The Afterparty, Love-Hating The Gilded Age, SNL & Archive 81

What I'm Watching, Reading, & Listening To This Week

Greetings from this personified pile of wool socks and several fluffy blankets! I’m currently peering out from my swaddle at a snowy, bomb-cycloned city and just so thankful I have heat [very sorry to Cape Cod!] even if the heat keeps going into “defrost mode,” which to me feels like it had one job and it’s not going well.

They say the culture never sleeps but it’s the dead of January and I’m here to report the culture actually IS asleep and I can’t wake her up! She said, Sorry hunny, I’ll be back in April. She said, Go watch your silly little Seinfeld re-runs and learn to make your own damn meals! She said, That Sex and the City remake was all I had left in me and now I’m going to Tulum for some green juice and Me Time!

All that to say, has anyone else noticed there’s not much new stuff to watch right now? We live, we suffer. If you’re finding things to watch and enjoy, as always I’d love to hear your recommendations! How are you keeping the winter blues at bay?

Based off of Reader recs, I started All Creatures Great and Small [thanks, Heidi and Laura!] and Ghosts [thanks, Katie!]. I also thought about starting Too Hot to Handle Season 2 [thanks, Melanie!] but remembered that when I tried the first season, only half of the alleged “too” “hot” “to” “handle” people were actually hot! Hellooo, I’m not about to watch a show based on false advertising!!

Despite these champagne problems, I DID discover some last-minute shows to recommend and/or complain about — so here we go! But first, a break for science!

Science Corner

Y’all! As you’ve probably heard, NASA sent a new telescope into space and last week it arrived safely at its destination! Which is supposedly a very precise position in the neighborhood of the moon’s orbit. This feat was brought to you by MATH. As a person for whom math feels as predictable as Russian Roulette, I am gobsmacked. Just picture all those tiny robotic arms unfolding tiny robotic fingers unfolding giant robotic mirrors like a freaking TRANSFORMER in the middle of Space!!

It’s a big deal basically because this thing can see stuff unbelievably far away, which—because light takes so long to travel through space—means we’re actually seeing stuff unbelievably far BACK. As in, in TIME. As in, to The BEGINNING. As in, the Big Bang and all her friends, with the Father Son and Holy Spirit waving their magic wands along!! [Pretty sure that’s the exact science, kids.] WOW.

Watching - Three New TV Shows

Since I’ve been doing so much noncomittal browsing lately, I’m dividing up my “Watching” reviews into three separate genres. Pick your poison! [No movies because we’re taking a deep breath before plunging into Oscar season next week.]

Comedy - The Afterparty on AppleTV+

This is a sheer delight. Three epsidoes of eight are out so far and I loved them all wholeheartedly.

I’ve actually been looking forward to this one for while! When the trailer came out with that cast, we all were!! It’s an All-Star Lineup of the improv comedy world: Tiffany Haddish, Dave Franco, Ben Schwartz [aka Jean-Ralphio!], Sam Richardson [VEEP], Ilana Glazer [Broad City], Ike Barinholtz [The Mindy Project], Jamie Demetriou [Fleabag], John Early [Search Party], and more!

The concept is an Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery where—after a murder occurs at a high school reunion afterparty—detectives arrive, keep everyone in the house, and slowly interview each separate partygoer about their version of events.

Each episode is a different person’s story, and each is shot in the style of a different movie genre. So far we’ve had rom-com, action, musical — and who knows what’s next! Decider called Schwartz and Richardson’s chemistry “joy personified” and I can’t disagree!

Are eight episodes potentially going to drag eventually? Maybe. But so far so good!

Horror - Archive 81 on Netflix

This is number 2 on Netflix right now. It’s a horror story [based off of a fictional podcast of the same name] where a guy who restores old videotapes starts unraveling what seems to be, in technical terms, some freaky woo-woo demon sh*t. It’s your standard horror concept, executed pretty well, and I’m here for it!

I’m halfway through and it’s all I can think about when I lay my head gently to rest, so yeah you could say I’m enjoying it. It’s not SCARY scary, but I did watch it at home alone and can confirm I started seeing and hearing things that weren’t actually there. Do with that information what you will!

Period Drama - The Gilded Age on HBOMax

This is the new show by Julian Fellowes, of Downton Abbey fame.

First let’s get cards on the table: I did not expect to like this—and I don’t think I actually do. I quit Downton Abbey after the first season, and reviews of The Gilded Age are basically saying, “This isn’t as good as Downton Abbey.” So, you do the math.

After watching the first episode, here are some additional strikes against it:

• This is NOT prestige TV, but it kind of wants to be which is obnoxious.

• The acting is TERRIBLE. [Apart from a few key exceptions.]

• I have decided that all period dramas about Rich People set in the West from 1750-1925 need British accents or they just don’t work. I won’t be taking any questions at this time.

• The sets and costumes are gorgeous, but the outdoor scenes look like they’re on a soundstage in a megachurch with florescent lights and that harsh gray carpet designed to camouflage communion and potluck spills.

👏🏼 HOW 👏🏼 EV 👏🏼 ER 👏🏼

Against my free will and better judgment, and for no apparent reason other than that Carrie Coon is a veritable acting miracle [please see The Leftovers], I’m in! I MUST find out what happens next to Bertha Russell—and Bertha Russell only!!! May she dig her awkward, grasping, robber-baronness claws into all those fake charity ladies’ social capital and destroy them!!!! Amen.

You might say that caring about only one character in a cast of at least 12 primary characters is not a great start, and you would be right. So we’ll see how this goes.

[TL;DR - This show is NOT good, but Carrie Coon somehow IS.]

Saturday Night Live Highlights - Will Forte

I’m a week behind, but I was pleasantly surprised by the Will Forte episode! Not that I don’t like Will Forte but sometimes he’s almost too weird for my taste??? NOT THIS TIME, friends!

[This episode also featured Musical Guest Måneskin, who appear to be famous for doing a cover of an old song?? While Taylor Swift is out here hand-grinding her flour and making music from scratch??!?]

• Highlights: (1) The Guy Who Just Bought a Boat, with a fantastic twist, (2) The MacGruber sketches throughout, especially if you’re familiar with the character already and/or like skits that insult QAnon!, and (3) Bowen as Chen Biao on the Beijing 2022 Olympics.

• Lowlights: Michael Che continues to be a misogynist? And it’s fine with everyone??

Listening - Dolly Parton’s America podcast

I know, I know, this is old news. But it was America’s Vaccine Queen’s birthday last week and I realized I had never finished this series, and boy is it worth a re-listen!

I cried in nearly every episode because of what a beautiful, talented, brilliant, incredible, never-the-same, iconic, unique, not-ever-done-before-or-after person Dolly is! You learn so much about her life, about music, about the threads that connect us all across country, party, and cultural lines. It’s astonishing and will make you feel hope for humanity again. NBD.

Reading

• Colors: Where did they go? An investigation. - Vox (For anyone who has ever wondered why all the current movies and TV shows look like they were filmed with a Valencia filter?)

• Your Bubble is Not the Culture - The Atlantic (Offensive, I know.)

• Why You Can’t Resist Wordle - The New Yorker

• The Washington Post created a digital mini-golf game to illustrate how absurd gerrymandering is and I just spent way more time playing mini-golf on a news website than I ever dreamed possible. - The Washington Post

• The New York Times ALSO created a game to explain gerrymandering and it’s a more challenging puzzle but less fun. - The New York Times

That’s all I’ve got this week! I will be fervently praying for winter’s end and for more prestige content to reach our frozen shores. Don’t forget to drop a comment and share what you agree with, disagree with, or simply would love to share! See you next week. :)