Welcome To The Working Week
Final Four Is All Set
Once again, my pre-playoff observation that NBA playoff series tend to be very chalky aged well. A 1 seed & a 2 seed both made it to their conference finals, but so did a 7 seed & an 8 seed. To be fair, both of those high seeds - who each had to make it out of the play-in tournament - are filled with playoff tested veterans, so none of this is unfamiliar territory for them. What was most shocking about the second round is how uncompetitive the elimination games were. The Knicks were the only team that had a strong showing; the Suns, Warriors, and 76ers were all badly blown out in their season finales.
There are plenty of compelling stories to be found. Coming off of his brilliance in Game 7, a Celtics championship would fully solidify Jayson Tatum’s status as one of the top players in the game and firmly entrench him as another franchise legend. I don’t think Nikola Jokic still needs to justify anything about his career, but a Nuggets victory would be the capper to what has so far been an insane run of production in these playoffs. And if you want to talk insane runs, look no further than Jimmy Butler. If the Heat win it all, Butler will go down as having had one of the most legendary playoff performances in league history. And if the Lakers win, how many more superlatives can possibly go LeBron James’ way? At this point I don’t think it’s possibly to sway anyone’s opinions in the MJ/LeBron GOAT argument, but a 6-5 championship comparison tightens things up, and don’t forget that for all his indisputable greatness, Michael Jordan never dragged to the finish line as many average squads as LeBron has had to.
A few other NBA notes: Man, coaching in this league is brutal. 2 seasons ago the Finals coaches were Mike Budenholzer & Monty Williams; they have now both been fired. What have you done for me lately, indeed… Tomorrow’s draft lottery is the most important in years. Victor Wembenyama should be the most franchise-changing rookie since LeBron. There will be one ecstatic owner tomorrow night, and several who will feel crushingly disappointed, although likely #2 pick Scoot Henderson has major buzz in his own right. He figures to be a very good consolation prize… What is there to say about Ja Morant? He clearly has not learned his lesson and is likely looking at a lengthy suspension to begin next season. Immaturity has proven to be the undoing of the Memphis Grizzlies, Morant’s inability (or refusal) to flash guns on social media is very concerning.
The Great Purge
In retrospect, we were all spoiled for a long time. Depending upon how many streaming services any individual subscribes to, there has been a seemingly limitless amount of programming available to watch. It would almost be a shock to not find a specific movie or TV show. “Wait, I subscribe to this, this, and this! Why can’t I watch ___ after 1 simple click?” Those glory days are already coming to a close.
This atmosphere of multiple options is a fairly recent development. In the pre-streaming, pre-DVR, pre-VOD era, our only chance to catch something would be to watch it live or to wait until summer reruns season. And until video rentals became a thing the only movie options you had were whatever the networks or local TV stations would air.
Netflix and Hulu provided a leap forward when it came to availability of content, but the various studios establishing their own separate streaming services was the true game changer. HBO Max in particular had an exceptionally splashy intro, as they promoted a massive library coming from all facets of the Warner library. (Contrary to popular perception, the entire HBO archive was never available. Any fans of The Hitchhiker or Not Necessarily The News were still out of luck.) That’s why it was so disheartening to see that HBO Max became the pioneers when it came to clearing content from the servers. It was one thing when they dropped something like Vinyl; a high profile project that largely failed. Later on pulling Westworld was a huge stunner.
Other services have followed suit. Showtime and Paramount + have pulled material; Robert Iger has indicated that Disney + will soon do so as well. This puts a lot of pressure on viewers. Like a lot of people, I have a terribly long queue of shows that I want to watch but haven’t gotten to yet. I could always take comfort in the fact that if I want to catch up on something it will always be there for me. That cushion is no longer guaranteed. To use just one personal example, I had long heard good things about The Good Lord Bird. I finally watched the first episode a couple of years after it had initially aired and liked it enough to decide to stick with it. When I attempted to tune into episode 2, it had disappeared.
These purges are an even bigger deal when you realize that the age of physical media is essentially over. Few if any of these more contemporary series were ever made available on DVD, so even if you wish to search for a second-hand DVD collection, you can’t. It’s one thing for a random series to no longer be available for streaming, it’s another thing for it to essentially vanish entirely.
The rights to some, but not all, of the purged series were sold to any of the assorted free ad supported services such as Tubi, Pluto, Crackle, etc. so not all of them have vanished entirely. I do get a kick out of browsing them on occasion. Seeing shows that ran decades ago that I had almost forgotten about brings back some good memories. Not that I have time to want to rewatch a random show from the 70s, but it’s comforting to know that these shows still exist somewhere. If younger generations have access to The Man From Atlantis, perhaps there’s hope for the future after all. If only there were a streamer that would be bold enough to pick up the rights to Supertrain.
Another One Of THOSE Seasons In Flushing?
We’re now a quarter of the way through the season and things are slowly coming to form. Enough games have been played that the relative strengths and weaknesses of teams are much more apparent, The Rays are damn good, the Pirates are falling back to Earth, and what the hell is going on in St. Louis? At this point the two most disappointing teams are the two that went all in more than anyone: the Mets & the Padres, both of whom are currently sub-.500 clubs.
I’ve been a die hard Mets fan for a half century, which means I’ve Seen A Lot Of Things I Can Never Unsee. Rooting for this team brings its own unique trauma. Pre-2004 Red Sox fans almost wore their misery as a badge of pride; a modern form of that old New England suffering. Pre-2016 Cubs fans could often be satisfied with shoddy play as long as the sun is warm and the beer is cold. Mets fans don’t quite have that same respite. We not only have to put up with too many examples of LOL Mets to count, but we also have to share a city with another franchise that has had a bit more success than we have, and they never pass up an opportunity to let us know about it.
