October Media
Welp, another light month. In Octobers past I could blame it on watching baseball and Halloween baking shows. I was totally out on baseball this year, and I gave up on the Food Network after last year’s disastrous shows.
My excuse is going to be I have a 7-10 day period coming up where I have to take it easy, so I’m saving the new season of Scrubs, The Diplomat, and some other stuff for that stretch.
Ted Lasso, season four. After an amazing first episode, which I knew would not be representative of what was to come, the rest of the season was…mid? Lazy? Sloppy? Needed an editor? It was such a mess that my critique of it is a mess, too. I could break down, in great detail, all the issues with this season. This season did not deserve that treatment, though.
The biggest that I will highlight is that it was all so predictable. I was able to accurately predict sooo many punchlines before they landed. Same with plot twists. To me it felt like there wasn’t a lot of care given to the writing, or perhaps it was just so unfocused that they often ended up on the most obvious finish because they never knew where they wanted to go? Some of the new characters had so much promise. But they were lost in the insistence of including nearly every old character. And those old characters got half-assed plot developments because the new folks needed to be accounted for.
Not a terrible season, but I have to accept that it will never reach the highs of season one again.
B
Slow Horses, season 6. Now this show did NOT fuck things up. Another pretty standard Slow Horses season, which means it was very solid from start to finish. Terrific final scene to set up season seven.
A
The Night That Panicked America. I first saw this when I was in high school, I think, and thought it was amazing. I watched it for maybe the third or fourth time ever this year, on Halloween night no less, a couple days after my annual listening to Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds. Turns out this is a terrible movie. Well, mostly terrible. The scenes that portray how Welles and his Mercury Theater troupe performed their radio play are quite interesting. But the rest of the movie, which shows people listening to the broadcast being sucked into believing Earth really was under attack by Martians? Woof. Poorly written and directed. Some truly atrocious acting. One plot twist that even accounting for different times I had to wonder how the hell it got approved for the final script. The only redeeming qualities are a young John Ritter and Meredith Baxter having major parts. And Casey Kasem was one of Welles’ featured players!
C
The War on Drugs Austin City Limits 2026. SWEET BABY JESUS!!!! This whole thing is great - other than a couple issues with the sound - but the last two songs, “Under the Pressure” and “Come to the City”, are utterly transcendent.
A+++
Why Finland Is the Happiest Country on Earth | Reindeer, Saunas & Wild Foraging | DIRT Finland. New DIRT host just dropped. The new dude isn’t bad, but has a ways to go to match Josh Rosen. But the film itself is up to the normal DIRT standards. Who’s up for a summer trip to Finland?
Surfing Alone in an Isolated Chain of Islands. Looks like I’m back to watching a few surf videos every month. This one isn’t your average surf vid.
The Dingo Fence | The Longest Fence in the World. “Maybe the dingo ate your baby.”