Bookwild - Must Watch 2023 TV Shows

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

Kate shares some of her favorite TV shows she's been watching lately!TV Shows Kate Talked AboutCruel SummerSiloThe Crowded RoomHijackThe Other Two Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

And we are going to be discussing all things, chills, thrills, and kills. Kate and I are going to be talking about our favorite books, TV shows, and movies that are in the thriller or crime fiction genre, as well as some reading habits and other items related to how we met on Bookstagram that will fit in with this podcast. So thank you so much for joining us. And we hope that you have fun and get totally terrified. So if you've been listening to this podcast for a little bit recently, you definitely know that we run into dog problems. A couple weeks ago, Murphy was trying to steal the headphones out of Gair's ears. We've stopped before to let my dogs out.

And this week, Murphy is then a cone. Poor Murph dog. And so Gare needed to take a week off to spend the same. some time with Murphy. And so I was thinking about what I could do for a solo episode. And when I was thinking about it, I remembered I have been watching like just a little bit more TV lately. I think when I started the podcasts and reviewing more books, I got really focused on reading as much as I could all the time, which is great. I don't like regret doing that or anything, but I was getting into a place where, like, I just wasn't watching much TV. And then it felt

like a bunch of shows had piled up that I kept hearing people talk about. And I was like, man, I really do want to watch those. But, like, sometimes when I get arcs, like, I feel like I need to prioritize those, especially over TV as well, just so I can get the reviews on every day. So kind of a culmination of a couple things came together and I've been watching just some more TV in the last two months. And I always want to talk about the shows that I love. Like I just always do. So I was like, well, we definitely have talked about TV in the past, but it's been a little bit since we've talked about TV shows. So I was like, why not talk about the TV shows that I've been loving lately?

So that's what we're going to do in this episode. Yeah, there's just been so much that I've enjoyed lately. So I'm wanting to share with you guys what I've been enjoying and kind of give you some little tidbits about each of these so that you could decide if maybe this is a show that you would actually enjoy as well and want to watch. So I'm just going to go ahead. pineapple. So a few episodes ago, we did a Cruel Summer reading playlist. Cruel Summer was airing at the time, and you've probably heard me say before that I don't watch shows until they've aired completely. Before that was a more popular thing to do or a more common thing to do, I would always even tell people like, I think it's reading that made me that way. Because

with a book, obviously, like, you can stop if you need to, but you can still pick it right back up and generally finish the whole story, just based off, like, the pacing of your life, but you're not having to wait for the next chapter to air, is what I'm trying to say. And so I feel like that was part of what made me someone who was always like, I mean, I'm going to wait until the whole season has aired because I just enjoy, I enjoy getting into the flow of a story and being able to like genuinely complete the story. Like it's why I hate commercials. It's why I hate waiting a week. I feel like you lose the impact of the story sometimes when you're like waiting seven days to see the next episode. And then maybe something in episode 10 is like a

really important nod to something in the first episode. But since that first episode was like eight weeks prior, you don't even remember. So that's just always my personal preference is that like I want to be able to experience the story straight through so that I can appreciate everything about the story in like a bigger, more complete sense. So I've always been that way. Cruel Summer was airing when we did that episode where we did basically books to read if Cruel Summer is a TV show that enjoy. So if you haven't listened to that one and you know you like Cruel Summer, definitely go listen to it. But the second season finished airing and I had some time on a weekend and I watched it all in like two days. So it was perfect for me in terms of the way that I like to watch TV. So cruel summer. This season

takes place in the 90s, I think 1999, if I remember correctly. And it is about Megan and is And Isabelle or Isabella, Megan and Isabella. Megan has been living with her mom and her sister in their kind of coastal touristy town and just live in her life, being best friends with her childhood friend, Luke. And then her mom tells her that they're going to be housing a foreign exchange student named Isabella. Megan is not excited about it. She doesn't want to have to share things with anyone. doesn't want how to live with someone. And to make matters worse,

