Press Start Reviews: Upfronts 2018 – CBS

I’m going to be honest; CBS and I have always had sort of a fraught relationship. I do like some of their TV, but I really hate most of it. Most of the time their shows are base, they appeal to the lowest common denominator, and I definitely don’t fall within their target audience. But every so often, they really surprise me. The best world I can use to describe the new mystery drama, Instinct, is “a delight.” And this is a show specifically about trying to catch horrible murderers. But really, every Sunday I can’t wait to watch because Alan Cummings is…well he’s freakin’ delightful. He’s Alan goddamn Cummings, he was delightful as Nightcrawler for god’s sake.

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You could just gobble. Him. UP.

But it also gave us an estimated fifty thousand seasons of Big Bang Theory. Experts are still trying to get an accurate count. When Young Sheldon got picked up for a new season there was an audible wailing coming from the lab. Here’s something important to remember: BBT is not a good show. I’m sorry, but I’ll die on this hill.

But going through their stable for this year, I’m honestly shocked. They have six trailers, and I’m moderately interested in three of them? But the other three just… ugh. That dichotomy is pure CBS to me. So let’s get down to it.

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Press Start Reviews: Upfronts 2018 – ABC

ABC has been a perennial favorite of mine – they have a lot of quirky shows with interesting premises (premisii?), and most importantly last year they made a huge push in airing shows with diverse casting. The MayorFor the People, and Black-ish either are completely brown or have a lot of people of color on set.

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I love this show more than some people

That said ABC isn’t perfect. Like a lot of us, I was really excited to see Rosanne make a comeback this year… and… Yeah. I watched a couple episodes and I’m done with it. I can’t separate the woman from the show, especially when the two are so intertwined.

This year’s crop looks to be… more pale. It’s unfortunate that they didn’t continue the push into more colorful territory, but some of their shows do show promise. So let’s see what they got.

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Press Start Review: Remember Me

The pure fact that memory exists is frankly amazing when you really think about it. Our wrinkled mass of neurons and blood allows us to process current information and store that data for further study or application. Some we retain for days, others we retain our entire lives. As long as that lump of protein gets the energy it needs, we can retain pretty much everything. Even the act of “forgetting” is sometimes just us misfiling a thought or experience only to be found later. More than that, the human brain is still kind of a mystery… We don’t know exactly how memory works really. We don’t know how we store specific thoughts and how they are really processed. We’re close, of course, and getting closer every day – but this game puts us into a time where the human race has already cracked that nut wide open, and is currently chewing up the insides like a rabid squirrel.

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