Have you ever heard of the expression work begets work?

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It’s Q4 already?! What happened to the year? It seems like just yesterday I was on the set of Yaga, sitting down with showrunner Kat Sandler and stars Carrie-Anne Moss, Noah Reid, and Clark Backo, to talk all things witchy sexy and Canadian. That set visit, which I conducted in mid-March, is finally published for Harper’s Bazaar ahead of Friday’s premiere. It’s a fun read I think, I got to thread a lot more of myself in the piece than usual. And I got to print “horny” twice in the same paragraph! I’ve spent a lot of time in Victoria over the years (end of high school, undergrad, and a year and a half of the pandemic), it’s very rewarding to have been invited on the set of somewhere I consider a hometown. Also quite surreal to be sitting face to face with Moss in particular as someone obsessed with The Matrix growing up. Yaga is a worthwhile watch! I think it’s emerging as one of the stronger spooky shows of this month.

The talk of the town this week is Nathan Fielder’s new documentary, You Can See Everything, which went from a surprise screening at the Telluride Film Festival to theatres in a matter of weeks. The documentary is Fielder’s feature-length debut, he has previously only worked in television, and he is one of those auteurs whose work carries a through-line between everything he’s made. I’m of course contractually obligated to say Fielder and I both attended the same university (the University of Victoria) (“with really good grades”). The documentary sees Fielder invited into the home of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the weeks before she begins her federal prison sentence. She was convicted of fraud for claiming her company had invented a machine that could conduct a blood test using a single drop of blood. The company was once valued at $9 billion, even though the machine never really worked.

The documentary, which I saw over the weekend, is extremely intimate. The goal of Holmes and her partner Billy Evans was to let audiences into their lives and shift the narrative around Holmes as a devious scammer in the hopes of getting Theranos 2.0 up and running. I left the documentary absolutely in awe—it’s brilliantly put together, but I also immediately wondered if anyone would understand the layers here without having seen any of Fielder’s previous work. I’d argue that checking out some of the shows below will significantly improve and inform your journey into this magnificent, 3-hour documentary that is destined for the Oscars. Here’s what I recommend, from least important to must-watch.

4. The Curse (10 episodes for Showtime, 2023)

This comedy series from the minds of Fielder and Benny Safdie ranks at the bottom of the list of relevant shows to watch before You Can See Everything, and I don’t remember loving it while I was watching. That said, if you haven’t been spoiled to what happens at the end of this series, it’s totally worth watching for one of the wackiest finales I’ve ever seen in my 32 years on this planet.

Emma Stone and Fielder star as Whitney and Asher, a married couple who are making an HGTV show about “passive homes” (efficient houses that are constructed to have a very low carbon footprint). Safdie plays their producer Dougie, and the show is written to have a cringe-inducing, awkward, stilted sensibility to it that feels at home in Fielder’s extended TV universe—with the addition of some thought-provoking explorations of gentrification (Nizhonniya Luxi Austin gives an underrated but TV Scholar Award-nominated performance as an Indigenous artist who Whitney gets obsessed with).

Bottom line, should I watch it before YCSE? For this purpose alone, you can skip it.

3. Nathan For You (32 episodes for Comedy Central, 2013–2017)

Nathan For You is really Fielder’s television break-out. The premise is that Fielder, who graduated from “one of Canada’s top business schools,” offers advice to struggling businesses on how they can bring in more cashflow. The ideas are wacky right from the jump: Introducing a poo flavour to a frozen yogurt shop to draw in curious clientele, or advertising a low gas price at a gas station that is actually only that cheap from an optional rebate, of which you need to climb a mountain to claim—you get the idea.

I’m only through the first season of the show so far and it’s very entertaining as long as you’re okay with people basically getting ridiculed. There’s a bullyish/trolling vibe to NFY which feels very early 2010s Comedy Central. Nothing overtly problematic so far in my watching although it plays with that line for sure. I’m having fun watching it, but you can tell this is just the beginning stages of Fielder finding his voice. From what I’m hearing, the later episodes really start to highlight his genius for meta narratives and the kind of exhaustive approach he takes to unpacking the natural oddity of the human experience (I can’t think of a better way to put that).

Bottom line, should I watch it before YCSE? If you’ve watched the two shows below and you want to enhance your experience and knowledge of Fielder, I say go for it. As someone who hadn’t seen it before the movie, I didn’t think it was required viewing for that purpose alone.

2. The Rehearsal (12 episodes for HBO, 2022–)

Independently from the documentary, The Rehearsal is incredible television. Like mind-blowingly good, fascinating, smart—I have no shortage of good things to say here. The basic idea behind this docu-comedy series is that anything can be “rehearsed” with enough resources. On an HBO budget, Fielder really lets it rip. He begins small in the first episode: A real-life man wants to come clean about something he’s been lying about with his trivia friend. To prepare him for the confession, Fielder and his team re-create the entire trivia bar down to the smallest detail, and he hires actors who he trains in the “Fielder Method”—these extras are tasked with studying their real-life counterparts and really immersing themselves in that “character.” That allows this man to be in the closest version of the real scenario as possible and play out all of its different possible iterations.

That alone was enough to sell me, but the show continues to build on itself as Fielder devises grander, more complex, and more significant rehearsals—until he’s trying to solve why plane crashes happen in the second season. We also frequently see Fielder himself rehearsing things of his own to get to some kind of further understanding of himself or the scenario. That detail is super important to You Can See Everything. The first half of the documentary is very different from NFY and TR in the sense that there is no voiceover and Fielder has no one to bounce ideas off of, we are really just left with our own interpretation of what we’re watching. The second half blows that out of the water and becomes very Rehearsalian (?). I think to understand the full scale of what goes into one such rehearsal would really impact your experience of that portion of the documentary.

Bottom line, should I watch it before YCSE? In my view, yes, 100%, absolutely, will make the documentary make SO much more sense.

1. The Dropout (8 episodes for Hulu, 2022)

Okay so this is the only show on this list that is not related to Fielder at all. Rather, this is the Amanda Seyfried-starring biopic that fictionalizes Holmes’s life, from dropping out of college to meeting Sunny Balwani (Naveen Andrews) and the inevitable implosion of Theranos. If you were a fan of Furious, this is created by that same showrunner, Liz Meriwether, who is also working on the Britney Spears biopic.

There is a primary reason this is relevant: It helps fill in the gaps that You Can See Everything doesn’t cover. The documentary actually more or less assumes you have some baseline knowledge here—Sunny is only mentioned once or twice, but it’s helpful to understand the nature of her relationship with him to understand the new dynamic with Evans (who is played briefly by Garrett Coffey). In the documentary, you also get to watch Holmes watch The Dropout for the first time. It’s brought up numerous times, actually, in terms of how she feels about how Seyfried represented her and the ways in which she believes it to have negatively damaged her reputation.

Then there is the second, arguably more important reason you need to watch The Dropout. To say what that is would be to spoil a major twist in You Can See Everything, which I have to say, between the internet and press, for whatever reason, I went into the movie unspoiled on this (and I’m fairly chronically online). You’ll just have to trust me on this one, and know that your completion of this show will dramatically shift your understanding of what is going to occur in that documentary. I’ll leave it at that!

A few years ago I joined GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, which releases their yearly Dorian Awards to celebrate film and TV with a particular lens on queer media. At that point, my work was focused solely on TV. Facing the pressure of submitting a ballot for their film awards, I began watching the film screeners coming through my email inbox and eventually applying for film festival press passes. That’s how my journey to film-watching began, even though television is and will always be my priority. But it’s always fun to dip my toe into the film world, get inspired and/or uninspired, and run back to my small screen. As my Letterboxd account says, I’m always watching film through the lens of a telephile. That being said, there are some really good movies circulating at festivals right now, some absolutely worth peeling yourself away from your TV screen to see in theatres.

Some of these movies played at the Vancouver International Film Festival, my local fest that brings in some of the best programming in the country. I love VIFF so much—it’s reasonably priced, primarily a for-the-people festival (meaning tickets don’t get snatched up by buyers and industry folks), and movies play all over the city which lets you discover new parts of Vancouver. This year I saw a movie at Alliance Française Vancouver, a French school, and a movie at The Park, the theatre that Cineplex closed down but is now considered independent after Mike Flanagan, Osgood Perkins, Sean Baker, and Finn Wolfhard (among others) pooled their money together to buy it as investors. That’s actually where I saw Tender Loving Care, in the same screening alongside Carrie Coon, who was in town for a Q&A and to receive VIFF’s inaugural Luminary Award. The whole vibe of the festival is always great—non-pretentious, chill, mixed audiences of young cinephiles and much older folks. Movies don’t always start on time but it’s kind of charming. There is always a pre-movie ad about the power of film that is somewhat absorbing until it’s revealed it’s actually just promoting Rolex—this one gets crowds cackling every single year without fail (by the end of the festival the giggles get quieter).

Audience awards are selected based on voting at the end of the movie (conducted a little clumsily by having volunteers holding QR codes up at the end of each screening) and the top prize went to I Love Rocky this year. I remember that movie generating a lot of hype when I was at TIFF although from afar it’s not really my type of movie. I was too busy watching all the gay stuff, naturally. I would’ve much rather seen Club Kid win but that’s fine. In the Canadian Northern Lights category, Smudge the Blades won (featuring Paulina Alexis from Reservation Dogs), which I am interested to see but feel a bit hockeyed-out. There are a few other categories but I do want to note that Jim Queen won in the Altered States category (“oddities,” as VIFF calls it), a queer animated film I definitely need to see.

Like always, I had to balance the festival with my usual TV watching and work meaning I couldn’t watch five films a day. It didn’t feel as exhausting as my time at TIFF because I could come home to my bed, workout at my gym, and meet up with friends in lines. I even made it out to the annual Phobos/Oddfellows party hosted by Chris Ferguson and Osgood Perkins, although I had to sneak out before the party really got started to catch a screening (my favourite natural wine bar in the city, Bar Tartare, was catering). It’s reassuring to know I can really have a full movie festival experience by just staying in my own city.

If you’re ever curious to visit Vancouver, planning a trip in early October before the winter rain deluge and while you can snatch a few movie tickets is my recommendation. Below is what I had a chance to check out this year, thanks to their generous press pass—otherwise, see you next year, VIFF!

The highlights:

Coward (dir. Lukas Dhont) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Coward, Belgium’s submission to the Oscars, surpassed my expectations. I don’t love war movies, I find them depressing and nauseating, but I found myself rooting for Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia), who does anything he can to avoid the World War I frontlines and hang out with the army’s very gay theatre troupe instead.

He strikes up a wartuationship with Francis (Valentin Campagne), the lead performer and creative mind behind the little musical numbers they put together. For a while, art is the perfect escape from war, until they realize the little world they’ve created together can’t last forever. I was fully bracing for a heart-wrenching end to this story, but I was (thankfully) wrong. There are a lot of overlapping themes here with La bola negra, but I actually think the way desire is portrayed here was much more effective and engaging.

Tender Loving Care (dir. Mike Leigh) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ugh, I loved this. I left Tender Loving Care thinking about what it’s like to see your parents age, how quickly things can change, and the importance of having a glass of chilled white wine with your bestie at any given time. They’re saying this is Mike Leigh’s last film (I also loved Hard Truths), I desperately need to watch the rest of his filmography. I don’t know if I’ve seen anything recently that more accurately encapsulates the joy of the good ol’ yap. Sitting together over tea or drinks, sharing memories, offering each other words of wisdom and encouragement, reminiscing—these conversations, whether light or heavy, help you grow closer to the ones you love and really are the reasons to live.

La Gradiva (dir. Marine Atlan) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

I can’t believe this is a feature film debut for this director because it feels so fully realized. Like I feel with many films over two hours, there are lulls where I would chop—but I otherwise was quite drawn in by this group of seniors from France on a school trip to Pompeii. Antonia Buresi is fantastic as Madame Mercier, I was much more tuned in to her lectures about Italian art and architecture than her students, that’s for sure, and Colas Quignard gives a devastating performance as a delinquent gay student who has a fling with a local Italian man he meets on Grindr after lying about his age.

The rest of the students each get their moment to shine too as they butt heads and learn more about themselves—it really feels like you’re on this school trip with them, from the first to last day. At the end of the film, on-screen text keeps the story going and tells you what happens to this group of teens after they get back to France—making me feel like the story didn’t want to end there. A miniseries would have been great. Now that I think of it, there are a lot of similarities with Luca Guadagnino’s underrated HBO series We Are Who We Are here.

Not as impressed:

Fjord (dir. Cristian Mungiu) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan star in this Norwegian Palm d’Or winner in which their conservative, religious family moves to a small coastal town. Everything seems fine until teachers start noticing bruises on one of the kids, sparking an entire child protective services investigation into what is going on. Similarly to Anatomy of a Fall, the movie doesn’t spoon-feed you any conclusions.

I suppose you could probably choose to believe either end of the question (whether or not they do beat their kids; what counts as “discipline” and what is specific to our time and culture). This is another movie that felt long to me, but the performances are great and the setting stunning—I just feel like the movie holds you at arm’s length and never really lets you access the authentic emotions of the character, which made it hard for me to engage with it.

La bola negra (dir. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I feel like I’m supposed to love this movie. Three Spanish gay men across three timelines are interconnected for reasons that don’t become clear until you get deeper into the movie. I kept waiting to be wowed, or to feel depths of emotion, but I was left feeling removed. Don’t get me wrong, this movie is visually stunning—some of the best cinematography I’ve seen this year. But I couldn’t help but feel the directors wanted to direct a music video rather than a film? There was a style over substance problem here, in my view.

Take the central love story—which Variety is calling “racy.” These characters barely touch, let alone kiss, or really explore their desire for each other. Coward actually depicts that physical connection and the power of touch—I didn’t feel that at all with La bola negra. The friend I saw this with described the film as “not genuine” which I sadly have to agree with. This feels blasphemous because I want to support queer films (obviously), it seems like it’s vying for a best picture win, and I loved Veneno, the fantastic series by these directors—but it just didn’t quite hit the mark for me.

A Long Winter (dir. Andrew Haigh) ⭐️⭐️1/2

A long, slow slog. I will watch whatever Andrew Haigh makes after Looking and All of Us Strangers, but I felt somewhat misled that this would be a film about queerness. It’s more so a film about a missing mother in which the lead, played by Fred Hechinger (who I do really like, he’s come a long way since The White Lotus), is a little bit horny for men sometimes. Things take something of a turn when his dad hires a live-in housekeeper played by D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai (Reservation Dogs), but this also sort of leads nowhere of note. At least it’s a very television-core cast between Ebon Moss-Bachrach (who shows full frontal btw), Caitríona Balfe, and Kit Connor (who has like five minutes of screen time). Very beautiful snowy Alberta landscapes though!

Other films I watched:

• Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother (dir. Bassam Tariq) ⭐️⭐️

• First Comes Love: Nakabingwit (dir. Joella Cabalu) ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

• Flesh & Fuel (dir. Pierre Le Gall) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Screened at TIFF (in case you missed that newsletter):

• Club Kid (dir. Jordan Firstman) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Elsinore (dir. Simon Stone) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• The Debut (dir. Jesse Eisenberg) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Stuffed (dir. Theo Rhys) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Love of Your Life (dir. Rachel Morrison) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

• Minotaur (dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

• The Face of Horror (dir. Anna Biller) ⭐️⭐️1/2

• Seventeen (dir. Justin Ducharme) ⭐️⭐️1/2

• The Julia Set (dir. Niki Byrne) ⭐️⭐️

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In case you’re not chronically online (jealous!), let me bring you up to speed: The New York Times has published a list they call the 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century (…so far). The list was sourced by asking over 500 industry professionals, everyone from Lena Dunham to Maura Tierney, for their top 10 shows. The votes were tabulated, and voila. The top three? Oh come on, you know already, do I really need to say it? Breaking Bad, The Wire, and Mad Men. Well…I have some thoughts.

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Frankly, my time at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was a mess. I lost my prescription sunglasses, I destroyed my feet in nice shoes, I stayed at afterparties for a single drink and then left because I find those events to be stuffy and weird and very straight. Let the record state I would MUCH rather speak to an actor in an interview context than socially at a reception of their movie. I got sick like I do at every film festival. Press lines were chaotic because the festival cut its press screenings by 50% in order to make room for “market screenings.” It felt, tangibly and spiritually, like the festival didn’t care as much about critics this year. Some confirmed that the vibes were off.

And yet, I still cried at my screenings of Club Kid and Elsinore. I still felt extremely grateful sitting in on a press conference with Jordan Firstman where A24 provided a lavish lunch buffet and Uber vouchers to make sure we could get to/from the hotel efficiently. I absolutely loved his movie, even if I wished it was a miniseries (classic tvscholar reaction—but wow, what a rich world he created). Here’s what he said at the press conference when I got to ask a question:

Michel Ghanem

Hi, Jordan. I’m Michel. I was super touched by the movie — I can’t wait for gay guy Twitter to grab onto it, for better or for worse. I’m primarily a TV critic, and I’ve followed your roles on TV over the years. Were there aspects of working in television for so long that ended up shaping this project, or influencing you?

