Category: Brog

General posting

Daredevil is so good it basically kills all other Marvel content

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Like many people, I began to get Marvel fatigue after Avengers: Endgame.  I did my best to stay abreast on the next phase of Marvel content, and I was a fan of how they pivoted into producing television instead of everything having to be all these movies.  I enjoyed WandaVision, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and even Hawkeye in spite my skepticism that he could be the focal point of his own episodic series.

Ms. Marvel was fun, but by the time Moon Knight released, I was getting to a point where they were just generating so much stuff so quickly, it was beginning to get overwhelming.  Loki was a little reprieve and She-Hulk was light-heartedly refreshing, but it was becoming apparent of what properties were Marvel’s A-tier, and what properties were well, not.

I never saw Shang-Chi, the Marvels, the Eternals or any of the other films that they produced around this time, because the ideas of full-length films and their single-sitting stories seemed antiquated to me, and Black Widow showed just how unnecessary some of the films could be, even with the Marvel production tag slapped on them.

Having kids, life in general and the general evaporation of free time led to me ultimately stop watching Marvel stuff outright, along with a long list of things that would just be added to a queue that I had no idea of when I would ever have the chance to tackle.  However, over the last few months, I’ve made a conceited effort to close the gap a little bit, and have managed to catch back up, having finished Loki, Echo and Agatha All Along.

And it’s a good thing that Echo was a part of this recent catch-up, because events in the show had direct correlation to the one series that I was actually looking tremendously forward to, and the subject of this entire post – Daredevil (:Born Again).

I’ve made it clear that Daredevil is basically the crème of the crop as far as Marvel television goes, and it must chap Disney folks a little bit that Netflix gets to take credit for Daredevil and all adjacent properties that spun from it (Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Punisher, the Defenders), but that’s what they get for not releasing Disney+ sooner.  The writing is strong, the performing, the atmosphere, the grittiness and just sheer execution of all the Netflix shows were all at a bar that no other Disney+ era television shows could touch, and one of the most agonizing periods in time for the company must have been the mandated several year gap in between when Netflix had to forfeit the shows and where Disney+ couldn’t air them, because out of sight, out of mind, and there was always the inherent risk of producing more content, with actors again, growing and conflicting projects.

***[Spoilers Ahead, if you’re somehow less caught up than me]***

However, Disney money runs deep, and the stars seemed to align, one way or the other, and we’ve been blessed with the continuation of the Daredevil-universe.  It was smart of Disney to start making the connection of worlds in Hawkeye, bringing the Kingpin, and sprinkling Charlie Cox into other things to reprise the Daredevil role, in She-Hulk and Spider-Man, and it seemed to time right when they were allowed to drop all the Netflix shows on Disney+ so that anyone who hadn’t gotten to see this brilliant array of shows, while Born Again was being produced.

And now we’re back to the present and Born Again is released, and after the first episode, I’m blown away and taken back to 2016, when I first started watching Daredevil on Netflix.  I had concerns that the show was going to be kind of a reboot from the Netflix series, citing some convoluted continuity issues that writers were too lazy and uncreative to solve, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it more or less picks up from the Netflix age, with some time injected into it, as it should.

Events from Echo have impact on a key character to create immediate tie-in to the greater MCU, but by and large, the show is a continuation of the Netflix series, which is absolutely nothing but a positive in my opinion.  It starts off with a bang, and then it’s basically just kind of picking up from where Netflix left off, but in the same, intense, gritty and strong-written manner.

And all I could think of while watching just the first episode of Born Again, is just how much of a different level this show feels, in comparison to the years of in-comparison mediocre swill that’s been fed to us.  The acting, the writing, the mood and just sheer execution of everything is so good in just a first episode that it basically invalidates just about everything that was been parading around like imposter quality prior to it.  Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio have incredible chemistry, and although Kingpin has been long revived as early as Hawkeye, there’s something about seeing him reunite with Matt Murdock, whom most comic readers know is truly on his Rushmore of opponents.

