from the balls. Even his adopted family is having a hard time tolerating him these days, and the one really good thing that came out of last season – his relationship with Damon is faltering badly. (I’m only reviewing the season premiere; I’m well aware of what happened in second episode).

Everyone else is trying to find a way through the darkness. Blanca (MJ Rodriguez) has finally settled down with a good man who loves her and who accepts everything about her. During the harshness of everything, she seems to have found a calling as a candy striper and in the final moments of the season premiere applies for nursing school. Others aren’t as fortunate. Angel’s once promising career as a model is faltering, and her roommate seems more than willing to push her back towards her old habits.

And history continues to unfold. Much of the Season Premiere focuses on the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and the notorious car chase in LA. For any other series, this could be the most blatant of callbacks – Murphy did write, after all, The People V. O.J. Simpson. But Pose takes at a look at it from a completely different way, as much of the family has an ‘O.J. Watch Party.” There’s some comedy (Angel doesn’t know who O.J is and Elektra is horrifying that something is happening to this ‘innocent man!” But there’s a deeper subtext. Everyone seems certain that Simpson’s going to get killed at the end of the chase. Blanca is angry because he’s clearly a killer. And Pray Tell, sodden with drink, still has the clearest perspective. To him, O.J. is practically white because of his celebrity and everything will be fine for him. This is a point of view that Murphy never was willing to take even in his entire series and its brilliant to watch.

I know that I am the wrong race or sexual orientation to be the target demographic for Pose. But as someone who has been an outsider more than his share of the time, I can feel empathy for all of the characters in this series. And even if I couldn’t, the acting is so incredible, and the writing so angry and harsh that it’s the kind of series you can’t look away from, no matter how much you might want too. I am sad that Pose is ending, but I’m glad that Murphy is ending it the same way that so many of the House of Evangelista would want it too – on their own terms. This series deserves to dominate the Emmy nominations the same way the performers dominated the runways.

My score: 4.75 stars.