30 | APRIL 16 • 2020
NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST
BROADCAST AND
STREAMING CHOICES
The NBC series Indebted has its
first season finale on Thursday,
April 16, at 9:30 p.m. Basic series
plot: Deb (Fran Drescher, 62) and
Stew (Steven Weber, 59) make
some bad financial decisions and
have to move in with their son,
Dave (Adam Pally, 38) and his
wife, Rebecca (Abby Elliott). I was
really rooting for this series: All
four lead characters are supposed
to be Jewish, and three of the four
are played by Jewish actors. Also
in the main cast: Michigan native
Jessy Hodges, 33, as Joanna,
Dave’
s lesbian sister (Hodges’
mother is Jewish) and Richard
Kind, 63, as Artie, Deb’
s older
brother.
Problem is that the show usually
isn’
t funny. The laugh track “roars,”
but the jokes rarely earn a real
chuckle. Most critics agree with
me, and ratings have been anemic.
The season finale may have a dual
meaning: it’
s called “Shivah.” The
plot: Deb’
s great-aunt dies, and it
falls on Deb and Stew to arrange
sitting shivah for her. Deb tries to
introduce some new twists on how
the family sits shivah. Also, Joanna
worries if she will die alone.
This all sounds intriguing and
“very Jewish.” I hope that this
episode is much better than the
series premiere. Otherwise, I sus-
pect “Shivah” will mark the end of
Indebted, the series.
Run is an original HBO series
that began on April 12. The main
characters are Ruby and Billy, a
couple who enter into a pact while
in college: If either couldn’
t stand
their life anymore, they would
text the other person the word
“run” and the other person would
drop everything and travel to New
York to meet the “texter.” Well, 17
years after graduation, Ruby texts
“run” to Billy. The recurring cast
includes Tamara Podemski, 43,
as Babe Cloud, a police detective.
A Toronto native, Tamara is the
daughter of an Israeli father and
an Aboriginal Canadian mother.
The granddaughter of a Holocaust
survivor, Podemski studied
Hebrew literature in college and
has appeared at forums in which
she has discussed the similarities
and differences in the Jewish and
“First Nation” experiences.
The Baker & the Beauty pre-
miered on ABC (10 p.m.) on
Monday, April 13. It is a roman-
tic-comedy-musical series based
on a hit Israeli series of the same
name. Set in Miami, it follows
Daniel Garcia, who works in his
family’
s bakery and does every-
thing that his loving Cuban parents
expect him to do. But on a wild
Miami night after breaking up
with his girlfriend, he meets Noa
Hamilton, a superstar model and
fashion mogul, and his life moves
into the spotlight as the pair dis-
cover their mutual attraction.
The supporting cast includes
Dan Bucatinsky, 54. You almost
certainly know him from scores
of TV guest ro
les. His parents
were born and raised in Argentina,
so Dan almost certainly speaks
Spanish. Not known yet whether
that is true of his character, too.
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