January 17th's Friday Post

Welcome to Friday!  Time for this week's Friday post.  As usual, I will be linking up to:

Book Beginnings
First Line Friday
Friday 56
Book Blogger Hop

This week, my teasers for the first three are coming from Murder at Mallowan Hall by Colleen Cambridge.

This is the first in a series that features Phyllida Bright, the (fictional) housekeeper for Agatha Christie, solving crimes in 1930's England.

The book jumps right into the mystery:

Phyllida Bright had seen her share of boding during the Great War, so when she discovered the dead man sprawled on the floor, it didn't even occur to her to scream.

See what I mean?

Meanwhile, on page 56 of my hardcover copy, we find Phyllida wrestling with a common issue that all book lovers have.

If there was talk about doing a motion picture with M. Poirot, Phyllida fervently hoped that would not happen. She feared absolutely no one would be able to portray the elegant Belgian in the way she saw him in her mind. She'd have to avoid seeing the film if it was ever made.

Nothing has changed in the last 90 years, right?  Okay, I'll admit, I have seen plenty of adaptations, many of which I have enjoyed.  But there are a few books or series I wouldn't want to see because they are too special to me.  (Hmm, maybe that would be a good future Book Blogger Hop question.  Off to submit it.)

Anyway, I enjoyed this book.  Look for my review coming up on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, let's close things off with this week's Book Blogger Hop.  The question is:

Have you participated in Sheila's FIRST BOOK OF THE YEAR?

I don't think I'd heard of it before, so no.  And, honestly, that's always a little tough for me.  I wouldn't know until the last couple of days what the book I'm actually reading on January 1st would turn out to be.  Not to mention, I count books in the year I review them (I know, I know), so the first book I'm counting for the year would be different from the one I was actually reading.  Make sense?  (As far as reading challenges, etc. go, I figure it averages out across years.  It's about three books each year that I wind up counting in the next.)  And I'm usually in the middle of a book anyway, when the year turns.

That's it for me.  Have a great weekend!

Book Review: Welcome Home to Murder by Rosalie Spielman (Hometown Mysteries #1)

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Strong characters with some twists on the familiar

Cons: A few pacing issues in the middle

The Bottom Line:

Retire from Army

Only to find dead body

Fun twists in debut

Retired From the Army Doesn’t Mean the End to Dead Bodies

When Rosalie Spielman’s Welcome Home to Murder crossed my radar, I was immediately interested.  The setting, a small town in Idaho, doesn’t get a lot of cozy mystery love.  Plus, the main character was a retired Army vet.  I’m always looking for something different in my cozy mysteries.  Sadly, it took me until this year to read the book, but I enjoyed it.

Tessa Treslow left her hometown in Idaho as soon as she graduated from high school.  She’s now spent over twenty years in the army and is ready to retire.  Since she still doesn’t know what she is going to do with the rest of her life, she agrees to return to New Oslo for an extended visit.  While reuniting with her parents and aunt, she senses that there is something they are keeping from her.  But she learns more in the more horrific way when she and her aunt find a dead body in the garage her aunt runs.  The police, in the form of Tessa’s high school boyfriend, feel that her family has the perfect motive.  Can Tessa figure out what really happened?

Yes, this book does fall into some of the cozy mystery tropes, but with twists.  Tessa is older than a typical cozy mystery sleuth, which I appreciated.  She also has a very different background, which again, was great.  But we also have the typical cozy town quirky residents, and I really enjoyed meeting them.

There is some depth to this book right out of the gate, with both the characters and the story.  You could feel the backstory, even if we didn’t get it all at once.  I truly appreciated how that was handled.  We were never needlessly teased.  We were given information when we needed it, and it was never in the form of a data dump.  With as much backstory as there was to learn, it could have felt that way, but it didn’t

Which brings us to the mystery.  I did feel the pacing was a little uneven in the middle, but overall, it was also solid, with plenty of red herrings to keep me entertained.  The climax did answer all my questions successfully.

I look forward to seeing what else Tessa can find now that she’s back in her hometown.  If you want to start a cozy series with a little different sleuth, be sure to pick up Welcome Home to Murder.

TV Show Review: Quantum Leap Reboot - Season 2

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Great stories that all come together

Cons: Just a couple minor ones

The Bottom Line:

Leaping after gap

Mostly strong second season

Sadly, it’s the last

“Sounds Like an Adventure to Me.”

