What To Watch While You Wait For Baseball, Part II

In last week’s installment of What To Watch While You Wait For Baseball, I recommended Justified, a show that will appeal to a broad range of people, from me to Aaron Gleeman. This week, the going gets a little weirder. Some of you will hate the entire heck out of it. But the ones who dig it? We can hang out.The show is Patriot. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. You might hate it. You might love it more than your childhood pet. There’s no in-between.The most straightforward description of the show is that it involves a government intelligence officer attempting to prevent a foreign country from getting a nuclear bomb. You’ll notice here that it’s not called Tom Clancy’s Patriot. There’s a reason for that.John Tavner is the Patriot in question. He’s assigned to a piping manufacturer in Milwaukee (don’t ask) which leads to more discussions of how things flow from point A to point B than one would expect from a show trying to get people to watch it.Here is where I point out that he’s also a folk musician who sings songs that sometimes soundtrack his adventures. And that his government boss is his dad, who is an FBI/CIA/some secretive government concern bigshot and is played by John Locke from Lost. And that his work boss is a coke addict that truly hates him and is played by Red Forman from That ‘70s Show. And that his brother is a Texas congressperson who likes to go by Cool Rick that I recognized from a Spiderman movie. All three of them are never going to be in a better show.There’s also a character named Jack Birdbath. And a canoe. I haven’t even mentioned Ichabod or needy Dennis until now.After that, it gets weird.As mentioned, I have never seen anything quite like it. It's the Brad Radke of television shows.My friends Luke and Andrew love Patriot so much they made a podcast for a major public radio station dedicated to it. I recommend it mostly because there’s enough “Huh? Huh.” in each episode that hearing two smart dudes work through each installment helps the viewer engage with some of the strangeness.And again, you might check out after 35 minutes, and that’s fine.There are two seasons of this show. 18 episodes. Amazon Prime. Debra Winger shows up. Watch it. Let me know what you think. stevenjneuman@gmail.com. Lord knows we've got time.Image license here.Click here to view the article

Just a point of FYI for everyone, we have a whole other forum to discuss non-baseball related things, called the Sports Bar, found here: http://twinsdaily.com/forum/12-the-sports-bar/

And there is a thread in there, ‘Current TV’, to discuss any or all the shows you want. Or, if you want a specific discussion on a specific show, feel free to start your own discussion topic. Or any topic that isn’t baseball, for that matter.