"Well, Jane, it just goes to show you, it's always something — if it’s not one thing, it's another."
- Groundbreaking Newscaster, Roseanne Roseannadanna
TV is my happy place. It always has been. That might sound lame but I don’t care. Sometimes it feels like a lazy hobby or leisure activity, but I just don’t care. Maybe it goes back to elementary school when a class I had created an assignment for us to re-create a favorite scene from a TV show or create a script that a favorite character might perform. I chose Roseanne Roseannadanna, Gilda Radner’s letter-reading, brashly editorializing, inevitably digressing, fabulously-coiffed newscaster character on Saturday Night Live. What I wouldn’t give to see that recording or that script that I had to write and perform as a 5th or 6th grader.
Being a very serious tv watcher, I always like to have a back-up show, and I like to find one that is a multi-season, older show that I either never got a chance to watch, or just didn’t for whatever reason. Or, maybe a show I was waiting to watch either after it finished its run, or closer to the last season and I could do a binge-and-catch-up to watch the final season live. That’s how I watched some of the shows I now consider favorites: Westworld, Breaking Bad, and Better Call Saul are good examples. The Wire, The Leftovers, and Game of Thrones were shows that I never watched when they were in their initial run, but started years after - and absolutely loved. Lost is surprisingly still on that list of shows I have on my “still have to watch” list.
Since this section is new, I am still trying to figure out how I want to structure it. By show? By past or present show? Monthly? I am not sure; therefore, I have decided that I am just going to go with the flow. For this first post, I’m just going to do a roundup of what I have watched over the last couple of months. I am not sure why I am even doing it, but sometimes I just like to make lists, chat a bit about TV, get thoughts out of my head - even if it’s only to myself. Here’s what I’ve been watching for the last couple of months.
“And Just Like That” on HBO Max
I am really not sure what to say about this show. Not quite a hate-watch, maybe more of a I-will-watch-this-til-the-bitter-end-because-of-how-much-SATC-meant-to-me-at-the-time watch. Carrie is truly a terrible friend, as many critics have been saying for years, and part of me wonders each week if ChatGPT is writing actually this show. That being said, it’s still my early morning Friday watch with breakfast and coffee when its airing.
“The Gilded Age” on HBO
A fun, Sunday night watch. One that is not too intense like other HBO Sunday night shows can be, but enjoyable enough to keep on the DVR, as a fill-in, or as an anti-Sunday Scaries watch. Nascent New York City, old money fighting with new money, upstairs/downstairs dramatics, and made by the creator of Downton Abbey. What could be better on a Sunday night?
“The Bear” on Hulu
This show just blows me away. I don’t know if it’s because I know what it’s like to work in a restaurant where difficult and creative personalities arranged in a hierarchy have to work side by side to get a job done in a high-pressure, customer-focused, ego-driven, time sensitive manner, only to wipe the night clean and start fresh the next day. Maybe it’s the way I find myself holding my breath every time Carm has to find his inner courage and hoping he doesn’t fuck something up. Maybe it’s the fact that each and every character is battling their own battles outside of the restaurant and you want them all to win in their own way. Maybe it’s Will Poulter. Whatever it is, I just adore this show and can’t get enough of it.
“Too Much” on Netflix
I love this new show. I love Megan Stalter. I even am brave enough to say that I love Lena Dunham’s work. This show was a breath of fresh air, where the lead is kind of a mess, she does her own thing, which is not always the “right” thing, and she just doesn’t give up on herself or the ones she cares about. I hope it gets picked up for more seasons. (Megan is also a hoot on Hacks and I wrote about a tiny bit about my full Girls rewatch earlier this year here.)
“Dept. Q” on Netflix
It took a while to get into, but I really like Matthew Goode (Leap Year is a great movie - fight me!) so I stuck with it. It picks up after the third or fourth episode and sets itself up well for a Season 2.
“The Sinner” Seasons 2 and 3 on Netflix
I was stuck for something to watch and this is a good-enough anthology crime series about a damaged detective that is a decent filler show. There is one more season, and I had already seen and liked Season 1.
“The Resident” on Netflix
OK. This might ramble… Indulge me. I will try and keep this short, because what I wanted to say about this show has changed slightly in recent days.
I had never heard of this show when it initially ran from 2018 to 2023, probably because it was on Fox and I try and avoid watching anything on Fox except for my allowed Gordon Ramsay indulgences: MasterChef, MasterChef Junior, and Next Level Kitchen. I was scrolling around Netflix looking for a something to watch when I stumbled upon this show. I’ve always liked medical shows, and I liked the lead actor, Matt Czuchry who played a main role on another old favorite, The Good Wife, so I gave it a try.