the tension gets pretty immediate when Isabella is interested in Luke romantically. And it's kind of implied that Megan has been interested in him romantically, but maybe hasn't let herself feel those feelings yet. So we have basically three teens who are very close friends with each other, a love triangle developing. and Isabella is this cool world-traveled, wealthy girl where Megan has mostly stayed in her,

where she lives her whole life. And so Isabella is also very intimidating because she just had way more experiences than Megan as well. So the relationships get really complicated. This is another one that, this is another season. and where from the get-go we're getting present and past timelines that are only separated by, I think, a year. But a couple of things I thought was really good about that.

They do separate color grading for the different timelines. So it is relatively easy to follow along. Like, you're not just, like, jumping into a scene and being like, oh, which timeline are we in now? That did make that a lot easier. The other thing that the show does a really good job of in terms of keeping timelines separate is, and they did this in season one as well, you, the characters go through like a relatively drastic physical change as well. So there are also some pretty obvious indicators that help you know which timeline you're in,

but it is such a twisty show that is kind of like the gist of the show. So that was the gist of the first season. It's definitely what you get going into the second season. So I'm not going to talk too much about plot. But by the end of the first episode, we know that someone has gone missing and that a body was found in the water. And so we know that that's what we're headed towards is like, who is in the water? Why are they in the water? What happens leading up to it?

And what this season does a really good job of is actually really examining the dynamics between males and females. men and women, boys and girls, whatever, in the 90s, and how women were blamed for a lot of things that men were actually responsible for or they weren't believed. It really takes a good look at that and just the very different way that we treated teenage girls and women not very long ago, like 30 years ago. so it really hits on a lot of that but every single episode there is a reveal that just like switches up what you were thinking like realigns where you think the story is going and the finale

in my opinion was so incredible they really nailed a lot of the things that this show was known for doing well in the first season and i really think fans of the first season are going to love the second season. I am going to say with a caveat, just because I've talked about how like why a books are always my thing, same thing with TV. Like, sometimes it's just very hard for me to get into a TV show when it's about high schoolers. And, um, this show definitely has its moments where you're like, oh, that dialogue is like written for teenagers. Like, you have your moments that are like this feels a little bit like the CW. I feel a little bit cringy right now, but typically we get back into the action pretty quickly, and I still really, really overall

enjoyed the way that they brought the story together. So, long story short, if you liked season one, if you like kind of thrillers that take place with high school students, complicated three people friendships, love triangles, if all of that is interesting to you, you will probably devour Cruel Summer Season 2 the same way that I did. So after Cruel Summer, there was a show that I just kept seeing on just everywhere. I was seeing it on TikTok, I was seeing it on Instagram. I just kept seeing more and more and more information about it. And it's called Silo. And it is the story of an entire civilization of people who have been living underground in these massive, what you would call, silos in the ground. And so this generation of people has never known life outside of the silo.

They just know that if you go outside, you pretty immediately die. Like, I think the assumption is that it has to do with the air quality. So all of them believe it. They're all kind of coexisting in this very dystopian underground community. And one of the more important things to know is that the only like the main rule for everyone living in the silo is that you do not say. that you want to go outside, which if you guys have not watched the trailer for the show or watched the show itself, if you want to really chuckle, watch the trailer, and they really build it up to the point that it says, like, and do not say you want to go outside.

And I was like, oh, I'd be perfectly safe in this world. it might have been that line in the trailer that had me like, you know what, maybe this shows for me. The rest of that statement is, or you will go outside. So if you start to express any thoughts about like what's actually out there, are they telling us the truth? I want to go outside and see for myself. Then what happens is you get suited up in this interesting kind of astronaut-looking suit. and you become someone who is going outside to clean, which means there is in the cafeteria,

