Dave's Fiction Warehouse

T hree episodes in, I’m loving “ Widow’s Bay ,” the comedy/horror series on Apple TV. While it’s hard to tell whether “comedy” or “horror” should come first in any given episode, the writing, direction and cast have proven deft on both counts. It’s not a show where I spend any time looking at my phone. Matthew Rhys (best known for “The Americans”) is the mayor of a seaside village in New England, determined to make it a tourist destination despite continuing evidence that the place is cursed. Think “Jaws” with a supernatural element and a dark sense of humor. Or, say, "Northern Exposure" set in Castle Rock, Maine. His main antagonist is a crusty old tar played by Stephen Root (lately of “Barry”). Kate O’Flynn (whom I first took note of in “ Landscapers ”) is perfect as the mayor’s perpetually aggrieved and hyper sensitive assistant. Then there’s the great Dale Dickey , who extends her run of playing hard-bitten women who dispense questionable wisdom and don’t put up with a lo...

I t’s been a slow year (not counting the endless carousel of Trumpian atrocities) so maybe it’s time once again to go to the mailbag. Remember mailbags? How they used to bulge? They were fun. Dear Dave : So what have you been reading lately? That is, assuming you are not yet too old to decipher printed material beyond, say, a third-grade level? – Made-Up in Montreal. A: Thank you, although I would point out that we live in a country where a third-grade reading level is considered overkill.  Anyway, I just finished “ Fingersmith ,” by Sarah Waters. It’s set in Victorian England and involves a 17-year-old thief sent to pose as a maid for a 17-year-old heiress. The thief’s mentor, a charming villain known as Gentleman (think Fagin, only better looking), intends to seduce the heiress, marry her, and then ship her off to one of England’s excellent madhouses. He promises the young thief, Sue, a share of the proceeds. Twists ensue – so many that this gentle reader had to stop once in a w...

O nce again , I’m watching bald eagles with their young. The nest is 145 feet up a pine tree in California’s Big Bear Valley. It’s snowing. You can hear the wind, see the tree moving with the stronger gusts. Occasionally, an eagle will cry out; another might swoop into view with fresh killed food.  For those of us peering at our various screens, it looks bitterly cold. But eagles are creatures of air and altitude. Pretty sure they can handle most any weather. An eagle tending a winter nest is the picture of stoicism. You can almost envy them. They have no better place to be, no better thing to be doing. No concerns beyond this job at hand: keeping their young alive long enough for them to be eagles too. It’s fascinating to watch. More than you’d think. I don’t know how long the average viewing session is for these particular nest-cams, but based on my own experience, I’d say about as long as most TV episodes.  True, nothing much happens. But the same could be said of “Severan...

F or me, SNL’s 50th Anniversary special was about as good as the show gets: 50 percent  worked pretty well and 50 percent didn’t. Over the last few years, the average SNL has hit closer to 30-70. But that’s just me. I loved the two legendary Pauls as musical guests, even with their voices now abraded by age.  I loved the reel of commercial parodies (“Oops, I Crapped My Pants”) – always one of SNL’s strengths. Loved Martin Short and Steve Martin. I liked John Mulaney’s musical history of New York. I even liked the reprise of that hoary “Scared Straight” bit with Keenan Thompson and Eddie Murphy. Kristen Wiig’s return as doll-hands Dooneese was not hilarious, but Will Farrell kept it going. Don’t know if I ever want to see the alien abduction sketch again, even with Meryl Streep. Like so many SNL mainstays, this one has worn thin. Ditto with “Domingo”: funny the first time, and now just dumb. A couple other misses: Where was Bill Hader? Dan Akroyd? And if there was even a fleeti...

I f, like me, you’re running out of things to distract you from the collapse of America, you might check out “Mo,” now in its second and last season on Netflix. It’s a good antidote to the stench of cruelty and corruption wafting forth from D.C. these days.  It’s a smart and funny (and occasionally poignant) show about the trials of a Palestinian family living in Houston. The title character is played by creator Mo Amer. He and his family get by on various jobs and side hustles while trying to navigate the Orwellian hellscape that is the U.S. asylum and immigration system. (When certain blowhards go on about “open borders,” it’s clear they have no idea of the obstacles faced by immigrants not named Elon. Or Melania.)  “Mo” is an excellent show in its own right, but is even better for the way it humanizes folks who, for whatever reason, no longer have a country of their own.  It ain’t easy being a stateless refugee. Especially in Texas, a state that loathes immigrants in ...

This better be going somewhere. T here’s a wide line between being too obvious and being too opaque. “ Severance ,” the Apple TV series now in its second season, may have strayed past the far side of that line. It’s an interesting show, but one where you have to sift through fan theories the next day to see if you’re getting it. Mostly, I’m not. “Severance” centers on this mysterious company called Lumon.  Certain Lumon employees exist in two versions: “innie,” when they’re at work, and “outie,” when they’re at home. Not two  physical bodies, I guess, just two exclusive halves of a single consciousness. They enter the elevator as one, come out as the other. The outies are unaware of what the innies do at work, and vice versa. The “work” involves sitting at 90s-era computer terminals and grouping sets of numbers to be placed in on-screen bins. Upper management consists of Mr. Milchick, his adolescent assistant Hanna and a disembodied speaker phone, all of whom are equal parts s...

The well-dressed sod-buster   I never read any of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books, nor did I ever make it through any single episode of the hit ’70s TV show. But that doesn’t mean I can’t shit-post about Netflix’s plan to reboot the series.  On the plus side, Netflix has nowhere to go but up. The original was an overlit schmaltz-fest that didn’t tug at the heartstrings so much as percuss them like Django Reinhardt. It wasted no opportunity to impart some simplistic and saccharine lesson. It was supremely inauthentic. For a gritty, realistic portrayal of family life on the frontier, it’s right up there with “The Brady Bunch,” which ended the same year “Little House” started. At least half of the budget appears to have been spent on Michael Landon’s hair and wardrobe. The pioneer life was one of constant toil, but the TV Chuck Ingalls was always freshly shaven and decked out in pressed business-casual shirts with coordinating suspenders. Did he need the suspenders? N...

  I magine if Bob Dylan had been blessed with Timothée Chalmet’s looks and singing voice. He could have been a big star. Haha. We were getting caught up on SNL episodes the other night and finally got to this one: Timothée (not crazy about that diacritic and double e) up there covering three of Dylan’s lesser-sung tunes: “Outlaw Blues,” “Three Angels” and “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” He did a pretty good job – just as you’d expect from someone who’s spent the last couple of years learning to ape Dylan’s style for “A Complete Unknown.” As SNL musical guests go, you could do worse. GloRilla, for example, who was on the week before. But I found something about it kind of off-putting.  There’s the shameless movie tie-in, of course, with Oscars only a month out. But then SNL’s stylish staging and video effects made it seem that Chalmet wasn’t paying tribute to Dylan so much as inhabiting the man’s persona. Here was Dylan 2.0 (in the parlance of our times), with a cuter face and clean...

E ver watch “ “Alone ”? It’s a History Channel show where 10 contestants get dropped off in the wilderness with no food and 10 items of survival gear. There are no camera crews; part of the deal is they each have to film themselves with GoPros and the like. Last person standing wins $500,000.  We’ve seen most of the seasons over the past few years, but for this latest one we finally have some skin in the game. We entered a betting pool, $10 a person, on who lasts the longest.  Each of us (there are 14) get three picks. Points are awarded for the number of days each contestant lasts. Obviously, with the princely sum of $140 on the line, “Alone” is must-see TV around Casa del Dave. In this new season, as in all of them, all the contestants boast impressive survival credentials. So it takes an expert eye like mine to judge who might go the distance. Here are the types who usually don’t: People who wax sentimental about their families within the first few days. Seriously. Loneline...

Austin Butler flies the unfriendly skies F or some reason my wife doesn’t share my interest in World War II aviation. So I waited until she was out of town to finish “Masters of the Air.” My verdict: It’s pretty good. Come for the thrilling air combat scenes, stay for the history.   Since “Saving Private Ryan” in 1998, we’ve seen quite a few hyper-realistic World War II movies: stuff like “Fury,” “Dunkirk,” and “Hacksaw Ridge.” Then there are the miniseries “Band of Brothers” and “Pacific.” By now a certain sameness has crept into these stories. Apparently, there are only so many ways to depict young men fighting and dying between angst-filled moments in the barracks.  “Masters of the Air” has quite a bit of that too. The characters are mostly predictable and dialog is sometimes wooden. But this series focuses on a different WWII: one fought at high altitude, high speed and in subzero cold. It’s the kind of warfare that had never been seen before and won’t be seen again....