I really enjoyed the first season of the Quantum Leap reboot, but it was clear they had an initial story to tell involving why the new main character leapt.  Since they resolved that at the end of that season, I was very curious what they were going to do for season two.  While the initial set up was a little shaky for me, I wound up enjoying this season, too.

The first episode starts just like any other episode – Ben (Raymond Lee) leaps into a new situation.  In this case, he’s in a plane that is about to crash over 1978 Russia.  However, he’s not getting any assistance from anyone back at Quantum Leap headquarters.  Finally, Ian (Mason Alexander Park) shows up to help Ben.  But Ian also reveals that, while to Ben it’s just been a few minutes, to the rest of the team, he’s been missing in time for three years, and everyone thought that Ben was dead.

While Ian brings the team back together, Ben has to deal with the revelation, most noticeably that his fiancée, Addison (Caitlin Bassett) has moved on and is now dating Tom (Peter Gadiot).  Meanwhile, Ben keeps meeting up with a woman, Hannah (Eliza Taylor) in various leaps.  He is clearly starting to fall for her.  Why is he seeing her multiple times?

Of course, all this is happening while Ben keeps leaping through time trying to fix history.  He leaps into a bank teller about to be a victim in a bank robbery.  He becomes a government agent investigating extraterrestrial activity.  He finds himself accused of witchcraft in 1692 Salem.  And he becomes a news producer trying to help a reporter nail a comeback story.

I hate it when a show jumps forward in time and one character isn’t aware of the passage of time.  So when I realized that was what they were doing with this season, I wasn’t happy about it.  And I did roll my eyes at the usual tropes, like Ben being upset about Addison moving on, and Addison being torn between Ben and Tom.

But as the season went on, I began to appreciate the choices the writers made as a result of this time jump.  A couple of my assumptions about what they were planning to do with the characters proved to be wrong (thankfully).  I was actually blown away in the last couple of episodes with how they brought everything all the characters were facing together for a complete season long story.  Yes, this is an example of excellent writing.  They clearly had a plan in place for the season before they started, and they executed it wonderfully.

What they didn’t have a plan for was the cancellation of the series.  A couple of weeks after the finale aired, NBC announced that the series wouldn’t be back in the fall of 2024.  And we are left once again unmoored in time.  I don’t blame the writers since they didn’t know when this was written or filmed.

To be clear, the storyline for season two was wrapped up.  Instead, what we got was a teaser for what season three would have been as a cliffhanger.  That’s probably what makes it so mild for me.  Yes, I would have been back, and I really want to know what the producers would have done with the storyline.  But since the cliffhanger was more about setting up the story going forward, I don’t feel as if we were left hanging in the same sense that we would have been otherwise.  Make sense?

But back to the season we did get.  Like the first season, we split our time between the leap of the week, which usually got a majority of the run time, and what is going on back at headquarters.  I feel like the leaps also fed into what was going on in the ongoing storylines better this season, probably because Ben’s plot wasn’t about his missing memory and why he leapt.  The writers did a really good job of giving us real emotional stakes in the episodes where we could feel for all the characters.  There wasn’t a right or wrong, but people were still allowed to struggle with what they were feeling.  I really liked it.  And each episode also had very real complications that made it hard to see how Ben would accomplish his task to leap again.

I know I’ve been praising the writers so far this season, but equal praise goes to the cast, including the regulars I haven’t mentioned yet, Ernie Hudson and Nanrisa Lee.  Everyone brought their best to each episode, fully making us invested in what their characters were going through.  I enjoyed getting to see some of these characters popping up as Ben’s guide through his leap, which helped us get to know them better and see different sides of Ben.

There were thirteen episodes in season two.  One of them did get into preachy territory, but it wasn’t as bad as last season’s preachy episode.  But for the most part, we get a show with great stories and characters we can care about.

I am sad that season 2 is the end of Quantum Leap.  I know many fans of the original didn’t like it, but I found the show fun for a modern day reinvention of a classic show.

Book Review: The Sinister Sitcom Caper by Sally Carpenter (Sandy Fairfax Teen Idol Mysteries #2)

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Mystery, Sandy, and fun

Cons: I would like to see more of how Sandy figured out the solution

The Bottom Line:

Guesting on sitcom

Must solve cast member’s murder

Fun second entry

Murder is No Laughing Matter

Since I really enjoyed the first Sandy Fairfax book when I read it, I was quite happy when I received more in the series for Christmas, and I wasted no time in jumping in to see what would happen to him in The Sinister Sitcom Caper, the second in the series.

If you haven’t met Sandy yet, he was a teen idol in the 1970’s.  Between his singing career and his starring role on Buddy Brave, Boy Sleuth, he was quite busy.  However, he’s fallen out of favor in the fifteen or so years since then, thanks in part of his alcoholism.  But he’s trying to put that behind him now as he mounts a comeback.

He’s been back in LA for a few weeks from his disastrous appearance at a Beatles fan festival (aka the first book in the series), when his agent lands him a guest starring part on a sitcom.  No, it’s not one of the top new comedies of 1993, but Off-Kelter, a struggling show that hardly anyone is watching.  But a job is a job.  And for Sandy, it has a nostalgia factor since the sitcom shoots on the soundstage where they used to shoot his show.

But working on this sitcom isn’t going to be all fun and laughs.  The tension between the various cast members is so thick that you’d have to be completely oblivious to not notice it.  So, it’s hardly surprising (to us, anyway), when one of the actresses drops dead at Sandy’s feet.  Since no one else seems to be taking the death seriously, Sandy starts investigating.  Can he figure out what happened?

Being the entertainment junky that I am, I loved the idea of a book set behind the scenes of a sitcom.  Since author Sally Carpenter used to work for a studio, I’m sure we got some accuracy from the book.  Obviously, some details were changed to make for a better mystery.  While we might not have as many laughs as you’d get on a sitcom (this is a bad sitcom, after all), there are still some smiles and laughs to enjoy along the way.

And the mystery itself?  It did stall out a bit in the middle, but it was still solid with many viable suspects and surprises along the way to the climax.  While the solution was logical, it was a bit abrupt, and I would like to have seen how Sandy reached it.

Speaking of Sandy, we really got to know him better in this book.  Since he lives in LA and the first book wasn’t set there, we got more of a sense of his life here, including interactions with his ex and his son, which I loved.  It’s hard not to root for Sandy as we get to know him.

Meanwhile, the rest of the cast were also good.  There’s really only one returning character, and we don’t see that much of her, but I enjoyed the bits that we did get.  Sandy has a new sidekick here, and that relationship is fun.  The suspects do a good job of keeping us guessing as we watch Sandy try to figure everything out.

Sandy Fairfax makes for a fun sleuth, and I’m looking forward to spending more time with him.  If you haven’t met him yet, you’ll be glad you picked up The Sinister Sitcom Caper.

Movie Review: Love in Glacier National

Stars: 2 out of 5

Pros: The leads and their chemistry

Cons: Pretty much everything else

The Bottom Line:

Romance amidst snow

A poorly written movie

Really does not work

“You’re Starting to Sound Like those Old Romance Movies.”

I noticed recently that Hallmark has a couple of romantic movies set in National Parks.  They sounded like they could be fun, so I decided to watch them, starting with Love in Glacier National: A National Park Romance.  Sadly, the result was less than ideal.

Heather (Ashley Newbrough) is a scientist who has developed a new computer modeling system to help better predict avalanches.  She is thrilled when she is invited to Glacier National Park to show it off.  She’ll be working with her friend Eric (Devon Alexander).  The only downside is that it means she can’t take the trip to Maui she had planned with her sister, but she talks Riley (Tegan Moss) into joining her at the mountain resort where she will be staying instead.

The only person not remotely interested in Heather’s program is Chris (Stephen Huszar), the head of the search and rescue program, who prefers to trust his own carefully crafted skills instead of a computer program.  Despite that, neither can deny the sparks that fly between them.  Will Heather win Chris over to her program?  Or is their romance doomed to fail?

If you’ve read enough of my reviews, you know I have no issue with predictable stories as long as I’m having fun.  That wasn’t the case here.  I pretty much had all the beats of the movie figured out early on.  Some took a little longer to predict just because those subplots hadn’t been introduced yet.

But I wasn’t having fun.  Instead, I found myself cringing as the writers made the characters go through these familiar tropes in the most awkward way possible.  It wasn’t fun; it was painful.

Despite this, I did like Heather and Chris.  The actors have great chemistry, and I really did want to see them wind up happy at the end.

Then there’s Riley and her sub-plot.  I actually found her matchmaking tactics cringe inducing, but I still got invested in her sub-plot.  Which just kind of disappeared as we ramped up to the climax.  I was very frustrated by that.

Obviously, the writing wasn’t the sharpest, and that bled over to the performances.  There was only so much the actors could do with some of that dialogue.  Overall, this had a low budget production quality to it.

