Previously: March/April, February, January, Best of Media, 2019

Time to catch up with things I’ve been watching/enjoying! I am shamelessly copying Kottke’s format, with some minor changes. It was a very strong month for TV shows, with Never Have I Ever, Normal People and The Great being its highlights.

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Anime

Weathering with You (Tenki No Ko, 2019): I’ve long been waiting to watch this and had high hopes for it, as it was created by Makoto Shinkai who also made one of my favorite animes ever, Your Name (Kimi no Na wa). The animation is gorgeous, but the story left me sorely disappointed and I bailed halfway through.

Movies

Popstar: Never Stop Stopping (2016): This was loads of fun. Way more fun than I expected. I already liked Lonely Island so I shouldn’t have been surprised. Anyways, I loved it. It’s the This Is Spinal Tap of the 2010s. (A)

The Losers (2010): Very dumb, but also, mostly very fun. (B)

The Lovebirds (2020): This was fun. I mostly background watched it, but I did focus more when it was necessary and in the final 30 minutes or so. There is nothing special about this movie, but there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes. (B-)

Background watch

New section! I started doing jigsaw puzzles, and I needed something to play in the background and/or during work. These are the ones I’ve seen so far. I’m probably not going to give these a proper rating.

Star Trek II (1982), III (1984) and IV (1986): These were okay, I guess. It’s been a long while since I watch them. It’s startling just how much the Klingons are a stand-in for the Soviets. The highlight of these is definitely the 4th movie.

Star Trek: Voyager (season 4, episode 25 “One”): I try not to watch too much pandemic-related content, but I felt the urge to rewatch this in the background, and it was pretty good.

The Death of Stalin (2017): Meh. I barely paid attention.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011): I couldn’t even get through it as a background watch.

Top Gun (1986): Ok so the thing is, in 2020, Top Gun reads like a parody of itself. The dialog is so incredibly cheesy and over-the-top that it is nigh impossible to take the movie seriously. I’m still excited about the coming sequel, though.

TV shows

Billions (season 5, episodes 1-4): This show has long reached its natural endpoint and now it’s just a soap opera disguised as prestige television. But also? There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s very entertaining and I have nothing to complain about. (A-)

Defending Jacob (miniseries): This is not a bad show (it has some strong performances, including Sweater America as one of the protagonists) but at the end, it felt like a pointless one. Does it have a message? I guess. But it’s mostly a very depressing much with basically no rewards. Skip it. (C)

Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian (season 1, episodes 1-4): This is an excellent behind-the-scenes series about the show. Instead of going through episode-by-episode, they choose to focus on different aspects each time, and I think that format works well. (A-)

Halt and Catch Fire (season 2 episode 6-10): Still extremely good. I’m saving the last two seasons for harder times. I love this show to bits. (A)

Killing Eve (season 3, episode 4-7): The third season continues to be a massive improvement over the second one, and in episode 5 they deliver the best one they’ve ever made so far. This season does feel weirdly unfocused in specific ways. I think the show also suffers from the fact that they kinda got to a good natural endpoint at the end of season 1, they had to make more of it. In any case, a lot hinges on the last episode; we’ll see how it goes; I’m moderately optimistic. (A-)

O.J. - Made in America (miniseries, episodes 1-2): This is a well-produced documentary, and it gave me a lot of background on the, uh, pre-murder days of O.J. But once it gets to that, I had to stop because that bit is just too gut-wrenching.

Mythic Quest: Quarantine (special episode): This was fun! Not quite as Emmy-worthy as they want it to be, but still, very good. Especially impressive in how quickly they put it together. (A)

Never Have I Ever (season 1): This is the best new TV show I’ve seen in 2020 so far. A smart teen dramedy about grief and being South Asian in America, among other things, created by Mindy Kaling, who’s fantastic. (A)

Normal People (miniseries): Actually, no, THIS is the best new TV show I’ve seen in 2020 so far. It utterly destroyed emotionally. The writing, the acting, the cinematography, it’s all perfect. Go watch it immediately. (A+)

Run (miniseries, episode 4-7): So overall, this was good; the side-story with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character made it even better. But I can’t help but feel somewhat disappointed by its final, somewhat anticlimactic episode, and the fact that tonally it was all over the place, and not in a good way. (B+)

Snowpiercer (season 1, episodes 1-2): Yikes. The movie was great, but this has way too much torture porn and not much else, really. The pilot ends with the most predictable twist in the history of television. I bailed in the middle of episode 2, and I won’t be missing it. (F)

The Great (miniseries): This is, well, one of the best new TV shows of this year. A pitch-black satirical dramedy, a fictionalized tale of the early beginnings of Cathrene the Great that made me laugh more than anything else in 2020, probably. But they don’t quite stick the landing, which is a shame. Nevertheless, It’s heaps of fun, and I highly recommend it. (A-)

The Last Dance (miniseries, episode 1): Eh, this wasn’t my jam. I’m not that into basketball. I bailed after 30 minutes or so.

Trying (miniseries, episodes 1-3): I started watching this, and I don’t know, there is nothing wrong with it but it feels like the story is a bit too thin to hold everything together? I might finish it. Or not.

Westworld (season 3, episode 8): Yeah, this sucked. The whole season was terrible. (F)

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Patriot Act is back, and it’s as good as ever! Still not watching Last Week Tonight, though and honestly? Not missing it that much.

Previously: February, 2020, January, 2020, Best of Media, 2019

Time to catch up with things I’ve been watching/enjoying! I am shamelessly copying Kottke’s format, with some minor changes.

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Wow. Jesus. It’s been, uh, a decade since my last post and a lot has changed. I was way too overwhelmed with gestures with hands to finish it so this will be a combined March/April post.

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Movies

Bad Education (2019): This is a movie, though it’s an HBO movie. It’s filled with a ton of stars and it’s like the worst bits of oscar-bait movies meet with the worst bits of prestige television. It’s just… boring. (C)

Cittadini del Mondo (2019): Both me and my sister agreed that this movie is boring and left the movie theater halfway through.

Meet Joe Black (1998): Rewatch. I tried and I tried and I just couldn’t get into it, even though I really liked it a couple years ago when I first watched it.

