grizzledgeezer

I watched "Idiocracy" a second time last night, with a friend, and was startled at just how prescient it is at anticipating the Trump administration. Particularly notable is the way corporations purchase the FDA and other government agencies to control public perception (to the extent this future public has anything that might reasonably be called "perception")..

It's no surprise "Idiocracy" bombed with audiences, who weren't prepared for such vicious satire. "Satire is what closes on Saturday night."

Dax Shepherd delivers a superlative performance as Joe's idiot lawyer. He should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Between them, "Idiocracy" and "Network" accurately predict the dumbing-down of American society. The two ought to be reissued as a double feature.

What makes W:DA such a good series is that it's basically a solid drama, and avoids falling into the trap of "format becomes formula". It tells all sorts of stories, perhaps the strangest of which is "Littlest Client", in which an orphan asks Josh to look for her father. The father is involved in an intense erotic friendship with another man (which might or might not be sexual, but nothing is said, or even hinted). At the end, she walks away with two daddies.

By the way, in "The Blob", the film that won McQueen his role on W:DA, there's an actor in a minor role named... Josh Randall!

This is the epitome of a non-comic Maverick episode. The plot has a complexity and depth that screams "Roy Huggins" (though he didn't write it). It's so complicated that it rivals the original "Perry Mason" for creating confusion.

The quality of the writing (that is, the characterizations and dialog), is exceptional, especially for a series written in an era when TV series were often "cranked out".

We also see just how well James Garner could act. Though arguably a male "pretty face", he could bring a subtlety of expression few of his films gave him a chance to reveal. He finally received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for "Murphy's Romance".

This episode is also a good example of why series production bogged down so quickly, and Jack Kelly had to be introduced as Bart, with episodes in overlapping production. "...Jenny Hill" has a lot of camera setups and many night shots, which slow things down.

"Maverick" remains one of the great Westerns -- perhaps because it isn't really a Western.

PS: The Maverick boys aren't named after stray dogies. Such critters were named after the man who illegally gathered them.