Going back to the observation of how there’s a clear distinction between Marvel shows that are A-tier and those that aren’t, it really boils down to the point of why a show exists.  If the show is being used to advance some major story points in a grand manner, then it’s probably an A-tier show, like Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision and Loki.  However, if the show is being used to introduce a critical concept or character that could potentially be used later, then I would say that they’re not an A-tier show; like how Hawkeye was used to introduce Kate Archer and advance Yelena, Agatha All Along was basically used as a vehicle to bring Billy Maximoff into existence, and Echo was used solely for its plot device on a key Daredevil character.

Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk, as much as I did enjoy watching them, I’d say they’re still glorified vehicles to introduce their titular characters into the MCU, so I’d say that they’re like a B+ tier, more purposeful than Hawkeye, Agatha and Echo, but still kind of fluffy and generally expendable if we’re getting down to business.

And then we have shit like Moon Knight which I have no idea how they’re going to tie into the rest of the MCU.  And Secret Invasion kind of just serves as this conveniently placed retcon device if the MCU ever needs it, and doesn’t actually add much to what was already established in the established existence of the MCU Multiverse or TVA or inevitable Dr. Doom fucking around.

But Daredevil, this is entirely a show and series that can stand alone.  Since it started on Netflix, it was established that it was loosely associated to the MCU, but really never needed to ever touch it again.  The show was set in its own little world in Hell’s Kitchen and thrived as a standalone series, generously bringing a few other properties into the fold.  And the magic is still there with Born Again, and as I’ve said, the general vibe and feeling I get while watching it is that it’s just on such a different level from the rest of Marvel, and I fucking love it.

I could have watched both debut episodes upon release, but with Daylight savings approaching, I opted to not, because additionally, I want to savor the show, because just watching the first episode was a reminder of how long it’s been since the Netflix age, and I don’t to just binge and blow through something that I’d been hoping and waiting to see again for a really long time.  I didn’t realize how much I missed Daredevil until Born Again dropped, and I’m stoked that it’s back, and I hope that it continues on the successes of the Netflix era.

I miss the pandemic, for real

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, or even posted about it before, but I really do miss the pandemic.  This thought usually crosses my mind whenever I’m in a scenario that wouldn’t have existed during the pandemic, like being stuck in traffic on my commute to the office, or in this most recent episode, whenever an illness permeates its way into my house and waylays fucking everyone, leading to several miserable days for all.

A stomach bug of some sort, was picked up by both #2 and I concurrently, most likely at a birthday party that only we went to on Monday; Tuesday was the customary incubation day for said bug, and by Wednesday in the AM hours, shit hit the fan and we were both victims of near-identical symptoms, all of them unpleasant.  It should also be noted that Wednesday was #1’s birthday, which meant I literally spent the entirety of my own child’s birthday in bed and basically incapable of functioning.

Thankfully, #1 was not ill on her birthday, but what I feared most came to fruition the night prior, which led to this avalanche of thoughts and emotions manifesting into a salt-filled, nihilistic sounding post about how I thought the world was a vastly superior place when a killer pandemic was ravaging through it.  But Thursday was apparently the incubation day for #1, and by the AM hours, shit hits the fan, and then it’s me, of course, at like 70% myself, as the one staying up until 4:30 in the morning catching her vomiting every single half hour while the bug takes its turn with her.

Shit like this, would never have occurred during the pandemic.  The common cold didn’t happen at all, during the pandemic.  It was one of the most glorious years in human existence, 2020 was, where there wasn’t even a single day over the span of a 365-day span except for one exception which I won’t delve into, where anyone in my house was sick.  No questionable mornings where anyone woke up with a tinge in the sinuses, and requiring some preventative care, no sniffles after going out somewhere, not a single cold, much less the flu, any sinus infections or stomach bugs like the one ravaging my house right now.

No god damn sicknesses whatsoever, and it was marvelous.  But in retrospect, there’s no way that would have been allowed to continue, because that would have basically killed the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and can’t possibly have healthy populations when there’s profits to be made for white folks.

