Episode from 1-11-2015

I knew it wouldn’t take long for one of my choices of things to watch on VHS or DVD that is an hour or shorter to change. Well it did. The Bible Special has been watched and is now gone from the list. It has been replaced by the complete series of Moonlight. So here’s the new order: 1- Charmed, 2- Farscape, 3- Great Nature Videos, 4- Historic Stuff, 5- Moonlight, with six being the recorded shows on VHS that has at least one old episode of Madam Secretary. It might have other ones in the future. We’ll see what ends up happening with that.

This episode is airing against the Golden Globes, which I normally watch. With no reception problems with NBC (a good thing, believe me), I decide that I will record Madam Secretary on my laptop and probably ignore anything else that’s new tonight. FOX was airing a movie and not sports so I don’t have to worry about them. ABC is coming in, but I can’t watch it. My secondary CBS affiliate is airing a football game: Indiana versus Denver. Indiana is winning. I then check my primary CBS affiliate which is airing the same game.

The EPG that I use says that Madam Secretary isn’t set to begin until an hour later. Now if it airs an hour later than usual or my two CBS affiliates are airing shows at different times, when Madam Secretary returns to its normal time, I will then start a new blog about the Good Wife. So you may have to look forward to that other new blog if you are a fan of that show. I’ll post the link here when I start it, which I probably will. The football game was only in its third quarter so there’s a lot of it left to play. I decide to watch the red carpet special of the Golden Globes in the meantime. During a commercial, I check CBS again. The game is still airing and Indiana is still winning. I go back to NBC. I do stuff during the commercial break and thus I don’t have a chance to check CBS for stuff. The next break, I do check and Indiana is still winning. That also means that the game is still happening this long. At the next break, I haven’t noticed if the score has changed on the football game. The game ends with Indiana winning. The Colts beat the Broncos. This is before it becomes seven, but that doesn’t mean that they will start the next programming immediately. I’ll check back later, if I can.

It turns out that they are airing a post game show I think. This is probably to make sure that the programming doesn’t start earlier on the programs for those who DVR the programs instead of watching it live. I’m glad that they treat their DVR viewers better than their live viewers (sarcasm!) as if I had my way with CBS, they won’t air any sports on Sunday and thus, would never have to worry about delays as to when their programs air. At least it will be a manageable delay. I’ll be sure to record the show and watch it later. As for other Sunday shows, as I said before, I don’t care about missing them this week. I’m always annoyed that the other networks air new things against the Golden Globes year after year. I mean, other award shows don’t have counterprogramming to them and these people are continuing as if nothing unusual is happening. Treat the Golden Globes seriously!

I wind up recording this show on my laptop. As usual, I will blog about it later. I need to find a good method of writing this blog while watching this episode. Also, I need to figure out when to watch it. Remember that I’ll never know when I post, just that it will probably not be on Sundays, when it airs, or on Wednesdays, when I’m sure to post a different blog of mine about Survivor (unless something strange happens or it is during Lent or Advent, when I post about the episode the next day). So look here whenever you can after a new episode and I should post about it at some point. Just not sure when. Meanwhile, I need to get to the point of this blog.

Today’s episode brought to you by an hour delay. It begins with a foreign diplomat who committed a crime and wants to use his diplomatic immunity to get away with it. Henry’s father is visiting his family. Not sure what to make of that. They decide to act against the foreign person.

The next segment brings up the topic of a stolen pen. While I like this show, I don’t like it when it has terrible b plots like that. Elizabeth talks to the person who was the victim of the serious crime being dealt with in this episode. But it’s hard to make much of it yet.

Elizabeth has supper with a different diplomat from the same country as the one who is in trouble. She sends the bad people back while convincing him to act on it in his country, since he has more authority. Meanwhile, Stevie learns that her grandfather isn’t in a strong position with his union like he originally claimed. Not sure what to make of that. Apparently, the stolen pen ended up on Elizabeth’s desk and she gives it to a kid at an event, not knowing what it is. Then, the good diplomat is killed when he’s announcing that action will be taken again the bad one and there are issues with what should be done about the funeral regarding whether or not Elizabeth should go to it.

In the end, Elizabeth does go to the funeral. She does it without her staff, but, I’m guessing, there’s some protection, right? They wouldn’t just let someone that important leave without any security, right? Back to the grandfather: he’s sorry for what has happened regarding the union that he was pretty much kicked out of, I think.

The last segment clarifies some things for me. Turns out that Elizabeth didn’t actually do to the funeral, although she did visit the country to talk to someone there. A lot of people have positive reactions to that. Then, we have the pen situation which serves a romantic subplot. The person will get a replacement pen. And I have to learn that character’s name.

There’s no new episode this coming Sunday due to an AFC championship game. Guess that I’ll be back some other time with a blog post on the next episode. I’ll also let you know when I started my blog on the TV show The Good Wife by posting a link here when that blog is started. Not sure when it will be, but hopefully, it will be soon. If this show isn’t on delay, then you can expect a new blog.

Episode from 1-4-2015

Hello, this is Adam Decker and I blog about Survivor and TV in general. Now, I’m starting a blog about the CBS show Madam Secretary. This blog was mostly started due to a dream of mine and the fact that people weren’t reading my TV blog as much as they used to. I have strange television viewing habits, but I will still blog about this show. Don’t expect to see the posts immediately after the episode airs. There are a lot of good things on TV. I typically record some shows while I watch other shows. That is why this might be delayed in some way. But, I will watch episodes online should I ever miss things. I’m rambling already. Sorry about that. Anyways, I’m doing a blog about Madam Secretary and I hope that you like it. This blog will encompass every episode from the moment that I first start watching, which should be as soon as the year 2015 starts. I’ll also write about any episodes I’m catching up with on VHS. In fact, if that happens, I’ll keep track of it here. If you don’t know my other blogs, then you should know about how OCD I am.

I’ll be starting each blog post with updates on what the football schedule is for the day. Football overrun leads to tape delays which would affect how I see the next episode. There is currently one episode on VHS that I’ll have to get caught up on. There are also other shows that I watch on Sundays. In addition to Madam Secretary, I also watch 60 Minutes, Once Upon a Time, The Simpsons, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Resurrection, Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, The Good Wife, and CSI with the latter two being possible new blogs of mine in the future. I’ll let you know if I do create them or not. Since I cannot watch all of those shows on one night all at once, I record them in sets, always on a week to week basis, meaning I don’t know going into the week which shows I watch live and which ones I record. I also don’t know which method of recording I’ll use on each, since I typically have a TV tuner for the more important shows and a VHS tape for less important shows (although all are important as I insist on recording them or watching them live).

I might even have to ignore the Golden Globes this year, but I have problems with my NBC affiliate as it does not always come in. And there are new shows on other networks every time they air the Golden Globes, which I never like since that’s the only Sunday in the whole year that NBC is actually airing something good. (They had potential with Crisis, but they screwed it up. Well, the writers of Crisis screwed it up.) I also have problems with my ABC affiliates as one of them almost never comes in and the other one has trouble coming in a lot. With both NBC and ABC in my area being so bad at coming in, I can pretty much know that I’ll be missing whatever good shows they air during the summer since that’s when they care the least about signal quality, it seems. Now I’d tell you which affiliates they are if you are someone who can actually fix them. (I also have problems with a CW affiliate which I no longer have, a FOX affiliate that I no longer have, and a PBS affiliate that I no longer have, although none of them really matter as I have other affiliates for those networks that do come in pretty well all the time. Lacking alternates for the ABC and NBC affiliates is why I complain about them when they don’t come in. And, if you didn’t figure it out, I have no problem watching either CBS affiliate of mine as they always come in. While I would like the other PBS station back as PBS is always different on each channel, I don’t care about it enough to complain about it.)

So with two CBS affiliates and a FOX affiliate, I typically turn on the TV on Sunday slightly before six to see if shows will be affected by delays. CBS is more than likely going to be delayed. That is, of course, if it aired football or any other sports for the matter. What’s interesting is that sometimes my two CBS affiliates are either on two different delays, or one is on delay while the other isn’t. I also keep track of FOX shows, which rarely, but sometimes, air on delay, so I know what to watch on it. Now sometimes CBS delays are manageable because they are either at or close enough to a half hour mark (either XX:30 or XX:00) and I can know whether to watch some or record some. If it airs at too weird of a time, then I record shows from CBS on VHS and watch everything else normally. The CBS show that’s supposed to start at 8:00 Central time will be watched after nine from the moment that I started watching to the moment that it ends while I stop recording the show during commercials after leaving a warning on the tape to my future self that I will be doing something with the episode. Now I try to only use VHS tapes when three good things are on at once so I will avoid using them whenever possible. That means that Once Upon a Time’s hiatus should mean that I don’t have to worry about that time slot for the moment. But that may not happen. It may not be that easy.

