I Watched (Nearly) Every Post Super Bowl Show V: The 2010’s and 2020’s!

Hello! This is the finale of a five-part series looking back at the long, strange history of the Super Bowl lead-out program! The other four parts can be found here:

Part 1 - The 60’s and 70’s

Part 2 - The 80’s

Part 3 - The 90’s

Part 4 - The 00’s

Well, we’ve done it.  We’ve reached the modern era of the post-Super Bowl show, and you can definitely see a shift over the past fifteen years.

Big episodes of popular shows still dominate the proceedings, at least for a while, although notably, extra “star power” no longer becomes a requirement.  Part of this is because cheap competition shows where celebrities are already the star begin to become en vogue.  By the time we reach the modern day, the timeslot begins to revert back to where it was in the eighties: a place for pilots of anticipated hits.  All things return from whence they came!

It becomes clear that, in the modern streaming era, where everybody’s attention is divided, the post-Super Bowl show is in somewhat of a crisis.  There just doesn’t seem to be a way to unify a massive audience anymore.  However, an interesting wrinkle emerged this weekend that just might allow for a creative rebirth to occur, if network executives choose to embrace it.  So, yeah, it’s probably fucked.  We’ll talk about it!

Here we go!  The post-Super Bowl shows of the past sixteen years!

SUPER BOWL XLIV

Show: “Undercover Boss”

Episode: “Waste Management” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Aired: February 7, 2010

Network: CBS

Given the state of the American economy in 2010, “Undercover Boss” proved undeniably well-timed.  A reality show where the CEO of a major company got to know what it was really like doing the grunt work (and following the draconian policies) required to keep operations going?  Sign me up!

In actuality, “Undercover Boss” is one of the more disingenuous shows I’ve ever seen.  Yes, in this premiere episode, COO Larry O’Donnell goes undercover as works at various Waste Management job sites throughout the country.  Yes, it’s funny to see him get yelled at for not picking up enough trash.  Yes, it’s heartwarming to see him tear up in response to an overworked employee’s family struggles.  Yes, it’s humanizing to see him relate the story of his daughter, who herself deals with various health issues.  Hell, I’d even say the number one thing I liked about this episode is that they chose the employees he shadows very well.  They all reminded me of the kind of people I used to work with in my manual labor days.  They’re funny, gruff, overwhelmed, and blunt.  It’s fun to see them succeed.

But there’s an inescapable feeling that “Undercover Boss” is designed to let CEOs off the hook, as well as provide their companies a big, fat hour-long plug.  Did any of you ever even hear of Waste Management before this?  Well, now that you have, isn’t it cool how sweet and open-hearted their big boss is?  He rewarded four employees with some benefits.  Go, America!  The show knows enough that workplaces all across the country are riddled with issues, but it’s also content to put the blame squarely on middle management, represented here by Kevin, a guy who is very clearly being given the shaft by a vengeful editor.  Sure, middle managers tend to be pedantic dorks, but they’re also very rarely imposing policies unilaterally.  Let’s just say that I don’t buy the presented perspective here that Larry had never heard of the “docked two minutes for every minute you’re late to clock back in” policy before.

By the way, the “undercover” aspect of this has always kind of mystified me.  As people point out in this very episode, most of the frontline people have never seen him before.  Not one person knows who he is during the “big reveal” moment.  Hell, his “going undercover” outfit is just, like, a hat, and maybe some facial hair?  What’s the point of all this?  I remember in a later episode featuring Subway, the CEO deferred the assignment to the CDO, on the basis that he was too well known.  Buddy, I think most people thought at the time that Jared was the CEO.

Anyway, I thought this was a corny let-down after a long stretch of fairly decent Super Bowl lead-out programs.  Hopefully this doesn’t become a trend.

SUPER BOWL XLV

Show: “Glee”

Episode: “The Sue Sylvester Shuffle” (Season 2, Episode 11)

Aired: February 6, 2011

Network: FOX

Special Guest Star(s): Katie Couric

For the uninitiated, “Glee” is just as unhinged as you’ve likely heard.  I’m willing to go to bat for its initial batch of episodes, however.  When it first premiered with a significant amount of hype behind it (the pilot was released for free earlier that summer and it was HUGE), I actually found it to be a fairly accurate (if broad) satire of what being in a high school choir felt like.  Lea Michele’s portrayal of a Type-A “theatre lead” felt revelatory at the time, and Matthew Morrison’s Will Schuester was a pretty spot-on depiction of a dorky choir teacher.  The songs were okay, the kids were fun, and Jane Lynch’s villanous cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester was one of the great television inventions of its time.  “Glee” was never my favorite show or anything, but for about half a season or so, it was hitting a very specific mark for me.

As its first season and beyond went on, though, you could feel it responding to what people liked about it and Moneyball-ing the show in real time.  You all liked Sue?  Let’s give her more screen time (I sometimes feel the response to a fan favorite is to put them in less…make us treasure the time we get with them).  You’re buying the songs on iTunes?  Let’s double or triple the amount of songs we cram into a single episode!  You like weird guest stars?  Bring in Gwyneth Paltrow!  “Glee” fell out of balance really quickly, and it didn’t take long for me to turn my back on it.

