Yesterday I finished watching Billy Ray‘s The Comey Rule (Showtime), which is not a miniseries but a two-parter, and a highly absorbing one at that. Take no notice of the 64% Rotten Tomatoes rating and the corresponding 58% Metacritic score. Because it’s good, and by that I mean good enough. More than that actually. If you don’t go looking for God or salvation or cosmic happiness you’ll be completely fine with it. Ray has directed and written in a professional, first-rate fashion.

I can only conclude that the critics who panned it aren’t reviewing the show as much as venting fury at what Comey did to Hillary Clinton and in fact the whole country when he announced on 10.28.16 that the FBI was reopening an investigation into her emails because of Anthony Weiner’s laptop (which was a terrible call on his part). I, on the other hand, am reviewing the show, and I’m telling you it’s not a problem.

The Comey Rule may not be the most profound or earth-shaking dramatization of a recent, real-life Washington melodrama, but it’s good enough. I wasn’t expecting an imaginative or mind-bending revisiting of the former FBI Director‘s saga between his 2013 appointment and 2017 termination (who would want that?), but a taut and exacting one. This is exactly what you get. I was hooked from start to finish.

What I was mostly looking for was (a) efficient writing and (b) skillful performances from the various players, and in these realms I was wholly satisfied.

Yes, that includes Brendan Gleeson‘s reanimation of Orange Plague. Does he deliver the greatest impression of Trump ever seen or imagined? No, but he’s suitably menacing. Is he trying to be funny like Alec Baldwin? No, but he’s vaguely hilarious anyway. I also found him convincing as far as it went. Gleeson is perhaps a little more satanic than the Real McCoy, but nonetheless a good guy to have around, and I mean that in the sense that Gleeson really means it.

As Comey, Jeff Daniels delivers the fundamental decency and cautiously bland rectitude. But God, this is exhausting…how can I deliver assessments of 20 or 25 performances, all of them decent and more than a few arresting or even fascinating? I’m drowning just thinking about it. Holly Hunter‘s Sally Yates…a little too cornpone but that’s Hunter for you. Michael Kelly as Andrew McCabe — perfect. Jennifer Ehle as the savyy, strategic, Hillary-supporting Patrice Comey — ditto. Scoot McNairy is dead-on as the chilly but curiously naive Rod Rosenstein.

Jonathan Banks as James Clapper, Steven Pasquale as Peter Strzok, Oona Chaplin as Lisa Page, Amy Seimetz as Trisha Anderson, Steve Zissis as Jim Baker…as good as they could possibly be, in the zone, pocket drop.

T. R. Knight‘s Reince Priebus is such an asshole! Anthony Bowden‘s George Papadopoulos is a hoot…a real opportunistic lounge sleaze. And I especially loved (i.e.m felt relaxed with) Kingsley Ben-Adir‘s Barack Obama. KBA also delivers a satisfactory Malcom X in One Night in Miami.

The theatrical opening of No Time to Die aka Bond 25 has been postponed until April 2, 2021. This is the fourth or fifth postponement…actually I’ve lost count. The original plan was for a November 2019 debut, and then it was February 2020, and then April 2020 and then 11.20.20 due to Covid, and now this latest shift. Call it five. Forget theatrical until next year or until a vaccine.

Variety excerpt: “The decision to move the upcoming Bond entry into next year is not entirely surprising considering New York and Los Angeles, the two biggest U.S. markets, are closed and coronavirus cases in Europe have started to rise again. Given Bond’s global appeal, the sequel’s backers wanted to wait until audiences across the world felt safe returning to theaters,” blah blah.

Trump's mistake was getting tested. If he hadn't been tested, he'd be fine now.

— Bob Cesca (@bobcesca_go) October 2, 2020

The Witches (HBO Max, 10.22) ) is an oppressively broad, diabolically unsubtle “fantasy comedy” based on Roald Dahl‘s 1983 novel of the same name. (In 2010 I visited Dahl’s home in Great Missenden, England — a magnificent spread but the room in which Dahl wrote was in a small, vaguely musty cottage behind the main house.) Directed by Robert Zemeckis, and co-written by Zemeckis, Guillermo del Toro and Kenya Barris. Starring Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci and Jahzir Kadeem Bruno (i.e., the kid who gets turned into a mouse). Chris Rock narrates.

Joe Biden has tested negative for the coronavirus. The Democratic presidential nominee and his wife were tested earlier today. Dr. Kevin O’Connor soon after released the negative results in a statement issued by the Biden campaign. Biden was on the debate stage with Trump for more than 90 minutes earlier in the week. “I’m happy to report that Jill and I have tested negative for COVID,” Biden tweeted “Thanks to everyone for your messages of concern. I hope this serves as a reminder — wear a mask, keep social distance, wash your hands.”

