owlmoose | Monday Media on Wednesday: 2/23/22

The Great British Baking Show: Caught up! I can hardly believe it. We went from the predictability of Season 11 to possibly the most surprising elimination in the history of the show, and maybe of any competitive culinary show I've ever watched, with Jürgen going home in the semifinal. I really had him pegged as the most likely winner, so it was a bit of a shock to see him eliminated for such minor stumbles. Then again, after that three-handshake Signature and Crystelle and Chigs both nailing their Showstoppers, the other option was Giuseppe, and he'd been equally solid throughout the series. So I don't know what other choice they could have made, really. I would have been happy with any of the four of them winning, but I found myself growing particularly fond of Giuseppe. So it was a satisfying end, even if I think Chiggs probably performed slightly better in the final Showstopper.

We still haven't watched the holiday specials yet -- are those any good? It's still so weird to think we now have to wait for the next series with the rest of the world.

The Morning Show, Season 2: I've always had some trouble deciding how I feel about this show. Sometimes it seems to be crafting redemption arcs for characters who are unredeemable -- but are they unredeemable? What messages are they trying to send? How many social issues and character arcs are too many to juggle at once? Certainly this second season bit off a lot, and I'm not convinced it always succeeded in chewing. Racism and racial insensitivity among media professionals; "cancel culture"; the fallout from sexual harassment scandals and who does and does not take accountability; the difficulty of escaping toxic relationships (Bradley and her family, Chip and Alex); the realities of being an LGBTQ public figure; bullying; the looming threat of COVID-19.... All this, and I still feel like I'm forgetting something. Even half of that would've been plenty for a 10-episode season. Try to do too much, and you run the risk of not doing any of it well.

I do want to go into spoilery detail on one plot line, and that’s Mitch. I’m on record that I didn’t want a redemption arc for Mitch in the first season. I had more mixed feelings about the prospect this time around, because I felt like Hannah’s death might have the potential to shock him into realizing just who he is and what he’d done. But there were so many mixed messages that I had a hard time figuring out what the show was trying to do. Did he decamp to Italy to run away from his mistakes? To spend time out of the public eye so he could have a real opportunity to reflect and grow? To spare his family from his presence? All of the above? What was his relationship with Isabella all about? I will say up front that I hated how they introduced her. One of the most irritating examples of scoring points off straw feminists I have ever seen - from a show that usually at least tries to do better by its women characters. Anyway, the Mitch arc felt like my whole complaint of the show trying to do too much at once all crammed into a single storyline… and that was before they killed him. I’m glad that they took his piece off the overly crowded board, and at the same time I’m frustrated at the lack of closure. And, like so much else about this show, I can’t really decide how I feel about it.

2022 Winter Olympics: Much as I enjoy watching the Olympics, it feels harder to support them as an institution every time. The Uyghur genocide, the pandemic, the Russian figure skating doping scandal -- and I think it's time to admit that whatever punishment the IOC was trying to impose on Russia by forcing their athletes to compete as the "Russian Olympic Team", it doesn't seem to have worked (witness Putin's pleased, almost smug expression as the Russians took the stage at the opening ceremonies) -- the dangers of the fake snow, the looming threat to Ukraine... it's a lot to ignore. So I try not to ignore it, but to watch with all of these issues in mind as context. There were still some amazing moments -- Nathan Chen's electrifying performance will long stick in my mind -- and I had fun watching. But I do wonder how much longer the Olympics will survive in their current form.