"The Cabin Chronicles."

Sometimes you find what you're looking for on TV. By accident. A story.

My mind started to go in knots once all the connections started to become clear. There are so many places to start, but let’s begin with some light praise for a bad thing:

I’ve been clear I don’t like that Discovery Inc. bought Warner Bros., home of HBO, in much the same way I didn’t like AT&T buying Warner Bros. and changing it to Warner Media (Discovery, in one moment of clarity about branding, is now called Warner Bros. Discovery). The AT&T mandate to make more shows and stop being a “boutique” was, back in the day, considered a mistake, since it might water down the brand. But HBO rallied, had less annoying reality shows than expected, and actually increased jobs for creative people, before Discovery took over and said, “Yeah, that’s gotta end,” and the great TV Industry Implosion continued apace (with Discovery changing HBO Max to just Max, giving you all you really needed to know about the brains at the top).

OK, so my distaste (and I’m in the majority here) for Discovery and “Max” was out there. I didn’t like the revamped HBO Max-to-Just Max app and experience either, primarily because, to be blunt, I don’t really want any of the Discovery offerings in my face. I’ve got scripted shows to watch.

Caveat: That didn’t mean I loathed the Discovery non-fiction content, but as someone with an endlessly long list of things to watch, whatever Discovery was touting was, in my mind, roughly number 3,278,395 on my list of things to watch. Conservatively.

I was grumbling about the Max app to myself just a couple of days ago, as I put the finishing touches on a new TV set-up here in the Portland Pied-á-terre and was aggravatingly trying to navigate the less than helpful, not-expansive, app.

Fast-forward one day: I’m trying to find a movie to review, feeling a need to pivot back to film for a post or two. I start with Criterion but don’t feel moved or the concept doesn’t seem ready. I go to Netflix and then conclude that with “Deep Dive: Netflix” I need a different platform from which to choose the movie. I open the Max app and…yeah, it’s not good in there, as noted. But I scroll and see this: “The Cabin Chronicles.”

Wait, what?

OK, so here are all the connections, why I watched the whole first season and the happy accident (and what it means) that summed it all up: