I did not watch the Oscars, because I never watch the Oscars, but I deeply appreciate that they wheeled out this janky Shai Hulud costume to perform. This is the content that I, personally, need.

Here’s some stuff I did watch!

Berlin ER, season 1, episode 2

Episode 2 settles the routine: new ER chief Zanna uncovers new ways the hospital is dysfunctional, while Ben is an ambiguous foil to her — competent, but also a patient died, apparently under his care, and no one will talk about that. Zanna concludes that the problem is limited resources rather than malpractice, so chooses not to throw any of her staff under the bus. And I’m like, okay, but he routinely turns up to work under the influence of drugs, are we sure it wasn’t malpractice?

SPEAKING OF MALPRACTICE! Grumpy paramedic Olaf doesn’t want to treat a drug user having a psychotic episode, and neither does Cranky Dr Emina. Seems like a problematic attitude, given that treating patients is sort of their job, but that’s burnout for you. Emina has been applying for jobs elsewhere, but I have to question her decision to take a job interview (via Zoom) in the break room, and also to verbally abuse the psychotic drug user when he interrupts her.

But just when I was ready to write her off, she successfully extracts a lithium battery from a six-year-old who has been feigning illness to get the attention of her divorced parents. Cannot help but notice this is the second episode in a row where a character first fakes illness and then inflicts a real injury on themselves. As a pattern, I don’t love it.

In between crises, we learn a little about Zanna’s personal life. I had assumed from episode 1 that she left her old job following a relationship breakdown, but there are various hints here that it might be something else:

• her stilted conversation with her father, in which she apologises over and over, while her mother is “not ready” to speak to her

• her reaction when she learns the woman who jumped in front of an ambulance in ep 1 will lose custody of her child

• her anxiety dream, in which her sister has been stabbed in the back

• the way she looks away when she says she has nieces and nephews

My guess is that Zanna is in some way responsible for her sister losing custody of her children, and the ensuing family dispute pushed her to move from Munich to Berlin.

Also interesting is that Zanna speaks English with her father. The actress is South African, and I can’t tell if she is speaking German with an accent, but I can definitely think of some reasons why a mixed race family might move from South Africa to Germany.

In fact, surprisingly few of the Berlin: ER cast are German, and if they are, they are not ethnically European. Most are people of colour, and even white dude Ben Weber is played by a Bosnian actor. It highlights the precariousness of the Krank: an underfunded hospital serving a diverse community which was once working class, but is now gentrifying. (The series is set in Neukölln, in Berlin’s south-east — it was home to a concentration camp in WW2, then became an industrial base for West Berlin, and then a residential area cheap enough to attract a lot of recent immigrants. And now it’s trendy, which I’m sure is just fabulous for everyone who already lived there — but public infrastructure always takes a while to follow trends.)

I’m still trying to get a read on Dr Dominic, Handsome Man Who Seems Good At His Job But Also Doesn’t Want To Be There, but the important thing is that actor Aram Tafreshian has the best hair on television right now.

This is why it is important to expose yourself to media from around the world. So you can appreciate things like this. PS I am not biased because that’s what my hair looks like if you squint and overlook the grey.

The White Lotus, season 3, episode 3

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but Jason Isaacs is wearing yellow.

You see, any time he is allowed to dress himself, Isaacs tends to go for blue. I assume someone told him at an impressionable age that it matches his eyes, and he has not made a single fashion choice since. Which is fair, because he looks great in blue.

Here, The White Lotus has put him in a yellow shirt. And if you’re not a dedicated Isaacs-watcher (I am looking respectfully), that probably seems unremarkable, but to me it’s like those scenes in Mad Men when you know Betty is chafing against her life as a housewife because her costumes are clashing against the set design. It’s subtly wrong. Much like his body language as Tim “please don’t ask me about the money laundering” Ratliff realises that the walls are closing in and he’s too far away to do anything about it — he’s not quite curled up in a foetal position, but he is clutching a cushion like it’s an emotional support puppy. That benzo use? Totally justified.

(Question: exactly when is this season meant to be set? We don’t know when Kate voted for Trump, after all. What I’m saying is, if Tim can hold out for a bit, maybe the US government won’t be so concerned about a bit of money laundering and bribery, or at least the FBI will be too busy spying on queer people to do anything about it.)

