This rather lengthy episode wraps up the reviews of most of the Oscar-nominated films for this year. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to do a better job but I was out of commission with the flu for about 10 days and just didn’t have time to do the kind of job I usually do. The Oscars will be presented Sunday, March 2 on ABC-TV and I wanted to get this episode out before the awards were presented.

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to Episode 86 of Contemplating Life – Oscar Edition.

As previously reported, I’m not going to have time to review all nine of the 10 Best Picture nominated films I’ve seen this year in the kind of detail I usually do. So here is a brief summary of the films I’ve seen, what I liked or didn’t like, and what I think may or may not win.

Also, the YouTube version of this episode is not going to have the kinds of video clips or still pictures that I normally have when I do movie or TV reviews. I’m recording this on Saturday, March 1. The Oscars are tomorrow night, and I’m going to be lucky to get this thing done before then.

As reported last time, “Wicked” is one of my favorites of the year. There is one other fascinating musical up for consideration. That is the Netflix film “Emilia Pérez”. It is the story of a vicious cartel boss who is transgender and wants to become a woman. Pérez hires a lawyer, played by Zoe Saldaña, to recruit a surgeon to perform the operation. Pérez fakes her own death to start their life over as a woman. She makes provisions for a wife and children to escape to Switzerland, where they are given access to a hefty Swiss bank account. She has no idea her husband faked his death. Selena Gomez plays the wife. The majority of the film is in Spanish with English subtitles. While I usually don’t mind reading subtitles in a foreign language film, I found it particularly troubling during the song and dance numbers because I was too busy reading subtitles to enjoy the performances.

After the surgery, the story jumps four years. Emilia tracks down her former lawyer. This terrifies the lawyer, thinking that she is going to be killed because she is one of only two people who know her secret. On the contrary, Emilia wants to hire her again to help her reunite with her wife and kids. She will claim to be a cousin of the deceased husband.

Along the way, Emilia is then moved by the story of a woman who has a missing relative. Hundreds of people go missing in Mexico each year, either kidnapped or killed by the drug cartels. She formed a charity to help track down the fate of these missing people and bring closure to their families. Many of the missing were at her own people’s hands. Much of the information comes from interviewing people in jail who literally know where the bodies are buried.

The performances are top-notch all around. You genuinely feel Emilia’s anguish in her quest to live her true life as a woman and somehow make up for all the evil she created as a vicious cartel boss. As you might suspect, because she continues to live a lie, the truth has its way of catching up with her, and she cannot escape her violent past.

Although you might find it difficult to watch such a film with subtitles, it is certainly worth its nominations, and I can recommend it.

The film has been nominated for 13 Oscars, the most for a non-English-language film. Nominations include Best Picture, Best International Feature Film from France (which is surprising because it’s mostly in Spanish), Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Sound, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing.

Director Jacques Audiard is also nominated. Karla Sofía Gascón is a controversial nominee for Best Lead Actress because she is the first transsexual to be nominated in any category other than the gender assigned at birth. As if that weren’t controversial enough, racist, antisemitic social media posts that Gascón made in the past have surfaced. Pundits seem to think that this controversy will hurt not only her chances but perhaps the chances of the entire film. That seems unfair. Controversies aside, I thought it was an outstanding performance that truly made me feel her plight.

Zoe Saldaña is nominated for Supporting Actress as the lawyer. While it is a fantastic performance, and probably deserving of the nomination. I was more impressed by Selena Gomez, who played the wife. My only previous familiarity with her work is in the show “Only Murders in the Building” alongside Steve Martin and Martin Short. In that series, she plays a rather timid, laid-back character. In my opinion, that doesn’t allow her to show off her acting skills compared to what she is called to do in this film. I was very much impressed by her performance.

In addition to the nomination for overall musical score, two of its songs are nominated for Best Original Song: “El Mal,” my favorite of the film, and “Mi Camino.” Typically, having two nominations in the same category for the same film is a problem because it splits the fans’ votes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these songs wins.

IMDb lists 106 wins and an additional 245 nominations, but recall that they list dozens of nominations for awards you have never heard of.

The film has only earned a little over $15 million on an estimated budget of €25 million, however, it is on Netflix, and box office numbers don’t mean much for films released directly to streaming. It is still currently available on Netflix.

I think it is a good contender to win some awards if it can avoid the controversy.

Moving along…

There are two other films with strong female protagonists that I cannot recommend. I don’t find either of them to be worthy of their nominations for Best Picture nor their nominations for Lead Actress.

The first is “The Substance,” which stars Demi Moore as an aging actress. Although she is still quite attractive and has an exceptional fit body for a woman her age, she no longer lives up to the ideal of beauty expected by Hollywood. She hosts an exercise program on TV but is fired by the network, which wants a younger woman. Soon after, she is contacted by some mysterious company offering her “the substance.” This is a drug which, when injected, creates a younger clone of yourself. She reluctantly agrees to take the substance without much forethought or detailed explanation of the consequences of the decision.

In a pivotal scene, she stands naked in her bathroom and injects the first dose, which will create the clone. She falls to the ground and begins writhing in agony until her spine splits open. A fully formed adult, beautiful twenty-seven-year-old woman crawls out of her body defying every law of physics you can think of. How do you magically double the mass of a human being by simply injecting a chemical? We are clearly in the realm of fantasy and not science fiction.

The gimmick is that these two versions of the woman must share a life. One of them will be conscious for seven days while the other lies in a coma. After seven days, there is another injection and they swap positions with the older one taking over and the a younger one unconscious. To survive these seven days, you have to extract fluid from the unconscious version using a syringe and inject it into yourself.

The young clone is given the older actress’s former job and becomes a big overnight sensation. She enjoys fame and fortune so much that she gets greedy and tries to extend her seven days of consciousness. This drastically affects the older version, causing her to age rapidly.

The entire thing deteriorates when she attempts to clone herself yet again, turning into a hideous monster reminiscent of the creature in John Carpenter’s classic sci-fi horror film “The Thing.” John Carpenter isn’t the only director that this film references. We can easily see director Coralie Fargeat attempting to emulate the styles of Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, and Brian De Palma, just to name a few. I never got the sense that she had a style of her own. Her nomination for Best Director is not deserved nor is her nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

It was nominated for a Golden Globe in the comedy category and indeed I found myself laughing not because it was finally but because it was so ridiculous. It tries to take a serious topic like our cultural obsession with youth and beauty, and it makes a mockery of itself. In no way do I believe it deserves a Best Picture nomination. Demi Moore won the Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for the role and is nominated for the Best Actress Oscar. None of which are deserved. I think she must’ve just gotten some sort of sympathy vote for daring to be on camera naked at her age. This is at best a mildly entertaining cheesy horror movie. You might find it a guilty pleasure when it comes to your favorite streaming service, but overall, it is not Oscar-worthy.

It is nominated for Makeup and Hair and won the BAFTA and the Critics Choice awards in that category. I suppose the creature makeup was nomination-worthy.

Margaret Qualley received a Golden Globe Supporting Actress nomination as well as other nominations in her role as the younger version of our protagonist and I slightly enjoyed her performance more than that of Demi Moore. Qualley did not receive an Oscar nomination.

IMDb lists 128 wins and an additional 247 nominations. Although it earned only $17 million in the US and Canada, it earned $77 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $17.5 million.

It is currently available as a digital download from Amazon and other sources

The other undeserved nomination with a strong female lead character is “Anora.” This is the story of an exotic dancer and prostitute who lives in Brooklyn in the present day. Her boss at the strip club asked her to take on a special client named Ivan. He is a young, wealthy son of a Russian oligarch. Anora, who prefers to be called Ani, speaks Russian because her grandmother was Russian. After giving the client a lap dance, he asked if she ever offered private parties, and she gave him her contact information.

She goes to his mansion, which has a picturesque overview of the Hudson River, and she has sex with him. He invites her to a party on New Year’s Eve, and she has a girlfriend go and have a raucous time partying and doing drugs. She spends the night with Ivan, and he asks her to be his pretend girlfriend for an entire week. He offers her $10,000, and she asks for 15, and he agrees. Near the end of the week, they fly off to Vegas to party some more, and on their last night together, he proposes marriage. At first, she assumes he’s joking, but he seems serious, and she agrees. They get married in a Vegas chapel and then return to New York for more sex and partying.

The first 45 minutes of the film are nothing but them partying, drinking, smoking, and having sex. We get very little character development and zero plot.

Eventually, the young playboy’s Russian parents find out about the marriage and send three Armenian gangsters to the mansion to force them to get the marriage annulled. Ivan flees the mansion, leaving Ani to deal with the gangsters. They tried to tie her up to keep her from fleeing, but along the way, she kicked one of them in the face, breaking his nose.

They try to impress upon her that Ivan doesn’t really love her. They offer $10,000 to agree to the annulment and go away. The alternative is that the powerful Russian parents will ruin her life and the lives of everyone she loves. Throughout the rest of the film, they Go around New York trying to track down Ivan as she insists he really loves her.

In the end, of course, he doesn’t. She realizes that. They have to fly back to Vegas to get the annulment accompanied by the Russian parents and the Armenian gangsters. Along the way, we begin to see that one of the gangsters, Igor, begins to feel sorry for her.

The only marginally interesting scene in the entire film is after the annulment, Ivan’s mother screams at Ani, “You’re nothing but a whore!” To which Ani replies, “And your son hates you so much that he married me just to spite you.” At this point, Ivan’s father, who hasn’t had a word to say the entire time, begins laughing hysterically. I loved it

Like “The Substance,” this is, at best, a mildly entertaining B-movie that in no way deserves any of its nominations. It was awarded the prestigious Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. This reminds me of the Palm d’Or winner two years ago, “Triangle of Sadness,” which highlighted the arrogance of the ultra-rich and their condescending attitude towards allegedly lower-class people. I find this ironic or hypocritical because the attendees at the film festival represent the rich upper crust of society. I think they believe it’s redeeming to give awards that criticize the very arrogance of the typical Festival attendees.

In addition to the undeserved Best Picture, Sean Baker is nominated for Directing, Original Screenplay, and Film Editing. Mikey Madison was nominated as Best Actress for the title role. One of the gangsters, Igor, who befriends her, played by Yura Borisov, has a Supporting Actor nomination for a mildly interesting performance. I don’t believe any of the nominations are justified.

IMDb reports 131 wins and an additional 272 nominations.

The film has earned $15 million in the US and Canada and $38 million worldwide on an estimated budget of just $6 million.

It’s a mildly amusing B-movie that I could recommend when it comes to streaming. It is currently available for purchase as a digital download on Amazon and other platforms.

Moving along…

Every year, there are one or two films when you see the trailer, and you can already imagine there will be a version of the trailer that adds the words “For Your Consideration.” At first glance, these films aim for award nominations and are probably worthy of them.

In varying degrees, we have three of these films this year. The first is probably the odds on favorite to win Best Picture and Best Actor. This is the three-and-a-half-hour epic film “The Brutalist.”

Adrian Brody stars as László Tóth, a Jewish architect from Hungary who immigrates to the US to escape the Nazis. He is forced to leave behind his wife and adult niece. He travels to Philadelphia, where he rooms in the storage closet of a furniture store owned by his cousin. They are approached by a young rich man, Harry Lee Van Buren, Jr, who wants them to redecorate his father’s office with custom furniture. The rich father is unaware of his son’s plans. When he returns home to see the work partially completed, he throws a fit… especially because they’ve hired “Negro workers” for the job. He fires everyone and refuses to pay for any of it. The cousin blames Brody for no reason and throws him out.

Eventually, the wealthy father Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr., played by Guy Pearce, realizes that the office remodeling is a masterpiece of design when it is featured in a photo spread in “Look” magazine. He tracks down László and commissions him to design a large community center on top of the hill on his estate. The center will contain meeting rooms, a library, a gymnasium with a pool, and a Christian chapel. The Van Buren also assists him in getting his wife and niece out of Europe to join him in the US.

László turns out to be an arrogant person who insists that no changes be made in his design. At one point, he even agrees to forgo much or all of his fees to preserve an expensive aspect of his design. At this point, I became confused about the title of the film. Was the rich benefactor the brutal one, or was it the architect? I wondered if this was based on a true story. A quick Google search revealed that it was not. The title comes from the style of architecture known as Brutalist style. It is a postmodern style of architecture known for bland concrete walls and uninteresting cubic structures.

I won’t bother spoiling the rest of the plot except to say that after an accident, the project is canceled and everyone is fired. Later, they attempted to resurrect the project, leading to a bizarre and violent encounter between the benefactor and the architect. The project gets canceled again, and we jump to an epilogue decades later when the architect was being celebrated for his lifetime of work. There appears to be some sort of explanation given by his niece as to why he was so insistent on his design of the community center, but I couldn’t follow it. His niece, who spoke with a thick Hungarian accent that I couldn’t understand it.

Although I hate to admit it, the only version of this film I could obtain was a bootleg camera copy. Naturally, there were no closed captions available. Even the open captions of the Hungarian dialogue was of such low contrast, I couldn’t read it. Because I respect copyright, I will purchase a copy of the film once it is available.

Speaking of the Hungarian accents, the film is controversial because the producers revealed that AI enhanced some of Brody’s and Jones’s Hungarian dialogue to make it more accurate. I’m not opposed to such the use of AI even though I think it’s entirely unnecessary. How much of the audience is going to 0now or care if the Hungarian pronunciation is perfect? Well, I suppose there are some. There are people complaining that the accents in “Emilia Pérez” were not accurate. They were not Mexican enough. They were from some other Hispanic territory.

“The Brutalist” received 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Cinematography, Original Score, Film Editing, and Production Design.

Brady Corbet is nominated for Director, and co-author of the Original Screenplay.

Adrian Brody is an odds-on favorite to win Best Actor. Felicity Jones does an admirable job as László’s wife Erzsébet Tóth. I should mention that when she arrives from Europe, she is in a wheelchair because she is ill from malnutrition. She is a strong woman who had been a journalist in Europe. With some assistance from the benefactor, she is able to continue her journalism career in America.

At a climactic moment in the film, she finds the strength to stand up from her wheelchair and deliver a scathing indictment of Van Buren. Suddenly, when she needs to “stand up to” the millionaire she is able to do so despite her disability. I found this to be a cringe-worthy gimmick. Despite my issues with this plot point, I believe Jones deserves her Supporting Actress nomination. Guy Pearce also creates a memorable character as Van Buren and deserves his Supporting Actor Nomination. IMDb lists 124 wins and an additional 344 nominations and I would not be surprised if it takes home multiple statues on Oscar night.

The film has grossed only $15 million in the US and Canada and $36.6 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $10 million.

I couldn’t judge the cinematography very well because I watched such a poorly captured copy. It was filmed in VistaVision, a 35mm film format in which the film travels through the camera and projector horizontally rather than vertically, giving it a larger image. This is similar to how IMAX film uses the same gimmick on 70mm film. The filmmakers wanted to use this older format because it was introduced at the same time as the events of the film.

The film itself probably deserves its nomination just for the audacity of telling an epic story over three and a half hours. But personally, I don’t think it was worth my time. I will pay for it out of a sense of honor, but I would not have felt it was worth it to go to a theater and spend three hours and 45 minutes, with a 15-minute intermission, to see this film.

Moving along…

Another of the films whose trailer implies “For your consideration” is “Conclave”. It’s a fictional story of the Vatican conclave that gathers to elect a new Pope. It stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini.

Everything about this film makes it worthy of all of its nominations, except perhaps the Supporting Actress nomination for Rossellini, who is only in the film for a couple of minutes. She doesn’t contribute much. The story of the political infighting surrounding the election of a new Pope will keep you on the edge of your seat, guessing what new scandal will pop up next, thus eliminating various candidates. I had a pretty good idea of who I thought was going to end up winning the election, and I was wrong.

There is some interesting symbolism in the film. At one point, there is a terrorist attack just outside the Vatican, which causes the windows of the Sistine Chapel to blow out. That’s a turning point in the movie. It’s a subtle reference to the statement by Pope John XXIII, who is reported to have said that he called the Second Vatican Council in order to “throw open the windows and allow the Holy Spirit enter.” By the way, there seems to be some controversy over whether or not Pope John actually said that.

Overall, the acting, cinematography, plot, direction, and everything about the story were top-notch until we got to the end. There is a plot twist at the end that I don’t think you could have remotely anticipated. I will have more to say about that plot twist in a skippable epilogue at the end of this podcast. All I can say at this point is that I felt like it ruined an otherwise excellent film. I can still recommend it, and your opinion of the ending might vary from mine, so you may like it more than I did.