Melting Souls (2018): This is a fascinating documentary about factory workers in the middle of nowhere, Norilsk, Siberia. It was a good watch. Not sure where you can watch it; it’s up on Vimeo but with French subtitles. There is a longread in the NYT that serves as a de-facto epilogue for it, though. (A-)

National Treasure (2004): This was surprisingly fun! Probably one of the better Nick Cage movies. (B)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019): What happens if you take the AO3 tags “slow burn” and “pining” and turn it up to like, 200%? This movie. It’s awesome. It’s my second favorite movie of the year after Little Women. Go watch it, it’s out everywhere. (A+)

TiMER (2009): This would have been a “meh” low-budget scifi but then they had to completely mess up the ending. Ugh.

The Gentleman (2019): Left the movie theater after 30 minutes or so. I was in a bad mood, but later on, I checked out the rest of the plot on Wikipedia and had no regrets. If you want to watch something from Guy Ritchie, just stick to Lock, Stock… and Snatch, his two great movies he keeps trying to recreate for the last 20 years.

The Revenant (2015): I had low expectations but I ended up kinda loving this? I’m not 100% onboard with the ending but I’ll allow it. This movie is a hell of a ride and done amazingly well. Iñárritu has a good reputation for a reason. (A)

The Way Back (2020): This new Sad Ben Affleck movie is solid. If you like watching Ben Affleck being Sad for two hours, this is definitely your movie. There is also basketball. (A-)

Transformers (2007): God this is boring even as a background watch.

TV Shows

Amazing Stories (season 1, episode 1): Oof, yikes. This show is stuck in the 80s. I might check out more episodes, but I probably won’t? Mostly a waste of time. (C)

Devs (miniseries): Well, this sucked. It starts out strong and fairly quickly gets worse and worse. However, do give it a try; it’s very much a love/hate kind of show. You might just end up loving it, several of my friends did. (C)

Doctor Who (season 12, episode 10): This season has been a letdown overall but the last two episodes were not half bad, by Doctor Who standards anyway. Still, I’m starting to miss Moffat, as bad as that era could be at times. (B-)

Halt and Catch Fire (season 1, season 2 eps 1-5): Rewatch. This is one of my favorite shows, and it’s one of those that gets every season. It starts out strong; the first few episodes are great, but the second half of the first season is Not Great. It really starts finding itself in season 2, when they figure out which characters they should focus on. Season 2 is far from perfect, but I already know it gets even better. I know this may be a tough sell but if you haven’t: watch this show. You won’t regret it. (B-; B+)

High Maintenance (season 4, episodes 4-5): I watched two episodes of this, and then I had to stop because The Plague started and there was just something overwhelming about seeing NYC business as usual in the show. I might watch the rest of the episodes of the season later though. (A-)

Homeland (season 8, episodes 4-12): This season was probably better than the previous two; more tightly written, but still sticking to the — by now — standard Homeland tropes, playing them to their logical extremes. This was the final season of the show and the ending is very on-brand, for better or worse. (B-)

Killing Eve (season 3, episodes 1-3): Season 1 of this show is a masterpiece; Season 2 is a mess and ultimately a disappointment. However there are signs that things might be improving, so I’m cautiously optimistic. (B+)

Run (miniseries, episodes 1-3): This is a show created by Vicky Jones (Fleabag) and produced — among other people — by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, which was already enough to make me watch it, and boy does it deliver so far. (A)

Star Trek: Picard (season 1, episodes 7-10): An inconsistent ending to an inconsistent season, that’s noticeably better in its second half and yet stumbles landing it. There is another season coming, should we survive the Plague, and I’m kinda looking forward to that. (B-)

The Magicians (season 5, episodes 9-13): I love this show and the characters so fucking much. Another show that mostly got better every season; I have a spoiler-filled love letter written. I saved up the final 5 episodes for a particularly tough time and after I was done with them, I cried for like half an hour, mostly because it was over. The ending was great. The final episodes were great, I’ll miss this show so much. (A)

Unorthodox (miniseries): Ok so don’t let my grade deter you. This is a great show about a girl escaping the ultra-orthodox Satmar Jews in Williamsburg and starting a new life in Berlin. I just really feel like it needed one more episode for it to really bring it home, but even as it is… it’s good. There is a “Making Unorthodox” episode on Netflix as well; make sure to watch it after you’re done with the show. (B+)

Westworld (season 3, episode 1-7): God, this season is so bad. The first two episodes are great but then it goes downhill rapidly. Watching it feels like a goddamn chore. I don’t even know why I’m doing this to myself (I do know, I’m too invested.) One more episode to go and the 4th season is already ordered. (C-)

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I had to stop watching Last Week Tonight for my sanity — I just can’t take anymore news these days, even if they are occasionally funny. See you John after the Plague is over.

Previously: January, Best of Media, 2019

Time to catch up with things I’ve been watching/enjoying! I am shamelessly copying Kottke’s format, with some minor changes.

Books

I started reading Better Than IRL, which is about the Old Internet and how people find community there. I hope I can finish it, I’ve already read two essays from it.

Movies

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019): I did not grow up with Mr. Rodgers, in fact I have not heard of him at all before the documentary came out last year. I was very cynical going it but by the end, it won me over to at least some degree. (B+)

American Factory (2019): What happens when a Chinese company opens a factory in Ohio and cultures clash? This movie, among other things. It’s an interesting watch, well worth it. (A)

Edge of Tomorrow (2014): Rewatch. It’s pretty good but it takes like half an hour for it to really get going and that kinda sucks. Still, once it gets going, it’s great. (B+)

Force Majure (2014): This was great, though I’m not really happy with the ending. It didn’t stress me out nearly as Marriage Story did, strangely. (A-)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows (2010, 2011): Rewatch. I just wanted some emotional catharsis in my life and also our heroes being desperate in a forest. It kind of delivers on both, though not enough. The romantic pairings are a complete nonsense and the epilogue never happened. (B-)

Interstellar (2014): Wow, I was on a 2014 streak I guess? Anyways, another rewatch, the third time I’ve seen this movie and I just, love it so much. Yes, the third act is not as great as the first two but I don’t care. It’s the epic space drama we very much needed, the sound is amazing, the visuals are amazing, the actors are amazing. (A)

Miss Americana (2020): This is a pretty great documentary about Taylor Swift and I enjoyed it a lot. (A-)

Speed (1994): Technically a rewatch, although I’ve only seen it as a kid and didn’t remember too much. I thought it’d be bad but actually this is a pretty good 90s action movie. (A-)

The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015): I’ve been sort of meaning to watch this for years but I was kind of meh about it until I saw Bel Powley in The Morning Show where she’s great and that gave me the final push. I didn’t regret it; it’s a decent coming-of-age movie. (B+)

To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You (2020): I liked the first movie but I bailed halfway through on this one. Meh.

