Around the Tubes: January 8, 2022

   

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting.  This post includes blurbs on Pam & Tommy, Sex Appeal, The Weeknd, James Brown, Foxes, nd Betty White.

- Check out the all-new trailer and key art for Hulu's "Pam & Tommy." The limited series premieres with three episodes on February 2nd. New episodes stream weekly.  Set in the Wild West early days of the Internet, “Pam & Tommy” is based on the incredible true story of the Pamela Anderson (Lily James) and Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan) sex tape. Stolen from the couple’s home by a disgruntled contractor (Seth Rogen), the video went from underground bootleg-VHS curiosity to full-blown global sensation when it hit the Web in 1997. A love story, crime caper and cautionary tale rolled into one, the eight-part original limited series explores the intersection of privacy, technology and celebrity, tracing the origins of our current Reality TV Era to a stolen tape seen by millions but meant to have an audience of just two.

- Check out the official trailer and key art for the Hulu Original Film "Sex Appeal." The film premieres Friday, January 14th.  Avery Hansen-White doesn’t do things she isn’t excellent at. So when her long-distance boyfriend hints at wanting to take their relationship to the next level, she sets out to master her sexuality, employing her oldest friend, Larson, as a test subject. In this hilarious teen comedy, Avery's study results in the realization that there's more to sex, and love, than mechanics. Relationships require both head and heart.

- The Weeknd has officially dropped his latest album, Dawn FM (XO/Republic Records). The surprise release began with a compelling trailer for the project and the reveal of the album cover and track list earlier in the week. The album, deemed a “sonic experience” by The Weeknd, showcases a unique cast of features from Tyler, the Creator, Lil Wayne, Quincy Jones, Oneohtrix Point Never, and Jim Carrey.  Listen to Dawn FM HERE.  As a part of the rollout, The Weeknd appeared in “103.5 Dawn FM”, a live stream experience which aired exclusively on the Amazon Music channel on Twitch and in the Amazon Music app.

- Celebrating the pioneer of funk James Brown, Urban Legends, a division of UMe, Universal Music Group’s global catalog company, has teamed up with multi-instrumentalist and member of The Roots, Stro Elliot, to create Black & Loud: James Brown Reimagined by Stro Elliot, out February 4, 2022. The album, consisting of ten remixes of classic James Brown songs, will be available digitally on DSPs, physically as an LP on black vinyl, and will also have a clear vinyl color variant available as an e-commerce exclusive on the Urban Legends website HERE. Listen to the first single, "Machine No Make Sex," now HERE.

- Foxes shares her latest single "Absolute," taken from her highly-anticipated upcoming album, The Kick, due for release on February 11 2022 via [PIAS] Recordings. An ode to freedom and late-night euphoria, the disco-infused track was produced by Ghost Culture (Daniel Avery, Kelly Lee Owens).  Discussing the track, Foxes (Louisa Rose Allen) says:  “'Absolute' is about the middle of one of those nights, when everything around you feels perfectly aligned. The people, the sound and the freedom to be exactly who you are.”  Foxes’ first album in over five years, The Kick features recent singles ‘Sky Love’, ‘Dance Magic’ and ‘Sister Ray’. It was written and recorded remotely via zoom during the height of the pandemic, offering a form of escapism. Inspired by the desire for freedom that the world collectively shared over the last 18 months of lockdowns, the near-animalistic desperation to socialise, and a longing to dance again, Louisa naturally pivoted the sonics to feed that escapism and create a record that simultaneously feels close to her euphoric, dancefloor-filling pop roots that brought us hits like ‘Let Go For Tonight’, ‘Youth’ and ‘Body Talk’, while still feeling completely fresh. Unafraid of the art of the well-loved melancholic-banger, lyrically The Kick touches on themes of loss and heartbreak, narrating painful places and soundtracking new beginnings to create an album for the post-pandemic world and a summer of never leaving the party early.

- This SATURDAY, January 8 starting at 9 a.m. ET, Game Show Network will air an 8-hour marathon of MATCH GAME episodes featuring the golden girl of game shows and America's sweetheart, Betty White.  Join us to celebrate a lifetime of laughter and pay tribute to the one and only Betty White.

The Best Movies That I Watched in 2021

 

1.       The Suicide Squad

2.       Black Widow

3.       In the Heights

4.       Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

5.       Freaky

6.       Queenpins

7.       Promising Young Woman

8.       1917

9.       Coco

10.   We Broke Up

11.   Judas and the Black Messiah

12.   Bill & Ted Face the Music

13.   Encanto

14.   Vacation Friends

15.   Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas

16.   Raya and the Last Dragon

17.   Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

18.   The King of Staten Island

19.   The Gentlemen

20.   A Bad Moms Christmas

21.   A Quiet Place Part II

22.   Five Feet Apart

23.   Isle of Dogs

24.   Cruella

25.   Godzilla vs. Kong

The Ten Most Anticipated Events of 2022

 

10.  The End of The Walking Dead (returns 2/20):  It is the end of an era with The Walking Dead ending after eleven seasons.  Though much like the titular characters, the show will live on with a Carol and Daryl spinoff (spoiler alert, they do not die… though I may actually enjoy a show following the zombified duo more than what we will actually get) and of course there is always Fear the Walking Dead and supposedly those Rick movies, so I guess this is not truly the end.

 

9.  Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin:   The original show had possibly the worst plot twist in the history television when Allison’s brother turned out to be Allison’s other brother who was about seven years too young from when they already established the character to be.   The soft reboot with Allison and Mona was pretty bad.  Still, the quick glimpse in the HBO Mas 2022 teaser got me weirdly excited for the third go-around.

 

8.  Single Drunk Female (January 20):  I know nothing about this show, there has not even been a trailer released yet, but based solely on the name, I will be watching.

 

7.  Pam and Tommy (February 2):  When Hulu announce they were going to do a show about the infamous sex tape, I went, huh?  Then they announce Seth Rogen as the dude who obtained the sex tape, and again went, huh?  But I was also intrigued.  This is one of those shows you just hope completely goes off the rails.  Though I really hope we do not have to see how the Winter Soldier steers a boat. 

 

6.  Problematic Sporting Events (Maybe?):  Nothing I love more than international sporting events and we will be getting two this year… maybe.  With the Omicron variant wreaking havoc all over the world, it seems like the Winter Olympics may follow the Summer’s lead and postpone a year (the NHL already pulled out their players).  Hopefully things will be better by summer for the Men’s World Cup.  Oh wait, they pushed that to the late fall because some shady regime in Qatar, where it hits triple digits in the summer, presented the highest bribe and they proceed to have essentially slave labor build the soccer stadiums.    The Winter Olympics are just as problematics because it is being held in China who has a long history of human rights violations.  Sigh.  But hey, maybe both events will be canceled, but with money to be made and them being held in places that do not care about the well-being of people, probably not.

 

5.  The Next Game of Thrones (Maybe?):  Ever since Games of Thrones was winding down, networks and streaming serves have been on the lookout for that elusive next Game of Thrones.  There are a few contenders coming out.  Here are a few ranked from least likely to most likely.  Halo was supposed to be Showtime’s foray into the attempted Game of Thrones market but their corporate daddy gave that to Paramount+ (Showtime did get The Man Who Fell to Earth, which I am pretty confident in saying will not be the next Game of Thrones).  While this is huge IP, space stories do seems to have a ceiling and The Mount is near the bottom of the most subscribers’ power ranking.

Next up is Lord of the Rings which is one of the biggest IP names out that that spawn two very successful trilogies earlier this century.  Amazon has the big pocket and a large subscriber base, but as Apple has shown with Foundation, shelling out a lot of money on IP alone will buy you the next Game of Thrones.  Plus while a lot of people subscribe to Prime, there also seems to be a lot of people that do not realize Prime Video comes with that two day free shipping.