In addition to the Best Picture Nomination, it was also nominated for Original Score, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Production Design, and Costume Design. Ralph Fiennes deserves his Lead Actor nomination. As mentioned earlier, I didn’t think Rossellini did anything special to deserve her Supporting Actress nomination.

IMDb lists 82 wins and an additional 312 nominations. It has earned $32 million in the US and Canada and $98 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $20 million. It is currently available for streaming on PeacockTV. I will have more to say about the film at the end of the podcast in a spoiler section.

Our next film is Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Part 2. I am completely unable to be objective about this though because I was a huge fan of Frank Herbert’s original novel when I read it back in my college days. I didn’t hate David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of the work as much as I probably should have. There was a SyFy Channel adaptation that was adequate but boring. Together, “Dune: Part One” and “Dune: Part Two” are the adaptations that fans and I have been waiting for for decades. It is an amazing piece of filmmaking that shows great respect to the original work. The changes that Villeneuve makes from the original novel are mostly positive. Paul Atreides’s girlfriend Chani played by Zendaya is a much more interesting character in this film than she is in the novel.

The screenplay by Villeneuve and co-author Jon Spaihts does a great job, in part through their reimagining of Chani, of explaining that Paul really is not a hero. He is a dangerous vengeful person with a Messiah complex who is going to lead the Empire into a deadly war for his own selfish personal reasons. “Dune” was always supposed to be a cautionary tale about Messiah figures but many readers didn’t get that from the story. In this adaptation, the message is much clearer.

There was one plot change that did bother me. The timeline of Paul’s time in the desert is compressed. When Paul and his mother fled into the desert, she was pregnant with Paul’s sister. In the original novel and other adaptations, Paul spends several years leading the Fremen in a rebellion against the House Harkonnen who overthrew Paul’s father. In the book, by the climax of the story, Paul’s sister is approximately four years old, yet she is not yet born in this film adaptation. That means everything Paul did to rally the Fremen in rebellion and Paul’s awakening as a Messiah is compressed into less than nine months. That just didn’t make sense to me. Except for that change, everything else was either highly true to the original story or the changes made good sense to me.

It much deserves its 5 Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Visual Effects, Cinematography, Production Design, and Sound.

Although it received no acting or directing nominations, I have to say the entire film is top-notch, especially the performances by Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides and Zendaya as Chani.

Timeout for a quick joke. Austin Butler, who is most known for playing Elvis in the 2022 biopic, plays Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. There is a climactic fight scene between him and Paul near the end of the film. When Paul kills him, I leaned over to my friend Rich and said, “Elvis has left the building.” By the way, there’s another rockstar connection to that character. Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen was played by rock/jazz superstar Sting in the 1984 David Lynch adaptation of the story. I liked Sting’s portrayal better.

I would call “Dune: Part 2” a close tie with “Wicked” for my favorite nominated film this year, but I don’t think either it or “Wicked” have a chance at Best Picture.

The film has earned over $714 million on an estimated budget of $190 million. Is currently available for streaming on Netflix and Max.

Speaking of Timothée Chalamet, he has turned in quality performances this year in the lead roles in two of the Best Picture nominees. Although not nominated for Dune, he is nominated as Best Actor in our next film.

“A Complete Unknown” is a phenomenal biopic covering the early career of legendary songwriter Bob Dylan. The film opens with 19-year-old Dylan arriving in New York with little or no money and an acoustic guitar. He’s on a sort of pilgrimage to visit his folk singing hero Woody Guthrie, who is hospitalized, struggling with the severe effects of Huntington’s Disease. Guthrie was mostly bedridden and unable to speak. While visiting, Dylan meets folk singing icon Pete Seeger, brilliantly played by Edward Norton.

Norton’s nomination for Best Supporting Actor is very much deserved. In fact, I think it may be my favorite performance by anyone this year. As Norton begins to discover what a musical genius Bob Dylan is, the expressions on his face of pure joy are a sight to behold. He doesn’t have to say anything. His body language and facial expressions speak volumes.

There are also moments where Dakota Fanning gives a tremendous performance as Dylan’s girlfriend, Sylvie Russo. Again, it’s not so much what she says, but the facial expressions she delivers while listening to Dylan perform are a master class in acting. Unfortunately, she did not receive a supporting actress nomination. That honor went to Monica Barbaro for her portrayal of folksinger Joan Baez. She too gives a phenomenal performance, although if I had been nominating for the film, I might have given it to Fanning instead. They both really deserve a nomination, but that would kill both of their chances of winning because it is rare that either performer wins when two performers from the same film are nominated in the same category. Fans of the film split their votes, and some other films win.

Chalamet gives an amazing performance, singing more than a dozen musical numbers. He channels Bob Dylan completely. It is an amazing accomplishment.

The film covers the beginning of his career up through an iconic performance at the Newport folk music festival, in which he shocked the audience and alienated much of the folk community by performing on electric guitar with a full rock band behind him. The audience failed to realize that this new era of his career contained lyrics that were every bit as powerful as anything he’d written before and were completely in tune with the social justice themes of the folk music movement. He was seen as betraying folk music principles, yet he was simply taking their message to a new level that would reach an even larger audience than the folk music Nich.

Like several of the films that we discussed last year, this one explores the personal cost that must be paid by those who are friends and family of someone who is driven by genius.

Overall, let’s call this one my third favorite nominated film. Sadly, it was only available by bootleg camera copy, and although the video quality was above average for such a download, the audio suffered terribly. I will definitely be purchasing a clean, legitimate copy as soon as it is available so I can fully enjoy the film. I highly recommend this one. I don’t know if it has much of a chance to win any of the awards, but I would be greatly pleased if it does.

The eight Oscar nominations include Best Picture, Sound, Adapted Screenplay, and Costume Design. Director James Mangold is also nominated. Timothée Chalamet is nominated as Best Actor and is the only person who might give Adrian Brody any competition. Edward Norton much deserves his Supporting Actor nomination, and Monica Barbaro deserves her Supporting Actress nomination for her portrayal of Joan Baez.

IMDb lists 23 wins and an additional nominations. The film has earned $110 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $70 million.

I was not able to see the film “I’m Still Here,” which, like “Emilia Pérez,” is nominated both for Best Picture and for Foreign Film. That is the first time in which there have been two such double nominations in the same year.

I was able to obtain a copy of the nominated film “Nickel Boys,” but I found the film to be unwatchable. The film is shot from the point of view camera of the two main characters. You are working out through your eyes and occasionally using the character’s reflection in a window. It switches POV about every 8-10 minutes. I found this cinematography so annoying that I couldn’t watch the film. It’s based on a 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colin Whitehead. It tells the story of a pair of boys who go to the historic Dozier School, a reform school in Florida that operated for over 100 years and was eventually closed because it brutally abused the boys.

I can easily presume that it is a poignant and compelling story. I may go back to it and try again, but overall, it’s going to be a difficult film to watch because of the bizarre cinematography style. In addition to its Best Picture nomination, it is also nominated for Adapted Screenplay. IMDb lists 50 wins and an additional 189 nominations. It has earned only $2.8 million worldwide with an estimated budget of $20 million.

All of the Best Actress nominees were in Best Picture nominated films this year. So, we have covered all of those.

In the Best Actor category, Coleman Domingo received a nomination for the film “Sing Sing.” Based on the quality of his work in nominated films last year, I presume he has turned in another great performance. I have access to the film but have not had time to watch it yet.

We have to talk briefly about “The Apprentice.” It stars Sebastian Stan as a young Donald Trump who is learning to be a ruthless businessman from iconic corrupt lawyer Roy Cohn. I can’t testify how accurate the film is, but if it is accurate, it explains that everything you know about the kind of man that Donald Trump is today, he received studying under Cohn.

In this case, Trump is “The Apprentice. England

Sebastian Stan deserves his Best Actor nomination, as does Jeremy Strong deserves his Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of Cohn.

I highly recommend the film, which is currently available for digital download purchase on Amazon and other platforms. There is no word on when subscription streaming or cable will be available. This small independent film has earned $4 million in the US and Canada and $17 million worldwide on an estimated budget and $50 million.

By the way, both “The Apprentice” and “Nickel Boys” were shot in a nearly 4:3 aspect ratio like an old analog TV rather than a modern widescreen format. This continues the trend we saw last year in “Maestro” and “The Holdovers” in which the cinematography tries to reflect the time period in which the story takes place.

I was also able to see “A Real Pain” in which Kieran Culkin received a Supporting Actor nomination. It was written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg who also stars in the film. They play a pair of mismatched cousins who reunite for a vacation tour of Poland to honor their late grandmother who survived the concentration camps during World War II. It’s a poignant little buddy comedy with quality performances. I doubt Culkin will win but he earned his nomination well.

So, there we have it. We have briefly covered all 10 Best Picture nominees as well as all of the acting awards that we were able to see. I had hoped to cover the animated features, which include Pixar’s “Inside Out 2”, “The Wild Robot,” and “Flow,” which was also nominated in the Foreign Film category. I have access to these films as well as the stop motion animated films “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” and “Memoir of a Snail” which also received feature animation nominations. “Memoir of a Snail” is the first R-rated film to receive a Best Animated Feature nomination.

My prediction is it will be a big sweep for “The Brutalist.“ The only competition will be “Emilia Pérez.” Look for “Wicked” to win production design and costume design. It could also beat Dune for Visual Effects. Brody is a shoo-in for Best Actor. However, if the Academy wants to stick it to Donald Trump, they could give it to Sebastian Stan.

The 97th Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, March 2 on ABC-TV.

I will probably take a couple of weeks off from this podcast and then return with either some political rants or more autobiographical stories.

By the way, you know that I always sign off with the words, “Fly safe, everyone.” That salutation comes from an online outer space game I play called “Eve Online.” For me, it means have fun, but be careful. These days, unfortunately, it has a double meaning with all of the tragic air accidents we have seen. But the intent remains the same. In these turbulent times, whenever we fear or whatever threatens us, remember to have fun but be safe.

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As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

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I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Okay, here is the spoiler section about “Conclave.”

Just as the Cardinals are about to lock themselves into the Vatican to deliberate on who will be the new Pope, a new Bishop arrives to claim that the previous Pope has elevated him to Cardinal just before his death. The Cardinals accept his credentials, and he is permitted to participate in the voting. After multiple Cardinals are faced with charges of misconduct, manipulation, and other scandals, this newly appointed Cardinal stands up and makes a speech chewing them out and telling them to cut the crap and politics and just elect someone, for God’s sake. Although he is a complete unknown, pun intended, space.they rally around him, and he is elected the new Pope.

If it had ended there, I would’ve congratulated them for a clever plot twist and would have really enjoyed the entire experience.

After the election, it is discovered that this new Pope is actually intersex. They have both male and female sexual characteristics. They claim that the previous Pope knew about it and also supported his decision to not have surgery to make him male definitively.

Of course, had the other Cardinals known the secret, they would’ve never elected him and would have likely stripped him as a Cardinal, Bishop, and priest.

I have some personal experience attempting to write a story about an intersex character. I sought advice from knowledgeable people about the condition in addition to my own extensive online research. I wanted to ensure that I was handling the topic sensitively. Ultimately, one of the people I contacted to advise me refused to take the job, saying that even my brief outline of the story was, in their opinion, offensive to intersex people. They would not allow for the possibility that a straight, cisgender male might be able to handle the topic sensitively.

The advisor who turned down commenting further on my story has a YouTube channel in which they discuss intersex issues and how to sensitively portray them in stories. One of the number one things they said you should not do is to make their condition a surprise plot point. They were referring exactly to the kind of thing that occurred in Conclave.

In my story, I reveal my character’s genetic and gender issues upfront within a few paragraphs of a 25,000-word story. It was not a surprise gotcha reveal like it was in Conclave. I have linked that YouTube video talking about mistakes made in portraying intersex characters. I have asked the creator of that video if they would review the film “Conclave”. I looked through their channel and did not find such a review.

My guess is they would not approve.

That’s all for now. Fly safe, everyone.

This is the first of my abbreviated reviews of Oscar-nominated films for 2025. After several weeks of talking about Broadway musicals, fantasy, and fairy tales, we finally get around to discussing “Wicked.”

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to Episode 85 of Contemplating Life Oscar Edition.

For several weeks now, we’ve been building up to my discussion of the Oscar-nominated Best Picture “Wicked.” Note that when I began this series, the title of that film was “Wicked: Part 1,” but now it has been shortened to just “Wicked.” The second half of the adaptation of the Broadway musical is now called “Wicked: For Good” and is scheduled for release in November of this year.

This year, I do not have time to edit in trailers, movie clips, etc., into the YouTube version of the podcast. So be sure to check out the links in the description for articles and videos related to this year’s films.

As I mentioned in the previous episode, this is the story of Elphaba, a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West, played by Cynthia Erivo, and her school friendship with Galinda, a.k.a. the Good Witch of the North, played by Arianna Grande. It is based on the hit Broadway musical that has been running since 2003. It is, in turn, based on the Frank Maguire novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.”

The film opens with a shot of the Wicked Witch’s iconic pointed black hat sitting atop a puddle of water surrounded by dying sparks. Obviously, this is just seconds after Dorothy has doused her with a bucket of water, causing her to melt. We then go to Munchkin Land, where Glinda arrives in her floating bubble to confirm that, yes, indeed, the Wicked Witch is dead. There is a song called “Nobody Mourns the Wicked,” which is a stand-in for “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.” The musical creators were prohibited from using anything from the original 1939 “Wizard of Oz.”

Someone asks Glinda if she knew the Wicked Witch when she was younger. We then begin a flashback that gives us the complete story. It quickly becomes apparent that this is not a children’s story. We hear that Elphaba’s mother had an affair with a stranger. The stranger gave her some sort of green liquid, so when Elphaba was born, she had green skin. Not knowing what to expect from the story, I was surprised it started with a somewhat adult theme.

We later learn that Elphaba has a sister who is in a wheelchair. Her name is Nessarose. She is portrayed by Marissa Bode, who in real life had a spinal cord injury at age 11 in a car accident and uses a wheelchair.

We are told that Nessarose’s condition is because her mother took some sort of herbal remedy to try to prevent her second child from turning out green. There is a scene depicting Nessarose and Elphaba as young girls, both being teased for being different. When Elphaba gets angry, her magical abilities start to manifest themselves. Small rocks begin hovering off the ground as her temper flares.

We fast-forward to the girls going off to college. Galinda is a rich, spoiled brat who thinks everything revolves around her. Nessarose is there to study, but Elphaba is not enrolled. She is simply there to help her disabled sister settle in.

Someone tries to push Nessarose’s wheelchair to help her get to her dorm room, but she insists that she’s not helpless and can get there herself. When they don’t listen to her, Elphaba becomes angry and unleashes magic, which flings several objects into the air including her sister in the wheelchair. The disabled actress who plays the part did her own stunt work for the scene. Behind-the-scenes videos reveal multiple wires were attached to the wheelchair, causing it to fly. In an interview, she explained she was quite proud that she had been allowed to do this stunt on her own. This further reinforces the concept that neither she nor her character always needs special help.

As you might guess, at this point, I was totally hooked. The realistic depiction of an independent disabled woman was so spot on that it left my jaw hanging open. Elphaba’s defense of her sister was not because Nessarose needed help. On the contrary, she defended the idea that her sister was capable and independent. I was shocked and amazed that an adult fairy tale perfectly depicted this disabled character.

As you know from our previous discussions, I identified with Cinderella daydreaming in her own little corner in her own little chair. We were barely 5 minutes into the film, and “Wicked” says to me, “You think Cinderella is something special for a disabled kid. Hold my beer while I show you something you’ve never seen in a fairy tale.”

When Elphaba accidentally displays her magic powers, it catches the attention of Madam Morrible, who teaches magic at Shiz University. Morrible is played by Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh.

Madame Morrible immediately insists that Elphaba enter the University. Through a series of misunderstandings, she ends up roommates with the overprivileged Galinda, who was promised a private dorm room.

Along the way, we are introduced to a couple of other characters. Fiyero is a bit of an airhead frat boy who is only there to party. Also, we meet Bok who is from Munchkin Land. By the way, in this version of Oz, munchkins are a bit short but are not portrayed by little people. Elphaba and Nessarose’s father is the mayor of Munchkin Land.

Both Elphaba and Nessarose are treated poorly because they are so different. Bok had a crush on Galinda, and she suggested that he befriend Nessarose as a favor to her. Bok is happy to oblige because he thinks it will gain him favor with Galinda. Nessarose is ecstatic that a boy would show interest in her. Neither she nor Bok understand how they are being manipulated. Bok is blinded to the realization that he has been heartless towards Nessarose.

Eventually, Galinda begins to feel sympathy for her bizarre roommate, Elphaba, after initially despising her. They begin to form a strange bond.

