Season 5 of Netflix’s Queer Eye recently dropped, and the timing couldn’t have been better. I’ll admit, I wasn’t super interested in this series when it first came out. I’m not even sure what made me decide to give it a try, but it hooked me from the very first episode of season 1.

I remember Bravo’s original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, though I’m not sure I ever watched more than one episode. I remember it being a little campy, that the Fab Five would teach hapless straight guys how to be a little more metro. This version is so much different.

I mean, for starters… they don’t just makeover straight men. Men, women, gay, straight, trans, it seems like they’ve done it all. And there’s such a positive message to it. They don’t teach people how to be fashionable, they teach them how to shop for clothes that look good on them based on their body type. (And what sizes actually fit them!) They teach them about self-care and tackle social, professional, and/or personal problems they’re facing. And they do it all with compassion, flair, and a generous dose of humor.

This show makes me laugh, and it make me cry. I’m two episodes into season 5, and it’s already choked me up once. At a time when so many bad things are happening to good people, it’s incredibly refreshing to see good things happen to good people for a change.

So, if you need a little pick-me-up, this show is a great place to start. I’m trying not to go through the season too quickly, so I can drag out the feel-good effects as long as possible. This goes against my bingeing nature, so we’ll see how long my resolve lasts.

I saw an ad for this new Amazon Original shortly before it came out and made a mental note to watch it, then got completely absorbed in other things and forgot about it. Fortunately, I did remember it before too much time had gone by, because it was a delight! Here’s a quick synopsis from Amazon:

“In the future people can upload their consciousness to a luxurious digital afterlife. When party boy Nathan gets uploaded to a virtual resort he meets the down-to-earth Nora who starts as his customer service “angel”, but becomes so much more as she helps him find friendship, love and purpose.”

Of course, a little blurb like that can’t cover everything—like the fact that that “luxurious digital afterlife” is only available to people who can afford it. That even once you buy your way in, there are still the equivalent of “in-app purchases” everywhere. That if someone pays for your upload, they also control your afterlife.

I expected Upload to be a little cheezy, but it was surprisingly thoughtful. There were laugh out loud moments in almost every episode, but the writers didn’t go for the low hanging fruit. Some of the jokes are extremely subtle, and their vision of the future isn’t so far removed from our own that you can’t see things evolving (or devolving) that way. The protagonist, Nathan Brown, starts out as a cringe-worthy self-absorbed douchebag but very quickly becomes relatable—even likable.

I won’t ruin the story for you, but I will tell you that this is a great show and if you like tongue in cheek sci-fi and comedy… take the plunge. It’s already been green-lit for a second season, so no worries about getting hooked only to have it canceled after one season! However, the way the pandemic has film/tv production shut down… it might be a bit delayed.

I spent far too much time last weekend trolling for something to watch. It turns out, my Netflix queue is pretty dark, and I wasn’t in the mood for anything too grim. I ended up picking up The Magicians again, which is a show I have a bit of an on-again off-again relationship with. Whenever I come back to it, I fall in and wonder why I kept putting off watching it.

In case you haven’t heard of The Magicians, here’s what IMDB has to say: “After being recruited to a secretive academy, a group of students discover that the magic they read about as children is very real-and more dangerous than they ever imagined.” That… sums it up rather nicely. I wish I’d thought to check IMDB for the other shows I summed up awkwardly. What can I say, long form is more my thing. 😉

I’ve tried watching The Magicians when it airs on Syfy, but as you may recall from a previous post… weekly viewings are not my favorite way to consume TV shows. So, I tend to wait until a new season pops up on Netflix to catch up. I’m not sure how long Season 4 was available before I realized it, but apparently Season 5 wrapped up this month, so… I’m a bit behind. I started watching Season 4 but after few episodes ended up rolling it all the way back to the beginning of Season 1.

Watching the pilot, I remembered how I stopped and started it a few times, having trouble getting into it until the very last scene… which completely hooked me. If you’ve ever tried watching The Magicians and couldn’t get through the first episode, I urge you to try again. Watch it all the way through, and if you still don’t want to advance to Episode 2, then the show may not be for you.

There’s something about re-watching a series you like that’s almost magical, especially if it’s been a while. I discovered I’d forgotten so much of what happened that it was almost like watching it for the first time again. And yet, I still noticed things that I didn’t pick up the first time around and reasons behind things that happened that I didn’t quite get before, probably because there were long gaps between binges.

But I think the thing I like most about The Magicians is it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Sure, it can get tense, but there are quips and pop culture references that make it entertaining, relatable, and relevant. If I had a nickel for every Star Trek or Game of Thrones reference… okay, I’d probably have about a dollar. But they do pop up. The show is also inclusive, with one of the principal characters being gay, and it doesn’t shy away from depictions of love between men. (Granted, poor Eliot sure has bad luck when it comes to love.) It also has a unique magic system involving mathematics and hand gestures that is super cool.

