Category: TV

The integrity landscape

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Michael Lewis‘ Against The Rules is one of my favourite podcasts. It jumps around each season, but I’m considering re-listening to season 4:

In Season 4, Against the Rules is going to Vegas (by way of New Jersey!). Host Michael Lewis bets high and low to find out how Americans, and their state governments, got addicted to a new form of legalized gambling. This season, we’ll meet bookies, lobbyists, lawyers and professional sharps. All in their own ways trying to figure out why fans might hitch their life savings to their favorite team’s performance.

The reason I’m considering re-listening to it is because now, with a few years of legalized sports gambling under our belts here in Ontario, we’re starting to see the negative effects.

  • From the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Mar 2026: “The introduction of online gambling and subsequent privatization with single-event sports betting were each associated with substantial increases in gambling-related helpline contacts, specifically in adolescent boys and young men, suggesting increased gambling problems, care-seeking, or both. This underscores the need to strengthen preventive measures and treatment access.”
  • From the CBC, Sep 2026: “[A] rising number of men and boys who are turning to hospital emergency departments after reaching rock bottom with gambling and related addictions and disorders, according to a new study published Wednesday in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Researchers in Ontario found a dramatic increase in emergency department visits in just the past few years, following the rapid growth of online gambling in that province and the legalization of betting on single sports events. “
  • From the CBC, Oct 2026: “The number of problem gamblers in Ontario has spiked and gambling-related suicides have tripled since the expansion of private online casino games and sports betting in 2022, CBC News has learned. Nearly 130,000 Ontarians now show signs of gambling problems, compared with roughly 43,000 in 2018, a tripling of the number of people who meet the criteria of gambling too frequently, losing money and struggling with addiction.” (Note: though this tripling leads the headline, I feel it’s worth noting that this finding is from is a small sample size: “Before Ontario’s expansion, the province had an average of five gambling-related suicides each year from 2016 to 2021. That number tripled after 2022.”)

This was all predictable, by the way. The Ontario government was warned by experts of the negative effects, and Lewis talked about them in his podcast two years ago — but Ontario has gotten addicted to the revenue, so it’ll make bad decisions to feed that addiction. Just like clockwork.

A few days ago the CBC, in their continuing investigation into the effects of legalized sports betting, reported that federal MPs have introduced a bill which would reduce the number of ads for sports betting services. As someone who never does any sports betting, but does watch sports on TV, I say hallelujah. They’re nonstop. It would be both a social good and a relief. Make the TSN SportsCentre anchors stop fake-betting every morning too.

The best TV shows of the 2000s

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Not long ago the New York Times asked five hundred people in the entertainment industry to pick their favourite shows made in the 2000s. They then published a top-100 list based on the results. I, being me, quantified my own consumption of the shows listed on it. Here are the highlights, followed by a visualization.

  • ✔️I have watched 49 of these top 100 shows. But I’ve watched 15 of the top 20, and 33 of the top 50.
    • Note: I counted these as “watched” if I have watched all episodes of the show to date.
  • ▶️I am currently watching two: I’m halfway through The Americans and I’m a few episodes behind on Slow Horses.
  • 🛑I have partially watched seven:
    • Girls (I watched most of season one, but only parts of the subsequent seasons)
    • Survivor (I watched the first season or two decades ago, but nothing since)
    • Happy Valley (I’ve only watched one season but certainly plan to watch the rest)
    • House of Cards (I watched the first few seasons but fell off somewhere before the Kevin Spacey news broke. I’m honestly not sure if I’ll ever go back and finish it.)
    • RuPaul’s Drag Race (I’ve watched only a handful of seasons)
    • The Handmaid’s Tale (I watched maybe half the first season; I stopped because Lindsay did, but then she continued on without me later and I never went back to it)
    • It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (I watched the first several seasons, but certainly not all of them)
  • 📅There are 24 series on the list that I have not watched, but want to. That should keep me busy for a while.
  • ❌There are 18 series on this list which I’m — for the most part — not opposed to watching, but have little interest in. The only one of these in the top 20 is Lost.
    • I could in theory have counted Lost in the “partial” category since I watched the first few episodes, but I can’t even remember them.
    • Included in this category are series where I’ve seen random episodes because someone had it on while I was in the room, like Broad City, Dexter, House, Gilmore Girls, or Scandal.

The end of Hacks & Habs

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This weekend marked the end of two unexpected successes.

Thursday marked the final episode of Hacks (imdb). We only started watching it a couple months ago, but quickly burned through all 46 episodes, and caught up just before the series finale. We’d heard it was good, but couldn’t have known just how good it turned out to be. It was definitely our favourite thing that we were watching. At some point during our watch I pointed out how many parallels there are to BoJack Horseman, so it’s no wonder we liked it.

Last night the Habs were smoked by the Carolina Hurricanes, who look poised to win their first cup in twenty years. As severe as their beating in this series was, the season as a whole has to be considered a huge win. They’re the youngest team in the league, and they made the Eastern Conference Final. No one gave them a chance to beat Tampa in the first round, and they did. Few people thought they’d beat Buffalo in the second round, and they did. Their core is young, their talent pipeline is strong, their contracts are well-managed, and both their organization and their coaching staff are excellent. They learned from their first-found playoff exit last year; they’ll learn from this too. Their season ended less than 24 hours ago, but I’m already excited for next year.

For now, though: let’s go Blue Jays.

Gganbu

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The last week’s been pretty social: two days of work meetings downtown which included a Blue Jays win over the Atlanta Braves, coffee from three good spots: the Spadina Neo, the University Fahrenheit, and the Union Pilot, and drinks at The Chase to close it all off.

Friday was a holiday. We basically just binged Squid Game, which we somehow avoided when it came out.

Saturday our friend Upasana made us a delicious dinner, and we had such a lovely time chatting we barely noticed it was midnight. We left feeling fat and happy, as they say.

Sunday night we were the hosts, as Ricky and Olivia came over for dinner. We provided salad and a cheese board; they brought delicious Filipino comfort food. We poured a bunch of fun wine, and served ice cream.

I took Monday off, and kept it chill. Lots of leftovers. Quite a bit of catchup. More Squid Game. Playoff hockey for the first time in four years.

Adolescence

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Well, Adolescence (imdb | rotten tomatoes) wasn’t an easy watch, but it was so good. I decided to put on episode 1 while Lindsay was out with a friend, not knowing if I’d even like it. Four hours later I’d killed the entire thing.

Stephen Graham was as great as usual, but my goodness, Owen Cooper. He may have been older than his character’s age, but still…what a performance. And the fact that every episode was a single shot, with the 1st, 2nd, and 4th being kinetic feats and the 3rd a pressure cooker — outstanding stuff. A feat, to be sure.

And now I never want to watch it again. 😐

Cold Harbor

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I/we’ve been burning through a lot of TV so far this year (season 2 of Patriot, Tsunami: Race Against Time, Say Nothing, season 4 of Slow Horses, The Penguin, Zero Day, Vietnam: The War That Changed America, and season 1 of The Night Agent) but lately we’ve really found ourselves at the nexus of a bunch of big shows, specifically new seasons of Abbott Elementary, Mythic Quest, Yellowjackets, White Lotus, and Severance. Season 2 of Severance (imdb) wrapped up a couple nights ago, and has been the subject of much discussion in our home.

I have a little more patience for the show’s tendency to leave more loose threads than it ties up, but my patience is wearing thin. Hopefully it doesn’t take another three years to see what season 3 reveals.

Also: fuck yeah, Brienne of Tarth.

Yellowjackets and White Lotus should be wrapping up in the coming weeks, just in time for The Studio and the second season of The Last Of Us, so the blitz continues.

“Game’s the same, just got more fierce.”

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Four years ago Lindsay wanted to start watching The Wire (imdb). We only made it an episode or two before she bailed. The time wasn’t right.