But in addition to the sheer lack of sicknesses rewarded to the intelligent who exorcised caution, it was a world where nobody had to commute into offices, remote work was the norm and championed and applauded at the adaptability and fluidity of the workforce, and not politicized and weaponized as it’s been today.

And speaking of politics, it’s the then-administration’s sheer idiocy behind pandemic response that basically united a country to boot out the orange clown from his first dictatorship, and for a brief moment in time, it genuinely felt like the United States were back to becoming America again instead of being shitty ‘Murica.

Naturally, no good thing is truly ever allowed to last, and when the dust settles, Americans always falls back into their self-destructive patterns, and here we are back to dictatorship #2, which has somehow managed to feel even more terrifying than the first one.

At this point, I genuinely wouldn’t mind if some fucking savages at a Chinese wet market started trying to eat some moar bats or some possums or some other feral wild animal, and try to get COVID-29 started up to try and correct the world all over again.  I know many probably think that the parties involved in the original COVID-19 bat-eating scenario are a bunch of hindsight murderers, but frankly I see them as quite the contrary, and wouldn’t mind if that shit fired itself up again, if it would bring us back to the utopia that 2020 really turned out to be in retrospect.

I’m tired of commuting to the office, I’m sick of stupid fucks who go out while sick with no regard for the people around them, and I’m sick to fucking death of those people passing those illnesses onto my families and allowing them into my home.  I know COVID-19 took a lot of people out, but I’m having a real hard time, especially as time goes on, at thinking their negatives actually outweigh all the positives that emerged from the time.

My daughters will extend my life by almost three years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Okay: recent study suggests dads with daughters have tendency to live longer, with each daughter adding on average 74 weeks of lifespan

When this story was fed to me, I couldn’t help but smirk as I often do whenever I read anything related to girldads or being a girldad.  The notion that by virtue of them being daughters instead of sons, my two girls will be responsible for keeping my ass alive for 148 weeks longer than my life expectancy should suggest, nearly three entire years, is amusing to me.  Even more so, that it’s pointed out that sons, add no extra life to their dads, comparatively.

The thing is, the story could have ended with that, and kept it vague, yet still sweet, but in this day and age, where everyone is expected to show their work, when they dive a little deeper, it’s mostly attributed to the notion that when said girls become women, they’re way more apt to nag their dads about health and preventative care, which is the primary reason why they tend to live longer.

I mean it makes sense, since harping on their dad to go see doctors and get checkups and critical milestone tests probably is more useful in the long game versus daring dad to see how long they can go without farting, how fast they can go in the rental car, or can they take a spinning power bomb off the top of the couch.  But it does take some of the sticker sentimentality away from the general headline, but not enough to where I can’t make a brog post about it.

What’s interesting to me though, is that I wonder how much truth this will hold in my particular case.  A lot of the longevity is attributed to what seems like a bunch of out-of-shape dads who view their children as a sudden reason to get into better health and pick up better habits, which would naturally be beneficial to their life expectancy.

I’m no Zac Efron, but I’ve always been consistent and routinely with exercise, and mythical wife has already gotten a handle on egging me to go to the doctor at least for annuals, so the things that my daughters would’ve been expected to drive me to do in order to give me 148 weeks more of living, I’m already doing.  Of course, I want to be around when they graduate schools, maybe get married, or any other life’s milestones.  Maybe there’s another level of physical improvement to reach, probably when they’re not little brats who are sometimes shits about their food, and I end up eating a ton of shitty leftovers on account of not wanting to waste food.

Conversely, there’s always the easy joke about how my kids, regardless of their gender, are solely responsible for taking years off of my life on account of the sheer amounts of stress they put me through with their childish insubordination, stubbornness and constant power struggles.  Maybe that’s something that the study doesn’t account for is that daughters might each give me 74 weeks of extra life at the tail end of my life, but they’re sure as fuck siphoning a lot more of it on the front end.

Either way, let’s choose to ignore all the background noise of this study, and choose to believe that my two little girls are going to be the reason why I live three years longer than I really should be, solely by existing. ❤️

A funny thing happened at the gym today

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My gym isn’t a very large gym.  Considering the small number of tenants in the building, the people who do come on the regular are pretty familiar with the existences of one another, even if we ultimately have no idea who we are.  That being said, I think it’s never a good idea to exorcise bad habits around people you coexist with on the regular.

