Anu Recommends #6
What to Watch: TV edition, and a new-look website
Hi and welcome to another issue of the Storyteller! For those of you who sent out prayers last weekend, thank you—the women’s result (a 1-1 draw) definitely favoured Chelsea more than us, but the men’s, ooof. I’m still basking in how perfect it was. The Premier League juggernaut waits for nobody, though, and we’re back to nervy times versus old foes Manchester United later tonight. Feel free to refresh those prayers, please and thank you!
Now onto the good stuff.
I can finally share my revamped website with you all. I’ve been working on it for a good few months with Visual Web Media (who also designed the previous version), and am really happy with how it has turned out. Drop in at anushreenande.com, let me know what you think!
Firestick, Firestick on the Wall…
How many of you have plonked your good selves in front of the telly and spent what feels like hours (sometimes, actually so) trying to decide what to watch next—no, no, not that, but also, I don’t know, maybe I’ll just (finally) put on something I’ve already watched a million times?
It’s right up there among the worst (utterly first-world) feelings, especially when you’re all geared up to be swept away and immersed, but—Just. Cannot. Decide.—what you want.
Over the past year and a half, I’ve made sure to avoid this, by always having a multi-mood hopefuls list, similar to my books-to-read-next list. And I’m lucky that my parents and I have a very similar taste because it also serves as quality time we all cherish.
Here’s a list of the top 10 we’ve enjoyed since I moved back home. Now, most of these are comedies, first and foremost (some are cross-genre), because, well, that’s what we’ve needed amidst the general madness and fatigue of this post-pandemic (so to speak) world. But these shows have plenty of feels to feel, and forays into topics that are comfortably nestled under “heavy”.
Most of these also warrant more than the short paragraph (gleaned from their online synopses) you’ll find below. I will be delving deeper into them in future issues. If you have any particular preference for which ones you’d like to see me tackle first, drop me a line via email or a comment on here.
This is your two-minute curtain-raiser warning that the following section is this issue’s longest, so if you need to top up your beverage mugs, grab a snack, or take a bathroom break, now would be the time!
Schitt’s Creek (6 seasons)
Follows the trials and tribulations of the formerly wealthy Rose family. After their business manager embezzles the family business, Rose Video, the family loses its fortune and relocates to Schitt's Creek, a small town they once purchased as a joke. Now living in a motel, Johnny (Eugene Levy) and Moira (Catherine O'Hara)—along with their adult children, David (Dan Levy) and Alexis (Annie Murphy)—must adjust to life without wealth.
Ted Lasso (2 seasons, 3rd out in Spring 2023)
The series, a sports comedy-drama, follows Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis), an American college football coach who is hired to coach an English soccer team in an attempt by its owner to spite her ex-husband by covertly causing its failure. Lasso tries to win over the skeptical English market with his folksy, optimistic demeanor while dealing with his inexperience in the sport.
Season 3 excitement levels—max! (Is it just me or does the still below give off Death Star vibes?)
Derry Girls (3 seasons)
This British teen sitcom created and written by Lisa McGee was inspired by her own experiences growing up in Derry, Northern Ireland, in the 1990s, during the final years of the Troubles. It stars Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Louisa Harland, Nicola Coughlan (yes, indeed, this is where Penelope Featherington and *insert spoiler* of Bridgerton fame got her start), Jamie-Lee O'Donnell, and Dylan Llewellyn as five teenagers living in mid-1990s Derry while attending Our Lady Immaculate College, a fictional girls' Catholic secondary school based on the real-life Thornhill College, where McGee herself studied.
Only Murders in the Building (2 seasons, 3rd in production)
This American mystery comedy-drama follows three New York City strangers played by Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez, with a shared interest in true crime podcasts who join together to investigate a death in the affluent Upper West Side apartment building they all live in.
This has been quite the heady week for a Gooner who loves both Ted Lasso and Only Murders. THE Meryl Streep is going to be in season 3, not to mention Paul Rudd (already introduced at the very end of season 2). How is it possible to not be excited?