There is a reason I’ve pretty much stuck to Hallmark’s mystery movies before now – I find their others to be more hit and miss than the mysteries.  Love in Glacier National was definitely in the miss category.

January 12th's Sunday Post

Welcome to the weekend and another Sunday Post.  I will be linking up to:

Sunday Post
Sunday Salon
Stacking the Shelves
It's Monday,  What Are You Reading?

It's been quite a week here in LA.  yes, I am safe.  The worst fires, the ones dominating the news coverage (as they should be) are quite a ways away from me.  There was a fire at the south end of town but I live a ways from that one.  The closest fire to me started Wednesday afternoon, but they had it under control before I went to bed.  And the wind has been blowing south, so all the smoke hasn't even been bothering me.

But this isn't to say I haven't been very distracted all week.  It's been a struggle to get anything done at work.  I have two book reviews to write, one of which I am planning to post on Thursday.  (Gulp).

Anyway, I have a few things packed and ready to load into the car if something near me starts and I do have to evacuate.  While the winds won't be as bad as they have been, we are still supposed to have windy conditions for the next few days.  And the air is so dry, at times it feels like moisture is being pulled out of my body.

Hopefully, my concentration can become a little better because I don't think things are going to change for at least another week.  And I have things I need to get done at work.

But enough of this.  Let's move on.

This Past Week on the Blog:

Sunday - Sunday/Monday Post

Monday - Favorite Books Read in 2024

Tuesday - Book Review: Hired Guns by Steve Hockensmith

Wednesday - The Traitors USA - Season 2

Thursday - Book Review: Rivers and Creaks by Marc Jedel

Friday - Friday Post featuring Welcome Home to Murder

Saturday - Weekly TV Thoughts

This Coming Week on the Blog:

Sunday - Sunday/Monday Post

Monday - Movie Review: Love in Glacier National

Tuesday - Book Review: The Sinister Sitcom Caper by Sally Carpenter

Wednesday - TV Show Review: Quantum Leap Reboot - Season 2

Thursday - Book Review: Welcome Home to Murder by Rosalie Spielman

Friday - Friday Post

Saturday - Weekly TV Thought

Book Haul:

I've got another six book haul to tell you about.  Some of these were bargain books I've gotten over the last few weeks and two were books I bought online that arrived this week.

Let's start with the bargain books.  First up was Killing Dylan by Alastair Puddick.  This book sounded funny.  It's been on my radar for a while, so when it was cheap right after Christmas, I snagged it.

The other sale book I got was Murder at Vinland by Alyssa Maxwell.  This is the most recent in her Gilded Newport series, and it went on sale for one day this last week.  I have a long ways to go before I will be ready for it, but naturally, I snagged it.

As the year was winding down, I got notified that I was about to lose some of my Kindle points, and I was so close to another reward.  I didn't have a choice but to buy a Kindle book and then immediately convert my points and redeem them for another book, right?  I got two books in series I've been reading this last year, Legally Blind Luck by James J. Cudney and The Tale of the Tenpenny Tontine by P.J. Fitzsimmons.

Which brings us to the two physical books I got this week.  Both are also in series I've already started.  They were on my Christmas list, but my family got me other books from my Christmas list instead.  (There are always lots of books on my list).

A Killing Way is the latest Nate Ross Mystery from J.R. Sanders.  These are set in LA in the 1930's, and I always enjoy them.

Then there's the second in the Turner and Mosely Files from LynDee Walker and Bruce Robert Coffin - The Cardinal's Curse.  I really enjoyed the first one and I'm looking forward to reading this one.

What I'm Currently Reading:

Friday night, I finished Murder at Mallowan Hall by Colleen Cambridge.  This is the first in her series that features the housekeeper for Agatha Christie.  In this book, she gets involved when a houseguest is found murdered in their library.  I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I have the next couple in the series already.

I've just barely started Stuff to Spy For by Don Bruns.  It's actually been a couple of years since I read book two, so I'm overdue to dive into book three.  This is about two friends in their twenties who managed to get into some pretty wild things.  The spying in this case looks like it might involve industrial spying, but we'll see.  I'm only a couple of chapters in, after all.

That's it for me.  Have a good week.

January 11th's Weekly TV Thoughts

It's been an interesting week for TV watching here in LA.  Only one night was the show I was planning to watch not interrupted for fire coverage.  (Not that I wound up watching that night's shows that night.  Got distracted.)  I get it, the first was definitely more important.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  But that's also why Happy's Place isn't on here.  I'll catch up next week.