Uncut Gems (2019): I tried watching it once and turned it off after 40 minutes because it was too stressful. I tried again about a month later and then I just dissociated enough to not feel anything. It’s just not my movie, even though Adam Sandler is objectively great in it.

TV Shows

Altered Carbon (season 2): I really enjoyed this, I might even write a separate spoiler-filled review. I decided against rewatching the first season and in retrospect I kind of regret that. In any case, it was great, developing existing and new characters and the show’s mythology. (A)

Cheer (season 1): I have mixed feelings about this show. I loved it, and now I’m emotionally invested in several kids featured, but also I’m wary of the whole authoritarian coach as a savior thing and worried what will happen to everyone once they stop doing cheerleading because it’s a thing you can’t do forever. In any case, I highly recommend it. (A+)

Doctor Who (season 12, episodes 6-9): This season has been a letdown overall but the last two episodes were not half bad, by Doctor Who standards anyway. Still, I’m starting to miss Moffat, as bad as that era could be at times. (B-)

High Fidelity (season 1): I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen the movie in ages, but I enjoyed the twists the made with this show. Zoë Kravitz is great and so are the supporting characters. I hope it gets another season. (A-)

High Maintenance (season 4, episodes 1-3): The best show about New York is back with an amazing first episode and two other ones that are, at parts, a bit meh, but even a “meh” High Maintenance episode is a great High Maintenance episode; they have such a high bar. (A)

Homeland (season 8, episodes 1-3): One more season of Carrie ugly-crying, which so far has not really happened but all in due time. It’s mostly the usual though episode 3 was quite good. (B)

I Am Not Okay With This (season 1): So this is based on a comic book by the same person who wrote The End of the Fucking World (which I love) but the show is kind of a letdown. It’s short and feels like the second half of the season is missing; it has a lot of style, but not enough substance. If they make another season, I’ll watch it but I’m still somewhat disappointed. (B-)

McMillions (miniseries): I wanted to like this, but I quit after 3 episodes. As much as I like Agent Doug, they drag out the story too much and that kind of ruins it for me.

Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet (season 1): A sitcom about a game studio. This takes 2-3 episodes to warm up but if you stick with it, it gets really good. Episode 5 is particularly great. (A-)

Occupied (season 1): I bailed on this around episode 8. I wanted to like this but I mostly watched it because it’s a Norwegian show. It’s just… not good.

Star Trek: Picard (season 1, episodes 3-6): I continue to be very disappointed about this show, though episode 6 was not half bad so maybe it gets better in the second half? Let’s hope so. (B-)

Stargate SG-1 (season 4, episode 6 “Window of Opportunity”): This is something I rewatch every Groundhog Day because, well, it’s the Groundhog Day episode of this show that I love very much and it’s fun every single time. (A+)

The Magicians (season 5, episodes 4-8): I love this show and the characters so fucking much. There was a fairly week episode this month but otherwise, it really delivers every week with all its unashamed craziness. (A)

UnREAL (season 2 episodes 9-10): This show is just, bad for me, not unlike You was not long ago. I will work very hard not to watch the final two seasons because again, bad for me. (B)

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I’m still watching Last Week Tonight and it’s fine but the long segments are just increasingly meh.

Previously: Best of Media, 2019

Time to catch up with things I’ve been watching/enjoying! I am shamelessly copying Kottke’s format, with some minor changes.

Books

For the Love of Men by Liz Plank: Hey, I read a book! Someone give me an award. *ahem* Anyway! I’ve written about it a bit in this post and I have a lot more to share soon. This is the book I evangelize right now to everyone I meet, especially men.

Movies

Adam (2019): Adam was very controversial before it came out (it has an IMDB rating of 2.8), and yet people would benefit a lot from watching something before forming an opinion about it because it’s a great movie about a complicated subject, that does not give you easy answers but also manages to surprise you more than once. I loved it. (A)

Fargo (1996): This is the movie I watch when I crave some snow porn; I’ve seen it three times now I think. I was just in the mood to see a lot of snow. That and the amazing Frances McDormand. And everything else. I love all of it, it’s a masterpiece. (A+)

Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019): Yeah, no. Turned it off after 20 minutes or so. I think Kevin Smith did great movies (mostly) in the 90s — Clerks, Clerks 2, Mallrats, Dogma — but this is literally just overt fanservice with no story. I’m too old for this.

JoJo Rabbit (2019): This was great! It takes real skill to make a satire about nazis in 2019 but Taika Waititi pulls it off. It’s funny and it’s heartfelt and it’s smart. You should watch it. (A)

Knives Out (2019): This was fine? Daniel Craig is great and a sequel is in the works with his character which I’m happy about. I sort of get the hype around it but I don’t think it’s as great as it was hyped. Still, I was somewhat entertained. (B-)

Little Women (2019): This is the best thing I’ve seen in this year so far (well, this and Sex Education, see below). I’ve never read the book, though I was somewhat familiar with bits of the story. I loved almost every minute of it; it has a ton of heart, great actors, amazing visuals and clothes and directing and everything, really. It’s also clever how it subverts some of the stuff in the book; I’ve read the plot summary of it after watching the movie. Give it all the Oscars, especially the ones it was not nominated for (I’m looking at you, Best Director). (A+)

TV Shows

Doctor Who (season 12, episodes 1-5): This must be the worst quality drop from one season to the next in the history of Doctor Who. The previous one with the new Doctor was pretty great, or so I remember; this is a clusterfuck with the notable exception of the fifth episode, which was pretty good, and gives me some hope that the quality may recover. (C)

Don’t Fuck with Cats: Hunting and Internet Killer (miniseries): I watched the first episode and a bit of the second but these true crime shows are not for me.

Little America (season 1): I loved this so much; this show was almost engineered to make me cry in its final minutes. Yes, the stories are a bit too sweet and a bit too idealized sometimes but I don’t care. I’m glad that season 2 was already ordered. (A)

Messiah (season 1): This was not nearly as bad as the critics (mostly) panned it and overall I mostly enjoyed it. It’s a decent exploration of faith. If it gets a second season, I’ll watch that. (B+)

Sex Education (season 2): This will definitely go on my “Best of Media, 2020” list, and ranked much higher than its previous season. I wrote more about it in detail here with spoilers. Without spoilers: this season is better than the already good first one and it’s filled with wonderful characters I love and care for and manages to give justice to the existing ones while introducing a few more into the mix. Season 3 is almost a sure thing, thankfully. (A)

Star Trek: Short Treks (episode “Children of Mars”): This was fine. (B)

Star Trek: Picard (season 1, episodes 1-2): I was really looking forward to this but so far this is a letdown. Clumsy exposition, worse than usual pseudoscience, questionably decisions in the pilot and so on. I’ll keep watching it and hope it improves, but I might lower my expectations a bit. (C)

The Good Place (season 4, episodes 10-13): Let’s face it, this final season was probably the weakest. And yet it gave us one of the strongest episodes ever (episode 9, the one about Chidi) and ended on an almost perfect note; I was close to crying more than once. Overall I’m satisfied. (A-)

The Magicians (season 5, episodes 1-3): Look this show is a mess, it was always a mess and I know I keep using this phrase but it’s a loveable mess. I love these characters so much and I will be watching it until it gets canceled. In these first three episodes, they took a complex topic and explored it well and I can’t wait for the rest. (A-)

The Witcher (season 1): I mean, this is also a loveable mess in a way I just wish the first few episodes weren’t so information-dense with next to no exposition; I had to read recaps to make sense of the whole thing. Someone described it as “Xena/Hercules meets Game of Thrones cover band” and honestly that’s pretty accurate. It has a lot of potential, though, so we’ll see what the next season brings. (B)

UnREAL (season 1; season 2 episodes 2-8): You think you’ve seen TV shows about despicable people? Go watch the first season of UnREAL because it takes this genre to a whole new level. A trashy show about a producing a trashy reality show; deeply broken and traumatized people doing everything they can and then some to exploit and manipulate other, even more broken and traumatized people. The second season is starting to get a bit tired, though and I don’t know if I’ll stay for its final two ones. (A-; B)

You (season 1 and 2): I really enjoyed the first season but the second one is more of the same and eventually I could not handle being in the protagonist’s head anymore, it was just too much toxic masculinity for me, even if that’s the whole point of the show. I read the recaps for the rest of the season and, I mean, wow. Not gonna say anything else. And I’m definitely not watching the third season if that happens. (A-; B-)

I’ve been blogging about the things I’ve been watching almost all year (here’s the latest one, with links to all previous installments). As part of looking back at this year, below is a list of movies and TV shows I’ve enjoyed the most this year. Media that was released earlier but seen in 2019 and rewatches count as well. My post, my rules. Settle in; this will take a while. But it’ll be worth it.

Movies

I can’t really rank these because they are so diverse, so these are in just alphabetical order. They’re all great in their own ways and you should watch them.

Booksmart: The funny and smart teen movie of the year. I have some extremely minor gripes with it, but overall, I loved it.

Cruel Intentions: You couldn’t make this movie in 2019 for many reasons that become immediately obvious once you’ve seen it, so thank god they made it 20 years earlier. Pitch black teen comedy / drama, with great leads and a killer soundtrack. I loved almost everything about it.

Fast Color: An amazing superhero movie unlike any other, that is criminally unknown. Gives me hope that that this genre can contain multitudes.

Free Solo: One of the best documentaries I’ve seen in 2019, hands down.

General Magic: The other great documentary this year about the company you probably didn’t know about and yet influenced all the computing devices and gadgets you have today.

Good Boys: This was my laughing-out-loud-during-the-whole-time movie this year. It’s fucking hilarious with some really smart writing.

Long Shot: I guess this is more of an honorable mention, but really, who would have thought that Seth Rogen could make a smart and raunchy comedy in 2019? That’s good? Not me. And yet. It’s good.

Spotlight: A great movie about journalists doing their jobs and being great at it. Pure competence porn. Proves that you can make Oscar-bait but also make it actually good.

Toy Story 4: I really didn’t expect this to be one of my favorite movies this year but here we are. Possible the best one in the series. But like, Disney, don’t tempt fate by trying to make a fifth one.

Yesterday: I almost passed on this, and then watched it one day anyway and was so pleasantly surprised. It’s a great Richard Curtis movie (the guy who made Love Actually and About Time, for example.) How you feel about this will largely depend on how you feel about his other movies, and that’s all I’m going to say. I loved it.

Wag the Dog: A great black comedy in itself, but it becomes legendary once you watch it and learn that it was released a month before the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which makes it downright prophetic.

What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Deep Space Nine: I love Star Trek: Deep Space 9 and despite its faults, this documentary is a must-watch for anyone who’s a fan.

When Harry Met Sally…: Arguable the OG romcom of the modern era, that still holds up 30 years later. Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Nora Ephron, Rob Reiner — they are all great individually, but all of them together made something special.

Anime

I didn’t watch much anime at all this year. I tried out a couple of shows but never got into them. That being said I did a rewatch of Kimi No Na Wa and it’s still a great movie.