there's this huge, long, like, picture window that looks out up and out into the outside. And so every now and then there are, of course, your people who are like, wait, why should I just believe that we have to live out here or down here? anytime those people pop up that start to have those questions, then they say, fine, you can go out, you're going to go out and find out. And you clean, you have the choice to clean the camera sensor that is out there that is like connected to the live feed that is showing like people in the cafeteria

what the outside is actually like. So there's like, it's important to know that they don't. have to clean when they go outside, but everyone who goes out there ends up cleaning it. And so then everyone can see through the sensor, like all the debris is gone. They can see even more that the world looks terrifying out there is the overall effect of that. So the pilot was one of the best pilots I've watched in a while. It was so emotional. The characters were so developed. But the pilot,

without giving too many spoilers, is we start with a character named Allison Becker, who is starting to wonder about what's happening outside. So she's starting to have questions and the way that they basically do the world building,

because there is quite a bit of world building since, like, this is a completely unique community in the way that they're living. The world building is really great in that whole first episode where, like, having a character who's questioning it helps you really start to understand all the rules of the world, like what they're living in and with, and, like, who's enforcing it and what feels a little bit sketchy about it all. So, um, just a really powerful pilot.

It's, it's just, it gets you so hooked on the characters and everyone who's living underneath there. And it is just a really, really great sci-fi. I mean, it is sci-fi. It's like in the future, they're living differently. It's like a sci-fi dystopian thriller that has, like, in my opinion, it has vibes of the Handmaid's Tale is a little bit there. I would say the Matrix vibes are there a little bit.

It is not as brainy as the Matrix, but kind of the idea of like questioning your reality and what you've been told. It's very similar to that. Another one of the main characters, Juliet Nichols, who's played by Rebecca Ferguson,

is just fantastic. Like, she kills it in that role. I got so attached to her as well. And I can say the finale of season one was absolutely stunning as well, which those are sometimes so hard to do, especially in like your first season. The finale was fantastic.

Just such a good show. If you like sci-fi, if you like thrillers, if you like dystopian stuff, you're going to love the show. There are some people who complain that it is just so slow spaced. It's so slow-paced. And it is, but like I still always felt like I was learning more information from different people and also just getting more and more attached to some of the characters. Like the characters felt very real. And it just, it didn't feel, it didn't feel slow to me.

I know that it did feel slow to some people. So that's, that's like part of what you could consider. better, but really if you like those genres, I think you would absolutely love it. Another cool thing I learned while I was reading it, or while I was watching it, is that it is inspired by a series of books by an author named Hugh Howey, who he is kind of known as the, I don't know, like the godfather of self-publishing. So when Amazon started, having the Kindle publishing direct program

he started self-publishing these novels and they took off like they just it just really took off it gained a really devoted kind of cult following and he was writing it in

shorter installments than like a normal book and so there were people just like constantly like dying to see that next one and so read the next one and now there are versions of it that are like all in one or two books. And it used to be called wool. Wool was the title of the first book.

So kind of a fun thing. It was like fun learning as I was watching that this like came from like an author's kind of like beginnings of success. So always fun for my bookish people to know that this was inspired by a book. So yeah, if you are into any of that, I think you would really enjoy that show. And if you do watch it, make sure you message me because I think I've talked to one other person who has watched the show. It's just not as like mass market popular, I think is some of it. But I have not had too many conversations about the show.

And I took a lot of notes on that show. So I am always down to talk about silo is what I'm saying. So after I finish silo, I had the crowded room next on my watch list, which is another show from Apple TV Plus. I was in my Apple TV Plus era, clearly. And it is starring Tom Holland. It stars Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried. This one is a tricky one to completely talk. about for a couple different reasons. So there is what could be considered a twist. I would

almost call it more of a reveal to help you kind of decide on this show. I was able to guess the reveal in the second episode. So it's not... It's not the craziest twist. And so what I'm trying to say is after you listen to what I've said here, if you want to know, like, even more about what the show is about, just message me is what I'm kind of aiming to say here. The story is loosely based off of a man who was in a similar position to Tom Holland's character. I would love to tell you the nonfiction book about that man that inspired the show.

