Television Tuesday: "Doctor Odyssey," is Cancelled and I'm Disappointed

Jeez, we really can't have nice things, can we? "Doctor Odyssey," was a show with solid ratings, a dedicated fanbase, and even John Oliver did a segment on his show about how silly and fun it was. Plus, I loved it. Still, it was not renewed for a second season--without officially being canned. However, the contracts of everyone involved with the show have now been allowed to expire, so the show is good and truly cancelled, even if ABC wants to insist otherwise for an unclear reason. 

Perhaps ABC wants to combat the risk of another network or streamer picking up the show and signing everyone to new contracts--it was popular, after all, regardless of a behind-the-scenes issue with staff resulting in a lawsuit. I would love it if we got more, "Doctor Odyssey," somehow, but for now it will just be a single-season fever dream--kind of like one popular theory about the program that refused to quit (sadly, unlike the show itself). I'm sorry, "Doctor Odyssey," your beautiful big deck energy was wasted on us.

MAX is HBO MAX...Again

You may recall when HBO MAX started just going by, "MAX," but everyone still called it, "HBO MAX." Well, I have, "Good," news, you can continue to ignore the idea of just calling it MAX because Warner Bros. Discovery has officially rebranded it right back to, "HBO MAX," for...reasons? I mean, people know, "HBO," can mean quality, so the streamer wants to come across as not just being trashy reality television--that's the job of the Discovery+ app, God bless it. When the change was announced, it was basically acknowledged people would mock it, with HBO's own John Oliver getting a shout-out; he did indeed go into this subject on his show, joining everyone in ripping HBO MAX for the rebrand-to-an-old-brand.

Sometimes, a rebrand can be the best thing possible for a company. For example, I just recently posted how the good folks behind the Pizza Cupcake were making new products and therefore changed their name to Incredifulls with the Pizza Cupcake as a product--that makes sense! Other times, however, a rebrand just looks stupid. This is one of those times. So, HBO MAX--in the words of music producer and inspirational speaker D.J. Khaled, "Congratulations, you played yourself."