Tag Archives: CBS

If We Controlled Your Remote… 10/30/18

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Jenny’s Choice

The Conners has pretty seamlessly picked up where Roseanne left off, minus the titular character. It feels a lot like the same show, with the more prominent focus on the other characters. Like last week, a lot of the focus was on Darlene, her soon-to-be ex-husband David, his girlfriend Blue, and David & Darlene’s daughter Harris. (Mark was mentioned but wasn’t really featured much.) Not only was David late to a parent-teacher conference about Mark, but he brought his slightly strange girlfriend Blue. Surprise, Darlene! Yeah, perfect place to meet your husband’s girlfriend… That’s when Darlene found out David & Blue planned to have the kids stay the night with them, much to Darlene’s (again) surprise. Darlene agreed, but she quickly regretted that decision when David came over the next morning to say that Harris had had a boy over and they’d had sex. And (again) surprise, David was working and not at home when it happened, but Blue talked about it beforehand with Harris and gave her permission to have the boy over. Darlene was livid and went OFF on Blue. I was cheering for her. Blue SO stepped over the line on that one. Darlene told David he could have the kids over again but ONLY if he were there the whole time. Blue was not to be left alone with either of the kids again. David agreed. But she also brought up the fact that now that things seem to be serious for him and Blue, it’s time the two of them sign divorce papers. Boo. Hiss. I know he’s busy on The Big Bang Theory, but come on! *sigh* Anyway, Darlene had a talk with Harris on the way home and told Harris she could tell her anything. Harris said she knew that and said the boy hadn’t texted her back yet and asked her mom if they could stop and get the morning-after pill. It was a sweet conversation on a touchy subject.

The other major story line was Becky and Dan. Dan told D.J. that he was really busy on the job site and asked if D.J. wanted to work with him to earn some extra money. D.J. said he was too busy with his job as a vending machine repairman. Becky overheard and said she needed the extra money because she wanted to buy a new trailer. Dan was hesitant but finally agreed. Unfortunately, Becky showed up with a water bottle filled with…vodka, and Dan figured it out right away after watching her take a swig. He called her out on it, said if she got herself or someone else hurt on the job because she’d been drinking, he’d lose his company. She came to him later and admitted she had a drinking problem (and there’s a big DUH from the audience), that what started out as drinking to get through work had now become drinking all day. They agreed on her working part-time, and he gave her six weeks to get sober and stay sober or he’d have to fire her. It was a great moment between the two of them, seeing her admitting the problem she had and him being supportive but tough.

On tonight’s episode, “There Won’t Be Blood,” it’s Halloween, the favorite time of year for the Conners, but an email from the school banning certain costumes, including Mark’s, sets off an argument between Dan and Darlene. Jackie introduces someone new to the family at the Halloween party and insists that Dan vet him, only to immediately wish that she hadn’t. John Billingsley (Intelligence, True Blood, Star Trek: Enterprise) & David Paymer (I’m Dying Up Here, The Good Wife) guest star.

See how the Conners handle their first Halloween without Roseanne tonight on ABC at 8/7c.

I’ll also be watching/DVRing NCIS, The Kids Are Alright, Chopped, FBI, Lethal Weapon, The Little Couple, NCIS: New Orleans, The Rookie, & The Guest Book.
 
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If We Controlled Your Remote… 10/28/18

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Phoebe’s Choice

Week after week, the tragicomic lives of the Pickles family have been making my fall this year on Kidding, the new Jim Carey vehicle that airs Sunday nights on Showtime. Last week things revolved primarily around Jeff’s relationship with cancer-stricken Vivian and the visiting Pickle-san, a Japanese version of Mr. Pickles who has come to learn under the originator of the brand.

It starts lighthearted with Will & Jeff flying to California to record voice work for a new line of Mr. Pickles dolls going into production. They even get to show Vivian the ocean via some Facetime app, while she remains back East doing more chemo. Meanwhile, Deidre, who was still struggling with her husband’s gay affair, bonded with Pickle-san, who only spoke English when he was communicating through a puppet.

