NJRadioGuy

Link?? That was before my TWOP days.

Loving Pascal now. He didn't say a word, and Severide caught on with a subtle smile. How 'bout them Black Hawks, Chief? I see Novak is trying to recreate her own mini-version of The Wedsworth-Townsend Act. Wonder if she could get a 7-year hit TV show out of it? Glad to see the cigars are back! Unless all the sticks in Bishop's small wineador* were Cohiba Behikes or the like, that is not $50k worth of cigars. That's a rather small collection, and probably, maybe, $10k if acquired all together. My own cigar collection is about triple that size, although it took me 12 years to build it up, a box or two at a time. I've known guys in my now-defunct cigar club who would buy 10 or 20 boxes every order. Even that wouldn't have been more than $5k, and they would have filled two of those enclosures. Possessing Cuban cigars is not illegal, just importing or selling them, so that wouldn't have even been probable cause. I expected Severide to have found the fire retardant instead. It's relatively easy to get Cubans here, and for a while, under the Obama administration, it was legal to bring them in yourself from abroad, which is how I got all of mine back when I was traveling internationally on a semi-regular basis. Nowadays they're too spendy, and non-Cubans are actually much better sticks anyways (especially Nicaraguan puros). *A "wineador" is slang for a wine cooler/fridge converted to a humidor.

It's 18 hours by road from Pampa, TX, where the spur maker was, to Bozeman or Helena, so two days of hard driving and one overnight. That timeline didn't seem overly stretched. But speaking of the spur and bit maker, Billy Klapper was a real-life legend, and that scene was filmed in his workshop. He died two months ago in Pampa at the age of 87. To me, that was the most poignant scene in the entire episode.

I was just gobsmacked that there were a couple of pieces of apparatus not associated with Station 51 on the fireground (and—gasp—they actually knew how to put water on fire). And speaking of 51, where was Engine 51 this episode? No mention of it or its crew anywhere. I'm guessing cost saving for the show? Not a bad job by actor Christian Stolte throwing that ground ladder in the station all by his lonesome but I'm curious what was going on outside the camera frame to help him out, and/or how many takes it took to film. I'm about his age and even throwing a 12 footer against the side of my garage is a workout!

And that 'tragedy' took me completely out of the show. I completely lost interest from that story afterwards.

100% correct pretty much everywhere. Strong fire codes mean fewer working jobs so EMS is the main focus for many departments. And specifically (and unfortunately) ODs and calls related to substance abuse are the preponderance of calls in many places. Vollie squads are always somewhat understaffed, but paid departments are extremely difficult nuts to crack if you're young and interested but don't have any hooks. An awful lot of firemen out my way are ex-FDNY or the sons of FDNY. That generally gets you bumped to the front of the line. My town has one engine, one truck, and a chief's car, all volly. The sad part is during the workday (M-F, 7am to 6pm roughly), when the tones drop for either Fire or EMS (our EMS and rescue squad is also volunteer) it's very common to have to ping mutual aid, because the members are all at their full-time jobs.

Can't speak for California, but for paid departments in the NYC region (and the FDNY itself) there are tens of thousands of applicants for a handful of spots every few years. A bit less-so for vollies out my way.

Wouldn't be a network drama show without that. Because Bayyyybeeeeeeees. Gaaah.

But where would that leave the dramatic narrative, and how would it make it an interesting enough story for (hopefully) millions of eyeballs every week? In reality it would make a tremendous amount of sense, but the writers room is such a mess for this that I don't think they've pondered the overall direction beyond the next week's installment. If they want to make this show work long-term they need to spend maybe a half-dozen episodes fast-tracking through his new training and certification and get him settled into the firehouse as a fully-certified firefighter. Pick which hottie he gets to boink and then go from there--spend the back half of the season doing something other than moping around and making bad decisions. If you want the audience to root for a character then make that character intelligent and charismatic. Flawed is fine, but not an utter moron, and that's who is is right now.

Best news I've heard in a while. I truly love this series.

I don't care if they end up together or not, but if they do, just do it now and move the damned plot forward! There are some good stories there to be told if they want to, and this relationship crap is dragging it into the crapper with every second its onscreen. Marry them, drop a helicopter on her or whatever, just DO IT NOW and get back to telling good stories about Three Rock and some exciting rescues and whatnot.

It's got Robert "Longmire" Taylor instead. I'd forgotten that he was 'Strayn. So far for me (Epi. 1) it's a cheap clone of Yellowstone but the characters are intriguing. It could become interesting. It's only 6 episodes so not much of a time investment for what could become a decent drama. On a technical note, the color grading is...jarring. I know they're trying to amp up how hot and inhospitable the land is, but the deep yellow shifts are just unpleasant visually.

Walker added a lot of real gravitas and I miss him, although I like Pascal and Mr. Mulroney is a hell of a good actor. So long as they keep giving him decent material to work with I think he'll be a positive addition. Carver just isn't likeable to me. If they want to go with him and Violet, fine, whatever...just make it happen sooner rather than later instead of the slow-burn. There's not a lot of chemistry at the moment but there could be if they show them in a healthy relationship. But it will always be a fraction of Brett and Casey. Those two worked very nicely, but (again) the slow burn was just irritating.

You're not wrong. Ever since Casey left and the Casey/Severide dynamic evaporated it hasn't been the same. I like Kidd (maybe the only one??), but she's become the new Saint Gabby. It seems they're toning that down this year, but I still don't give a fig about Carver and probably never will. The cast was really starting to gel with Gallo, but his departure, and Brett's and the rest of the cast's musical chairs hasn't done the show any favours. Not to mention the slashed budget, and IIRC, episode count.

Another very solid episode for me. The rain and thunder was somewhat well done and set a fantastic mood, but they weren't careful with the waterworks at the beginning. When Cook and Torres exit the patrol car and head toward the house, and it's raining heavily, look at the driveway next to the house. It's not raining on the driveway or at the front door. Their rain machine was only over the car. It took me out of the scene, but I guess budgetary concerns and all. It isn't the first time I've noticed that on CPD either. Same when they were going down the alleyway entrance to the house where they found the body. Heavy rain in the foreground, but bright sky through leaves in the background. I could have done with less-lingering shots of the victim's mouth. That there's nightmare fuel for a month of Sundays, but congrats to the makeup guys and gals for a job very well done. I'm liking Cook so far but I want to see what her character brings to the table, and if her acting ability is better than you-know-who's. Which wouldn't be hard.