It’s time for everyone to watch the wildest show on television.

This week:

• It’s a holiday weekend! We’re busy, like, sleeping at least once. But we wouldn’t turn you down: here’s our biggest recommendation for what to watch at home over the holidays.

Ship of Dreams and Nightmares

This week I took a break from really holds the place for the lyrics to “Defying Gravity” and the feeling of power in it to finally see the absolute miracle of broadcast television: new show Doctor Odysseus.

This series aired throughout the fall, which means I was lucky enough to binge-watch eight episodes in a row during my recent weekend of “laying on the couch and not moving until my alarm went off to go to work on Monday morning.”

This show is a triumph of the absurd. A masterpiece of ridiculousness. Peabody Award worthy in the special category “Brilliant Outrageousness.”

It turns out that this is exactly what I need now.

The series was created in collaboration with Ryan Murphyand is a spiritual sister to fellow series “what madness will unfold this week, stunningly acted out by some of our greatest actors” 9-1-1. At its core, it is a procedural drama about a doctor and his two nurses on a cruise ship, with each episode taking a case-of-the-week format. If you’re a Ryan Murphy fan, this will remind you of Pinch/Pulland yet will surprise you by being wilder than even this show.

Joshua Jackson, eternal heartthrobplays Dr. Max Bankman, a doctor with an impressive resume that includes stints at the country’s top hospitals, groundbreaking research, trips with Doctors Without Borders and citations from the UN. But he got sick with COVID and now wants to have fun in life, so he applied for a job on a cruise ship. (I’m not kidding. “I had COVID, so…” is his backstory.)

Throughout the first series of episodes, he encounters ship nurses Avery (Philipa Soo) and Tristan (Sean Teale). Then they become friends and confidantes. They then have a threesome with each other, which changes the course of their entire lives. I don’t understand why all television programs don’t follow this narrative path.

In the midst of navigating the choppy waters of this dynamic – get this, water… because it’s a cruise – they have to deal with the craziness that happens during the theme weeks of each cruise.

During Singles Week, walking passenger abs applaud almost the entire cruise ship. During Plastic Surgery Week, someone’s newly touched-up nose literally falls off. On gay week John Stamos plays the recovering gay alcoholic brother of a ship’s captain (Don Johnson), and shocks everyone with the news that he and his partner (Cheyenne Jackson) are now in a threesome (Johnny Sibilli as the third). After the doctor and nurses discover that what looked like a drinking relapse was due to a new drug, everyone is healed and united through the power of a drag queen’s performance.

In one of the last episodes I watched, Amy Sedaris played Gwyneth Paltrow/A GOOP style celebrity who accidentally poisons all of her clients and Kate Berlant And Margaret Cho the guest played the role of entrepreneurs and acupuncturists who hate each other, Death becomes himr-style.

And while all this is happening, Joshua Jackson is performing surgery while flying through the air as the boat lists from side to side during a hurricane. His patient is a nurse with whom he and a colleague later have a threesome. MASTERPIECE.

There’s something really nice about a show like this. Doctor Odysseuswhich is sexy and silly, but also serious in its execution of crazy medical plots. I’m not kidding when I say that I reliably cry during every episode. The genius of the show is that it features artists such as Margo Martindale and Loretta Devine will guest star in weekly medical cases. There’s a general rule in show business: when Loretta Devine cries, we all cry.

I don’t know what it is, but I find myself gravitating towards a very specific kind of television: new broadcast procedures. My self-care now is sitcoms or reality shows, marathon watching episodes Kathy Bates Matlock, Elsbeth, FoundAnd Doctor Odysseus. Part of this has to do with the comfort element of the watch. But I also think these routines are crafted and acted much better than we’re used to. They’re just good shows.

About a decade later, when he had to make do with 47 spin-offs Chicago Fire, Law and order, NCIS, And Gray’s AnatomyIt’s nice to have proceduralists with their own personality and creative voice. I can’t wait to continue sailing with Doctor Odysseus.

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What to watch this week:

Agency: The cast includes Michael Fassbender, Richard Gere, Jeffrey Wright, Joad Turner-Smith, and is produced by George Clooney. (Now on Paramount+ with Showtime.)

Beatles ’64: Have you heard of these guys? (Now on Disney+)

Sacred Fig Seed: One of the best international films of the year. (Now in cinemas)

What to miss this week:

Celebratory Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story: It’s either the most anticipated pop culture event of the year or the bane of your existence. (Saturday, Hallmark)