We don't want to waste much time on Trump because it's already been two years of our lives we'll never get back, but it's been another week where Fox News still thinks Hillary Clinton is president. All their lead stories are about her.
Meanwhile, Trump keeps giving interviews where he says things that could absolutely lead people to believe he is not president, so it's understandable. Jimmy Kimmel even asked that question on he Oct. 18 show, "Does Trump even know he's president?" At least when Hillary makes a gaffe one can tell, because everything else she said was presidential.
As the clock ticks down to midterms, don't let the Republicans' desperate move of going on every available TV pundit slot and proclaiming Democrats "the mob" and "criminal class" deter you from voting. The lives of women, LGBT, people of color and anyone with a pre-existing condition like us are on the table. Regardless of whether you love or hate Nancy Pelosi, her speakership was the most successful in the past 40 years, and we'd really like to see her wipe the floor with the GOP.
We know CNN, MSNBC and the networks have led you to believe there is only one Congressional race this election, Beto O'Rourke versus Ted Cruz, but there are actually 193 Democratic House and 26 Democratic Senate seats up for re-election. Democrats need to hold every seat plus pick up 24 in the House and three in the Senate, so do what you can to make it happen.
Speaking of Trump, his name didn't come up on the much-hyped ABC sitcom "The Conners," which should have been titled "Roseanne without Roseanne," but the situations he's created were very much in evidence. We watched because we had to: How would ABC deal with the elephant not in the room? They killed her.
If you want to hear the real Roseanne whine about how she's not dead, there's a podcast of her interview with her buddy and apologist Rabbi Schmuley online, but life really is too short for that. She's been done for a long time. ABC never should have brought her back.
As for "The Conners," it wasn't funny. The sad part is, the episode we saw as this reboot of the reboot debuted is perhaps the show that ABC should have gone for to begin with, but got caught in their own celebrity-driven net.
"The Conners" was a more thoughtful and introspective look at what has happened to the Conners family — and how broken they are in many respects. It addressed some issues that TV has mostly tackled on medical and cop shows.
Spoiler alert: Roseanne died of an overdose from prescription opioid meds she'd been taking from pretty much any source she could find. This is the pivot of the premiere. It was presumed Roseanne died of a heart attack, so when the family discovers it's addiction, it's a shock to everyone. Dan puts a sign on his truck, blaming Roseanne's friend, Marcy Bellinger (Mary Steenburgen like you've never seen her before), for his wife's death because the bottle of pills he found had her name on it.
When Marcy comes to the house to ask Dan to take the sign down, saying everyone hates her now, we learn that people are sharing meds because no one can afford them. Roseanne was in pain, so she asked and Marcy gave her the drugs. But Jackie and Darlene find another stash. So it wasn't just Marcy. Roseanne was addicted. And all her friends were helping.
"The Conners" addresses two issues here, the opioid crisis and the fact that many Americans can't afford their medications because prescription drug costs are so high and so many people don't have healthcare.
The cognitive dissonance of the entire storyline, though, is that the audience is glad Roseanne's dead and we no longer have to deal with her Trump-loving viciousness. So there's not much empathy to be had for the Conner family that's gutted by her death, we just don't share their grief. The one person we feel empathy towards is Marcy Bellinger.
Perhaps this will abate with subsequent episodes. But the gaping hole left by Roseanne and the lack of a cohesive centering force — her absence was the focal point — made the premiere of the new/old show harder to relate to. Who will anchor the show now that Roseanne is gone? John Goodman's Dan is a desiccated shell who sleeps on the sofa because he can't sleep in the bed he shared with Roseanne for decades. Laurie Metcalf's Jackie cleaning for the entire episode stopped being a hook two minutes in. We never understood why Sara Gilbert would leave "The Big Bang Theory" for this reboot when Roseanne had been known for virulent public transphobia long before ABC brought "Roseanne" back, and her Darlene is less than engaging. What was edgy in a teenager is tedious in an adult character.
Other than the confrontation between Marcy and Dan, the best scenes were between Dan and Darlene's young gay gender-non-conforming son, Mark (Ames McNamara, who is one of the best things in this show). Mark is trying to decide whom to sit next to on the bus: it denotes whom you are smitten with. But all Mark's choices are other boys. There are some poignant scenes where Dan tries to explain he's just not good at this, and Mark says he's just fine.
We wish this kid and this storyline were in some other show, because McNamara is a natural, he's sweet and has a commanding screen presence, and he's been really cool about playing this role.
In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America," McNamara said of his character, "He's just a normal kid. He likes to do art, he likes playing basketball, and wearing girls' clothes is just a small part of Mark." The 12 year old actor told ABC he "knew a little about gender identity" before taking on the role. McNamara said, "I was aware that certain people liked to wear clothes from the opposite gender. I knew a kid who was like that in a play that I did, but I wasn't aware of the term."
So the jury is still out on "The Conners." We don't like rewarding ABC for their egregious error in hiring Roseanne in the first place, but we'll see what Steenburgen and McNamara have to offer in the coming weeks.