Some of the teachers at Shiz University are talking animals, most notably Dr. Dillamond, voiced by Peter Dinklage. We discover a conspiracy against talking animals that is trying to force them to shut up. Eventually, Dr. Dillamond is arrested and hauled away in a cage, causing him to lose the ability to speak. He was replaced by another teacher who wanted to experiment on animals, specifically a lion cub. This outrages Elphaba and her magic manifests itself again, knocking out everyone in the classroom. Except for her, Fiyero, and the cub. Remember that. It turns out to be significant later. They take the cub out into the woods to release him. They do so by hopping on bicycles that are identical to the one ridden by Miss Gulch in the original Wizard of Oz when she kidnaps Toto. Seeing Elphaba riding that bicycle with an animal in the basket sent me into hysterical laughter. My sister Carol immediately began singing Miss Gulch’s theme song, “Dat da dat da da da…” I had to pause the movie until we stopped laughing. It was just too perfect an Easter egg.

Dr. Dillamond always had trouble pronouncing Galinda’s name using his goat voice. After he is arrested, Galinda announces she will henceforth be known as Glinda, which is how Dr. D pronounced it.

Eventually, Elphaba gets an invitation to go to the Emerald City and meet the wizard, who is anxious to mentor her and her magical abilities. At the last minute, she invites Glenda to join her. Upon arrival, we get the back story on the wizard delivered in a dramatic presentation featuring cameo appearances by Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. They originated the roles of Glenda and Elphaba on Broadway. I’m certain their appearance delighted many fans of the original musical.

The entire Emerald City experience contains multiple other Easter Eggs to the original film.

Finally, we meet the wizard, who is magnificently portrayed by Jeff Goldblum. Without spoiling too much, we can tell you that the wizard isn’t who we think he is. Elphaba sees through him, casts a spell that allows her to fly on a broom, and she escapes singing the iconic song “Defying Gravity.” Madam Morrible gets on a PA system announcing to the entire Emerald City that Elphaba is a Wicked Witch, and the film promptly ends.

It may seem like I’ve spoiled the entire movie, but trust me, there are plenty of details I’ve left out. At the end of this episode, I will have some serious spoilers where I reveal things I figured out about the plot along the way and things that I’ve heard will be in the second film based on what happens in the musical.

It saddened me when I realized that my disabled hero in the film, Nessarose, is the one who gets a house dropped on her by Dorothy in the original story. We get a brief glimpse of ruby slippers however in this story, Nessarose wears silver slippers, which is more consistent with the original L. Frank Baum story.

I can tell you now, without any spoilers to the movie, that the book was much more adult than the musical. Author Gregory Maguire dives deeply into many adult topics, including speculation that the Wicked Which is actually a transsexual. He creates multiple religions and political parties in which he explores various issues. There is even a character who has two penises and has an affair with a mother and a daughter. Fortunately neither the musical nor the film go that far. Except for the story that Elphaba’s mother had an extramarital affair, the rest of the story could be considered kid-friendly. The film is rated PG.

There is a musical Easter Egg in that the first seven notes of “Over the Rainbow” are hidden in a couple of the songs from the musical. It is in the “Unlimited” motif. The notes are the same, but the rhythm and harmony surrounding them are different. Once you copy eight notes of a melody, you are at risk for copyright infringement, so composer Stephen Schwartz stops at seven notes. See the video linked in the description where he explains this.

My sister and I, who are huge fans of the original Wizard of Oz, thoroughly enjoyed the film, and we plan to watch it again sometime soon. The combination of the phenomenally spot-on treatment of the disabled characters and the amazing Easter eggs referring to the 1939 film made it a thoroughly enjoyable experience for both of us. We anxiously await the second part. Again, at the end of this podcast, I will have huge spoilers for the second part.

In addition to the Best Picture Oscar nomination, it was also nominated for Musical Score, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, Visual Effects, Production Design, and Costume Design All of which are very much deserved. I don’t have any opinion about the nomination for Film Editing.

Cynthia Erivo and Arianna Grande are nominated for Lead Actress and Supporting Actress, respectively, and are much deserved. The film won the Golden Globe for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement. IMDb lists 304 nominations and 99 wins.

Although Jeff Goldblum did not receive a supporting actor nomination, I thought he was perfectly cast in the role and did a wonderful job.

It has over $728,000,000 in worldwide box office on an estimated budget of $150,000,000. It may still be showing in some theaters. It is available for purchase on digital download on many platforms and will be coming to the Peacock in late March.

A one-hour behind-the-scenes documentary, “Defying Gravity: The Curtain Rises on Wicked,” aired on NBC and is currently streaming on Peacock. I highly recommend it. You will be amazed at the detail that went into constructing the practical sets for the film. There is very little CGI involved.

Stay tuned after my typical closing for spoilers about what we can expect in the sequel currently scheduled for November 2025.

So, as always… if you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

Okay, do not proceed unless you want the plot of Part 2 spoiled.

It didn’t take me long to conclude that the wizard was a mysterious stranger who had an affair with Elphaba’s mother and drugged her with the magical green liquid. I also correctly speculated that the small lion cub rescued by Elphaba and Fiyero turns out to be the Cowardly Lion.

I did not predict that Fiyero would become the Scarecrow and Bok would become the Tin Man. That was a surprise.

Madame Morrible’s limited magical powers are strongest in her ability to control the weather. She is responsible for conjuring up the tornado that brings Dorothy to Oz. Therefore, she is responsible for the death of Nessarose.

One more chance to stop this podcast before I reveal the biggest spoiler of all.

You were warned.

I’m also proud to say I guessed this one.

Elphaba, the Wicked Witch, did not die when Dorothy threw the bucket of water on her. She faked her own death.

I knew they could not spend the entire story trying to redeem Elphaba as simply a misunderstood and tortured soul who was branded as wicked when she really wasn’t and then ended up killing her.

I can’t wait to see part 2. Until then, fly safe, everyone. Or should I say, Defy Gravity.

This is the third in a multi-part series inspired by the hit movie musical Wicked–Part 1. The series will explore musical theater, fairy tales, and fantasy in general.

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to Episode 84 of Contemplating Life. This is the last in a multipart series inspired by the hit movie musical “Wicked”. In this series, we’ll explore my relationship with musical theater, fairy tales, and fantasy in general.

In our last episode, we discussed my fascination with the made-for-TV musical Cinderella. Around that time, I immensely enjoyed one other musical TV special. Sometime in the early 1960s, possibly more than once, I also enjoyed the TV production of the 1954 musical Peter Pan, based on JM Barry’s 1904 play and his 1911 novelization “Peter and Wendy.”

NBC aired versions of it in 1955 and 1956, but I would’ve been too young to recall those. There was another 1960 version, which was videotaped in color. It was rebroadcast in 1963, 1966, and 1973. My guess is the ‘63 rebroadcast was the first I saw it, But I might have seen it in 1960. I also distinctly remember watching it in color, but I don’t think we had color TV by ‘66, so it might have been the ‘73 broadcast. NBC also aired a restored version of the videotape in 1989 and 1991, and from there, it was moved to Disney Channel, where it was shown several times.

A version of the musical starring former Olympic gymnast Cathy Rigby eventually made it to television, and I caught a performance of it. It brought back many nostalgic memories of the original.

NBC also produced a new production in 2014 starring Allison Williams as Peter and Christopher Walken as Captain Hook.

[Allison Williams sings an excerpt from “Never, Never Land.”]

I looked forward to that with great anticipation, but I was a bit disappointed that Walken suppressed his usual strange vocal cadence and played the role much more straight than I would’ve liked.

The original Broadway and TV production featured Mary Martin as Peter Pan. I never understood why a woman has so often played the role of Peter. If the musical were produced today, I’m sure the anti-woke forces would condemn it for having a woman play a male character. Peter is the leader of a group known as the “Lost Boys,” yet he is not portrayed by a boy in these musical productions. There’s nothing significant about the flying sequence stunts that would make a woman more appropriate for the role.

I also thought the plot was a bit kinky in that the lost boys practically kidnapped Wendy to become their mother.

Anyway, I could go on and on about various versions of the story, including the 1991 Steven Spielberg film “Hook,” which features Robin Williams as an adult Peter Pan and Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook. However, as much as I enjoyed the various adaptations of the 1957 musical on TV, I didn’t connect with the story as I did with Cinderella.

One final point: while researching this, I discovered a 1950 musical based on Peter Pan, with music and lyrics by Leonard Bernstein. The original production only featured a half-dozen songs, but researchers have uncovered that Bernstein wrote much more music than was used. There have been several subsequent productions that include the restored Bernstein score. I will be looking for a way to see that version or at least hear the soundtrack, which I believe is available.

Finally, let’s talk about the musical that is the focus of this episode, the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz.” It is based on the children’s novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” originally published in 1900 by L. Frank Baum.

The film was nominated for Best Picture Oscar but lost to “Gone With the Wind.” It was also nominated for Art Direction and Special Effects. It won for Musical Score and Best Song for “Over the Rainbow.” I think much of my nostalgic appreciation of the film is tied to that song. The original Judy Garland version is magnificent, and I’ve never heard a bad cover version.

[Judy Garland sings an excerpt from “Over the Rainbow.”]

My favorite cover version, however, is undoubtedly a soulful reinterpretation by the late folksinger Eva Cassidy.

[Eva Cassidy sings an excerpt from “Over the Rainbow.”]

Check out the YouTube video of the Eva Cassidy version linked in the description. Unfortunately, she died of melanoma in 1996.

Another amazing popular version was created by native Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole.

[Israel Kamakawiwo’ole sings an excerpt.]

He significantly adapted the lyrics and melody and combined them with the Louis Armstrong hit “What a Wonderful World.” Sadly, he died of complications from obesity in June 1997 at age 38 before his recording became a hit.

I’m also extremely fond of the version Katharine McPhee performed in the final round of American Idol Season 5.

[Katharine McPhee sings an excerpt.]

I think that performance made me a permanent fan of the Show.

On November 3, 1956, the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz was the first feature-length film to air uncut on prime-time coast-to-coast television. This was partially in response to the popularity of Peter Pan, which NBC first aired in 1955.

CBS paid $225,000 per showing for the rights to the movie, which is over $2.6 million in today’s money. The film runs for 101 minutes, so even with adding commercial breaks, CBS needed to fill more time for a two-hour time slot. The network hired a host to introduce the program and briefly comment before and after each commercial break. Bert Lahr, who played the cowardly lion in the film, hosted the initial broadcast.

It was shown again by CBS in 1959 and then annually thereafter until 1991 when it was shown twice. It was not shown in 1992 but shown twice in 1993. The program moved back and forth between CBS and NBC several times throughout these years. See the linked Wikipedia article for details of the various showings of the film on TV, including its move to cable in 1999.

I recall being at my grandma Osterman’s house, and my family was having an excited conversation about an upcoming showing of the film on TV. My grandmother said, “Dick Van Dyke is going to be the MC.”

“What’s an MC,” I inquired.”

My family informed me it was an abbreviation for “Master of Ceremonies.” I still had no idea what they were talking about. I seem to recall that I must have had some familiarity with the film because I didn’t remember a character called “MC.” Still, I think that airing with Dick Van Dyke as the host/MC/whatever you want to call it was probably the first time I saw the film. According to Wikipedia, he was the host in 1961 and 1962, which would’ve made me 6 or 7 years old, respectively.

Not only was I enchanted by the song “Over the Rainbow,” I also had great fondness for all the other musical numbers, including the three versions of “If I only had a… (Whatever… a brain, heart, or the nerve).”

I can’t guarantee that I saw the film every year after that initial viewing, but I’m confident I saw it many, many times. I recently discussed the movie with my sister Carol, who is eight years younger than me. She, too, has many fond memories of watching it year after year.

At a young age, it didn’t bother me that the wizard was a fake. I think Frank Morgan’s portrayal of him as an absent-minded professor was so endearing that you wouldn’t mind that he was actually a con man. It wasn’t until years later, when the phrase, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” became such a euphemism for someone who was engaged in a cover-up, that I began to see the wizard in a negative light.

I was always a bit disappointed that Dorothy woke up only to discover that it was all just a dream and that her world had reverted to the mundane sepia-tone life she had lived rather than the Technicolor adventure she had experienced. Sure, it was nice that she now had a deep appreciation for what it meant to be home, but it meant that all her fantastic experiences were simply figments of her imagination. She was just dreaming about that place over the rainbow and never got to experience the adventures of the larger world beyond her simple Kansas farm life.

It wasn’t until years later that I learned that L. Frank Baum wrote several other books about Oz, including return trips Dorothy made. Eventually, she and her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em became permanent residents. That would’ve reinforced the idea that Oz was a real place. I think I would have liked that.

Considering Hollywood’s obsession with franchises and sequels, I never understood why the remaining 13 books were never adapted for film. It wasn’t until I researched this episode that I discovered the 1985 film “Return to Oz,” based on two later L. Frank Baum novels. It must not have been very successful if I never heard of it.

I did see Sam Raimi’s 2013 film “Oz the Great and Powerful “ and enjoyed it in 3D. Yet, I must confess I don’t remember much of anything about the plot.

I never saw the 2005 made-for-TV film “The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz,” although I thought it was strange that they would make such a movie because the original 1979 “The Muppet Movie” was a thinly disguised version of “The Wizard of Oz.” Songwriters Kenny Ascher and Paul Williams discussed the need to write a song that would be a stand-in for “Over the Rainbow.” They rejected several approaches because none of them had “the rainbow connection.” That produced a “Eureka” moment, and they wrote the song for Kermit titled “The Rainbow Connection.” About halfway through the movie, I realized that the story was an homage to the original “Wizard of Oz.” I think the pointy hat on Gonzo that made him look like the Tin Man was a giveaway. I also figured out the connection between “The Rainbow Connection” and “Over the Rainbow” before I heard Paul Williams explain the song’s origins on a talk show soon after its release.

It just occurred to me that there are many similarities between “Over the Rainbow” and “In My Own Little Chair” from Cinderella. Both are sung by young women stuck in a mundane existence and dreaming of exciting adventures in a faraway place. What is it about these songs that is so appealing to me? I don’t know. As Kermit explained in his version of the song, “Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me.”

It’s tough to put into words what that original 1939 version means to be. I don’t have a personal connection to it the way I connected to Cinderella sitting in her own little corner in her own little chair. Still, nevertheless, I was thoroughly enchanted by the film when I first saw it in the early 1960s and on every subsequent viewing since then. As previously reported, it is in my top 10 list of favorite musicals of all time.

I had heard of the Broadway music “Wicked” years ago and didn’t think much about it. I thought it was an attempt to rip off or capitalize on the popularity of the original story. A few years ago, I saw the 2014 film “Maleficent” and the 2019 sequel “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.” These stories attempted to explain away the evil of the wicked queen from the classic Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. It seemed that “Wicked” was just another attempt to make excuses for an evil character. I was unaware that the musical “Wicked” was first produced in 2003 and was a loose adaptation of the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” both of which predate “Maleficent.”

I knew about the popularity of the Broadway musical, although I hadn’t heard any of the songs. I also knew the film would be highly popular, but I wasn’t particularly anxious to rush to the theater. I was also a bit wary when I heard that “Wicked—Part 1” would be released on Thanksgiving 2024. I wasn’t sure I wanted to waste my time on half a movie. Maybe I’d wait until Part 2 was available.

When it finally became available as a digital download, I decided to take a leap and get a copy. I watched it with my sister Carol in 2 sessions as the film runs two hours and 40 minutes. I was totally blown away by the entire experience, as was Carol.

In my next episode, I will review the film as part of the opening of my annual review of the 10 Oscar-nominated Best Pictures.

We interrupt this podcast for a special announcement.

For the past 10 days or so, I’ve been struggling with a nasty case of influenza A. I spent lots of days in bed and on my ventilator during the day, which I typically only used at night. Today is February 17. It is the first I have been able to stay out of bed for an extended period.

Only 7 of the 10 Best Picture-nominated films are available for streaming or digital download. One of the three remaining films is completely unavailable online, and two others are only available via bootleg copies where someone took a camera into the theater. I try to avoid that unless I absolutely have to. And if I do watch the bootleg, I always purchase a copy afterward to make up for it.

As a result, I’m not going to be able to review all 10 movies by March 2nd, when the Oscars are awarded. My current plan is to finish out talking about Wicked and perhaps one other nominated musical in the next episode and then do a brief overview of the other nominated films I have been able to see. I’ll not have time to download trailers and clips to include in the YouTube version like usual. That is a tremendous amount of work. I won’t have time.

I’ve had a lot of fun doing this series on musicals and fantasy leading up to this. I think it’s some of my best recent work. I guess that will have to do for this year’s movie reviews. When that is complete, we will return to some autobiographical topic. I’m not sure which part of my life we will cover next. And don’t be surprised if we get a political rant thrown in as current events unfold.