This feels like the episode where all the Ratliffs reveal new facets of their personalities. Victoria, dreaming of tsunamis, seems to be subconsciously aware of Tim’s stress; consciously, she remains oblivious and awful, but Posey Parker’s performance (and accent) feels more natural every week.

Horrible incest bro Saxon turns out to be a big kid desperate for a shred of validation from his dad, which doesn’t make up for him being a douchey gym rat who for some reason is sexually harassing his siblings, but at least the worst character of the season has an extra dimension. Piper finally makes contact with a monk, and it sounds like she’s interested in a long-term stay in Thailand, not just a week’s holiday.

Lochlan, the youngest and most pathetic of the Ratliff kids, is also the most opaque. I want to like him, because he seems so lost in his family, and also might be gay but his family clearly isn’t okay with that. (I assume that Victoria would talk very loudly about how she doesn’t have a problem with those people, she just thinks [insert incredibly homophobic attitude].)

But also he watches tsunami videos for fun. And I get the appeal, because I like to fall asleep reading about industrial disasters and plane crashes, but watching video where actual humans die is a different kettle of fish. And making other people watch those videos is … well, it’s not cool, man. It’s not cool.

MEANWHILE. Rick and Chelsea. Hands up everyone who didn’t know that Thailand has over 11,000 dispensaries until they googled it mid-episode last night.

I want to like Rick because Walter Goggins is very charismatic, but I cannot. I don’t think he’s the villain of the series, but he has this combination of neediness and hostility that I find very hard to watch. Especially when he’s interacting with Chelsea (so, always) because she is such a fragile baby bird of a person. He freed a venomous snake which bit her, and he didn’t even apologise.

In Rick’s defence, I cannot think of a worse way to spend a tropical vacation than therapy. And I also think imprisoning snakes is bad. But, like. Come on, dude. Say sorry. Chelsea has done literally nothing wrong, ever, in her entire life. She even seems to like Greg/Gary, which is honestly wild.

SPEAKING OF.

Belinda confronts Greg/Gary, who denies knowing her/Tanya/the White Lotus in Maui. I hope that as soon as she’s done investigating the noise outside her room, she jumps on her phone to google Tanya. I don’t love the optics of Belinda being the one to bring Tanya’s murderer to justice, but someone has to do it, and so far she’s the most likely option.

(I realise that Greg/Gary did not actually murder Tanya. He planned for her to be murdered, and she suffered a fatal accident while trying to escape her killers. It’s a distinction without meaning to me, although I’m sure Greg/Gary can afford a good lawyer who would make that argument if the issue arose.)

Most important: next week will see Greg/Gary and Chloe and Rick and Chelsea and ALL THE RATLIFFS on Greg/Gary’s boat. Thissssss. This is the content I am here for.

(I know a lot of people think this season is moving too slowly, but I feel like that’s true of all White Lotus seasons. Even if you watched the first two week to week — I did not — we remember the memetic moments, not the endless scenes of Aubrey Plaza and Will Sharpe enduring awkward breakfasts and microaggressions.)

Meanwhile, over in Rich White Lady Villa, Carrie Coon and The One Who Is An Actress discover that Leslie Bibb (aka Kate aka The Rich Texan) voted for Trump. I saw it coming, but I still enjoyed watching the horror dawn across their faces. Even rich white ladies gotta learn you can’t trust rich white ladies.

Matlock, season 1, episodes 9-11

I saw a post on Tumblr lamenting that the problem with Matlock is that Matty thinks she’s the hero, but she’s actually a terrible person, lying and manipulating people as she pursues a misguided revenge.

Call me crazy, but for me, that is what makes the show good. These three episodes are all about how lies, deception, manipulation and even the pettiest grudge-holding undermine and destroy relationships. Matty and Olympia are officially friends, but that just means Matty is in a better position to manipulate Olympia. Olympia, meanwhile, can’t get past Julian having cheated on her with Shae, and for a walking lie detector who claims she cannot tolerate dishonesty, Shae is decidedly shady. Shaedy.

