My Favorite Things This Week #96

Peak TV Is Suddenly Wildly Out of Control

Silo is back, baby! Apple TV

Every Friday I share 5 things I enjoyed this week. Also, high fives are inherently cool, and I think we can all agree Friday is the bestest day. Hence the Friday High 5. 🙏🏻

One of the most painful parts of being a pop culture aficionado is there’s just too much stuff to see. I have to prioritize my entertainment, which feels like a very Corporate America kind of thing, and thus not the most fun. Though now I’m imagining a world in which under-performing shows could be put on a Personal Improvement Plan (PIP, a real thing), which might’ve saved Halo from an ignominious cancellation.

This is a years-long “problem,” but the past 2 weeks have been the most egregious I can recall. Here’s all the “holy crap, I need to see this” shows that are now streaming:

• Silo: Season 2

• Cobra Kai: Season 6 Part 2

• Yellowstone: Season 5 Part 2

• Dune: Prophecy (premieres Sunday)

• Arcane Season 2

• Bad Sisters: Season 2

This doesn’t include season 2 of Shrinking, which came out 4 weeks ago. And we’re obviously completely ignoring the box office. Frankly, I don’t even know what’s playing, which is a whole nother thing.

I didn’t realize there was gonna be a second season of Bad Sisters. When did that happen? I’m delighted but also a bit gobsmacked, and a little annoyed that it’s dropping at the same time as everything else I wanna see. I will get to it, eventually, but maybe not until after the holidays.

I can’t advise you how to live your best TV life. For me and my household, we will watch Silo and Dune.

Quick plug: Last year I addressed many of the open questions raised by Silo because misinformation was rampant.

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The Penguin

I’m going to keep this brief because I’m working on a piece about the show already, and I’m going to be discussing it with Sheila Moeschen on the podcast.

D&D Triple Date: Part 2

Roughly 2 months ago, two of my friends and I gathered with our wives in a basement to roll funny-shaped dice. (Yes, in a basement—sometimes stereotypes are cruel mockeries of reality, and sometimes they’re completely true.) It was the first time playing for two of the wives, and they liked it well enough that we basically immediately started talking about next time.

The hardest part of playing Dungeons & Dragons is not the rules or the inherent awkwardness of pretending to be an elf or a wizard—it’s finding time to play. So it was a minor miracle that we were able to journey again into imaginary realms so soon.

After the first session, the husbands decided we’d rotate story responsibilities, which meant I got to play this time. I’d introduced an elderly knight as a non-player character during the first session, and on a lark—because I thought it’d be funny—I decided he’d be my character. An 80-year-old with cataracts and a wispy crown of hair. I described him as medieval Joe Biden.

There are people who take D&D very seriously, approaching it like a kind of theater. I am not one of those people.

We were traveling overland on our way to glory and fortune and needed to camp overnight. In the morning, Sir Joe completed a spirited bit of yoga. In his long johns. Which had one of those butt flaps, but no buttons to keep it shut.

Downward dog has never been more disgusting. Or hilarious.

Not all the ideas were mine. People started throwing out suggestions and the collaborative improv became our canon.

That’s the magic of D&D.

80s Sex Comedies

It’s long been my intention to write a piece with a name like ‘Everything 80s Sex Comedies Taught Me About Love and Life’ but I kept putting it off because I couldn’t watch one crucial film. That’s since been rectified thanks to a squirrelly web site I stumbled across in my latest attempt.

In the past 2 weeks, I’ve rewatched Revenge of the Nerds, Weird Science, and Loverboy, three films that made young Eric (briefly) put down his action figures and realize that girls were actually pretty interesting. The most interesting, even.

Seeing these movies through much-older eyes has been bizarre. There are obviously problematic elements, and though I was braced to be retroactively embarrassed for myself, the shame never came. Instead, I was surprised by the nougat of earnestness that runs through all of them.

I'm working on an article about the experience, which will be coming to an internet near you.

The Knight Before Christmas (2019)

Our Christmas decorations are already up. I'd like to suggest it's because we have a fairly busy November and wanted to get ‘er done, but we tend to milk the season as long as possible. There’s something about a house softly lit by twinkling lights that will never not speak to me.

Sunday we did the bulk of the work and then celebrated with pizza and a Christmas movie my daughter picked. Netflix Christmas movies is a genre unto itself, in the same way that Hallmark Christmas movies are. Which is to say: low-budget drama-lite good cheer. They are objectively not-good. It’s the only time of year where I will happily watch bad movies. It’s not that I don’t recognize the flaws, I just can’t bring myself to be critical. The spirit of Christmas manifests differently for everyone.

The Knight Before Christmas is about a time-traveling British medieval knight (budget Jason London, aka Josh Whitehouse) who ends up in present day America. Taken by his old world chivalry, Vanessa Hudgens offers up her sofa. Which a single woman would obviously do if some guy in armor legitimately believed he was a knight. Yes, it’s an incredibly stupid premise. But it's one of the better Netflix Christmas movies. It's actually pretty funny. I was surprised at how much I laughed.

Here’s how much I like this movie: I was disappointed to discover there isn’t a sequel yet. Meanwhile, they somehow squeezed an entire trilogy out of A Christmas Prince.

I’ll be adding The Knight Before Christmas and any other new-to-me seasonal films to my ranking of the best and worst Christmas movies.

Only Murders in the Building: Season 4

We finally jumped into the newest season and I’m delighted to be back. Season 3 was fun but also a little crazy? There were some absurd sequences that felt more than a little indulgent and frankly strained my patience. After 2 episodes, I’m happy to report that the most outrageous thing is Oliver’s Oliver-ness is a bit toned down. I need more razzle-dazzle from my Oliver, who is obviously the best part of the show.

It’s interesting that the entire premise concerns death most gruesome, but the overall vibe is that of a consequence-free comedy. Millennial girl chums around with two Boomer dudes and hilarity transpires. It feels weird and maybe a bit wrong for this show to be so heartwarming when people around them are dying on the regular. I’m skeptical how many seasons they can keep running back the old playbook before they start jumping all the sharks, but miraculously it still works.

The hardest thing to believe is that nobody is trying to move out of the Arconia. Do New Yorkers consider rent control more important than not dying?

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Your Turn!

• Did you watch The Penguin? Thoughts?

• What’s the nerdiest thing you’ve ever convinced your significant other to try?

• What’s your favorite sex comedy?

• How many murders would it take to convince you to move?