So, as always… if you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

This is the third in a multi-part series inspired by the hit movie musical Wicked–Part 1. The series will explore musical theater, fairy tales, and fantasy in general.

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to Episode 83 of Contemplating Life. This is the third in a multipart series inspired by the hit movie musical Wicked–Part 1. In this series, we’ll explore my relationship with musical theater, fairy tales, and fantasy in general.

In our last episode, we talked about how my mother introduced me to the joys of musical theater and show tunes. In that context, set your Way Back Machine for February 22, 1965. I was nine years old the night that CBS aired a musical special titled “Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.”

The Cinderella story has many variations throughout many cultures. The earliest known variant is the story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo sometime between 7 BCE and 23 CE, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt. The story as we know it today with the Fairy Godmother and the Glass Slipper was written in French by Charles Perrault in 1697 titled “Cendrillon ou la Petite Pantoufle de Verre” or in English “Cinderella and the Little Glass Slipper.” See the linked Wikipedia article for more information about the various versions of the story.

The Rogers and Hammerstein musical adaptation of the classic fairy tale had been written specifically for television and not the Broadway stage.

Until I began researching this podcast, I thought the 1965 version was the original. However, my research uncovered the original version was shown live on March 31, 1957, and starred Julie Andrews. Until days ago, I had no idea it existed. The 1957 version was broadcast in the Eastern, Central, and Mountain time zones live in color and in black-and-white. A black-and-white taped version was shown in the Pacific time zone. It was never re-aired.

Although a soundtrack album was released the day after the program aired, it was thought all video recordings had been lost. However, in 2002, a black-and-white kinescope of the March 17 full dress rehearsal was rediscovered. It was restored and issued to DVD. It was also shown on PBS in December 2004 as part of their Great Performances Series. It features a 2002 introduction by Julie Andrews. It is available for free on YouTube. A link is provided in the description. I highly recommend watching at least that introduction and a few minutes of the show just to see young Andrews’ performance. See also the linked Wikipedia article covering the work’s complete history in all its various incarnations.

But let’s get back to the version in question – the 1965 version I saw as a child. This version introduced Leslie Ann Warren in the title role. It also starred Walter Pridgen as the King, Ginger Rogers as the Queen, and Celeste Holm as the Fairy Godmother.

In one of the early scenes, Cinderella sits alone by the fireplace on a small wooden chair and sings…

She then describes all of the wondrous things she imagines she might do if she could travel the world to exotic locations and have great adventures.

As a nine-year-old kid with a vivid imagination, an appreciation of Broadway music, a science fiction fan, and sitting in a wheelchair, this sad little ballad moved me more than any music I had yet heard in my young life.

I knew what it was like to sit in my own little corner in my own little chair and dream about impossible things.

Did I say “impossible?” Remember that word while I further set the context of the times.

The United States had recently concluded Project Mercury, which consisted of two suborbital and four orbital missions that sent men into space. A charismatic young president had committed us to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade in a race against the Soviet Union. Project Gemini would put a two-man capsule into space the following month. Optimism that Project Apollo would succeed in the lunar goal by the decade’s end was quite high. Live television signals were routinely being transmitted around the world via satellite. The computer revolution was already underway, even though I didn’t know the details, such as the introduction of the minicomputer, the PDP-8, that year. Also that year, Lawrence Roberts connected two computers over a telephone line to create ARPANET – the precursor to the modern internet.

In short, the word “impossible” was being erased from the English language.

Furthermore, I was reading books like “Tom Swift and His Rocket Ship” and “Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint”–my first science fiction stories.

Unlike the alleged purveyors of infallible truth known as the Holy Roman Catholic Church, under which I had been indoctrinated, I was discovering that scientists were more adept at answering my difficult questions to my satisfaction.

In that context, in the next scene, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother arrives to grant the young maiden her heart’s desire. She will get to go to the Prince’s Ball. But when Cinderella protests that such dreams are impossible, Fairy Godmother sings…

After the Fairy Godmother works her magic and they are en route to the Ball, they reprise the song, but the word “impossible” is replaced by “it’s possible.”

I’m unsure if it’s ironic or hypocritical that someone like me, who considers themselves so rational and scientific, could be enchanted by a fairy tale that makes fun of sensible people. Although the story entirely depends on supernatural forces, at its core, Cinderella is about being a dreamer and not setting artificial limits on what one can achieve. As a person with a disability, I already live with significant limits. It’s counterproductive to impose additional artificial limits of expectations on myself. Dreamers who see unlimited possibilities are not incompatible with rational scientific exploration. In fact, they are the core of scientific pursuits.

Renowned science fiction author and futurist Arthur C Clarke is known for a trio of axioms in which he discusses the impossible. These have come to be known as “Clarke’s Three Laws.” They are,

While watching Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother mock the word impossible, I believed in the magic of science and technology. Impossible things were indeed happening every day in my life.

Case in point, weeks later, I would be given my first motorized wheelchair. This amazing piece of technology meant that my own little chair was no longer stuck in my own little corner. The idea of forming my neighborhood to play with my friends rather than being dependent upon them to come to me seemed like an impossible dream. Perhaps that’s why it was one of my favorite songs to play on the organ, as I described last episode.

Let’s talk for a moment about the genius talent of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II.

Can we marvel at the brilliance of rhyming “of course is” with “horses?”. Simply amazing.

Wikipedia reports this version of Cinderella was shown eight times between 1965 and 1974. I must’ve seen most of these re-airings because I learned many of the songs inside out, even though I didn’t purchase a VHS copy until many years later. Of special note were the love songs between the Prince and Cinderella at the ball. These songs were significant to me throughout my puppy love romance with Rosie Shewman from 1967 through 1974.

In the song “Ten Minutes Ago,” the Prince and Cinderella sing of the joys of love at first sight.

Those of you who have heard Episode 19 of this podcast know how I was smitten at first sight by that blonde-haired, blue-eyed 12-year-old beauty Rosie in seventh grade. That irrational enthusiasm for a beautiful total stranger is embodied in that song.

Later at the ball, Hammerstein again illustrates his brilliance as a lyricist when Cinderella and the Prince ask one of the most profound questions about romantic relationships that you will ever find in musical theater. (Or anywhere else, for that matter.)

That musical question has haunted me about my relationship with every woman I’ve ever loved.

Let’s refer again to one of my favorite science fiction authors, Arthur C Clarke, who provides his take on the question. Clarke is more known for his hard science stories, yet on one occasion, he waxes philosophical and makes a brilliant observation about loving relationships. In his 1951 story, “The Road to the Sea,” he said, “The person one loves never really exists, but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion.”

The entire topic of the tension between reality and perception is one that we will probably explore in future episodes.

Before we wrap this up, I should note that this musical was also remade in 1997, starring pop singer Brandy in the title role. It featured Whitney Houston as the Fairy Godmother, Bernadette Peters as the stepmother, Whoopi Goldberg as the Queen, and Victor Garber as the King. Despite this all-star cast of some of my favorite performers, this version didn’t appeal to me the way the 1965 version did. I think I had so many nostalgic feelings about the 1965 version that a remake didn’t meet my expectations.

This entire discussion of Cinderella is just another example of how fantasy, musicals, and fairy tales provide us with rich inspiration as we continue contemplating life.

In our next episode, we will take our first journey to Oz courtesy of the 1938 classic film The Wizard of Oz. Only with that background and context can we appreciate the 2024 musical film “Wicked Part 1” and the origin of the alleged Wicked Witch, Elphaba.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

This is the second of a multipart series inspired by the hit movie musical “Wicked–Part 1.” This series will be about musical theater, fairy tales, and fantasy in general.

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to Episode 82 of Contemplating Life. This is the second in a multipart series inspired by the hit movie musical “Wicked–Part 1”. In this series, we will explore my relationship with musical theater, fairy tales, and fantasy in general.

My original plan for this episode was to do a brief epilogue to last week’s episode about Disney’s Snow White and then move along the story of the 1965 production of the made-for-TV musical “Cinderella” by Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II. But have you ever known me to do anything brief? Digging deep into the research for that allegedly brief epilogue hit another vein of storytelling treasure I couldn’t leave untouched. The script was nearly double the length it should have been, and I left some things out. Being an obsessive completist, I split the episode into two parts and fleshed out the missing sections of the first half. Cinderella will have to wait until next time.

All that talk about Disney last week meant we had to tell the story of my most significant connection to the Disney franchise: my first TV appearance. (Yes, there were more appearances later on. Those will wait for another episode someday.)

My best estimate is that I was eight years old when I was in the audience of a local children’s TV show called The Mickey Mouse Club.

An old joke goes, “I was on TV one time… My mother made me get off because I was scratching the set.”

Younger members of my audience won’t get that joke. TVs used to be housed in fine wooden cabinets. Climbing on top of such a piece of furniture would draw ire from one’s parents.

Disney produced the original “Mickey Mouse Club” for ABC from 1955 to 1959. I was too young to remember the original show. However, from 1962 to 1968, it was shown in syndicated reruns, and that is when I became a fan. A cast of teen and young adult performers known as Mouseketeers sang, danced, and introduced animated shorts.

Although the show was theoretically aimed at a preteen audience, many teen boys were fans of its female cast members. The most popular was Annette Funicello, who appeared on the show from age 13 to 16. She was well-endowed, with an ample chest highlighted by her tight-fitting white Mouseketeer sweaters. She went on to become a bigger teen idol in a series of beach party movies starring Frankie Avalon.

I was a bigger fan of Darlene Gillespie, who was also shapely for her age, if not as prominent as Annette. She later went on to a career in nursing. Little did we know that Mouseketeer Doreen Tracy would feel trapped by her childhood role. In an attempt to break out of that stereotype, she later appeared nude in men’s magazines. I linked articles about these stars in the description.

The Mickey Mouse Club has had several reboots over the years. It has launched the careers of some very famous people, including Ryan Gosling, future NSYNC members Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, actress Keri Russell, future En Vogue member Rhona Bennett, and Hallmark movie star Nikki DeLoach.

Local TV channel 13, which in those days went by the call sign WLWI, produced a local show with a studio audience of kids. Local live segments were interspersed with segments of Mickey Mouse Club reruns. I estimate my brief appearance in the audience for one episode was sometime in 1963

I couldn’t remember the host’s name, but some deep dives into Wikipedia and help from two different Facebook nostalgia groups helped me piece together the following information.

The show was hosted by Bill Jackson, who started his TV career with a children’s show in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and then moved to Indianapolis to host a show for three years from 1963-1966. It was initially titled “The Mickey Mouse Club” but was eventually renamed “The Bill Jackson Show.” I couldn’t recall what happened during the local segments, but the nostalgia groups reminded me they would pick a panel of children from the audience. Bill would draw a cartoon character on a large paper easel, and the kids would buzz in and guess the character he was drawing. Prizes usually consisted of a large case of candy bars or root beer.

Many people in these Facebook groups said they or their family members were in the audience as part of a Cub Scout, Brownies, or Camp Fire Girls troop. At the time, I was in the Cub Scouts as a member of a troop of disabled kids from Roberts School. I theorize we were invited because we were in scouting.

There were probably 50-75 kids in the audience seated in bleachers. I sat in the front row on level ground with a handful of other kids in wheelchairs. None of us were picked to be on the panel.

I recall the studio lights were extremely bright and hot. They would turn them off during the Mickey Mouse segments and then on again when it was time for a local segment. They advised us to close our eyes tightly while they turned the lights on and then gradually open them. That technique was so successful that I’ve used it for my entire life anytime I’m in a dark room, and someone is about to turn on the lights. I highly recommend it.

In 1965, Jackson moved to Chicago, where he had great success with a program called “The BJ and Dirty Dragon Show.” While in Indianapolis, he created the Dirty Dragon character based on a friend he met here. In 2021, Jackson was diagnosed with COVID-19 but was released from the hospital. He died shortly after in January 2022, but his official cause of death was not released.

My queries about the local Mickey Mouse Club sparked a lively discussion in the Facebook Indy nostalgia groups. The early 60s were a treasure trove of locally produced children’s television in Indianapolis.

People shared fond memories of Janie Woods Hodge, who hosted a show called “Popeye and Janie,” later renamed just “Janie.” I was a frequent viewer of the show, which aired from 4:30-6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday on Channel 4 WTTV from August 1963 until 1972. She then returned to her original profession as a music teacher. See the article linked in the description, which details her career. She also has a Facebook page. However, the latest post is from 2022. Google searches did not include an obituary, so I presume she is still alive.

Also fondly remembered was Bob Glaze, who performed under the name Cowboy Bob. Wearing a cowboy hat and a shirt with fringe, he played acoustic guitar and sang. Glaze began his television career as a cameraman for WTTV. He made personal appearances with Janie as Cowboy Bob and was later invited to perform on her show. In January 1970, he was hired to host “Chuckwagon Theater” as a replacement for Mary Ellen Reed on her show “Lunchtime Theater”. Glaze passed away in 2016. See the linked article for details about his career.

Also of note was personality Hal Fryar, who performed under the name Harlow Hickenlooper as the host of “The Three Stooges Show” on Channel 6. In those days, the call letters were WFBM. He shared hosting duties with country singer Curley Myers and Captain Star (Jerry Vance, a.k.a. Larry Vincent). Together, they sang songs and did skits for a live studio audience of children. Fryar fell into the Stooges’ slapstick comedy routines with passion. In comedy sketches, he regularly ended up with a (shaving) cream pie in his face.

In 1965, Fryar played Outlaw Johnny Ringo in the Three Stooges feature film “The Outlaws Is Coming.” I recall thinking it was a pretty big deal that a local TV host who showed Stooges shorts was cast in an actual Three Stooges film. I seem to recall that he took a local TV camera crew with him and shot some behind-the-scenes footage of his experiences on the film. Many viewers were disappointed he was not wearing his signature battered straw hat and striped coat. They were expecting to see Harlow Hickenlooper, but what they saw was Hal Fryar portraying an outlaw.

Fryar succumbed to bladder cancer in 2017 at the age of 90.

Any discussion of Local TV personalities in Indianapolis would be incomplete without mentioning Bob Carter, who hosted Friday night scary movies under the stage name Sammy Terry throughout the ’60s, ‘70s, and briefly in the 1980s. He was immensely popular, and many hold strong nostalgic feelings towards the character. Bob Carter died on June 30, 2013. Wikipedia reports his son, Mark Carter, has appeared occasionally as the character since 2011 and has an active Facebook following. I had heard it was his grandson, and not his son, carrying on the character, but I could be wrong.

His late-night show was typically past my bedtime, but I have fond memories of the evenings when my parents went all out to dinner and a movie, and I would have my grandmother and great-aunts as babysitters. They would let me stay up late and watch scary movies hosted by Sammy Terry.

My favorite recollection of Sammy Terry was as an adult. My family and some family friends were at our cabin on Cordry Lake one weekend. Among those gathered were Nancy and Jerry Bishop and their children. Jerry worked as a firefighter with my uncle John. We were all playing cards in the dining room while the kids watched scary movies hosted by Sammy Terry in the living room. Jerry was a consummate prankster. He put a sheet over his head, put a ladder up to the front porch of the cabin, and suddenly appeared in the living room windows making eerie noises. My sister, cousins, and the Bishop kids screamed in terror. One of the Bishop girls continued crying for some time, even after Jerry took off the sheet and tried to reassure her, “It’s just daddy playing with you.” She didn’t care. She was equally angry and still scared for quite some time.

Anyway, I’ve linked articles about these characters and personalities and links to Wikipedia pages about the TV stations mentioned here. I was fascinated by the history of how the network affiliations of the stations have swapped over the years.

Before moving on to our next fairy tale in the form of a famous musical production, I want to explore my musical history and early indoctrination into the joys of Broadway musicals by my mother.

Mom enjoyed playing show tunes and pop songs on the organ. She grew up with a piano in the house and learned to play a little bit. I don’t believe she ever had any formal lessons. She was self-taught with some assistance from our friend Stu Byram, who was also self-taught. She learned to read sheet music but only the right-hand treble clef. She could not read the left-hand base clef. Instead, she would get sheet music that included chord symbols for the guitar.

When I was about 6 or 7 years old, my family bought a Sears Silvertone Chord Organ. The organ had a keyboard with 44 keys. On the left was a series of buttons to play chords. You would push a button for the base note with your thumb, and then there were columns of other buttons for major, minor, seventh, and diminished cords you would push with your fingers. It would only play chords A, D, G, C, F, and B-flat.

I searched for a photo of our model and stumbled across a YouTube video by a guy who discovered such an instrument sitting on a curb, waiting to be picked up as trash. He took it home and restored it. It was fascinating to see its inner workings, and it brought back many fond memories.

