I watch terrible television so you don’t have to.
A Quick Note About Format
How much television is too much television? As you recall, I was away in NYC last weekend, so this week’s post covers two weeks of episodes, AND all the series I’m covering showed new ones both weeks. So for this post, I’m playing a little game. It covers October 14-25, 2024.
New This Week (and Last)
Battle of the First Responders: 9-1-1: Lone Star (Tuesday, Hulu) vs 9-1-1 (Friday, Hulu)
In Texas, the theme is relationship carousels. First, as you may recall, Tammy (Gina Torres) asked her pastor boyfriend to marry her, and he said yes, but his custody arrangement allows his ex-wife veto power. So Tammy invited the ex to dinner and it went as well as you’d expect on this show: she accused Tammy of poisoning her then Tammy accused her of poisoning herself but it turned out to be the pastor’s and his ex’s daughter who poisoned her mom to frame Tammy. Tammy breaks up with the pastor so he can move his daughter back to Kansas where the ex still lives.
Second, TK (Ronen Rubenstein) and Carlos (Rafael L. Silva) celebrate their first anniversary with couples therapy. I feel very secure that this plotline would include a potential cheating situation is this season were longer or not the last. I clocked the relationship drama in the premiere, but the entire arc plays out in this one episode. I do not actually want any cheating drama fake out nonsense so this is not a complaint per se. Just an observation that pacing remains a problem with the series. TK and Carlos remain adorable and I still really like the Rangers, they can get a spin-off if they want.
Finally, Owen (Rob Lowe) saves a horse with special needs, and after he fails to find a rancher to take him, Judd (Jim Parrack) introduces him to Marlene (Robin Lively), his high-school ex and mother of Wyatt (Jackson Pace), who is also apparently a horse wrangler. Did we know that? No idea. But she feels like the latest in a long line of love interests for Owen that go absolutely nowhere. I’m bored already.
In Los Angeles, the theme is team as family. Most importantly, Bobby (Peter Krause) is back in charge of the 118. Councilwoman Ortiz’s vendetta against Hen (Aisha Hinds) blew up in her face when Gerrard (Brian Thompson) caught her admitting to corruption on tape. Hen and Karen (Tracie Thompson) got their foster daughter Mara back, Bobby got command of the 118 back, and Gerrard got his dream job overseeing the fake fire show.
Then, this week, Hen’s and Karen’s son, Denny (Declan Pratt), is nearly killed while trick-or-treating by an irate high school vice principal who swerved into him while chasing down two mean girl miscreants who threw eggs at his house. Luckily, Hen and the 118 are called to the scene, and they all work together to save Denny. It is all extremely on-brand for this show. No other first responders exist in LA and their families are always in danger.
Meanwhile, Buck (Oliver Stark) picks up a dummy mummy for the station’s haunted house, and it turns out to be the real corpse of a long-dead cowboy nicknamed Billy Boils. After dislocating the same shoulder he accidentally ripped out of Billy’s skeletal socket and then waking up with a face full of boils, he becomes convinced Billy cursed him. To break the curse he gives Billy a burial and promises to remember him as one of their own aka part of a posse. Buck is very sweet but the cursed boils are super gross.
Winner: 9-1-1
The truth of the matter is Rob Lowe’s Rob Lowe-ness drags down his show.
Battle of the Feds: FBI (Paramount+, Tuesday) vs FBI: Most Wanted (Paramount+, Tuesday) vs FBI: International (Paramount+, Tuesday)
On OG, Tiffany (Katherine Renee Kane) is out, but everything else is the same. OA (Zeeko Zaki) is still dating his random girlfriend, so I’ve upgraded her to his chippy girlfriend. She remains a rich girl with little understanding of the FBI or, like, normal life, and has so far brought nothing to the show or the relationship. OA is also getting sucked into yet another military buddy’s messy business, so everything old is new again.
Even more true to that is the situation with Jubal (Jeremy Sisto). He is moving back in with his ex-wife and son so they can save money for the son’s college tuition. Jubal is 1000% the Stabler of this series.
And Maggie (Missy Peregrym) is the Benson because she 1) really, really wants a child, 2) got a random child, and 3) said this week that she envies her partner’s situationship even though it’s the most boring relationship since, well, Elliot and Kathy Stabler (I don’t hate Kathy any more than Elliot does, but she was not what I would call “written well” pretty much ever). Anyway, Maggie/OA forever. And I once again don’t remember the cases at all, but they probably included a microaggression or four.
