Consortium of Seven: Year 4

        Oh, while there's plenty I've been watching in the past week - Reservation Dogs (FX, now down to its final three episodes), Dark Winds ' (AMC+, and I believe that as of this week it's also running on Max for two months as part of one of many, many content exchanges the various streamers have negotiated to use other services' content as "new" programming for their platforms) second season, and I really appreciated the people behind Matt Groening's fractious fairy tale Disenchanted giving us a set of happy endings with its final season over on Netflix - but I'm going to do a quick pivot this week. In large part it's the reflex of looking for a Fall Preview in a year where there really ain't one, due to the strike.       Those still primarily watching network tv will be seeing a mix of reality series, game shows, and where those networks are connected to a streaming platform, one or more previously streaming-only series beg...

      The professional event I'd been tied up in knots over in recent weeks technically went very well, though one person's bureaucratic power-trip continues to threaten as of this writing. I sincerely hope she will be made to see the light, this threat will fade, we can take our accomplishment in stride and move ahead into a brightened future. If nothing else, there has been much in recent weeks that has gone into my mental Things I Will Not Miss In Retirement file. Among the things to remind me of reality when  inevitably memory will go selective and I'll catch myself missing the good aspects of the job. All that, at least as plans currently go, is still a few years off, though.       Back to more entertaining and immediate things.     A couple of the ongoing FX series that I catch weekly on Hulu continue to move through their latest seasons.       Reservation Dogs is in its third and final se...

       August rolls on, and it's steamrolling me!       An interesting, frequently entertaining, sometimes off-putting season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+) did the expected season-ending shift, though about two episodes later than I'd expected early in the season. It also ends on a cliffhanger, which I'm hoping no one will see as a spoiler. It's more meant to manage expectations.       I've saved this week's Reservation Dogs (Hulu) for when I'm rolling into the weekend, in part because I enjoy the characters' company, and am in need of a little comfort.       Arriving today on Netflix is an action spy thriller starring Gal Gadot, Irish star Jamie Dornan, and Bollywood star Alia Bhatt. Gadot stars as Rachel Stone, an international intelligence agent tasked with protecting a mysterious borderline all-powerful MacGuffin known as "The Heart", keeping it from falling into enemy h...

         Another week where I start this expecting to be dropping a short piece due to other pressing matters, but then I remember this, then that, and it swells.        At least through the 22nd of this month I'm under the gun concerning some other matters, and it will likely continue to wreak havoc on the rest of my life. So, the following two Friday columns after today may be light. We'll see.       Arrived on Netflix yesterday was the second half of the second season of The Lincoln Lawyer . As mentioned several weeks ago , this is an adaptation of Michael Connelly's 2011 novel The Fifth Witness .      In the face of the ongoing strike, and very likely just as part of constant experimentation to see which method works best for generating viewer interest on these streaming platforms, they broke this second season into two, five-episode halves, hoping to generate a mid-season cliffhanger buzz. I...

     One day I'll get more organized... I'll likely die a few hours later, but it'll be something while it lasts!       I'm once again bowled over by the speed of time's passage. A week from now we'll be on the final day of September. October's nearly here, and even a couple of items this week are heralding October. The exhausting press of day-to-day obligations, made worse by having to adapt to unexpected work issues, sees me too tired to get to so much that needs to be taken care of -- including myself.       Instead, too often, I'll instead collapse and watch something until I'm too tired to pay attention.       This Wednesday, Disney+ launched a new series set in the Star Wars universe. Set about 8 years before Luke Skywalker blew up the Death Star (known to the Star Wars cognoscenti as The Battle of Yavin), this introduces us to a fresh slate of characters and some new locations. Mainly people who a...