He identified it as a model 4751 Silvertone. It was a variety known as a reed organ. A blower would pressurize a wooden air chamber. When you pressed a key, it opened a valve, allowing air to pass across a metal tang. This is the same way harmonicas and accordions produce sound. It sounded very much like an accordion. Two microphones inside the cabinet were connected to a vacuum tube amplifier and a 6-inch speaker. A foot pedal called “an expression pedal” varied the amplifier’s volume. But even without amplification, you could still hear the sound produced by the metal reeds.

I had enough use of my hands in those days to play a little bit. Although I never learned to read music, I have a good ear for music and had no difficulty picking out melodies by ear.

I believe we only had the instrument for a few years before getting a good deal on a used Hammond M2. It had two keyboards and an octave of foot pedals for base notes. You control the nature of the sound with the famous Hammond drawbars, which allow you to adjust the primary frequency volume and several harmonics.

I also played the Hammond from time to time. Primarily, I played single-note melodies, sometimes using both hands. But for a couple of tunes, I could occasionally play some harmony. Unfortunately, I lacked sufficient dexterity to play full cords. The most complex piece of music I played was an arrangement of the Christmas hymn “What Child is This?” I would play the melody with my right hand and a base note with my left hand. Mom had an arrangement with many chord changes – more than one would typically find for that music. I thought it sounded pretty good. I enjoyed playing Christmas music, pop songs, and an occasional show tune. I had a pretty good rendition of “The Impossible Dream” from “The Man of La Mancha.” I could also play a multi-note arrangement of the Beatles’ “Let It Be,” which I was quite proud of.

In addition to hymns, Mom played a variety of standards from the American songbook. Her favorites, however, were show tunes from Broadway musicals–especially by composers Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II. At an early age, I became quite familiar with the major songs from “The King & I,” “South Pacific,” “Showboat,” “Oklahoma,” “Camelot, “West Side Story,” and “Fiddler on the Roof,” just to name a few. In later years, she added songs from “Jesus Christ Superstar,“ “Phantom of the Opera,” and “Les Miserables.”

Growing up in this environment gave me a deep appreciation for Broadway musicals, which lasts to this day. Just for fun, here are my top 10 favorite musicals.

10. The Wizard of Oz–We will cover this in an upcoming episode.

9. Guys and Dolls—I discovered this show when I took my high school sweetheart, Rosie, to a production put on by Northwest High School. I later enjoyed the 1955 film starring Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando.

8. Cinderella– This made-for-TV musical by Rogers and Hammerstein will be the major focus of our next episode.

7. Fiddler on the Roof– This is one of Mom’s favorites. I saw a production of it perhaps 30 years ago at Clowes Memorial Hall at Butler University. It was part of a package I had to purchase to get tickets to Phantom of the Opera. I occasionally quote lyrics from the show when teaching religion classes at my church.

6. Hamilton– With great difficulty, I memorized the opening song. I once wrote a parody of that song dedicated to a friend of mine. Now, if I try to sing the song, my parody is the only version I can remember. I have seen the version that aired on Disney+, but I would love to see it live someday.

5. West Side Story– Another of Mom’s favorites. I’ve seen a live production at Clowes Hall, as well as the 1961 film and the 2021 Spielberg remake. I love them all.

4. South Pacific– One of Mom’s favorites. I enjoyed watching some of my high school friends in the Northwest High School production and greatly enjoyed the 1958 film and the 2001 made-for-TV production starring Glenn Close and Harry Connick Jr.

3. Phantom of the Opera – I saw a memorable production of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s masterpiece by a touring company accompanied by my friends Judy and Anne. I love the film and have listened to the soundtrack dozens of times. I once wrote a parody of “I Dreamed a Dream” as a love song to a girlfriend, turning it into a positive song about how she fulfilled my dreams.

2. Les Miserables– This is the first professionally produced musical I ever saw in person. I’ve seen it live three times and watched the movie dozens of times. I own three different versions on CD. I could sing many of the songs on demand.

1. Jesus Christ Superstar – I fell in love with the original album and have listened to it easily 100 times. I saw a touring company production with Ted Neely as Jesus. He played Jesus in the 1973 film and devoted his entire life to playing the part. I’ve seen that film version perhaps 50 times, the 2012 Arena Tour version twice, and the 2018 TV concert version possibly eight times, and it still resides on my DVR. I could sing the entire rock opera front to back.

I once saw someone in an online discussion say that Broadway musicals were ridiculously unrealistic. “Nobody suddenly bursts into song in the middle of an ordinary day.”

Someone replied, “You don’t know my mother.”

I chimed in, “My mother, too.”

Mom loved to sing show tunes. She could get triggered by the most mundane things. My dad, sisters, and I learned to be careful what we said. We had to avoid saying anything that contained a phrase from a musical. For example, any mention of the word “tradition” would trigger the song from “Fidler on the Roof.” One dared not mention the state of Oklahoma.

Sometimes, the triggers were unavoidable. At about 6500 N. Georgetown Rd., there is an apartment complex called Lake Camelot Apartments. We frequently traveled Georgetown Road en route to St. Vincent Hospital and several of our doctors’ offices. As annoying as it was to have Mom burst into the title song of the 1960 musical Camelot by Lerner and Loewe every time we passed there, sometimes, when I go by the place today, I can’t resist humming a few bars in memory of my mom.

These are just more examples of how fantasy, musicals, and fairy tales provide us with rich inspiration as we continue contemplating life.

In our next episode, I will discuss a memorable made-for-TV production of Cinderella that still moves me to tears. In future episodes, we will take our first journey to Oz, courtesy of the 1938 classic film The Wizard of Oz. Only with that background and context can we appreciate the 2024 musical film Wicked Part 1 and the origin of the alleged Wicked Witch, Elphaba.

That should take us into my annual series on the 10 Oscar-nominated films of the year. Note that the voting period and nomination announcement have been extended because of the Los Angeles area fires. The announcement of the nominees scheduled for January 17 has been pushed back to January 23, and the trophies will be awarded as scheduled on March 2.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

This is the first of a multipart series inspired by the hit movie musical “Wicked–Part 1.” This series will be about musical theater, fairy tales, and fantasy in general.

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to Episode 81 of Contemplating Life. Happy New Year, and welcome to the first episode of season 3. I didn’t think we would get this far, but here we are.

When I first came up with the idea for this episode, I thought it would be a one-off episode and not part of a lengthy series. Having written 2300 words and barely scratched the surface. It’s evidently the beginning of a longer series. Probably 3 or 4 episodes. That’s great. I like having rich topics to explore, and apparently, I’ve hit a bigger vein of storytelling treasure than I originally anticipated.

This series is inspired by the hit movie musical “Wicked–Part 1” which my sister Carol and I just watched a few days ago on a digital download. This series is going to be about musical theater, fairy tales, and fantasy in general.

Although it’s embarrassing to admit, fantasy has always played a role in my life, from my earliest memories to the present.

I had an imaginary friend named Dopey when I was about three or four years old. He was named after the seventh dwarf from Disney’s 1937 film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” In the film, Dopey never speaks, which I suppose makes him a convenient subject for an imaginary friend.

My parents were concerned this was an indication that my disability was not just physical. Perhaps I had some mental or psychological issues. They took me to see a child psychologist who tested me. She assured them that I was fine mentally. I was highly intelligent, and that imaginary friends were normal, especially for gifted children with vivid imaginations. My lack of opportunity to interact with other kids also made it more likely that I would invent a playmate.

According to the lore I invented, my friend Dopey drove around in a small metal pedal car. Perhaps I’d seen such kids’ vehicles on TV or in the Sears Christmas catalog. Realizing that my feet were not strong enough to pedal such a vehicle, Dopey was a manifestation of my desire to be able to power a wheeled vehicle myself. This fantasy would not be fulfilled until I was 10 years old when I got my first motorized wheelchair. At the time, I don’t think I yet had a manual wheelchair. My parents didn’t purchase it until I was nearly 5 years old. Up until that, they just carried me around.

Another early memory is that I was extremely shy and reluctant to participate in physical affection. The constant demands to give my grandmothers and great-aunts hugs and kisses were often met with protests from me. At one point, I distinctly recall claiming that I had no kisses to give. It was as if they were a tangible entity that could only be dispensed when supplies were available. I further explained that Dopey was my supply source, and I could not share what had not provided for me. By the way, I was not talking about Hershey’s Kisses. I meant real kisses. Furthermore, I did not imagine that Dopey had to kiss me before I could pass it along. That was not my relationship with him. We were just buddies. It was simply that, somehow, he was a mysterious source of my ability to give kisses.

Over the decades, I’ve tried to analyze this bizarre memory that, somehow, a kiss was in limited supply and had to be obtained from a source. I’ve not been able to uncover the logic behind it. No wonder my parents thought there was something mentally wrong with me.

One clue in my quest to uncover the source of this strange connection between Dopey and kissing came several years ago. I don’t recall when. I saw a clip from Snow White where the dwarfs were going off to work. As they go out the door, Snow White kisses each of them on the top of their head. When it is Dopey’s turn, he attempts a kiss with his lips. Snow White grabs him by his big ears and forces the kiss on his head. He runs over to the cottage window, climbs back in, and exits the door again to get a second kiss. Again, he puckers his lips, is grabbed by the ears, and receives another peck on the forehead. On his third attempt, he is unsuccessful in getting anything but a stern look from Snow White. This is the only connection I’ve ever found between Dopey and kisses. Apparently, he was a horny little dude. No wonder he was a role model for me. I have no idea if it’s the source or inspiration of my bizarre idea that my imaginary friend provided me with kisses to give.

I’ve given a lot of thought to how children are forced to give hugs and kisses to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. For decades, I’ve seen many children who were reluctant to give physical affection to adult relatives. This seems especially true for male children.

What are we teaching our children by this practice? The way I see it, we are telling them that people in authority, especially adults over children, have the right to demand physical affection from us, and we are powerless to stop it. What precedent does this set in their young minds? How many victims of child sexual abuse were raised in an environment in which it was mandatory to give hugs and kisses to adult relatives?

Most abusers were abused as children. But even if one was not abused as a child, doesn’t this plant the seed that could lead them to justify pedophilia later in life? How many spousal abusers and victims of spousal abuse were taught at an early age that physical affection could be forced upon an unwilling participant? The same is true for any sexual abuse or manipulation by someone in authority over someone powerless to say no, such as employer/employee and teacher/student relationships.

Obviously, not everyone who was forced to give grandma a kiss turned out to be an abuser or victim of abuse. But how and why did such practice become common without consideration of its possible consequences?

Fortunately, I’ve been blessed in that I have never faced even a hint of possible abuse. This is especially comforting because I know that disabled people are at higher risk than the average population.

Anyway, moving along. Back to Snow White and my fantasy life.

Part of the mystery I want to solve is how I was aware of the Snow White characters in the first place.

I don’t think my parents or grandparents took me to see the 1958 rerelease. It would’ve made a memorable impression on me as my first film. As previously reported in this podcast, I’m confident my first movie was at the drive-in and was likely either “Ben Hur” or one of the early Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animated action films. I’m confident the first Disney film I saw was Mary Poppins in 1964. The first animated Disney film I saw was “The Jungle Book” in 1967. Both of these were at the Lafayette Road Drive-In Theater.

I wondered if perhaps I became aware of the characters from the weekly Sunday night TV show “The Wonderful World of Disney” hosted by Walt Disney.

I created my own controversy over the title of the show. I remember it as “The Wonderful World of Disney.” Both Wikipedia and IMDb say that it was originally titled simply “Disneyland.” That’s no problem. But IMDb says its real name was “The Magical World of Disney.” I was ready to concede that IMDb was right and my memory that it was wonderful versus magical was in error. Perhaps it was an incident of We have the Mandela effect. I even wrote and recorded part of this episode, claiming that I was wrong. The problem haunted me. I went looking through YouTube and found episodes of the show as far back as 1958. Clearly, it was titled “The Wonderful World of Disney.” Not “The Magical World of Disney.” Granted, the show was full of wonder and magic, but I’m confident I had the title right all along.

I tried googling when and if the 1937 Snow White aired on TV. Many Disney classics were aired in edited versions on the Sunday night Disney show. My research indicates that Snow White did not make its television debut until March 6, 2010, on the ABC Family Channel and a few days later on the Disney Channel.

For decades, I believed Snow White had made its theatrical premiere sometime in my early childhood in the late 1950s. I did not realize it was as old as 1937. Wikipedia reports its first re-release was in 1944 to help Disney Studio get over a financial slump during World War II. Subsequent releases were in 1952, 1958, 1967, 1975, 1983, 1987, and 1993. I was three years old in 1958, which is probably when I first became aware of it. I know I had many children’s books in the Little Golden Books series featuring Disney characters. I specifically recall a much beloved Christmas book featuring the Disney chipmunk characters Chip and Dale. A quick search of eBay revealed that, indeed, there was a Disney Snow White Little Golden Book. Of those that I browsed online, they did not show the scene of Dopey stealing extra kisses.

In addition to Disney’s Chipmunks Chip and Dale, I was also a huge fan of Alvin and the Chipmunks and their 1958 record “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late).” Recently, my 22-year-old home health aide was shocked to learn that Alvin and the Chipmunks dated back to when I was three years old.

You are off-topic again, Chris. Get back to Snow White.

I recall that my Aunt Jody drew seven portraits of the dwarfs, which we framed and hung on my bedroom wall for many years. They were drawn in crayon. My guess is that they were traced from a coloring book. She would have been in her late teens at the time.

According to Wikipedia, the 1993 re-release of Snow White was the first time in history that a feature film was digitally scanned, restored, and then copied back to film.

In October 2023, in celebration of 100 years of Disney, a new digitally restored version was released in 4k UHD Blu-ray format. It had been painstakingly restored from an original Technicolor negative over several years. That 4k version was also released to Disney+ streaming and is available now.

The first time I can guarantee I have seen the entire 1937 Snow White was today – January 6, 2025, when I watched it on Disney+ streaming. I was very impressed with the quality of the restoration. The quality of the hand-drawn animation also blew me away. I can’t recall any other hand-drawn animated film I’ve ever seen that could compare with what I watched today. It is absolutely stunning.

The story of Snow White, as we know it today, originated as a German fairy tale passed down by oral tradition. It was eventually published in 1812 in the first edition of Grimms’ Fairy Tales and revised into its final form in 1854. There is much scholarly debate about the origin of the tale.

What is it about this story that makes it a timeless classic? It’s a love story between a prince and a princess. It’s a story of longing. It’s a story of hope. It’s a story of evil expressed by vanity, envy, persecution, and hatred. It’s the story of Snow White’s kindness towards the dwarfs and their hospitality, loyalty, and protectiveness towards her. It celebrates the diversity of the dwarfs, each with their own distinct personalities embodied by their names. It is a story of the Resurrection and salvation.

We need allegories in the form of fairy tales like Snow White. They provide a proven, timeless way to contemplate life.

I encourage you to check out the linked Wikipedia articles on Snow White for more details about the Disney adaptation and the original telling of the folktale by the Brothers Grimm.

In our next episode, I explore my relationship with another classic fairy tale and my introduction to Broadway musicals. This is all in service of our journey to the Emerald City and the origin of the alleged Wicked Witch, Elphaba.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

This week, we conclude my reviews of 31 new primetime TV shows.

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to a special episode of Contemplating Life.

Back in Episode 75, I set myself the goal of writing a brief review of every new TV show that premiered from September through November this year. I accumulated a list of 31 shows.

I planned on making it one large episode, but it was too large, so I split it into two parts. This is Part B.

Unfortunately, many of the shows will receive my lowest two ratings of “Skip It” or “Worthless.” But there are some that I’m going to highly recommend.

CBS/Paramount+ brings us a new reality competition series, “The Summit.” A group of 16 people have 14 days to hike across a gorgeous New Zealand landscape and climb a mountain. Each contestant starts out with a package of thousands of dollars totaling $1 million for the group. If a contestant is eliminated for medical reasons or is eliminated for failing to meet a challenge, the money is lost to the group. But as they camp at each checkpoint along the way, the group votes out one member and splits that person’s money equally among them.

The gimmick is that if they don’t reach the summit in 14 days, NONE of them get any money. As a fan of shows like “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race,” I’m really enjoying this new take on reality competition. By the way, I never cared for “Big Brother” because it is almost 100% a social game and doesn’t require much in the way of physical challenges.

