I’m pretty sure that I am not the only person in the world who has watched an obscene amount of TV recently. As much as I would prefer to spend my time reading, the amount of silence that takes for that is driving me a little crazy. We usually watch a lot of TV in our house anyway, but because of lockdown, we’ve been watching even more to the point that we’re all kind of running out of things to watch.
Thankfully, everything that I’ve watched has been enjoyable and different from one another, and I’ve also been listening to some podcasts lately, which is something I wasn’t into before. So today, I thought that I would share what I’ve been watching (and listening to) lately!
The Imagineering Story
This is a Disney+ series that chronicles the history of all the Disney theme parks starting from the very beginning, and I’m enjoying it so much that I’m sad that it’s a weekly show and hasn’t been released all at once. I love amusement parks and especially Disneyland so I love learning about what attractions were in the parks before I was able to go to them, although I am disappointed that there’s no mention of Nara Dreamland which was supposed to be Disneyland but there’s still a lot of information here so I’m not mad about it. Plus, Angela Bassett has the most soothing voice I’ve ever heard. I used to watch Defunctland on YouTube, but I think this show’s better because it doesn’t take any chance it can to call Michael Eisner evil, which Defunctland does.
The Righteous Gemstones
I don’t usually like things that make fun of religion for the sake of it *cough*southpark*cough* but this show is different because it’s not making fun of the televangelist characters because of their faith, but because they’re complete total hypocrites. This is the first Danny McBride show I’ve watched and I’m not going to lie, I did initially watch it only for John Goodman because he’s one of the best and I ended up finding this show so funny. One thing I did not expect is the amount of male full-frontal nudity that is in this show. If the warning voice at the beginning says that there’s nudity I just think “eh that’s ok, there are boobs on TV all the time” and then a bunch of weenies appeared on the screen. It was quite a surprise.
30 Rock
It’s been a while since I finished this show, but I jumped on it as soon as I found out that Sky would be adding more box sets of American comedy shows. We do have a lot of American programming, but when it comes to some highly regarded shows, we just don’t get them because the TV people must think that it wouldn’t mesh with a British audience or something dumb like that. But anyway, 30 Rock is a show that I’ve wanted to watch ever since I went inside the NBC studios building and after I saw so many screencaps from it being used as memes. I don’t really rewatch shows unless I really like them, so it’s very likely that I’ll rewatch this in the future.
The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula
This show is another drag competition, like Drag Race, but unlike Drag Race, this competition focuses on alternative and horror performers and doesn’t have a restriction on the gender of its contestants. I know that Drag Race is supposed to be open to anybody who does drag, but we still have yet to see drag kings, bio queens, or fully transitioned trans performers, which is disappointing. Instead, this show looks for a drag “supermonster” who embodies drag, filth, horror, and glamour and this can get intense to watch. Especially when it gets to the “filth” section of the finale floorshow because they do not hold back with being disgusting.
I was a little bummed that season three is an Amazon exclusive because I don’t always get the chance to watch things on Prime so by the time I got around to watching it, I already knew who won, but I still had a great time watching it.
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Speaking of Drag Race, I have mixed feelings towards this show these days. I do still enjoy watching to see the queens and what they can do, but so much of the drama is completely manufactured by the producers and it gets both tiring and predictable. Especially this current season with Brita blaming everyone but herself for her own shortcomings. I will still continue to watch but I’m not taking an active part in fandom anymore, because so many Drag Race fans have the worst selective memory.
The Office (US)
Watching this show should not be so difficult for me, but it is. My only way of watching this version of The Office is to watch it on Amazon Prime, which is not something I can do often thanks to my parents using it more often. Netflix UK only has the original version (ew) and Sky doesn’t have it on demand, so I’m a little stuck. It has been a while since I’ve watched any of it and I do want to continue watching it because Steve Carrell is one of my favourites
Dead Meat
Recently I’ve been in the biggest horror mood and I owe it all to this podcast, which is an extension of the YouTube channel Dead Meat. If you’ve ever seen a Kill Count video, you’ll know about Dead Meat. In this podcast, James and Chelsea, who are engaged, do a lot of things related to horror movies. They alternate weeks between reviewing movies both new and old and either having research-based discussions, interviewing people who work in horror, or just having some fun like playing MASH.
Because I’m a geek, I will admit that their research-heavy episodes are some of my favourites, like their Final Girl discussion, and their episode on transgender representation in horror, but their more fun episodes where they talk about things like horror movie gimmicks or people’s childhood fears are really cool too. I don’t listen to a lot of their reviews, though, because I tend to just ignore reviews and form my own opinion (i actually thought their review of the hunt was pretty annoying) but I’m more likely to listen if it’s an older movie they’re reviewing.
Jenna Julien Podcast
Yes, this is Jenna and Julien as in Jenna Marbles and her boyfriend from YouTube. I used to be an on-and-off listener of this podcast and would only really listen to episodes on YouTube that interested me, but now I’ve been listening on Apple Podcasts more regularly. I will admit that you do miss a few things when you don’t have the video – especially things that their dogs do because they often have their chihuahua sleeping on the table – but it’s still just as fun to listen to. I guess the only thing that bugs me about this podcast is that there are times where it’s definitely the Julien Podcast and Jenna’s just sort of there not saying much, which kind of sucks.
Race Chaser
I do watch a couple of Drag Race reviewers on YouTube, but Race Chaser is the only podcast that I listen to because Alaska and Willam provide a better insight into the way the production of the show works than any non-RPDR queens who also do reviews. Although I will admit that there are times where Willam gets a little too abrasive when he reads and it gets to be pretty annoying. Especially with the current season as he constantly feels the need to remind us that every queen is a cisgender man and under 25, which is not true at all. Which is another annoying thing: the lack of research they do when they have their phones right next to them and could easily Google something is unbelievable at times.
My complaints aside, this is still a fun podcast to listen to if you like Drag Race.
talk to me!
What have you been watching recently?
