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The Doctor Is Out

Biswān What if Hannibal Lecter had a therapist he didn’t eat?

buy provigil generic online That’s the premise of The Patient, a chilling new series from Hulu, which has become the most creative streamer in Hollywood. The network also produces Reboot, a terrific sendup of Hollywood’s branding frenzy. That gives them the two best shows on TV this fall.

And while Reboot is a little too derivative of 30 Rock, The Patient feels wholly original — outside the offshoot premise. Consider: When was the last time you saw a different serial killer? Why do they all look and act like Jeff Dahmer or Ted Bundy?

Patient Sam Fortner (Domnhall Gleeson) resembles neither. Sam is twitchy, dorky, and a Kenny Chesney nut, literally. He’s skinny and adolescent-looking, but tall and old enough to be menacing. He looks like he could be an angry incel. He looks like he could be a school shooter.

Scarier still, Sam knows he’s broken. He’s done his internet research. He knows he needs help — which makes it double the challenge. That, too, feels troublingly familiar.

Steve Carrell, who plays the hapless therapist, proved himself the best serious actor to emerge from the Daily Show troupe with the movie Little Miss Sunshine. Here, he’s Alan Stauss, a psychotherapist trying not to lose his mind after being abducted and chained in Sam’s basement.

Sam’s lone hostage demand: Cure me before I kill again, or it will be you. Oh, and his mom lives upstairs.

The show takes a skewering look at co-dependence, a unique take on serial killing. The good doctor has an imaginary therapist, a wayward son and gobs of uncertainty over his own professionalism, fathering and Jewishness, of all things. The show suggests co-dependence needs two active participants: One to play with the blade-edge of the knife; and one to say ’Don’t cut yourself.’

Also unique is its format. The show is darkly funny, but it is no comedy. Yet its runtime is sitcom-short, a half-hour with commercials. I don’t know of another half-hour crime drama. But that sounds about right.

The series sometimes challenges its own powers of disbelief suspension. The show lost some critics with a grown male protagonist so seemingly passive with his captor and captivity. The upstairs mom, afraid to turn in her own son, turned off others.

But unique crime fare is tough. And real-story abductions get a lot weirder than this one.

If you think you may be suffering from Procedural Fatigue and Zombie Viewing Syndrome, see your doctor immediately. Or don’t, if you’re thinking of abducting your physician.

Either way, The Patient is worth a session.

One Comedian, to Rule Them All

 

Jon Stewart exits The Daily Show tonight aloft so many laurels you’d think he was being escorted to the farewell ship of The Lord of the Rings.

But there are three groups whose reaction I await as much as I dread Stewart’s departure.

* The first is Comedy Central. How do you replace a show that was nothing less than a game-changer? Stewart’s 16-year span will be viewed as the 70’s salad days of Saturday Night Live were for scores of ascending stars, including Blues Brothers John Belushi and Dan Akroyd. The Daily Show had something akin in the news brothers, Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert, who have similarly entered new celebrity orbits. Even the show’s B-list reporters, which included Ed Helms, John Oliver and Rob Corddry, made most primetime network comedies look like funeral wakes.

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* What about the Democratic National Committee? Stewart was the party’s most recognizable (and influential) advocate outside of Barack Obama. A CBS poll found that 21% of Americans aged 21-29 — the new Democratic Party lifeblood — got the bulk of its news from The Daily Show. Producers may have found a young, hip, millennial-friendly replacement in Trevor Noah. But the  show — at least as it skews now, which is D.C.-centric — thrived on a veteran jokester with real political acumen (and razor wire imitation skills).

Who will become the Left’s new beacon? Bill Maher’s ego makes even Progressives wince. Colbert will likely take a more centric tone as he replaces David Letterman on the national late-night front. The Democrats have always benefitted from having a sense of humor (why are the Right’s media spokesdouches — O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc. — such angry, pasty blubberers?) Hillary’s presidency is a lock, but DNC Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz would be wise to either champion a new megaphone for younger voters, or convince Stewart to take a more open, direct role with the party.

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* Finally, I wonder about Arby’s. Stewart has always had a special spot in his heart for skewering the alleged meat vendor.

No one really knows why. Even Stwewart isn’t sure, confessing  that the restaurant chain has always taken its ribbing in good humor. “And they really are wonderful folks,” the comedian once said on air.

Perhaps it’s the name. It sounds like a cartoon sound effect. Maybe it’s  a lot easier name to lampoon than Burger King or McDonald’s. The all-time champ, though, is a 24-hour convenience store chain I discovered in Arkansas called Kum & Go. I swear.

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Personally, I think Stewart got the idea from The Simpsons (he admits he’s a fan of the funniest sitcom of all-time). He has quoted Homer, welcomed Simpsons guests aplenty, even dropped the occasional ‘D’oh!’

I think he was inspired by a specific episode years ago, where Marge explains why you can’t trust commercials: “Homer, people do all kinds of crazy things in commercials. Like eat at Arby’s.”

Admittedly, I love the near roast beef and cheddar, which likely contains neither. Regardless, they won my heart with August’s official’s HB Commercial of the Month, on self-deprecation alone.

Fare thee well, Jon. Good luck in The Shire.