The thing that surprises me about this series is that the contestants must think they are playing “Survivor,” but they are not. They are consistently voting out players who they think are “a threat to my game.” They don’t seem to appreciate that if they don’t vote out the physically weaker players, they will ALL lose the money. This is not going to be a winner-take-all game with just one winner like “Survivor.” They need to be voting out the weakest players, guaranteeing that they can reach the summit by the deadline, and then work on voting out the people they don’t like socially.

I’ve seen about five episodes, so I don’t know what will happen, but I seriously hope they don’t meet the goal and everyone walks away with no cash. Maybe then, contestants in season 2, if there is one, will learn how to play this game.

We’re calling this one “I Really Like It.” And if you enjoy “Survivor” or “The Amazing Race,” I’m sure you will too, even if it’s just to yell at the screen to tell the contestants how stupid they are for throwing out strong players and slowing themselves down by keeping weaker players.

Now we get down to action and drama, and boy, we have some whoppers here.

Let’s start with the only questionable series in the bunch.

Apple TV+ brings us Billy Crystal, in a dramatic role in “Before.” Crystal plays child psychiatrist Eli Adler, who is grieving the recent loss of his wife to suicide. He blames himself for not seeing the signs of her depression. One evening, a young boy knocks on his door. The boy doesn’t speak, and Eli tries to find out where the boy is from and if he is in some sort of danger. The boy escapes before he can extract any information from him. The next day, a social worker tries to get him to take on a difficult case. He initially refuses because he still dealing with the grief of losing his wife. The social worker persuades him to meet the boy, and of course, it’s the same boy who showed up at his door.

The kid is troubled by bizarre visions of some evil force trying to attack him. The description of the series reveals that the “troubled young boy seems to have a haunting connection to Eli’s past.”

Although I normally like Crystal in both comedic and dramatic roles, this one was just too strange and slow-paced to grab me. I struggled through an episode, and I may go back again to see what happens when, overall, at this point, I’m going to have to say “Skip It,” even though it’s based on some pretty incomplete information. Again, I’m reluctant to commit to the show until I have a better idea of what it’s about. Based on my recent bad experience with “Grotesquerie.” The IMDB classifies it as “drama” and “thriller.” It doesn’t say “sci-fi” or “horror,” so I don’t think there is a supernatural component at work here, but I could be wrong. Proceed with extreme caution.

Next up, Amazon Prime offers us two new spy thriller series. “Citadel: Diana” and “Citadel: Honey Bunny.” These are both spinoffs from an earlier Amazon series, “Citadel.” The gimmick is that the original was produced in Britain, and the various spinoff versions are produced in other countries. Diana is an Italian series dubbed in English. Honey Bunny is from India and is also dubbed in English. I had not seen the original series, so I decided to go back and watch it first before taking on the spinoffs. I’m quite happy I did.

The opening sequence of a gunfight on a high-speed European train. It’s cinematic in its execution. It looks like something out of a James Bond movie. There is much chemistry between the male and female agents who are on board the train trying to stop the bad guys. The opening sequence ends with the destruction and derailing of the train and our two heroes barely escaping with their lives.

We fast-forward eight years to find the male agent has amnesia and doesn’t remember his life as a secret agent. When his former boss recruits him for a special mission, his wife inquires, “So what is the deal here… Are you Jason Bourne?” So, they are upfront about ripping off a plot. There are also other highly unoriginal scenarios, including a chase down a mountainside on snow skis reminiscent of James Bond in “The Spy Who Loved Me.”

Our hero eventually meets up with the female agent, who has similarly lost her memory. It turns out that they have had their memory wiped as a security precaution. There is a vile of medication that will restore his memory, but it is accidentally destroyed.

They work for an agency of good guys called Citadel. They have an archrival agency called Manticore. The whole thing feels like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. versus Hydra. The opening sequence on the train was one of several traps that Manticore set for Citadel, essentially destroying the agency. The series revolves around the efforts of the boss, played by Stanley Tucci, who is trying to revitalize the organization.

Despite all of these unoriginal plotlines, I really enjoyed this series. It had some great plot twists along the way, and the action and special effects were cinematic quality. Rate it “I Really Like It.” I highly recommend it.

After watching a couple of episodes of the Italian spinoff “Citadel: Diana,” showed some potential, but I did not find it nearly as compelling as the original. The series takes place in 2030, which is 10 years after the fall of Citadel. I’ll eventually go back and watch the rest of the series, but I was not as impressed as I was with the original. Let’s call this one a weak “I’m Watching.”

The version from India, while not as compelling as the original Citadel, is much better than the Italian spinoff. The title “Honey Bunny” actually refers to 2 married agents: Honey and her husband, Bunny. This story flashes back and forth between 2000 and 2010. In earlier flashbacks, we learn how Honey was recruited by the agency. In 2010, we find that they are married and have a young daughter. Watching Honey fight bad guys to protect her child was much more compelling than the CW series “Joan,” in which an allegedly humble single mother takes on the glamorous life of a jewel thief to regain custody of her daughter. You feel a lot more for Honey, Bunny, and their daughter than you ever do for Joan and hers.

Let’s rate this one a strong “I’m Watching.” It may not be as spectacular as the British original “Citadel,” but it still has plenty of action and drama. The kid is adorable, and you can really feel the struggles of her parents trying to maintain their secret life while protecting their daughter from the forces of evil.

My only complaint so far is that they’ve not mentioned that they work for Citadel, which leaves a nagging question: Could they possibly be working for Manticore and just believing that they are the good guys and not the bad guys? Then again, are the allegedly good guys at Citadel really good guys? I will be binge-watching the remaining episodes soon. All three series have six episodes each. The original Citadel has been renewed for a second season, which I’m really looking forward to.

Another thriller with an international flair is Peacock TV’s reimagining of “ The Day of the Jackal.” The original 1973 film based on the 1971 Frederick Forsyth novel was about an assassin hired to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s. This updated version stars Freddie Redmayne, who is most known for his portrayal of Newt Scamander in the “Fantastic Beasts” franchise, and Professor Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything.” It’s strange to see him playing a bad guy, but he pulls it off well. This series is as much about him as it is about a British MI6 firearms agent, Bianca Pullman, who struggles to balance her life as an agent with her home life with her husband and daughter.

In this version, Jackal assassinates a German politician, which draws attention to him because it involves the longest sniper kill in history. A group of businessmen hires him to kill the richest man in the world – a tech entrepreneur who is about to release software that will trace any banking transaction in the world, thereby exposing all of their money laundering, bribes, and other transactions they would prefer to be kept secret.

Five of the 10 episodes are available now, and I can’t wait to see the remaining episodes. I’ve heard it’s been renewed for a second season, but I can’t imagine it ends with the Jackal getting away. I’m not sure what will happen in the second season. Rate this one: “I Really Like It.”

Just for fun, I’m also re-watching the original 1973 film and, for the first time, reading the book at the same time. I highly recommend the new theories, the book, and the original film. I can’t comment on the 1997 film “The Jackal” starring Bruce Willis and Richard Gere, but I know that novelist Frederick Forsyth insisted his name be removed from the film. That’s one strike against it.

Moving along to another action drama, Amazon Prime has “Cross” about Detective Alex Cross from the novels by James Patterson. This DC homicide detective is also a trained psychologist. In the opening scene, his wife is murdered. We then skip ahead one year later, where we see him filling out forms requesting a leave of absence. His Captain and the Chief of Police have different plans. They need an African-American detective to investigate the death of a community organizer. Although the official cause of death is a drug overdose, no one believes that. Cross and his partner, John, find plenty of evidence that the deceased did not overdose.

Eventually, they begin to realize they are dealing with a serial killer who is kidnapping victims and giving them a makeover to make them look like famous serial killers. In the first episode, you will learn who the killer really is. You follow along as Detective Cross first tries to identify the killer and then, upon doing so, has to figure out how to catch him and make his case. Meanwhile, Cross, his children, and his grandmother are all being threatened by a stalker. This stalking is related to the death of his wife.

This is a very enjoyable wild ride that I highly recommend. Rate this one: “I Really Like It.”

Another procedural drama worth checking out is the new CBS spinoff NCIS: Origins. Set in 1991, it follows the opening days of agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs’s career as he joined what was then called NIS: Naval Investigation Service. We see his relationship with his old friend, Agent Mike Franks, whom we saw in the original NCIS in 20 episodes.

Mark Harmon provides a voiceover as the present-day Agent Gibbs. The narration teases that of all the stories of his past, these are the ones he has never told before. We see Gibbs still struggling with the murder of his wife and daughter. Franks recruited him even though he failed his psych evaluation.

Having only seen a couple of episodes, I can tell it’s going to be up to par with the other versions of the NCIS franchise, and for now, I’m giving it an “I’m Watching It.” However, I’m not sure if I will be able to keep up because I’m at least two or three seasons behind on the original NCIS. So maybe it’s better to describe it as “Recommended Watchable.”

Just two more to go.

Apple TV+ offers us a thriller called “Disclaimer.” Cate Blanchett plays Catherine Ravenscroft, a respected award-winning documentary journalist. Kevin Klein plays an elderly widower, Stephen Brigstocke. He is forced to take a sabbatical from his teaching job, and while puttering around the house, he discovers his late wife wrote the manuscript of a novel fictionalizing the events of their son Jonathan’s death 20 years ago.

In the novel, Jonathan is on vacation in Italy and meets an attractive young woman with whom he has an affair. We learn that the woman is Catherine. She was on vacation with her husband and five-year-old son, but the husband was called back to work. In the novel, she seduces Jonathan, and he takes a series of erotic photos of her. Stephen discovers the photos with the manuscript.

While Jonathan and the woman were having sex in a beachside cabana, the young boy drifted out into the Mediterranean in a small inflatable raft. Jonathan swims out to save the boy. Two other bystanders join him and bring the boy back safely, but Jonathan is so exhausted he cannot make it back and drowns.

Stephen decides to get revenge on Catherine. He will ruin the woman’s life as she has ruined the lives of him and his late wife. He self-publishes the novel under a pseudonym and sends a copy to Catherine, her husband, and their now 25-year-old son.

The book contains a disclaimer that reads, “Any resemblance to real people is NOT a coincidence.”

The series uses a variety of voiceover narrators. Some are of Stephen, others Catherine, and sometimes an omniscient narrator who speaks in the second person present tense, which is a bit strange but effective.

Stephen becomes so obsessed that he will stop at nothing to get his revenge. With each victory along the way, Klein delivers an evil smirk that shows Steven’s joy that his plan is working.

Although a bit slow-moving and difficult to follow at first, with multiple flashbacks and flash-forwards, this one will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout the 7 episodes. There are award-worthy performances from Klein and Blanchette, as well as great supporting work by Sacha Baron Cohen as Catherine’s husband, Robert, in a rare dramatic role. Also noteworthy is Louis Partridge as Jonathan and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the adult son Nicholas.

There is a huge plot twist in the final episode that you will not see coming. But in some respects, we enter the story through Stephen’s eyes, and the twist is a surprise to him that we really feel. I was concerned it was going to end with the audience not being sure what really happened, but there is no doubt at the end as to what the truth really was.

Again, it is very slow-moving but well worth your time. Let’s rate this one “I Really Like It.” Strongly recommended.

Finally, here is the review of the last of the 31 new TV series.

CBS/Paramount+ offers us a 10-episode series, “Landman,” starring Billy Bob Thorton as Tommy Noris. He works for an oil company in the oil fields around Midland, Texas.

In the opening scene, we find him in a remote warehouse, tied to a chair with a burlap bag over his head, being guarded by some nasty-looking guys with guns. When the boss arrives, he asks, “So you are going to take our land to drill oil?” Tommy calmly explains that the man purchased the land from someone who had previously sold the mineral rights. All he is there to do is negotiate a lease for the surface rights to put in a road and set up the drills.

After some fascinating exposition, Tommy explains that the oil company is bigger than this man’s drug business. Tommy says, “We are the same. Your customers are dependent upon your product, and so are mine.” He threatens that if they don’t cooperate, he will see to it that the DEA sets up a substation on the property, and/or the oil company will hire mercenaries to eliminate them all. The company will pay them for a lease to the surface rights as well as reparations for any damage that is done to the land.

After escaping with the signed lease and his life, Tommy has a voiceover narration that explains how massive the oil industry is. He then comments, “You gotta secure the rights and lock up the surface. Then babysit the owners, babysit the crews. Then manage the police and the press when the babies refuse to be sat. That’s my job. Secure the lease, then manage the people. First part’s pretty simple. It’s the second part that can get you killed.”

Really? This guy was just tied up and about to be killed by a bunch of cartel bad guys, and that was the simple part of the job?

After two episodes, one starts to understand he was right. We see Tommy managing one crisis after another, and most of them are deadly.

The action sequences, special effects, and stunts are top-notch. They must’ve had a massive budget for the series. Thornton creates a memorable character, as always. We have memorable supporting roles: Ali Larter as Tommy’s ex-wife, Jon Hamm as the head of the oil company, and a cameo by Demi Moore as his wife.

I’m giving this one a very strong “I Really Like It.” I can’t wait for the remaining episodes. Very highly recommended.

Let’s do a brief recap of all 31 series we have reviewed in the order in which they premiered.

Fox animation “Universal Basic Guys” rated “Worthless.”

ABC police procedural “High Potential” rated “I’m Watching It.”

Disney+ Marvel series “Agatha All Along” rated ”I’m Watching It.”

HBO/Max “The Penguin” rated a strong “I Really Like It,” and after seeing all 10 episodes, I can almost upgrade this to “Must See.” Destined for multiple Emmy nominations and hopefully several wins. Again, this is a gangster movie, not a comic book movie. I think anyone would like it.

CBS/Paramount+ legal drama “Matlock” starring Kathy Bates rated “I Really Like It.”

Fox drama “Rescue Hi-Surf “ rated strong “Skip It.”

NBC medical drama “Brilliant Minds” rated very weak “Could Be Watchable.”

Fox police procedural “Murder in a Small Town” rated “Skip It.”

FX/Hulu horror series “Grotesquerie” rated “Skip It.”

ABC cruise ship romantic comedy “Doctor Odyssey” rated “Skip It.”

CBS/Paramount+ reality competition “The Summit” rated “I Really Like It.”

CW network crime drama “Joan” rated a weak “I’m Watching It” or “Could Be Watchable.”

CW game shows “Trivial Pursuit” and “Scrabble” rated “Skip It.”

Amazon Prime spy drama “Citadel” rated “I Really Like It.” Italian spinoff “Citadel: Diana” rated a weak “I’m Watching It.” East Indian spinoff “Citade: Honey Bunny” rated strong “I’m Watching It.”

Peacock horror series “Teacup” rated strong “Skip It.”

Apple TV+ revenge drama “Disclaimer” rated strong “I Really Like It.”

Max CGI animated children’s show Barney’s World rated “Recommended Watchable” for its target audience.

CBS/Paramount+ crime procedural “NCIS: Origins” rated “I’m Watching It.”

CW reality show “The Wranglers” rated “Skip It.”

Amazon Prime game show “Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity” rated “Skip It.”

CBS/Paramount+ sitcom “George and Mandy’s First Marriage” rated “Could be Watchable.”

NBC sitcom “Happy’s Place” starring Reba McIntyre, rated “Could Be Watchable.”

CBS sitcom “Poppa’s House” starring Damon Wayans, Sr. and Jr., rated “Could Be Watchable.”

Apple TV+ drama “Before” starring Billy Crystal rated “Skip It.”

Disney Channel tween sitcom “Wizards Beyond Waverley Place” rated “Recommended Watchable” for its target demographic.

Peacock thriller “Day of the Jackal” rated “I Really Like It.”

NBC/Peacock sitcom “St. Denis Medical” rated “Skip It.”

Amazon Prime crime thriller “Cross”, based on James Patterson’s novels, rated “I Really Like It.”

Finally, Paramount+ drama “Landman” starring Billy Bob Thornton rated “I Really Like It.”

So that’s it with all my reviews. I’m not sure where we go from here. It will probably be more about the aftereffects of having to quit work for health reasons and the establishment of my work-from-home software business. Then, early next year, it will be Oscar season again. There will be more prime-time shows in January, but I don’t know if I will do this again.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

This week, we have the first part of a two-part episode in which I review more new TV shows. The final part will be available in a few days.

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to a special episode of Contemplating Life.

Back in Episode 75, I set myself the goal of writing a brief review of every new TV show that premiered from September through November this year. I accumulated a list of 31 shows. I did several of them in episode 75 and intended to do a review episode every other week until I was done. But I got on a roll with writing my regular autobiographical podcast, and some of the TV shows were so good I had to binge-watch the entire season. So, I’m just now getting around to finishing up the remaining reviews. I should probably split this into two episodes, but I’m just going to make a really long one since it probably won’t come out on time. I apologize in advance for the length.