But everyone in this story thinks they’re the hero, the one who has been wronged and deserves justice. Some of them are right, but it’s going to end in tears, and I frankly cannot wait.

By next week I’ll be caught up, and will have to watch one episode at a time like a chump. Outrageous.

Paradise, season 1, episode 8

Paradise went out the way it came in: with an emo cover of an ‘80s song and some narrative choices which don’t really withstand scrutiny, but it’s all stylish enough that asking too many questions just feels petty. It’s Silo with less politics, or Fallout without the anarchic humour. The finale reveals that events were driven by a queer love story between two working class men, but without going so far as to make it overt. So, you know, classic Disney+.

This seems like faint praise, and I guess it is, but I’ve enjoyed Paradise, and I will definitely watch a second season in two to five years, provided the United States is still in a position to make and export media. I just think it arrived at the wrong moment.

American Primeval, episodes 1-3

It turns out this Netflix limited series is not about dinosaurs and time travel — I was thinking of Primeval, the 2007 ITV series which somehow ran for five whole seasons. Amazing.

No, American Primeval is about Mormons, and frontier wars, and the violence inherent to the “settlement” of the west. It’s a revisionist western, combining real historical figures like Jim Bridger and Brigham Young with the adventures of a mother, played by Betty Gilpin, travelling with her son in search of his father — with a posse of bounty hunters on their tails because she straight up murdered a guy.

This sounded interesting on paper, but honestly I’m not having fun. Gilpin gives an amazing performance as Sara, but her character keeps going through the same cycle:

• a man tells her not to do a thing

• she does the thing

• it goes badly wrong and she needs to be rescued

This culminates in Sara and her group being captured by deformed French bandits (why is it necessary for them to have facial differences?), who rape her. That happens off-screen, but it’s still harrowing.

I find myself thinking, yes, this is a story about the violent nature of the imperialist project, and that’s fine, but it feels like it’s also just an excuse to put horrific violence on screen.

As for Native American characters, we see a lot of different Shoshone bands, who have different goals and motivations, but they can be roughly divided into Monsters, Quislings and Noble Savages. Cliches are deployed (the white man who was raised by Native Americans; the white woman who is captured and finds freedom with the Shoshone save that her exotic beauty makes her an object of fascination) but they aren’t explored or subverted with any meaning.

In fairness, the white characters aren’t exactly fleshed out either. You’ve got Mormons (duplicitous fanatics), the US Army (just doing their job, ma’am), the bounty hunters (monstrous and disloyal) and the men who support Sara (decent men of few words).

It’s all filmed on location, but I can’t even enjoy the scenery because the colour is so desaturated that some scenes may as well be black and white. At first I put this down to the standard Netflix house style, but I actually think it was a choice on the part of the director. It’s effective, in that the story takes place in winter and I think I’m developing seasonal affective disorder, but it all looks like the terrible day-for-night shooting we saw in season 1 of House of the Dragon.

(I’ll give the show this: the lighting on the night scenes is great.)

“Liz, if you’re not having fun, why are you still watching?” Look, I’m at the halfway mark, it’s too late to stop now.

Drive-by curious fact: American Primeval comes from one of the co-writers of The Revenant, which also features French bandits. Maybe he just hates the French?

Severance, season 2, episode 8

This was a short episode — only 38 minutes plus the extra behind the scenes content — and an interesting one. Small in scale, with lots of hushed conversations with uncertain contexts, and Harmony Cobel is the only familiar character.

But it’s also an important episode, so naturally people are calling it “filler” and generally having wrong opinions.

Here’s what we learn:

• Before it was a faceless corporation, Lumon was the sort of company that builds a company town, exploits the residents, and then sweeps away, leaving a trail of environmental and human wreckage in its wake.

• It was also into child labour, which I suspected from the presence of Miss Huang, but…

• we now know Cobel was one of those child labourers…

• and indeed, was part of the same program Miss Huang aspires to join.

• The cult of Keir is inextricably linked with Lumon, but also exists outside of it, persisting after the closure of the factory.

• We learn a lot about Cobel’s family and upbringing, but most importantly…

• Harmony Cobel invented the severance procedure, for which Jame Eagan took credit, and after serving Lumon for her entire life only to be rejected, she is pissed.