Back to Bellevue
NBC's new medical drama "New Amsterdam," which follows the network's hit drama "This Is Us," addresses the issues of lack of healthcare each week with a vengeance. We like this show, although we know it has a lot of virtue signaling that we should perhaps eschew. Nevertheless, it's a thoroughly engaging hour, and the issues it tackles — New Amsterdam is based on New York's Bellevue — are vitally important. The cast, largely women and people of color, highlights the importance of real medicine for real people in an increasingly restrictive healthcare arena, where those of us who are poor and/or chronically ill are being left to suffer and even die while the GOP chips away at Obamacare, Medicaid and Medicare.
The show's white savior, Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold, former villain of "The Blacklist"), can be annoying af, but at least he has cancer to make him less oppressively know-it-all saintly. The satellite characters around Goodwin make the show work: the stunning black British actress Frema Agyeman's Dr. Helen Sharpe, Janet Montgomery's Dr. Lauren Bloom who runs the ER brilliantly as long as she's on her meds, Tyler Labine as Dr. Iggy Frome, the edgy psych doc who wants to make the world less medicated and more whole, and the reliably fabulous Indian actor Anupam Kher as Dr. Vijay Kapoor.
There are suddenly a plethora of medical shows on the tube right now: "The Good Doctor," "The Resident," "Chicago Med," "Grey's Anatomy," and they are all increasingly similar. It's the storylines, acting and writing that will make the difference in any series. We segued nicely into "New Amsterdam" from "This Is Us," but we need the satellites to be more and Goodwin to be a little less. There are hints of gay around this show, but nothing overt yet.
For overt gay the go-to shows thus far this season have been "The Purge," "American Horror Story: Apocalypse," "Grey's Anatomy," "How to Get Away with Murder," "9-1-1," "You" and all things Greg Berlanti on the CW. The CW has a fab new promo campaign about diversity, which we love. It's up on YouTube, so Google it. It's exactly what we need right now: women, people of color, LGBT, we are all repped in this promo, and it makes us all warm and fuzzy inside to watch it.
Alas, gay as the CW and Fox are, regrettably we've already seen three lesbians killed off, and it's only October. Plus, all those lesbians have also been women of color, so that unfortunate TV trend continues.
Fortunately, "AHS" brought waves of gay back to the small screen as well as Jessica Lange's Constance Langdon, and for both we are deeply grateful. Seeing gay actors as well as LGBT characters on "AHS" just makes the week better. In many respects this is the least cohesive season of "AHS," yet it feels very satisfying. Lots of Sarah Paulson helps. Billy Porter and BD Wong plus the gorgeously hot maniac of Cody Fern's omnisexual pervade each episode. It may be the gayest season yet.
Lange's return to "AHS" after a several-year hiatus left the critics buzzing. It was also Paulson's directorial debut on the series, and she spoke for all of us when she told EW, "I know I'm biased, but I think she's really, really beautiful in this episode." Stellar. Beautiful. Elegant. Commanding. All the things.
Paulson said directing The Queen was somewhat daunting. "Telling one of the world's greatest actresses that I had a note about what she might want to try here, the audacity of that is not lost on me, but I didn't have a choice."
Paulson said that directing Lange was an amazing experience after working beside her for over a decade on the series. "She's Jessica Mother F—ing Lange. It was a kind of incredible thing for me to be a part of that, and for me to help shape the way it was going to be shot and the way it was going to look and what I wanted to see."
When we are behind the camera, we are in front of the camera. Ryan Murphy (like Greg Berlanti) has brought so much gayness to TV. Not just with gay actors and gay characters, but with a tone that is uniquely gay, not str8. We love him for it. His commitment to amplifying the work of women and LGBT directors is also to be lauded. When Murphy makes it seem so easy, we can't help wondering why everyone can't do it, too.
Finally, what are we going to do about "SNL?" When that show is on, it's on. "Weekend Update" and the cold open are still highlights for millions four decades in. But when "SNL" isn't doing political satire, the show is incredibly uneven, brutally white-male-teenage-comedy-driven, and after all these years, still doesn't realize it has a race problem.
The cast members who aren't white get little screen time. Yet on the Oct. 14 show, newbie Heidi Gardner, white and blonde, was in nearly every skit. Leslie Jones, who has been on "SNL" since 2013 and is perhaps the most underutilized comedian on TV today, was in two skits.
This isn't just an "SNL" problem, it's a problem for late night and for comedy shows across network and cable: women and people of color are either entirely absent or they are peripheral. Given that women are 51% of the population and non-white America is 37%, it seems way past time to fix this representation problem in comedy. The success of comedians like Ellen DeGeneres, Chelsea Handler, Samantha Bee and Trevor Noah on TV shows as hosts indicates there's room for not-white-male comedy.
"SNL" has stellar women in its cast and currently has six non-white cast members, which is more than the show has ever had at one time. Which is, of course, embarrassing on its face, as it originates out of New York City, which is America's most diverse city. Use the cast that isn't white. If you can't envision a black woman in a role played by a white woman, your imagination is faulty and you need to be a better writer.
So for comedy, drama, upcoming Halloween specials and everything Trump, you really must stay tuned.