I was going to make this one big long episode, but after doing some editing I realized it was just too long. So, we are going to split this into Parts A and B. Here is Part A.

Unfortunately, many of the shows will receive my lowest two ratings of “Skip It” or “Worthless.” But there are some that I’m going to highly recommend. So, let’s get rid of a bunch of the stinkers first.

For some reason, I’ve never been a big fan of Fox’s Sunday evening animation. I’ve probably only seen one or two episodes of “The Simpsons.” I appreciate that it is highly popular. It has run for 36 seasons and earned 37 Primetime Emmy Awards, but for some reason, it never appealed to me. I know that other Fox animated series have been popular as well, most notably “Family Guy,” but I’ve never seen it. So, I’m probably not well-qualified to be objective about the newest entry in the lineup, “Universal Basic Guys.”

The premise is that a bunch of guys got laid off from work, and as severance, they were awarded guaranteed universal basic income. Other than the title and an opening sequence explaining that premise, the concept of UBI never came up in the first episode. It seems that it’s just a gimmick to explain a bunch of guys who sit around with nothing to do all day except come up with harebrained schemes. In the first episode, our lead character, Hank, tries to do his wife a favor. She is upset that the local country club does not admit women, and she wants to play golf there. He cooks up a scheme to get admitted to the club to try to get her access. It turns out that the members’ wives want to keep the club male only to keep their husbands occupied so that they can pursue more important feminist agendas. It’s not very funny. It doesn’t work as social commentary. I’m sure that other Fox animated series are more entertaining. We’re giving this one a big fat “Worthless” rating.

I’m similarly unqualified to be objective about the next entry from Fox – “Rescue: Hi-Surf.” This is a basic ripoff of “Baywatch” set in Hawaii. It follows the lives of a bunch of lifeguards who cover the beaches of the North Shore and rescue people in trouble in the high surf. While the action sequences of rescues are well done and exciting, you can’t help but feel it’s going to be the same thing week after week. How many different ways can a surfer get in trouble and be rescued? The characters are thinly drawn. The only plot is a politician who holds the pursestrings over the program insisting that his son be hired as a lifeguard. Wow. How compelling…No, not really. If you’re desperate to see beautiful people running around in bathing suits, go watch the new ABC series “Doctor Odyssey,” which we gave a bad review of last time. It’s not any good either, but it’s better than this. I’m giving this a strong “Skip It” bordering on “Worthless.”

I hate to trash Fox continually, but I also give the new procedural “Murder in a Small Town” a hard pass. The title tells you everything you need to know. I watched the opening episode about a week ago, and I’ve already forgotten what it was about. They solved the murder, so there will be a new case every week. There is nothing to see here. Again, I rate it “Skip it,” bordering on “Worthless.”

Let’s take a quick look at several new game shows. The CW network offers “Trivial Pursuit,” hosted by LeVar Burton, who was recently rejected as a possible host of “Jeopardy!” I had no problem with his ability to host the iconic game show, even though I really like Ken Jennings, who is the new permanent host. I have no problem with Burton hosting this show. But this show is extremely boring. The pace is too slow, and the questions are either trivially easy or ridiculously difficult. Rating it strong “Skip It.”

I was even less impressed by CW’s other adaptation of the board game “Scrabble.” While I enjoy playing the game, watching other people play it is incredibly boring. You’ll never find yourself saying, “They played the wrong word! They could’ve scored higher if they’d spelled something else.” Host Raven-Symoné is adequate but brings nothing interesting. Another strong rating of “Skip It.”

Only slightly less boring is Amazon Prime’s “Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity.” While I generally enjoyed the original “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader,” this spinoff, which uses adult celebrity helpers rather than fifth-grade children, lacks all of the charm of the original. It might be better if they used celebrity kids to help adult contestants rather than adult celebrities helping adult contestants. The format is identical to the original “5th Grader” game. Contestants answer questions ranging from first through fifth-grade levels. Host Travis Kelce brings nothing interesting to the effort. I doubt that his relationship with Taylor Swift will draw viewers to this show, even though she vastly increased the viewership of Kansas City Chiefs NFL games. Unless she shows up as one of the celebrity helpers, I doubt the Swiftlies will tune in. Kelce lacks the charm and humor of original “5th-grader” host Jeff Foxworthy.

Speaking of Kelce, he is a better game show host than an actor. He has a minor part in the Hulu series “Grotesquerie,” but his performance was grossly inadequate and amateurish.

So, let’s talk about “Grotesquerie.”

I’m not a huge fan of the horror genre, but this one caught my attention from the beginning, and I had high hopes for it. It stars Niecy Nash as Detective Lois Tryon, who is trying to solve a series of bizarre homicides in which the killer leaves the bodies staged in bizarre tableaus filled with religious symbolism. She is accompanied by a young nun who is a reporter for a Catholic newspaper and website. Her true crime articles about this bizarre serial killer not only increase the readership of her website but also boost attendance at local churches. This show is highly reminiscent of the NBC series “Hannibal,” which ran for 39 episodes from 2013-2015. That series covered the early days of the killing career of iconic character Dr. Hannibal Lecter, brilliantly portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen. I really enjoyed “Hannibal” and was ready to declare this a worthy successor.

This is a compelling mystery with excellently written episodes and deeply drawn characters with despicable flaws. With the exception of Travis Kelce, there are quality performances throughout.

I found “Grotesquerie” so disturbing I actually had a nightmare about it.

Throughout the first 6 1/2 episodes of the series, I wondered if there was going to be a supernatural component to this story. The series was co-created by Ryan Murphy, who is known for his excellent series “American Horror Story,” so it would not surprise me if there were a supernatural plot element. I’ve only seen 8 of the 12 seasons of “American Horror Story,” but my favorite was season 7, which contained absolutely no supernatural elements. Often, real life can be more terrifying than demons and witches.

Episode 7 of “Grotesquerie” introduces a plot twist that completely upends the entire story. By the end of the series, in episode 10, you will be totally confused. Although I think I understand “what really happened,” the entire thing was such a disappointment that it left a really bad taste in my mouth. It turns out to be another version of a horror trope that I’ve never liked in any of its other implementations, and this one did nothing to change my opinion. I won’t spoil it by telling you what trope I’m talking about.

Had I written this review prior to episode 7, I would have given it a strong “I’m watching it” rating. But all I can say at this point is that I watched it, and I’m not sure it was worth the time. Your mileage may vary. Let’s officially downgrade this to “Skip It.”

By the way, I love a good plot twist. But when the twist reveals that the story is deliberately deceiving the audience rather than just setting up a mystery or a big reveal, I cannot help but feel betrayed. While we are on the topic of betraying the audience, I want to talk briefly about the 2022 Netflix film “On the Line” starring Mel Gibson. By the way, I’ve always been able to separate the art from the artist, so no matter how I feel about him as a person, I’ve always been able to enjoy his work both as a director and actor. He gives a quality performance in this deeply flawed film.

Gibson plays a late-night radio talk show host that takes phone calls from listeners. Someone calls in, claiming to have kidnapped his wife and daughter. We eventually learn that he is holding them in the office building where the radio studio is located. Gibson and a new employee who runs the control room start searching the empty office building. Along the way, they find the bad guy has killed a security guard and a janitor.

As the show reaches its climax, there is a plot twist that will leave you extremely angry. I won’t hint at what it is. Just when you are about to forgive them for tricking you with this ridiculous twist, and you think the movie is back on track, there is another twist guaranteed to piss you off again. I tried to explain these twists away, saying that the characters in the film were heartless people who toy with each other’s emotions, but ultimately, the real victim is you, the audience, that is toyed with throughout the film.

Going back to the horror genre for a moment and back to our TV reviews, we have the Peacock TV series “Teacup.” It is described as a horror sci-fi thriller in which a group of neighbors who are trapped on a farm in rural Georgia must put aside their differences and unite in the face of a mysterious and deadly threat. It stars Yvonne Strahovski, who was recently seen as one of the villains in “A Handmaid’s Tale” and Scott Speedman, who is known for playing Dr. Nick Marsh on “Gray’s Anatomy” for 37 episodes.

Somehow, I managed to struggle through the first episode, but it took me multiple attempts. I’m hoping that because IMDb described it as sci-fi, it’s some sort of alien invasion rather than demonic possession, but I couldn’t get far enough into the show to find out even the basic premise. That description, which says these people are trapped on a farm, like a bug trapped under a teacup, presumably, only becomes apparent early in the second episode, which I couldn’t stand watching. I will be generous and rate it a solid “Skip It” rather than “Worthless” because there is the tiniest possibility it could get better. It runs just eight episodes, so maybe if you have more patience than I do, you can figure it out. But the pacing is so slow that it is unbearable, and I just couldn’t stand it.

While I enjoy reality competition shows like “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race,” I’ve never been a fan of so-called reality shows like “Real Housewives” or Kardashians. CW network has a new series described as a “Documentary charting the lives of ranch employees in Montana, navigating personal relationships and work duties at the Circle Bar Dude Ranch.” This has to be the most phony “reality” show I’ve ever seen. In case you are unaware, a “dude ranch” is where city slickers go on vacation to experience allegedly authentic cowboy life. The casts of wranglers, ranch managers, and other staff are about 60% female. While that is commendable, it could hardly be considered an authentic representation of classic cowboy life. The job of head wrangler is open so the staff is going to be competing for the new position. The previews hint that there are going to be romantic entanglements among the staff. The whole thing simply wreaks of fake situations created by the producers. Let’s call this a strong “Skip It” unless you are the kind of person who would go to a dude ranch but can’t afford it.

That wraps up most of the really bad ones. Let’s move on to something slightly more interesting. The CW network has a new series called Joan, based on the real-life exploits of British thief Joan Harrington, who was known in some circles as the “Godmother.”

It stars Sophie Turner, best known for playing Sansa Stark in “Game of Thrones,” and Frank Dillane, who played Nick Clark in 44 episodes of “Fear the Walking Dead.”

Turner plays Joan, an ordinary British housewife whose boyfriend is a small-time criminal. Fearing for her daughter’s safety, she turns the girl into Child Protective Services, telling them that she is homeless and cannot care for her daughter. She gets a job working in a jewelry store and has the opportunity to make off with a handful of diamonds. She tries to sell the diamonds to an antique dealer named Boisie, played by Dillane. They fall in love and begin working on bigger jobs.

We are supposed to sympathize with Joan, who is turning to a life of crime to establish herself financially and get her daughter back from authorities. Personally, I don’t feel that much sympathy for her. Had she made some smarter choices and stayed legitimate, she would’ve had a better chance of getting her daughter back. But now, enjoying the fruits of a life of crime seems to be more of a motivating factor than regaining custody of her daughter.

I’ve seen three of the six episodes, and so far, I’m giving it a week rating of “I’m Watching,” but I’m doing so more out of curiosity to see what happens than because it’s a compelling story, which it is not.

Let’s look at some sitcoms. Maybe we can find something to laugh about there.

NBC/PeacockTV brings us “St. Denis Medical.” I’ve never been a big fan of the “mock documentary” format in which the story is interrupted by the characters talking to an unseen interviewer. It worked for “Modern Family,” but I’ve never cared for any of the other uses of this gimmick, such as “The Office.” It’s not just the format that stinks here. Sadly, this works much better as a drama than it does a comedy. I’m not talking about the kind of mix of comedy and drama we saw in a series like “M*A*S*H,” which could get uproariously silly, but then there would be a poignant moment to reflect the dire circumstances of the setting. The show tries to be funny, but it isn’t. When it goes for poignant, it almost works, but it fails so miserably at the comedy that is not worth waiting for the touching parts. I’m giving this one a strong “Skip It.”

CBS/Paramount+ brings us “George and Mandy’s First Marriage.” It is a spinoff from “Young Sheldon,” which is, in turn, a spinoff from “The Big Bang Theory.” I never missed a single episode of BBT, and I must admit I’m about a season and a half behind on “Sheldon,” but I have been catching up. In this series, Montana Jordan reprises his role as George Cooper, big brother to Sheldon. His wife, Mandy, is played by Emily Osment, who appeared in 39 episodes of “Young Sheldon.” I don’t particularly recall her because George had lots of girlfriends in the series. And as I mentioned, I’m way behind.

My guess is that there was an episode of “Sheldon” that served as a pilot for this series. It seems to hit the ground running, assuming that you already know that the young couple is living with her parents. Mandy has such a difficult relationship with her mother that, at first, I wasn’t sure it really was her mother but perhaps a stepmom. In the opening episode, after a feud with her mom, in which her mother questions George’s intelligence, the couple moves out and tries to make it on their own. By the end of the episode, they make up and move back in with her parents.

My number one criterion for a sitcom is that it has to make me laugh. I may have chuckled once or twice, but I can’t remember at what. We will be generous and call this one “Could Be Watchable.” However, given that I am a huge fan of the parent shows from which this spinoff was created, I’m severely disappointed. I would have rather seen a spinoff series with Sheldon’s sister, Missy.

NBC is keeping Reba McIntyre busy these days. In addition to her role as a coach/mentor on “The Voice,” she returns to scripted television and a new sitcom called “Happy’s Place.” In this series, she plays Bobby, a woman who just inherited a diner from her father, who had the nickname “Happy.” As she is trying to manage the restaurant while dealing with the loss of her father, she discovers she has a half-sister she never knew about who is now co-owner of the facility.

The character McIntyre is playing has the exact same perky personality as her own, so there is no acting stretch involved here at all. I never saw her previous self-titled sitcom, so I can’t really compare this, but if you were expecting anything different, you won’t find it here.

If I laughed, I don’t recall at what, but I will be generous and give this one a weak “Could Be Watchable.” But it’s not for me.

A slightly better choice if you’re looking for a new sitcom might be “Poppa’s House.” Damon Wayans plays Damon “Poppa” Fulton, who is a radio personality. He is forced to take on a female psychologist as a new sidekick on his popular show to attract a more diverse audience. At home, he deals with his son Damon Jr., played by Damon Wayans Jr. Was the writing team so untalented that they couldn’t even come up with a fictitious first name for these characters, or were the Wayans such bad actors they couldn’t remember to refer to one another by the character names consistently? Draw your own conclusions.

That said, the show did have some laughs. Both stars have proven their comedic talents in other vehicles, and you can see them shine in this open-ended situation, which essentially lets them play themselves. I will give this one a stronger “Could Be Watchable,” but I don’t have room for it in my busy viewing schedule. You might want to check it out and see if it appeals to you.

The only other comedy that has potential is Disney Channel’s “Wizards Beyond Waverley Place.” As best I can tell, this is a spinoff of “Wizards of Waverly Place,” which ran for 106 episodes from 2007- 2012. I’ve never seen the original. David Hernie reprises his role as Justin Russo, who, in this series, has decided to give up his wizardly powers and live the normal life of a mortal. His wife and children have no idea about his magical past.

Life gets turned upside down when his sister Alex, played by Selena Gomez, brings him a young girl named Billy, who is a wizard in training. Apparently, Justin was a teacher at a wizard school in the previous series. Billy conjures up a silly monster to impress Justin’s children and then can’t figure out how to put it back from wherever it came from.

Although the kids now know that Billy is a wizard, they remain clueless about their father’s abilities, as does his wife.

This Disney Channel series is clearly aimed at a younger audience, and I think it will do well with them and fans of the original series. It shows lots of potential. Let’s call this one “Recommended Watchable,” which means if you like this kind of thing, I can highly recommend it, but personally, I will not be watching.

While we’re on the topic of watchable kid’s shows, Max streaming has a CGI animated kids’ show called “Barney’s World” featuring the iconic purple dinosaur. As I understand it, only kids can see him, and he has the ability to transport them to fantasy situations that only they can experience. The show is full of positive life lessons about being responsible, cooperative, and helpful, along with a dose of positive vibes about diversity. If you are anti-woke, then you are probably out protesting this show right now. But for reasonable parents, the show is completely harmless and quite positive. Obviously, it’s not for me, but we will call this one “Recommended Watchable” for your toddlers.

That’s going to wrap up for Part A of this two-part episode. Give me a couple of days to edit Part B, which will be coming very soon.

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I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.

This week, we have a special episode where I review six new TV shows and one movie that have recently premiered.

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to a special episode of Contemplating Life.

Years ago, I used to write an entertainment blog in which I would post non-gossip entertainment news. That is, I didn’t care who was sleeping with whom. I didn’t care who got divorced or broken up or got married or got arrested for something. I simply covered things like what new TV shows were being released, what new movies were in production, what was being canceled, who was going to guest star, etc. I also did movie and TV reviews. Obviously, I couldn’t see every new movie. I did attempt to watch at least one episode of every new TV show in the new fall and midseason to review it.

