Daily Archives: November 29, 2025

Binge Watching More Seasons into Autumn

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I started writing single posts about shows for a bit, mostly because I hit a few where I felt I had more than a solid paragraph to write about them.

My TV graphic… AI generated

And then there are the “new season” shows, some of which I have a historical record on which I don’t think need more than a paragraph.  Welcome back to that sort of binge watching post.

For some reason I get this show mixed up in my head with Madam Secretary. I don’t know why.  That show was like a decade ago at this point, and it doesn’t really matter, except that I keep calling the lead actress Tea Leoni when she is Keri Russell.

Anyway, season one was Keri being vetted to possibly be vice president and season two was the current VP showing up and being pissed… and some terrorism stuff, culminating with the president dying.  So season three is who will get to be vice president and how will that all work out and, oh, we still have to clean up after that whole terrorism three.

Honestly, the whole thing was getting out of hand in season two, and season three didn’t make that any better.  We’ll see if we get a season four out of it.  They certainly set that up.

Season two of the Kristen Bell romcom series where she, a gentile and non-believer falls for a young rabbi and hilarity ensues, with family and friends on both sides adding to the mix.  The first season was will they/won’t they end up together and love prevails and they do.

Season two picks up and delivers the required next step of any “boy meets girl” story, wherein they must break up in order to test their love… and also because their respective families are driving them insane.  We also get a secondary love story when Joanne’s sister Morgan starts dating her therapist, disregarding all the red flags there.  Also, Jewish Halloween makes an appearance.  Bhagpuss wrote a whole post about this season if you need more, but honestly it is simple, funny, and only eight 24 minutes episodes, so also quick.

AMC is never going to let go of The Walking Dead franchise.  I’d say something about beating a dead horse, but the horse has already risen up as a zombie and is now pursuing us as well.  Also, AMC has given up on the whole seasons thing and just kicks out half a dozen episodes of whatever when they feel like it.

In this iteration of TWD, Daryl ended up in France via unlikely circumstances… circumstances only challenged by Carol getting to France in a Cessna 172 and then finding him… so they were able to continue to pretend they are totally not an old married couple at this point in the history of the show.

Anyway, they were done with France, so made it to London for a episode, where the borrowed/stole a boat to try to sail back to America only to hit a storm and end up in Spain.  The TWD European Tour continues!

We spend this… season… whatever… getting involved with local politics in order to get their boat repaired.  Lots of Spanish scenery and culture and special touches, like the strappado.  Eventually the boat gets fixed, then burns to the ground and my guess is that they’ll end up in Italy next season, and Greece the season after that.

This is one of those shows where there is simply too much going on for me to remember or, at times, care about.  I like the show… or the idea of the show… and enjoyed the first two seasons, but around season three I got really lost as to who I should care about and what anybody’s motivation was.  This is one of those ventures where having read the books would have helped a lot, but I have not done so.

The big news for season four was the replacement of Henry Cavill with Liam Hemsworth in the role of Geralt, the titular “witcher” for whom the series was named.  A chance for Liam to see if he can hit the same levels of grumpiness.

At this point I am only in it for quips from Jaskier, the bard who travels with Geralt and whom I imagine as a young Thom Merrilin perfecting the gleeman’s trade or some such.  Also, I might have played a lot of Balatro while we were watching this, so can’t tell if I was too distracted to enjoy it as much as past seasons or if it just didn’t land.

The perennial answer when asked the question “why crank out eight or ten episodes when six tightly packed, well written episodes will do?”  Once again, Slow Horses crams the essence of a 350 page spy novel, in this case London Rules, into approximately 252 minutes of televisions, a significant percentage of which is just Gary Oldman drinking, smoking, farting, and being witheringly sarcastic.

Also, this is a series where I have read all the books, having just wrapped up the ninth in the series over the summer, so I have more background than my wife… though I read some of them, including the between book novellas, long enough ago that they are starting to fade.  Still, as with watching The Wheel of Time series, I retain enough for context.

My main problem with the series is that I want eight, ten, or even sixteen episodes of that, and more often than once a year.  Alas, you only get what you get.