What Helps Me Escape from TRMS

TRMS—the Rachel Maddow Show—has become almost required viewing for my wife and me this COVID-19 season. She is the liberal news explainer, and I appreciate that.

Lately, she’s been on a bit of an editorial crusade, sounding the alarm about infections at the nation’s nursing homes. It’s a worthwhile cause.

And I find I rarely watch Fox News these days. As a journalism professor, I used to try to catch at least a bit of that network each week, just to sample it—I don’t have the heart any more. Any part of the Trump Universe alternative right-wing media zone of delusion is just too much for me at the moment.

So, I read The Gazette, my local paper. I listen to NPR. I catch the president’s briefings when I want a small dose of crazy, and I always feel WTF after a few seconds. And then there is Rachel.

But I also have to escape. What is my relief when life and a pandemic brings me down?

Lately, besides TRMS, my wife and I have become fan kids of a new NBC show. You can’t exactly call it a comedy or a drama. It’s sort of like a sitcom in that it has a situation and a fair amount of comedy, but it’s a mixed genre show.

Publicity image from NBC.com. Jane Levy as Zoey.

It’s that girl from Suburgatory, Jane Levy, all grown up and coding in San Francisco. It’s “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.” From my own limited experience visiting high tech sites in the Bay Area, the set isn’t really over-the-top. The cafeterias at Facebook (which won’t post this post because my media blog is inexplicably banned) are way better than the cereal bar, by the way.



Besides Ms. Levy being talented (catch her practicing saying “hey” in the latest episode), there are other gems in this cast. Superstar Mary Steenburgen is mom. Peter Gallagher, years after being in a coma in that Christmas movie, gets to act with his eyes as her fading father.

I don’t know if the characters are “real” in any real sense. But it feels real. Mostly, the show is an old-fashioned Broadway musical using contemporary pop songs. The show is also commenting on contemporary high tech life, the feeling of it before the pandemic of 2020. It's kind of sad to think of all those characters now being stuck in their over-priced apartments.

On this blog, I’ve written before about music and how it expresses emotion. I’ve used it as an assignment in several classes—having students parse the reason a particular song touches them or has meaning. And the musical covers of pop songs on Zoey are watchable and fun.





So, I recommend it. The duet between Steenburgen and Gallagher at the end of the latest episode may make you cry. It did me, and it felt good.

Finally, worth the mention even though he always mentions news, is the incomparable Randy Rainbow. I need a smile now and then, and his latest video certainly delivers: