TV #49 of 2023: Star Trek: Short Treks, season 1 I wasn’t sure what to expect of this series going into it, and I’m still somewhat bemused after finishing this quick debut season. It turns out to consist of only four episodes, each about ten-to-fifteen minutes long and spinning off in some way from Star …
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TV #48 of 2023: Wednesday, season 1 A pitch-perfect Addams Family update, made even stronger by the choice to focus on the title character alone. While her relatives are also included on the series, they’re generally relegated to a few quick scenes that are charming but don’t overstay their welcome, a structure that allows the …
Book #103 of 2023: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (The Empyrean #1) The majority of this fantasy novel is pretty terrific, a fine addition to that thriving sub-genre of speculative fiction about specialized academies that blatantly allow/encourage/require their enterprising cadets to murder one another to get ahead (Ender’s Game, Battle Royale, The Scholomance, Red Rising, …
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TV #47 of 2023: Star Trek: Enterprise, season 4 I gather conventional wisdom holds that the latter two seasons of this TOS prequel series are better than the first, and sure, I’ll mildly agree to that. The writers understand their characters and the other strengths (and limitations) of the program a little more clearly now, …
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TV #46 of 2023: Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, season 1 Three-and-a-half stars, rounded up. There’s a lot of things I enjoy about this unexpected Netflix revival, which aired in 2016 after the original WB/CW program ended in 2007. In a review at the time, I mentioned: “It really feels like ten years …
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TV #45 of 2023: Classic Doctor Who, season 8 The Third Doctor’s sophomore season leans into the strengths of the previous year, which showed how the venerable sci-fi program could adapt its time-traveling and space-hopping premise to an earthbound format, with the hero assisting the UNIT military forces fend off alien invasions. He’s now joined …
TV #44 of 2023: What We Do in the Shadows, season 5 Another delightfully funny season of this vampire comedy, and one that finally pulls the trigger on a long-mentioned possible direction for the show. (I’m trying, as ever, to avoid major spoilers in the space of a review.) Guillermo starts the year keeping a …
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TV #43 of 2023: Justified: City Primeval, season 1 This eight-episode miniseries roughly works as a standalone crime drama, but it doesn’t feel much like Justified. And by pedigree, it isn’t: it’s an adaptation of an unrelated Elmore Leonard novel, onto which Raylan Givens has been somewhat awkwardly grafted as a new protagonist for this …
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Book #102 of 2023: Doctor Who: Doom’s Day: Four from Doom’s Day by Darren Jones Doom’s Day is a Doctor Who transmedia event, meaning an ongoing storyline that plays out across multiple different platforms, from comic books to video games to novels and beyond. Theoretically, each installment is self-contained enough that it can be enjoyed …
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Book #101 of 2023: Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale The neurodivergent heroine of this #ownvoices novel (published as The Cassandra Complex in author Holly Smale’s native UK) reminds me a lot of the titular character in Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine — a comparison which, not to spoil that book, had me dreading a …
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