“The Sue Sylvester Shuffle” is a pretty good microcosm of what the show quickly became.  The story is a never-ending criss-cross of kids either joining or leaving the glee club (New Directions), the cheer squad (the Cheerios), or the football team (the, uh…Titans).  The title suggests Sue is the main thrust of the conflict, and she indeed gets a lot to do.  Feeling a ton of ennui about putting together another cheer routine in order to defend her seven-year winning streak at regionals, she procures a cannon and volunteers cheerleader Brittany to be launched out of it.

But the main problem to be solved in this mega-sized episode is actually football player Dave Karofsky (Max Adler), who gets enrolled in glee club (along with the rest of the team), in an attempt to quell bullying in advance of the championship game.  As the Cheerios end up having to pull out from the halftime show, due to Sue getting the cheer regionals scheduled on the same day, it’s decided that the football team and the glee club will work together to perform the halftime show!  Neat, huh?  Will Karofsky quit the club and turn his back on his team?  Does it matter?  Does any of this feel even slightly realistic?

Oh, the songs. They’re fine.  Mr. Schue quickly decides the halftime show will be a mashup of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Heads Will Roll”.  The club puts on professional-grade zombie makeup for the occasion, but not before running a rehearsal, where they perform “She’s Not There” by the Zombies.  Because, naturally, you rehearse a number by singing something else completely different.  I know this happened because the show didn’t want to blow the big finale halfway through and saw an opportunity to add another song to upload, but it’s very weird.  They also cram in an arbitrary Destiny’s Child number, as well as a big Katy Perry opening (“California Gurls”) and a Lady A interlude (“Need You Now”), presumably because those songs were popular at the time.  Hope you like acapella music!

The main thing to note about “The Sue Sylvester Shuffle” is that it is an unabashedly queer-centric episode of television, featuring numerous LGBT characters and a gender-fluid football coach, that aired on the FOX network directly following the Super Bowl.  At the time, the biggest controversy that got generated from the episode was from a fairly tepid joke from cameo-ing Katie Couric at Dina Lohan’s expense right at the end.  As overall lame and frustrating as “The Sue Sylvester Shuffle” ultimately is, I cannot imagine what would happen just a mere decade and change later if some network dared to air it in such a timeslot in 2025.  What this says about the state of things, I’ll leave you to decide, but it’s striking nonetheless.

The worst sin of all in this musical comedy show: save a Sue tantrum about midway through (that unexpectedly picks back up in the next scene), nothing was all that funny.  The thing that made me laugh the hardest was when Disney Plus asked me if I wanted to skip the two-second intro.

SUPER BOWL XLVI

Show: “The Voice”

Episode: “The Blind Auditions, Part 1” (Season 2, Episode 1)

Aired: February 5, 2012

Network: NBC

I have always had a strong, immediate distaste for “The Voice”’s particularly flavoring.  I’m sure anyone reading this is familiar with its broad strokes: four celebrity singers sit in on several rounds of blind auditions (their chairs are turned around, forcing them to evaluate on just…The Voice), with the intent of building competing teams, all with the goal of coaching the eventual champion, as voted on by America.  It’s probably the second-most popular music competition show (behind “America’s Got Talent”) to be birthed in the wake of “American Idol”’s early-21st century dominance.  

HERE, the supposed extra novelty is the fact that the celebrity judges (in this season, Adam Levine, Christina Aguilera, Cee-Lo Green and Blake Shelton) are encouraged to tease and banter with each other.  This seems to be a direct rebuke of the most famous ingredient “American Idol” had in its stew: Simon Cowell’s honest (but venomous) critiques of auditioners he sees to be subpar.  What if, instead, the judges aimed their ire at each other, instead of at the prospective contestants?

Well, I’ll tell you what if.  It fucking sucks.  

Look, I have a lot of issues with how “American Idol” conducted itself: when FOX realized early on that audiences liked to watch Simon, Randy and Paula laugh their asses off at losers more than anything else, the game was on.  The constant shoveling of freaks into the audition room so that Simon could say he wished he could kill himself was superficially funny, but it was actively a waste of everybody’s time, up to and including yours.  However, although he was often goaded into being, uh, colorful, Simon rarely offered criticism to anybody who didn’t on some level need to hear it.  There was probably no point in him telling a vaguely mentally ill person they couldn’t sing, but it was also usually true.

I’d argue the format of “The Voice” isn’t actively kinder to its contestants.  Due to its focus on auditioners who have at least some experience, what happens most of the time is that at least one judge will turn their chair around.  Usually, at least two will, and the active recruitment begins (more on that in a second).  BUT, every once in a while, the blind audition will yield no takers, which leads to this really awkward minute or so where the judges will have to explain why they didn’t turn their chairs, all without ever articulating a tangible piece of criticism (because that would be mean).  It usually ends up being some variation of “don’t get discouraged, you’re great, I would work on your pitch”.  Thanks for the tip!  By the way, have I mentioned that this all takes place in front of a live audience, doubling the pressure to not be too pointed, lest the crowd turn on you?

Thankfully, because this show is semi-cooked, this doesn’t happen too often.  Usually, we get two to four celebrity judges all fighting to get an auditioner on their team and, boy, is this stuff funny.  You see, Adam, Blake, Christina, and Cee-Lo will do or say anything to throw the other judges under the bus, such as…uh, Blake is a hick!  Or, um, hey, Adam and Christina, are you fighting or are you flirting?  Burn!  Or, uh, Cee-Lo is…too smooth, I guess?  The “fighting” never really moves beyond light ribbing, and I suspect this is because by 2012, the era of celebrity personas becoming commodities on the Internet was in its early days.  If Blake said something too mean to Christina, he might not be “daddy” anymore, or if Adam got weird about Cee-Lo, he might become “problematic”*.

*Thank god Adam Levine never became problematic.

Going back to “American Idol” really quickly, the key to its magic (insomuch as it had any) was that, every once in a while, the judges got genuinely hostile with each other; there was legitimate reason to suspect Simon and Paula didn’t really like each other very much.  Whether true or not, you got this feeling that they and Randy had simply spent too much time together, and their unique personalities started getting irritating.  Compare this to “The Voice”, where it seemed like the first time Adam, Blake, Christina and Cee-Lo interacted since Season One wrapped was two seconds before cameras started rolling.  The show’s very gimmick is rendered completely inert as a result.

Seriously, what are we doing here?  “The Voice” is clearly popular, as it’s been running for almost a decade and a half.  But I have a hard time imagining the type of person that genuinely finds the lifeblood of the show (the fake celebrity judge “fighting”) amusing or entertaining for that long.  Surely, less discriminating parents would eventually move on to like, “This is Us” or “Yellowstone” eventually?  Life is too fucking short for stuff like this.

SUPER BOWL XLVII

Show: “Elementary”

Episode: “The Deductionist” (Season 1, Episode 14)

Aired: February 3, 2013

Network: CBS

Whether it meant to be or not, “Elementary” appeared to be the American response to the success of BBC’s “Sherlock”, which introduced America to Benedict Cumberbatch, in the biggest act of war from the UK against the US since 1812.  From my very limited experience with either, both shows operate from the same premise of “what if Sherlock Holmes…but MODERN?”

I’d argue the original Victorian setting is half of what’s fun about a Sherlock Holmes story, but fine.  My biggest barrier to enjoying this episode (which I kind of didn’t) is that it’s stuffing the characters of Holmes and Watson into the skeleton of a standard-issue crime procedural, a genre that had been done to death by 2013.  Holmes (Johnny Lee Miller) isn’t a detective, he’s a police consultant (exciting!).  Watson (Lucy Liu) isn’t just his friend, she’s his sober companion (gritty!).  The show is admittedly a little lighter on its feet than, say, “Criminal Minds”, but it’s a shame to see Sherlock Holmes become just another “prickly malcontent whose deduction skills border on magic” character, like, say, Gregory House or…whatever the Mentalist’s name is.  Men Talist.

It’s difficult to know what to say about “The Deductionist” beyond that.  If you’re into this kind of thing, this seemed to be popular enough, enjoying a seven year run.  You’ll probably have a good time.  I didn’t really get anything out of it, though.  I thought Miller was kind of annoying, and not in a lovable way like Hugh Laurie in the aforementioned House.  It’s always nice to see Lucy Liu, but as presented in this episode, her take on Watson felt like nothing special.  Alas, my dear Watson!

SUPER BOWL XLVIII

Show: “New Girl”

Episode: “Prince” (Season 3, Episode 14)

Aired: February 2, 2014

Network: FOX

Special Guest Star: Prince

Another sitcom two-fer!  First up, a show that started off as an awkward star vehicle and became a beloved ensemble hang-out show.

Or at least, apparently.  I kinda got fed up with “New Girl” early on, as it was apparent that the premise of  “Zooey Deschanel acts weird, and the people around her react” wasn’t working for me.  Naturally, as soon as I ditched it, it kept working away at itself and eventually found its audience.  Part of that audience, apparently, included Prince, who reached out to the show to express his interest in guest-starring on the show, “New Girl” being one of the few television shows he watched.

Look, Prince is a jaw-dropping get for a show like “New Girl”.  Yeah, I know Taylor Swift also cameoed on this show in its first season back in 2012, but she wasn’t quite the monolithic figure then that she is now, and she certainly doesn’t have the hermetic reputation Prince had.  Although he released something like 40 albums, he only made two appearances on TV.  The other one besides “New Girl” was a 1997 episode of “Muppets Tonight”.  He may be the single most impressive booking within this entire project.

I focus on this because I thought the episode itself was just fine.  There’s plenty I laughed at, with the biggest ones being Jessica responding to Prince’s whispered advice in her ear by admitting, “I didn’t hear any of that”, as well as Schmidt and Nick attempting their own version of “Fire and Ice”.  It’s clear that the dynamics between the six leads have tightened over the years, and the joke writing had absolutely improved since I dumped the show.  This is all normal for sitcoms!  They traditionally take a little bit to find themselves!  

But its preferred sense of humor is just something that I can get from other places, primarily its brother-in-arms (and, in my opinion, superior) “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”.  But then again, my evaluation’s sample size is fairly small; a handful of early episodes and an event episode hardly feel like the best ones to judge an entire seven-year run.  Alas, that’s all I have to go off of and, although “Prince” was comfortable and familiar, it also didn’t inspire me to drop everything and start the show anew either.

Show: Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Episode: “Operation: Broken Feather”

Aired: February 2, 2014 (Season 1, Episode 15)

Network: FOX

Guest Stars: Adam Sandler, Joe Thiessman

The network sitcom bang-bang concludes with this mid-Season One outing for America’s favorite cops, if only by default.  

It’s funny, I always forget that this is the episode that aired after the Super Bowl (I always think it’s the one that Marhsawn Lynch guested in).  It’s a fairly nondescript episode for the most part; Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) is about to interview with Major Crimes and work under the Vulture (Dean Winters), and Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) is taking it upon himself to convince her of everything she would miss as a detective.  It’s the classic “reintroduce both the characters and the basic setup of the show” kind of Super Bowl episode.  They work very hard to re-establish who the Vulture is, they heighten everybody’s quirks, they even replay the theme song at the end like it’s a pilot.  But it’s overall a fairly standard episode of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”, although it should be noted that half a season in, the entire cast is already clicking like they’ve been doing it for years.  The subplot involving Sergeant Terry (Terry Crews) and Captain Holt (Andre Braugher)’s quest for an efficient office set-up is goofy, but completely believable because their characters are so well-defined; the revelation that Holt teared up at the efficiency on display in MONEYBALL is a perfect joke.

What makes the episode feel like an event, besides the football-themed cold open (the 99 takes on Patton Oswalt’s Fire Department), is the big Adam Sandler cameo, which is pretty funny.  The other big cameo is by Joe Thiessman, and it’s so awkward (they have to say out loud, “Hey!  Is that Joe Thiessman?”) that it might have ended up being equally as funny, even as it’s absolutely the worst part of the episode.  Yet, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” was never a show that needed to feel like an event.  Even in its inaugural season, it felt like a sitcom on the rise.  Over the years, it became a streaming darling off the development of its own internal language and logic, not necessarily flashy one-off guest stars.  So, yeah, this episode feels a little awkward in a watch-through.  But, maybe you can forgive it and accept “Operation: Broken Feather” for the compliment that it was.  FOX already had a lot of confidence in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” only fourteen episodes in, and that confidence paid off.

SUPER BOWL XLIX 

Show: “The Blacklist”

Episode: “Luther Braxton (Part 1)” (Season 2, Episode 9)

Aired: February 1, 2015

Network: NBC

Special Guest Star: Ron Perlman

Believe it or not, my wife and I were pretty avid followers of “The Blacklist” for its first four seasons or so.  It’s an absolutely ridiculous premise; Raymond “Red” Reddington (James Spader) is a Most Wanted criminal who cuts a deal with the FBI that goes as such: in exchange for details on everybody on his criminal Rolodex (the titular Blacklist), he will be granted “imprisonment” that essentially resembles five-star hotel accommodation: steak dinners and the ability to come and go as he pleases.  Oh, and he will only work directly with rookie agent Elizabeth Keene (Megan Boone), who he has seemingly no connection to.

If you’ve never seen the show, I’m sure your first thought was, “Oh so Red is her father?”, and that was the thought everybody initially had the second the first promo dropped.  I’ll never know for sure, but it seems to me that was the initial thought creator Jon Blokenkamp had, too, and the show had to work itself into knots to either pivot to another secret connection or keep delaying the inevitable.  As far as I can tell from some Googling, “The Blacklist” came and went without ever really making it clear what Red’s connection was to Elizabeth?  This, to me, was the funniest choice the show could have made.  It ran for a decade!  And they just never clarified who our two leads were to each other!  It’s fantastic!

Anyway, the big get here is Ron Perlman, who plays the titular Luther Braxton, a super-evil brawler who is able to take down the maximum-security secret prison he’s held in essentially by himself.  Perlman is a perfect fit for a show like this (and it helps that the hour is directed by action guy Joe Carnahan); he doesn’t say a word throughout the first act or so, yet he’s still terrifying in a way “Blacklist” aren’t always.  It’s all fun, if not exactly nutritious.  The two stars here, as you might imagine, are Perlman and Spader, who’s in his prime “I guess I’m a bored comedy guy now?” mode.  Half the moments that pop here are Red flipping some vaguely disinterested bon mot, treating life-and-death stakes as if they’re minor inconveniences.  Oh, and he gets to rock a sawed-off shotgun near the episode’s conclusion.  Get you a guy who can do brains and brawn!

SUPER BOWL L

Show: “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”

Aired: February 7, 2016

Network: CBS

Special Guest Star(s): Scott Kelly, Barack and Michelle Obama, Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Jim Nantz, Von Miller, Will Ferrell, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, Megyn Kelly

It’s a little surprising this marks the only time a late night show ever aired after the Super Bowl and, considering the format’s slow and steady sundowning, it’s equally surprising that it happened within the last ten years.  It would seem a natural fit for the setting: you have instant star power, most major network late night shows were fairly beloved back in the day…I have to imagine it simply came down to Colbert being the first host willing to work on a Sunday.

Speaking of Colbert…if I may.  It seems to me his shift in personas over my lifetime effectively illustrates the shift in the shape of popular liberal-minded comedy.  His conservative pundit character that headlined “The Colbert Report” was one of the most precise pieces of satire of the 00’s, to such a degree that his conservative guests often seemed to not be in on the joke.  It was vicious without ever seeming uninviting.  The late night version of Colbert, on the other hand, seems to align more with his actual personality: cozy, warm and witty, not unlike an uncle you look forward to seeing at family gatherings.  It’s nice.

Nice, unfortunately, doesn’t always blend well with a late-night comedy show that also wants to dabble in political commentary.  I’m trying to be really careful here, because this particular well has been so poisoned over the past decade that I think it’s really easy to overread someone's intentions when they state that something like this wasn’t funny to them but…a lot of this wasn’t funny to me.

I should state here that, in all fairness, I only had about half of this 45-minute program available to me, a full upload seemingly unavailable anywhere (I’ll save this rant for later, but I found this concerning).  From the six or so clips uploaded to the official “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” YouTube channel, I was able to piece together a show that was heavy on star wattage and an easygoing nature (truly not out of step with other programs in the lead-out timeslot) but light on actual genuine laughs.  There are things you’re supposed to find funny; the early pre taped cameo from the Obamas is charming due to their natural ease on camera, but it’s not actually funny.  But they’re on our side, so we clap.  The only clip from the Megyn Kelly interview is her and Colbert debating things they would never call Donald Trump, both evoking a horrible tweet from him about her, as well as reminding me of how badly this kind of “isn’t President Cheeto a dum-dum” stuff has aged, and also a reminder that, just like the tweet itself, it’s not funny.  But the Fox News lady is now on our side, so we cheer.

There are some parts I liked.  The Margot Robbie and Tina Fey interview is genuinely fun, and I got a lot out of the pre-taped sketch from Key and Peele skewering touchdown celebrations, a well-worn topic that they nevertheless find new angles of attack towards.  But an animal segment from Will Ferrell, who is normally fairly reliable in this kind of setting, just kind of sits there (and isn’t as funny as either he or Colbert, who is beside himself the whole time, seem to think).

Anyway, still love ya, Colbert, you seem like a kind man.  Your view of things will probably prevail when all is said and done.  Just wish this particular episode was funnier!

SUPER BOWL LI

Show: “24: Legacy”

Episode: “12:00 PM - 1:00 PM” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Aired: February 5, 2017

Network: FOX

I never really thought about it until it was pointed out to me, but it’s a little shocking that the original “24” series never got the post-Super Bowl slot.  It’s tailor-made for the moment: an adrenaline-soaked actioner that feels tangibly conservative in spirit* and also always knew how to front-load its seasons to make premieres feel like real Events.  Hungover Super Bowl viewers would love “24”, if they didn’t already.  If I could go back in time, I would absolutely give “The Simpsons” and “American Dad!” the boot back in 2005 and give the Season Four two-hour premiere the slot instead.

*Mostly because of the copious amounts of torture, its “shoot first, ask questions later” ethos, and fear-mongering of Middle-Easterners, although I’d argue it gets balanced out in other weird ways.  For instance, I feel like half the time, the ultimate Big Bad winds up being some pasty white British guy.  For another instance, Democratic presidents on 24 tend to be noble and upstanding, burdened with the responsibility of morality, while Republican presidents tend to be blustery, craven, and opportunistic.

Yet, it wasn’t to be.  Its sequel series “24: Legacy” would be the closest the franchise ever got.  It’s an odd watch, it being exactly like the old “24” series in form and style, but missing the centerpiece character that made it an eventual phenomenon: Kiefer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer.  In his place, we get Eric Carter (Corey Hawkins), a former Army Ranger whose past comes back to haunt him for one…hell of a day!  To be honest, I never thought swapping out casts would be that crippling for “24”.  Its unique, signature format (each episode of the season covering one hour of a day in real time) is so perfectly built to be exciting and hooky, provided the writing is up to par, that I felt like any halfway-decent actor could flourish at its center.

I was wrong.  “24”, it turns out, is not “24” without Jack Bauer.  It seems that Kiefer’s gravelly, world-weary Emmy-winning turn as the rogue CTU agent was holding the whole thing together the entire time.  Without him, “24: Legacy” actually paradoxically feels a little tired.  It plays the hits: initially innocuous characters turn out to be evil, suspicion is cast over new government bosses, the overall mission turns out to be a strain for our lead and his family.  Corey Hawkins does his best to infuse all of this with some gravitas and meaning, but he actually seems too young to be the “24” guy (Jack Bauer has a teenage daughter when we first meet him).  Hawkins is a skilled performer, but this feels like a poor fit.

There are reasons for optimism, mostly via the casting of consummate television character actor Jimmy Smits, as a Senator, and Mirando Otto, as his wife and former director of CTU.  And it’s not like the format doesn’t work or anything; I still get a charge after every return from break, with that oppressive beeping clock sound.  But, just like every other legacy sequel not called “Twin Peaks: The Return”, this felt like too little, too late.  As of this writing, it seems like “24”s time has….run out!!!

SUPER BOWL LII

Show: “This is Us”

Episode: “Super Bowl Sunday” (Season 2, Episode 14)

Aired: February 4, 2018

Network: NBC

Based just off this one episode, I think I admire “This is Us” more than I genuinely like it.

With respect to the fact that I’m stepping into the middle of a serialized story, having never seen another episode, there are many elements to “This is Us” that aren't all that appealing to me personally.  It’s essentially a tender primetime soap opera, which is not in and of itself a bad thing.  But it is Deadly Serious at almost all times, with every character on the verge of performing the kind of monologue that eventually gets used in a theatre program audition.  Big emotions!  People telling stories from their past!  It got exhausting just in this one hour; I can’t imagine subjecting myself to six years worth of it.

But I will give it up to “This is Us” on a couple of different fronts.  First of all, it becomes very clear why this became Sterling K. Brown’s breakout moment.  He immediately pops in a way no other cast member does; he’s engaging, he’s funny, he’s warm, and more than anything, he has an ability to take these weepy monologues and make you believe them.  If there were one thing that would make me do the “This is Us” deep dive, it would be him.  He’s amazing.  

Second, I think “Super Bowl Sunday” as an episode is remarkably well-constructed.  I have gathered just through pop culture osmosis that one of the central mysteries of “This is Us” is how Jack Pearson (Milo Ventimiglia), the father of the central three characters, died.  The show makes the decision to use their Super Bowl spotlight to reveal their hand.  So when it opens with an enormous, terrifying house fire set piece, it seems clear this is how Jack goes down.  But then, in a twist that should have been obvious but wasn’t, he makes it out unscathed.  No, “Super Bowl Sunday” makes the better, and more devastating, decision to have him die of a sudden smoke-induced heart attack at the hospital.  It leads to my single favorite choice of the whole thing: as his wife Rebecca (Mandy Moore) is told of the unexpected horrible news, her first move is to blankly take a huge bite of her candy bar.  It’s a shame, then, that the show has Rebecca monologue about that moment later, just in case you missed it.

Okay, that was another swipe at a show that otherwise clearly has its heart and spirit in the right place, so I’ll end with this.  “This is Us” may be the last of its kind: a big network show that launched and rekindled several careers, and one that was able to live off of aching sincerity and find a place in the cultural zeitgeist.  It didn’t need to attach itself to the Dick Wolf universe in order to make its mark.  I think that’s actually really cool, even if “This is Us” isn’t ultimately for me.

SUPER BOWL LIII

Show: “The World’s Best”

Episode: “Auditions 1” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Aired: February 3, 2019

Network: CBS

“The World’s Best” is another run-of-the-mill talent show, along the lines of an “America’s Got Talent” or “American Idol”, except the twist here seems to be that, along with our celebrity judges Drew Barrymore, Ru Paul, and Faith Hill, contestants are also evaluated by a 50-person panel referred to as “The Wall of the World” which consists of entertainment experts from around the world.  It sounds a little overwhelming, to be honest.

I have to say “sounds” because “The World’s Best” doesn’t appear to be available to view anywhere, despite being only six years old.  To some degree, I get it.  Nobody seemed to like this show, with nary a good review to be found.  Some of this assuredly is residual Internet pile-on hate for James Corden, the man who hosts this show (because why not).  Otherwise, there’s no apparent difference between this and “The Voice” or “The Masked Singer” in terms of empty calories.  But I understand.  If there’s no audience for something, why keep it around?

But it is a little disturbing that a program can just be removed.  I understand this was a stupid show that added little of value, but people still worked on it.  It existed.  More to the point, we tend to associate the concept of “lost media” with a time long ago, where stupid film and television executives valued their product so little that they would just throw them away, or tape over them.  Most of the silent films that ever existed, good or bad, are now gone forever because of practices like this.  So it’s a little strange that this seems to be back in vogue.  I hate Corden, too, and this show sounds like it sucks shit, but it’s weirdly not a good thing that “The World’s Best” has been deleted from existence.

SUPER BOWL LIV

Show: “The Masked Singer”

Episode: “The Season Kick Off Mask Off Group A” (Season 3, Episode 1)

Aired: February 2, 2020

Network: FOX

If I thought I didn’t understand “The Voice”, I really, really don’t get “The Masked Singer”.  Here, they’ve seemingly cut out civilians altogether.  Now, we have celebrities doing a talent show for a panel of celebrities, all to an audience of…non-celebrities?  Well, there’s my first note!  Get those non-celebs outta that theatre!  I need more celebrities!

I know this one isn’t an American invention.  Unbelievably, this game show where celebrities make themselves anonymous by wearing increasingly elaborate and loud costumes before doing karaoke on live TV originated in Japan.  However, “The Masked Singer” came along at the perfect time for an America that stopped demanding much from the things that entertain us.  Really, if you strip away the “banter” (which mostly consists of people calling Ken Jeong “weird”) and the novelty of “notable stars” potentially being on your screen, there’s no real game here.  People sing in masks, and panelists just make random guesses as to who it might be, with no penalty for being wrong or right.  At the end of the episode, one masked singer is eliminated by an arbitrary audience vote, and their identity is revealed.  That’s it!  Besides host Nick Cannon constantly hawking other FOX shows, nothing else happens.