Every now and then, I’d come into the gym, and there was typical asshole evidence of gymslobs; weights left all over the place, not putting anything back, most likely nothing wiped down either.  But when you’re the only one(s) there, you feel like you can get away with being a slob, so a slob they were.

This is something that asshole gymslobs can get away with at like an LA Fitness or a Gold’s Gym, gyms so crowded and churning with people, that it would be nigh impossible to pinpoint who the culprits were.  But at a tiny office gym the size of mine, it wouldn’t take long to narrow down the list of regulars who come, especially if one were so determined to run the badge log to see who has accessed the gym on a given day.

Today, I went into the gym, and these two dudes whom I occasionally have overlapped with were there.  Typically, they’re fairly early goers, but I guess their schedule had something that made them be there when they were there today, overlapping with my time there somewhat.  But I noticed the two of them hit the lockers, leaving all of the shit they used all over the place; a barbell laying out on the floor, a few dumbbells left out on a bench rolled into a very inconvenient place.

Normally, I wouldn’t say anything to anyone about it and just grumble internally or blast them amongst my friends in group chats.  Society has conditioned everyone to avoid not just conflict, but just speaking to people anymore, and in doing such, invites people to be dicks and exorcise dick behaviors like being a slob at the gym and not putting the shit they use away like any normal civilized considerate human beings.

But I don’t know, I didn’t feel like letting it slide today, and I thought to myself that if I addressed them calmly and without any aggression, I could at least make them aware that what they were doing wasn’t acceptable.

I happened to catch them on their way out of the locker room, and with my hands, I got their attention by pointing to the area of the gym which they left a mess.  I just simply said to them, hey guys, sorry to bug you, but could you put all those weights away?  I thought you guys might’ve been coming back out, but if you guys are done, could you please put those weights away?

And then the funny thing happened, they didn’t scoff, put up a fuss or show any sort of defiance, they were just like, oh my bad, yeah, and then went to go pick up after themselves and put their shit back; not perfectly back in order like they probably started, but baby steps here.  I said thanks to them, sorry to bug y’all, but thanks.

Granted, after they left the gym, they probably muttered about that fuckin’ Chinese guy on their way and in the elevators, and I’ve probably made gym nemeses now and should probably start considering bringing a lock to the gym to protect my shit from now on, but the point remains, I don’t think I’m in the wrong for calling out poor behavior, and by doing so in a calm and best-as-I-could non-confrontational manner, the poor behavior was corrected.

If I or anyone else never said anything to these guys, the behavior would undoubtedly continue, and honestly, one of these days, someone could get hurt, the gym would get shut down, and everyone loses.  At the end of the day, the people who have to straighten the gym out are the custodians, which are comprised of entirely smaller and older Hispanic women, and they shouldn’t have to be responsible for lugging around 30s, 40s and the 50s that some assholes left on the floor, and I would sooner straighten them out myself before them.

I get that people don’t like being told or even asked what to do, but if they didn’t do shitty things to begin with, then it wouldn’t ever have to happen.  This was entirely a situation where the only reason why correction occurred is because the violation was caught.

I don’t have a lot of faith that this won’t happen again, but at least these guys are aware that if they’re unlucky to be working out when I’m there, it’ll sit in their back of their minds that I just might call them out on their bullshit laziness, and as much as I don’t want to invite engagement, I’m hoping that they’ll want to avoid getting called out again and just do the right fucking thing in the first place.

It only took twelve years

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A long time ago, I wrote a post about how cursive was being phased out of educational standards, and that it was only a matter of time before the ability to read cursive writing would become a viable job, due to the fact that all of the nation’s most critical documents were all written in, cursive.

