Not Just Books: October 2023

While we do love us some books, believe it not, we do have a life outside of reading. So to highlight our other pop culture interests, on the last Monday of each month, we each will highlight three other “happenings” from the last month. Big events on favorite TV shows, new movies we’ve watched, old movies we’ve “discovered,” etc. Pretty much whatever we found of particular interest outside of the book world during the last month. Share your own favorite things in the comments!

Serena’s Picks

TV Show: “Great British Bake Off”

Yes, it is that time of year again! Time to sit back and relax and enjoy some cozy baking fun watching others making master pieces you’ll never accomplish yourself and scoff ridiculously when they fail as if you could ever do better. As you can see from the poster, this year there is a new host. You never quite know how new hosts will work out, but Alison Hammond has quickly won me over, bringing a high-energy spunk to the show. Of course, my husband and I have picked our two guesses for the winner, and I’m pleased to say that one of his is already out so I’m that much closer to making a come back from my failure last year! We have exciting lives, if you haven’t noticed.

Podcast: “Talkville”

I’m currently re-watching the last few seasons of “Smallville” as I do every few years it seems. I just don’t have it in me to put myself through the 7 seasons of Lana drama, so I always start on season 8 where Lois becomes a main character. That said, I do sometimes wish there was a way of re-visiting those older episodes without having to commit to the long haul. And luckily for me, there’s a re-watch podcast currently running hosted by Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum which is the perfect fix! I don’t have to actually re-watch the series, but I do get to revisit the show in this way. I do wish the hosts remembered a bit more about their experiences on the set, however, but I think I’m now just spoiled by the super high quality that is “Office Ladies.”

Paramount+ Show: “The Stand”

Yes, I’m late to the game, but when I was looking around for something appropriately creepy for the Halloween season, I figured now was the time! Somehow I remember my mom letting me watch the 90s version of this story way back when I was fairly little. I only have a few memories of the story, but I do remember being fairly creeped out. I also haven’t read the book, so in a lot of ways, this was completely fresh for me. I definitely enjoyed it (as much as you can for a creepy show like this) and thought the acting was phenomenal, especially Alexander Skarsgard as Randall Flagg. The success of a series like this really lives and dies by the performance of this character, and Skarsgard hit it out of the park, as far as I’m concerned.

Kate’s Picks

Netflix Show: “The Fall of the House of Usher”

There of course needed to be some spooky content on my media consumption agenda for the month of October, and we horror fans were blessed with the premiere of Mike Flanagan’s newest (and probably final) Netflix series, “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Flanagan is such a genius because in his mind he basically said ‘what if I combined Edgar Allan Poe with “Succession” and “Dopesick”?’, and from that we get this incredibly dark, disturbing, and bleak series that I just tore through. Meet the Ushers, the family at the head of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, which has come under fire for producing one of the most most addictive and deadly painkillers that has fueled the opioid crisis. As the trial starts, patriarch Roderick Usher’s six unscrupulous children start dying gruesome and perplexing deaths, perhaps because of a mysterious woman Roderick and sister Madeline met on a fateful night decades earlier. All of these new versions of the Poe tales, from “Tell Tale Heart” to “Murders in the Rue Morgue” to “The Black Cat” are SO damn creative. It’s great seeing some of Flanagan’s usual suspects (Carla Gugino, Kate Siegel, Bruce Greenwood to name but a few), but it’s Flanagan newcomer Mark Hamill as intimidating Usher lawyer Arthur Pymm that really stood out to me. This is such a clever reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, and it ends Flanagan’s Netflix collaborations on a high note.

Max Show: “Our Flag Means Death”

It felt like it took forever for some of my favorite queer pirates to come back, and when “Our Flag Means Death” Season 2 premiered there was much rejoicing in our house. This is one of the shows that my husband and I try to watch together, so we let a few episodes build up so we could binge them once our daughter was asleep for the night. Which led to a lot of impatience on my part because I just wanted to consume any episode as soon as possible. When we left off at the end of Season 1, Captain Stede Bonnet had separated from Blackbeard, leaving the latter heartbroken and then murderous with grief and rage. Now Stede has reconnected with his crew, and finds out that Blackbeard has gone completely crazy and kidnapped Frenchie, Jim, and others to serve under him. Stede hopes for a reconciliation, but Blackbeard may be too far gone. This show is still filled with lots of humor and lots of pathos, and with new characters like Chinese Pirate Queen Zheng Yi Sao and Irish Pirate Anne Bonny we have new faces along with the familiar ones. Interestingly enough, the character who has REALLY stood out for me is Izzy Hands, Blackbeard’s first mate who was portrayed in Season 1 as conniving, but has since gone THROUGH IT and is on a bit of a redemptive arc (and honestly, after seeing how Blackbeard reacted after Stede left, he may have had a point….).

Web Show: “Dimension 20: Dungeons and Drag Queens”

Recently my high school bestie Blake reached out and asked me if I wanted to join an online Dungeons and Dragons game with him and some of his friends, and while I had never played D and D in my life I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend time with him. But going in with little to no experience was daunting. Luckily, my close friend David is back in town, so our Sunday night LGBTQIA+ media tradition has started up, and he suggested we watch Dimension 20’s “Dungeons and Drag Queens” series, which would give me an amusing crash course! This limited series joins drag queens Jujubee, Bob the Drag Queen, Monet X Change, and Alaska Thunderfuck as they play D and D with Dimension 20/Dropout regular Brennan, and given that they are all amateurs it makes for informative and HILARIOUS content. Brennan is a very supportive and creative dungeon master who is helping these queens go on a quest to the underworld, and it leads to many fantastic moments of triumph and joy… as well as panic and chaos when things go wrong… sometimes because of very bad decision making on the queens’ parts. I don’t know how much I’ve LEARNED, really, but I do know that I haven’t died yet! So thanks, questing queens!