I was immediately hooked. It was an easy watch, great characters, good storylines, and with six full seasons of TV - 107 episodes - it would keep me occupied for a while. I am actually convinced that The Pitt is actually ER+The Resident, and not just an alleged rip-off of ER). The Resident was kind of a low-key show, based in an ER, and featuring new cases and their conclusions on each episode. To me, The Pitt feels more The Resident than ER (and I was like many others ER-obsessed back in the day).
On the twelfth episode of Season 1, we are introduced to The Raptor, a brash and over-the-top confident, superstar cardiothoracic surgeon. Played by Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Dr. A.J. Austin immediately shakes up the hospital and the surgical team, especially by-the-book, kind-of-rigid but brilliant, surgical resident Dr. Mina Okafor. His presence on the show took over the minute he stepped on set. He stole every scene he was in. His charisma poured off the screen.
I don’t really know what to say about his character without going on and on. He had a fully realized character arc over the course of the six seasons he was on that you don’t see too often. He felt like the doctor you hoped to have. The colleague you hoped to have. The friend you hoped to have. The partner you hoped to have. I am guessing part of why I felt so strongly about his character is because of my recent-ish experience with cardiothoracic surgery. Every time he treated a case similar to mine it felt real to me. He became my favorite character, by all accounts was a tremendous artist and person in real life (Google the tributes to him), and I feel a great deal of sadness because now he is gone. I felt like he was an actor that I got to know years ago as Theo Huxtable, kind of forgot about, and was very recently reintroduced to him in this wonderful character, Dr. Austin. In a week where we lost Ozzy Osbourne as well, this one hit hard.
“Game of Thrones” Partial Rewatch on HBO/HBO Max
I resisted this show for a long time. I tried five different times to start it - years after it debuted, and I just couldn’t get past the fourth or fifth episode. It used to make me mad because so many people loved this show and it seemed like a show that I would really like as well. I just couldn’t get into it. Then I needed a show. So, I told myself I was going for force myself to get past that stumbling block of mid-first season and now I am so glad I did. I absolutely fucking love this show. I even love the last season - fight me, again! It’s in my all time top three, and if I am honest, I think it’s better than The Sopranos, but I just cannot relinquish The Sopranos from my all-time number one show for many reasons: creative, geographic, and nostalgic.
I’ve since rewatched GoT three or four times. The story is so vast and complex, that there’s always something that I forgot the last time I watched: a remembered or better-understood storyline or a even character that might have been forgotten that makes it feel like I am watching it for the first time. And imho, this show contains the worst, most vicious villain on all of TV ever created. Not King Joffrey, but Ramsey Snow-turned-Bolton. He is hard to watch in just about every scent he’s in, and his eventual demise is one of the most satisfying of any I’ve ever seen. It also includes one of my all-time favorite duos: Arya and The Hound and singular characters: Brienne of Tarth. Game of Thrones is actually the perfect binge show because if you watch it straight through, you don’t have to wait years in between seasons to stay with the characters you grow to love (and hate) and you can really immerse yourself in the story and the world of Westeros. I could go on, but I will cut it here.
Also, King Tommen makes an unrecognizable appearance in Too Much! AND Jon Snow has a cameo in two episodes. My shows are colliding!
“The Ultimatum Queer Love” on Netflix
I don’t always watch the streaming dating shows like Love is Blind, Love Island, or Perfect Match. I find them kind of boring and forced. The Ultimatum series is a bit more interesting because of the twist of one person giving their partner an ultimatum. And the queer version of this show is much more interesting than the straight version. This season was pretty good, an easy and quick watch which inevitably exposed one of the favorites to be one of the most problematic people on the cast. Oh well. This is not a must-watch for me, but the perfect quick binge, especially because some of the TV podcasts I listen to cover it.
“Big Brother” on CBS
The houseguests this year don’t seem to be too terrible (yet) and thankfully they have ditched their corny themes of the last couple of seasons (last year’s “BB AI” competitions and graphics were really hard to watch) and embraced a new house interior - a less-corny, more tolerable theme of “mystery hotel”. I am having some trepidation about continuing with this show, however. It’s on CBS and I am having conflicting feelings about continuing to give them ratings by watching. That’s why I didn’t link to it above. Although I will link to a promo clip the new South Park episode that came out earlier this week and hopefully is a sign that, as history has shown before, artists will be the ones to help take down autocracy.
“The McBee Dynasty” on Bravo
This show is terrible, these people are terrible, and for some reason, it’s one of the most watchable hate-watches out there.
So that’s it for this month/months. I am not sure what is on deck for August, but I will be taking notes and looking for fun and thoughtful watches - once I finish my GoT rewatch…
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Photo credits: Anna Tarazevich, Pexels.com and Entertainment Tonight via YouTube.
© 2025 Kim Selby & Storm Your Brain, LLC. All rights reserved. All photography © Kim Selby unless otherwise credited.
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