What I'm Watching: The Changeling, Star Trek: Lower Decks, The Exorcist, and More

A special Wednesday edition of the newsletter featuring six shows, two movies, a comic, and photographic evidence that I sometimes go outside.

Linda Blair, The Exorcist, Warner Bros.

Here’s the rundown on everything I watched, read, and wrote about this (er, last) week:

The shows:

• It’s finally September, AKA Over The Garden Wall season! If you haven’t seen this delightful animated limited series, I recommend grabbing a hot drink (preferably pumpkin or spiced apple flavored) and a big blanket and spending ~two hours getting lost in its cute, spooky world. I rewatched the short series this week and was struck all over again by the delicate balance it strikes between cute, funny, wistful, and enchanting. No other show feels as perfectly autumnal to me!

• For something darker but just as mysterious and otherworldly, you can also try the new Apple TV+ series The Changeling. The magical realist horror show starring Lakeith Stanfield adapts a Victor Lavalle novel about the postpartum experience into an increasingly mind-bending and ambitious series. I have a full review coming, but in short, it’s gorgeous and confounding – one of the year’s most visually striking shows as well as one of its strangest.

• Season 4 of Star Trek: Lower Decks is about to premiere on Paramount+, and while I’ve always been mixed-to-positive on this zany, reference-packed adult animation show, the episodes of the new season that I’ve seen are the series’ funniest yet. Lower Decks finally seems to have as much faith in its own comedic range as it does in its Trek knowledge, and it’s better for it.

• If you like your American history with a side of modern sociological context, you might dig Iconic America, a docuseries that looks at the social and historical evolution of patriotic and geographic iconography (think: the Golden Gate Bridge or the bald eagle). Some of the show’s editorial and narrative choices could’ve been stronger, but the topics it chooses to deep dive into are fascinating.

The movies:

• I still haven’t caught Oppenheimer (it came out when I was isolating pre-travel), but I did watch one of the most acclaimed films about the terrible power of nuclear bombs ever made this week: 1954’s Godzilla. After seeing clips of this classic for years, so much of the actual in-context film surprised me in the best way. From the heartfelt performances across the board to the head-on way it addressed the bomb to the endearing and creative monster design, it’s just a great movie. If you’re a Godzilla-head, let me know which of the many sequels and remakes you think stack up to the original and which are worth skipping!

• It was a rare rewatch-heavy week for me: I also revisited William Friedkin’s The Exorcist, a movie whose craft and mood I didn’t fully appreciate back when I first watched it as a jumpy yet mostly unimpressed sixth grader. I’ll never be able to register the level of world-shaking fear folks who went into it totally fresh in the early ‘70s knew (alas, the pool of exorcism movies has gotten ever-so-diluted in the decades since), but I do dig everything that’s on this movie’s mind as well as the stylish way it presents itself. Still mad about the dangerous set conditions, though.

Odds and ends:

• So how about that Justified: City Primeval finale, eh? The internet seems to be painfully short on people who watched the revival season and didn’t decry it as “woke” (which is weird given that the original show featured a lead actor of color, talked about police corruption, and had Nazi villains…seems to me like maybe it’s actually the audience members who have changed since 2015) but I, for one, can’t stop talking about how great it was. I wrote all about the finale that had me excitedly pacing around my apartment for IGN, while over at Slashfilm I outlined my wishlist for a possible second season.

• I’m putting together some Buffy the Vampire Slayer retrospective pieces over the next few weeks, starting with this one about the season 3 fiasco in which two episodes were temporarily shelved (one more controversially than the other) due to the Columbine massacre. Joss Whedon is obviously shitty, but Buffy remains one of my favorite shows despite him, so I’m excited to dig up some stories about it in time for spooky season.

• Speaking of which, I tend to give myself little Halloween pop culture challenges each year, and for 2023 I’ve decided to try to read 31 horror comics and graphic novels before October 31st. Will this happen? Probably not. Did I get off to a rough start with a not-my-jam comic called Plush that’s about cannibal furries? Yes. Am I still excited for the excuse to read lots of scary, fun stuff? Absolutely! I’ve cobbled together a reading list, but it’s not set in stone, so if any of you have recommendations feel free to throw them my way in the comments.

That’s all for pop culture stuff for now. Despite this midweek edition, I’ll still be back on track with another newsletter on Sunday as I’m finally back to the West Coast. Scroll down for a short photo diary from my second trip to Scotland!

My new friend Lola (and also James). I brought her a sloth mermaid chew toy that was too big for her — she used it as a plate for her treats.

Adventures at the Glasgow Botanic Gardens. I had never been to a botanical garden before so I kept saying “It’s like a zoo for plants!!” I got COVID immediately during my first attempt to see Scotland so I masked up extra this time, even in the humid gardens. Top photo by James.

Kelvingrove is such a great museum — not too big, yet packed with loads of great stuff including a mix of art, natural history, local history, and more. This hilarious, cartoon-ass-looking bear (allegedly a sloth bear, but is it really?!) is not reflective of the museum as a whole.

Cath, James, and I just missed the chance to have fancy tea in London last year, so James took me for an amazing afternoon tea at the Mackintosh Tea Room, which was built in 1903 by a very ahead-of-his-time architect. This is a recreation of the original chandelier, which weighed half a ton!

A Sunday in Paisley. The above photo is of a vintage teacup from the museum collection with what appears to be a built-in mustache guard. The bottom photo of me was taken by James just moments before he told me about how the town was once CURSED BY A WITCH?!

We took a lot of naps, but nothing made me sleepier than this massive fluffy sweatshirt James has. That thing is magical. Photo by James - one of many moments of ours I hope he captures in the months and years to come. (: