S01.E04: Wellness Week

[AnimeMania]

During a week dedicated to wellness, The Odyssey ironically finds itself overwhelmed by a surge of ailing patients. Meanwhile, Tristan’s new romance sparks jealousy, and Capt. Massey must bring the ship to safety in the midst of a hurricane.

Premiere Date: Thursday, October 17, 2024    ABC   9 pm

Margaret Cho 

Kate Berlant

Laura Harrier 

[AnimeMania]

Even if the Crew Officer was high on psilocybin, the guy steering the ship should have known what a hurricane looks like, why didn't he alert the Captain.

[Dowel Jones]

Not a terrible episode (a low bar concerning the first 3 episodes) after we got through the cringeworthy expositions.  Don Johnson actually got a fair number of lines this time.  Yeah, what was the First Officer even doing on the bridge after that diagnosis?  

A long time ago I was working in a recycling depot and came across a newspaper section advertising an entire convention of wellness consultants.   The usual diet and exercise regimes, yoga, chanting, channeling spirits from long ago; maybe they had some exorcism consults too.  It was a weeklong thing in San Francisco and I have kicked myself ever since for not going.

[FnkyChkn34]

Another reference to Dr. Pacey being dead... his aura was red and bloody?  But then it was explained again with a valid medical diagnosis.  (Valid for this show, I have no idea about real life.)  

I guess I watched Glee, but I don't think I've really seen anything else that Ryan Murphy has done.  So I have no idea what to expect.  I thought at the Emmy's they said he did Dawson's Creek, too, but I don't see it on Wikipedia...

[Raja]

11 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

Even if the Crew Officer was high on psilocybin, the guy steering the ship should have known what a hurricane looks like, why didn't he alert the Captain.

That would have meant paying another actor to speak, they had to save the money to cover up Margaret Cho's tattoos.

[Chaos Theory]

This is right after 911 which helps ALOT.  And it is getting better each episode.?  I still say the romance plot is trite and needlessly boring.    But everything else sorta works.   I am enjoying how each week has a different theme and how things go fabulously wrong.   It’s a nice watch for a Thursday so I will keep with it until better shows come on or  the romance gets out of control.

Edited October 18 by Chaos Theory

[Raja]

With the strip poker scene and adding a chef at the end of the cruise they do seem to be thickening up the cast for future opportunities.

First the half hearted rescue and now this from the first officer, he might be pretty but he seems to be the butt of many of the jokes about the crew. The housekeeping staff however is still the best on the seven seas.

Edited October 18 by Raja

[fastiller]

1 hour ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

Another reference to Dr. Pacey being dead... his aura was red and bloody?  But then it was explained again with a valid medical diagnosis.  (Valid for this show, I have no idea about real life.)  

 

 

55 minutes ago, Chaos Theory said:

This is right after 911 which helps ALOT.  

There was a suggestion in last week's ep thread that Dr. Pacey (HA! I call him Dr. Peter Bishop) is in a coma and dreaming this stuff; could be that whatever is on his TV is leeching into his dreams.  It's possible that he was dreaming meeting Ken Doll last week b/c Ken's show was on in his room.  And it would allow for a cross-over with the other ABC Ryan Murphy show 9-1-1.  

[seacliffsal]

I guess I don't get the whole strip poker scene.  First of all-the captain playing strip poker? Doubtful.  Secondly, I have only played strip poker when with possible 'romantic' interests/potentials-probably just me...

I also don't understand all the 'randoms' allowed in different areas such as the kitchen and the medical center which both have sanitation/hygiene policies.

And, the crew must be huge-in this episode there was a female lifeguard, so we know they have at least two lifeguards (when cruise ships generally have 0).

This episode was less cringeworthy IMO, so I will give the show a couple more episodes to see if I'm in or out.

[Crashcourse]

I loved this episode with more Don Johnson in it.

I thought the strip poker was funny and there was some nice eye candy, especially the chief officer who got high later. 😍  It was also nice to see some of the other crew members doing their jobs and cleaning up the ship.

The new chef is attractive, but I'm not looking forward to a quadrangle with her and the doctor, male nurse, and Avery.

 

And all those "wellness" people cracked me up. 🤣

[blackwing]

I love the cruise ship setting (even if some of it is unrealistic) and the medical jargon sounds believable enough, so I enjoy this show as light hearted entertainment.

The wellness people were hilarious... the chief wellness queen and her raw organ meat, Margaret Cho the smoothie powder lady and the mystical healing lady.  Mystical lady almost killed Margaret Cho and then said it was Margaret's fault and accepted her apology... hah!  Margaret should be suing that lady for everything.

