The Golden Globe nominations are here and I’m trying to pretend to care.

by Therese Odell, posted in watch this

It’s a Wednesday.

And I know, I KNOW you’ve already seen the pandas playing in the snow, so here is a video of a very needy baby panda:

All Other TV News

Today’s big TV news are the Golden Globe nominations, and I guess I’m obligated to mention them here. I am not obligated to devote an entire post to them because, again, the Golden Globes are a garbage awards ceremony that is entirely about a parasitic circle jerk: journalists are given access to shiny Hollywood celebrities, and studio favors and studios and actors receive a dumb award that means nothing.

Here are the nominees:

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

THE CROWN – NETFLIX

LOVECRAFT COUNTRY – HBO

THE MANDALORIAN – DISNEY+

OZARK – NETFLIX

RATCHED – NETFLIX

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

OLIVIA COLMAN
THE CROWN

JODIE COMER
KILLING EVE

EMMA CORRIN
THE CROWN

LAURA LINNEY
OZARK

SARAH PAULSON
RATCHED

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – DRAMA

JASON BATEMAN
OZARK

JOSH O’CONNOR
THE CROWN

BOB ODENKIRK
BETTER CALL SAUL

AL PACINO
HUNTERS

MATTHEW RHYS
PERRY MASON

BEST TELEVISION SERIES – MUSICAL OR COMEDY

EMILY IN PARIS – NETFLIX

THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT – HBO MAX

THE GREAT – HULU

SCHITT’S CREEK – POP TV

TED LASSO – APPLE TV+

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES – MUSICAL OR COMEDY

LILY COLLINS
EMILY IN PARIS

KALEY CUOCO
THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT

ELLE FANNING
THE GREAT

JANE LEVY
ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST

CATHERINE O’HARA
SCHITT’S CREEK

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES – MUSICAL OR COMEDY

DON CHEADLE
BLACK MONDAY

NICHOLAS HOULT
THE GREAT

EUGENE LEVY
SCHITT’S CREEK

JASON SUDEIKIS
TED LASSO

RAMY YOUSSEF
RAMY

BEST TELEVISION LIMITED SERIES, ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

NORMAL PEOPLE – HULU

THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT – NETFLIX

SMALL AXE – AMAZON STUDIOS

THE UNDOING – HBO

UNORTHODOX – NETFLIX

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES, ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

CATE BLANCHETT
MRS. AMERICA

DAISY EDGAR-JONES
NORMAL PEOPLE

SHIRA HAAS
UNORTHODOX

NICOLE KIDMAN
THE UNDOING

ANYA TAYLOR-JOY
THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES, ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

BRYAN CRANSTON
YOUR HONOR

JEFF DANIELS
THE COMEY RULE

HUGH GRANT
THE UNDOING

ETHAN HAWKE
THE GOOD LORD BIRD

MARK RUFFALO
I KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SUPPORTING ROLE

GILLIAN ANDERSON
THE CROWN

HELENA BONHAM CARTER
THE CROWN

JULIA GARNER
OZARK

ANNIE MURPHY
SCHITT’S CREEK

CYNTHIA NIXON
RATCHED

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SUPPORTING ROLE

JOHN BOYEGA
SMALL AXE

BRENDAN GLEESON
THE COMEY RULE

DANIEL LEVY
SCHITT’S CREEK

JIM PARSONS
HOLLYWOOD

DONALD SUTHERLAND
THE UNDOING

Quick thoughts: Ratched? Emily in Paris? But no I May Destroy You? Get the fuck outta here, Golden Globes.

Still: Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are hosting. But then again, they are doing it from opposite coasts.

OH COME ON, GEORGE.

I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER in 2020. The best year I’ve had on WOW since I began it. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the isolation. Or maybe I just got on a roll. Sometimes I do get on a roll.

I need to keep rolling, though. I still have hundreds of more pages to write to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion.

YOU KNOW THIS ISN’T THE LAST BOOK, RIGHT? AFTER THIS, YOU HAVE AT LEAST ONE MORE TO WRITE.

WHERE’S GARCELLE?

Look, I write about these dingdongs, and even I couldn’t remember who the hell “Dylan Barbour” from The Bachelorette was. But apparently, he recently wrote a Twitter thread basically accusing the producers of the show of screwing over contestants for the purpose of storytelling and then he had to take it down and issue a very “I AM SO SORRY PLEASE DO NOT SUE ME” statement. ABC’s got them good lawyers, y’all.

President Biden will give his first pre-Super Bowl interview to CBS’s Norah O’Donnell.

