So many shows, so little time. Sorry Shogun and The Penguin and Da Bear. I’m very movie focused in my day-to-day media consumption so unless a show has an insane premise or more buzz than the beehive that killed Macaulay Culkin in My Girl, it’s gonna end up in the “To Do” pile.
I want to note that I did start The Penguin and The Sympathizer but I don’t have that binge me in anymore. Purge? Yes. Binge? No. Here are all the shows that escaped the purge.
Every year I start this post making excuses for why my list isn’t more “hip”. Last year I talked about finding peace in my growingly mainstream lists. This year I feel the same BUT I want to make a vow that I’ll never start another one of these lists with apologizing. I put a lot of time into movies, podcasts and books. What, I’m supposed to be Anthony Fantano too? No more. Welcome to my basic bitch era.
As for “What Kind of Year was 2024 for Music?” I have no fucking idea. A lot of pop. Like, real talk if we didn’t all sleep on Chappell Roan last year and her debut came out this year then she would 1000% be my number one. I got a couple of pop princesses but 2024 was Chappell’s year. Anyways here’s some bullshit:
Original Air Date: October 28, 2018
Originally, I planned to review an episode of Millennium, “The Curse of Frank Black,” but it’s nowhere to be found—not even on the darkest corners of the web. So instead, I’m bringing you one of my favorite Halloween specials of recent years: Inside No. 9’s “Dead Line,” which, much like my last-minute substitution, also gave BBC Two viewers something very unexpected.
Just a week ago, I finished reading Ray Bradbury’s 1972 novel The Halloween Tree. It’s a breezy read at about 160 pages, filled with rich history and pastoral imagery, but it doesn’t hold a candle (even in a Jack-o’-lantern) to Hanna-Barbera’s 1993 animated made-for-TV adaptation. I’m biased, being a child of the ’90s, but The Halloween Tree feels tailor-made for animation. The image of a gnarled tree with pumpkins hanging from its branches has to be seen to be appreciated—and after all these years, I still do.
Season 2, Episode 8
Original Air Date: October 31, 1990
I should have known better than to doubt the powerhouse producing duo of Steven Bochco and David E. Kelley. It’s crazy that two of the biggest TV giants of all time—Bochco (Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, NYPD Blue) and Kelley (Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, The Practice, Boston Legal, Ally McBeal)—created a show together. It’s even crazier that the show they created was about a 16-year-old doctor.
Season 2, Episode 6
Original Air Date: October 26, 1987
Do kids these days know about ALF? Actually, why do I know about ALF? The show ended before I was even a year old. I’ve never seen a rerun. My only memory of actually seeing ALF in the flesh (or would that be felt?) was in high school German class when we watched the 1996 made-for-TV movie Project: ALF (dubbed in German), which served as a sequel to the show’s final episode. Except I had no idea what was going on because I was a bad student.
Season 3 – Episode 5
Air Date: October 28th, 1984
Have you ever sat down to watch a “classic” movie or TV show and then realized, “Actually, I have no idea what this is about?” That was me when I watched my first-ever episode of Knight Rider. For some reason, I always thought the show was about a guy and his super-smart car on the run from bad guys. Clearly, I confused it with The Incredible Hulk, which is about a protagonist who moves from town to town encountering various adventures and misadventures.