Welp, twelve years later, and the National Archives are seeking volunteers to decipher the ancient cursive text from documents from the Revolutionary War.  I love their choice of words like “decode” and “decipher” to make it sound like these are ancient historians deciphering hieroglyphics and non-Roman character text like they’re characters from The Mummy or National Treasure, but when you get to the meat of the blurb, it’s more big words to describe a pedestrian objective:

and help make them more accessible to everyone.

In other words, legible to dumbasses who are no longer required to learn cursive writing.

Honestly, there’s no way this is the first real known instance of this occurring, but it’s something I saw that seemingly made it to national news. 

Now the trick is how I can be put into a position to where I can capitalize on this pathetic educational hole and make a little scratch on the side before more older pleebs realize the undervalued skill that really shouldn’t be a skill.

Seriously, everyone should stop volunteering for this shit, and start charging some money for it.  As the image above describes, if you’re good at something, don’t fucking do it for free.  Especially since we live in a country that’s actively at war with itself, with a government as rotten as the bottom layer of a package of strawberries from Kroger.  If they want something from the people, the people should have the wherewithal to realize that they should charge for it.

I suppose it’s now acceptable to put cursive reading and writing on my resume as a viable talent, and I really want to make sure my kids are taught cursive, and want to see if I can get them to utilize in their school work in the future, befuddle their teachers who inevitably didn’t have to learn it themselves, and see if they get reprimanded and called out for using it, so that I can throw in their face that they’re the dumbasses who allowed for such an elementary skill to fall to the wayside because society is stupid and lazy.

But I knew this was going to happen eventually. I fucking called it. 

Dad Brog (#147): Parenting will never be easy, vol. 978

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As much as I don’t like to admit it, I’ve been struggling lately in my life as a dad.  I feel like my patience is at an all-time low and just about everything my kids are doing lately is just pissing me off, mostly on account of the colossal amounts of escalating defiance and just plain lack of listening that’s going on with my four and three year old daughters.

Everything from wake-up time, free play time, quiet time, and especially bedtime are these monumental conflicts where I feel my disposition dissolving all the time, and I just end up in a state of agitation, annoyance, anger or all the above.  I don’t like it one bit, but I can’t deny the fact that I’m losing my cool over things at a very frequent clip, and I’m hoping that this is just a stage of life given the ages of my kids, and this will eventually pass and eventually emerge in a state of being that’s not as chaotic, not as frustrating, and not as resulting me being pissed off all the time.

Then again, the whole notion that challenging times will just pass doesn’t change the fact that time is passing, and then I struggle about that notion that I’m letting formative kid years of my children’s lives pass, while mostly in dour moods, which then makes me feel bad about that instead.

There’s actually a part of me that dreads the weekends lately, because there’s usually a lot of time in which I’m on dad duty alone with the kids, and I don’t always know what to do with them.  And the difference is now from when they were 2 and 1 and 3 and 2, is a whole lot more mobility, a whole lot more freedom to roam in the house, and most prevalently, a whole lot more intelligent. 

My kids are pretty smart, and are seemingly endlessly testing boundaries and limits, and doing just about everything that I’m please asking them to not do, they hardly ever listen, and I’m just left exasperated, fried and burned out on trying to figure out how to keep them occupied without having to resort to television, going outside because it’s been cold as fuck lately or something that results in a colossal mess that will make me want to slit my wrists.

Mornings have been challenging lately, because #1 has been deciding to wake up earlier than our routine generally is, and lots of mornings, she just bangs on the door and walls and makes a lot of racket that runs the risk of waking up her sister or others in the house.  I’m usually not done with making breakfast, and I’m already aggravated at knowing there’s a clock over my head at needing to get shit done lest she tornadoes up her room, and that becomes one more task on my endless list of responsibilities.

There’s like a 75% chance that #2 will either: be pissed upon waking up and melt down.  Be pissed at the top of the stairs and refuse to come downstairs and refuse to be carried downstairs, and then melt down.  Be unhappy with what I’ve made for breakfast, refuse to eat and then melt down.  Or any combination, if not all of the above.  I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even bother to try and console beyond an initial attempt because she won’t communicate why she’s upset, and I just give up and start reading books to #1 who rarely has an issue with breakfast.

