It's Pilot Season

     It's pilot season at Amazon, anyway -- be vewy, vewy quiet!  I'm hunting piwuts!

     Two of them appealed to me and I'll describe them here so you can take a look, if you like.

     Oasis is an interesting SF thriller, in which the leader of Earth's first -- and barely-established -- colony on a planet orbiting a distant star abruptly and unexpectedly calls for a clergyman, a job their resources can scarcely support.  Why?  Only the leader knows -- and he's missing when the "ecumenical priest" arrives.  The setting is akin to Zelazny's A Rose For Ecclesiastes (only without the ancient Martians) and the general mystery is reminiscent of Stanslaw Lem's Solaris, with more than a hint of James Blish's more-philosophical work.  I think it's promising.

     The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is far from outer space and one of the best comedies I have seen on TV in years.  Set in 1950s New York, the title character, a young woman four years into her storybook marriage to a salesman and would-be comedian, suddenly finds herself in very different circumstances.  A lot of the fun comes from just how all of that works out, with an interesting cast of characters, so I won't spoil it.  The writers don't seem to have any axes to grind, they just want to tell a good story.

     A websearch on "Amazon pilot season" will take you to their page of possible new shows.  The watching is free, at least for Amazon Prime members, and you can stream them to your TV, too.