Welcome to the Q&A with TV critic, also known to some TV fans as their “TV therapist,” Matt Roush, who will attempt to address everything you love, hate, confuse, frustrate or excite about the vast current television panorama. (We know background music is too loud, it’s the most common complaint, but there are always subtitles. See this story for more tips.)

A warning: this is a spoiler-free zone, so we won’t address upcoming stories here unless it’s already common knowledge. Please send your questions and comments to (email protected)). Look for Ask Matt columns most Tuesdays.

To the Lord without much love

Ask: Do you think NBC‘s Found will take a similar approach to alphabet‘s big sky When it comes to defeating its main villain? Retroactive spoiler alert, obviously, but in big skymidway through the second season, bad guy Ronald was finally hunted down and killed by co-star Cassie. Could this be an idea? Found adopt some time, assuming the show’s not-so-great ratings don’t lead to the show’s demise this season? “Sir’s” story has to end at some point to keep the show fresh, and I doubt they’ll keep it to the end of the show if it continues for several more years. So if the show continued for several more seasons, do you think they would say goodbye to Sir via a shocking game of catch and kill and continue the show, potentially introducing different serialized plots similar to how? big sky presented the Reba McEntire Camp story in season 3 in your post-Ronald world? I just don’t know how long the show can keep Sir’s story going, it’s already getting a little tired. — shirley

Matt Roush: without knowing where Found is headed (because, I’ll remind you again, this is not a spoiler column), I’ll speculate with some confidence that while Found run, sirMark-Paul Gosselaar) will probably be part of the program, although he may not always be free and probably not destined to spend another long period trapped in Gabi’s basement.

big sky was a very different show, with long arcs (sometimes spanning an entire season or more) introducing new groups of villains, many of them inspired by CJ Box’s fantastic books, for their heroines to defeat. If the show had continued, I guess they would have tried to find another high-profile star like Reba to move in with. Found has a few continuing storylines (Margaret’s missing son, in particular), it’s primarily a missing persons procedural distinguished by Gabi’s (Shanola Hampton) strange Clarice/Hannibal Lecter-esque connection to her former captor (who became her own prisoner for a time). Wherever the show takes Sir’s story, I’d be surprised if even his capture removes him from the show entirely. I could be wrong, but it seems to be integrated FoundDNA, whether we like it or not.

The Incredible Shrinking Sitcom

Ask: I have a quick question I’ve been wondering about. I watch all my television via streaming and recently noticed that Georgie and Mandy’s first marriage It’s only 18 minutes without commercials! The segments are so quick and short that it’s hard to get emotionally involved with the story now. How long will it be before commercial television airs a show that is 50% content and 50% commercials? We’re only three minutes away from that! — Stephen

Matt Roush: “Short question”, I see what you did there. I don’t have much to add to this observation except to point out that while the original episodes for premium cable and streaming continue to get longer, Dune: Prophecy Episodes tend to be over an hour long, at least what I’ve seen so far – on financially troubled broadcast TV platforms, the commercial load has increased over the years, and this seems to be an extreme case. These days I tend to applaud shows that don’t exhaust us with excess, believing that less can be more in the right hands, but there are limits. Or is there?

Danger! Obsession with tournaments

Ask: In a recent Inside Danger! podcast, Danger! executive producer michael davies He said there will be 10 to 11 weeks of tournaments this year, which they call the “postseason.” This includes Second Chance for non-winners, Champions Wild Card for winners who did not automatically qualify, Tournament of Champions, and Invitational. Producer Sarah Whitcomb Foss admitted that “some people are less excited” about the surplus of tournaments, while Michael insisted that there will be fewer weeks than last year, and that “what we want is 10 to 11 weeks.” moving forward each season. So apparently they didn’t learn from the negative response to last year’s tournaments. Remember when ToC lasted only a few weeks and was a special event worth waiting for? Now it just seems like a nuisance. — Jake

Matt Roush: One of the reasons we’ve probably soured on this over-reliance on tournaments is because of the frustration many fans felt last year when it took them forever to get back to regular play (due to strikes and other scheduling considerations). At least this season, the show was able to start with new contestants, and we’ve already found some new favorites that we hope to see again, although maybe not in as many different tournament formats. It’s hard to believe they can’t see that they’ve cheapened the impact of the Tournament of Champions by having so many other tournaments that give former players (and past winners) more exposure at the expense of regular daily play.

Let’s let our new favorites fend for themselves

Comment: absolutely loved Matlock. I’m old enough to remember Andy GriffithThe version of but I never saw it. Kathy Bates He is perfect in front of this version. I never saw that twist coming in the pilot episode. That’s a good thing. I am also a fan of Will Trent. I don’t like it when people feel it’s necessary to compare one program to another (like Will Trent to Colombo). I guess it’s human nature. I hope both Matlock and Will Trent both enjoy long careers. — sharon

Matt Roush: If you’re not familiar with Andy Griffith’s original, then you should at least be able to appreciate how different this version is, with Bates’ Matty basically adopting this persona as cover for a covert crusade. About Will TrentI still get a lot of questions wondering why it’s not currently airing and this show (as well as The rookie) will return mid-season, starting January 7. Regarding the comparison with ColomboI suppose because of its quirkiness masking its brilliance, the analogy fits shows like Elsbeth and Peacock‘s poker face where you almost always know who the cause is at the beginning of the episode and then wait to see how the unorthodox hero finds out.

And finally…

Comment: I think any show that uses a lot of text messaging in its plots should include subtitles for the text. I’m tired of having to back up a show and stand in front of the TV to read the text on a character’s phone! — Tina T., Cape Cod, MA

Comment: I would have enjoyed AMC‘s Mr. Spade much more so if the subtitles were on the screen long enough to read them! Also, it drives me crazy when the subtitles blend into the background and you can’t read them at all. Can’t they do a better job? – Clark

Matt Roush: Let these complaints (fairly frequent in my mailbag) be a reminder to producers that if they are going to include written text on screen, whether in phone text messages or emails, or subtitles in foreign languages ​​or difficult accents to decipher, Make them readable and give us time to read them! A larger font helps, and putting subtitles on contrasting backgrounds so they stand out from the landscape makes common sense.

That’s all for now. We can’t do this without your participation, so please continue to send TV questions and comments to (email protected). (Please include a name with your question.)