But bedtimes, they have become a vastly different type of hell for me on the daily, and frankly have become my least favorite part of every single day as of late.  You’d think that I’d be doing cartwheels at the idea of putting the kids down for the night, so I can enjoy my 1-2 hours of freedom.  But the defiance, having to wrangle and chase down the kids, get them bathed, teeth brushed, dressed and prepped, even before we get into their rooms for bedtime stories.  It’s like a last boss battle every single day, all for a payoff of the pithy 1-2 hours of freedom I get to have these days, and usually the first hour of my paltry me time is really spent decompressing as well as doing cleaning and prep-work for the next day, before I can really turn everything off and try and relax with what little time I’m afforded.

More than likely, I’m just at my burnout point again.  I haven’t really had a real break from being on dad duty in a while; I know I had a kid-free weekend a month ago, but that was away from home, mostly sequestered inside a cabin as a blizzard ravaged the North Carolina mountains, and everyone got sick.  We had to make several long drives before and after in short order, only to come home where everyone was sick, and frankly when a break is structured like that, it’s hardly a break at all.

But it just sucks.  I don’t like where I’m at right now, with how perpetually pissed off I am, with parenting.  My kids deserve better than angry dad all the time, and I wish parenting could just alleviate the pressure just a little bit off my throat to where it doesn’t feel like such an exasperating chore all the time, and more stuff I should be enjoying and relishing in spending time and watching my kids grow and develop.

My 600 Lb. Life needs to go into rebuilding mode

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The other night, I logged into Max and went to My 600 Lb. Life, hoping that there would be a new episode posted.  Season 13 has been a clunker of a season, with no real standout participants for all the wrong reasons, and the show has always had a tendency to start and finish their seasons with the best or worse people. 

Episode 7 Juan was another forgettable episode, and I figured that there would have to be someone better to close out the season, but it’s never easy to tell how many episodes there are in these arbitrary seasons, because it’s never been consistent.  So after I logged in and checked in on the series, it became apparent that Juan was the last episode of the season, and mythical wife and I are just kind of like, oh..

Counting season 12, I think it’s safe to say that the series as a whole has put up two straight clunker seasons.  There have been no real memorable participants, and although it’s the guiltiest of pleasures to see when some of them turn into shitheads and fail spectacularly, an occasional success story is always welcome and leaves viewers like me feeling optimistic and satisfied for five minutes. 

But over the course of the last two seasons, there have been barely any successes, even fewer to actually succeed and get the weight loss surgery, and an increasing number of participants whom never even get to Houston and the episodes are these droll journeys of stock footage of Dr. Now wandering around his clinic or St. Joe’s Hospital lamenting at the dangers of being morbidly obese, and occasional video calls with participants where they’re all super eager to comply and participate, before they hang up and do jack shit.

I know the pandemic made TLC and the show have to pivot and allow for more remote participants, but what was the exception has gradually become normal, and the episodes where you just know that a big motherfucker ain’t going to step foot in Houston and actually get face to face with Dr. Now, where the real charm and magic of the show tends to happen.

In fact, S13E06 Deshaun was probably the most depressing episode of My 600 Lb. Life I’ve ever seen, and that’s really saying something considering the clinging to survival nature of the show as a whole.  The man from Omaha had no goals, no aspirations, no dreams, and no motivation whatsoever, with the closest thing to a want being, getting out of Omaha and going to fucking Missouri.  Like, when the place you want to end up going to is Missouri, you know the bar couldn’t possibly be buried under the ground any lower.

Unsurprising, he like loses no weight, dodges his weigh-ins, so we never get a number of his actual weight, dodges his virtual therapy sessions, is extremely difficult to get a hold of with Dr. Now, and by the time the episode ends, two months early, he’s completely fallen out of contact, and is speculated to have blocked Dr. Now’s office outright. 

As I’m watching this episode, I know all human life is precious and all that, but I genuinely was feeling like this is a person that really has no business, existing.  He probably draws disability, basically exists solely to eat trash and play video games and watch television, but he provides even less purpose to the world than inmates in prison, whom at least have to do some sort of labor to repay society.

