I may have one of the few jobs in which you can work more when you are sick.
After all, most people watch television when they are too sick to do anything else.
I fell in love with television as a child when I spent a year being home-schooled after having surgery. I watched “The People’s Choice,” “Ozzie and Harriet,” “Leave it to Beaver,” “My Three Sons” and “The Donna Reed Show” from the family couch.
I loved watching Wally (Tony Dow) and the Beaver (Jerry Mathers), Ricky and David Nelson, and Mary (Shelley Fabares) and Jeff Stone (Paul Petersen), navigate childhood. Truth be told, I even had a crush on Fabares that continued when she starred as an adult in the ABC sitcom “Coach.”
The year off was a launching pad for my future career as a TV critic.
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I also had to watch afternoon soap operas with my mother, most memorably “Another World.”
Early in my days as a TV critic when I had to take a few sick days, I returned to “Another World,” called my mother and asked her for an update. She told me everything in 20 years that I had missed in an hour.
It led to a column that resulted in my favorite note from the late Buffalo News Editor Murray B. Light. “You ought to get sick more often,” wrote Light.
He wasn’t always so complimentary. After I gave the pilot of the 1990 David Lynch series “Twin Peaks” five stars out of five, Light wrote: “I watched that five-star show of yours. One of us is crazy.”
“Peaks” was a crazy ride and long way from the family shows I grew up watching. Those shows were soothing television that gave me an unrealistic view of how easy family and marital issues can be solved.
It is my view that today’s TV shows that deal more realistically with life prepare children much better for issues they may eventually face.
I thought back to my childhood watching TV recently when Dow died and then again two weeks ago when I was in health and safety protocols. Being sick allowed me to catch up on a few things on my viewing list that I hadn’t been able to get to for weeks.
On top of the list was watching 11 episodes of the final season of “Better Call Saul” on my DVR before its series finale aired.
The DVR is the ideal way to watch any series, especially one like “Saul,” whose episodes typically run more than an hour and sometimes as long as 80 minutes with commercials. The commercials slow things down. A DVR allows you to speed through them.
Don’t worry. I will try not to spoil too much if the final season of “Saul” is still on your “to watch list.” I was amazed about how well I was able to avoid all the surprises and will give others the same opportunity.
I found the episodes as stylish as usual and watching them all at once made it easier to detect how small details often replaced the need for dialogue.
I suspect anyone who had to watch the episodes with commercials had to get extremely frustrated.
The end of the prequel and sequel to “Breaking Bad” focused on Jimmy McGill-Saul Goodman, the unscrupulous lawyer played by Bob Odenkirk. But the most interesting aspect of the final season was learning more about the childhood of his wife, Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), and its impact on her as an adult. Unlike Jimmy-Saul, Kim found her conscience before the finale.
The season allowed Seehorn, who was given an Emmy nomination for her work in season five, to shine by exhibiting a variety of emotions. They included regret, something that a viewer heading into the finale may have thought Jimmy-Saul never would experience.
One of my recent regrets as a TV critic was not having enough time to watch the eight episodes of “The Bear,” the FX series carried on Hulu.
Due to my illness, two weeks ago I was able to see what all the critical praise was about the series set in a Chicago family restaurant primarily selling beef sandwiches.
The very busy and very noisy pilot stressed me out to the point that I might not have continued if I hadn’t seen praise from critics I know and respect. I went back for a second helping of “The Bear” and was more interested in the characters. By the third episode, I was hooked.
It reminded me how silly it used to be for critics to judge a series like “Twin Peaks” when they were only given a pilot episode to review.
Jeremy Allen White (“Shameless”) is Emmy-worthy as Carmen (Carmy) Berzetto, whose last name inspired the nickname that is the title of the series. Carmy is a former top chef at one of the nation’s finest restaurants who returns home to try and save the family’s restaurant after his brother’s tragic death.
Carmy’s cousin, Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach of “Girls”), is a foul-mouthed, hot head trying to do things the old way. Ayo Edebiri (Comedy Central’s “Up Next”) steals every scene she is in as Sydney, a young aspiring chef drawn to Carmy’s reputation who wants to change things around.
Oliver Platt also is aboard as Carmy’s rich uncle who is financially keeping the restaurant afloat. Abby Elliott is Carmy’s lovingly combative sister Natalie “Sugar” Berzatto and Chris Witaske is her wimpy husband.
Carmy is overwhelmed by all the chaos around him and struggles to be the warm-hearted and supportive chef that he didn’t have when he was a hotshot chef. He illustrates how much he respects his co-workers by having them each equally referred to as “chef” even if their duties aren’t equal.
But the frustrations of the job, including failing equipment, unpaid bills and costly mistakes, sometime get the better of Carmy to his regret.
You can’t help root for him and everyone on a staff who ultimately feel like family.
It is a long, long way from “Ozzie and Harriet,” “Leave it to Beaver” and “The Donna Reed Show,” but “The Bear” is great family entertainment with an emphasis on dysfunction.
Catching up with it almost made me wish I followed my late editor’s advice and gotten sick more often.