I do remember the cases from the other two series. Our Most Wanted gang was called in on a kidnapping that turned out to be two teen girls exacting revenge on two teen boys who drove their BFF to suicide with the use of some deep fake nudes. The girls end up accidentally killing one boy and being carjacked by the other. Remy (Dylan McDermott) is able to talk down the kid (it’s legitimately his superpower at this point) but he is full-on angry at and disgusted by all three. Based on that reaction and the avoidance of his girlfriend and sister in the premiere, I think he’s getting a burnout arc and I wonder if McDermott wants out.
Remy was also the victim of a deepfake, which brought in an appearance from Isobel (Alana de la Garza). But the episode could have been on SVU with absolutely zero changes to the script other than character names. I would not have been surprised if Olivia popped up at any moment despite it being on a whole other network.
Over on International, the Fly Team has a new leader, Wes Mitchell (Jesse Lee Soffer, formerly of Chicago PD). His first episode was fine, but this week’s was great, actually. Bad guys take a television studio hostage, including a US ambassador, and blah blah blah plot happens but the point is Wes gets a teen girl sidekick for the second half of the episode and after like two minutes I wanted him to end up her foster dad so she could stay. She made me care about Wes way more than his dead partner and crazy ex-girlfriend did in the previous episode. She made me care more about the premise of the series than the previous three seasons.
Winner: FBI: International
These three blend together tbh. But something was off with Most Wanted, leading to my Remy speculation, and that was distracting. And I legitimately don’t remember most of the OG episodes.
Battle of the Doctors: Brilliant Minds (Tuesday, Peacock) vs Chicago Med (Thursday, Peacock) vs Doctor Odyssey (Friday, Hulu)
Brilliant Minds is about the gray areas between neuroscience and psychiatry. There have been five episodes so far. It’s centered on Oliver Wolf (Zachary Quinto), an eccentric neurologist who wants to “treat people, not symptoms” and breaks a lot of rules to do it, and his four residents. It’s sort of “What if Dr. House was nice?” In the latest episodes, they treated a bride whose wedding diet + elopement drugs led her to murder her new husband and a marine who got chronic traumatic encephalopathy from his artillery training. It’s not light-hearted. But there is the suggestion of romance between Wolf and his colleague in surgery, Josh Nichols (Teddy Sears), and I’m all about that.
In Chicago, Mitch (Luke Mitchell) and Hannah (Jessy Schram) are back together but Archer (Steven Weber) had a falling out with his girlfriend when she fired his son. Sharon (S. Epatha Merkerson) got a death threat that is now escalating to someone breaking into her house. CPD and the hospital suspect it’s related to the layoffs she supervised but the TV-in-2024-vibes have me second-guessing that even though this show tends to be straightforward. Hannah’s position in the ER is still under scrutiny from efficiency expert Lenox (Sarah Ramos) so they’ve opened a prenatal clinic. More interestingly, Lenox helped the autistic son of one of the clinic patients by lying on the floor with him. I hope this means she’s autistic herself, it makes sense with what we know of her and I’d love better rep than over on The Good Doctor. In any case, that one moment instantly made Lenox more interesting and likable. Finally, adorable newbie pedes resident John Frost (Darren Barnet) was outed as a former child star a few eps back and we now learn his parents mismanaged/stole his money. But more importantly, he totally had an actual canon flirty moment with Sidney LaForge Naomi Howard (Ashleigh Sharpe Chestnut) this week. My chaos powers made that happen.
Over on the ocean, the Max (Joshua Jackson), Tristan (Sean Teale), and Avery (Philippa Soo) journey to throuplehood continues. Last week, Max and Tristan had to remove Avery’s appendix while the ship drove through a hurricane, and this week Max and Avery had to save Tristan from carbon monoxide poisoning from his Halloween decorations. Both these events ended with the three of them bonding in sickbay and having lots of touching. Max and Avery had matching Halloween costumes and they introduced a fun new recurring love interest for Tristan, Chef Vivian (Laura Harrier), but they are not fooling me.
Winner: Brilliant Minds
It’s honestly not fair to compare these three shows; they are all trying to accomplish wildly different things. Chicago Med was weakest this week but is the most consistent generally. Doctor Odyssey is a cheeky fantasy that dips into something more every once in a while. Brilliant Minds is swinging for the chandeliers but is trying too hard and you can tell. That said, I always choose the try-hards.