Jordan Firstman

I think story. Being in TV writers’ rooms really taught me about story and character arcs, so I never wanted this movie to meander. It takes its time within scenes, but the actual beats of the story — I think that’s from television, where every episode needs its own beginning, middle, and end, and then you have to do it again, while still peppering through the overarching arc of the season. So I learned a lot about structure from writers’ rooms. To me, a set is a set — a TV set doesn’t feel that different from a film set, except the way we made this movie felt more experimental, because we shot at real parties, which we never could have done on an HBO show. There are certain rules you can only break at a certain budget, and I think that’s part of what made this movie thrive.

Otherwise, my friends at MUBI took me out for lunch, I spent lots of time with fellow TV critic Kaiya Shunyata, I ran into familiar faces, and on days when I felt too exhausted to engage, I stayed at my friend’s place who generously hosted me for the festival and watched virtual screeners for shows that were also premiering at the festival. In a way, I was lucky to be there as a TV critic. I wasn’t pumping out reviews of every movie I saw between screenings or forcing myself to see four to five movies a day—I don’t envy movie criticism in that way.

But anyway, luckily I was able to watch a good chunk of TV featured at the fest, everything from Yaga to Carrie and Crystal Lake (a lot of horror!) in TIFF’s biggest primetime selection yet. These capsule reviews are only based on the first two episodes of each season, which is what they showed at TIFF. Let’s get into it.

Crystal Lake (Peacock, premiering Oct. 15)

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In case you missed it: I interviewed Kaia Gerber and Hayes Warner in my debut for CNN Style! Kaia told me she’s a fan of both Industry and My Brilliant Friend which is so tvscholar coded. She also told me she’s down for a Sterling Point cameo, which I would very much like to see. You can read more here.

It’s the day before the Toronto International Film Festival! I’m still in Vancouver though. My flight was significantly cheaper if booked tomorrow and I’ve deemed this a low budget trip so I will actually miss most of the first day of the festival. Which is fine! Based on my very detailed schedule, I am still seeing most of what I was hoping to see, although it’s interesting that the television screenings have been really hard to get into. Apparently the buzzy Hudson Williams Yaga premiere is…

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Housekeeping

Hello scholars! Thank you to everyone who filled out my newsletter survey last week, it was immensely helpful. For the question on desired newsletter frequency, 76% of respondents like the newsletter the way it is (weekly) while 20% would prefer every two weeks. So for now, I’ll keep sending this out every Wednesday, but to accommodate that 20%, I’ll take more weeks off when needed. For example, I’ll be in the midst of TIFF on September 16, so I’ll reconvene the following week (with a newsletter about all the TV premieres1 I went to!).

The top three most popular types of newsletter were my Reflections/stream of consciousness TV thoughts (85%), my round-ups (78%) and in-depth reviews (71%). I was surprised to see interviews rank so low (44%)! Which just makes me think I need to be strategic about who I feature here.

Here were some very kind comments from readers:

do whatever makes your life easier. like for real! also at this point you could just link to your other writings for weeks that are less manageable. but i still read cover to cover.

i just think like everyone we are behind in our inboxes. i’m not reading the 30 substacks i’ve subscribed to. It’s just impossible but i do for some reason always prioritize yours. just know your opinion is valued.

I really just love your recs so much. I have found so many hidden gems that bring me so much joy from your newsletter.

Keep it up! Especially all the recs for gay shows even if they aren’t specifically marketed as gay.

You’re all the sweetest. I shall continue forging forward 🫡

Furious (Hulu) finale: Let me eat my words I guess

Someone commented on my Instagram post featuring Hulu’s Furious and said: “This show was catharsis for this country who really want the pedos held accountable.” It brought me back to a recent conversation that came up in TV Club a few months ago.2

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Action required! Well, it’s optional, but it would be super helpful if you could fill out this anonymous 3-question survey about my newsletter. I basically want to figure out (1) if a weekly frequency is still serving this readership or if we’re all inundated with too much content; and (2) if there’s a kind of newsletter that you have a preference for. Or if you’re just happy to be along for the ride, that’s fine too!

Ah, remember back to school energy? The first few weeks of a new semester are always filled with so many possibilities. I will do all the readings this semester. I will work on all my assignments super early. The tattooed guy in my film theory seminar is my soulmate. September in TV world isn't much different. The calendar is stacked with new releases and it’s when broadcast networks wake up from their summer slumber. If for some reason you don’t watch a single broadcast show that airs from ~September to May, you’re missing out on one of television’s most powerful time-proven gems. Like at least watch Abbott Elementary, dang!

What’s your September looking like? I will be at the Toronto International Film Festival for a lot of it, then off to New York for a few days there, with a week of respite back in Vancouver before the Vancouver International Film Festival begins. Somewhere in there, I have a self-imposed deadline for my book proposal. I don’t know how we’re going to get it all done, and most importantly, watch everything we need to watch, but hey! These are plentiful problems. There are so many shows premiering I’m dedicating this entire newsletter to previewing the month ahead.

Sept 1: The Varnell Hill Show (Paramount+, S1) – For fans of Martin, Tommy Davidson is reprising his role three decades later in this new sitcom. The show will also see the return of Martin Lawrence. I’m curious about how this will land as a spin-off/reboot? I mean, not even the Frasier reboot could make it.

Sept 3: La mesías (MUBI/Disney+, S1) – Okay so Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo are about to blow up with their buzzy Oscar season film La bola negra, but they also have this acclaimed series coming out internationally on MUBI (it’s already streaming on Disney+ in the US for whatever reason). The real ones will recall these directors from their work on Veneno (an underrated series!).

Sept 3: The Gentleman (Netflix, S2) – Did anyone catch those messy Meghan Markle announcements? Two announcements came out within like 2 days of each other, one saying Markle was being eyed for a role for the show’s third season and then she was “dropped” not long after, reportedly due to backlash. That seems like a flimsy reason not to have her? Anyway I haven’t even watched the first season of this, but I should.

Sept 5: Scavengers Reign (Adult Swim, S1) – If you have Adult Swim, one of my favourite series of the last few years is airing on their late-night Toonami block. The implications of this! Let’s break it down: The series, based on a short film from 2016, originally premiered for HBO Max back in 2022. It was nominated for an Emmy and critically acclaimed but cancelled (CRIMINAL). Netflix picked it up in 2024 to stream with the possibility of renewing it but they decided not to (ALSO CRIMINAL). One of the co-creators has another show, Common Side Effects, which does well on Adult Swim, with another in development. So my thinking is Adult Swim could pick this up for a second season since they seem to be interested in owning the rights to broadcasting it. All that and I haven’t even told you what it’s about, but it doesn’t even matter because it’s just that good, go hit play and let me know what you think.

Sept 6: A Tale of Two Cities (MGM+, S1) – It’s a terrible time to debut a new Kit Harington show, given the Harry Potter of it all. This period drama is about two lookalikes who fall in love with the same woman during the French Revolution. If they were gay guys they would fall for each other instead!

Sept 8: The Real Housewives of New York City (Bravo, S16) – So this is a re-re-reboot, I guess. The last two seasons saw an entirely new cast: Mostly younger, with significant social followings, but an entirely different vibe to the old RHONY guard (Luann the countess, Bethenny Frankel, etc.). After two poorly received seasons and a bit of a hiatus, S16 is promising to be a return to form, and also welcomes back one of my favourite housewives ever, Carole Radziwill (the widow of Anthony Radziwill, a Kennedy nephew). That being said, she’s in the Epstein files, which based on the trailer of the new season, will be addressed head-on. Martha Stewart is also set to appear since her makeup artist has joined the cast.

Sept 8: Dang! (Netflix, S1) – Animated TV has had a bit of a rough go lately, after the cancelation of Kevin and the poorly-received Ricky Gervais comedy Alley Cats. Or maybe we just need to stop making animated shows about cats. They’ll never be Flow! Dang! is about three siblings voiced by Andrew Law, Stephanie Hsu, and Poppy Liu.

Sept 8: The Drop: A Snowfall Saga (FX/Hulu, S1) – I wish I could go back in time and watch Snowfall as it was airing because I know it’s good and I also feel overwhelmed by the idea of starting now with everything on my plate. Nonetheless, a spin-off has arrived.

Sept 8: North of North (CBC Gem, S2) – Sorry to Americans, you’ll have to wait for this one to hit Netflix (unless Canada follows my instructions and starts pulling Canadian TV from American networks as a weapon in their arsenal for the trade wars! Americans would actually maybe start caring if they couldn’t watch Heated Rivalry). Anyway, I loved S1 of this bright comedy.

