While watching the first episode of Vince Gilligan’s television show starring Rhea Seehorn, Pluribus, on Apple TV, I was reminded of a 1968 Mary Tyler Moore movie.

I didn’t know anything about Pluribus before I started watching it, but the scene in question was reminiscent of the movie in more ways than one.

So I made a one minute video.

I’ve only seen three episodes of Pluribus so far, and I haven’t formed an opinion of it as yet, but since it was created by Vince Gilligan and stars Rhea Seehorn, I’m giving it more of a chance than I would otherwise.

The problem is that I get really annoyed by Seehorn’s character. It’s not that I don’t like her character, or at least not merely that I don’t like her character. It’s that she seems to be a very slow learner, and I find that aggravating.

Back when I used to read a lot of science fiction, one of my favorite writers was Philip K. Dick, and one of the things I liked about him was that his characters didn’t waste any time bemoaning the fact that weird things were happening. They accepted the input from their senses and acted on it. Immediately.

Unlike so many characters that I see in modern movies and TV shows. They spend ten minutes or more wailing and crying about how this can’t possibly be happening to them, whatever “this” is. It’s extremely boring and slows the story down for no good reason.

Well, based on the first three episodes, it looks like Seehorn’s character is going to be making the same or similar mistakes over and over again.

In the podcast that accompanies the show, Gilligan talks about watching the TV show Bewitched as a child and wondering why Darren kept insisting that Samantha not use her powers, but when Gilligan got older he realized that the point of that was for dramatic purposes.

Hmm. I’d say you could have drama and comedy even if Darren didn’t insist on Sam not using her powers. It would just be a different kind of drama and comedy, different kinds of stories. Darren could have Sam try to use her powers to help him out at work and have things backfire, for example. Darren could ask Sam to do something and she takes it too literally. Darren could ask Sam for help with a family problem and her efforts make things worse. Darren could try to make money from Sam’s powers but Endora interferes.

But I digress.

There are some things I like about the show. And given that it’s a Vince Gilligan show, there are some scenes that leave me awestruck. Like that Sprout’s scene, for example.

Update: I just watched the fourth episode and I’m happy to report that when we got to hear the other end of a phone conversation that we had watched Carol place in a previous episode and this time Carol’s Spanish was subtitled, her vulgar epithet was exactly what I thought it had been. I may not know very much Spanish, but I know some profanity when I hear it!