Two for the road I too would have traveled America in a ‘61 Corvette, solving the problems of pretty young women along the way. All I lacked were a driver’s license, frat-boy looks, and of course the car. I watched “Route 66” quite a bit as a kid, even after discovering that the show rarely involved interesting homicides or gunplay, or really much action of any kind. It was just these two guys tooling around to that cool Nelson Riddle theme, unencumbered by steady jobs or family sorrows, dispensing life-changing epiphanies like they were handing out leaflets at a trade fair. For cross-country motorists, they carried very little baggage – and I mean that literally, given the trunk size of those earlier Corvettes.  Their names were Tod (one “d”) and Buz (ditto the one “z”). I guess the spellings were meant to project a nonconformist vibe, but both wore pressed shirts and snug chinos like they’d just emerged from a J.C. Penny catalog. Despite appearances, they were always up for part-...

Way above American politics A t some point today you may be tempted to turn on the TV to see what’s happening with a certain elderly, deranged Florida man who is appearing in court to face a long list of felony charges. I’m here to say you shouldn’t. No matter what the elderly man says, or what the national news media says about what he says, you will learn nothing new.  All you’ll get is mad — mad at this malignant fool, mad at the bellicose fools who worship him, mad that his sneering foolish face has been renewed for yet another season. That’s no way to enjoy a spring day. If you want to watch something that might put your mind in a better place, check out these hardworking eagles in West Virginia. They’ve been together for around 20 years, and they’re still showing up every day and doing exactly what they were born to do: surviving in a tough world and teaching their offspring to do the same.  They don’t whine or complain. As a bonus, I have yet to see them break any state...

B ecause everything else in the news is pissing me off, I’ll post these drive-by reviews of some shows I’ve been streaming lately:  “Smile” (Amazon Prime). I love a good horror movie. The key word being “good.” “Smile” is not good. It is actually quite bad, but just short of bad enough to be enjoyed as a hate watch.  Take every horror film made in the last 30 years, extract all the tropes, stir them together vigorously, and you have a movie like “Smile.” I would list a few amusing examples, but they would all amount to spoilers. Maybe that doesn’t matter, since every little twist and jump scare can be seen miles in advance. Ditto with the ending. I suspect ChatGPT had a hand in the screenplay. It’s that predictable. Dave Bob says keep moving. Nothing to see here, except Kevin Bacon’s daughter Sosie trying her best to turn shit into gold.  “Dear Edward.” (Apple +) Who’s ready for some grief! I mean a big barrel o’ grief, since every character has recently lost a loved on...

A warm apocalypse welcome from Ron Swanson I ’m all caught up on “The Last of Us,” television’s latest foray into the zombie-apocalypse genre. Of course I am! With the wife out of town for a few days, it’s time for this grown-ass man to watch whatever the hell he wants.  That means zombies. Longtime readers (there might be one or two) will know that I run hot and cold on this genre. I briefly swore it off after the third season of “The Walking Dead.” But then came the buzz about this new HBO Max show, based on the hit Playstation video game. I was drawn back like a dog to a dead possum.  My impressions, based on the first three episodes: It’s not bad. It doesn’t add much to the whole flesh-eating horde canon, but it has a fine cast, capable writing and superb production values. By “production values,” I mean haunting CGI of American infrastructure laid low by 20 years of deferred maintenance. In a world of ravenous fungoids, regular weed-eating is the first thing to go. We all...

O ne of these days I’m going to watch all 431 “Bonanza” episodes in order. I would like to tabulate, for my own edification, how many homicides the Cartwrights were involved in during the course of the series. I’m guessing quite a few.  The other night we were mindlessly scrolling for something to watch and happened upon a Season 2 episode called “Spitfire.” In it, Little Joe kills a girl’s father in self-defense. The next few scenes are played for laughs. The girl, you see, is feisty. The Cartwrights struggle to teach her about table manners and personal hygiene.  Then the girl’s relatives show up wanting revenge. There’s more gunplay. Another homicide. What a mixup! Little Joe never says, “Shit, I wish now I hadn’t killed your dad,” but you know he’s thinking it.  Intrigued, I picked another episode at random (“The Stranger”). Soon, Little Joe again kills a man in self-defense. He does it because the man is there to arrest Ben Cartwright, who himself killed a man in New...

I probably need to lay off Dateline for awhile. It’s gotten to where I can identify the killer about 10 minutes into any episode.  When they get to the part about the “shocking new development” that “turns the case upside down” – let’s just say the development is not that shocking to Inspector Dave. This grisly murder ain’t my first rodeo, friends. No doubt I’d be the world’s foremost criminal investigator by now, had I bothered to pursue a career in, you know, criminal investigation.  We all have our guilty pleasures; true crime is one of mine. Dateline is at the top of the list, mostly because of the show’s sharp production values and Keith Morrison’s laughably-arch delivery. But there are dozens of similar shows and I’ve sampled most at one time or another. By now they’re all kind of running together.  They all start with a panicked 911 call and end with a poignant statement by a loved one. Nearly all motives involve some combination of sex, money or revenge. Nearly al...

I n another life, I would like to have been a detective. Not a regular detective who has to play by the rules and follow “the law” and kiss the asses of all the powers-that-be. No, thank you! I’m thinking of something more like a movie detective, the kind of guy whose boss gives him 48 hours to solve a sordid high-profile murder case and he solves it in like 47:59:59. Suck on it, boss! In such a scenario, I would carry a very distinctive firearm. Not a long-barreled Smith & Wesson .44 caliber Model 29 — that’s already been done . No, I would be even more old-school: maybe a Wogdon dueling pistol, recently popularized by the musical “Hamilton.” One shot, and if you throw away that shot, you are well and truly screwed. Much like Hamilton himself. If there were no Wogdon dueling pistols available, I would have to go with the Model 1892 Winchester Chuck Connors made so famous in “The Rifleman.”  Mark McCain: “Pa, you just killed eleven men! In like two seconds! Is that a Model 92 o...

Dylan's dick drawing reveals a key clue W hat kind of monster would spray-paint crude penises on 27 late-model cars? “American Vandal,” my new favorite show, attacks that question with all the seriousness of its artistic forerunner, “Making a Murderer.” A crime has been committed, and two high-school filmmakers become obsessed with unearthing evidence and following it wherever it leads. It doesn’t seem to matter that one crime is sophomoric vandalism, and the other is a brutal sex murder. That’s what makes “Vandal” such a sharp satire.  Like “Making a Murderer,” there are plot twists and apparent coverups, multiple suspects and motives and seemingly endless fan theories.  Like “Murderer,” you come to realize that the proliferating genre of true-crime documentary is not about the thirst for truth, but the thirst for entertainment in the misfortune of others. The show’s protagonist, Dylan Maxwell, is a mouth-breathing lug who is exactly the sort of person who’d amuse himself by ...

W e’ve been watching “ The Americans ,” the FX series about two Soviet intelligence agents posing as a married-with-children couple to spy on the American government. Spoiler: this is not a documentary about Donald J. Trump and family. It’s set in the early ’80s. Therein lies the charm, I guess. It seems almost quaint to imagine the Russians bothering with deep-cover agents when they’ve pretty much got the run of the White House now — and when almost half of Americans are OK with it. Who would have guessed? The show premiered in 2013, but we’re latecomers, now just halfway through season 3. For some reason, it’s not a show we’ve cared to binge-watch. But two thumbs up so far. As a fantasy about Cold War espionage, it’s mostly preposterous but always entertaining. Things I really like: Keri Russell: Beautiful, lithe and lethal. If all spies were this charming and dangerous, we’d really be in trouble. One question: How does Elizabeth get all those wigs on over that beautiful head of hai...

All dressed up and no place to go I haven’t posted for — what, five months now? — because every time I have an idea it somehow ends up with the phrase “that fucking Trump.” The original idea could be about television or books or movies, or gardening or the importance of regular oil changes, and still those words keep forcing themselves forward in the first paragraph. But I’m past it now. I figure it’s not up to me to forestall the end of Western civilization. My eight or so fans are already on board. If anybody else cares about it, let them step up. That fucking Trump. Meantime, I finally got around to watching the last two episodes of the sixth season of “Game of Thrones.” That’s how cutting-edge I am. I was loving the season last year about this time, and then my trial HBO subscription ran out. The hardest part was avoiding spoilers for 12 freaking months. Turns out I needn’t have bothered. Everything in the finale I saw coming a mile off. Ramsay Bolton was finally consumed by Rottwe...