I truly, truly don’t understand “The Masked Singer”.  Most of the celebrities are singers in their own right, but not all (previous masked singers include Dr. Drew, Rob Gronkowski, Mickey Rourke, Kermit the Frog, Adam Carolla, and Larry the Cable Guy).  A scan of all previous winners and runners-up reveals…pretty much all singers!  So why the weird non-singers in the lineup?  On the off-hand chance Rob Schneider or Caitlin Jenner wins it all?  They won’t!  Who is this all for??

My guess: “The Masked Singer” is a TV show meant to just have on in the background while you’re doing other things.  This is probably (debatably) the first of these in this project, but it absolutely is not going to be the last. 

SUPER BOWL LV

Show: “The Equalizer”

Episode: “The Equalizer” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Aired: February 7, 2021

Network: CBS

I think at this point, network television firmly hit the modern “competent slop” era, one that will likely eventually end (all eras do) but not in the foreseeable future.  “The Equalizer” isn’t bad by any quantifiable measure; the premise mostly works (although it helps that it’s based on a pre-existing property), and the cast is fine.  Queen Latifah is such an odd-ball choice for something like this that it all kind of gets by on the novelty alone.  

But it also is unequivocally a show that goes into one ear and out the other (or, I guess, in both eyeballs and out the back of the head?).  Latifah plays an ex-CIA agent who splits her time trying to raise a family as a single mother and using her skills to fight street crime, vigilante style.  In her initial outing, she’s helping a young woman who’s being framed for an execution she didn’t commit.  This is another one of those television episodes that shows you how a crime plays out (said girl watches it happen), then tries to pull a second act twist with a revelation that makes no sense (the security footage shows that the girl…is actually the shooter!).  Since we already saw an objective account of what happened, this twist can only mean the footage is manipulated, so why does the episode spend so much time casting doubt on the falsely-accused suspect?  Does this not bother anybody else?

Anyway, I don’t have a lot to say about “The Equalizer”.  I think my brain is turning into mush at this point.  Only a few more to go!

SUPER BOWL LVI

Show: “The 2022 Winter Olympics”

Episode: “Woman’s Monobob and Ice Dance”

Aired: February 13, 2022

Network: NBC

Like the other miscellaneous sporting events that served as Super Bowl lead out programs, this one isn’t really available or archived anywhere, so I can’t really formally review this.  For some reason, I find this more acceptable than scripted shows being tossed down the drain; maybe it’s because the results of the Olympics are accessible in some form or another.  Or I’m a hypocrite.  That’s also possible.

The only thing I don’t really like about this is that it looks, to me, like NBC has officially cashed out of the lead-out program game entirely.  Their television contract was renegotiated around this time to have their Super Bowl broadcast always coincide with the Winter Olympics.  Their 2026 lead-out is all but confirmed to be Winter Olympics coverage.  Although this makes a certain amount of sense, I also find it incredibly boring.  Sensible but boring!  A pattern seems to be emerging.

SUPER BOWL LVII

Show: “Next Level Chef”

Episode: “A Next Level Welcome” (Season 2, Episode 1)

Aired: February 12, 2023

Network: FOX

“Next Level Chef”, an otherwise too-busy, too heavily edited cooking competition, has a couple of things going for it, at least to this viewer.  First, I generally enjoy watching Richard Blais.  Second, this show has the good, UK version of Gordon Ramsey, the version of him that is brutally honest, but generally supportive and rant-free (as opposed to the more popular, US version that calls people idiot sandwiches or whatever).  Third, and this may be controversial, but…I think the goofy initial premise kind of works.  Admittedly, the idea of a three-level set, each containing increasingly inadequate kitchens (and ingredients) as you descend, feels a little bit like the setup for an “I Think You Should Leave” sketch or something.  But you do legitimately start rooting for people pulling something gourmet out of their asses with, like, black cod.  It’s super-gimmicky but it works.

What I didn’t like so much is how poorly they explain how the game even works.  You sort of understand that all eighteen chefs (broken up into three teams headed by Blais, Ramsey and Nyesha Arrington) are all competing against each other, but I found it odd that the three celebrity chef team leaders are also the judges?  No way for the game to get cooked there.  It also wasn’t immediately clear what anybody gets for winning (which is that the week’s winner gets their entire team moved up to the top kitchen).  I don’t know, it felt like it was working so hard to keep things moving that they just assumed their weird game would just make intuitive sense.  It does not.

Anyway, it’s still competent sludge, but at least there were people on screen that I liked watching.  That’s not nothing.

SUPER BOWL LVIII

Show: “Tracker”

Episode: “Klamath Falls, Oregon” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Aired: February 11, 2024

Network: CBS

An amalgam of a million “white guy magically has every skill and piece of knowledge in the world” shows just like it.  This time, Colter Shaw* (Justin Hartley) is a skilled tracker who picks up missing person cases and rescue missions in order to assist law enforcement.  Like all shows like this, he has a troubled past and fractured relationship with his family, some of which gets fleshed out in flashbacks, and some of which gets teased out for future storylines (at least, presumably; you’ll never guess it, but I’ve never seen this before).  

*Why the lead’s name isn’t John Tracker, I’ll never know.