However, I think even the title of the book that it's inspired by would give away the reveal. And so I'm trying to not talk about it in case there's anyone who kind of wants the reveal to pack a really big punch. but the reason I'm even saying all of that is this show got absolutely murdered by some critics. And I didn't know that when I started it, but then of course when I was like getting on IMDB looking up every single detail that I just had to know about the show, I saw some of the reviews and I was like, what is happening? Like I was very invested in the show. I was really enjoying the show.

And I was like, how is it getting ratings this bad? So some of the ratings talk about how the show is predictable and that they guess the twist. And here's my perspective. This show, I think some of what it struggled with was marketing itself as a psychological thriller. Amanda Safeord's character is a psychologist. So that element is there, but you're not necessarily there for thrilling twists, in my opinion. If you approached this show as a suspenseful look at a story that's loosely based off of a real man's struggles, I don't think you would go into it and end up disappointed.

The gist of it is Danny Sullivan, who is Tom Holland's character, is arrested after being involved in a shooting that takes place in New York City. He's with his friend when it happens. We see that at the beginning. And then she runs and he's left as like the only person on the scene who is part of what happened. I'm trying so hard not to spoil anything here. So the police pick him.

up, they bring him in, and his behavior is a little bit less than normal. There's some stuff that feels abnormal. And so one of the police officers had been on a date with Amanda Safrey's character, Raya. He had previously dated her, and she is a psychologist and a professor of psychology as well. When this guy, Danny, is acting really strange in the police station, he asks Raya to come and talk to him to see what she thinks about what's going on. And as the story unravels, we're trying to figure out why he was present at this shooting with his friend and where she is and just what led to that happening and how to catch her as well. So then Raya starts developing a relationship with Danny.

and building trust with him and trying to get to the bottom of what happened at the very opening of the series. So it unravels just like his very long story, his very long history, even though he's very young, it really dives into what brought him to be standing next to his friend during the shooting. So it is, in my opinion, again, if you are not going into it expecting it to shock you, I think it's a really fantastic, suspenseful drama that looks very compassionately at how our past experiences shape who we are and lead us to me. make the decisions that we make. The acting, in my opinion, is incredible. Incredible from Tom and Amanda.

Emmy Rossum plays his mom, which was like, blast from the shameless past. I love Emmy Rossum. Her performance was stunning. So many stunning performances. I really don't understand why the critics were giving it such low ratings just based off the fact that they felt like it was predictable. It doesn't really make sense to me. I didn't think that that was the main draw of the show at all. What I will also say is it is such a heavy show. It's very heavy. It's very emotional. If trigger warnings is something that you look at with

books that you read, this is a show where it's worth looking into trigger warnings. I'm not going to mention them because, again, it would give some stuff away. So if you're not worried about trigger warnings, I don't want to spoil some of that. But I thought it was just a really, really good show that also, like, kind of examines, like, how the police were set up in the late 70s, 80s. The shooting was in 1979. So we're, like, right in between the 70s and 80s. but it was just a really, really, really good show, in my opinion. It will break your heart multiple times, but it will also give you a little bit of hope.

I guess that's all I'm going to say at this point. And I also just thought it was, I keep saying the word, but it was such, such a compassionate look at how we as humans cope with the big things that happen to us. So that's all I'm going to say. If you are kind of down for a slower burn show, and you're not expecting it to blow your mind, but instead just entertain you in the genre versions that I've already said a million times,

if you go into it like that, I don't know how anyone who, like, listens to this podcast and is fans of the books that we read. I don't know how you would dislike this show. Hopefully, that was not too all over the place because I know with that one there was just so much I was trying to say and not say. So, again, if there's anything more that you want to know about this show, message me. I will gladly tell you things that I don't think will ruin the show. story. So yeah, I will answer any of your questions about this one since that was kind of, kind of a vague review. So keeping on the Apple TV plus trend, the next show that I watched

