We are so back

I've been looking forward to the second season of The Pitt roughly since two episodes before its truly spectacular first season ended. We're two episodes deep into the new season now and it hasn't lost a bit of its magic or dynamism. (And Dr. Santos remains one of the most enjoyable hatable characters on television.) The Pitt has quickly become one of my favorite TV shows of all time, and I celebrate each week's new episode while also being sad that there isn't a backlog of 300-something episodes I can watch. (Although I often consider and sometimes jump over to an old episode of ER afterward, and I remain torn on whether The Pitt would be better or worse if it had been allowed to be the Dr. John Carter spinoff/sequel as originally intended.)

God bless my favorite medical drama returning, and god bless HBO for swooping in immediately after the regular season of NFL ended to not only give us appointment viewing on Thursday night (a Thursday night medical drama, as nature intended and the laws of man demand), but on Sunday night as well.

This past week brought the debut of the latest Game of Thrones prequel, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which I have been eagerly looking forward to for the past few years, and even more so after I read the collected adventures of Egg and Dunk, which were featured in a handful of George R.R. Martin short stories over the years after he'd established his long-running universe of Westeros. The exploits of Ser Duncan and his young squire Egg are exactly what the GoT franchise needs at this moment, following a legacy of letting down fans in the flagship show's final season and beginning to peak people's hopes again in the wonderful 1,000-years-in-the-past prequel House of the Dragon. Much like Andor and like thought experiments taking place in the margins between The Purge movies, the Game of Thrones world is overdue for a ground-level view of what it would look like to actually exist, live, and hope as a resident of that reality. More importantly, Knight takes a hard look at a commoner-than-common peasant and hedge knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, who (at the beginning of the story) has no claim to fame, lineage, heraldry, or import of any type. Moreover, Duncan doesn't even have a friend or acquaintance alive who matters to anyone. (Him desperately searching for someone who will vouch for him will be a running story in the first season.)

Knight subverts the self-importance of Game of Thrones immediately, cutting off the iconic original theme music for the possibly the grossest and most juvenile gag in the franchise's history. Kudos to the creative team, Martin, and the other producers for really emphasizing that this show, whatever it may end up being, is not that show. The noble Houses and many of the last names are familiar, but this is not a show about dragons and magic and wars for the throne. This is a show about a not-very-bright guy doing his best to earn enough money to eat dinner tomorrow night.

The look and humor of the show are great so far, but my biggest praise goes to star Peter Claffey and whoever it was that cast him. The 6'5" former rugby player has a number of acting credits (largely in television) over the past four years, but what he is doing in Knight is really impressive. It was imperative that a true Big Man be cast in the role of Ser Duncan (as so much of the source material is based on the character's size), but it's a truly delicate balancing act to play Dunk's specific mix of dim/noble/embarrassed/naive. Former athletes don't often have the acting chops that Claffey has, and we should all be grateful for his skill. It's far too early to tell, but we may be looking at a truly special marriage of acting ability and physicality.

Two incredible HBO shows a week. That's something I'll be very excited about for the length of these seasons, and will be very sad when they both wrap for the year.