HLN's long journey from founding in 1982

HLN is having a Closer marathon this weekend my husband said. He loves Closer, and since he found it recently on a channel that has been airing it about 6 p.m. I think he's gone through it twice. HLN? Isn't that a cable news channel? I said. So I looked it up. Here's Wikipedia shortened to its most recent merger.

"With the 2022 merger of CNN parent WarnerMedia and Discovery Inc. to form Warner Bros. Discovery, HLN became a sister to Discovery's true-crime channel Investigation Discovery (ID). In December 2022, new CNN president Chris Licht announced that HLN would abandon original live news programming entirely as part of a reorganization, with HLN now being overseen by ID's staff, and news programming limited to a simulcast of CNN This Morning for contractual reasons."

I thought CNN was in there somewhere.

Was my mother funny?

We were big fans of the TV show Closer and the character Deputy police chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, so of course we watched Kera Sedgwick in the premiere of Call your Mother last night. Underwhelming and not even particularly funny. Maybe even boring? Did you watch it? Lately I've watched 3 older episodes of Mom, now in its 8th season. I keep waiting. How did that show make it past episode 3 in season one? I had a terrific mom, but she wasn't particularly funny. Or so I thought. I'm beginning to rethink that.

Major Crimes can’t come up to the level of The Closer

I sat down to watch "Major Crimes" (spin off of The Closer) last night and immediately began to complain about the writing, acting, directing, location shots, story line, etc. In short, it stinks and I can't imagine how enough people like it to make it into the 4th season. My husband was enjoying it until I came in. He said, "Well, it seemed OK until you started watching.”

“Major Crimes follows the further investigations of the detectives in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Major Crimes division. The crime drama’s cast includes Mary McDonnell, GW Bailey, Tony Denison, Michael Paul Chan, Raymond Cruz, Robert Gossett, Phillip P. Keene, Jonathan Del Arco, Kearran Giovanni, and Graham Patrick Martin. “ Ratings.

Major Crimes—it’s just not working for me

"I asked for season 7 of the Closer (DVD) for my birthday last week, which my daughter and son in law gave me when we went out to eat at the Rusty Bucket. Oops. My husband had started over with season one, is viewing one a day, so it may be after Christmas before I get to see it (we watch them together).  Yesterday he started season Two. He's the kind of guy who can put a package of double fudge brownies in the freezer and only eat one a day!"

Kyra Sedgwick the star of the Closer:

After seven seasons, the ratings keep going up. For some people, this would mean staying until viewers stopped watching. But Sedgwick was happy that fans are still begging for "The Closer" not to end. The 46-year-old admitted to the L.A. Times, "People come up to me all the time and go, 'Please! Don't! Why?' It's heartbreaking, and I feel badly about it, but I'm also thankful they're saying that and not, 'You're still doing that show? Oy!' It's so much better to leave having people want more."

                   

Closing out the closer with half price goods

I'm so disappointed in this season's Closer, TNT's award winning program now in its 7th season. Last night's tired old, anti-Catholic scripts that has been done on dozens of shows; predictable group think and talk; Kyra is a caricature of Brenda; and last night's episode wasn't a cliff hanger, it was over the cliff. Maybe they've brought out all the reserve team writers and directors for this season, so we won't miss it when Major Crimes begins immediately after its death. They shouldn't have waited so long to end it. . .

TV writers are not so clever about their anti-Christian bias, if you watch a series for any length of time. All the boogey men and rumors and myths are brought out in the story, then the priest, minister, pastor, etc. are absolved in the end, but the seeds of suspicion and hate have been firmly planted. This also happens on Bones and Law and Order. But Muslims--they are not treated this way. They are usually the victims of prejudice in the story line by unnamed bigoted groups. All the Closer team was going along with the theme--a murdered priest had been a child molester, the church was doing a massive cover up--but he was completely innocent and had been killed by someone whose confession he had heard. Closer also has a strong anti-Mexican theme in many stories and with blatant stereotyping, but allow the one Hispanic character (whose Spanish sounds about as good as mine) on the show always has to interpret the church to the rest of the crew.

We love Brenda as The Closer

We've been fans of TNT's The Closer since it began in June 2005. It's now in it's 7th and final season, and we're watching the first season on DVD on our new digital TV at our lake house. We don't have cable here, so we're watching one episode an evening, and on Monday nights we go to a neighbors to see last week's and this week's episodes. I've seen some of these episodes several times, and now I can just watch for the humor and team building, watching Brenda's team come together after first resenting her. In the first season we get to watch her and Fritz fall in love; how she got her crazy house; how she came to acquire kitty; why she is always lost; and her addiction to junk food.

Unfortunately, Mr. James Duff (story coordinator), we also see certain themes from the very beginning--favorites of Hollywood: 1) anti-religion, particularly Christianity, but there's nothing kind about Muslims either; 2) sensitivity to gay issues, but with almost vicious reality about gays being the perps as well as the victims; 3) guys as slime balls (except Fritz) when it comes to sex, and women being powerful and smart; 4) southern stereotypes from Brenda's oozing "thank you," to her mother's solicitous, hovering behavior; presenting the right political spectrum in the most unflattering roles possible while not making them either the perp or the victim--just hauling them in for questioning so they can be mouthpieces for the hostility of the writers and producers (nothing similar for the left or socialist view--afterall, that IS Hollywood); people within the legal system, lawyers, police, DAs, private investigators, etc. as criminals. Much of this we'd come to expect on Law and Order--which was particularly hostile to conservatives and Christians, but had good story lines.

Still, even understanding how Hollywood sees those of us in fly-over country as soggy Tea Bags, I'd like to see a little respect once in a while. We pay cable bills too, and buy advertised products. Brenda Leigh Johnson and her crew are great--just too one dimensional and predictable in their dislike for American values.