Wipeout – I didn’t have the dads pegged as making the finals.  I wish they had won over the team that did.  I wasn’t paying enough attention to see how they were selected to replace the team that got injured.  I guess they had come closest to finishing their heat.

Deal or No Deal Island – Well, that was kind of a boring opening.  I wasn’t that surprised that Luke left.  He just didn’t seem that bright at all.  And, if he had taken any deal, he would have been able to stay.  But he was 100% the reason his team was in that position, so it doesn’t upset me at all.  Oh well, hopefully, it will be more interesting going forward.

Shifting Gears – That was pretty funny.  I hope they get away from the politics, but I really felt the leads played well off each other.  I didn’t pick up on the fact that we were having a Galaxy Quest reunion with the cast, but that’s fun.  But the fact that I was laughing at some of the lines through the entire episode makes me hope for a second good sitcom on TV.  Could it be possible?

The Challenge – I’m definitely okay with the winners.  Appreciated that they had a tie for the women.  I felt based solely on the final challenges these were the people who deserved to win.  Next week should bring lots of drama with the reunion.  We’ll see how long I last with it.  But I do have to ask why this show has so much more drama than other reality shows I watch.  Is it because they have the same people over and over again so they really get to know/irritate each other?  Or just who they cast?

Only Murders in the Building – So, we’re going with the same plotting as the first season – focus on one person and then eliminate them each episode.  Not how I usually like my mysteries, but I am here for it.  Interesting getting to meet Lucy.  And see Jan again.  I feel like the second episode was more personal than about the mystery itself.  That’s probably because I didn’t consider the artist a real suspect.  Either way, both were great episodes.

January 10th's Friday Post

Welcome to Friday and this week's Friday Post.  As usual, I will be linking up to:

Book Beginnings
First Line Friday
Friday 56
Book Blogger Hop

For the first three, I will be featuring quotes from Welcome Home to Murder by Rosalie Spielman.

This is the first in a series that has been on my radar for a while.  The main character has just retired from the Army, which makes her a little older than the main characters I usually read about.  Overall, I enjoyed the book.

It has a bit of humor, as you can tell from how it opens:

"I don't imagine a raccoon would turn down peanut butter, but do you really think his little hands could open the jar?"

Yes, it took me a couple of times to get that line straight in my head when I read it, but when I did, I laughed.

Meanwhile, at 56% into the book, we find this:

I smiled and waved at Aunt Edna as I got ready to pull out onto Route 8. She waved back, erratically, so I paused to look down the street.

"Oh wow, look at that."

"Holy…is that normal?" Nick gaped.

What are they seeing?  I'll let you discover that by picking up the book.

I'm aiming to have my review up on Thursday.  Of course, I have to write the review first.  Minor detail, right?

For today, however, let's finish things off with this week's Book Blogger Hop.  This week's question is:

January is National Hobby Month. Do you have any pastimes or interests other than reading that go well with your love of books and literature?

Reviewing?  Honestly, that's about it.  I try to be active as well, and I rarely listen to audiobooks while I'm running or anything like that.  And I can't watch TV while reading.  

That's it for me.  Hope you have a great weekend.

Book Review: Rivers and Creaks by Marc Jedel (Redwood Country Mysteries #1)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Andy and other characters have potential

Cons: Mixed overall

The Bottom Line:

Some big life changes

Get started with a murder

In this mixed debut

Andy Finds a Corpse on His First Day

Author Marc Jedel has been on my radar for a while.  In fact, I have Kindle copies of the first few books in his longest series.  Still, when he started the Redwood Country Mysteries with Rivers and Creaks, I jumped on that book as well.  I finally read it, and it was a mixed bag for me.

We meet Andy Shirley on the day he takes over a bed and breakfast in Monte Rio, California.  The idea of running this during retirement was his late wife’s idea, and Andy is struggling with the idea of doing it on his own.  But he couldn’t back out of the sale, so here he is.

Since the bed and breakfast was already up and running, Andy is handed over the keys with a full house of guests – specifically a wedding party.  The previous owner has hardly left when screams summon Andy to the upstairs where the dead body of one of the bridesmaids has been found in her room.  Andy worries that this might ruin his new business before he even gets started.  Can he figure out what really happened?