Battle of the NYPD: Elsbeth (Paramount+, Friday) vs Law & Order (Friday, Peacock) vs Law & Order: SVU (Friday, Peacock)
Elsbeth (Carrie Preston) is back and solving crimes with Officer Blanke (Carra Patterson). In addition to each episode’s star-studded homicide investigation (e.g. Nathan Lane led off the season as an opera enthusiast who leveled up from “psycho who made up a dead wife so he didn’t have to sit next to anyone at the opera to “psycho who murdered a guy with an uncollapsed collapsible knife for taking a call during the opera”), they’ve introduced two ongoing plots. Blanke was on the fast track to detective when they realized she didn’t have the right number of college credits and now has to make up a couple of courses. And Elsbeth’s past as a morally questionable attorney (she defended Peter Florrick y’all) came back to haunt her in the form of Carter Schmidt (Christian Borle).
As for the Laws and Orders, OG is making an effort. First, we met Riley’s (Reid Scott) miscreant brother, played by Ryan Eggold. In typical Law & Order fashion, he was introduced and then immediately important to the case of the week. But Eggold is good at playing squirrelly but sympathetic and Riley’s moral/familial quandary added depth to his character and to his relationship with Shaw (Mehcad Brooks).
Then we got a case ostensibly about when life begins (a domestic terrorist bombed a fertility doctor) but ultimately centered on when life ends (the doctor was brain dead but on life support at her husband’s request). Nolan (Hugh Dancy) and Sam (Odelya Halevi) argued throughout the episode, which is normal, but Sam was strident and Nolan was hesitant, which is not. We learn in the final minute of the episode that Nolan’s father is comatose in a long-term care hospital so the issue was personal for him. And while he knows Sam’s history, she doesn’t seem to know this. Which is interesting.
On SVU, we got Rollins (Kelli Giddish) back and a focus on Carisi (Peter Scanavino). As you may recall, Rollins is my fave and I was livid when she was shuttled off the show for no particular reason. Her life significantly improved—she got married, got a cool job, and had a son—but I still missed her. Now she’s a Seargent, leading an Intelligence task force that travels all over the world and I am Extremely Here For It. I want to see her in every Law & Order, but especially Organized Crime because Elliot and Amanda are the bros I need in my life.
Carisi is also my fave, his arc from rookie detective to dedicated ADA was shockingly well done (probably by accident but props anyway), and he’s been Billie’s dad from the beginning but now he’s such a dad and I love it. It’s crazy hard to be a parent who works at/with SVU. That’s been a theme since the beginning (hello Stablers) but less so with Olivia (Mariska Hargitay) and Noah (Ryan Buggle). They are bad at remembering Noah exists half the time. But after this episode and her conversation with Carisi about raising teens, I really, really want to get some episodes focused on teen Noah navigating the dating world (remember, he’s bisexual, it could go so many ways). Anyway, hugs for overprotective Carisi and Mariska’s facial expressions in reaction to him were gold the entire episode.
Winner: Me
Hugh Dancy was at NYCC to celebrate Hannibal alongside Mads Mikkelson. They did a panel together and posed for joint and individual photo ops. I did not know any of that was happening when I chose to pack my SVU fan Asuka cosplay for Sunday (I was giving out Law&Order inspired Harris/Walz pins, you can see one by my waist in the pic) but it felt like kismet so I went for the photo-op. I was the only L&O fan in the Hannibal crowd but Hugh understood and appreciated my look (“This is great. I get it.” were the exact words) and I feel extremely positive about the whole thing. Nolan Price is now my favorite sorry not sorry.
Also Watching
Agatha All-Along had stellar episodes these two weeks, but the show didn’t fit any of the battles so I’ll catch up with that after the finale.
Star Trek: Lower Decks‘ final season premiered with two episodes released on October 24. Follow our recaps at Antimatter Pod.
Mental Illness Sidebar
Brilliant Minds is focused on mental illness. Not only are they all brain doctors of one flavor or another, but Oliver’s father suffered from Schizophrenia. I’m not ready to speak to the representation of either, but I’m invested in the series.
Ship of the Week
There were a lot of cute flirtations: Elsbeth and the fire marshal, Tristan and Vivian, Naomi and John, Oliver and Josh. But Rollins and Carisi are one of my actual OTPs so I’m giving them the crown.
Show of the Week
Agatha All-Along but of these I guess Elsbeth.
What are YOU watching?