3 shows that are maybe related?

Happy Wednesday, today I’m channeling my inner Dave Eggers and rambling about some nonsense that means nothing to anyone else while also peppering it with footnotes to poke fun at the academic form!

Big Brotherrrrrrrr

There is only one thing about myself that I’m 100% certain of: I absolutely love watching a TV show that someone else already knows a lot about. There is nothing hotter to me1 than being the person on the couch listening to someone explain the intricate details of a particular show because they have such an encyclopedic knowledge of something they’ve lost precious childhood memories.

Big Brother is that show for Zach2, so I’ve been watching the latest season with him. We watched the last season too, and while I was absolutely in love from day one with the expert strategy that was the cookout, I couldn’t keep up with the show. There’s just so much to be consumed: three shows a day, 24hr live feeds, speculation blogs. I literally consume media like a full-time job and even that burned me out fast.

But this season’s two episodes that have aired so far have been so much drama that I’m finding it nearly impossible to resist the urge to dive full force into big brother land. So far we’ve had the literal worst reasoning for putting a person up to be eliminated I’ve ever heard. Reasoning that basically amounted to “she told a lie because I said so.” Reasoning none of the houseguests even bothered questioning. We’ve had a literal mental breakdown with Palmoa leaving the house after thinking she’s in a simulation and needs the harry potter cloak of invisibility to escape. We’ve had a no eviction Thursday show, where a contestant rolled their ankle, more drama on whether or not that house guest should have actually been competing because they might have touched the ground during a challenge3. And the rehash of the same blatant racism of the first elimination by putting up Taylor just because…she’s a pageant queen and some people don’t like that?

Anyway, the way Julie Chen started adding Moonves to her name after everything came out is hilarious. Get your check I guess.

Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

I’ve been watching season four of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, a show I devoured early on and then completely forgot about till a podcast episode reminded me it exists. There are a lot of reasons it’s strange to watch Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in 2022, but the biggest among them is the show’s lack of fan fair given its history. When Mrs. Maisel came out in 2017 it was one of those shows you heard about through a friend of a friend or through the words of established media critics. You just HAD to watch it. It’s a refreshing twist brought to you by Amazon, showcasing how Amazon Prime TV is a powerhouse changing the genre of streaming. I still think those critiques hold up, but given that this season has been out since February 18th and I didn’t know about it despite literally watching hours of TV every week just makes me pause4. 

I haven’t finished the full season as I’m writing this5, but so far the pacing works and I’m excited to watch more. I did have to look up what happened at the end of season 3, but have accepted that’s the price we pay for going through a massive pandemic. I can’t remember any show I watched before the start of the pandemic and have given shows a lot more grace because it’s not like you could reshoot a show set in the 60s wearing masks. 

Anyway, I’m glad Mrs. Maisel gives Alex Borstein time to shine. I forget how enjoyable she can be on screen6. Most recently I’ve been watching Gilmore Girls from the beginning, in which she appears as a harpist with an attitude. She also gives another fantastic appearance in Getting On, a show that had the perfect amount of seasons!

I don’t have more thoughts on this, just that it feels good to return to a show with strong storytelling and a clear purpose, especially one that’s not in any way superhero related. Though my one minor frustration is that this season does what so many season-4-of-a-prestige-TV-show-do and essentially resets the clock, putting the main character more or less back where she started. Sure things have changed: she’s gotten stronger, other characters have found their own footing, but essentially (mid-season at least) it still feels very much like the progress made in 1 - 3 was wiped out. I get that’s what the ending of season 3 is supposed to make us feel, but still, it feels exhausting to watch the rebuilding of a career, again.

The best scene: the whole family whispering to each other in the middle of the night. Why don’t more shows do whisper scenes!

Drag Race All Stars - Season 7 

I’m not going to even pretend to write recaps of Drag Race or explain its cultural relevancy because there are so many people doing that better than I ever could. I will say that this season of Drag Race has felt like a special treasure within the seemingly neverending torrent of Drag Race seasons premiering now.7

It’s easy to feel burnt out by Drag Race by now. It’s become such a popular touchstone in gay culture and now apparently straight culture. Plus, there are what 4 seasons running concurrently? But the all-winners season is getting one thing right: it’s letting the queens shine by accepting that they’re all the tops of their craft already.

Lots of people have been making memes about the lack of harsh critiques during this season. There’s no doubt that’s due to strict contract negotiations that led to this season anyways. I imagine there’s no way to get winning queens to return without promising them:

• You really won’t go home

• You will win at least one star each

• We will not negatively critique your looks

So yeah, there’s a lot of backroom politics and producing surely going on. But, they’re all just doing such a great job! I’ll be completely honest and say I wasn’t really a fan of Jinx when I watched her season, but rewatching now and it’s a breath of fresh air that a queen like her can still be competitive with other queens. My primary gripe is really that Shae and Monet haven’t been getting the credit they deserve, each of them should have more stars than they do currently.

Other things I’ve consumed

• Westworld season 4 - It doesn’t get a full section describing it. I’m going to watch every season of westworld because I naively think they’ll wrap up the plot. But at this point the show isn’t really a show, it’s just one long twist masquerading as plot.

• The numerous tweets about how the paws-up little monsters boy got sent to conversion therapy and is now a lil monster for Jesus. 

• About a dozen of the HEB Frozen Fruit Bars before realizing that they contain like 30% of your daily sugar balance. I thought they were just low-cal treats!

• FF X I am committed to finishing it this time. I have tried so many times but never stuck with it. I’m toggling between this and FF XIV, but FF XIV has no updates right now anyway so…

• This Tik Tok which sums up my thoughts RE: Flying Frontier.

• This depressing as fuck article about how one old dude who lives on a boat is dooming the planet.

• 2 Diet Cokes after promising myself I would stop. I would like to state for the record though that I have been saying to anyone who would listen (and some who didn’t want to) that the moment I took one sip of a soda I’d be drinking them constantly, and here we are, the consequences of my own actions.

• The terrible news that they’re going to make a Yu Yu Hakusho live-action film(series?) for Netflix. Additionally, tell me this isn’t a group of GenZ non-binary teens: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTC3KyyjHEu4p6mXwWYcJ4Vfmcg-obbTy5Npg&usqp=CAU