In the end, The Magicians may not be Emmy-winning television, but it is one of my favorite shows. And I’m glad I discovered two new seasons waiting for me when I needed something a little lighter. (Not that it doesn’t get pretty dark at times, but there’s always light to be found somewhere!)

Okay, technically this is what I was watching until I accidentally caught up to where we’re at in the current season. All I have to say about that is: I’ve come to loathe episodic time-gated television. Netflix has spoiled me. I like to binge entire seasons. As a result, I tend to fall behind on things that air over the course of a traditional (outdated) season of programming and catch up on them once the season is finished.

Alas, this time I was… impatient? More like unobservant. I don’t find Outlander to be completely riveting, but it does have its charms. (And by charms I mostly mean Sam Heughan with his shirt off. And the accent! Shiver.) I mean, there are reasons why I stopped reading the books, and I suspect I’ll probably lose interest in the live action version once we get to that point too. But for now… I’m still on board. For infrequent subscribe-for-a-month-and-binge sessions.

So, here I am. Caught up and waiting for the next installment. There are only 2-3 episodes left in the season, so it’s not like this is going to drag on indefinitely. But it still sticks in my craw.

Outlander. Okay, so if you just crawled out from under a rock… Outlander is a historical time travel series involving a woman who travels back in time a couple hundred years. While she’s there, she ends up meeting the love of her life and they absolutely do not live happily ever after. That’s why I’d never call Outlander a romance. I mean, the relationship between Claire and Jamie is the foundation of the show, but the story gets so much bigger…

And that’s where the original material lost me. I was all in on Jamie and Claire and their story against the backdrop of history, but as the story got more complicated with trying to also tell a secondary love story (I won’t spoil anything) involving another pair of time travelers… it started to lose me. It lost me even more when a certain side character came of age and earned himself a POV. Sigh.

One of the things the show/series does well is take some of the romance out of time travel. By that, I mean, the characters recognize just how dangerous the past really is, how it lacks all the conveniences that we take for granted, like running water, medicine, and not having to grow our own food. There’s a lot of hard work involved, and fortunately our heroine(s) aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and get to work. Still, it doesn’t seem to bother them as much as you’d think. Why? Love.

I’m not sure there ever was red-headed highlander compelling enough to get me to stay in the 18th century. It’s dirty, it’s scary, and it’s a lot of damn work. I have enough trouble motivating myself to do the minimal tasks that are required of me as a modern day human. What if I had to carry all my laundry down to the creek to wash, and then back to the house to… hang it out to dry? Ugh. What if cooking dinner meant growing the vegetables and butchering the pig first?

Yeah, I am so spoiled. And not just by Netflix.

Picked up a free 30-day Hulu subscription recently, and I’ve been using it to catch up on seasons 2 & 3 of The Handmaid’s Tale. I was skeptical about the show continuing past the original book, but they’ve done a really good job.

In case you haven’t read the book or watched any of the series, here’s a (very) brief overview: The nation of Gilead exists in much of what was once the United States. They are governed by the Commanders, Christian extremists that have established a new world order when it comes to the women in their country. Women are no longer permitted to read, write, or have jobs. They serve as wives, domestic servants, aunts (handmaid jailors/trainers), slave labor, or whores. And then there are handmaids, proven fertile women who are unfit to be wives for whatever reason but are still valued for their ability to bear children in a world where fertility has been in steep decline. Handmaids are assigned to commanders and expected to bear children for them to raise with their wives.

This may sound extreme. It is. The handmaids are imprisoned, reconditioned, and tortured. Their children are stolen from them. Anyone who steps out of line suffers horrifying consequences, including disfigurement and, for the worst offenses, death. But at its core, The Handmaid’s Tale is a story of the human spirit, of the bonds between mothers and their children, and of one woman’s refusal to be fully broken no matter what they throw at her.

I’m always impressed by shows/films that can bring me to tears. I don’t cry super easily, but this show hits me in the feels. It makes me angry. It makes me sad. At times, it horrifies me. It makes me grateful for the life and freedom I have, and keenly aware of how much I take for granted.

Women are still second-class citizens in some cultures. They’re kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery all over the world. It’s totally okay for men to beat their wives in some countries. Women are cruelly mutilated or disfigured for breaking religious laws. Even in the USA, women are frequently victimized by men in positions of power.

And I won’t even go into the rights and privileges that I, as a heterosexual woman, enjoy that the LGBTQ+ crowd don’t.

I don’t always like tv shows or movies that make me think too much. I show up to be entertained, and I’m not usually looking for deeper meaning or to explore the human condition. This one is a glaring exception. I think what troubles me the most is how easy it is to see parallels between how Gilead justifies its actions and the rhetoric I see flying around on the internet today.

I’m not saying it’s necessarily realistic that the United States could become like Gilead. But when it comes to giving up your rights… it’s a slippery slope. Be vigilant, ladies.