Sept 9: The Paper (Peacock, S2) – I’ve told a few people there’s a spin-off of The Office and they’re like WHAT?! So this can’t be doing that well, but I kind of liked S1…

Sept 9: Last Seen (Apple TV, S1) – I feel very protective over Patrick Brammall after people were making fun of him on The Devil Wears Prada for being useless or whatever. But to me he is a TV king from his time on Evil and his charming comedy Colin From Accounts that he co-creates with his wife. This also stars Maxine Peake who is also a tvscholar fave from showing up in a million things but The Bisexual in particular. This is just six episodes so we’ll see!

Sept 10: Crew Girl (Netflix, S1) – Friend of tvscholar Max Gao told me I can go ahead and remove this from my list because I mostly make fun of YA shows rather than actually watch/enjoy them…but hey this was filmed in my hometownish of Victoria and I was Googling “gay Vancouver rowing” the other day because I like the idea of a team sport I can do while sitting down.

Sept 10: Colin from Accounts (Paramount+, S3) – Copy-paste everything I said above about Patrick Brammall here but add that I love Harriet Dyer! This show will randomly cut deep in a way that reminds me of You’re the Worst. There was an amazing episode where Ashley (Dyer) gets lost after falling asleep on a bus last season. I’m hoping for more of that once again, but I’m so upset this is the last season.

Sept 13: Brothers (Apple TV, S1) – This show’s concept uhhh: Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson apparently play fictionalized versions of themselves who find out they might be brothers. What in the Bupkis meets Sterling Point?

Sept 13: High Value Target: The Hunt for Saddam (TNT, S1) – Oh god, I don’t even know how this will go but it’s about Saddam Hussein’s first interrogation after being captured in 2003. Joel Kinnaman stars as CIA officer John Nixon.

Sept 14: The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards (NBC) – The Emmys, on a Monday?! I’ll be at TIFF but I’m planning to take the night off from screenings/party to tune in.

Sept 15: The Creep Tapes (Shudder, S3) – I don’t watch this horror series created by Mark Duplass but they’ve consistently put out a season of it per year. Does anyone watch/should I tune in?

Sept 15: RJ Decker (ABC, S2) – My favourite part of this show is that Scott Speedman, who plays RJ Decker, lives with a lesbian couple. The first season was just a 9-episode affair so I’m hoping I can catch up because I do like watching Speedman…well, anywhere.

Sept 15: Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence (Britbox, S1) – Another Agatha Christie! Imelda Staunton is credited in the cast.

Sept 16: Neagley (Prime Video) – A spin-off of Reacher that stars Maria Sten.

Sept 16: RHOSLC (Bravo, S7) – We are so back…RHOSLC will welcome Ashley Quai as a new full-time housewife with everyone else coming back. So much has occurred in this series, but somehow they always manage to weave together an extremely entertaining narrative. Some of the best editing on TV, I swear!

Sept 16: Slow Horses (Apple TV, S6) – The most consistent shooting schedule on television. This one is set to premiere at TIFF, as well.

Sept 17: Traitors: New Blood (Peacock, S1) – A new iteration of the American Traitors, this one will follow “regular” people. I’ve always heard the “citizens” version of this show is much better and more satisfying because they have no pre-existing context for each other as they play the game.

Sept 17: Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story (Netflix, S4) – I am a bit sick of this franchise and can barely watch it but I am excited to see Rebecca Hall and Sarah Paulson.

Sept 20: Youth (HBO Max, S1) – Sharon. Horgan. Starring and writing. I will be tuned IN.

Sept 20: American Hostage (MGM+, S1) – Based on a podcast series, Jon Hamm and Mireille Enos star in this crime thriller. I feel like nothing MGM+ except From is really breaking out yet? So we’ll see, maybe this could be it.

Sept 20: Trespasses (PBS, S1) – Finally! Lola Petticrew (Say Nothing, Furious) stars in another show about The Troubles in 1970s Northern Ireland. Gillian Anderson is also in it! It’s just 4 episodes.

Sept 21: WAR (HBO, S1) – George Kay (Lupin, Hijack) has created this legal drama about a high-profile divorce between characters played by Dominic West (does he ever play anyone likeable?) and Sienna Miller. The show is also an anthology and the second season is already in production with Marisa Tomei set to star.

Sept 21: Line of Fire (NBC, S1) – A new NBC show starring Peter Krause (he stays booked…) about a family of law enforcement agents who all get wrapped up in some kind of conspiracy.

Sept 22: Best Medicine (Fox, S2) – This cutesy medical drama based on Doc Martin returns with Josh Charles at the helm. I wish I had kept watching this but it never felt that high priority for me.

Sept 24: American Horror Story (FX, S13) – They’re backkkkk. This all stars season will apparently be an ode to the series as a whole, bringing back a number of the original actors (Jessica Lange!). It looked like it would mostly be a second iteration of Coven but Ryan Murphy assured it would encompass many other seasons too. Didn’t we already do that with Apocalypse?

Sept 24: A Different World (Netflix, S1) – The original A Different World was a college sitcom spin-off of The Cosby Show that took place at Hillman College and aired between 1987 and 1993. This new revival is produced by Debbie Allen with many of the original performers reprising their roles.

Sept 25: Slo Pitch (Crave, S1) – Queers and baseball! I’m excited for this. I love that Crave is expanding its queer programming. No news on an American distributor though, sorry…

Sept 30: Scrubs (ABC, S2) – I never watched the original Scrubs but the reboot was a fun short little watch to throw on during the week…I was kind of happy when it got renewed!

In case you missed it, I also wrote a tribute to Hayden Panettiere, declared that Sterling Point is the show of the summer, interviewed Lady Sybil who is also in Silo and the upcoming final season of Industry, put together my usual new TV recommendations round-up for Yahoo, and I think that’s it! For now ;)

The TV Scholar interview series brings real-life television scholars to my newsletter to discuss their journey to television studies, share nuggets of wisdom from their research, and obviously, chit-chat about television itself.

This time around I interviewed Dr. Stefania Marghitu, assistant professor in the department of Journalism and Creative Media at the University of Alabama. She published Teen TV in 2023, a fab book about the history and impact of YA television. In light of the Sterling Point of it all, I had to have her in the newsletter to discuss and catch up. It’s a bonus we’ve been Instagram friends for half a decade.

What are you watching lately?

I do love Furious. I saw Phillip Maciak just wrote something about it too. That feels like a crossover of sorts. I know what you said about like, yes everybody is tired of the true crimeness of it all, but it’s different! Jake Lacy is never playing a good guy again…I had forgotten Liz Meriwether created The Dropout and Dying for Sex. The cross-genre she does!

And then Sterling Point doesn’t have the stakes romance teen shows tend to have but it’s like we’re enjoying just hanging out with people again. A few of the critiques I’ve seen are about the stakes not being captivating or whatever, but the world-building, the set-up for these folks…I can hang out with these people long-term. Six seasons and we get a spin-off about the precocious tween.

I also really loved Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. That felt Orphan Black-y and it seemed like it was going to expand toward the end. Widow’s Bay was good but took me a while to get into. Ugh Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell, we love it, whatever magazine cover they were on? My mom brain, I’m not as sharp as I used to be. Someone was once like, I know you’re a mom because you’re not a steel trap anymore about everybody’s names and things. I’m like who’s the guy…

You’re allowed to show up here just as you are! Can you give us a bit of a career update?

So I finished my PhD in Covid, and I had done an online adjuncting year where I taught at four different places in Southern California, all online. The year after, I got a visiting gig at Loyola University New Orleans. I got pregnant…Mardi Gras! I had a leave and applied really broadly because I was like, oh shit, I need to be a real person now. I had an interview when I was super pregnant and one when he was three months, and then there was a job at the University of Alabama where I’m at now. Both sets of our parents live three hours away. That’s where I’ve been, coming on four years. It’s kind of a return, like Eastbound & Down or Somebody Somewhere slash Ted Lasso…[Laughs.]

What is it like teaching to this current generation? Do they get it? Do they know what TV is?

Totally! So it is a film program and I teach broader media and film stuff. The A24 kids are definitely there. It’s so different [depending on where you are.] USC was a film school, the smaller liberal arts schools liked what TV was doing. And TV studies and cultural studies opens things up more than film studies. Even when I teach intro to film and media, I try to show them what TV methods can do, and leading into new and digital media, which they all want to talk about. I can be like, these methods, these theories, can still be applied. The way we talk about reality stars is the way we’re talking about influencers, basically something as simple as that, because they love reality TV. If I had a reality TV class, that would be next level.

