Appointment Television is Back!
True Detective Season 4, Jacob Elordi on SNL, and more
Hi friends, I write to you from the cocooned hibernation of the mildly ill — pounding elderberry gummies beneath my queen-sized sherpa blanket, toggling between TikToks of Gen Z live-streaming their layoffs [horrific!! wish I could unsee!!] and search results for “do fever suppressants prolong colds” [answer: nobody knows!], and drinking enough tea to support an entire British regiment.
Some say there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes. Similarly, I say that having a cold sucks, but it sucks less if you’re the kind of person who is always angling for an opportunity to watch more TV without any latent Protestant guilt!
Thus, I’m very fortunate that the first “Appointment Television” show of the year — True Detective: Night Country — dropped at the same time as my viral infection!
Appointment TV is, like it sounds, the old-timey concept of a show that comes out one episode per week; something people plan their schedule around because they need to see what happens IN THAT MOMENT. It’s a cultural EVENT. Increasingly rare in today’s on-demand lifestyle.
[Though if you’re thinking, “That sounds a lot like NORMAL television,” you’re not wrong! You could say “appointment TV” is just what snobs call their shows to make it sound more important than, say, NCIS.]
The 9 p.m. ET Sunday night spot on HBO has kind of claimed the “Appointment TV” badge. [In fact, my friend Maddie dubbed it “HBO Sunday Night Cult.”] Succession, Game of Thrones, and The Last of Us are recent examples. And that coveted spot is now held by the 4th season of True Detective. My thoughts on the pilot later in this post!
Regardless of what us snobs consider to be “appointment TV,” is there anything on TV that you schedule your day or week around? That you make SURE to sit down and watch, either as it broadcasts, or soon after? I’m guessing reality TV and sports may be the only real appointment TV left, and I won’t judge you if it’s yours!
Tell us what you’re seated for!
In the News
Oscar nominations come out this Tuesday! Let the games begin!
The new White Lotus cast was announced, and as usual, features a veritable country club of white character-actors who will presumably be skewered as the wealthy vacationing elites, plus a smaller group of actors more local to the show’s setting, which, in this case, is Thailand. We’ve got Carrie Coon, Jason Isaacs, Parker Posey, Michelle Monaghan, the actual son of Arnold Schwarzenegger (!?), and, thank god, Natasha Rothwell is back to save us!
Kate Middleton went to the hospital for a “planned abdominal surgery” and canceled all her public events until Easter. The gasp I gusped! The royal family asked that we respect their privacy at this time, which unfortunately means I have spent hours on texts, DMs, and Google searches, applying the scientific method to painstakingly recreate the possible scenarios of what she went in for. Sadly, I have failed the “being above it” test.
The NFL playoffs are happening.* If you want a reason to care about the playoffs or just something to make you sound smart at your friend’s Super Bowl party, drop a comment, and I’ll give you an emotionally manipulative human-interest story for any one of the teams that are left! This is my specialty!
*[But Also: Go Lions! I may have been born in the bayou, but the lead-laced waters (too soon?) of Flint, Michigan, carried me through middle and high school, which means that Michigan loved me even through the Xanga/Livejournal/MySpace years and that’s a love that lasts, my friends.]
Saturday Night Live: Jacob Elordi, Renée Rapp, and a cameo from Rachel McAdams
Because I left Lying-As-A-Way-To-Gain-Cultural-Clout behind in my 20s, I must disclose: I haven’t watched it yet! But because I did NOT leave Having-An-Opinion-On-Things-I-Know-Nothing-About behind anywhere, I still have thoughts! Congrats to all of you for being here on my platform.
This is one of Ben and my “together shows,” and he was out of town this weekend, so I—dare we say, nobly—did not watch it without him. But I DID watch some highlights on Instagram and TikTok, which is not technically cheating and the best way to consume SNL if you’re not a die-hard fan anyway.
Anyhoo: it seems like they mail-ordered a narrative crutch called “Jacob Elordi is hot!” which can be played for great comedy but becomes overdone quickly. I DO thank them for mainstreaming the term “babygirl,” a word I’ve been explaining to friends for months as “When a grown man is so sexy in a way that makes grown women babble babytalk nonsense” and which Jacob Elordi embodies to a hilt.
I really LOL’ed at his impression of Travis Kelce!
Reneé Rapp is also having her STAR moment as Regina George in the new Mean Girls musical movie. She’s a pop star in her own right who you might know from The Sex Lives of College Girls [good, not great!]. Rachel McAdams, comedic genius and originator of the Regina George persona, also showed up in this episode! Mean girls™️ supporting mean girls™️!!
True Detective: Night Country
As I mentioned, Season 4 of True Detective is the new appointment television/HBO Sunday Night Cult [thank you, Maddie].
True Detective, like another fave of mine, Fargo, is an anthology show, meaning each season is completely separate from the others, with a whole different cast, storyline, setting, etc. The first season, starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson, dropped like a little bomb in the prestige TV world in 2014. It was outstanding. [Season 2 was a total dud that I didn’t even watch, and Season 3 was bad but had Mahershala Ali, so at least it wasn't a waste of my time.]
Now, after five years of absence, the show is back with a new showrunner and director, Issa López, and I’m gonna say it now: THE GOOD TRUE DETECTIVE IS BACK!!!! I may eat my words later since it’s just one episode, but I was intrigued.
Issa López is a huge piece of why I’m excited about this. She’s a protege of sorts of the great fantasy/horror filmmaker Guillermo del Torro, and she brings a delicious sense of fright to this new installment. In the pilot, we get the story of a group of scientists in the Arctic who disappear without a trace on the first day of winter darkness in Ennis, Alaska. A setup that has my mouth watering!
You know when you hear some crazy story that suggests aliens or a Bermuda Triangle or other inexplicable mysteries, and you deep-dive it on Wikipedia, and then it just turns out there’s a totally boring explanation like “there was rain” and you’re kind of bummed?
Well, López told Vanity Fair that she drew inspiration from real-life mysteries like the Mary Celeste [a ship that went missing and was found perfectly intact, but with no one on it] and the Dyatlov Pass incident [where nine hikers died in Russian mountains under extremely bizarre circumstances; also a Wikipedia entry I’ve read DOZENS of times]. There are plenty of humdrum, totally normal explanations for both of those incidents: a mutiny, an avalanche, etc. But López is among those of us who don’t like the humdrum explanations. She said that even if an avalanche did explain the Dyatlov Pass incident, “I prefer the strange, incomplete answer.”
Girl, ME, TOO!!! I didn’t binge-watch The X-Files after a bad breakup because I like things NEAT AND TIDY!!! I want to believe!!!
Anyway, the hook of True Detective is that it exists on that knife’s edge between standard crime procedural, ghost hunters, and the freakiest cult documentary you’ve ever watched. But what keeps you watching is the character development. It’s really all about the people — the pasts that haunt them, that make them trustworthy and untrustworthy, the nuance relationships between them, the beliefs and fears they all hold.
It’s great! If you like a really dark twisted show that might possibly have demonic stuff in it, that is!
[FYI: There’s a lot of suspicion online that this season is getting “review bombed” because a lot of original True Detective fans are mad that the leads are women and at least one of them is gay. It seems like that’s true looking at the high critic’s score and mediocre audience score, but we should also just give it time as more episodes are released.]
"I left Lying-As-A-Way-To-Gain-Cultural-Clout behind in my 20s-- But because I did NOT leave Having-An-Opinion-On-Things-I-Know-Nothing-About behind anywhere, I still have thoughts!"
✨THIS✨