In Memoriam: Gregory Itzin

 

The first time I saw Gregory Itzin, I didn’t know who he was. Indeed, it wasn’t until years later I realized his importance. When I was sixteen, I had just begun to regularly watch Chicago Hope, the Chicago medical drama best known for debuting the same day and time as ER did but a fairly well-done series in its own right.

It’s a hectic night as the episode opens. A man walks into the ER with a knife sticking out of his back, who manages to say: “Could you please help me? I can’t quite reach this?” before finally passing out in a front of a stunned Roxanne Hart. The ER gathers around the new patient before a young blonde woman walks in saying she’s been raped. (The actress would be significant to Peak TV even more than Itzin was; she was played by a then-unknown Anna Gunn.) There is significantly less attention paid to her until she looks across the room at Itzin and tells the staff: “He’s the man who raped me.” In the OR we learn that Itzin’s character is a fairly well known surgeon and a close friend of lead Kate Austen (Christine Lahti). The case, as was so often for accused rape so much in the 1990s a he-said, she said with the powerful man being believed over the scared woman. His character remains steadfast to his conviction, even when things increasingly become fatal, but the episode ends with no charges being pressed and Itzin insisting to Kate that he is innocent.

Gregory Itzin, who passed away last month, was the quintessential character actors for much of the 1990s and 2000s, a man whose face you know but you can’t place the name. When one of the best documentaries about acting in television premiered in the 2010s That Guy Who Was In That Thing, Itzin was one of the focuses of this documentary along with other character actors who weren’t quite famous. Like two of the most prominent ones, he was all over TV and Hollywood over the years – the same year I became aware of him in Chicago Hope, he played another doctor in ER. He was a semi-regular in so many series over the years – Murder One during Season 2, Profiler in its final year; Big Love in its last year; The Mentalist throughout much of its run as one of the chief suspects for Red John. David E. Kelley, the creator of Chicago Hope, used him five separate times as five different characters on The Practice. He just had that kind of face.

But like several of the actors in that documentary – Stanley Kamel and Zach Grenier were the most obvious – Itzin had one role that showed his true greatness as an actor and demonstrated how brilliant he was. Over four separate seasons on 24, he portrayed one of their greatest characters, President Charles Logan. To truly explain his versatility, you have to have context. (Warning: major spoilers for Days 4-6 follow.)

Day 4 wasn’t 24’s greatest day (though I did hold that thought years after the fact) but it by far had its most clever villain. To give you a certain level of the convolutions of the plot, shooting down Air Force One was not his end game. When this happens, President Keeler is found unconscious but alive. (His ultimate fate is never revealed on 24¸though given how the series progresses the assumption is he later succumbs to his injuries.) The 25^th Amendment is invoked and Logan becomes Acting President.

Days 2 and 3 and much of the fourth of 24 fundamentally shows the President as a force of strength capable of doing what needs to be done. Logan is the first president in the series history (and for all I know, maybe portrayed on television to that time) who is weak, easily manipulated and not up to the task. He becomes the first President on the series to facilitate when it comes to the idea of CTU torturing a suspect – he calls an emergency meeting with the AG. When Jack (Kiefer Sutherland) tortures the suspect and obtains information, rather then accept this Logan is angered and insists that Jack be taken into custody – even though he is in the middle of trying to capture the mastermind of the day’s events. The results are disastrous and Logan is so shaken, he agrees to let David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert) act as his proxy going forward. This does not mean he comes across as any less weak or pliable – when the Speaker comes in, he questions Logan’s authority and when it becomes time to blame Jack as a scapegoat, he lets his aid call in an assassin to have him killed. Jack only manages to escape to the warnings of Palmer at the last minute, and only by faking his own death.

Day 5 is one of the great seasons any television series in the history of the medium has ever had; the one that would give 24 its only Emmy for Best Drama in its entire run (one of the handful of occasions in the last twenty years I have been in complete agreement with the Emmys decision for Best Drama). There are many reasons the day was extraordinary, but I’ll focus on Itzin’s work.

It has been nearly eighteen months since Day 4 ended, but even though Logan has been president for this long, he does not seem to have grown into his job. All of the flaws that were present the previous season are, if anything exacerbated and he is now more stubborn in them. When he learns of David Palmer’s assassination at the start of the day, he refuses to cancel the signing of a peace treaty with the Russian President.  As a new crisis unfolds, he remains utterly inflexible towards changing his goals and still pliable to certain aides, including his chief of staff Walt Cummings.  When it becomes clear that the assassination of Palmer was done to facilitate oil interests in Russia, he seems genuinely floored and we don’t question it for a second, because Logan does not seem the kind of person capable of masterminding anything. Indeed, he becomes increasingly indecisive as the day progresses – when a Russian terrorist orders to give him the coordinates of the Russian leader’s motorcade in order to assassinate him or an attack using nerve gas will follow, he folds, and does not change his mind even when his own wife joins the motorcade. (I’ll get to her in a minute). In one of Itzin’s greatest moment, intended to invoke the memory of Kissinger and Nixon praying near the end of his presidency, Logan begs Mike to pray with him. That the threat is averted happens despite Logan’s inaction.

Even greater scenes come between the relationship of Logan with his wife Martha, superbly played by Jean Smart in one of her greatest roles. (Itzin and Smart had actually acted together in a play years earlier; sharp eyed viewers can find a photo of that play in one of the scenes.) Martha is recovering from a nervous breakdown and clearly is unstable mentally, but she still has savvy instincts and she knows something deeper is going on.  There is a history between the Logans that works better than almost any relationship we see in the entire history of the series. Both Itzin and Smart were deservedly nominated for Emmys for their work this season, and I’m still incredibly pissed more than fifteen years later, that neither won.

Halfway through the day, the biggest revelation in the history of the series is revealed. The major manipulator of events is acting under the orders of Logan himself. In other hands, this could have been the moment the series jumped the shark. What makes it work is that while the series shows that Logan is villainous, the series doesn’t try to make him a master manipulator. Indeed, he spends much of the remainder of the day trying to deny the manipulations coming to him from below – and in a bigger shock, above.  When vital evidence proving his link to the conspiracy is found in the pockets of a pilot, he is more or less ordered by a backer to have the plane shot down – something he blanches at because of his own reputation.

By the end of the day (I won’t say how) Logan is brought to justice. But rather than a feeling of triumph, the attitude around CTU is one of melancholy.  They have brought down the bad guy, but there’s no joy in what their country is going to have to go through. At one point, discussing his fate, one character says he will no doubt get clemency for what’s he done in exchange for resigning. Saying he doesn’t deserve it, the character asks if we really want to put a President through a trial for treason.

Day 6 was by far 24’s worst season, and one of the few highpoints of that garbled mess was when we learned that indeed Logan has been put under house arrest rather than have to pay for his crimes. Jack Bauer is angered beyond words when he learns this, but swallows his rage and agrees to work with Logan to deal with the crisis. In one of the few highpoints of the series, Logan ends up in the same room with Martha, who he has not seen since the end of Day 5. Martha has more or less become completely detached from reality by the events of that day, and almost in a daze she stabs her husband in the chest. The last image we have of Logan on Day 6 is his weakly crying out ‘Martha’ before he flatlines.

In all honesty, I still wish that had been Itzin’s last scene on the series. It’s not that his work on Day 8 wasn’t good (he did deserve the Emmy nomination he got); it’s just that, like so much of the final season, it was part of such a gigantic muddle of events (particularly regarding Logan’s return) that I truly think that if we’d seen Logan die there and then, the fans would have been happier. (There is an indication in some material that may have been the writer’s original intent). It would have shown Logan as a weak man, still looking for forgiveness from the one person who he loves, even after everything.

Itzin was one of the greatest character actors of the new Golden Age and was a vital part in one of the greatest shows ever made. I was deeply saddened when he passed away earlier. Television has lost one of his greatest lights, particular for this show. It is often far harder to play a weak man than it is a forceful one, and in his greatest role, Itzin showed how well you can do it even when that same man was the most powerful one in the world.

A Reaction Piece About Reactionaries: We All Are One and Watching Bad Things Happen is Part of It

Note: This is a different piece than usual. Originally it was intended to be more politically oriented about certain pieces on this blog. However, that would court more controversy than I would like. This piece may very well do the same, but I intend to tie it in more to the field I work in. The political part may come up later in certain places.

 

The more I read certain pieces online and watch cable news; I have come to the realization that we may have made a fundamental misunderstanding about the identification of many political pundits and journalists. I believe that the labels we give of conservative and progressive are both wildly inaccurate. I fundamentally think that far too many people on either side are variations of what could be quantified as the reactionary.

While defining a progressive or conservative has become difficult the past several years, it is far simpler to define a reactionary.  You can boil down the rhetoric or the prose to four simple words. For conservatives: Republicans Good, Democrats Bad. For Progressives, reverse it.

Sound too simple? That’s the way the world is, certainly that of this century. You can argue about the degree of the message or how it’s delivered, but at its core, one of those two variations is all the talking heads on both sides are trying. Whether or not they believe is subject to debate, but it is what they are trying to tell us and the only reason that they keep having to say it over and over with multiple variations is because they’d all lose their jobs if they just said that that every time they appeared on your screen or wrote an article.

Now I have no doubt millions will argue that it didn’t used to be like that: that the internet and social media and the 24 hour news network made it this way. I’m now going to give you news that isn’t going to be comforting: it never did that. At its core, politics has always been that. Not just in the history of America, but across the planet.

And the reason we know that is because philosophers and kings have been telling us that for centuries. From Sun Tzu to Machiavelli, from Lord Acton to Napoleon. Demagogues may have been able to put a better use to it than more manner politicians over the years, but it is fundamentally simple. Since the dawn of civilization, we are always drawn to the evil of the other. I don’t think it has to do with the flaws in democracy or capitalism or any of the other so-called evils that so many pundits think plague man.  I think it may come down to biology.

Many years ago when I was watching Oz for the first time in an episode themed on addiction (I know it was in the first season; I don’t know which episode) speaking through Augustus Hill, Tom Fontana gave one of the truest speeches about addiction. He said that we are all addicts to a degree. Some of us mainline money, some of us are addicted to power. Our brain chemistry has designed us so that achievement – doing well at something – kicks in our endorphins.  Think about it. Whenever you do well at something – whether you get praise for a job well done, win an athletic meet or, hell, for me get a comment from someone at this blog saying they like my work, you get a rush. And you want to experience it again. All of us do anything we can to equal it.

In a way, I’d argue that all the people who get their highs through drugs are kind of doing the least damage. Sure they may be hurting themselves and their families, but what about those of us who get a jolt through hurting other people? Who like having power over other people? Who only feel joy when their stomping on someone’s dreams? In short, what about basically every major series that we consider Peak TV.

The Sopranos was the first major success in the new Golden Age not just because of the quality of the writing and acting and all the technical aspects, but because it centers its world on a man who was the dictionary definition of a sociopath.  When Tony Soprano strangled a man in real-time in College, it was considered revolutionary because it showed a man for the first time in TV killing with no reason to, giving in to a code, but also his id. How many millions of people watched The Sopranos over the years and justified the illegal and violent behavior all of the characters did to themselves? Critics have commented on this fact for years.

And I have a feeling – it is only theoretical, I admit – that the reason so many of the series at the center of Peak TV which centered on bad men doing bad things – were successful among critics and audiences because they appealed to that id.  Why else would a series like Dexter – a show that has as its leak a serial killer who ritualistically kills bad people every episode – be a success for eight seasons? Why did people loathe Deb, the hero’s sister who was seen a buzz kill when she learned the truth about her brother and tried to curb his violence?  Why is that millions of Americans idolized Vic Mackey and Walter White but spent enormous vitriol on Corinne and Skyler, though their only crimes were that they tried to mitigate the damage and protect their families? (They felt similar venom towards Carmela Soprano as well.)

Napoleon once said that men are more easily governed by their vices then their virtues.  I think that’s why so many viewers worship at the feet of these horrible men. If we can’t give in to our vices, we like watches other bad people get away with it.  Why do millions go to horror movies, why are we drawn in to series about psychopaths?  We are drawn to violence.  Why were series like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead and Sons of Anarchy, series that celebrated the men and women who killed people horribly, not only enormous hits, but are still inspiring spinoffs years after they ended?  There is a part of us that is drawn vicariously to watching horrible people do the things civilized people can’t.

 Violence always inspires reactions in us. It’s always been there. We like it when vigilante cops kill bad guys or superheroes dawn costumes to beat up criminals.  How many successful video game franchises have us just shooting soldiers or monsters? You want to argue technology has made it worse, go ahead. I would argue that all it’s done is make it more obvious.

