Rich Heldenfels, Pop Culture Wanderer

I have been keeping a running list of binge-worthy shows on various pieces of paper around my desk, certain that I would get around to a post about them. Then I didn't. Part of that had to do with my wanting to get through shows, then being sidetracked. I have started Star Trek: Discovery on CBS All Access   at least three times, and I like it, but somehow I have never gotten out of Season 1. While Picard (also on All Access) is intriguing, I am several episodes behind and therefore withholding judgment.  On the other hand, there are shows I have binged and found wanting; Amazon's Jack Ryan  comes to mind, as mostly meh, especially in a second season that reworked large chunks of Clear and Present Danger, though not very well. Why Women Kill on CBS All Access I may go back to The Boys, or not, since it didn't thrill me one way or another. And there are shows that await my bingeing, like Dare Me, which is so artfully unsettling that I'd rather devour it all at once ...

I still cruise the television offerings, though sometimes not for long. "Blood and Treasure," the CBS summer series, wasn't even worth finishing the first episode, a clumsily forced attempt at clever action. I managed to make it through one episode of Spectrum's "L.A.'s Finest," a gender-reversed visit to the "Bad Boys" formula, but one was enough; again, everything seemed to have been borrowed elsewhere, and not very well. I've seen a little more of the new Netflix-backed season of "Designated Survivor" ; it seems to be trying to be less of a thriller and more of a political tale (including via real-people documentary footage) but it's not very good at it -- at times a blatant reworking of things "The West Wing" did better. And I can say that from current memory, since I've been binge-watching "West Wing," with six seasons done and the seventh to go. The original flaws are still there -- the unk...