“Tracker” is one of those shows where the less you think about it, the better.  Colter is the type of super genius who’s able to calculate the odds of success for different options in order to make the best decision possible, but has to go into a fast food restaurant in order to ask them what time they open instead of just, like, Googling it.  Hartley is a fine lead, but nothing special (and looks a little bit like “we have Glen Powell at home”).  Colter just isn’t an interesting character to me.  He has no real perceived flaw, at least not one that generates any genuine conflict.  Sure, his past appears rough, but that’s not really a flaw, that’s just some stuff that happened to him.  

I will commend the pilot, however, for at least finding a way to split the difference between opening with an action-heavy bang, and trying to give us some character exposition.  We open in media res with Tracker rescuing a lost hiker, and he’s able to negotiate with her to stay calm, and helps her make the correct decisions by describing everything that could go wrong or right with each step (this is where they establish the “odds” thing).  You get everything you need to know about him in just a couple of minutes.  It’s nifty without feeling obvious, a good sign for your info dumping.

Otherwise, though, I didn’t find this notable in any way.  Except, of course, an appearance at the end by Wendy Crewson, one of the leads of 1987’s post Super Bowl program “Hard Copy”!  Time!  It’s a flat circle!

SUPER BOWL LVIX

Show: “The Floor”

Episode: “Season 3 Premiere” (Season 3, Episode 1)

Aired: February 9, 2025

Network: FOX

I hesitate to spend too much time trying to work my way through “The Floor”, a show that seems not entirely unlike a fake NBC show you’d see depicted on “30 Rock”.  Rob Lowe hosts a massive quiz show with 100 experts in different fields facing head-to-head for spots on the titular floor.  He’s fine, but the show takes great pains to make him seem profoundly uncurious.  One contestant tells Rob she owns a wedding shop, and he replies, “you must have such stories!”.  The show then moves on without any story being provided.  Oh well!

Couple of things to keep in mind: the word “fields” is being used extremely loosely.  Some folks are experts in European history, some are experts in classic films, some are experts in…pantry items.  One girl is an airport code expert.  I suspect what’s going on here is that the show had its 100 topics already picked out and the chosen contestants had to pick one they felt the best about.  

Two, the quizzes are not exactly intellectually stimulating.  They’re all image-based; if the topic were “house decor”, a contestant would look at a picture of a sofa, and would need to say “sofa”* in order to get a point.  It feels a little baby-ish to me, and a far cry from the GE College Bowl, where complicated questions about geography were being flung from the stage and answered with feverish aplomb.  Now, we got people going, “uhhhhh…a chair?”

*And when I say “sofa”, I mean “sofa”, not “couch”.  The game is incredibly picky.

Anyway, it's a competent pile of slop of the highest order and a sad comment on where we are with the post-Super Bowl time slot, after a couple of decades of exciting Event television.  And here is where the article was supposed to end.  But then something interesting happened over on Tubi…

Show: “The Z-Suite”

Episode: “Pilot” (Season 1, Episode 1)

Aired: February 9, 2025

Network: Tubi

As it happens, for the first time since 1967*, the very first Super Bowl, we have two networks broadcasting two different post-Super Bowl programs on the same night. And, from the very brisk, very informal Reddit browsing I did on Monday morning, it sure seemed to me like “The Z-Suite” captured more people’s attention than “The Floor”. So...let’s talk about it!

*I am heavily discounting last year’s novelty simul-broadcast of the Super Bowl on Nickelodeon, which provided a second 2024 lead-out program, the pilot of a show called “Rock Paper Scissors”. For several reasons, that feels like a different thing from the Tubi broadcast this weekend.

“The Z-Suite” details the impending crisis within Atelier Advertising, a New York ad agency (as if there’s ever another kind in media). Monica (Lauren Graham) and Doug (Nico Santos) are the head members of the C-Suite, where the old way of thinking, the Gen X/Millenial ethos, has carried them this far. Kriska (Madison Shamoun) leads the “Z-Suite”, a group of twenty-something social media managers who yearn for something more. The comedy in the pilot is generated from the clash between age groups and, to the show’s credit, it aims its ire at the unique flaws inherent to all three generations on display, as opposed to just dumping on young people the entire time.

I can’t say I loved this episode. The problem with the actual jokes is that they mostly feel like first drafts, the kind of generational observations that are already well-worn if you’ve spent even ten minutes online. They’re all a little broad; Gen Z focuses too much on performative inclusion, Millenials are cringe, Gen X is just trying to stay relevant. You’ve heard it all before. If “The Z-Suite” is going to continue, they may want to shed this style of comedy over the course of time.

Because I do think the premise of the show is a solid one. Ad agencies make for a good setting for a television series, because a new situation (i.e. client) presents itself every week. Also, I think “The Z-Suite” is largely well-cast. Lauren Graham hasn’t missed a beat after all these years, and Nico Santos provided me my one legitimate audible laugh, when he describes being in a hit-and-run (“Oh, I’m okay. I ran.”). There’s potential here on the page.

Off the page, “The Z-Suite” also presents an opportunity. An opportunity for the post-Super Bowl show to get better. The time slot as currently utilized by the networks is in a death spiral; shit like “The Masked Singer” and “The Floor” isn’t going to cut it. But, the pilot to a genuine scripted comedy on a rival platform getting buzz? A little competition might just inspire some creativity from FOX, CBS, NBC and ABC. Or the spot can die for good. Either option seems preferable to what we have now.