Brenda Leigh--you should be ashamed of yourself for misleading young women

We've borrowed and returned 2 seasons of "The Closer" from the library, and checked out seasons 3 and 4. We've thoroughly enjoyed the excellent writing and acting of this TNT show, which ends after the seventh season this year. Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) would be such a beautiful role model for young women who want to be both authoritative, tough and a good manager, but yet feminine and tender too. She wears modest feminine attire, loves her kitty, and is usually emotionally exhausted when coming home from work.) Unfortunately, the writers gave her a live-in boyfriend as a subplot (they marry in later episodes) to help her solve crimes and a former married lover as her boss for tension and humor at work. I guess it would just be too much work to figure out how she could possibly be a fine, capable woman and be sexually chaste too. Since the crime and the team's dynamics are the center piece each episode, how hard could it be to make Brenda really smart?

Since young women (and even some old) have decided living with the guy is an OK opening for marriage and long term plans like having a family, the divorce rate has soared and the child poverty rate has gone out of sight, with only 8% of children from married households living in poverty and 56% with single moms living in poverty. How smart is that, Hollywood, to promote this? Don't you want people to continue buying your product?

Women could virtually wipe out poverty in a generation just by having higher standards for themselves and the men they love.

.

Smells like Murder episode of The Closer

The Closer, starring Kyra Sedgwick, is my husband's favorite show. In the summer he goes to a neighbor's to watch it, so I don't see the episodes until they are reruns. Last Monday was "Smells like Murder" which I think is the fourth one that had Charlie (Sosie Bacon, her real life daughter) Brenda's rebellious, risk taking niece. In this episode there's a sub-lot about Charlie receiving a package of marijuana from a friend and then baking it into brownies. From the IMDB.com summary:

"Back at home, Brenda arrives to find Charlie cooking. Brenda asks what the delicious smell is. Charlie says it's a surprise, but she promises they're going to have a lot of fun tonight.

Brenda sniffs her way through the house and finds brownies in Charlie's room. She takes one. [If you don't watch this show, Brenda is a chocoholic and sugar addict, always sneaking food she shouldn't be eating, rolling her eyes and then hiding the leftovers in her purse or desk.]

Later, she wobbles out into the dining room, a little too relaxed. She tells Charlie they need to talk. She had a brownie. Or two, or three. Charlie looks totally freaked out. But Brenda says they're the best brownies she's ever had in her entire life. Brenda is stoned.

Later, lying on the living room floor, Brenda talks through the case, trying to figure out who could have done it. But then her words start to sound funny and she's singing Willie Nelson.

Fritz comes home to this scene, his wife on her knees, singing to him. He looks at her eyes, immediately figures out what's up and asks Charlie what's going on. Brenda shows him the brownies. He suggests she go to bed.

Fritz [a recovering alcoholic] is not amused. "Who the hell do you think you are, bringing marijuana into my house?" he asks Charlie. He figures her friend sent her weed - and he signed for it. He asks her if she knows what could have happened if he'd eaten one, telling her he's in AA. He's yelling. "It's not my fault you're a drunk," she says, snottily.

He picks up her phone and finds her friend's number. He's calling her parents. He tells Charlie to go to her room and that she's going home as soon as possible.

Brenda comes out, asking about the fuss. Fritz tells her they're sending Charlie back. This spurs a Brenda realization, even while stoned. She writes down "send back." And then she takes a nap."

When I checked this episode on-line, some viewers (younger than me and apparently wise to the ways of this drug) either thought it was a lame episode and not realistic, or they thought it was hilarious. It was neither, but it was realistic in some parts. People still do this either as food poisoning or a prank.

The October 21, 2009 issue of JAMA had a lengthy article from the CDC MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) about a group of preschool teachers who ingested brownies with marijuana that had been purchased and shared by one of the staff from a vendor who claimed to be part of a church group (that was false). They experienced nausea, dizziness, headache, numbness and tingling of fingertips, face, forehead, arms and hands. When the director discovered her staff was ill, all with similar symptoms, the LAPD was called and the Dept. of Public Health of California. Only one staff person spit it out immediately noticing the unusual taste, and the other six, although they thought the brownies had a medicinal aftertaste, ate them anyway. One woman was a breastfeeding mother; two required medical attention at an urgent care facility. All had blood and urine tests. Symptoms lasted 3-10 hours; all recovered. The sidewalk vendor was never found.

Accidental ingestion of marijuana has led to coma in children. THC is the major psychoactive ingredient and it rapidly distributes to the adipose tissue, liver, lungs, and spleen, and then is released back into the blood stream where it is converted to THC-COOH which can be detected for anywhere from days in infrequent users to weeks or months in frequent users.

I'm guessing that because this happened in California where the DPH may be accustomed to some strange drug episodes and the staff of the pre-school were cooperating with the investigation, it was cleared up pretty fast. In some other states, they might have had to hire a lawyer and lost their jobs.

They've ruined The Closer

Whenever there's a good series and it runs a few years, the writers run out of ideas. The Closer is in its 5th season. So some hot shot comes along and says, let's bring in a new character to the ensemble. I know, let's have two females battling and at the same time let the new character say negative things about police in her role as a victims investigator. Oh goodie. I just turned it off in mid-program. I watched that gal once, and once is enough. Bring back Irene Daniels if another woman is needed.

I've got my orders

He's an easy guy to live with, but he does have a favorite TV show--The Closer. Tonight he said, "The Closer is on tonight, so when I get home from my meeting I don't want any Book-TV or funny stuff like that on. If I'm late, you'll need to fill me in. Channel 30, TNT."

Yes, boss. The Closer.