TV shows

Okay, so I’ll break this down into a couple of lists, because boy did I watch a LOT of television this year. First is a top 20 of things I’ve seen in 2019 and was released this year and/or it had a season released this year:

1. Russian Doll (season 1): An amazing show about trauma, connection, growing and so many other things. I wrote about it in detail with spoilers here. The second season is coming and I’m both excited and worried about it, but I think trust its creators enough not to fuck that up.
2. The End of the Fucking World (season 2): An amazing show about trauma, connection, growing and so many other things. Yes, I’m repeating myself. There are so many parallels between TEOTFW and Russian Doll, even though they are very different; I love them both and I thought about it a lot and I can’t decide which one would deserve the first place this is only in second place because markdown is stupid. This show managed to pull off a second season that’s possibly better than the first one; one I didn’t think it needed a second season the first place. I wrote about it a bit more without spoilers here.
3. Fleabag (seasons 1 and 2): Everything Phoebe Waller-Bridge touches turns to gold, and this is no exception. Another show about, yes, you know it, trauma, connection, growing and so many other things. So fucking good in every possible way.
4. The OA (seasons 1 and 2): Hey did you know that Netflix’s business strategy is canceling shows after two, or, at best, three seasons? That’s precisely what happened to The OA which was by far the most mind-bending thing I’ve seen this year. It’s gonna fuck with your head and then fuck with it a lot more, and you’ll enjoy it. And then it’s canceled because fuck Netflix. It’s still worth watching, though.
5. You’re The Worst (season 5): The final season of the best American fucked up couple on television. I’m still mad at its creators for mercilessly toying with my feelings until almost the last second, but it pays off tremendously. They pulled off a perfect ending, in every possible way. Kudos.
6. Chernobyl (miniseries): It’s brutal. You know from the start it’s not gonna end well. You know history (at least the basics). And yet, it’s five hours of great television, created by the guy who wrote *checks notes* The Hangover 2 and 3. People truly contain multitudes.
7. Catastrophe (season 4): The very likely final season of the best half-American, half-Irish fucked up couple on television. In each season the show got better and better and it ended on a high note.
8. Bonding (season 1): Short and sweet and heartwarming and funny, not at all what you’d expect at first. I really hope it somehow gets another season.
9. Succession (season 2): Part of me wanted to rank this higher but there were so many other good things this year. Still, the sophomore season of Succession was a great watch. Team Shiv for life.
10. The Morning Show (season 1): I’ve said this many times and I’ll say it again. Is this a good show? Eh, not really. Is it an entertaining show? with a few exceptions, extremely. And that’s why I love it.
11. Euphoria (season 1): This gave me all the feels, in many ways. I loved it, but I am worried if they can keep up the quality of the show. We’ll see next year.
12. High Maintenance (season 3): This show about the nameless weed delivery guy in New York started on Vimeo and eventually migrated to HBO. It delivers consistently great episodes with very human stories. In its latest season, the protagonist plays a slightly more prominent role than usual, but not to the detriment of the rest. I hope they’ll keep going for many more seasons.
13. The Mandalorian (season 1): If I put aside the fact that Baby Yoda is extremely cute — and he really is — there were only three episodes I liked this season (4, 6, 8). But those three were genuinely good and the last one makes me excited about what’s coming next.
14. Star Trek: Discovery (season 2): Woo boy, this was a mess, especially when they change showrunners mid-season. It was, however, pretty good overall, and it’s still the best second season any Star Trek show ever produced, with the possible exception of DS9.
15. Easy (seasons 1-3): Loosely connected stories of people in various stages of life and love in Chicago, done really well. I liked it a lot.
16. Tales of the City (2019 miniseries): So I watched this without even really knowing the previous series existed, but I still enjoyed it a lot. It’s a mess, but a very lovable mess.
17. Unbelievable (miniseries): This is an emotionally hard watch, especially the first two episodes, but it’s worth it. Great leads and a good story.
18. When They See Us (miniseries): The other hard watch; even if you know the story and know how it ends, it’s still brutal.
19. The Good Place (season 4, eps 1-9): This only gets on this list because of episode 8 and 9. The latter is a masterpiece that made me cry. But why did I have to suffer through 7 mediocre-at-best episodes first?
20. Silicon Valley (season 6): This show overstayed its welcome and the final season was uneven and mostly forgettable — except the series finale, which was really well done and very satisfying, so it gets to be on this list.

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A few more honorable mentions from this year:

Broad City (season 5): I feel like Broad City also overstayed its welcome but its final season was still pretty good.

Sex Education (season 1): This was pretty good, I just couldn’t find a place for it among all the other good shows. Season 2 is coming really soon.

Counterpart (season 2): The second season was uneven, even though the actors and the characters were great; but the writing didn’t quite live up to it. It got canceled, but it does have an ending.

Killing Eve (seasons 1 and 2): Look, the first season is almost a masterpiece; Phoebe Waller-Bridge was the showrunner and was involved heavily otherwise, and both Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh are great leads. But the quality drops sharply in season 2 and it ends in a way that undermines a lot of things it was building up towards which just pissed me off. I’ll still watch the next season; maybe it improves again.

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The show that I never rank but I love: Patriot Act which is always great, the best news entertainment show on TV right now. Check out the Deep Cuts on Youtube as well.

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Still with me? I’ve got a few more shows that I watched this year but were released earlier.

The Leftovers (seasons 1-3): I could write several pages about this show. The first season is extremely solid already, but the second one is one of the best seasons ever created in the history of television. The show is very overwhelming emotionally; I ugly-cried after the season 2 finale. But it was totally worth it. Season three is a mixed bag, and part of things the whole thing would have been better off being canceled after the second one. But it wraps things up in a way that’s very on-brand for The Leftovers and is ultimately worth watching.

Crashing (miniseries): A quick, funny show from Phobe Waller-Bridge from 2016. It should be binged in one sitting and you’ll be very satisfied.

Schtisel (seasons 1 and 2): This Israeli show was created a few years ago but it really blew up this year when Netflix picked it up. It’s complex with a great ensemble of characters. The writing is very uneven but I can’t help but love the show. It’s very different from what one’s used to with Western television. Thanks to its newfound popularity, a third season is now in the works.

Goliath (seasons 1-3): Billy Bob Thornton plays a mostly-high-functioning alcoholic down-on-his-luck lawyer, and he plays him brilliantly. Each season has a different feel to it; my favorite is probably the first one, but the second one was pretty great too. It gets uneven oftentimes, and some characters are criminally underused (particularly her daughter). I stopped watching the third season after a few episodes because it was too horror-ey for me. It’s coming back for its final season sometime in the future; I’ll check it out.

