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. 

COURTESY OF NBC

Arts&Life

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