This Week: Titus Welliver was at Trader Joe's

Mikey Heinrich: So, I was wondering something. I finished The Morning Show and mostly enjoyed it and now am circling back to watch season three of Upload. I really enjoyed the first two seasons, but this one just isn't grabbing me. But I have a hard time not carrying on following a show, even once I stop enjoying it.

What's everybody else's policy for how long to hang in there before cutting bait?

An Honest Fangirl: Depends on how much is left and the setting that I’m watching it in. Like just one season of eight episodes that I can watch in one sitting? Alright, I’ll just binge it and get it over with. But if it’s a weekly drop, or if it’s something that I have to split up into multiple sittings, then it’s less that I drop the season as much as I just find something else to do and forget to finish it.

Mothra: For shows that I'm just getting into, I might ditch them if I feel my enthusiasm waning for 3-4 episodes, and if watching it starts to feel like a chore (I recently had that experience with The Expanse). If I've invested a lot of time into a show, it's much harder for me to walk away (I probably didn't need to watch the last five seasons of The Walking Dead, but here we are).

I will also try to stick it out if I've heard that a great show took some time to become great, and most (all?) of the time I've been really glad I did (examples that come to mind are Deadwood and Halt and Catch Fire).

Victoria Grossack: I am a binge watcher. I only like to watch one new show at a time, and then straight through, as I have been doing with Psych (I am finally in the last season). Of course, there are shows that I started and then stopped watching. Recently that was what I did with Gilmore Girls. I enjoyed the first season or two, but then I got tired of the perpetual emotional dysfunction.

But, while I am watching one new show straight through, I can do the occasional re-run or some documentary, as these are less emotionally taxing.

Mikey Heinrich: OK, so followup. I did power through and watch the entire third season of Upload; I don't know if what got me through was the fact that it was only eight half hour episodes, or that they regularly showed Robbie Amell with his shirt off. Who can say. The world may never know the answer to that mystery.

Also, Kevin Bigley spent one entire episode in a Princess Leia slave girl costume, because the universe owed me a big one after the way it's been treating me recently.

An Honest Fangirl: Was it worth watching? Are you happy with your decision to?

Billie Doux: Definitely interested in the answer to that question because I only watched the first season of Upload.

Mikey Heinrich: It was cute. I generally enjoyed it. There were some pretty good gags. And any time spent watching Robbie Amell shower isn't something I'm going to complain about. Plus only eight half hour episodes, so not a huge time commitment. I totally recommend it for pleasant viewing if you're looking for something a little goofy to take the edge off.

I really don't get why Kevin Bigley isn't a bigger name. He's got great comic chops. He was the new guy in a shortlived sitcom called Sirens about firefighters in Chicago a few years ago. It was very funny.

Josie Kafka: I tried to watch the first season of Upload during lockdowns, and got a few episodes into it before I wound up too horrified by the basic idea being treated as funny. I get that that's the point, it somehow just really hit me the wrong way.

It might be that I have an aversion to cringe comedy, too.

Mikey Heinrich: I totally get that. Last night I couldn't decide what my next show watch should be, so I tried the first episodes of Good Wife and Bosch. How pleasant to unexpectedly find myself in a Titus Welliver sandwich!

Yes, you read what you read.

Billie Doux: I'm a big fan of writer Michael Connelly, author of the Bosch book series as well as other books, so I've been watching and enjoying the Bosch series since it started. I also watched (and liked) the recent Lincoln Lawyer TV series.

Josie Kafka: Mikey, I don't think you were writing for us during the Lost years, you probably don't know that Titus Welliver and I have a close personal relationship. I bumped into him twice at Trader Joe's just when his episodes of Lost were airing.

Mikey Heinrich: I wasn't writing for Doux at the time, but I had heard tell of the legend :)

Lost was the show that made me e-mail Billie for the first time back in the day. I've really enjoyed the first couple episodes of Bosch. I think it's winning out over Good Wife for bingeing purposes.

Also, in my mind Titus Welliver was at Trader Joe's to buy Wasabi Peas.

Mothra: And now I'm playing "Six Degrees of Titus Welliver" in my head.

Mikey Heinrich: Ooh, in non Titus news, I just finished reading the first Thursday Murder Club book and loved it. I can't wait for the Netflix adaptation next year. Have you seen how amazing the cast list is?

An Honest Fangirl: Tom Ellis is in it and I am so so excited. Sure, the cast looks great besides that but… Tom Ellis.

Mikey Heinrich: And David Tennant!

An Honest Fangirl: With our luck, one of them will be the murder victim and/or victims! ;)

Mikey Heinrich: I've been trying to cast them in my mind, and those two do kind of fit.

An Honest Fangirl: ...I really gotta stop speaking things like that into semi-existence.

And I definitely need to read the book at some point.

Mikey Heinrich: It's utterly charming.