And yes, this does apply to politics as well. House of Cards was Netflix’s first breakthrough success not only because it was well acted and well written, but because Frank Underwood (and later on, Claire) were basically the DC versions of the Sopranos.  They gave the air of being civilized but they were as violent and ruthless as the rest of them. A huge part of the success of the series was because both of them broke the fourth wall to let us on their thinking, and by definition, make us co-conspirators.  We felt we were getting away with all the bad things they were doing. I certainly felt that way when I first watched the show, and rewatching the first two seasons, that feeling hasn’t gone away.

And while there are those who complain about so many series being centered around ‘White Male Antiheroes’, I fundamentally don’t see this so much as complaints about racism or sexism as minorities being jealous that they don’t get to have the same fun as those who appear on Ozark.  Why else would Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder be smash hits; why did so many people love Empire a few years ago and Power is in its fourth spinoff? Those who argue so much for equal representation in these series might want to think what they want representation in.

Several months ago, I read a piece in the New York Times Magazine arguing that the success of Mad Men ten years ago was due to it being a celebration of work and the fact that Succession is now a similar hit is because of our frustration with work. There are countless reasons I think these arguments are flawed and I actually planned to write a separate piece on it. For now, I think it’s worth saying that one of the reasons for both series success is because of that same reactionary feel. Admittedly it’s different for each. In Mad Men, much of the reason we celebrated Don Draper was a modification for that of Tony Soprano and Walter White; we liked seeing a man behave horribly – to his wife, to his children, and to the people he worked with. (Granted he never killed anybody, but there’s another reason I think the show work which I’ll get too in a moment). Succession operates on a different field of reaction: we like seeing the Roys treat each other horribly, but we also are experiencing a reaction of schadenfraude at seeing the rich and powerful as miserable as the rest of us.

There’s another reason we like Mad Men, different then some of the other series. It’s a period piece, which means it brings up feelings of nostalgia, which is in itself a whole different set of reactions. And it’s all about the world of advertising.  And the best advertising is about inspiring the right kind of reaction. Why were so many enraptured by The Carousel the Season 1 finale? Sure it was moving to Don, but it was also the ultimate sales pitch. That’s all advertising is. Inspiring certain kinds of reactions.

This is the fundamental truth about Peak TV as well as the era we live in. Critics have spent the last twenty years celebrating men and women who represent the worst of humanity. And so many of these series are about characters that make choices that are good for themselves rather than the community. The Wire, which I have mostly ignored, argued that the institutions we have been counting to support us for centuries have calcified so badly that the individuals in them can not fight them against any more and can only deal what gives them upward mobility rather than social improvement.  Whether it’s the drug war or the educational system, the working class or journalism, and yes, especially politics, are broken to the point that people react towards their own personal benefit than act for the common good.

I don’t pretend to be different. I am a critic. My job is as much about my own personal reaction as it about analysis. I like to think I am capable of being more than the sum of my reactions but I’m a realist. Hell, those of you who have read my columns over the years know that I’ve devoted entire series about certain shows which I viscerally hate. I might be able to accept that certain people love Ozark and Euphoria but I can not overcome my first and basest reactions.

And I don’t necessarily think that being driven by your reactions is always a bad thing. If reactions lead to action, if they inspire change, if they inspire talk, then they have done the right thing.  Say what you will about Peak TV, but very few of the series just left you feeling: “It didn’t leave any impression on me.” Where it becomes a basic problem is when you apply it to everything else – or worse, when you use the reaction as the only action you take.

There’s more I want to say about this – a lot more – but in all honesty, I think I’ve made the point I want to in this article. I will use this as a link to future reactionaries I encounter on this site – which is honestly more people than I care to admit. For now, I will say this: all of us are more reactionary than we want to think. The question becomes: what kind of reactionary are you?

 

 

Potential Jeopardy Champions For A Fortieth Anniversary Series: Part 2 In an Ongoing Series

 

With the next group, we officially enter the era of Ken Jennings with this group of five possibilities, which starts making my job a whole lot more difficult. Obviously Jennings’ himself will not be taking part in any future tournaments (except as host) but it does give us a new set of problems.

There are arguments for players such as Sean Ryan, the first champion to win six games, or Tom Walsh, the first champion to win seven, numbers that were significant even five or six earlier but in the past three or four years seems positively miniscule.  Both men participated in the 2004 Tournament of Champions; Ryan was eliminated in the first round; Walsh finished second to Russ Schumacher. Both were also given byes into the second round of the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, and both men lost, though not without distinction.

I would argue there should be some recognition for pioneers in this field, but neither man has been invited back to any future tournaments, and with the passage of time their trailblazing accomplishments look insignificant with each passing year. So reluctantly, I find myself dismissed them both and moving on to the next five.

 

Chris Miller

Why he’s earned it: Chris Miller may not seem like an obvious choice compared to Walsh or Ryan. Indeed, his major accomplishment in his initial run was being the only player to win exactly five games in all of 2004. He won a fairly impressive amount, to be sure – over $123,000 in his initial run, almost the same amount as Ryan did in six games – but even in the Tournament he played in during 2004, that wasn’t that impressive. Six other players won $100,000 or more. Indeed, Chris only managed to make into semi-finals wild card and even then it was more due to so many other quarterfinalists not having impressive scores for wildcards.

The reason I am pushing for Chris is because of his superb play in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions the following year. Just like Pam Mueller in the first set of possibilities, Chris managed to make it all the way to the semi-finals. If anything, he faced a bigger set of obstacles that Pam did to get to the finals – one of his fellow champions was Brad Rutter himself. It says a lot about the kind of player Chris was that he was tied with him for second place in the first semi-final match and was right on top of him at the end of the Jeopardy round in Game 2 before Brad came to life and started mowing down all competitors.  He finished with $93,844, the seventh highest total of in the field.

Unlike Pam Mueller, however, Chris has never been asked back for another tournament. He wasn’t invited back to participate in the Battle of the Decades, not even to be voted on as a fan favorite nor for the All-Star Games, which I think is unfair.  His period of greatness on Jeopardy may have little more than a year, but it was a hell of a year, and I think he deserves to return,

 

David Madden

Why he’s earned it: It’s one of the great quirks in game show history that for the longest period of time, the player who had the second highest total of wins in Jeopardy history had his run a little less than a year after Ken Jennings had his. (Given the amount of historic runs recently, it seems much less so. Nevertheless, in July of 2005 David Madden began a streak that took over the end of Season 21 and the beginning of Season 22 that would take up nineteen total victories and just over $430,000. Even after Julia Collins passed Madden for second place, his cash winnings for his original run would rank second all time until James Holzhauer shot past it. (Four other players have passed it as well by now; all of them will obviously be on this list.)

Like so many great Jeopardy champions, Madden didn’t have success in his Tournament of Champions; indeed, he didn’t even make it as far as the finals of the 2006 Tournament, losing his semi-final match in what would be a runaway. (I’ll be getting to the details of that in the next entry.) When the Battle of the Decades took place in 2014, I eagerly anticipated his appearance only to learn that because of a legal obligation, he didn’t think he could participate. Alex was right when he said he was missed.

He made up for lost time in the All-Star Games when he was part of Team Brad and helped skyrocket the team to a million-dollar payout (split three ways). Barring another unforeseen complication, it is a given that he shall return in less than two years time.

 

Michael Falk

Why He’s earned it: The makeup of the 2006 Tournament of Champions was one of the oddest of all time. David Madden and Tom Kavanaugh, who won eight games, were among the few participants who’d won at least five games. While other Jeopardy tournaments occasionally needed champions who’d won three games to fill out the set, the 2006 Tournament had by far the highest number – there were five of them. One such player was Michael Falk, who’d won just under $60,000 in three games less than a month before the Tournament began in May.

By the finals of the Tournament, all of the favorites had fallen aside for Michael, Bill MacDonald, and Vik Vaz, whose ten combined wins was little more than half David’s total (Bill had blown David out of the water in their semi-final match, for the record, while Michael had been pretty badly beaten by him when they faced off in a quarterfinal match.) And by the end of Game 1 of the finals, Michael was in a distant second, trailing Vik by more than $13,000. Only because of a huge second game did Michael turn things around and end up winning the Tournament and a quarter of a million – to date, he is still the only three-game winner to do so.

I will confess; if it were not for the standards I set when I began the conditions for this hypothetical tournament, I wouldn’t think of considering Michael Falk. His totals are absurdly low by any reasonable standards for a Jeopardy champion, and he didn’t exactly cover himself with glory in the Battle of the Decades. (Though to be fair, when you’re playing against Ken Jennings, you’re often lucky to get out in one piece.) But fair is fair, and he did win the Tournament of Champions. So that is enough to let him in.

 

Celeste DiNucci

The 2007 Tournament of Champions also had a fairly odd group of competitors. It is the only Tournament after the five-game limit was lifted in 2003 where no participant won more than five games. That’s not to say none of the players were worthy – eight of the participants won $100,000 or more – and in an odd way, it makes Celeste’s accomplishments all the more impressive.

There was a fair amount of luck in Celeste’s tournament run. She qualified for the semi-final via wild card. To date, she is the only player in Tournament history to qualifies for the finals of a Tournament of Champions because of a tie-breaker round after she finished in a tie after Final Jeopardy (that in itself was odd, but I won’t go into that here). She was leading at the end of Game 1 of the finals, but trailed badly in game 2, and even fifteen years later, I’m still pretty sure she only managed to win the Tournament because the player ahead of her at the end of Game 2 made a miscalculation in wagering in Final Jeopardy. But despite all of this, it does not make me inclined to dismiss Celeste’s accomplishments; on the contrary, I actually think that makes her run to a quarter of a million dollars one of the more impressive Tournament runs in Jeopardy history.

She didn’t get past the first round in her Battle of the Decades appearance in 2014, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Both she and Colby Burnett did a lot of major calculations about wagers in Final Jeopardy that honestly should have worked in favor of Celeste instead of Colby. (Even he knew how lucky he was to win.) I was disappointed she wasn’t included in the All-Star Games, but less shocked then some of the other people were excluded. None of the doubts I have for the previous entry apply here.

 

Larissa Kelly

Why she’s earned it: The past year, those of you who followed the records set by Amy Schneider may have heard a bit about Larissa Kelly. After Amy won her sixteenth game, she officially surpassed Larissa for the most money won overall by a female contestant. Larissa was suitably gracious, which was fitting for a woman who had set some benchmarks of her own.

Larissa was the first female contestant to win more than five games – she won six in May of 2008. In those six games, she won $222,597 – which at the time, was the third highest sum won by any player in their original run.  When Stephanie Jass became the first woman to win seven games, she was still trailing Larissa by over $80,000; indeed Julia Collins had to win 11 games to surpass her. That’s an impressive figure.

And it actually gets better. Julia managed to finish second in the 2009 Tournament of Champions, which added $100,000 to her total. When she participated in the Battle of the Decades, she spent most of her game blowing her opponents out of the water and indeed, it took a big wager on a Daily Double on the penultimate clue by Russ Schumacher in Double Jeopardy to prevent her from running away of it, and a savvy wager in Final Jeopardy to allow him to defeat her. She had revenge in the All-Star Games, first when she was invited back and Russ wasn’t, and ultimately when she was drafted by Brad Rutter to play for his team and guaranteed first their spot in the finals and then their eventual victory in the Games.  Like David and Brad, she earned her share of the million dollars they won.

It is inevitable Larissa will be asked back to participate in any future tournament. It is particularly significant that she will now be brought back to challenge a new set of female super-champions such as Amy and Mattea Roach, along with a few others that I will be listing later on. I look forward to her matches in particular.

 

Some time next week, I shall get back to the next group.

Potential Jeopardy Champions for The Fortieth Anniversary (Maybe) Part 1 of What Will Be an Ongoing Series

Two weeks ago in one of my series of articles about Jeopardy, I mentioned that given the history of the show it is a very strong likelihood that there will be a very advanced tournament to commemorate its fortieth season on the air.  (You can find it in my post on July 21^st). To avoid repeating myself, I will simply say that I believed this tournament should follow one of the more successful models and include forty-five past champions; forty who I thought had earned it, and five who I thought the fans should vote on.

The standards for participants in Jeopardy tournaments are hard to measure. In their most recent tournament for their 35^th Anniversary, the All-Star Games, only eighteen players were invited to participate, none of whom had competed prior to 2000, and some of whom were very questionable choices. So trying to figure out who will participate in such tournaments is always difficult, if not impossible to guess. Nevertheless, since Jeopardy will inevitably do one, I thought it might be worth looking at some of the most likely contenders to participate in it.

To review, the standards I thought that should qualify each participant were:

 

1) Every Tournament of Champions winner from 2000 on

2)      Every Jeopardy champions whose won ten or more games (Ken Jennings obviously excluded)

3)      Jeopardy champions who don’t fit either criteria but have been competed in either Battle of the Decades: The 2000s or The Jeopardy All-Star Games

4)      Several selected finalists from Tournaments of Champions who finished second.

 

Since Jeopardy is now on hiatus, I think it would be worth looking at some of the champions who deserve to return. Some of them are choices that will be familiar to the most casual fan; others are either more obscure or enough time has gone by that they may have been forgotten. To that end, I intend to do a series of articles, each covering ten champions who I believe have earned their place, my reasons for thinking so, and some personal information. I intend to start at my cutoff point of 2000.

 

ROBIN CARROLL

 

Why she’s earned it: Back it what may seem like the dark ages for Jeopardy prior to the turn of the century, when the dollar figures for the Jeopardy round peaked at $500, there was a period where Robin Carroll was the biggest money winner in Jeopardy history. It didn’t last long – little more than a year – but that has nothing to dim her luster.

In 2000, Robin Carroll became only the second woman to win a Tournament of Champions (back then, the grand prize was ‘only’ $100,000).  A little more than a year later, she represented the United States in what would be the last in a fleeting Jeopardy tradition: The International Tournament. Featuring competitors from eight other countries and only occurring three times in the show’s history, Robin won the third and last, winning an additional $50,000. Her combined winnings of $214,100 were the highest in the show’s history. (There’s an asterisk attached, but it’s not worth going over here.)

Every few years since then Robin has participated in Jeopardy’s super-tournaments – the Million Dollar Masters, the Ultimate Tournament of Champions and the Battle of The Decades – with mixed results each time. She was eliminated in the quarterfinals of Masters, was granted a bye to the second round of the UTC but lost badly and managed to make it to the quarterfinals of the Battle of the Decades before being eliminated. But given her history, I was stunned when she wasn’t invited to take part in the All-Star Games. When you are mentioned on A&E’s Biography for your part in Jeopardy, I think it’s clear how important you were to the series at a critical time.

 

PAM MUELLER

 

Why she’s earned it: In terms of chronology Pam Mueller went back the furthest of all the player’s in the Jeopardy All-Star Games, having won the November 2000 College Championship. And with deference to Robin Carroll, it would have made far less sense if Pam had been excluded.

After that win, Pam has never won a single Tournament. But the recent I’ve considered one of the all-time greats for nearly two decades is that from what seems to be an absurdly early age, Pam has been the equal or the superior of some of the greatest champions in Jeopardy history. This goes back to the Ultimate Tournament of Champions where out of a field of 144 players, she managed to become the youngest of six semi-finalists to compete for $2,000,000.  Her competition in her semi-final match were no small potatoes – Frank Spangenberg, who for more than a decade held the record for most money won in five consecutive games; and Jerome Vered, who for nearly as long held the record for most money won in single game. In two games, Pam was the equal to both of them, finally being defeated by Jerome. Her winnings of $102,201 was the fifth highest total sum in a field of 145.

When she appeared in the Battle of the Decades, she defeated two Tournament of Champions winners in her first round match, went into Final Jeopardy of her quarterfinal leading two more (she eventually became a semi-finalist by wildcard) and held dead even with two other Tournament of Champions winners before being eliminated in Final Jeopardy. (I’ll actually discuss several of them in future articles.) That’s an impressive track record for a Jeopardy player who wasn’t much over 30 at the time.  And when she ended up being drafted for the Jeopardy All-Star Games in 2019, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that her team made into the finals against teams led by Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.

In thirty years of watching Jeopardy, Pam Mueller is, in my opinion, one of the ten best players to ever play the game. If she doesn’t make it back in two years time, something is wrong with the process.

 

BRAD RUTTER

Why he’s earned it: I don’t think I need to write much about Brad Rutter because at this point, there’s nothing left to say about him. For nearly two decades, he has been the biggest money winner in the history of Jeopardy, and his name and Ken Jennings were intertwined for more than fifteen years. But even though Brad won far more money than Ken, and Brad was (until the Jeopardy Greatest of All Time series) the one player Ken Jennings could not beat, well I think this anecdote from the Battle of The Decades that Brad told (prior to beating Ken yet again for another million dollars) sums up Brad’s fate.

“Declan (Whitlock, the son of Shane, a participant in Brad’s first round) was introduced to me by Shane who said: “This is Brad Rutter. He’s won more money than anybody on Jeopardy. Declan looked at me, and said: ‘Where’s Ken?’ (Huge Laughter and applause) The story of my life!”

Brad Rutter is, along with Ken Jennings and James Holzhauer, pretty much the face of game show success; it’s small wonder the three of them were initially tied together as the leads in the new ABC game show The Chase. He remains, by a small margin, the biggest money winner in Jeopardy history. We know he’ll be participating next time. The question is, now that Ken is gone and players like Matt Amodio and Amy Schneider are present, can he regain his crown?

 

MARK DAWSON

Why He’s earned it: Sometimes the pioneers don’t get the credit they deserve. In 2003, Mark Dawson became the first winner of a Tournament of Champions where the grand prize was a quarter of a million dollars. That was significant when it happened, but when Ken Jennings started his streak, it became far less so to the point where Mark seems almost a footnote in the show’s history, not so much known for being the first at something but for being the last. He was one of the last players who, after winning five games, he also won a new sports car. (Jeopardy gave away cars for five day champions from 1996 to 2001.) And the day after he won his last game, Alex Trebek shaved his mustache (something he pointed out when he returned for the Battle of the Decades in 2014).

This is hardly fair to Mark. It doesn’t help that he was one of the last five day champions to win just prior to the dollar figures being doubled in November of 2001, so his total of $52,199 looks less impressive than it was at the time.  But he has a very good history in Tournament play, making it to the second round of the Ultimate Tournament of Champions and the quarterfinals of the Battle of the Decades. And the fact that he has several key links to the show’s past as well as his future makes me think that he has more than earned the right to come back.

 

RUSS SCHUMACHER

Why He’s earned it: I will be honest here: Russ Schumacher is slightly less qualified to be on this list than the first four players I’ve listed. Most of it is due to the fact that he only won four games, which is admittedly a low number for any Jeopardy player. Now many four game winners have gone on to win the Tournament of Champions, but the lion’s share of them did so prior to removal of the five-game limit at the start of Season 20. Nor did Russ have the best track records with his wins; two were runaways, but he only got one Final Jeopardy in his original five appearances correct, and he only managed to qualify for the semi-finals of the 2004 Tournament of Champions via high score in wild-card and that was after being utterly crushed in his quarterfinal match. There’s a lot of luck involved for every Jeopardy champion but almost every element of it had to go right for Russ to end up the Tournament of Champions winner that year (not the least of which was Ken Jennings’ winning streak still going on while it was taking place).

But Russ’ participation in other Tournaments, particularly the Battle of the Decades where he managed to win two very difficult games based on good wagering on very tough Final Jeopardy, both while playing some of the greatest players in history, demonstrates that there was far more than mere luck involved in his winning. Russ Schumacher was very lucky to be sure but a lot of the players he managed to defeat were among the very best too, and for that reason, he deserves to take part in whatever tournament comes next.

 

To Be Continued….

 

The Television Critics Association Is Nominating More Series and Actors...And That's Good For Everybody

 

 

Over the last couple of years, I have increasingly regulated the accomplishments of the Television Critics Association to the backburner when compared to the new (and to be fair, far more inclusive Hollywood Critics Association) in regard to their nominations.  This is hardly fair to an organization that has been around far longer and has had the foresight to give Homicide three consecutive Best Drama Awards, recognize Twin Peaks, Deadwood and Better Call Saul when the Emmys never would, and are willing to give heritage prizes to actors and series we never quite give enough credit to.

Understandably given everything that has happened the last few weeks, the TCAs annual nominations slipped under the radar and I only became aware of them today. And I don’t know if they keep trying harder or if they are genuinely reflecting the high quality of TV out there. But they keep raising the standards and I keep appreciating their efforts.

This year they gave nominations to ten actors and actress in Individual Achievement in Drama. None of them were for Ozark or Euphoria which automatically raises my respect for them.  Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn are competing for Better Call Saul and they acknowledged the brilliance of Mandy Moore for This is Us – I already love them more. Indeed, all of the choices are good ones. Lee Jung-Jae for Squid Game, Melanie Lynskey for Yellowjackets, Amanda Seyfried for The Dropout, Michael Keaton for Dopesick, Margaret Qualley for Maid (no Pam and Tommy even better), and Adam Scott for Severance are all among the best performances of the year. I’m not wild about Jeremy Strong being here, but at least he’s the only member of the Roy family nominated.

There are only eight nominees in the comedy category, but honestly the quality is better there. Bill Hader, Steve Martin and Jason Sudeikis were all certain to be nominated as were Jean Smart and Quinta Brunson. But I am impressed that the TCA acknowledged Pamela Adlon for Better Things and even more that they recognized Bridget Everett for Somebody Somewhere, a series that has clearly slipped under the Emmys radar. And really, could anyone argue with Janelle James being here for Abbott Elementary? I can’t.

Outstanding New Program is basically incredibly impressive. Abbott Elementary, Severance, Only Murders in the Building, Yellowjackets and The White Lotus (and credit to the TCA for admitting that this is a new program and not a Limited Series) are among the best. We now should accept that Ghosts is a brilliant new program, and I give more credit to the acknowledgement of Reservation Dogs. I think I have to watch Pachinko now.

The Limited Series awards are, of course, dominated by streaming. The Dropout and Dopesick here (but not Pam and Tommy) and there seems to be credit for The Girl from Plainville. Maid is included. Give credit to the TCA for including Midnight Mass, Station Eleven and Under the Banner of Heaven, though I do think Scenes from a Marriage could be chosen over one of them.

Outstanding Achievement in Drama: Better Call Saul, Severance, Squid Game, Succession and Yellowjackets mirror the Emmy choices. But give them their props for showing the common sense to nominate This is Us and the extraordinary foresight to recognize The Good Fight and Pachinko instead of Ozark and Euphoria. TCA, I’m sorry I neglected you last year.

Outstanding Achievement in Comedy is basically a mirror of the Emmys in some expected ways: Abbott Elementary, Barry, Hacks, Only Murders in the Building and Ted Lasso are here. But Reservation Dogs got in over What We Do in the Shadows which is probably the right call and Atlanta was put in over Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I might not have chosen Ghosts over say The Wonder Years, but since the Peabodys had the very good chance to give it an award (most of its awards brought no new news so I’ll let them slide) I think it’s possible I am in the wrong.

I actually like almost every choice for Outstanding Achievement in Variety, Talk or Sketch. No one would argue with John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, A Black Lady Sketch Show or Saturday Night Live and I’m overjoyed to see Seth Meyers, Amber Ruffin and Ziwe competing for prizes. I’m not sure for Tim Robinson.

As for Program of the Year: Would I have liked to see This is Us in there? Sure. But it’s hard to argue with any of them: Abbott Elementary, Better Call Saul, Hacks, Severance, Squid Game, The White Lotus and Yellowjackets are among the best shows out there. It would be petty at this point to complain about Succession’s presence, since it got fewer nominations than Better Call Saul or Abbott Elementary. Hell, I don’t even mind that Ted Lasso didn’t make it this year. And can we just be in awe for a moment that the most nominated series is a broadcast show? Seriously, I wasn’t sure that was allowed any more by any awards group any more.

The TCA will be meeting later this month – in person for the first time since 2019. And as always, I’m looking for their choices. I don’t necessarily think the Emmys will go along with them, but for a group that was willing to acknowledge The Americans and Better Call Saul were the better dramas than the final two seasons of Game of Thrones, honestly, you might do well to listen. In the meantime, every year in every way, the TCA makes me proud of my chosen occupation.

Saul Comes Full Circle - And He Still Hasn't Learned Anything. Better Call Saul Final Episodes Analysis: Breaking Bad (No, Not That One)

If the title of this episode didn’t pretty much guarantee that we were finally going to get the much anticipated Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul cameos, the fact that the teaser started with Saul tied up in the back of the RV that he was when Walter and Jesse got their bright idea to kidnap him, just as frantic as he was nearly thirteen years and two series ago would assure it. It’s also a measure of where Saul is right now that the long-awaited scene isn’t the greatest thing about this episode – though make no mistake, it’s still awesome.

‘Breaking Bad’ opens with Saul’s secretary now in the middle of doing what seems to be her major source of income – working as a housekeeper for two truly unappreciative schmucks. Because the series is filmed in black-and-white, it takes a moment for us to recognize her or even realize were back in Albuquerque. It’s not until she leaves the office and gets in her car that we realize that she’s been followed, something that she is all too familiar with by now is more than used to.

After a long enough period she drives to an abandoned gas station and looks at the clock on the radio. It turns to 3:00 nothing happens. When it turns to 3:01, the phone in the booth rings, and she’s clearly not happy about it. She gets on the phone, and looks very unhappy when Saul picks. She wants her money in advance, and its not until Saul tells her how to get (“Look for a rock the shape of New Jersey”) that she goes and picks up the money and agrees to talk to him.

Saul has clearly learned that Walter White is dead and wants to know if the heat has died off. He is not happy to know it has, and is equally dismayed to know that he is the last man standing. Skyler White got her deal (she clearly followed with the last time she and Walter met) and Jesse has disappeared (so the series is clearly taking place after El Camino). It’s down to her and Saul. Saul learns that all of his investments – the nail salons, the Laser Tag, even the Caymans trust that he put in his secretary’s name, which she is not happy about – are all seized, and the only money left is what he has. It is only after all this is over that he finally asks how his secretary is doing. “I’m great,” she tells him. “Prince Harry proposed. I’m flying in the private jet tonight.” It’s clear that Saul is basically at the same point Walter was in the middle of ‘Granite State’, dying for any sound from his old life. 

But he is stunned to here that Kim called and asked about him. We finally learn where Kim Wexler is right now – and apparently she’s in Florida, not Omaha. After he hangs up, Saul goes through a lot of work to try and track down where Kim is working. We do not hear his conversation with her (or for that matter, even learn if the two talked) but it doesn’t go well. There’s a lot of shouting and yelling from Jimmy, and when the call ends, he seems to be even angrier then when Robert DeNiro ended a similar conversation in Casino – not only does she slam the receiver against the wall, he kicks the glass in.

Some were wondering what Jimmy/Saul/Gene has to live for now, and in ‘Breaking Bad’, we find out. After the commercial break, he returns to Miriam’s home, where he shows her the joys of cat videos. Then he goes out back to talk with her nervous son, who is somewhat flummoxed when Gene starts asks him the shifts he takes. He asks him to take the graveyard shift and to get a hold of some barbiturates. Its official – Slipping Jimmy is in business in Omaha.

It takes quite a while to realize what exactly Gene is up to when we next see him in a karaoke bar. He makes the acquaintance of an apparently random stranger, they start talking about life, they begin the kind of absurd drinking games you usually see in bars – and then we see Jimmy using an old standard of putting a funnel in his drink so he only looks like he’s getting drunk. The two leave the bar together, and a cab pulls up. The guy, who by now has established himself as an asshole, plays one more particularly nasty game in order to get the cab. Jimmy loses it – willing to suffer for his art – and the man gets in the cab. Our friend is behind the wheel, and we last see Jimmy disposing of the drink, while the third man in the party with his dog in the back seat pretends to be his dispatcher.

In another brilliant, almost silent black and white sequence, we see our mark being left off at his house with the driver leaving him at the door, and placing a piece of tape to keep it from locking. Then with calming music, the third man to the party comes to the door – with his dog – walks in and removes the man’s wallet. He then spends the next three minutes taking pictures of every single credit and bank card in his wallet, walking around the house, taking similar pictures of his checkbook, stopping by his computer, and finding all of the passwords for his accounts – naturally, they’re on a Post-it under the keyboard. Then he puts every back, walks back to his dog (there to tell him if the victim has stirred), and walks away, shutting the door behind him – and then opening it to pull away the piece of tape.

It says something for where Saul is at this point in its run that the much awaited scene with Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul recreating their iconic characters almost comes an anticlimax, something that you almost thing could have easily been as one of the deleted scenes on the Season 2 DVD. It’s not that it’s not fun to see Saul going through all of the chemistry equipment with his usual discernment (looking at one of the flasks he says “I have a fish who could have a vacation in this) or that it’s not equally fun to see Walter just as determined to control the situation as ever and Jesse, still clueless about the nature of the equipment. It’s just that for most of it you actually wonder if this really is the ultimate Easter egg to the fan base, something that Gilligan and crew have been very subtle with before. But it’s in the last two minutes when Jimmy asks to be returned to his office (calling ‘shotgun’) and the engine on their RV is flooded, that we actually see the point of this. For the first time we realize that even though Saul has caught on to the fact that the man he’s in the room with is Heisenberg, neither man has given his name.  Then there is the moment in the dark where Walter starts coughing for an extended period. This is a symbolic moment both for the past and the future.

Then the camera cuts from the grave Walt and Jesse were going to use to scare Saul to show that Gene is sleeping in his bed (good juxtaposition, guys) and then there’s a buzz at the door, and we begin the montage where we see the fruits of the labor – identity theft, stolen goods and money (not too much, of course) done for an extended period, and everybody having fun. Except Gene – at one point, we see him in bed with a stripper, post-coital and his face is as expressionless as it was when the sequence started. Gene is doing this for the same reason that Walter performed as Heisenberg, but he’s not even feeling alive. It’s almost sad…but we’re about to lose empathy for all of Jimmy identities.

Once again, Gene is in a bar going through the motions with another mark. (I’m pretty sure the actor is Kevin Sussman, that great portrayer of losers). Everything seems business as usual, until we see the mark start taking meds. We see what’s going on. Gene does, but he keeps going.

The scene that follows actually may be far more important than all the others we’ve had. Mike walks into Saul’s office – apparently along with working security for Gus, he really was Saul’s PI. After the usual ‘banter’ – Mike threatens to kick Saul if he doesn’t get off the floor, Saul tries to get Mike to relax – Mike starts going through the business section. Among his business, Mike has found out who Heisenberg is – Walter White, high school teacher, and that he has cancer. Saul looks at this as a business opportunity. Mike tells him flat out that Walter is a risk. When Saul asks if he ran this by “He who shall not be named”, Mike says that Gus has dismissed Walt as small potatoes.  He also tells him flat out how reckless Walt is and if the cancer doesn’t get him, a bullet or a cop will.  Saul seems to go along with this, and Mike moves on but we leave the scene with Saul clearly considering the possibilities.

Up until this point, I’ve had immense sympathy for Saul’s on Breaking Bad because it seemed like he became drawn into the web of Heisenberg and things got worse mainly because Walter refuses to acknowledge the logic of Saul’s advice. Leave it to Gilligan to knock out that pillar two episodes before the end.  Saul was given advice from a man who clearly knew better about how risky working with Walt was, and because he smelled a lot of money, he went against it.  No matter how you look at it, Saul went into this with his eyes wide open.

(You could make the argument that Mike would give a completely different argument to Gus when he presented this information to him in ‘Green Light’. To that I remind viewers 1) Gus intended for the partnership to be temporary, until Gale learned how to cook as well as Walter could, and 2) Mike clearly had a better relationship with Gus than he did with Saul, and clearly intended to make sure that Walter was out of the picture by then. It doesn’t change the fact that both men still misjudged him.)

And in the final scenes of the episode, it becomes clear that just like his two prior identities, Gene has no idea of his limitations.  When he receives a call that night from his fellow cons, he is outraged beyond believed when he learns the job isn’t done yet, because one of his partner’s has a conscience and “can’t rob a guy with cancer.” (I love Gene’s reaction: “You think guys with cancer can’t be assholes? Trust me, I speak from experience.”) Neither man seems wild about the idea (even the guy willing to blackmail Gene says “I can see both sides of it) and an enraged Jimmy fires the weak one and convinces the other to drive him back, even though the tapes gone.

The episode closes with flashes between color and black-in-white. In the past, Saul is about to stride in the front door of Walt’s high school, going to upend the world of a cancer-ridden man and in the process, seal his own fate. And in the present, Gene prepares to do the same, this time breaking the door in.

It looks like things are coming to an end for Gene for the third straight time. If the cops who seemed to be gathering outside in the penultimate episode teaser don’t get him, it’s pretty clear Miriam is going to get suspicious. (Assuming of course, Carol Burnett can tear her eyes away from all those cute cat videos.)  We know lots more in the past and the present than we did before, and none of it spells good things for Saul Goodman in any universe. There’s just one question still before us: when the law is closing in, who will Saul call?

 

 

You Think Working From Home Sucks? Better Late Than Never: Severance

 

 

In reviewing The Old Man recently, I posed the question whether Jeff Bridges was the most underrated actor ever. If television had an equivalent, one of the candidates would have to be Adam Scott. I never saw the cult hit Party Down so I can’t pass judgment on it, but having watched his work the past decade as Ben on Parks and Rec and Ed on Big Little Lies it has struck me as amazing that the Emmys kept ignoring him for the 2010s. I was overjoyed on a personal level when he finally got his first nomination for Severance, a series I knew I was going to have to watch well before the Emmy nods came out. And now that I’ve seen the first two episodes, it’s clear that as brilliant as Scott’s work is on this show, he is far from the greatest thing about it.

Scott plays Mark, who at the beginning of the series we see weeping in his car before he walks into an enormous corporation known as Lumon, which looks like what you’d get if you crossed the ominous nature of ECorp with the overall style and branding of the Dharma Initiative. Mark goes into work like he has every day for two years (though we don’t know how long it’s been) and finds that his friend Petey is gone. Mark then is called in to meet Miss Solveg (Patricia Arquette, practically unrecognizable in both appearance and performance) who tells him with all the warmth of an android that he’s been promoted. He then goes through the welcoming procedure of a new employee known as Helly, who we first meet lying prone on a desk. He begins to welcoming procedure which consists of five questions, and when she can’t answer four of them, he’s astonished that’s a perfect score.

Helly spend the next twenty minutes of the Pilot trying to escape Lumon, something that is impossible. Then she’s shown a video of herself agreeing to ‘severance’, a process that will lead to the separation of her work life from her home life in the most literal sense. When employees at Lumon leave the office, they completely forget everything that happened at work, and the reverse happens when the return the next morning. What is obviously frightening is that all of the employees on Mark’s floor seem to treat this utterly horrifying idea as normal.

We then see Mark at home, which is essentially the company town. He has a sister who is on the verge of giving birth and has several outings with her friends and family. Several things become clear quickly: Mark agreed to this procedure because his wife died two years ago and he literally wanted to lose himself in his job. Despite the arguments that the procedure is harmless and has no side effects, Mark is clearly suffering from memory issues outside of work, and is very aggressive about where he works. And as we see in the final moments of the pilot, he is clearly being monitored by his own next door neighbor – although given the nature of severance, we’re still not certain if she’s really doing it or this was her real life outside of the company.

More terrifying things come to light in the second episode. The nature of the work is weird enough: there is a sea of numbers which you are supposed to surround, sort and bin: we’ve only heard of one category called scary. No one at Mark’s station – or even anywhere else in the company seems to know what the work they are doing is and don’t even seem about to ask questions about it. There is a ‘team building exercise’ which starts out creepy (but as someone who once worked in this field, not that far removed from reality) which very quickly degenerates into Helly making a run for it. And when he takes responsibility for it, Mark ends up going to the ‘break room’, which we very quickly learn is well-named.  Irving, the eldest and most truculent employee (John Turturro, superb) seems to be trying to hard to fit in. We’re inclined to think he might be a spy for ‘management’, but when he starts to doze off and we saw the after effects, there’s a moment that makes you genuinely afraid for happens when you need to retire. (We know resignations are never accepted, and given what Mark has learned about Petey, getting fired isn’t exactly much better.)

 But honestly, I think the truly most horrifying about Severance so far is how utterly docile what they do. Given the effects of corporate culture well before the pandemic, this series is both terrifying and darkly satirical to what it is like to work as a drone in the world of capitalism. All of the people who work here agree to have brain surgery performed on them so they’ll forget their lives outside of work. They very quickly seem to accept this as a condition of their employment, as well as the fact they have no idea what they are doing. They are conditioned to well at their jobs for the most pitiable of rewards systems – Bert is obsessed with getting the highest rating for his department for a ‘waffle party’ and when Mark is injured on the job, he’s rewarded with a gift certificate for a steak house he will have no memory of using or enjoying. If Squid Game gave us a clear picture of the evils of the capitalist system, Severance is just as relentless as showing us the evils of the corporate world, something that is carried to an extreme here.

Severance is one of the most terrifying and brilliant dramas this year, and much of that credit must go to the director – Ben Stiller. Since he broke new ground in the exceptional limited series Escape at Dannemora (also starring Arquette), Stiller has been a revelation when it comes to telling dramatic stories. In this show where, just as with Mr. Robot, the direction is vital to the series success, Stiller’s work is mesmerizing, watching the characters run through endless corridors, going through doorways that lead back to the same place, cutting between work and a date in jump shots, it’s rather hard to believe is the man whose most successful directorial credit was Zoolander. Then again, considering that when he was just starting out on The Ben Stiller Show one of the better parts of those series were the satires of major big budget films, you could argue just as viably that he’s been preparing for work all his life. Either way, it’s a triumph deserving of the Emmy nomination he got.

I don’t know yet if the mythology that we’re seeing around Severance will turn out to be as disappointing as almost every major mythology based series turns out to be in the end. But everything about this show is so rewarding to watch (and I’ve barely gotten a sense of Christopher Walken is up to yet) that I absolutely am glued to every second. A lot of things about the series aren’t clear yet. What is clear is that the Emmys absolutely made the right choices when they gave it fourteen nominations, including Best Drama. I don’t know yet if any of the nominated actors will win yet, but I know that even if they don’t, they’ll have plenty of chances. This looks like one of the best shows of 2022.

My score: 5 stars.