“Jill and I send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery,” he added. “We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family.”

Joe & Jill’s well-being aside, the second presidential debate — set for Thursday, 10.15 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami — will almost certainly be cancelled. Unless, of course, Trump isn’t feeling too badly down the road and they want to do it on Zoom.

Trump is reportedly experiencing “mild” symptoms. Given the knee-jerk lying instinct of Trump and his handlers, it’s at least possible that he’s faring worse than they’re letting on.

NBC News excerpt: “The next five to 10 days will be critical for President Donald Trump after his positive test for Covid-19. Doctors warn the illness can suddenly worsen after several days of relatively mild symptoms. That’s particularly true for patients with two of the biggest risk factors for serious and even life-threatening complications of the disease: obesity and older age. Trump, who is 74 and has a body mass index of 30.5, qualifying him as obese, fits both criteria.

“I’m worried,” Dr. Vin Gupta, a pulmonologist and an affiliate assistant professor at UW Medicine in Seattle, said Friday on NBC’s Today. “I’ve cared for several patients with that double whammy. If they become sick, if they are symptomatic, they can escalate quickly to needing ICU care.”

Hollywood Elsewhere joins the world in extending best wishes to Rick Moranis after he was randomly attacked in New York City early yesterday morning. Seriously, I’m glad Moranis wasn’t hurt too badly. The 67 year-old actor was slugged and shoved by a youngish dude of color wearing a black “I Love NY” sweatshirt. Moranis reportedly went to a hospital for observation before reporting the assault at a local police precinct.

…wasn’t such a bad guy after all. A long time ago I regarded him as an uptight, scowling, hippie-hating asshole but now…

Donald and Melania will be okay, but this will obviously eliminate his campaigning for the foreseeable future. Didn’t he campaign in New Jersey today? A 14-day quarantine, but how long will a full recovery take? How long did it take Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson to get through the rough parts? I’m asking.

Don’t tell me he’ll get a sympathy surge out of this. Because my initial thought after the news broke was “could this be a ploy?” Trump has been semi-blase and certainly cavalier about the Covid threat all along. Oh, the irony.

Pres. Trump mocks Joe Biden on the issue of masks: “I don’t wear masks like him. Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.” https://t.co/5Bl4Ob3O2t #Debates2020 pic.twitter.com/OA3ffVcrkg

— ABC News (@ABC) September 30, 2020

Watch: This is Trump's full answer to @SeanHannity about Hope Hicks' diagnosis at 9:49pm last night. "She did test positive," he said. "I just heard about this." pic.twitter.com/vDCW8tN8yf

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 2, 2020

The instant I watched that Melania Trump video about encouraging healthy, drug-free lives and honoring National Substance Use Prevention Month, I was asking myself “what’s with the curiously provocative camera angle?” and more to the point “where have I seen this before?”

Usually PSA spots are delivered full face and straight to the camera, so the sultry side-angle thing felt like a distraction.

Then it hit me — that famous 1967 Noxzema shaving cream ad with Swedish model Gunilla Knutson (“Take it off, take it all off”).

On one hand Melania’s ad is a straightforward pitch about social responsibility and saving kids from drug-dependent lives, but on another it’s about her glistening blonde highlights, prominent cheekbones and feigned Mata Hari allure. Why work against the sober messaging with a fetching “look at me” attitude?

Alternate title: “You can’t go home again.” 2nd alternate title: “If Sacha Baron Cohen makes Mike Pence look like a clueless stooge, all is forgiven.”

The Commission on Presidential Debates “should cancel the coming Trump-Biden debates. Let Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris have their matchup next Wednesday night, then let Americans move on. They have all the information they need to decide whether they want another four years of Trump.

“Giving him more time in front of a national television audience isn’t a route to clarity. Because his performance on Tuesday night proved that he will use these showcases to subvert democracy. In what sane country should that be abetted? By what sound reasoning should that be endorsed?”

“Trump continues to take a wrecking ball to vital American institutions and sacred American traditions. He did it on Tuesday night to the process by which we choose the person who will shape the country’s future and lead us into it. To give him a stage that grand again is to commit civic suicide.” — from a 10.1 N.Y. Times column by Frank Bruni, titled “For the Sake of Democracy, Cancel the Trump-Biden Debates.”

“The national interest — actually, national security — demands that the other two scheduled mortifications, fraudulently advertised as presidential debates, should be canceled: When a nation makes itself pathetic, the response of enemy nations is not sympathy.” — from a 9.30 Washington Post column by George Will, titled “For The Sake of the Country, Cancel the Remaining Debates.”