I teach a more elective TV class and that’s my absolute favorite. We go through all the hits and they love it. They even learn what a showrunner is there. And they’re like, “Oh yeah, is that what Shonda Rhimes is?” I do think I get the students that want to take that TV elective, though it’s not necessarily required. That’s a sweet spot again, because they love television, so they’re in it.

Okay I do want to talk about Sterling Point since this is your area of expertise. What did you think about the last couple of episodes? I felt it got a little TOO soapy but I was still into it.

I wonder if Megan Park got notes or if there was this idea of stakes. That’s the thing. When I think of Heated Rivalry, which was week to week, the stakes were will they/won’t they, which we have here too. I do feel like we got the soapy plot here. If you were to describe Sterling Point to somebody: It’s a show, and she finds out this stuff about her dead mother…that’s a soap, right? But like you said, the middle was the best part. At that point, they’re in a lived-in show, and you just get to watch their day-to-day and hang out with them, which sometimes you only get in series of the past. Like New Girl had that. Girls had that.

It just felt like they were either notes or an internal thing to be like, okay, there needs to be stakes and cliffhangers. We need to rev it up. The thing is, Amazon teen series are never going to be what we want them to be. They’re still trying to appeal to this really broad audience. I just don’t see them being able to do whatever, although there seemed to be some freedom here. I wonder in the future how much we are going to have these soapy conventions, and where it’s more familial versus high school. And it’s not rooted in romance or yearning, that’s a shift away too, Sterling Point isn’t a steamy romance per se.

You published Teen TV back in 2021. If you were to publish a second edition, what would you add based on the last few years?

Well, Euphoria ending! Some people only like to write about series when they’ve ended so they can give it a holistic view. But I had been working on the book for so long, and they feel like different series, right? So the death knell of Euphoria. TV scholars always talk about jumping the gun being a tragic Hail Mary. Like, adding new characters, time jumps. Euphoria S3 hit all the marks of doomed failure in television broadly. People like to say it’s a new era, it’s so different, but we know the history, and we know that these things have traditionally tried and failed.

Then I think this Amazon moment where they’re doing this kind of CW/WB moment, the cross generational stuff where it’s like, this will be escapism for millennial moms. That was the big reveal of Heated Rivalry, straight married women love it! So this broad appeal, teen TV blockbusters like The Summer I Turned Pretty, all the money involved.

Everything is more transnational, more global, but we’re getting less I feel. There’s so much English-speaking content. When I first started teaching, random kids from Southern California were watching that Italian show Baby. K-Dramas still have their category, but in this moment it’s kind of a bummer, it feels a little less global. But we have the Canadian invasion, right? We’re having a Degrassi moment, because there is an earnestness and a lived-in thing with Sterling Point. That does almost feel like you see the Canadian influence versus the flashy American series.

You’re working on a book about women showrunners. Can you say more?

Yeah! So we start historically with U.S. radio to U.S. network. We get this fallow period during 50s-70s with traditional network TV. Yes we got feminist programming, but for me, when I first started getting into feminist media studies, it was always shocking to me that we never talked about how The Mary Tyler Moore Show and I Love Lucy didn’t really have women behind the scenes. How could we not talk about that? So the book starts with Gertrude Berg, we get into Diane English, the height of the second wave feminism of it all, and then we get into Shonda Rhimes.

I have these case studies of different women showrunners, but it’s also tracing these moments in U.S. television history for what’s going on for women, what’s going on for marginalized folks, and what it looks like through that lens. Then I think I’m going to do a Lena Dunham chapter for the indie auteur HBO era. Then my very last chapter I want to do something on this transnational moment. We’re in like a post-post-whatever global streaming era. I want to talk about Sharon Horgan too, because to me she’s like franchise showrunner at this point. I want to compare her to someone like Michaela Coel, just to have two case studies of this moment.

I do find that when women and marginalized folks are allowed to get in are usually during moments of uncertainty in television, and executives are willing to take a bet because they don’t know what’s going to work.

I can’t wait to read it! Okay my last question, as always, what is your favourite TV-watching snack?

[Gasps.] I forgot you ask this. I did not prep for this. Does charcuterie count? A little bit of gabagool, a little bit of working on my night cheese.

I am very often explaining what I do for work. The slightly rude questions I get in return range from “how do you make money doing that” to “do you use AI to write your articles?” (NO!) Being a freelancer means I don’t really have coworkers to check in with daily. I’m the only person who is fully aware of what occurs on a work day. I live in Vancouver but I hopped on a ferry with my cat Bramble to spend 10 days on Vancouver Island to housesit for my parents, and it’s been a unique and reflective last little while. Quite rich to document, especially since I’m watching so much. Let’s get into it.

Thursday

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To celebrate reaching 50,000 followers on Instagram (the little account that could!) I’m offering a 15% discount on one-year subscriptions for new or returning paid subscribers. You can claim it here until September. 📺💌

Prime Video’s latest YA drama Sterling Point kind of hit close to home. Every summer growing up, my family would pack up the minivan and head to a humble little cottage on a lake in Val-des-Monts, Québec. I remember cicadas buzzing on hot summer days, thunderstorms that would roll in over the lake and send us running inside for cover.

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There is not a single piece of media that has impacted me more as a person, writer, and television critic than Avatar: The Last Airbender.

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In case you missed it: I wrote about being single and Tracee Ellis Ross’s solo traveling show in my column for The Cut; I interviewed Elle star June Diane Raphael; I curated a Telematrix grid that reminded folks Chloë Sevigny has actually done so much TV; and I interviewed the creator and cast of Netflix’s Little House on the Prairie for Yahoo. I love my job!

So what do New Girl, The Dropout, and Dying for Sex have in common? Well they’re each created by Elizabeth Meriwether, of course. She’ll also be writing the Britney Spears biopic. I think she’s become one of the most must-keep-up-with screenwriters in the industry, which is why I jumped to watch my screeners of her new show Furious, which starts streaming on Monday. I have thoughts. Let’s get into that (and why I have also become an Elsbethaholic lately).

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In Q2, I finally started to feel like a full-time TV critic. Well, more or less. On some weeks, I was writing so much that it was eating into my television-watching time. On others, I relished in quieter days to catch up on invoicing and watch screeners of an upcoming show. I’m still figuring it out, though. The reality of this industry is that…

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I had a realization this morning. Industry is going the way of Halt and Catch Fire. Or even The Wire. It’ll obviously be cemented as what I think is one of the best shows of the 2020s, but might never actually get the recognition it deserves from the Television Academy. And we, as Industry stans, just have to accept that sometimes (…often, actually), good taste is not rewarded or recognized. Who knows why it can’t break through—is it a viewership issue, the fact that it’s a London-based production, made by young people, or that it’s a show that twists, pokes, and prods at respectability politics. It does show a disconnect between the Emmy voters and the Television Critics Association Awards, though, where Industry did extremely well.

As I wore my Industry merch hat around Seattle over a mini vacation weekend, I realized anyone pointing it out and asking me about it had an automatic connection with me, an easy way to distinguish someone who knows good TV. Industry will always smash at the TV Scholar Awards, and that will have to be enough for us! The Wire only ever got two Emmys and they weren’t even from the main categories—and that’s a show cemented in the canon of great television, so don’t worry. History will remember us! Plus, there’s always season five. Maybe we just need to be even louder…

Anyway, I immediately ran to my laptop with my morning coffee and read the nominations closely, let’s get into my 2,000 words worth of thoughts. I’m paywalling this because my thoughts are spicy, but hey, what a wonderful time to decide to subscribe and support my work as a full-time TV critic! I know Substack writers say this all the time in this weird industry landscape but I am 100% serious when I say I would need a day job again if it weren’t for the folks who are paid subscribers to this newsletter.

Drama

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, The Substance, Passages, Die My Love, Queer…MUBI has distributed some of the most interesting and queer-centric arthouse cinema in recent years. You might not realize they actually acquire and stream television, too—some really fascinating selections in a catalogue that I hope continues to grow with niche indie and international programming.

MUBI’s evolution as a streamer hasn’t been without speed bumps—inspiring its new Ethical Funding and Investment Policy and their Artist at Risk fund. It speaks to how they are listening and shifting as an organization, which, to be honest, is more than you can say for most streamers and entertainment companies in this landscape.

With that being said, I’ve collaborated with MUBI to highlight Wasteman, a gritty, dynamic film starring David Jonsson, which begins streaming today, and three promising shows you might as well check out while you’re there. The folks at MUBI have been kind enough to offer a voucher for a 1-month free trial if you’d like to dip in and watch a few things. I’ve been told you don’t need to be a first-time subscriber for it to work. You can activate that here! I’ve just added Lurker, Revenge, Rotting in the Sun, Decision to Leave, and The Kingdom (a Lars von Trier TV show) to my watchlist. Let me know if you have any other suggestions.

My MUBI era! Let’s get into some recommendations.

Wasteman

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been following David Jonsson’s career very closely ever since he played Gus on Industry. I will basically watch anything he’s in—from Alien: Romulus to The Long Walk, and most exciting to us telephiles, his upcoming series Hype that he is creating alongside Baby Reindeer producers. While we wait for that, catch him in Wasteman, which is finally being released on MUBI as of today after having premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.

Jonsson stars as Taylor, an introverted inmate in the UK who was sentenced to prison after dealing drugs to teens who overdosed on them. 13 years later, he’s about to get released early when a new chaotic bunkmate moves into his cell, Dee (Tom Blyth). At first, he brings a bit of levity—my favorite scene in the film is a cell rave to a Jamie xx track. As you might imagine, tensions rise between them—to the point where it might actually threaten his release. (For those wondering, nothing gay happens, although I could swear there was a hint of homoeroticism between the two.)

Directed dynamically by Cal McMau and running at a tight 90 minutes, this is one of the more engaging prison dramas I’ve watched—which I have to say, isn’t usually my favourite genre (well, not since Orange Is the New Black, and I did like Frank & Louis out of Sundance).

There’s an interesting mix of cell phone footage edited into Wasteman which keeps things fresh visually, but it’s really the performances that sell it. I can’t overstate how good Jonsson is here, once again, as he gets more and more panicked about his chaotic new roommate. If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to have witnessed this performance before Jonsson becomes the massive star he’s destined to be (in my world, anyway).

The New Years

Claimed as “the most romantic show of the year” by Vogue back in December, The New Years will hit the spot if you enjoyed One Day’s structure. Over ten episodes, we check in with Ana (Iria del Río) and Óscar (Francesco Carril) every New Year’s Eve from 2014 to 2024, as they move through their 30s. The first is, of course, their chance meeting: Ana is a dissatisfied bartender and Óscar is struggling to get over his ex-girlfriend. They sleep together and connect, fall in love, even, but naturally, the relationship escalator hits a few bumps on the way up as they realize they may not be totally in sync.

I’m only part way through the season and I’m going to rapturously watch the rest. I already know a handful of friends who I need to recommend this to immediately; it hits all the romance drama notes but is grounded with a kind of realism that makes it feel, like Taylor Antrim astutely mentions in her Vogue review, novelistic. That arthouse pull to depict life as it is feels not only very aligned with MUBI’s brand of programming, but ends up drawing me into a show in ways One Day didn’t by being so glossy (in classic Netflix fashion). There’s something about those quiet moments in-between dialogue where the show lets you breathe and start projecting your own experience onto it. Not everything needs to be said out loud! Delightful, I can’t wait to finish the season.

Mussolini: Son of a Century

What fascinated me so much about My Brilliant Friend is how post-war Italian politics shaped both the characters and the narrative of the series; the collective frustration of the working class and the push against fascism by the Italian communist movement.

Mussolini: Son of a Century, set a few decades earlier, got on my radar for the same reason. The Italian-language series directed by Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice) landed at the top of TV critic Daniel Fienberg’s top 10 shows of last year, in which he calls it “unsubtle art” and that it borrows “aesthetic devices from opera, German Expressionism and the primordial ooze of early cinema, and fusing it all into a cacophonous piece of horror propaganda.”

I’m playing catch up, but based on the first of eight episodes, I totally agree. This biopic of Benito Mussolini’s founding of the Fasci Italiani in 1919 is doing a lot but in the best possible way. This is no slow period drama. The performances are grand and so is the production design, editing, score, and costume design. Like Roxana Hadadi points out for Vulture, this is a “deliriously experimental series about a monstrous figure, jamming as many moving parts, camera tricks, and maximalist flourishes he can fit into the frame to demonstrate how the Italian dictator was such a magnetic, destructive force.”

Hal & Harper (US Only; on CBC Gem in Canada)

I watched Hal & Harper last year and I still think about it all the time. Up-and-coming writer-director Cooper Raiff is at the helm here, and he stars alongside Lili Reinhart as the titular sibling duo. Their father (Mark Ruffalo) is having a baby with his new girlfriend (Betty Gilpin), after years struggling to embrace a new relationship since the passing of his ex-wife.

The show is steeped in a soft melancholy: The siblings have developed a trauma bond codependence on each other and are navigating dead-end jobs and existentialism in their 20s. We also flash back to their elementary school days, around when their mom passed away—where Raiff and Reinhart play the child versions of their characters (welcome back Pen15!).

Hal & Harper was nominated for two 2025 TV Scholar Awards, including in the Queer Representation Award category. The season opens with Reinhart cheating on her girlfriend, and I found the queer exploration here to be sincere and thoughtful. A negative review pointed out that the amount of plot here should amount to a film rather than a series, but there is something about the languid, dreamlike pace of the series that I found meditative, before it all snaps into focus in the finale—that wouldn’t have been possible as a film.

Head over to MUBI for a free month to check some of these out. I’ve curated a few suggestions on this splash page, too.

Heated Rivalry and Oh, Otto! have a lot in common. They were both made on a shoestring budget, forcing its creative teams to do more with less. They both star handsome, likeable characters who are coming to terms with facets of their identity as queer men. And they both include a lot of gay sex. The difference? Hockey aside, Oh, Otto! isn’t yet available to watch in North America. I’m hoping to help change that.

Created and directed by Stijn Van Kerkhoven, the 7-episode dramedy starts off when Otto (Jonathan Michiels) is unceremoniously dumped by his long-term boyfriend Boris (Gijs De Corte) who returns from a backpacking trip. This was Otto’s first ever relationship, and Boris wants him to go out and evolve as a gay man rather than stay in what he sees as a relationship that isn’t evolving.

Otto, spiralling, leans on his bestie Lente (Jennifer Heylen), who encourages him to process the breakup the old fashioned way: If you can’t get over him, get under someone else. And thus begins Otto’s first journey as a single gay man on Grindr, under his slutty alias, Elio.

Lente doesn’t initially realize she’s created something of a monster—before long, Otto is leaving in the middle of their hangouts to go hook up with a random guy, prioritizing these dates over his friendship. Besides, Lente needs emotional support too! She’s moving to the suburbs with her boyfriend and is feeling some type of way about it. Otto will have to figure it out the hard way, though, as he struggles to keep all the pieces together (don’t even get me started on how bad of a therapist he is).

I found out about Oh, Otto! on gay Twitter, of all places. One of those kismet moments where art comes into your life at the exact time you need it—I, too, had been unceremoniously dumped, and although I was a little less thrilled to be back on Grindr than Otto, I shared in his existential exploration to figure out what it is he really wants, out of his romantic relationships and who he really is outside of the definition of a relationship.

My favorite aspect of the show, though, is Otto’s friendship with Lente, the underrepresented dynamic of the tender friendship between a gay man and his Black girl bestie (thankfully, she’s written to be a full person, too—including a bottleish episode that follows her side of the story). A bonus, but Oh, Otto! is also just beautiful to look at—it has a kind of Euro arthouse indie film look to it, in addition to capturing the queer side of Brussels, a fascinating city where a lot of folks have some level of trilingualism between Dutch, French, and English.

So far, according to what Van Kerkhoven told me over Zoom, Oh, Otto! has not yet been sold to North American markets. It recently received a French dub for streaming in the French parts of Belgium and can be watched on Streamz over there as well as Canal+. I can easily see it on HBO Max, between Heated Rivalry and Looking, with which it shares DNA, alongside Mubi’s television catalogue, or even on Netflix (it reminds me of Anne+, too, which ended up there). The best news out of all of this: Van Kerkhoven and his team are already working on a second season, so there’s more to come.

My hope is by spotlighting it here, I can nudge someone out there to snatch it up for distribution ASAP. It’s rare that television captures the experience of contemporary gay adulthood outside of the coming out experience or major traumas in a way that feels grounded, relatable, funny, and kind of hot at the same time. Below, Van Kerkhoven tells me more about making Oh, Otto! and his hopes for where it could go.

Michel: Can you tell me a bit about what inspired you to make Oh, Otto!?

Stijn: I moved to Brussels when I was 18 and I was actually still in the closet. The city and the people I met in the city really helped me to find my way and to find who should I be in the gay scene but also with myself. It’s a really unique city but it’s also a recognizable story I realized later on, when I was more comfortable with myself, that a lot of people went through the same thing of dating around and hooking up. So I started pitching this series from my experience, but also from the experience of friends and people I met along the way.