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And finally, the greatest disappointments of the year in no particular order (but I’ll definitely start with GoT first):

Game of Thrones (season 8): I mean. Looking back, things really started going off rails after they ran out of the books after season 5, but I think everyone kept making excuses for the show — including me — and hoped that the final season will be a worthy payoff. So much for that. We did get like two goodish episodes (the first two) but the rest is just, ugh. So bad. Not to mention you couldn’t see shit during the dark scenes and then they kept doubling down on that.

See (season 1): This show was never good to begin with, even though it had a really strong and unique concept. Any sort of hope I had after the first three episodes that things would get better got quickly disproved and it just kept going downhill. A shame.

The Expanse (season 4): Much of this was table setting for Season 5 — which is happening — with frustrating storylines, characters acting out of character and a very one-dimensional villain. I hope they do better next year.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (season 3): Yet another show with a season that was all over the place. It had its good parts but a fair amount was less than stellar. And then they shit the bed in the final 15 minutes. I don’t have high hopes for the next season, but I’ll check it out.

The Magicians (season 4): It was an uneven season but I will never get past the season finale and what they did there. It feels off and it feels wrong and it still makes me angry.

Veronica Mars (season 4): Ugh, yikes. This season was already weak and then they made things a whole lot worse in the final episode. Shouldn’t have been surprised given that the movie was not great either.

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If you’re still reading, thank you and I salute you; please leave a comment so I know there are people who appreciate 2380 words about stuff I watch. This was a good year for movies but an especially great one for television. We’ll see how 2020 will go.

I’ve had friends over two days ago and we got to talk about podcasts, so I figured I’d take stock and see what I’m listening to these days. I’m subscribed to 98 podcasts in PocketCasts, but the ones that are in active rotation are a fraction of that. I usually listen to podcasts when I went to bed because I need some sort of noise to fall asleep more often than not.

Some of these are also radio shows (like the ones by NPR, among others) but I’ll just refer to most of them as podcasts for simplicity’s sake. Quotes mean I took the description from directly the source.

Ongoing

• 30 for 30: “Original audio documentaries from the makers of the acclaimed 30 for 30 film series, featuring stories from the world of sports and beyond." Look I don’t care much about sports but so many of these stories are incredible.
  Episode to start with: OUT OF THE WOODS.
• 99% Invisible: “Design is everywhere in our lives, perhaps most importantly in the places where we’ve just stopped noticing. 99% Invisible is a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture. From award winning producer Roman Mars."
  Episode to start with: 367- Peace Lines.
• David Tennant Does a Podcast With…: “David Tennant gets talking with the biggest names from TV, movies, comedy and elsewhere. Revealing conversation, surprise stories and lots of laughs." I’m not much for the celebrity interview genre but this one is an exception because almost all of these interviews are exceptionally good.
  Episode to start with: Olivia Colman.
• Extremities: “Why and how people live in earth’s most isolated and extreme settlements." Each season is about a different place: Pitcairn Island, Svalbard and Saint Helena in its latest season. It’s made by the guy who makes the Wendover Productions youtube videos.
  Episode to start with: Arrival on Pitcairn.
• Friendshipping: “Every week Jenn & Trin answer your questions about friendship." It’s a great podcast but it’s the one I put on when I really want to fall asleep; for some reason, it really does it for me.
  Episode to start with: any, really.
• Heavyweight: Stories of people who lived with regrets for years or even decades and want to find out what happened, or how to fix it. Its 4th season is the best so far, where almost every story is amazing.
  Episode to start with: #30 The Marshes.
• Hi-Phi Nation: “Hi-Phi Nation is philosophy in story-form, integrating narrative journalism with big ideas."
  Episode to start with: The Precrime Unit.
• Hidden Brain: “Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships."
  Episode to start with: Spoiler Alert.
• Invisibilia: “Unseeable forces control human behavior and shape our ideas, beliefs, and assumptions. Invisibilia—Latin for invisible things—fuses narrative storytelling with science that will make you see your own life differently."
  Episode to start with: Post, Shoot.
• Lingthusiasm: “A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics by Gretchen McCulloch (All Things Linguistic) and Lauren Gawne (Superlinguo). A weird and deep conversation about language delivered right to your ears the third Thursday of every month." If you support their patreon, you also get a bonus episode each month which I highly recommend.
  Episode to start with: 26: Why do C and G come in hard and soft versions? Palatalization.
• Planet Money: “The economy explained." They are an incredible content machine, with almost a 1000 episodes, all of them pretty good.
  Episode to start with: #905: The Chicago Boys, Part I.
• Punch Up The Jam: “What if the greatest hits could be …greater? Every Thursday, comedian/musician…Miel…Bredouw…teams up with a special guest to revisit, review and revise the songs of our yesterdays, yestermonths or even (dare we) yesteryears." This was co-hosted by the amazing Demi Adejuyigbe up till recently.
  Episode to start with: “Africa” by Toto (w/ Zach Reino and Jessica McKenna) but also, “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker Jr. (w/ Open Mike Eagle & Neil Cicierega) which was recorded live at XOXO 2019.
• Reply All: "‘A podcast about the internet’ that is actually an unfailingly original exploration of modern life and how to survive it."
  Episode to start with: #149 30-50 Feral Hogs.
• The Boring Talks: “Behind every boring subject is another layer of boringness you could have never imagined." This show is the podcast version of the Boring Conference, something I’ve been to twice already and plan on going this year as well. A lot of the episodes are adopted from past talks.
  Episode to start with: #39 - Doormats.
• The Dream: The first season of this show explored the world of MLMs; the second season goes into all things wellness.
  Episode to start with: S1 E1: Wanna Swim in Cash?
• This American Life: A radio show going for almost 24 years now, with the most fascinating stories. It’s one of the most popular podcasts in the world, and it deserves that spot: a lot of other people in radio/podcasting started their carrier here. Each week they have a certain theme broken into several “acts”.
  Episode to start with: 24 Hours at the Golden Apple.
• Throughline: Exploring a current story through the lens of the past because history really likes repeating itself.
  Episode to start with: The Grid.
• You’re Wrong About…: “Mike and Sarah are journalists obsessed with the past. Every week they reconsider an event, person or phenomenon that’s been miscast in the public imagination." This is one of my favorite podcasts right now and I am so glad I saw them live and got to meet them at XOXO 2019.
  Episode to start with: Tonya Harding Part 1.