First, I will say that if this episode was any longer, it would probably be filler. It took as much time as it needed to tell its story, and no more. And I respect that a lot.

The wrongest opinion I’ve seen is that Cobel cannot possibly have invented severance because she “doesn’t seem smart enough” and “was working as a manager”, which gives me a lot of feelings about how the United States is being dismantled by men who have a very narrow idea of what “intelligence” looks like, and it’s never a weird middle-aged lady.

This is a very low-key episode that’s more concerned with setting things up for the finale. It’s certainly not the most exciting time I’ve had watching TV this week, but I felt like I was in competent hands. Will that carry through to the finale? Who knows! Stay tuned!

The Pitt, season 1, episode 10

People kept saying things like, “Only two hours of this shift to go!” and I’m like, guys, don’t you know you’re in a 15-episode season? Please don’t relax just yet, we’re only two-thirds of the way through.

The big shock of the week: I did not expect Langdon to actually be stealing drugs, and I absolutely did not think it would be uncovered and resolved so quickly. We totally bypassed the “McKay is wrongly accused” subplot I was reading, and it was two minutes from “Dr Robbie investigates” to “Dr Langdon is gone”.

Gone for good? Too soon to say! But given the way the rest of the shift has gone, and the fact that we are strongly foreshadowing a school shooting, I wouldn’t be shocked if he is called back because there’s literally no one else.

Here’s my hot take: Langdon is not an addict, he was taking the drugs to sell. I have no real evidence, save that he doesn’t seem impaired and his story of injuring his back felt as unconvincing and rushed as his denials moments earlier. He has young kids and student debt, and access to pills that have high street value.

I could be wrong — I’m certainly relying on a stereotypical idea of how addicts in the medical field behave (created in part by John “I was stabbed at work and all I got was a painkiller addiction and a liver transplant” Carter himself), but that’s my guess.

My question now is, will this “win” go to Santos’s head? Her attitude has improved tremendously over the last ten episodes — I actually do not believe a person can change this much in ten hours, but okay — but she still has a healthy ego that can tip over into arrogance. And Langdon’s criticisms of her are all correct! This complexity is why she has accidentally become a fave, but it also means I’m genuinely afraid of what she’ll do next.

On the other hand, she’s now on Robbie’s radar, and this episode reminds us, again, that he is a great teacher, not least because he’s still willing to learn. McKay calls him out, accurately, for valuing the good name of one boy over the safety of many girls, and he takes that on board.

I’m gonna say something potentially controversial: I think Dr Robbie is better at the teaching side of his job than John Carter. Carter didn’t supervise his students and residents closely enough, leaving them free to get into Situations, because that’s how that era of ER worked. Robbie is a lot more hands-on, and tries to be aware of everything that’s happening around him. (This is why, even though he agrees McKay was right to call the cops, he still insists she should have come to him first.)

Around the ER:

• Mel worries she doesn’t have a “special sauce” that makes her unique as a practitioner. I don’t know if this is specifically an autistic feeling, but girl, I know that fear.

• McKay’s ex comes in with a broken leg, having injured himself skateboarding with their son. McKay feels like an evolution from Sam, the late-season ER nurse, a single mother with a cartoonishly evil ex — by contrast, McKay’s ex is immature and kind of a dick, but not actually a terrible person. And also her kid is not a Sassy TV Kid, thank goodness.

• Whittaker continues to be the least interesting character, and every scene he’s in is great.

• I love each and every nurse in this entire hospital, especially the two who talk shit about people in Tagalog.

• Parts of this episode felt like A Very Special Message About Violence Against Healthcare Workers. It was clumsy, but also sincere, and I can’t hate that, especially when it also involves Noah Wyle comedically sneaking away from a drama he has instigated.

Yellowjackets, season 3, episode 5

I dunno, you guys. I said last week that I didn’t think season 3 was notably less good than season 1, but maybe I was wrong. Because I had fun watching season 1.

There were moments where I enjoyed this episode (pairing Melanie Lynskey with Elijah Wood is genius), but overall, I kept going, “Why is this happening? What is the purpose of this story? Where are we going with this?”

I’m willing to see this season out, but I’m decidedly on the fence about whether I will continue. Assuming it gets a fourth season, which is by no means guaranteed.

Berlin ER, season 1, episode 3

This series is fully dedicated to dismantling the stereotype of German efficiency, and I respect that. Zanna is introducing a lot of radical new changes to the ER, including “let’s triage people?” and “uhhhh maybe we should not be misplacing narcotics?” and everyone is mad about these unreasonable demands.

Dr Ben is particularly put out by the latter change. Like his colleague over in Pittsburgh, he has a locker full of stolen narcotics. I am in TRUST NO BITCH mode when it comes to doctors after Langdon’s betrayal, but Ben seems to be using them in an off-books informal clinic he’s secretly running. But I remain suspicious, not least because he was introduced coming to work while high, and I’m sorry, that just seems like inappropriate behaviour from a doctor.

(Commenters on r/berlin report that the series is “somewhat” accurate, but German doctors are not allowed to work while high, and also this series is like if you took the individual problems of each and every ER in Berlin and put them all in one place. So I feel better about my chances of surviving a trip to a German hospital.)

Zanna’s changes are particularly criticised by one male nurse who compares her to the Stasi, even though her investigation last episode did not result in anyone facing consequences for the apparently preventable death of a teacher. Seems tasteless to throw words like “Stasi” around when you’re this close to the former East Berlin border, but what do I know, I’m just a dumb Australian who thinks triaging patients seems like a good idea.

That nurse is tasked by Ben with stealing some narcotics for an undocumented man he is secretly treating (#JustBenWeberThings), only to get caught by Zanna. Ben denies everything, which is fully a dick move, but given that the nurse’s other hobby seems to be workplace bullying (of his Black, female boss), I don’t think she was unreasonable to fire him.

Zanna also offers Cranky Dr Emina a recommendation for a neurosurgery post at her old hospital in exchange for Cranky Dr Emina getting the team behind Zanna. Emina’s like, “Fuck you, I don’t need charity,” until her adorable girl crush, novice paramedic Olivia, points out that Emina is only making life harder for herself. So Emina steps up, but this job would mean Emina moves to Munich, away from Olivia. They drink beer and flirt about it.

This is probably the high point of Olivia’s day, which opens with her and Olaf responding to a call at an orgy. (“Typical Berlin brunch.”) A young man has died of a drug overdose, and while they’re on scene, a woman goes from flirting with Olivia to collapsing and having a seizure. She ultimately dies, and the hospital team learn there’s a sketchy new synthetic opioid on the streets.

Something very odd happens while that woman is being treated: Dr Dom With The Good Hair completely flakes out and doesn’t seem to know how to treat her. Zanna steps in, and he spins a yarn about being traumatised by finding his sister’s body after an overdose. But he doesn’t have a sister. Is he just embarrassed about having a mental blank? Is he even a doctor at all?

Zanna finishes work and hits the dance floor, which I now assume is compulsory for all German professionals under the age of 45. But she encounters a woman selling the same sketchy new drug that has killed two people, snatches and disposes of the pills, and takes a blow to the head for her troubles.

We end with Dr Ben stapling the wound, and I want to ship them, but I don’t trust him yet. But at least he sees that she’s completely unhinged in her own way, so maybe he can begin to trust her.

Meanwhile, the week in music

I hate the idea of becoming one of those millennials who thinks music peaked in 1998. I mean, it did, but we shouldn’t go around saying it. So I’m making more of an effort to expose myself to new music — and since I need songs to become familiar in order to have an opinion on them, I’ve started a playlist called Ten, which is ten tracks I feel like I should listen to. I play it on repeat in my car, rotate songs in and out as I decide whether or not they have a place in my full-time playlist, and it’s all working quite well, thank you.

Over the last month I have learned:

• Kendrick deserved that Pulitzer, and also Drake’s head

• I need to listen to more Sharon Van Etten than just having “Seventeen” on repeat for hours at a time

• I’m going to have a lot of fun digging into Marianne Faithfull’s discography

• Amyl and the Sniffers probably seem pretty radical if your whole exposure to music has been TikTok bedroom pop and your parents’ Blink 182 throwback playlists, but to me they are super overrated and it’s a bit embarrassing