I always wanted to make a series that is warm and not necessarily about coming out, but just about life as it is; not making the being gay part problematic, but doing something else with it. Here in Belgium, it hadn’t really been something that had been done before.

Oh, Otto! won for best short series at Canneseries. Since then, it’s available on Streamz and on Canal+ — what have distribution discussions been like for anything in North America?

We are really trying to get it sold. It’s working here in Europe. We have French and Dutch-speaking parts here in Belgium. We have the show dubbed now in French which means we could also sell it in France. So a lot of things are happening around it. I don’t get to know all the details because I’m simply a director, but we’re hoping to make a second season; that would also help to sell it.

I can definitely see it on HBO Max or Mubi here. Maybe in the ecosystem of Heated Rivalry and Proud.

Heated Rivalry did the unimaginable with their series, which is amazing. I hope there’s more to come for shows like that made.

Not that I’ve been yet, but Oh, Otto! captures Brussels really beautifully, from the architecture to the gay scene (that bathhouse episode!). Do you feel the show accurately captured your vision of the city, were there any limitations on locations that you bumped up against?

Brussels is known in Belgium as like, not the best place to be. A lot of people in Belgium don’t like Brussels, and if the city is represented in a show, it’s usually the criminal part, or it’s represented as dirty and unsafe. I’ve been living here for more than 10 years now, and I just love the city. I see it through maybe too much of a romantic lens, but that’s my Brussels. I was so happy to be being able to really push to film here, it’s really not easy compared to Antwerp or Ghent, smaller and more accessible cities. I’m really happy that I could push it through and show people how pretty the city can be, but also the gay part of it. I think in Belgium it’s the only place where we still have that, streets with gay bars and the gay sauna, it’s a big community.

How realistic was too realistic when you were making the show? I noticed Otto doesn’t really talk about being a top or a bottom or PrEP and doxy PEP.

It’s really hard. I wanted to make a show that was centred around being queer, but I wanted as many people as possible to watch it. For a broad audience, if you use too many words that are specific to our community, people get lost. They might think, Oh maybe it’s not for me. It was always a hard balance to find.

For example, in the episode in the hotel when he has his first hookup with this Dutch guy, I actually had him ask Otto: “Did you douche?” And Otto would reply, yes, and he would say me too, implying that they were both vers and were going to have…a lovely night. Then you make the edits and do small screenings to see what resonates and what doesn’t work. Most straight people don’t know what douching is. They think it’s like showering, because here it’s the same word. So they’re like, Why would he ask that? Is he smelly? So it’s those things where it would would have been such a nice way to have this in but you have to cut your darlings. Sometimes I had to not explain, or not use certain words, to make sure everyone feels connected to the story.

That totally makes sense. I also love that Otto has a straight girl bestie, who gets her own piece of the story (played wonderfully by Jennifer Heylen). Having girl besties in your coming-of-age is such a universal gay man experience.

She feels like a safe space! She’s such a fun character to write. I don’t have like, one girl bestie that inspired this character, but she’s based on a few. It’s mostly inspired by the actress herself, Jennifer, she’s amazing. I love her so much, it was my dream to work with her. While we were writing the show I always thought of her, she was the first one I asked, and then even in the casting process I kept pushing, like it has to be her. Every scene she touches becomes better because she’s such a natural, funny, relatable actress and character. It made sense on Otto’s journey to have her as an ally, someone who is like, yes, let’s go, let’s do it, but is also equally clueless in life.

I don’t think she realizes how much of a monster she creates when she encourages him to get on Grindr! I’m curious, how much of yourself is written into Otto?

A lot! I used to be the guy with the stories, you know? I went on a date, and then I would report to my friends how the date went, and it was almost always as unbelievable as the things that Otto goes through. You meet people who are different in life, and even though it was maybe not a successful hookup, they can teach you something about how there are so many different nuances in experiencing your sexuality. So it started with all these things that happened to me, all these people that I met, trying to connect them. Then, obviously, I have been a simp following a boy I liked to parties, kissing with him, but then it turned out to be nothing, and he was a douchebag afterwards about it, and being like, who am I doing this for? You know, am I doing this for myself? Who’s getting happier here? So yeah, I would say about 80% of what happens to Otto also happened to me.

Ugh, relatable. Are there formative works for you in your coming of age that ended up being influential as a filmmaker?

Obviously Looking for me was the show that showed that gay people are people, and that their experiences are valid, and that you can have a life like that. It opened a lot of possibilities in my head. I have the obvious ones too like Stranger by the Lake situations where you watch a film out of curiousity at 16. I was like, what’s happening in this film? And then it definitely meant a lot to how I became who I am.

How did you get into filmmaking in the first place?

I didn’t know filmmaking was a thing until like 14/15 and my niece went to study it. I was like that’s insane, I’m gonna do it. I had very supportive parents, luckily, who were like, okay! I’ve been so lucky, this is my first show that I pitched. Every step that we got further into it, I thought we’re going to hit a wall, and I will have learned something for my next project, but then it got greenlit and we shot it and it happened. I was 28 when we shot it which is pretty young to do your first show. I was very, very happy that I got that opportunity, but it’s because I have amazing producers and people around me with a vision on it too, and that’s part of the deal.

Oh, Otto! has a very specific look that feels arthouse indie film vibes, can you talk a bit about how you landed on the cinematography of it all?

My DOP Kobe Vangronsveld is a good friend of mine, we both live in Brussels. The first part of it was really locations—we cycled through the city almost every day making shot lists. We would pass a café and nice bars and think it out.

Secondly, being on a very, very tight budget. It’s a very cheaply made show. I think you couldn’t make it for less money than we did it. So that meant that anything we did, I didn’t want it to feel cheap. I wanted to go for a look that felt chosen, something that wasn’t accidental. So we did a lot of static shots. I’d rather have less shots that look amazing that we can put our energy into.

I wanted to get it right because it was the first show that was going to be shot in the gay street. For the gay sauna, it’s so pretty in a way, I wanted to show that. But really it was good team work on every part, from finding the locations with the right colours to the costumes that fit it, it’s a lovely puzzle to make.

The lighting in the bathhouse was amazing! My mind obviously goes to Heated Rivalry on doing more with less, too, considering their small budget. Other than it ending up somewhere to watch in North America, what is your vision for the future of the series?

Otto is pretty straight passing, and he has a very narrow idea of what masculinity is and what it should be, and I think that’s something to explore. Even though he had all these dates, I feel like he is not really comfortable with his own self. He wouldn’t get into drag or something, that would be out of his comfort zone. It would be very interesting to see him explore how masculinity is not necessarily this one-size thing.

Also, I think it would be very enlightening, instead of finding sex and short term things, if he found an entourage of queer people to see what community can be. A lot of times when we talk about the gay community, they’re often thinking about partying and sex. I was part of a gay water polo team for a while, and that really opened my mind. These were all very different, open-minded people in a queer team where everyone’s welcome, where it doesn’t matter if you’re skinny or muscled. I think in a community that discriminates as much as our community it’s nice to explore how people can be long-term allies in your life as a group of friends.

I’m so excited to hear Otto might be taking a little break from the hookups and maybe won’t be spiralling as much. I was scared he would eventually stumble on Sniffies or something!

[Laughs]. He can’t! Don’t show him Sniffies!

Before I let you go: What’s your favourite TV-watching snack?

It changes from time to time, right now I’m into honey cherry tomatoes. They’re super, super sweet. I also recently discovered pistachio nuts. These were not in my world, and now I know that they exist, I can eat them forever. It’s getting problematic, actually. It takes time to peel which I love, but it’s not for anything you watch. You can’t watch something in a different language and be peeling all the time.

what are they watching? is an interview series for my newsletter in which I chat with a creative about television itself. Previous interviews include Hasan Piker, Toheeb Jimoh, Janicza Bravo, Chelsea Peretti, and Jeff Hiller.

This time around, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jess McLeod who recently played a pivotal role in The Audacity as tech wiz Harper—a role that has got them upgraded to cast regular for the second season of the silicon valley drama. They also wrote, directed, and starred in She’s Nonbinary, a short film currently making its way through the festival circuit and executive produced by Bob Odenkirk and Jane Schoenbrun.

I like to start these interviews by asking: What are you watching on television lately and enjoying?

I just finished DTF St. Louis for the second time. I think it’s so genius. I’m obsessed with it, it takes up so much space in my brain. I think Steven Conrad is so smart. I’m such a fan of anything that incorporates ASL, so that was a big draw for me too. It’s beautifully shot, and it’s so funny, and doesn’t take itself too seriously, which I really like.