Vivian had put her cancer into remission by the time Jeff & Will got back, and they decided to throw a big party, and that’s where things got cringey to grating. Vivian mentioned she wanted to go ziplining in South America, and Jeff and the rest of the family all started to make this collective big plan to all go together next year. But she cut them off to break up with Jeff, saying that he would always remind her of the time she thought she only had five weeks to live. This hilariously turned into everyone in the family yelling “fuck you!” at her as one angry family. Even Will and Deidre’s young daughter pumped middle fingers as the cancer survivor left sadly. Then, Deidre’s husband walked in on Pickle-san as he puppeted a puppet with his penis. Awkwardddddddd. In the last scene, after paying off all of Vivian’s hospital bills, Jeff flipped out and smashed everything in his office as he screamed like a raving lunatic. He lacks coping skills.

On tonight’s episode, “Philliam,” Jeff meets the son of his pen pal, an inmate on death row, and decides to help him.

I’ll also be watching Shameless, Supergirl, & Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
 
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If We Controlled Your Remote… 10/26/18

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice

Early this morning, Netflix released the first season of the new series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which is based on the iconic comic book characters. Set in the small town of Greendale, where it seems like Halloween every day, the series centers around the life of teenage half-witch Sabrina Spellman (Kiernan Shipka, Mad Men). After her parents died in an accident, Sabrina was raised by her witch aunts – the bubbly and nurturing Hilda (Lucy Davis, The Office (UK)), and her stricter, more serious sister Zelda (Miranda Otto, 24: Legacy) – who run a mortuary along with Sabrina’s cousin Ambrose (Chance Perdomo), a necromancer who’s been under house arrest and unable to leave the property for the past 75 years.

Sabrina seems like your average teenager – she enjoys hanging out with her boyfriend Harvey (Ross Lynch, Austin & Ally) and best friends Roz (Jaz Sinclair, Paper Towns) and Susie (Lachlan Watson, Nashville). But she has magical abilities, which she often uses to secretly help her friends – such as to teach the misogynistic high school principal (Bronson Pinchot, Perfect Strangers) a lesson when he refuses to stop Susie from getting bullied. As her 16th birthday approaches, Sabrina has an important decision to make – she must choose between the Path of Night or the Path of Light. If she undergoes her dark baptism to become a full-fledged witch, she will need to leave her human life and friends behind and head off to the Academy of Unseen Arts. However, if she doesn’t get baptized, she will grow old and eventually lose her powers. There also seems to be some other unknown ramifications to this decision that Sabrina isn’t aware of. A mysterious witch (Michelle Gomez, Doctor Who) arrives to town, disguising herself as one of the Baxter High faculty members, and uses her powers to try to influence Sabrina into embracing her darker side, trying to steer her toward her baptism. Meanwhile, the three Weird Sisters – Prudence (Tati Gabrielle, The 100), Agatha (Adeline Rudolph), & Dorcas (Abigail F. Cowen, The Fosters) – who are students at the Academy, don’t want a half-blood joining their ranks and try to dissuade Sabrina from taking her oath. To help her make an informed decision, Sabrina’s aunts seek the assistance of high priest Father Blackwood (Richard Coyle, Coupling), but he also seems to be hiding something and has ulterior motives. And to make matters worse, there may be someone in town hunting witches.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a fun mix of teenage drama and supernatural thriller, with a healthy dose of humor thrown in to keep it from getting too dark. Originally the character of Sabrina was supposed to show up on Riverdale, but they decided instead to spin her off into her own series, which is a much wiser choice. While this series has a similar overall tone to Riverdale, the supernatural elements would have felt odd and out of place in that show’s more grounded reality. The cast of this show is excellent. Kiernan Shipka is delightful as Sabrina – though it’s a little strange to see her all grown up because I’ll always think of her as the young Sally Draper from Mad Men. Plus it’s always great to see Michelle Gomez in another deliciously evil role! I look forward to seeing how this season plays out, and with a second season already ordered, there’s plenty more adventures to come!

Check out the complete first season now on Netflix!

I’ll also be watching/recording Child Support.
 
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If We Controlled Your Remote… 10/25/18

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice

A few years ago, Sundance TV aired the series Deutschland 83, a German-American spy drama set during the Cold War in 1983, which ended up being one of my favorite shows of 2015. Late night tonight, the sequel, Deutschland 86, finally premieres. In the first series, 24-year-old East German Martin (Jonas Nay) was recruited by his Aunt Lenora (Maria Schrader) to become an undercover spy for the HVA, the intelligence branch of the Stasi. He was sent into West Germany posing as a soldier and aide to the Major General to gather military intelligence. By the end of the season, Martin had to reveal the truth about his actions to both the East and West German governments in order to prevent a nuclear war from breaking out, but this also put him in danger in the process, leaving him a wanted man by both sides of the country. Meanwhile, Annett (Sonja Gerhardt), Martin’s former fiancée and mother of his child, was also recruited to work for the Stasi. It was revealed in the finale that Walter Schweppenstette (Sylvester Groth), Lenora’s boss, was Martin’s father.

Tonight, the new series, Deutschland 86 picks up 3 years later (as is evident by the title). Things are getting rough in East Germany, which is running out of food and money. Lenora has a plan to raise money by selling weapons in South Africa. So she once again recruits her nephew, who had been banished “for his own safety” to an orphanage in Angola, where he’s been teaching the children German for the past three years. Needless to say, he’s not thrilled to see his aunt but is willing to go along with her plan as long as it means he can return home and see the child he hasn’t seen in ages. Joining Lenora and Martin in their mission is tough undercover agent Rose (Florence Kasumba). Meanwhile, Annett and Walter are working on their own way to raise money, involving some questionable West German drug trials for a pharmaceutical company in the West. It looks like this series should be another fun and exciting show. Though, I won’t be trying to watch/read subtitles at midnight, so this will be one for the DVR to watch the next day.

On tonight’s premiere, “Tar Baby,” banished for his sins in 1983, Martin wallows in limbo until his Aunt Lenora conscripts him into her plan to drum up hard currency abroad.

Check out the second season premiere tonight on Sundance at 3:01AM/2:01AMc.

I’ll also be watching/recording Grey’s Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, Superstore, The Good Place, Will & Grace, I Feel Bad, and Legacies.
 
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If We Controlled Your Remote… 10/24/18

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Jenny’s Choice

The Goldbergs is still one of my favorite comedies. I love, love, love all the 80s references and episode themes. Last week took me right back to school, when my mom would chaperone field trips. Adam and his class were taking a field trip to Hersheypark, and after his friends told him they’d banned their parents from being chaperones, Adam laid down the law with Beverly. She got him, though, by giving him one of her famous “guilt letters.” When the other parents found out about them, they begged her to teach them, and she did, although she told them to write their own, not just copy hers. Each of Adam’s friends got a letter, so suddenly all of them had a parent chaperoning the trip, Adam included. Unfortunately for Beverly, none of the parents took her direction and just copied her letters, and Adam and his friends compared them, quickly realizing they’d been played. In the end, it was another heartwarming moment, where Beverly and Adam came to an agreement: She would stop chaperoning and he would take the time for actual conversations with her – such as when she asked him about his day after school. That’s actually a very similar conversation I had with my own son when he was still in school, so it was weird & fun seeing it play out screen!

Also on that episode, it was Career Night at school, and Geoff finally admitted that he not only was grossed out by eyeballs but didn’t want to become an eye doctor, no matter how hard his father the eye doctor was pushing him toward it. Instead, he chose to “intern” with Murray at the furniture store. While it was obvious that wasn’t what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, it did allow him to work things out with his dad. Barry, on the other hand, had a blast and actually learned a lot interning for Geoff’s dad. We know from way back in the series that Barry did indeed go on to become a doctor in real life, but I don’t know if he became an eye doctor or not. It’s funny regardless!

On tonight’s episode, “Mister Knifey-Hands,” despite Beverly’s wishes, Jackie’s parents allow Adam to watch A Nightmare on Elm Street (which is the exact reason I picked this episode to recommend!) and a disagreement between the families ensues. But Beverly dreams of facing off with horror icon Freddy Krueger (guest star Robert Englund), which teaches her an important lesson about her son’s relationship with Jackie. Meanwhile, Erica realizes she’s not as popular as she once was when she starts hanging out at William Penn Academy, despite the fact she’s no longer a student there.

See how Adam handles Freddy tonight on ABC at 8/7c.

I’ll also be watching/DVRing Chicago Med, American Housewife, Chicago Fire, Guy’s Grocery Games, Modern Family, SEAL Team, Single Parents, Chicago PD, & Criminal Minds.
 
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