Political Crap

As you might have noticed, I am no longer covering political crap every day. (Though I expect to get back into at least writing about it most days when the impeachment trial begins). I’ve paused writing about politics daily in part to maintain my own sanity; in part to try to give myself more time in the day to write about what this blog is actually about: TV; and in part because for the past two weeks, I’ve been experiencing this strange sensation: a lessening of outrage. I am no longer waking up in the middle of the night to frantically check my phone to see what Former President Asshole has been up to in the few minutes I allowed my self to let my guard down; I no longer seethe with fury while watching clips of a delusional narcissist ignoring his actual presidential duties in favor of being washed over with cult-like love from his followers at super-spreader; I no longer worry about having to endure another four years of pure malice and incompetence.

BUT. There is a lot of clean-up on aisle six to be done after a disastrous four years. And while I am not concerned about the direction of this country is headed for at least the next two years, there is still plenty to fret about in terms of where the GOP seems to be steering itself, and what that will mean for all of us.

The GOP is experiencing a crisis of identity and it is playing that out in the form of two Congresswomen: Liz Cheney, number three Republican in the house and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and the lunatic Qanoner Marjorie Taylor Greene who advocated killing Nancy Pelosi, stalked the victims of a school shooting and who believes Jewish space lasers caused the California wildfires.

Liz Cheney is facing pressure from the GOP to step down from her positions of power. Her crime? For voting to impeach Former President Inciter after he inflamed supporters and they stormed the Capitol. (She voted along with 9 other Republicans who are NOT being punished, by the way.)

Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been appointed to the House Budget Committee and the House Committee on Education and Labor, has become a lightning rod for being a 9/11 truther, claiming that her fellow Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashia Talib are illegitimate for taking their oaths of office on the Quran instead of the Bible; berating fellow Congresswoman Cori Bush after Bush asked her to put on her mask — and leading to Bush moving her Congressional office farther away from Greene, and advocating for a violent overthrow of the government:

Marjorie Taylor Green promoting violence for a rally at the Capitol. Video from 2019 from r/PublicFreakout

Also, you should take the time and read this piece about Kevin Van Ausdal, the man who tried to run against Greene in the election, only to have his life completely ruined. (He was never going to win in this district, but what he went through just for opposing her is horrifying and a worrisome direction for our democracy.)

Democrats have told House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that the GOP can strip Greene of her committee positions, or they’ll do it for them, and today, the GOP was like, “How about we strip her of one of them?”

The Democrats gave their answer:

More traditional Republicans recognize Greene as a symbol of the more dangerous turn the party is taking towards right-wing extremism (though she’s hardly the only one), including Senator Mitch McConnell who referred to her brand of conspiracy-mongering as a “cancer” in the party.

She took that well:

McConnell also supported Cheney, saying that: “Liz Cheney is a leader with deep convictions and the courage to act on them… She is an important leader in our party and in our nation. I am grateful for her service and look forward to continuing to work with her on the crucial issues facing our nation.”

So which is it going to be, GOP? Are you going to embrace a dangerous extremist because she has the support of the least popular President in modern history? Or are you going to back a Republican who had the courage to do what was right for her country over her party?

But going back to Mitch McConnell for a moment: he really only has himself to blame for the current state of disaster he finds his party in right now, having lost control of the House, White House, and Senate. There is a loooooooong but very insightful New York Times piece about the 77 days between Election Day and Inauguration and how Former President Twice Impeached tried to use them to subvert our democracy. In it, McConnell is revealed to have placed his bet on Former President Delusional being a normal human being, capable of accepting reality and his defeat, and eventually turning his focus towards helping McConnell in the Georgia Senate run-off elections.

It’s tempting to call McConnell a naive dumbass for believing that would ever happen, but what choice did McConnell have? For decades, in order to get their much-beloved tax breaks, regulatory repeals, and conservative judges, the Republicans have been courting a very White, very racist, and religiously feverish base. (I AM NOT CALLING ALL REPUBLICANS RACIST. INSTEAD OF LEAVING A COMMENT, GO GOOGLE “SOUTHERN STRATEGY.”)

The problem with that is twofold: 1. over the past few decades, our population has become more diverse and more educated and 2. people kinda like the things that Democrats are trying to offer, including health care, and livable wages, and not dying of a pandemic because the government is being run by a bunch of loons who actively hate government and are attempting to dismantle it from the inside. This means that the pool of people left for the Republicans to woo is smaller, Whiter, more racist, and more religiously bigoted — you know, the kind of people who voted for Former President MAGA and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

And now some “principled” Republicans — the kind who held their nose and accepted both the money and votes of their local White supremacists — are suddenly shocked that their party is filled with a bunch of people who believe Bill Gates is really a lizard person who wants to inject them with a microchip to track their movements and worried that suburban moms won’t want to be associated with a bunch of people who actually believe Hillary Clinton sexually assaulted and murdered multiple babies in some sort of Satanic fountain of youth ritual.

How could this ever have happened, you guys?

But while it is fun to laugh at the Republican party eating itself, it’s also terrifying. Yes, principled Republicans like Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia Secretary of State, helped protect the election by refusing to buy into Former President Brain Worm’s demands to illegally throw the election for him. But what that means is he will be primaried by some extremist nutjob who will make it VERY clear that should the opportunity arise again, he will absolutely throw the election to a Republican candidate. And in states like Arizona and Pennsylvania, Republican state legislatures are currently revising election laws to make it harder to vote, and even for a legislature to OVERTURN THE RESULTS if they don’t like them.

The Republicans recognize that they are a minority party now and for the foreseeable future, and that their only chance to regain power is to 1. tinker with the machinery of democracy so that typical Democratic voters including young people and people of color find it harder to execute their right to vote, and to 2. not alienate what remains of their base. And if that base believes that the Jews control space lasers and that Nancy Pelosi should be executed for treason and that the Parkland school shooting was a false flag operation and that a plane never hit the Pentagon? Well, you work with what you got.

(I’ll have more about the impeachment proceedings and other political nonsense maybe later in the week — this rant ran longer than I expected.)

Going Viral

Even by more conservative measures, we are about two days from hitting 450,000 dead Americans from this virus. We had some 3,600 Americans die yesterday, which is still a terrifyingly high number. But cases continuing dropping in significant ways, so hopefully, we are past the worst spike.

New Jersey is easing their indoor dining requirements in time for the Super Bowl. This is a terrible idea. Do not go to an indoor restaurant for the Super Bowl and do not go for Valentine’s Day, for fuck’s sake.

Nearly half of our states are treating teachers as essential workers, and allowing them to receive the vaccine. Infuriatingly, Texas is not one of them, even though schools here are open. Let’s make them essential workers, guys.

Several thousand pharmacies will receive the vaccine next week for distribution, to help ease some of the pressure on states and local governments. If it works well, tens of thousands of pharmacies will receive it.

GODDAMMIT, DOLLY, GO GET THAT VACCINE.

To say that the GAO was unimpressed by the Trump Administration’s handling of the pandemic is an understatement.

The Super Bowl will not be featuring that many movie trailers this year for some reason.

This movie was made in 2017.

In Development

Casting News

  • Edwin Hodge will co-star in Good Sam on CBS.
  • Tamara Taylor is joining the cast of Law & Order: Organized Crime on NBC.

Mark Your Calendars

  • Punky Brewster will debut on Peacock on February 25

  • Coming 2 America will premiere on Amazon on March 5.

  • Amend: The Fight for America will stream on Netflix on February 17.

  • Your Attention Please will debut on Hulu on February 18.

  • The Flash returns on The CW on March 2.

  • Tribes of Europa will premiere on Netflix on February 19.

  • The World to Come will stream on VOD on March 2.

R.I.P.

Pete Noyes, A Los Angeles news producer who was the inspiration for Lou Grant

Karl Williams, Publicist for Paramount

Jack Palladino, A legendary private detective who worked for Bill Clinton, R. Kelly, and Harvey Weinstein, a real rogue’s gallery of clients

WATCH THIS

Firefly Lane: Katherine Heigl and Sarah Clarke star as two lifelong friends whose relationship is tested by a betrayal in this new series. Netflix

Europe’s New Wild: This series tracks the rewilding of some of Europe’s most iconic species. Series premiere. 9 p.m., PBS

Super Bowl Greatest Commercials: Hey, you want to watch a bunch of commercials in between a bunch of commercials? Do I have the show for you! 7 p.m., CBS

Late Night:

  • Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Kelly Ripa, M. Night Shyamalan, Fireboy DML
  • Late Night with Seth Meyers: Amy Schumer, Thomas Middleditch, Matt Cameron
  • The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Salma Hayek, Mark Harris
  • The Late Late Show with James Corden: Kal Penn, Josh Groban
  • Jimmy Kimmel Live: Magic Johnson, Jenny Slate, Ashnikko
  • The Daily Show: The Daily Social Distancing Show
  • Conan: Kyra Sedgwick
  • Watch What Happens Live: Lisa Barlow, Jeff Lewis
  • A Little Late with Lily Singh: Richfresh

WEDS. 7:00 7:30 8:00 8:30 9:00 9:30
ABC The Goldbergs
(new)		 American Housewife
(new)		 The Conners
(new)		 Call Your Mother
(new)		 For Life
(new)
CBS Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials
(new)		 SEAL Team
(repeat)		 S.W.A.T.
(repeat)
CW Riverdale
(new)		 Nancy Drew
(new)		 Local
FOX The Masked Dancer
(new)		 Name That Tune
(new)		 News/Local
NBC Chicago Med
(new)		 Chicago Fire
(new)		 Chicago P.D.
(new)

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