So the most likely next Game of Thrones will be… Game of Thrones.  After spending a lot of money on a Pilot that got scrapped, HBO went with another story and we will likely be getting House of the Dragon this year.  But it is not guaranteed it will do as well as the original show.  House of the Dragon will have to win over a lot of fans who were disappointed with the choppy final season and pretty bad finale.  But on the bright side, this show will not have to hope George R.R. Martin finishes the books before the get to that part of the story

 

4.  Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, More Star Wars and Marvel Shows on the Ploose:  I will be watching all the shows they release but the MCU seems to be having diminishing returns.  The Mandalorian was great, but will Star Wars fatigue set in when they start pumping out more shows too?  I was fairly meh on the first episode of the Book of Boba Fett.  Here is my power raking of the shows that are likely coming to the Ploose this year: 

1)      Obi-Wan Kenobi

2)      Ms. Marvel

3)      Secret Invasion

4)      Andor

5)      Moon Knight

6)      She-Hulk

 

3.  Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (December 16) and Thor: Love and Thunder (July 8):  While superhero fatigue is setting in, the two goofier heroes of their respective cinematic universes and thus stared in some of the more entertaining movies.

 

2.  The Woman in the House across the Street from the Girl in the Window (January 29):  Now there is a title.  But all I need to know is the series is starring Kristen Bell so I may have to re-subscribe to Netflix for the first time in a while.

 

1.  The Season Finale of Yellowjackets (January 15):  Last episode was wild, Laura Lee’s plane blew up and it seems like Adam turned out to be the blackmailer, which could mean he could be adult Javi.  Of course after Van survived being mauled by wolf, I half expect Laura Lee to crawl out of the lake at the start of next episode.  Okay, I have actually seen the next episode and no spoilers, but there is a very big reveal and a popular Reddit theory gets vindicated.  Okay, one spoiler: the girls butcher a Seal.  No spoilers for the finale, mostly because I have not seen it.  But considering how bat-shirt crazy things have been I am sure there will a few more jaw dropping moment for the last episode.  It looks like the girls will be going to a reunion.  I have to image we finally learn of some of the other crash survivor that made it to middle age.  But will we see the presumed dead Jackie like I have been predicting all season?  Will we learn of anyone else who is with Misty during the dining scene from the premiere?  Oh, and the finale is entitled “Sic Transit Gloria Mundi” or “the glory of the world” in Latin, a phrase spoken when anointing a new Pope.  One has to assume a new leader will be coroneted during the earlier timeline.  Yeah, this is going to be wild.  And since the show was already been renewed, we may get more than three episodes this year.

 

Here is everything else I will be watching while trying to stay warm this winter:

Mondays

8:00 – The Neighborhood (CBS, January 3)

9:00 – Snowpiercer (TNT, January 24)

 

Tuesdays

How I Met Your Father (Hulu, January 18)

Dollface (Hulu, February 11)

8:00 – Young Rock (NBC, March 15)

8:30 – Mr. Mayor (NBC, March 15)

9:00 – Abbott Elementary (ABC, January 4)

9:30 – Black’ish (ABC, January 4)

 

Wednesday

The Book of Boba Fett (Disney+, already started)

Pam and Tommy (Hulu, February 2)

8:00 - The Goldbergs (ABC, January 5)

8:30 - The Wonder Years (ABC, January 5)

 

Thursdays

Peacemaker (HBO Max, January 13)

The Dropout (Hulu, March 3)

8:00 – The Blacklist (NBC, January 6)

9:00 – Ghosts (CBS, January 6)

9:30 - B Positive (CBS, January 6)

9:30 – Pivoting (Fox, preview January 9, regular timeslot premiere January 13)

10:00 – Grown’ish (Freeform, January 24)

10:30 – Single Drunk Female (Freeform, January 20 back to back episode starting at 10:00 the first week)

 

Fridays

Search Party (HBO Max, January 7)

2022 Winter Olympics (NBC, February 4)

8:00 – The Blacklist (NBC, February 25)

 

Sundays

8:00 – Killing Eve (BBC America, February 27)

9:00 – Billions (Showtime, January 23)

9:00 – The Walking Dead (AMC, February 20)

9:00 – Fear the Walking Dead (AMC, april 17)

10:00 - The Righteous Gemstones (HBO, January 9)

10:00 – Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber (Showtime, February 27)