More recently I re-watched seasons one and two, but when Lindsay said she wanted to give it another go, I went back to the starting line with her. This time it stuck — we plowed through seasons one (cops), two (blue collar workers), and three (dealers); we’re most of the way through season four (schools).

This might be the first time I’ve watched season three and four since the first time in the mid/late-2000s. It’s as good as I remember. Better, even.

Of note: Clay Davis doesn’t say “Sheeeeeeeit” nearly as often as I remembered.

Clay Davis

Metaphorical cords cut

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After many years of thinking about it, and of Bell offering me enough discounts to never quite make it worth it, I have finally cut the cable. Or, rather, the TV service from the fibre optic line that runs into my house; I haven’t had “cable” since I furiously dispatched Rogers fourteen years ago.

I already pay for umpteen streaming services; pretty much the only thing I still watched on live TV was sports, so I signed up for both TSN’s and Sportsnet’s streaming service, and off we went. With the money I’m saving by not paying for those hundred-ish channels I never watched, I could sign up for Apple TV+ and still save money. It’s also less likely that I just turn on the TV absentmindedly and leave on whatever sports was happening at the time, which feels like a good thing.

So: so far, so good.

Front-loading

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Why do the weeks leading up to vacation always seem the busiest? I suppose the pressure to pre-emptively “make up” for the weeks away (work, errands, friend check-ins, etc.) plus the actual logistics of travelling make that fairly real…though I’m sure there’s some confirmation bias at play as well.

Real or imagined, it’s certainly felt like a busy week.

I realized my passport was going to expire sooner than I thought, so I spent a couple hours at the passport office on Monday.

I wrote my WSET 3 exam Thursday, thereby crippling my own hand by having to write for 2.5 hours. With an actual pencil, readers! Like I’m in the olden times or something. Anyway, it’ll take two months to find out how that went, but I’m very glad to be done studying.

I finished season 3 of The Bear, which wasn’t nearly as good as the first two seasons, but I still thought it was okay. I also watched a lot of Euro matches, and luckily tuned into final few moments of the Canada-Venezuela Copa America match — just in time to see Davies score, Crépeau save, and Koné send Canada through.

I met Matt for lunch at Ardo. Lindsay and I had drinks at Mercantino e Vini (you can buy glasses or bottles from the shop out front, and sit in the cozy seats at the back) with Kirsten, and then we all ate a late dinner down the street at Ascari.

It won’t be a quiet weekend. At this point I’m just hoping for manageable.

L’ours

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Between sickness and lack-of-playoff-making by my favourite teams, I’ve been able to catch up on a lot of TV over the past few months.

  • Drops Of God was like beautiful catnip to a wine nerd (and would-be travel nerd) like me.
  • Silo felt like it had so much promise but turned into a slog by the end.
  • Similarly, For All Mankind started out very strong and medium-high-concept (how would history have changed if the Russians landed on the moon before the US?) but then it got stretched into four seasons.
  • I was utterly mistaken about the premise of Black Earth Rising (I don’t know why, but I thought it was about aliens, not about Rwanda) and I ended up really liking it. As much as one can like a story about genocide. I appreciated it, I guess?
  • Season 3 of Slow Horses was a good as ever — the story kind of doesn’t matter nearly as much as the charisma of the actors. The scene where Lamb asks Roddy, “Can you talk me through your thinking here?” was comedy gold.
  • I love Band Of Brothers, so it makes sense that I liked Masters of the Air. Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg are doing their best to tell all the WWII stories they can before that war fades from collective memory. (Though, this Substack post by Dan Gardner suggests we might already be there.)
  • The Bear lived up to the hype. I actually liked season 2 better; “Fishes” was the star-studded flashback episode that garnered all the hype, but for my money “Forks” was the real magic. Glad I watched it just in time to feel momentum heading into season 3 next month.
  • Speaking of: I am extremely excited for the start of season 2 of House Of The Dragon in a few weeks.