One Day at a Time (4 seasons)
An American sitcom based on the 1975 series of the same title, but reimagined with a Latino family. The show, featuring an ensemble cast starring Justina Machado, Todd Grinnell, Isabella Gomez, Marcel Ruiz, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Rita Moreno, revolves around a Cuban-American family living in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park—a single mother who is an Army veteran dealing with PTSD, her kids and her Cuban mother—and tackles issues like mental illness, immigration, sexism, homophobia, gender identity, and racism that Hispanic people living in the United States face.
The Gilded Age (1 season, 2nd season in production)
An American historical drama television series created and written by Julian Fellowes (of Downton Abbey fame) for HBO that is set in the United States during the Gilded Age, the boom years of the 1880s in New York City. A young woman (played by Louisa Jacobson-Gummer—who, I didn’t find out until after we finished season 1, is none other than Meryl Streep’s daughter with sculptor Don Gummer!) entering 1882 New York City's rigid social scene is drawn into the daily conflicts surrounding the nouveau riche Russell family and the established van Rhijn-Brook family, who are neighbors across 61st Street near Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Abbott Elementary (2 seasons)
This is an American mockumentary sitcom by Quinta Brunson. A documentary crew is recording the lives of teachers working in underfunded, mismanaged schools. One of the places they have decided to document is Philadelphia's Willard R. Abbott Elementary School, a fictional, predominantly Black, public school where most teachers do not last more than two years. Second-grade teacher Janine Teagues (played by Brunson herself) and history teacher Jacob Hill are two of three teachers in a group of twenty to make it past one year. They work with experienced kindergarten teacher Barbara Howard, second-grade teacher Melissa Schemmenti, tone-deaf school principal Ava Coleman, and recent substitute hire Gregory Eddie.
Superstore (6 seasons)
An American sitcom that follows a group of employees working at Cloud 9, a fictional big-box chain store in St. Louis, Missouri. It stars America Ferrera and Ben Feldman, and the ensemble and supporting cast includes Lauren Ash, Colton Dunn, Nico Santos, Nichole Sakura, Mark McKinney, and Kaliko Kauahi.
Fresh Off the Boat (6 seasons)
This series is loosely inspired by the life of chef and food personality Eddie Huang and his 2013 autobiography of the same name. (Huang also executive produced the series and narrated its first season.) Fresh Off the Boat depicts the life of a Taiwanese-American family in Florida in the 1990s. Parents Louis and Jessica, their children Eddie, Emery, and Evan, and Louis's mother, Jenny all relocate from Chinatown of Washington D.C. to Orlando, Florida to open a cowboy-themed steakhouse. It stars Randall Park, Constance Wu (yep, her!), Hudson Yang, Forrest Wheeler, Ian Chen, and Lucille Soong as the Huang family as well as Chelsey Crisp and Ray Wise portraying the family's next-door neighbors. This became not only the first network television sitcom in the U.S. to feature a family of Asian Americans as main characters in over 20 years, but also the first series featuring an all Asian American main cast to broadcast over 100 episodes.
Mr. Iglesias (2 seasons with the 2nd split into 2 parts)
The series stars comedian Gabriel Iglesias (also one of the executive producers), a good-natured public high school teacher who works at his alma mater. He takes on teaching gifted but misfit kids to not only save them from being "counseled out" by a bully bureaucrat Assistant-Principal, but also to help them unlock their full potential.
Do our lists have any shows in common; did any of these catch your eye? Let me know!
In reading updates, I finished reading my ARC of The Secret Service of Tea and Treason by India Holton on Friday and it’s a most delightful book I can’t wait to gush about, so stay tuned! Still deciding what to pick up next. What’s everyone reading or watching this weekend?
As always, please feel free send in recommendations—books, movie, TV shows, authors to interview, ideas of what you’d like me to write on, rants/ramblings/excited monologues, GIFs and memes (especially them) and more. Just drop me a line and turn this into a conversation, even if just to say hi and let me know what you thought of the latest issue :) Or share this with someone you think might enjoy it.
See you next week!
Anu
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