I liked the new chef and I hope that Tristan pairs up with her instead of continuing to chase after Avery.  I like that she adds even more diversity to an already diverse cast (with an Asian female and Hispanic male as two of the leads).

2 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

I guess I don't get the whole strip poker scene.  First of all-the captain playing strip poker? Doubtful.  Secondly, I have only played strip poker when with possible 'romantic' interests/potentials-probably just me...

I also don't understand all the 'randoms' allowed in different areas such as the kitchen and the medical center which both have sanitation/hygiene policies.

And, the crew must be huge-in this episode there was a female lifeguard, so we know they have at least two lifeguards (when cruise ships generally have 0).

This episode was less cringeworthy IMO, so I will give the show a couple more episodes to see if I'm in or out.

Agree about the strip poker.  I don't find it all believable that a group of straight men would sit around playing strip poker with each other (throw in a lesbian woman and a bisexual man).  Let alone the captain (who is the boss or big boss of all of them) and the doctor (who is the boss of one of them).  This entire scene was just because of Ryan Murphy.

I think there are at least three lifeguards?  We saw a man and a woman before in the first episode and then there was a man who had speaking lines in a different episode who I think was a different man.  And yeah, no lifeguards on cruise ships.  There should be some fully-clothed activities staff who are supervising the waterslides and being generally available in the pool area to assist passengers.  But no actual cruise staff member is going to get paid to sit all day in their swimsuit by a pool.

[fastiller]

1 hour ago, Crashcourse said:

The new chef is attractive, but I'm not looking forward to a quadrangle with her and the doctor, male nurse, and Avery.

Let 'em all be in a fully open polycule (is that the right word?) and call it a day.

[Raja]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

 

I think there are at least three lifeguards?  We saw a man and a woman before in the first episode and then there was a man who had speaking lines in a different episode who I think was a different man.  And yeah, no lifeguards on cruise ships.  There should be some fully-clothed activities staff who are supervising the waterslides and being generally available in the pool area to assist passengers.  But no actual cruise staff member is going to get paid to sit all day in their swimsuit by a pool.

Judging by the housekeeping staff who snapped to providing CPR on the plastic surgery cruise can we head canon  that any staff  can sit in as a lifeguard. Perhaps as an award for the cleanest station 

[Dowel Jones]

And what does the "winner" do with all the clothes that he or she has won?

[Elizzikra]

Quote

(Valid for this show, I have no idea about real life.)  

The rings-in-the-eyes thing was also a storyline on House. Maybe Ryan Murphy was a fan? Anyway, it's a valid but rare diagnosis and like iodine poisoning from shrimp, I'm not sure how much raw organ meat one would have to consume to get copper poisoning. Also, didn't the wellness guru lady prefer Spam with mozzarella, suggesting that she didn't actually follow the raw meat diet that she was pushing to her followers?

Quote

I guess I watched Glee, but I don't think I've really seen anything else that Ryan Murphy has done.  So I have no idea what to expect.  I thought at the Emmy's they said he did Dawson's Creek, too, but I don't see it on Wikipedia...

Dawson's Creek was a standard teen-angst, primetime soap in the mold of... well, all of them. I associate Ryan Murphy more with his American Horror Story franchise, which is much darker and incorporates a lot of supernatural elements. It usually also has more gore. He also has the American Crime Story series - the OJ Simpson one, Monica Lewinsky, and now the Menendez brothers. In those, he definitely takes liberties but they all had stellar casts and were based on real life events, so no witch school (AHS, Coven) or special drugs that enhance people's natural talents (I can't even remember which one that was). This doesn't seem like "classic" Ryan Murphy to me unless we do discover that they are all dead or Dr. Pacey's coma dream or someone's snow globe come to life. If last week's Ken had turned out to be a modern day incarnation of the Angel Gabriel, that might have seemed more Murphy-esque to me. I remember seeing an interview with JJ and he said that Dr. Odysessy was "Ryan Murphy at his absolute craziest" or something to that effect, so I was expecting more than "The Love Boat Featuring Doc."  So far, I don't really see Murphy's fingerprint all, except for the biggish- name guest stars.

Quote

And what does the "winner" do with all the clothes that he or she has won?

I would not want to touch them, including Don Johnson's skivvies, though I did think his little hat was cute.

Quote

Judging by the housekeeping staff who snapped to providing CPR

That was terrible CPR. They applie no pressure at all and their arms were bent. However, I could maybe buy that everyone on a cruise ship is CPR trained. I've worked in hospitals (I know, not the same) and literally everyone including housekeeping was trained in CPR. You never know who might find someone in a room with cardiac arrest. So I could sort of imagine that a cruise ship might at least nominally train everyone in CPR, not that they would necessarily remember their training or be terribly confident implementing it. What made less sense to me about that scene was our intrepid medical team donning sunglasses to somehow make their voyage to the flower freezer with a dead body less conspicuous to the other passengers.

[Irlandesa]

21 hours ago, fastiller said:

Let 'em all be in a fully open polycule (is that the right word?) and call it a day.

This is where I am with the whole Avery, Tristan and Doc plot.  The only fulfilling ending for me would be some sort of poly or throuple situation.  The show is already weird, they should just go all out. Avery flip flops between them every week while the Doc and Tristan have the strongest relationship.

I am surprised that I quite enjoyed this episode against my will.  Other than the weird opening strip poker scene, it was fun.  A lot of that is because of the fun guest stars like Amy Sedaris and Margaret Cho.

14 hours ago, Elizzikra said:

I remember seeing an interview with JJ and he said that Dr. Odysessy was "Ryan Murphy at his absolute craziest" or something to that effect, so I was expecting more than "The Love Boat Featuring Doc."  So far, I don't really see Murphy's fingerprint all, except for the biggish- name guest stars.

I think Murphy's name is used to sell shows, kind of like Shonda.  He had some influence over the first season of 9-1-1 but hasn't been involved much since.  He co-wrote the first three episodes of this show but this is the first one he didn't write.  Maybe that's why it was better?

If this gets a second season, I expect it'll be the creative vision of the developer/showrunner than Murphy.

Edited October 19 by Irlandesa

[txhorns79]

9 hours ago, blackwing said:

Agree about the strip poker.  I don't find it all believable that a group of straight men would sit around playing strip poker with each other (throw in a lesbian woman and a bisexual man).  Let alone the captain (who is the boss or big boss of all of them) and the doctor (who is the boss of one of them).  This entire scene was just because of Ryan Murphy.

Seriously.  Sometimes I think auditions for his shows must begin with a demand the actors take off their clothes, because that whole scene was just a lot.

16 hours ago, FnkyChkn34 said:

I thought at the Emmy's they said he did Dawson's Creek, too, but I don't see it on Wikipedia...

I don't know of any connection Ryan Murphy has to Dawson's Creek.  Kevin Williamson (who wrote Scream) created that show.

It was another silly episode.  I still don't really understand that whole medical suite they have on that cruise, or how any sterile instruments were available after we saw those trays crashing around during the hurricane. 

[Raja]

22 hours ago, fastiller said:

There was a suggestion in last week's ep thread that Dr. Pacey (HA! I call him Dr. Peter Bishop) is in a coma and dreaming this stuff; could be that whatever is on his TV is leeching into his dreams.  It's possible that he was dreaming meeting Ken Doll last week b/c Ken's show was on in his room.  And it would allow for a cross-over with the other ABC Ryan Murphy show 9-1-1. 

That is where the concept of the Tommyverse started. I still remember Coolidge from The White Shadow showing up on St. Elsewhere as himself, an ex collage basketball player who had a career ending injury at his coach's alma mater who started working at the hospital.

[TVForever]

11 hours ago, Elizzikra said:

 What made less sense to me about that scene was our intrepid medical team donning sunglasses to somehow make their voyage to the flower freezer with a dead body less conspicuous to the other passengers.

I found that weird, too. And a little silly.

[SoMuchTV]

As I was watching this, I thought, that wellness lady is a real Amy Sedaris type. It would have been even funnier if they had actually casted Amy Sedaris. Okay, I feel a little dumb right now. Must have been something in my smoothie. 

Edited October 23 by SoMuchTV
Left out a word

[bros402]

this show is

what did I just watch

so so many things

my flabber is gasted

[Night Cheese]

On 10/18/2024 at 10:15 PM, txhorns79 said:

I thought at the Emmy's they said he did Dawson's Creek, too, but I don't see it on Wikipedia...

He didn't do Dawson's Creek but he did create Popular, which was a teen quasi-satirical comedy that ran for a couple seasons during the Dawson's Creek years.

[jabRI]

Episode was ok, saved by the guest stars.  Found it stretched the credulity factor that absolutely every 'wellness' product and technique could lead to death, and only found on this cruise not after thousands of products have shipped. ok.