Unfortunately, I got busy, and some of my favorite web sources quit putting their content on an RSS feed. This made it hard for me to keep up with the latest news. Although the broadcast networks still release new shows in the fall and some midseason premieres, streaming services release new shows all the time, and there are just too many to keep up with. For example, I just finished binge-watching three seasons of the hit show Ted Lasso on Apple TV+, even though it was highly recommended to me by many people and won 13 Emmys. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. It’s still streaming on Apple TV+ and is available for purchase on Blu-ray.

But that’s not why I’m here.

It’s been almost exactly two years since I last did an entertainment blog. Rather than go back to blogging reviews, I thought we would try some TV reviews for this podcast. Once again, I will attempt to watch and review every new series this fall season. I can’t promise you I will get through all of them, but we are going to give it a good attempt.

I will try to keep spoilers minimal, but I cannot make promises. I will give you a warning when I spoil.

In my old entertainment blog, I had my own system of ranking shows. Before we begin, I want to explain my system.

The worst rating was “Worthless.” Shows with this rating were so bad I didn’t even bother writing a complete review.

Only slightly better than that is a rating of “Skip It.” This is a bad show, and I will explain in detail why.

Next is “Could Be Watchable.” That means it’s not so bad that I’m telling you to skip it. On the other hand, either I wasn’t impressed or perhaps the jury was still out. I may have to watch another episode or two to decide. Some shows rated “Could Be Watchable” turned out okay, and I did add them to my viewing schedule. However, I usually drop such shows unless they get better.

Our next category is “I’m Watching.” This means the show may not be a must-see, highly recommended, wonderful show, but it’s good enough to hold my interest. Sometimes, it’s a type of guilty pleasure show that I like, even if it isn’t top-notch entertainment.

Our next category is “Recommended Watchable.” This is sort of equivalent to “I’m Watching” in that it’s good enough for me to watch but not so good that I would bump something out of my busy viewing schedule. You should consider it a mild endorsement, but I just don’t have space in my life for it. Check it out and see if it’s for you. You might like it.

Next is “I really like it.” I highly recommend it. I thoroughly enjoyed it and think you will too. It’s good for general audiences, not just sci-fi or comic book genre fans like myself. Count “Ted Lasso” in this category.

My top rating is “Must See.” This is extraordinary television that is above and beyond the average fair. It is destiny to become a classic. It works on every level. Great writing, acting, and directing make it sure to be an award winner. It is landmark television.

Now that we have that out of the way let’s get on with the reviews.

First on our agenda are a pair of spinoff shows set in comic book universes. One is set firmly in that fantasy world, while the other is quite realistic.

Let’s do fantasy first.

“Agatha All Along” is a sequel to the Marvel TV series “WandaVision” from Disney+ streaming. “WandaVision” was a surreal series about the Marvel character Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch. I can’t set up the premise of this new series without spoiling part of the plot “WandaVision.” I also cannot discuss this new series without spoiling something from the opening episode. Sorry about that.

In “WandaVision,” Wanda was trapped in a spell that made her believe she was a sitcom character. In each episode, she occupied a different style of sitcom ranging from a 60s black-and-white homage to shows such as “The Dick Van Dyke Show” up to more modern sitcoms.

Ultimately, we discovered that the villain in the series was an evil witch named Agatha Harkness. The big reveal in the final episode was, “It was Agatha all along.” Thus, we get the name of this new series. At the end of the previous series, Wanda steals Agatha’s powers.

In the new series, Agatha is now a woman named Agnes, who is a homicide detective in a small town. Along the way, we discover that everything is not what it seems.

This is going to spoil a plot point, but if you’re familiar with this character from the previous series, it should come as no surprise that what appears to be reality isn’t real. I mean, let’s face it: Wanda really wasn’t a character in a variety of five or six different sitcoms set over the course of five decades. She was a powerful witch living in a warped reality. It shouldn’t surprise you that Agatha/Agnes is not really a small-town detective.

Episode two sets Agatha on a quest to recruit other witches to travel something called the Witches’ Road, at the end of which you get whatever it is you desire. Naturally, Agatha desires to get her powers back.

Catherine Hahn reprises her role as Agatha. She really shows her acting range as she credibly portrays the small-town cop in the first two-thirds of the first episode and easily transitions into the over-the-top, conniving, evil witch Agatha.

Fans of the MCU, especially fans of “WandaVision,” will love this sequel, but I’m not sure it will find a wider audience. I would recommend that you watch “WandaVision” first if you’ve not seen it. If you don’t have time or inclination to do so, I think I’ve set things up well enough that you can probably jump into this series.

I’m ranking “Agatha All Along” as “I’m watching” with the caveat that it’s definitely a comic book/fantasy genre piece that might not appeal to someone who wasn’t a fan.

Our next review is another comic book piece that I can highly recommend. I will give it a ranking of “I really like it,” and you do not need to be a genre fan to appreciate it.

We are talking about the HBO/Max series “The Penguin.” It is set in the Batman/DC comics universe and is essentially a sequel to the 2022 film “The Batman,” directed by Matt Reeves and starring Robert Pattinson. In this series, Colin Farrell reprises his role as Oswald Cobb, a.k.a. The Penguin. Neither Batman nor Bruce Wayne appears in the opening episode, and I doubt that they will make an appearance in future episodes.

This series picks up immediately after the events of the film, and although it was enjoyable for me to go back and rewatch the film one more time as a refresher, this series does a great job of setting the scene without the need to watch that film.

Two crime families have controlled Gotham: the Falcone’s and the Maroni’s. In the film before this, the Maroni crime family was broken up, and its leader, Salvatore Maroni, was jailed. This leaves the Falcone family to take over the drug trade in the city. At the film’s end, Carmine Falcone is murdered, leaving his son Alberto to try to hold his father’s empire together. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the gangster skills to do the job. Oswald sees the opportunity to get rid of Alberto and try to take over the criminal enterprise.

Falcone’s daughter Sophia, who has only recently been released from the Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, stands in the way of his plans. Oswald must find a way to avoid Sophia while avoiding getting caught by the police or either of the city’s criminal organizations.

Farrell gives a highly nuanced performance in this well-written character. We see how his mother manipulates him to become a powerful man despite his clubfoot, which causes a severe, penguin-like waddling gait. State-of-the-art prosthetic makeup completely obliterates Colin Farrell, and if you didn’t know that he was playing the part, you might have never guessed. Even if you do know it’s him, only in the eyes can we perhaps recognize the famous character actor who has previously won Golden Globe awards and an Oscar nomination. Certainly, he will add an Emmy nomination to his resume and perhaps a win this year for this role.

Along the way, he recruits a young black man named Victor as his assistant. Initially, he was going to have a young man help him dispose of a body and then kill him. However, when Victor begs for his life, Oz decides to give the kid a chance. They both grew up in the same neighborhood. Victor’s home was destroyed by a flood caused by the Riddler at the end of the Batman film. We explore Oswald’s character through Victor’s eyes. Victor is played by actor Rhenzy Feliz, who you might recall from the Marvel TV series Runaways, which I greatly enjoyed.

Sophia is brilliantly portrayed by Cristin Milioti, who gives a chilling performance as the heir to the Falcone family, who was recently released from an asylum. She will make a worthy adversary to the Penguin.

Overall, you don’t feel like you’re watching a comic book story. These are realistically drawn characters that could’ve appeared in a mainstream gangster movie by Martin Scorsese. There is none of the over-the-top theatrics that we come to expect from comic book villains.

As I said earlier, I’m rating this one as “I really like it,” and I highly recommend you check it out. It will run for eight weekly episodes, with new episodes premiering Sunday night on HBO. It will also be available for streaming on Max.

We will take a brief look at a pair of medical shows. It was with much anticipation that I watched “Brilliant Minds” on NBC, starring Zachary Quinto. Quinto is famous for playing Mr. Spock in the 2009 JJ Abrams reboot of the Star Trek franchise. Now playing a doctor in this NBC drama, it’s difficult not to refer to him as Doctor Spock. And if you know who that is, your back hurts.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure there are any brilliant minds in the writers’ room of “Brilliant Minds.” Quinto plays Doctor Oliver Wolf, a brilliant but unorthodox neurologist. In the opening scene, he helps an Alzheimer’s patient escape from the hospital to attend his granddaughter’s wedding. Although he helps the man come out of his zombielike state and recognize his granddaughter briefly, you know that afterward, the patient won’t remember anything. While we can feel some empathy towards the patient and sympathize with the doctor’s intent to give the man a happy moment in his otherwise empty life, the fact that he took a nearly catatonic patient on an adventure by having the man right on the back of a motorcycle stretches credibility. He is fired from his position.

We see him as a reclusive man who tends to his plants and keeps his nose in a book. A friend of his recruits into a new position at Bronx General, but he declines, saying, “You know why I can’t work there.” By the time the reason is revealed in the final scene of the opening episode, I already had it figured out.

Wolf struggles with a neurological condition called “face blindness.” It makes a person unable to recognize people’s faces. In the first episode, his first patient at his new job also struggles with a cognitive condition in which she doesn’t recognize her own children and thinks that they have been kidnapped and replaced by substitutes. In finding a solution to her problem, he’s forced to confront his own condition, which he keeps secret from everyone except the colleague who got him his new job.

In the new job, he is surrounded by four interns who he is forced to supervise even though he prefers to work alone. They have varying degrees of enthusiasm about working with a brilliant yet radically unlikable boss.

There’s nothing original here. If you want to watch a show about a neuro-atypical doctor, I recommend you go watch “The Good Doctor,” which has more compelling characters than this series.

I’m rating this one as very weak: “Could Be Watchable,” leaning strongly towards “Skip It.” There are much better medical dramas available than this. It appears on Monday nights on NBC and is available to stream on Peacock TV.

Unfortunately, among those better medical dramas is not the new ABC series “Doctor Odyssey.” Picture this: Someone walks into a TV executive office with a great pitch for a new serious. Imagine it. It’s a cross between Grey’s Anatomy and The Love Boat. The executive buys it on the spot without seeing a single script. I don’t know for a fact that this happened, but it sure looks that way.

The story follows Doctor Max, a newly hired ship’s Doctor on a luxury cruise liner called “The Odyssey.” He is played by Joshua Jackson, known for his roles in “Dawson’s Creek” and “Fringe.” He works with a pair of experienced ship medical nurses. Avery Morgan, played by Philippa Soo, is an attractive young nurse practitioner. She is accompanied by Triston Silva, a hot young Latino nurse and a ladies’ man who is secretly in love with Avery.

The ship’s captain is played by an aging Don Johnson, who gives long discourses about his commitment to creating a fantasy paradise for the passengers. He tries and fails to have the same charisma and mystery as Mr. Rourke from “Fantasy Island.” Again, if you know what “Fantasy Island” is, your back hurts.

Like most medical shows, it’s populated with realistic yet undistinguishable-sounding medical jargon as they treat their patients miles from the nearest hospital in a state-of-the-art sick bay. Unfortunately, whoever advised them on the medical jargon knows nothing about tracheostomy tubes. They inserted a trach into a patient, and he was still able to talk without a speaking valve. Technically, it is possible to do so with a partially inflated cuff. There was no sign of a cuff inflation balloon on the trach prop they were using.

It’s populated by beautiful people running around in skimpy bathing suits and partying constantly.

The characters are mildly interesting in the medical situations run from a serious man overboard rescue to a more comical man with a fractured penis and some food poisoning along the way.

If you are desperate for a new medical show with eye-candy characters and light humor and romance, then you might find this a guilty pleasure, but for the most part, I will have to say, “Skip It.”

We wrap up this episode with a pair of episodes that I can recommend.

First, we have the new CBS series, “Matlock,” which stars Kathy Bates as the title character. This isn’t exactly a reimagining of the original series. In the opening scene, she explains her name.

“I’m Matty, informally. Formally, Madeline Matlock. Yes, Matlock like the old TV show, which was all I heard between 1984 and 1992. “You’re a lawyer like Matlock. You’re a lawyer like Matlock.” And every time I’d correct ’em, “No, he’s just pretending. You know, I’m a real lawyer.” But, you know, you can only protest so much before you sound like you got a big old pole up your heinie, so I just let ’em have it, and I just said, “Yeah, well, yeah, I’m a lawyer just like Matlock.”

She makes this explanation after sneaking into a partner meeting of a large, prestigious law firm. She has been trying to get a job interview, but the firm is not interested in hiring a septuagenarian lawyer who hasn’t practiced for 30 years. She explained that she had put herself in a position to overhear a conversation with a lawyer on the opposite side of one of their cases and learned that they would accept a settlement of $4 million greater than their current offer. Because she just made the firm $4 million, they agreed to hire her on a two-week probationary basis.

She is assigned to work with partner Olympia Lawrence, played by Skye P. Marshall. Olympia is unhappy having her on her team but accepts her help because it is the only way to prevent the law firm from dropping her case. She is defending a woman who was wrongly accused of a crime and framed by corrupt, racist police.

Olympia is divorcing one of the other partners, Julian, who is played by Jason Ritter. Olivia sends Matlock the impossible task of getting Julian to give up Thanksgiving weekend with the child even though it’s his turn.

Matlock has some missteps along the way that nearly cost them the case, but it’s not much of a spoiler to say that it all works out in the end.

Bates gives a memorable performance as a quirky, down-home, “awe-shucks,” 70-something-year-old lawyer.

The closing scene contains a gigantic plot twist that reveals a running plot line throughout the series that you will not see coming. I will make no attempt to hint at what it is. All I can say is that even without this new continuing plotline to keep you coming back, I think the show is worth watching. The big secret plot is just icing on the cake.

I’m rating it “I Really Like It.” I suggest you check it out. Kathy Bates should be enough to get you to watch this, and the character they’ve written for her makes full use of her talent.

Our final new series is the ABC crime procedural “High Potential,” the title of which is an appropriate description of my opinion. The show has potential, but it remains to be seen if it will live up to it.

The series stars Kaitlin Olson as Morgan Gillory, a single mom who works nights cleaning a police station. In the opening scene, she is dancing around the office, listening to music while she works, and accidentally knocking over a stack of case files. As she picks up the files, she can’t help but see some crime scene photos that catch her eye. She then walks up to the murder board, where there is a photo of the murder victim’s wife. She crosses out the word “suspect” and writes in “victim.”

The next day, when the detectives discover that the board has been changed, they review the surveillance video to find out that the cleaning lady did it. They bring her in and threaten to charge her with obstructing an investigation. They ask why she did it, and she explains her theory of the case. Her argument is so compelling they decide to pursue her theory.

As you might guess, she was right. By the end of the episode, they offer her a job as a consultant.

I’ve always been skeptical of the outside police consultant sub-genre, which traces its origins to Edgar Allen Poe’s 1841 character C. Auguste Dupin in his short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” 46 years before Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.

On TV, we have had a wide variety of consulting detectives in shows such as Castle, The Mentalist, Elementary (which is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes), Psych, and Monk.

While it’s fascinating to think that there are people with such keen observation powers that they can see things that even the most highly trained detectives might miss, the entire premise of this entire genre is complete fantasy. In 2018, I wrote a review of a similar series, Carter, which I described as the worst ever such show. In that review, I expressed my dismay that the entire concept of consultant detective was a giant fiction with no basis in reality. I wish I knew someone in law enforcement who could verify for me that since things never take place.

Since then, I have spoken to at least three people who are familiar with real-life police work, and they assure me that they have never heard of a so-called “consulting detective” in their departments’ history. At best, a prosecutor might hire an expert witness to testify about evidence, but no outsiders ever participate in the actual investigations.

Along the way, we learn that Morgan is a bit of a savant with an IQ of 160. She can crunch numbers in her head faster than a calculator. So, her innate ability to observe what others have missed isn’t her only gift.

While it would be easy to dismiss this as yet another well-worn, unrealistic trope, something is compelling about these characters. If you enjoyed “Monk,” then consider this as potentially a reimagination of that series with a female hero.

I’m giving it a weak “I’m Watching It,” but it borders on “Could Be Watchable.” The jury is still out, but I liked the first episode for the same reasons I enjoyed Monk years ago. You might want to check it out and see for yourself. After a sneak preview episode, where episodes begin October 8 on ABC and streaming on Hulu.

One more quick review. If you subscribe to Apple TV+, check out the new movie, “Wolves,” starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, who portray the guys you call when you need to dispose of a dead body and make it look like it never happened. Through a contrived set of circumstances, these lone wolves are both called in to clean up the dead body of the young man who was accidentally killed in the hotel room of a female district attorney. They are forced to work together even though they prefer working alone.

It’s everything you would want from these two actors in a quirky comedy with some pretty good action sequences along the way. Highly recommended.

There are still more TV series in the coming days, and I will have another special episode to review them.

If you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support. Please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.