Of course, it’s still early and even with the slow start the Mets are currently only a half game out of a wild card slot. But it’s our nature to feel as if the other shoe will drop at any moment. Going into the season it felt risky to rely on so many aging pitchers. My feeling about Verlander & Scherzer is that it’s no longer realistic to expect them to still be the workhorses that they have been. The hope is that they follow the Clayton Kershaw model; 25 exceptional starts. The problem is that to achieve that minimum goal it would entail skipping an average of 2 starts per month. Verlander’s injury & Scherzer’s injury & suspension have already put both well above that pace. I’d hate to see them already spent by the time September rolls around. But what’s really shocking is how quiet the offense has been. Are the hitters already pressing?
40 games may not yet be enough of a sample size to say this is what the season will look like, but it’s getting close. Memorial Day is only two weeks away. If the Mets are still stuck in the muck, then my pessimism could start to kick in.
Why Would Anyone Challenge Furiosa To A Fight?
We continue to live in the oddest timeline. Last weekend Charlize Theron appeared at a telethon titled “Drag Isn’t Dangerous” and showed her support by stating that she would “f*** anyone up who’s trying to f*** with anything with you guys.” Megyn Kelly chose to enter the conversation by saying on her podcast “Why doesn’t Charlize Theron come and f*** me up, because I’m 100% against her on this?”
Jeez, I get that Kelly is trying to remain relevant following her NBC flameout, but boy does she look silly here. Movies are not real life, but Theron has shown her fighting skills in enough action movies that I would not mess with her. It reminds me of that apocryphal story in which home invaders supposedly broke into Dolph Lundgren’s house, saw his photos on a mantelpiece, realized whose house they had broken into, and left in a panic.
The twist in this silliness is of course the fact that Theron portrayed Kelly in the movie Bombshell, so it’s possible that Kelly has been seething with resentment towards Theron and was awaiting an opportunity to blast her. With the writer’s strike showing no sign of ending anytime soon I’m certain that a producer somewhere is already preparing a pitch for a reality show in which famous people challenge actors that had unflatteringly portrayed them in a movie to a fight. If Philip Seymour Hoffman was still with us I would bet that Art Howe would be eager to step into the ring for a few rounds.
Our Lives Would Suck Without Her
And the cycle continues; Rolling Stone published a report alleging a toxic atmosphere at Kelly Clarkson’s daytime talk show. Before I saw any of the details my immediate reaction was that it was another Ellen situation. Which is unfortunate; from a distance Clarkson appears to be one of the more inherently likable people in show business. I’d hate to see her reputation tarnished. But the report stresses that Clarkson was not involved in any of the bad behavior and that she was completely unaware; the issues are all connected to one of the program’s executive producers.
To her credit she responded quickly and pledged to improve the atmosphere. I know it takes a LOT of work to put a TV show together and there is an unimaginable amount of stress involved. Generally speaking the hope is that the overall culture of the industry improves enough that the ill-performers become more of the minority. It’s only a TV show, no need to treat people like s***.
SNL Season 6 Recap
Episode 4 was just as miserable as the previous episodes but at least there were 2 positive notes this time. The first was Jamie Lee Curtis as host. Make no mistake, she also suffered from having to work with awful material but she made for an enthusiastic host. This episode ran in December 1980, so Trading Places was still a year and a half in the future. Unless you were like me and one of the few who actually watched Operation Petticoat, at this juncture she was only known for her starring roles in horror films, so she relished the opportunity to show off her comedic skills. She tried her best, but once again there was little actual comedy this week.
Episode 5 also provided another step forward for Eddie Murphy, as he appeared in the opening credits for the first time as a featured player. He once again had an Update showcase; not a particularly strong piece but his charisma was already very evident. Honestly, the only good reason to continue watching this season is to see him develop into the comedy force that he would become.
Some other observations: Once again it’s a terrible shame that Peacock removes the musical performances. This week’s musical guest was James Brown. Now there is a huge difference between 1968 James Brown and 1980 James Brown but he would have been a nice break from the inept attempts at comedy. Charles Rocket grows increasingly insufferable with each passing week. His smirks and eyebrow raises throughout Update only draw further attention to the weakness of the material. Another notable aspect of the season is how brief most of the pieces run. The cold open + monologue each only ran 2-3 minutes long, and most sketches were similarly short. That’s a double edged sword. One one hand, it means that a bad premise ends quickly before it becomes interminable. On the other hand, it means there is a larger quantity of truly horrific material. Choose your poison.
One final note - instead of using a resident filmmaker such as Gary Weis or Tom Schiller, this season well-known filmmakers often contributed short films of their own. This week the show chose to enter the wayback machine, as it aired excerpts of a student short made in 1972 by Martin Brest. The premise was that a sleazy guy wanted to replicate the famous photo of the Hindenburg explosion by blowing up the Statue Of Liberty and gaining fame by snapping a photo of the exact moment of the detonation. The actor portraying the wannabe photographer? A young Danny DeVito!
Next week is that season’s Christmas episode. They chose a seasonably appropriate host. No one screams holiday cheer quite like next week’s host - David Carradine.
That’s All For Now
Thanks as always for being part of the Tending The Herd community. See you all on Wednesday.