I’d never been more depressed watching an episode of My 600 Lb. Life more than I have with Deshaun, and that’s a pretty bold proclamation because there have been episodes where the participants have actually died.

Frankly, I think the show really needs to go back to the drawing board with their format.  It genuinely feels like it’s been on auto-pilot for the last 4-5 seasons, but it’s easier to ignore when you get the occasional gem of a participant who is a total trainwreck, an ass to Dr. Now, which usually takes the shackles off of him to start zinging back, but then eventually goes to therapy, supercharges their mental health and they get on the train and actually lose some fucking weight.

But over the last few seasons, the show has basically been following a template.  Every episodes starts with the participant waking up, lamenting on how they’re surprised to be alive, they have an awkward shower and then eat the mother of all breakfasts before the first commercial break.  Month 1 starts with them all talking about this doctor in Houston that specializes in helping people like me as if we all haven’t seen the last 13 seasons of this show, and depending on where they’re located, either they make a very long drive where you just know every participant is looking forward to the highways of road food available to them and they gain an extra 5-10 lbs before they see Dr. Now, or as has been increasing, they’re just too far away from Houston, and have a mostly pointless video call with Dr. Now, eagerly agree to get started on the program, and then hang up and probably go on another binge once the cameras are off.

Afterward, 9 out of 10 participants completely fail to meet the initial weight loss milestone, and nobody ever exceeds it, and Dr. Now has been too nice and too empathetic over the last two seasons, mostly because his reputation seems to precede him and nobody wants to throw hands with Ali, and he has little reason to be tough in return, and he just tells them the same goal, 70 pound in two munt and they’re on their merry way.

The show then goes into a strange fast forward through the remainder of the months, with sometimes them going back to Houston for follow-ups, and others ducking Dr. Now or their appointed therapy, and if there’s any surgeries, they usually happen in like months 7-10, and that’s only if they’ve managed to get their shit together and lost at least 80% of their goal weight loss, and find a place to live in Houston. 

The endings of every episode feel real rushed and hackneyed, and it’s fairly obvious to me that such is done in order to create separation between the filming of an episode of My 600 Lb. Life versus their eventual Where Are They Now? episode, and I feel like the latter is probably why the prime show has gotten so templatized, because the spin-off has become as much of a mainstay as the prime, and it’s like it’s a means to conserve content so that there can be a follow-up.

Like I said, I think the show needs to take a few steps back and reset their approach to producing.  I get that Dr. Now is like 80, not going to be doing this much longer, and probably on a personal level, doesn’t want to deal with shitheads like the Assanti brothers, and people who give him a colossal amount of grief.  But this shit is television, and we degenerate viewers need to see some shitheads and strong personalities that bring the best-worst out of Dr. Now, and everyone ends up happy when he lights a fire under their asses and drags results out of them.

So we need some real strong participants, that will bring out the Dr. Now fans all love, perhaps some more stringent participant rules and guidelines to ensure we have fewer Deshauns who turtle up the whole episode and more Jonathans (S13E01) who actually manage to do things with his life.  The current format has also been a little deceptive in presentation, because most everyone over the last few seasons fails after their initial consult, and we’re never seeing the diet cheating they’re doing, so that it’s more of a surprise (but it’s not) when they go to their next weigh-in and have only lost like 7 lbs.  It’s like, we know they’re going to fuck up, might as well let us see it.

Fewer remote participants because the journey is already hard enough, but adding insurmountable distance on top it leads to more episodes you just know are going to eventually dead end, and at one point, I found it to be astounding when there was a season where zero people actually got surgery, but now it’s becoming the norm, and this isn’t helping.

I love the show too much to give up on it cold turkey, but we’ve literally had two straight duds of seasons.  Megalomedia, TLC, and the Nowzaradans need to get their shit together, and breathe some life back into the series, because although I might, I can’t speak for everyone else out there, on if they’ll tolerate sitting through a third straight turdy pound turd, especially when we all know what the series is capable of.