I Saw This!! What I Have Been Watching: A Long Look Back: A (eh?)

 I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent(!) or Toasty attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. But we can't not write cuz that would be bad, very bad.  2020 bad.

What I Have Been (or Am) Watching is the admitted state of me spending too much time in front of the TV. But what else was 2020, and 2020-Extended (2021 on the calendar) about? Well, beyond baking bread and not cutting hair. Didn't do much on the former, and only one cut in one year, on the latter.

Of note, this is a challenge, as its over a year's worth of TV. I will strive not to ramble. Don't hold your breath.

The Rookie is something I have been enjoying since it started, which was not surprising, as I have enjoyed everything Nathan Fillion has been in since Firefly. This season, they return mid-pandemic, with only a disappointing nod to the ongoing situation, which I am not sure is because of TV Land, or because that is the actual reality in the US. Either way, they decided to focus this season on something more important (IMO), something that must have been in their writing room forefront, since the violent anti-police upheavals of 2020. They are tackling, and somewhat bravely, again IMO, for a cop-light TV show. 

They briefly touch on the idea of Nolan wanting to be the white knight when he doesn't really have the right to decide what a black community needs. But moreso, they tackle overt racism within the police force, albeit in a microcosm of one very blatant, but also protected racist cop. Is it all they can do? Probably not, but unlike most pop culture which pretends they are in an entirely different world, at least they are showing they are aware, and that their heroes, especially the black ones, Sergeant Grey (Richard T Jones, Narcos) and rookie West (Titus Makin Jr, Glee), are doing something about it. This show is about a rose-coloured glasses police force, so this nod is ... something.

Also of Firefly alumni, comes Alan Tudyk's Resident Alien, a comedy about an alien trapped on Earth, having assumed the identity of a doctor. The small town in Colorado where this doctor had a summer (winter?) house loses their own doctor, and ask him to step into help. He is still coming to grasp with being a human, but is also more concerned with finding the missing parts of his crashed ship. 

The fish out of water comedy is done masterfully by Tudyk, but the rest is somewhat uneven, unable to find its tone, with only one other standout character, his nursing assistant played Sara Tomko (Once), who plays her role as the straight-man to Tudyk's utter weirdness. I also kind of like the slutty bartender, primarily because the role doesn't slut shame her. The undertones of having indigenous characters is a nice touch as well, without attempting to be overt.

We also have been binge watching a British pseudo-game-quiz-comedy show called Qi, beginning with Stephen Fry as the host, but eventually settling on Great British Bake Off host, Sandi Toksvig. When I say "we" I mean her, while I occasionally drop in, sit down, and get sucked in for a few hours. There have been hundreds of episodes, and once she exhausted all of those BritBox, we moved to start downloading earlier seasons.

The premise is loose, explained in the Episode Zero pilot but seemingly never mentioned again. Each season is a letter (A, B, C, etc.) spawning a keyword topic. The host will then ask a question, of which nobody is expected to answer. But being they are all comedic types, they are expected to come up with at least a good response. Those who answers that are close get more points, those that amuse the host (or are at least interesting) get some points, and wrong answers lose points. And easily predicted wrong answers lose at least 10 points. Most of the shows end in the negatives.

But the point of the show, and what has me often rolling with laughter, is how each is trying to crack the host up, as well as the guests. Unlike American-centric comedy, they are not all cracking wise with badly setup jokes, but often deliberately trying to answer, albeit somewhat over the top fashions. Often they are distracted by juvenile humour, or spin off on tangents or anecdotes. And then there is Alan Davies, who plays the often deadpan fool, supplying the dumbest of answers, but in a manner that, once they warmed to each other, have Stephen & Sandi cracking up. But all too often, he sounds like the kid at the back of the class making bad jokes for attention, often involving loud shouting and his penis. Some guests are familiar faces and fit right in, while others are wild cards who answer spectacularly, while others leave you wondering why they even came on, considering how quiet they are.