What were your foundational shows, the ones that made an impact on you?

Gilmore Girls definitely is the big one, Totally Spies, Kim Possible. I really truly did spend so much of my teenage life just rewatching Gilmore Girls again and again and again and again. I was obsessed with it. I was an only child, single mom thing. Our dynamic looked very different, but I just love the way it’s written. It’s funny, the dialogue really grabs you, and then I think there’s a romantic thing about a small town, I’m from Victoria. I just saw a lot of myself in it. I also think part of the reason why it took me so long to transition—there’s many reasons—but that show was so big because I really was identifying so much with Rory Gilmore even though a lot of me is very different than Rory Gilmore.

Can you tell me a bit about The Audacity’s casting process? Were they specifically looking for someone non-binary to play Harper?

Great question. The short answer is no, Harper was written as a woman, and Lucky, who is Duncan’s assistant, was actually written as a non-binary person. I only got an audition for Harper, and it was only supposed to be three episodes. I was like okay, whatever, a bunch of tech jargon on this really cool show, great. As we were shooting, they realized that the character would be in many more episodes than they thought, so yeah, they changed the character of Harper to be non-binary for me.

What do you make of Harper and Duncan’s dynamic? It feels like Harper is simultaneously disgusted and in awe of him?

At times they kind of are like, You’re dumb and you’re annoying, and then I think they’re almost inspired by him. He is in many ways everything they’re not. There’s an admiration whether they would admit that or not, especially at his ability to deal with people. He’s very headstrong and he’s a good talker, Harper is not that. Harper is not a good talker, and Harper does not inspire confidence in people, so they look up to him in that way. It is a really interesting dynamic.

I never saw myself in a show like this. It’s been amazing, but I just did not ever foresee that this would be something I would do. My relationship with Billy…we are so different, but we really did get along quite well, we are kind of silly together, that was surprising. I think our dynamic came off on screen in a way that surprised everybody, and so that’s kind of why they’ve made them such a twosome in the first season. Very opposites attract dynamic, I guess.

You’ve been upped to series regular for season two—are you allowed to say if we’ll be getting to know Harper more, especially with what they get up to outside of work?

I think yes. I don’t have the whole season yet, so I can’t say exactly, but I’m already getting to know different sides of them in the first two episodes.

I noticed you weren’t submitted to the Emmys alongside the rest of the cast of the show, was that your decision?

No, not my call. I wasn’t really a big part of the publicity for season one, just because that was…not in my contract. They kept adding me into more episodes, I was truly barely supposed to be in the show. So I think they’re just catching up, but I’m just happy to be there. There’s so many great people in the show who should be recognized for their work, and if that happens for me later, great, but if it doesn’t, also fine!

I also wanted to ask about gendered categories at award shows more generally. What is your perspective on that, how do you decide which category to submit to?

To be honest, I haven’t thought too much about it. The awards that I have been nominated for have all been in femme categories. The whole world of awards is kind of contrived in a way anyway, it’s so subjective, I wouldn’t want non-gendered categories to take away spots or recognition away for people—it’s important that there’s equality in it. We’re probably moving into a place I hope where there’s enough non-binary trans representation that the big committees who are doing these awards will have to start talking about what that means for categorization, but I don’t know enough about the process to weigh in. I’m excited that it’s even a conversation that’s happening.

I feel like we are only scratching the surface on television of representations of gender and queerness. Are there any characters or arcs that come to mind in which you felt you saw yourself or part of yourself represented?

I Saw the TV Glow really captured the experience of what it’s felt like internally for me to transition in a way that I don’t think I could even put into words. That movie really shifted a lot for me. In general, a lot of trans characters that we’re seeing on screen are written by very well-meaning cisgender people…I would be really excited to see, especially in TV, more trans stories being written by people that really understand and know the experience. One of the best things about Audacity and Harper is that that part of their character is not really central, and I don’t think it should be.

It’s nice to just have trans people on screen, whether they’re playing a trans character or not, but just seeing them there. Like Eva Victor being on TV for so many years, just being themself, is really powerful. It’s in some ways an easier bridge for a cisgender person to simply witness a trans person existing, rather than need it to be a commentary on gender and identity. That’s a big thing I like about Harper on the show.

I totally hear you. That’s something I loved from Star Trek: Discovery’s numerous non-binary characters as opposed to like, that “viral” Landman scene, if you saw anything about that…

Yes, and I will neglect to comment on that, but I am right there with you. [Laughs]. Billy actually said this in a way that I was like, Oh my god. He said Duncan has such issues with men and women, so it actually really makes sense that the one person who he ends up aligning with is not part of either camp. It neutralizes him in a way, because he doesn’t know how to project upon them his insecurities about his dad or his wife. So it makes him actually take them in as a person in real time.

That is…fascinating. Wow, Billy Magnussen’s mind! This brings to mind how no one on The Audacity has sex.

I know right! I was expecting there to be much more sexual deviance in the world. There’s quite a lot of sexual harassment in the tech world, especially because it’s just so filled with men, I would be really interested to see a comic spin on that for either Meaghan Rath’s character or my character. I think Meaghan can do literally anything, I would love to see her fuck someone up in a big way should they step to her. But yeah, everyone does feel very asexual in the show.

Is there a character that you’ve played so far that you feel is most aligned with like who you are as Jess?

Honestly, in the things that I’m trying to make as a filmmaker, obviously that’s the answer. Nobody else can write from that experience. If I wasn’t doing that, I might feel a little bit more out in the middle of the ocean, looking around, being like, does anybody understand me? Having the ability to write and direct my own stuff has been huge for me, and I know a lot of my trans friends who are actors are also doing that. We have to tell our own stories to be fully represented.

I know this is a film but since we stan Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in this house, what can you say about your experience working with them on Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma? Filmed on Vancouver Island, too!

I know, when I found out that it was shooting on the island I texted my agent immediately, I was like, I will do anything. I didn’t get to work with Gillian, which is devastating, obviously, but I got to work with Hannah who is so awesome and so funny, so down to earth, a really great number one on the call sheet to have. I didn’t have a lot to do in the movie, but when I was there, it was amazing, and I knew a lot of the crew. I truly think Jane Schoenbrun is the voice of our time. I don’t know that there’s anybody else with such a specific view on life and the experience of being a person, who is also so able to communicate that in a visual medium.

If you could be dropped into any television world, which sort of TV world would you drop yourself into?

I would love to do more sci-fi stuff. I feel like non-binary people should be playing every little creature, you know? I just feel like that’s our lane. So yeah, I want to do stuff that’s really weird and off the wall. Maybe I’m wearing some prosthetics and crawling around. Like a Widow’s Bay, or something, get really freaky with it

One last question before I let you go: What’s your favourite TV-watching snack?

This is such a lame and cliché answer, but I really love popcorn. I probably eat popcorn every day. I love a popcorn. I was a big seasoning on my popcorn person, I would have all these little shakers, we haven’t really been back there in a while. As I’m talking about this, I think I need to go back to the store, I need to get creative again.

Need some TV-fuelled advice? Send me a letter and I’ll see how I can help in my advice column.

Okay, so you subscribed to Apple TV because you wanted to see what the Widow’s Bay hype is all about. The season finale airs next week. Then what?

Apple TV has been a fascinating experiment. The company has poured tens of billions into its original programming, which might seem like a lot, but it’s a small drop in the bucket from their perspective. Has any of it been profitable? Is it all for prestige and awards, entertainment for entertainment’s sake? Does it even matter, as long as art keeps getting made?

I’ve done a scan of their programming slate and compiled some useful guides below: My top 15 (don’t worry, Widow’s Bay makes the top five), some honourable mentions, and the shows I wouldn’t particularly recommend. If you’re at a loss for what to watch next, hopefully this helps. Besides, summer is one of my favourite times of the year to catch up on things I might have missed. Let’s get into it.

The top fifteen…

15. Land of Women (2024)

Genre: Fish-out-of-water comedy but also a crime drama somehow.

The gist: After finding out her husband owes some scary people money, Gala (Eva Longoria) makes an escape to her mother’s hometown in Catalonia, Spain. There, she gets involved in the local women-run vineyard co-op and just hopes she’s adequately off the grid. RIP this show which was so fun, queer, and a perfect summer binge.

Is it gay?: 35%

14. For All Mankind (2019–2027)

Genre: Alternate history sci-fi space drama.

The gist: What if Russia got to the moon first, effectively never ending the space race? Great character development in the first few seasons that remind me of Halt and Catch Fire. Edge-of-your-seat space sequences. The show starts slumping from season four onwards though, hence its low placement here.

Is it gay?: 30%

13. Five Days at Memorial (2022)

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