Growing up in Northern California, I love the redwoods, so that’s what drew me to this book over some others the author has written.  Imagine my surprise when it was set in a very small community in the county where I grew up.  As always, I loved all the references to places I am very familiar with.  Even better, I started reading it when I was at my parents’ for Christmas.  Honestly, that might have colored the rest of my perception of the book.

The story is just as much about Andy moving into his new home as it was the murder.  In fact, I often felt the murder took a backseat to the adjustments Andy was trying to adjust to.  As a result, things felt a little underdone to me.  The climax was also weaker than it could have been, but it did answer all the questions I had.

Then there’s Andy.  He’s a self-proclaimed curmudgeon.  On top of that, he’s dealing with the fairly recently death of his wife.  As a result, he’s not super warm and outgoing.  I appreciated a different character as the lead character in a series, but at times, I couldn’t believe someone in his 60’s would really be so dumb as to say the things he did.  But that’s probably just me.  On the whole, I did enjoy spending time with him.  Even better, I enjoyed the new relationships he was forming with others in the community in this book.  I see potential for people to draw him out of his shell as the series goes along.

One thing I completely enjoyed was the humor.  I laughed multiple times as I was reading.  And no, it wasn’t all puns.

Despite the problems I mentioned, I did enjoy reading the book.  If Andy comes back with another case for him to solve, I will definitely read it.  Hopefully, it builds on what came in Rivers and Creaks to make a stronger book.

TV Show Review: The Traitors - Season 2

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Strong, fun reality competition show

Cons: Edited cliffhangers at the end of each episode

The Bottom Line:

Must find the Traitors

Second season is stronger

Better contestants

“Pass the Eggs.  Did I Say That as a Faithful or a Traitor?”

I wasn’t super impressed when I watched the first season of the US version of The Traitors.  Before my Peacock subscription expired last year, I decided to go ahead and give the second season a chance.  I’m glad I did because I enjoyed it much more.

The premise is still the same – a group of around 20 people head to host Alan Cumming’s castle in Scottland (or a castle he is claiming).  There, three will be tapped as traitors.  The rest are the faithful.  Each night, the traitors pick one person to be murdered.  The next evening, the faithful have a chance to vote out someone from the group, hoping they can get a traitor out.  During the day, everyone is working on challenges to build their pot.  At the end, if any traitors remain, they gain the prize.  However, if the faithful have eliminated all the traitors, they win.

Make sense?  After you’ve watched an episode or two, it all makes sense.

In the first season, there was a mix of reality show veterans and people who have never been on a reality show before.  This season, it’s all reality people from a variety of shows like Survivor, The Challenge, Big Brother, The Batchelor, the various Real Housewives shows.  The one exception was John Bercow, the former Speaker of the House of Commons.  A different reality show, if you will.

While the premise was the same this season, there were a couple of reasons I enjoyed this season better.  One, none of the contestants really bugged me.  Everyone seemed to be there to play the game.  Yes, they did take things personally at times (it would be hard not to in a game like this), but there wasn’t endless whining when things didn’t go their way.  Yes, they fought to come out on top, but they accepted the outcome of the game when they didn’t.

It was also more fun because the contestants were really playing.  All of them.  Yes, there were a few that were in charge of the alliances, but it was interesting to see how everyone approached things.  And how the strategy worked out or didn’t.  We also got to see some of them hurt themselves with what they thought was great strategy.  I felt sorry a time or two when that happened, but it made for great TV.

There was a big surprise half way through the season I thought might ruin it for me.  To my surprise, I even enjoyed that.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there were moments that really did bother me.  But that’s the case with most reality shows.  This was much more in keeping with other reality shows.

Sadly, a couple of the reasons I tuned into the season left fairly early.  I was spoiled for that, but I was still disappointed.

As with the first season, Alan Cummings was a fantastic host.  I loved his levity and his outfits were over the top in the best way possible.

These episodes were originally released on a weekly basis, but since the season was over before I started watching, I was able to watch them more quickly.  Frankly, I’m glad because their manufactured cliffhangers are so annoying.  It makes you appreciate the style of Survivor and The Amazing Race, which shows you who is leaving at the end of each episode.  Here, they seem to think it is a great idea to tease you with you to leaving and end the episode on that cliffhanger.  Sorry, but you can just tell me.  I’ll still be back next week.

While the first season had it’s moments, season two of The Traitors was much more entertaining.  Honestly, this is probably the biggest reason I’m happy I was able to renew my Peacock subscription for cheap.  I’ve just got to make the time to enjoy the international versions and watch season 3, which starts tomorrow.