the ocean

Getting Controversial

I'd like to address a topic that I think many of us have been concerned about, which is the May 19, 1996 series finale of the hit Angela Lansbury TV series "Murder, She Wrote."

You see, Murder, She Wrote's infectious blend of ridiculously cosmetic slayings and feisty Maine yokels had long made the show a ratings hit, but late in its run CBS became concerned about the network's aging demographics and started pushing for "younger" shows like the internationally-beloved hits "Models, Inc." and "Central Park West." CBS moved Murder, She Wrote from its customary Sunday evening time slot, where it had teamed up with 60 Minutes to create a sort of Avengers for the Rascal Scooter by Electric Mobility set. Instead, CBS moved the show that launched a thousand Seth/Amos slash fiction pieces to Thursday nights, opposite NBC's juggernaut, "Friends."

Lansbury felt that the network was trying to kill off Murder, She Wrote, and channeled her passions into her art, first with the Friends parody episode "Murder Among Friends," where Jessica solved a murder on the set of a comedy called "Buds" about six young acquaintances who hang out in a coffee shop and, as Jessica put it, "talk about their sexuality." Boy was Matthew Perry's face red. And also covered in money.

Despite subtle creative masterpieces like this, CBS did cancel Murder, She Wrote, and the season finale, "Death By Demographics" was another jab at the network, centering on a radio station that decided to jettison its classics-loving morning show host in favor of a younger "shock jock" who had Bob Saget's haircut and made comments that were at worst mildly intemperate. I forget who died or why or who did it, but of course none of that was ever the point with Murder, She Wrote. The point was that Jessica was smarter and better than everyone around her in every way possible.

But the real tragedy is that this finale was in no real sense a finale. Jessica didn't marry anyone or decide to move to LA and pursue her acting dreams or even acknowledge in any way that the show was ending. And none of the regular Cabot Cove characters were there, like Dr. Hazlitt or Mort Metzger or that old whore Eve Simpson. I always assumed the show would end with Jessica's nephew Grady accidentally blowing everyone through his constant and hilarious incompetence. But no. There was no closure, no finality. America deserved better, frankly. And even parts of Canada.

I'd Like to Thank the Academy

Can you believe it's already been a week since the Oscars? Probably not, since if you're anything like most people, you forgot that they were even happening. Here are some highlights to treasure in your heart forever:

-- Janelle Monae joins the long line of performers who clearly did not quite know what they were getting themselves into when agreeing to perform at the Oscars, i.e. Rob Lowe and Snow White.

-- Brad Pitt wins Best Supporting Actor, but HOW DOES JENNIFER ANISTON FEEL ABOUT IT?

-- People keep referencing how great female directors are, which is totally as good as any female director actually being nominated for anything.

-- Laura Dern wins basically for people liking Laura Dern, because I know like two people who actually saw Marriage story, and one of the was Laura Dern.

-- Eminem is there for some reason.

-- Rebel Wilson and James Corden try to somehow trick everyone into thinking that the visual effects were the only bad thing about Cats.

-- Everyone everywhere googles the name of Bong Joon Ho's intrepid translator.

-- Montages, montages, montages!

-- Joaquin Phoenix takes the occasion of his Best Actor win to shed a much-needed spotlight on the insemination of cows.

-- Renee Zellweger still doesn't quite succeed in getting America to forget about what she did to her face.

-- Parasite wins best picture, and all historical bias against Asians is now and forever fixed.

Chicago Med

I've been getting my heart checked out lately, since it turns out five of my relatives on my dad's side have died of sudden cardiac events, one in the middle of a sentence. So far, there has been no cause for alarm, but lots of cause for embarrassment and frustration. Ain't medicine grand?

First I got a referral to a cardiologist, who I couldn't get in to see for like two months. She very patiently listened to my symptoms and then basically told me I was wasting everyone's time because all but one of my relatives who died of a heart attack was over 50, which they don't consider unusual. But she agreed to get some tests done, basically to shut me up.

Scheduling the tests was a treat, since I had to call two different numbers for the two different tests, and each one of them had to transfer me from scheduling to financial services to give me an estimate of my out of pocket liability. Then I was transferred back to scheduling, and then back to financial services, since apparently you need to make a deposit now to reserve a medical test, like you're AirBNBing the MRI or something. So the upshot was eight different phone conversations to schedule two tests.

Then, the electrocardiogram was, surprisingly, pretty much miserable. The woman kept jabbing me really hard in the rips with the scanner thing, and running it across my nipple as though she was trying to shave it off. Then she said she couldn't get good enough images, so they'd have to put me on an IV with a contrasting agent. Which is pretty much how everyone wants to spend a Wednesday morning.

The calcium test was fine. Aside from the ridiculously huge hospital gown they made me put on. I'm pretty sure you could have fit a family of four under there. But I rocked it, I'm not going to lie.

Anyway, I'm fine, pretty much. So I can't complain. Although obviously that's just an expression, since I just did.