Limited/completed shows

• Alone: A Love Story: “Alone: A Love Story is an award-winning memoir by Michelle Parise. With candour and humour, Michelle delves into the deepest, darkest aspects of her divorce and her new life as a part-time parent, part-time partier." This is a complete series with three seasons. You’ll either love it or hate it. Or both.
  Episode to start with: Chapter 1: Not if, how.
• The Heart: “The Heart is an audio art project and podcast about intimacy and humanity." I’ve only listened to one episode so far but I will very likely go through its back catalog.
  Episode to start with: Pansy: Twirl.
• Launch: “Three out of five people dream of writing a book. Maybe you’re one of them. But what does it take to go from dream to launch? Screenwriter John August (Go, Big Fish, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory) sought to find out as he tackled something he’d only ever dreamed of: writing a novel. From Wondery, A Network Of Storytellers, this is a show about putting something out into the world. How will it turn out? You’ll know when we do." This was a limited series, but very much worth listening to.
  Episode to start with: A Boy in The Woods | 1.
• Startup: Startup chronicled (among other things) how Gimlet Media, one of the major podcast companies started five years ago. Its final season deals with its acquisition by Spotify.
  Episode to start with: Introducing StartUp: The Final Chapter
• The Chernobyl Podcast: A limited companion podcast for the TV show. Hosted by Peter Sagal, he talks with the show’s creator Craig Mazin about each episode.
  Episode to start with: 1:23:45.

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Whew! That’s a lot. I hope you’ll find something you like.

Here’s a bunch of television I’ve been enjoying recently.

Russian Doll: This was the highlight of recent times: 8 episodes of pure fun, with a proper ending. It’s best watched not knowing anything about it but here are the first five minutes: Nadia leaves her birthday party, and on the way home gets hit by a taxi, and dies. The next moment Nadia is back where the episode started, alive and well, on her own birthday party. It’s up on Netflix.

Star Trek: Discovery (Season 2): I’ve only seen three episodes of the new season so far but all of them have been great and I very much like this new take on Star Trek. The fact that it’s a prequel to The Original Series bothers me, though, because they could have had a lot more creative freedom and do less retconning if it would be set in another universe. It’s also up on Netflix or CBS All Access if you’re in the US.

Hanna (pilot): This is based on the excellent movie of the same name. Hanna is raised in the forest by his father in isolation, training her to be self-sufficient and strong, because someone in the CIA is hunting them for Reasons we don’t know yet. The pilot shows a lot of promise, but we’ll have to wait until March to see the rest. It’s up on Amazon Prime Video.

Strike Back (Season 5): A big, dumb action series about Section 20, a black ops group of MI6, saving the world, or at least parts of it. The writers’ contract mandated at least two machine-gun fights per episode. It’s… okay at best, I won’t be watching Season 6.

Counterpart (Season 2): Just before the end of the Cold War, scientists in East Germany discovered a parallel universe, a clone of theirs. In present day, Howard is working as a low-level bureucrat at the UN, overseeing the connection between those worlds, too low on the food chain to know what his actual work is about. Until one day, his “other” shows up, demanding to speak with him…
Season 2 has one episode left but so far the series shows no signs of getting boring or tired. Highly recommended.

The Good Place (Season 3): This has been quite a ride, huh? The first part of the season is a bit disorganized but it gets better as they go along and boy did they put on hell of a season finale. Can’t wait for Season 4. If you haven’t seen this series, check it out and don’t read anything about it, because spoilers can ruin at least half the fun. Should be up on Netflix in Europe.

The Punisher (Season 2): I loved the first season, but I quit this season after four episodes. The antagonist of Season 2 is just really, really bad. If you can get past that, it’s on Netflix.

What have you been watching lately?

I got sucked into “real” board games about a decade ago. Some of my newfound friends from Twitter were into them, so we got together one night and started playing Catan, the gateway drug to the board game world.

Catan isn’t bad, per se; it’s just there are so many games that are much better than it, so we moved on to other games. After my move to Sweden, for a couple of years, I didn’t have too many friends to play with. In my last year there I’ve found a board gaming group and played regularly with them for a while, discovering many new games and making new friends. Since I moved back to Hungary, I haven’t played much but I want to change that this year.

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Here’s a non-exhaustive list of games I enjoyed over the years and still enjoy many of them:

• Race for the Galaxy (and its expansions): A card game, in which you’re each building your own galactic civilization, with different planets, goods, capabilities and so on. It took years of regular play to finally get bored with it; it’s that good. The mechanics are not complicated, but it does have a learning curve. We tried teaching it to a lot of people over the years, and it was interesting to see how fast some people learned, while others kept struggling with it and never really got a hang of it. While luck does play a role in it, the better you get at it, the less it matters. The base game doesn’t have much interaction between the players — whoever had the most points at the end of the game, wins — but the expansions do add some.
• Bang: A spaghetti western in a card game. Each player takes one of the four distinct roles: Sheriff, Deputy, Outlaw or Renegade. The Sheriff and their Deputies want the Outlaws and the Renegade dead, the Outlaws want to kill the Sheriff and the Renegade wants to be the last person standing. Only the Sheriff’s role is known, it’s up to you to guess who’s playing who. Spoilers: everyone will keep insisting they’re the Deputy.
  You shoot at each other, dodge bullets, hide behind barrels, drink beer to get back life points… It has quite a bit of luck in it, but that never gets in the way of having fun, and you can play it with up to 8 people.
• Agricola: You’re a farmer with a spouse, and you’re building your own farm, through 14 distinct rounds. You sow and reap crops, build fences, buy animals, expand your house and your family throughout the game. Like Race for the Galaxy, it’s kind of a multiplayer solitaire, but it’s a lot of fun. The only downside of it is that it takes about 15 minutes or so to set it up and even more to pack things away.
• Love Letter: Best played with 4 players, this game consists of only 16 cards and a bunch of heart tokens. You’re a young lover, trying to win the affection of the princess. There are 8 different kinds of cards in the small deck and the game is mostly about being able to correctly guess who has which cards. It has quick, 5-10 minute rounds, so you usually play a bunch of them.
• Codenames: This is the best party game, hands down. Two teams are working on finding their picks on a 5x5 grid of words. Each side has one Codemaster, who knows which words belong to their group and wants them to guess right: the only thing they can say is a one-word clue and a number. So if the table has “Athens,” “Berlin” and “France,” and all those cards belong to their team, they can say “Europe, 3”. It’s that simple, and yet this was an easy and unlikely example; more often than not you’re lucky if you can connect two words. Best played with 6-10 people. It’s been translated to a bazillion languages there’s even one where you have drawing instead of words.
• Someone Has Died: I played this game at XOXO 2018 and fell in love with it within minutes. It’s an improvisation storytelling card game: one person takes the role of the Estate Keeper, who the rest of the players will have to convince that they deserve all that money the recently deceased had. Everyone gets a role, a relationship to the deceased and two story cards. In the first round, you proceed with your introduction, weaving your cards into the your story. It has four distinct rounds, and the winner is the person who is deemed to have been the most convincing by the Estate Keeper. If storytelling games are your thing, you’re gonna have loads of fun with this one.
• Sushi Go!: This is a draft-and pass game: you deal a certain amount of cards, pick one and pass your hand to the next person until they’re all on the table. It’s fast, and it’s fun: each card has a type of sushi and a given amount of points; many of them only give you points when you have more than one of them, or combine them in a particular order. Best of all, the graphics are really cute. There’s a new version, called Sushi Go Party! with even more cards and support for up to 8 players (the original only goes up to 5).
• Kingdom Builder: One of the most versatile board games I’ve ever played. You have a board, made of hexagons, which you build out of four randomly picked tiles. Your primary objective is to build settlements and build your kingdom. However, the three ways of getting points are drawn from a deck and therefore each game requires wildly different strategies.
• Pandemic: A co-op eurogame in which you work together with everyone against the game itself, to stop a global pandemic killing humanity. Each player gets role with distinct powers. It’s fun and it can be quite challenging as well; the game lets you pick the difficulty.
  You can’t talk about Pandemic without mentioning Pandemic Legacy, a version of the game in which you play 12 to 24 games total, while the game changes in permanent ways. You name viruses, you tear up cards and so on. This requires you to have a regular, dedicated group of friends, but if you have those, it’s heaps of fun, I’ve been told. There are even two seasons of it out by now.
• Fury of Dracula: Scotland Yard on steroids. One player takes the role of Dracula, moving around in Europe invisibly and building up an army of vampires, while everyone else is hunting him. Working against the clock, you have to be wise and try to find and defeat him. It’s a bit long (about 2-3 hours), but don’t let that deter you.

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What are your favorite board (or card) games?

Newsletters are the new blogs, they say, and I hope not because I hate getting email. And yet there is ~content~ in newsletters, good content, so here’s a few that I subscribe to and like.

• Charged - I guess this one needs no introduction to this community ;)
• The week that was - Ian Kennedy’s once-a-week newsletter with usually ten links to interesting, unusual stories from all over the world. Anything from someone winning a vacation to Winnipeg, Canada to punishing a San Francisco developer’s illegal demolition by forcing the guy to rebuild the exact replica of the building. [archives]
• Jenny Shen’s newsletter - I met Jenny (and recorded a podcast with her!) at XOXO 2018. She writes about design, her life, being a PoC in technology and everything in-between.
• Laura Olin - Another XOXO alum, sending out interesting things from all over the internet once a week. She has an interesting perspective on things. She also has a list of job opportunities in the media at the end of every newsletter. [archives]
• Nicole Knows - This is The Toast alum Nicole Cliffe’s newsletter, do yourself a favor and follow her on twitter immediately as well. It’s a mix of fun and weird Reddit threads and skincare. [archives]
• NextDraft - A daily newsletter from Dave Pell, managing editor of the Internet. A mix of US politics and interesting random things. [archives]
• Things That Have Caught My Attention - by Dan Hon. An irregular newsletter with Dan’s thoughts on a variety of issues, and the occasional weird fiction. It’s long, but it’s worth reading. [archives]
• The Shatner Chatner - By The Toast (and XOXO) alum Daniel Mallory Ortberg. A mix of fiction and just plain weird but fun stuff. [archives]
• The Web Is OK - By Aaron Gilmore, XOXO alum, coming in your inbox once a few with a few interesting stories from the web. [archives]
• Leah Finnegan’s newsletter - Leah, from The Outline writes mostly personal essays, and they are all pretty great. Check out her latest one about Envy. [archives]
• Jenn Schiffer’s newsletter - Last but not least, Jenn Schiffer’s newsletter never disappoints. Hard to put it in a box. It’s wacky, and it’s fun. [archives]

What are yours?

I was planning to possibly dive into the YearCompass, I even put it on my todo list to print it out and take it with me to my favorite coffee shop, but I forgot to look at my todo list. Ah, the joys of ADHD. They do have a PDF that you can do electronically, but it’s not a great user experience.

I binged on the first season Condor yesterday, and I have to say it was a pretty fun spy thriller. I’m looking forward to Season 2.

Before that, I watched the first season of Impulse, which is, uh, I guess inspired by one of my favorite Sci-fi books, but they only took the fundamental concept of the book and made into a pretty good teen drama, with this season focusing primarily on sexual assault and its effects.

I got a kick out of the first season of Succession which is cut from the “despicable rich people prestige TV” genre (see also: Billions). Pretty much everyone in it terrible in their own different entertaining ways, with no real heroes and yet you find yourself rooting for people.

Do yourself a simple favor and check out A Simple Favor (sorry) if you haven’t seen it in the theaters: it was one of the most fun movies I saw in 2018. I hesitate to say anything about it as it is one of those movies that is best enjoyed going in knowing nothing about it; even stating its genre is a possible spoiler in my book, so you’re just gonna have to trust me on that one.

Oh, and the Big Fat Quiz of The Year 2018 is out, which is an annual TV event of mostly British comedians being funny while pretending to play a quiz. It has two-thirds of The IT Crowd and also Michelle Wolf, among others.

Onwards to 2019!