Now here’s what you can expect from this blog. I will post random updates about the TV shows that I watch on DVD. That includes stuff on VHS of fairly short length (an hour or less) and anything that I have recorded from this TV season to catch up on. Since I have a lot to catch up on, I have a system where I roll for stuff to watch on DVD, with six different numbers representing each different show. And if I’m really behind on recorded shows, I ignore the list and just watch tapes to catch up on them. In case you were wondering, these were the shows to watch, intentionally arranged in alphabetical order: 1- a bible special (just one thing on VHS to watch that has a short running time), 2- Charmed season 5 (which I’m watching again since I like it), 3- Farscape season 1 (which I’m borrowing from a friend and I’m not sure if I’ll finish watching yet or not), 4- great nature videos (the name I’m giving to various nature related specials on VHS), 5- historical stuff (mostly a VHS series by Walter Cronkite, which I’m just now realizing that I might have seen already in history classes back from high school, but will watch them anyways), and 6- recorded shows on VHS (basically, if three great things are on at once, there is something that I want to record when I won’t be able to watch anything, or just two things are on but my laptop isn’t an option for recording as either someone else is using it or I don’t want to use it for reasons that might include bad weather, then I record a show on VHS and have to get caught up on it). In case you are wonder, I got half of those items from my grandparents who were giving it away and I wanted to watch it. I shouldn’t have to tell you which half as you should be able to figure it out for yourself. I currently have a bunch of alternate items for the list lined up so I’ll let you know if one gets replaced, what replaces it, and what items, if any, have to be reordered. Now with this incredibly long and worthless introduction done, I will get to the actual blog post.

I check the primary CBS affiliate of mine slightly before 6 o’clock. They are airing the news, which means no sports delay. My secondary CBS affiliate is also airing the news so it is not airing on a sports delay. I check the FOX affiliate of mine and they are airing some football game with the lions playing another team. Due to lacking a widescreen TV, I cannot tell which teams are playing or what the score is. I believe they are calling it a wild card game, whatever that means. Meanwhile, 60 Minutes is starting at the right time. Before we get any further, I would like to point out that I don’t think that I’ve seen any of these Walter Cronkite specials before. I check the FOX affiliate to see if I can figure out who the lions are playing and I discover that it is the cowboys. I missed the score, but it is not tied. I watch the first segment of 60 Minutes in the meantime before I check back on FOX. Remember that the quality of this blog post will vary depending on how I ended up watching it. Not all of them will be watched live and it could be recorded on a format that will delay the time it takes for me to see it.

After the first segment of 60 Minutes ends, I check FOX again and see that they are still airing the same football game I mentioned earlier. Still not sure what the score is. I check ABC and it looks like I might have some Resurrection to watch. Even if it isn’t new, I might not have seen it. I go back to CBS and watch the second part of 60 Minutes. The third part happens while I worry about the FOX shows starting on time. After that segment airs, I check the FOX shows again. They are airing the post game show. The cowboys won. It looks like this show will start soon. I ended up recording it on my laptop and will watch it that way. I will finish the rest of this blog post and post it after watching it, or later. I’m not sure when these posts will happen, so I thought that I’d tell you about.

Okay, I should be getting to the actual important stuff: what happened on the Madam Secretary episode that aired on the date I mentioned in question. We begin with a shootout of some sort where somebody dies. The person responsible is named Ocinka? I don’t know how to spell his name. Elizabeth gets ready for a vacation with Henry. She is worried about leaving and has to be forced out the door. Alison and Jason play with a football inside that results in him getting hurt. A situation like that could only end badly anyways. The Texas governor doesn’t want Ocinka to be brought to America. They have to get rid of the death penalty or they won’t be able to bring him here. There are some legal raggling issues.

Now there might be some sort of prison break where Ocinka is imprisoned. But that’s hard to tell at the moment since it is left intentionally ominous. Anyways, Jason hurt his ankle and they don’t know if it is serious or not. He doesn’t want his parents to come home. Henry and Elizabeth want Stevie to spend time with her college friends so that she will return to college.

Elizabeth and Henry have trouble trying to get a good restaurant. Ocinka, which is the wrong pronunciation of the name, goes by the first name Carlos. Thus his name will remain. Anyways, Carlos is captured by Texans. That causes problems, of course.

Klaus, a French guy from a previous episode, shows up at the date of Henry and Elizabeth. He seems to be pretty mysterious and it doesn’t make a lot of sense as to why he is here or what his purpose is. So I don’t know what to say about that.

It turns out that Klaus wasn’t up to something. Or he was, but he wasn’t caught with any evidence of it. With him being clean, we return to the rogue governor of Texas. Ultimately, they don’t know what to do about the Carlos situation so they decide to call in Elizabeth. She hadn’t even been gone a full day and there’s already trouble.

Elizabeth goes to Texas to and convinces governor Lockheed or whatever his name is that it would be in his best interest to let Carlos go or he could be facing criminal charges. I’m not sure that he learned any lesson there which is to be expected in politics. I’m not sure what to make of the Klaus storyline, but I guess they will get more into that in future episodes.

What’s happening next on Madam Secretary? Well, I didn’t actually record the promo. This week was pretty weird for me as I got sick at one point and missed a lot of my shows. I even didn’t post my Survivor blog as usual. Oh, well. It doesn’t matter.