was Hijack with Adris Elba as the main character, Sam Nelson. There are a lot of other stunning performances, but it is definitely mostly revolving around Idris' character, Sam. So it is a story about multiple passengers who get on a plane that is flying back to London and a couple of, like, an hour into the flight, it gets hijacked. And so we have, I'm trying to make sure I don't spoil anything. I don't think this is a spoiler. We have Idris who's on the plane, who by the end of the first episode we learn, is a negotiator, like a corporate negotiator in his real life. So our main character is perfectly set up for trying to manage everything that is happening on this plane

and try to safely land it before anything bad, like really bad happens. Um, it is, it feels so claustrophobic. I don't, I am not sure how they managed to film the plane scenes and make them feel so claustrophobic. You feel like you are stuck in an airplane multiple times and like there's nowhere that you could go to like get out of an already intense situation. The like suspense, the tension is like, not to be punny, but it is sky high from the very beginning. And it holds that tension. So it's a seven-hour flight and a seven-episode series, which I thought was really cool, too. I love when shows incorporate some stuff like that. And truly the action never stops. There are a couple scenes that happen off the plane each episode.

So we are following some of the people on the ground who are trying to basically make the situation better for the people who've been hijacked. So we are following some of the people on the ground who are trying to figure everything out. But most of the time, you are stuck in that plane with them. And it just was so amplified how there was really nowhere to go. So it reminded me a lot. There was a show, or a movie. I can't even remember what year it came out. But there is a movie with Jody Foster called Flight Plan.

And it was one of the first thrillers that I watched as like a teenager. And I remember watching it and being like, I am obsessed with like the feeling of a story like this. And at the time, I don't think I even necessarily. knew that you would call it a thriller. We just didn't even watch that many thrillers, but it reminded me so much a flight plan and how much I loved that, which is now like making me want to rewatch that movie, so I might have to rewatch it here soon. Um, but the suspense is just so high when you're stuck up high in the sky in a plane. And it did not let up. I think it would be easy. I think it'd be really easy to have a mini series like that where it starts to feel played out

by the end of it. That was not my experience with it at all. I thought the ending was really, really great, very, very well written. Endings are hard to do sometimes. So I loves that part of it. And really, there's not a ton to talk about that wouldn't give things away. But if you, really vibe with action thrillers. That's definitely what we're dealing with here. So definitely we have fight scenes. We have hiding scenes. Like everything that you would love about an action thriller is in this one.

Paired with kind of like also if you're interested in like characters who really understand human behavior and kind of like the trope of like the man who's going to get us all out of this. that's what this is. There is a point at the beginning of the series where he helps some woman calm down right after like the hijacking is happening

and they're taking their phones and they've turned the internet off and she's getting really nervous and he turns over and like talks her through it and I turned to Tyler because I was watching it with him and I was like well I just need Iderselba to follow me around all the time and anytime there's a crisis just quietly explain to me what I'm supposed to do. And my life will just be perfectly fine.

He's perfect for the role. And anyone who's kind of into that, like I was saying, like understanding human behavior, figuring out how to persuade someone to maybe do something that they're really not wanting to do, definitely have that trope coming up with his character. After all those thrillers, My mind was like, hey, what if we watched something that was a little bit funnier?

And that led me to the other two on HBO Max. So this is a little bit of a wild card on this one. We don't really talk about comedies on this podcast. We don't really read them. We don't really. I do watch some. I actually have watched quite a few comedies. But collectively, I know Garrett doesn't.

