TV time and other stray thoughts

Last night I was umpiring playoff games, which was a reminder that we're nearing the end of 2023’s softball action for umpiring (softball action as a player ended for the year several weeks back). As the staggered-schedule late-summer leagues wrap up, there are fewer of them to go around for us umps and the last one standing will end in just a few more weeks. With luck, the remainder of my season will follow the pattern of last night, which featured many of my favorite players/teams to work with and was a fun time. It may have been a first, a shift of 3 or more games in which every game had at least two faves in it. Those are the good nights. No troubles. Or rather, even if there are troubles, they're minor and nobody raises a stink if I have to do something unconventional to make up for missing something on the field, as was the case with a weird multiple-baserunner play yesterday. Attitude is everything for umpires at this level of rec league, we're not invested in who wins (well, we're not supposed to be, anyway) we just want everyone to have a good time and to not be yelled at or belittled if we screw up a call. (And especially not when we didn't screw up a call but a player thinks we did. Those are the worst.)

Anyway, this is not an umpiring post but one about how I'm going to have a lot more free evenings going forward. Some of which will be occupied with a resumption of nerd nights here with fellow Trek geeks a couple times a month reliving the awesomeness that is Deep Space Nine, but also with new entries in our golden age of television. Such as:

• Resident Alien. While listening to a political podcast today, I heard mention of the renewal of the great Alan Tudyk show for a fourth season. All right! I thought. Quickly followed by, wait there was a third season already? How did I miss that? Turns out, yeah, the third season premiered earlier this year on a cable network, thus I completely missed it (my days as a cable subscriber have been over for a while). But knowing it exists, I will find it. If you've not seen it, the first two seasons are on Netflix. Check it out.
• Orphan Black: Echoes. The original Orphan Black series was awesome, with Tatiana Maslany expertly playing multiple roles as a woman discovers she's one of many clones and joins up with some of them to solve the mystery of their existence. This is a sequel centering on the daughter of one of the Tatiana Maslany clones, now an adult played by Krysten Ritter (who will always be Jessica Jones to me). I didn't know this even existed, but since the original was so great I will now look it up on whatever platform I can find it on. Apparently it's not a critical hit, but that isn't going to dissuade me.
• Quantum Leap. The first season of the sequel/reboot show on NBC was pretty good, but I was assuming it would be canceled, because networks tend to cancel their good genre shows before they find an audience. (Still upset about Defying Gravity? Yeah, kinda. That show would have been a big hit as a streaming show today.) But no, it got renewed and will be back in a month or so!
• Sunny (サニー). Nearing the end of its first season on Apple TV, this show appeals to me as a sci-fi show set in a near-future with "homebots" and as a show set in Japan with a fair amount of Japanese spoken. Also it stars Rashida Jones, who is always great, and a woman who goes by "Annie the Clumsy," whom I'd never heard of before but who is both funny and super-cute.
• Only Murders in the Building is back. Always fun.
• Leverage: Redemption. Again, how did I miss that this had another season? Well, it did, and I will be watching it. Moving platforms probably didn't help in terms of my missing it. It's getting a season three, too, which is cool even though it'll be on Amazon. &@%$in' Amazon.

I'll have to wait a while for Lower Decks season 5, Silo season 2, Severance season 2, The Diplomat season 2, Good Omens season 3, Outlander season 7B, and For All Mankind season 5, but those are on the way too. It's a good time to be a couch potato. Assuming you also get some exercise, of course.