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Top Comments: Things I Am Streaming 2022 Part I Edition [1]

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Date: 2022-12-13

Not what you thought I meant for the picture.

While I have not cut the cord, I do most of my television and movie watching on the various streaming platforms we have. We pay for a few outright either through our cable bill or not; a few more come with our wireless phone plan; and a couple came free with our smart television. All-in-all, we have quite a few options for watching entertainment. This is going to be a list with a short description of things I watched throughout the year which I enjoyed.

One category of watched items are things I have previously seen which I use to for watching when I am not able to fully pay attention to the screen. These are shows I have not seen in many years or shows I have only seen in syndication. I have always hated watching shows in syndication reruns because most shows have been heavily edited as the amount of time devoted to commercials increases.

This year has been a big year for David E. Kelly shows for me. I watched the entire run of Pickett Fences, a show I have not seen since it went of the air 25 years ago. Pickett Fences is about a fictional small suburban town of Rome, Wisconsin. I remembered the many bizarre plot lines which included a notorious dancing bank robber who became mayor as part of her community service sentence. another mayor spontaneously combusting (mayors had a particularly bad run on the show), people ending up dead in freezers and cows being used for surrogacy of human embryos. What I had forgotten about were the many political plot lines such as school integration, constitutional rights, abortion, polygamy, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, transgender issues among many others. The show also dealt with topics such masturbation, fetishism, end-of-life care. Quite a wide range of important topics for a show that aired in the early 90s. Back in those days, shows were regularly cancelled abruptly even ones running multiple seasons giving them no opportunity to wrap up the story lines. This was one such show. Had this happened today, it’s likely the show would have been picked up by some streaming platform for a final season to wrap it up as it was a multiple Emmy winning show and reasonably popular.

I am also re-watching Boston Legal after re-watching The Practice last year. I remember a lot about that show especially it’s heavy emphasis on the relevant political topics of the second Bush Administration through Alan Shore, played by James Spader, who was the liberal voice and Denny Crane, played William Shatner, who was the conservative voice. The show famously used lawyer summations to pontificate on the relevant topics of the day whether it be guns, the Iraq war, racism, Mad Cow disease (who remembers that?). One the things I loved about the show is the numerous digs at ABC for constantly moving the show’s time slot. I am not sure how they got away with it, but I am glad they did.

As for what I am watching that is new to me, I have been focused on shows with mystery plot lines both in foreign languages and English. One show I binged the entire series this year is Elite, a show about high school kids in which every season begins with some sort of crime having taken place. It’s a Spanish language show with a school based in Madrid. Every season begins with the crime and then goes and plays out the plot from the beginning. There’s a lot of sex, drugs and alcohol and a bunch of misdirection leaving you guessing until the final episode. Weirdly, the one class they show the kids when in school is English class, but rarely does anyone actually speak English.

I am currently watching a show called Alice in Borderland, based off a graphic novel of the same name. While it debut before Squid Game, it has a similar feel to that show. The show takes place in Tokyo where people are forced to play games to stay alive. For each game they survive, they get a playing card which are used to determine the type and difficulty of each game. The main characters are transported to a seemingly alternate world where their exists no one but the people being forced to play the games.

Also currently being watched is Big Mouth, an adult animated show. Until I watched the first episode at a friend’s house, I had no idea it existed. For those who have not seen it, Big Mouth is a show about adolescence and puberty. The show leaves nothing to the imagination, nothing. While virtually every part of the body is drawn anatomically correct, it uses the traditional 4 fingered hands of old-school animation. The show is well written and voiced by numerous well known actors sometimes as themselves like Nathan Fillion. Much of the writing includes breaking the fourth wall and, what could be termed, inside jokes referencing many popular shows both currently running and ended. They have done a couple of scenes in Monk’s Coffee Shop from Seinfeld where 4 of the characters become the Seinfeld versions of themselves. Brilliant!

I have also been watching a bunch of escape room movies where players lives are on the line. These are just filler between the heavier stuff. You have to cleanse right?

These are just some of what I have been streaming this year that I have enjoyed. I was planning to do my own Twilight Zone marathon since SYFY has killed the show with its cuts, but I will be in Atlantic City. At some point I will watch the complete show unedited for the first time. What have you enjoyed streaming this year?

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