So we don't talk about comedies as much on this one. So if comedy is just absolutely not your thing, obviously you don't have to listen to this one. But I, oh, fans of 30 Rock, Shits Creek, what else did it remind me of? There are a couple other shows. It's a little bit like Parks and Rec. I would say that it's closer to 30 Rock than all of those because the gist of it is it's about a team. boy named Chase Dreams. His name's actually Chase Duback, but

Chase Dreams is what he goes by for his stage name. It 100% is a parody on Justin Bieber-esque fame. So it's not always, it's not like it's following his career like super closely, but the inspo of the inspo of

this absolutely was Justin Bieber. So it's a 13-year-old boy, and the other two are his other two siblings who are significantly older than him, Carrie and Brooke. So Carrie's a struggling actor. He has just not landed the roles that he wants at all. And Brooke used to be an dancer, and now she's just kind of working like odd and end admin jobs in New York City and Chase blows up overnight with a YouTube

video and is all of a sudden like the biggest sensation for especially your teenage girls again very Justin Bieber down to the fact that his manager the man who discovers him

and is making his career just blow up. His name is Streeter. And if you don't know who Scooter Braun is, just go ahead and Google it. I am not even going to go down the Scooter Braun rabbit hole, because we might not come out. But Streeter, like,

the people writing the show just fit in so many pop culture references. So, the show follows this, like, sudden skyrocketing of fame. Obviously, like, related to the title, it's even more about what happens to the other two.

So their careers start taking off as well, being adjacent to him. And you're just following the like absolute shenanigans of living in New York City, building Chase's career, and just everything that comes with the like Hollywood-esque and singer-related scene. So they are in New York City. That's why I almost didn't say the Hollywood scene, but like they go there for things through like Carrie's character. We're also very like adjacent to actors and like their experiences. So it is the Hollywood machine even though we're in New York City. But the writers are from SNL.

Lauren Michaels produces the show. So like already like Molly Shannon. is the mom of the children. Their dad is not alive, sadly. Um, but just hilarious. Like, I am cracking up at so many different things that they make fun of. There's so much pop culture satire. They're hilarious like Justin Bieber and Scooter references. Also, some really heartfelt moments. Not very often. It is mostly a comedy. But the character is, characters do have some really huge growth that they go through. And there are some very poignant moments that really just make you think about some of your own stuff, honestly.

If I started listing all the things that just, like, cracked me up, I probably wouldn't stop talking about the show. But they just, each episode does such a good job at, like, looking at, at a silly, silly part of pop culture. And they always take the silly angle and they always take the, yeah, it can be kind of dumb angle. But there's also typically a side of it where they kind of show the positives of something. And that is something I always appreciate, whether it's a thriller, a drama, a comedy. I think it's really impressive when episodes of a TV show can kind of like take one big stance on something at the beginning. And by the end of, the episodes, you're kind of like, hmm, I could see how I could see things from both perspectives.

So that's what the show does a really, really good job of. There's some great, not bit characters, but like secondary characters. There's some hilarious characters. If anyone is watching it or starts watching it, Lance cracks me up so much. Brooke's ex-boyfriend who is still kind of like close to the family. He is so funny. And there are just, there are so many jokes per episode that like sometimes you're still laughing at one that just happened and a whole other thing happens. And you're like, wait, I think something really funny just happened and I end up rewining so that I can catch it.

But the 30 rock vibes that I was mentioning at the beginning very much because it's like a very fast paced. Like the dialogue is really fast. the characters are kind of larger than life and exaggerated a little bit for the sake of comedy. And the same way that 30 Rock was able to very much make fun of the industry while still being a part of the industry, definitely the same vibe that you have going on in the other two. So if any of you are just feeling like you need a break from seriousness or suspense or action or thrills or sadness, all of those things. The other two really might be what should be next for you.

Because I just, I loved it. There are three seasons, 30 episodes, and it did not get renewed for a fourth season, which made me so sad. But the three seasons that are there are so fantastic, then I'm pretty much okay with it. So now that you have heard everything that I have been watching over the last couple months,

I would love to hear from any of you. you, if you guys have watched any of these shows, obviously you know that I can talk about stories, whether it's TV or books, forever and ever and ever. So if any of you have listened, or listen, if any of you have watched any of the ones that I just talked about, love to talk to you about it more. And if any of you guys have any ideas for what I should watch next, also hit me up with those.