The fate of the country is at stake today, in case you hadn’t heard. It’s been an anxious couple of months, and that anxiety is about to hit a fever pitch for (at minimum) the next 18 hours or so, or (God forbid) the next few days. Some of you freaks will be glued to CNN, MSNBC or whatever—but with all due respect to my son Wolf Blitzer, I’m not that masochistic. The uncertainty is enough to cripple any chance at real productivity (hi, editors!); the best course of action, in my estimation, is to turn on the TV.
But, crucially, you can’t just watch whatever—this moment calls for real escapism. No shots at the Max marketing team, but there’s something bleak about Veep having been the first thing splashed across the app’s homepage for the last few weeks. The idea that reality seems to be following in the footsteps of that show is not that comforting. I’m also reminded of the time in winter 2016 when, alone in my apartment post-election, I decided to do a Cold Watch tap in (as in, no real prior knowledge of the plot or anything else besides vaguely knowing it’s a thriller) with Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room, a viewing experience that left me profoundly disturbed and depressed—ten percent due to the “Anton Yelchin in one of his last roles” factor, 90 percent because, crack as the movie is, watching folks get slaughtered by neo-Nazis in contemporary midwestern America hardly felt fictitious at that moment.
So, I’m not sure what I’ll settle on today, but I’ll be aiming for something that won’t remind me in any way whatsoever of our current political landscape, or past turbulent political landscapes, our possibly-dystopian future, or anything else that might push me over the edge we’re all teetering on at the moment. In the meantime, here’s some suggested counter-programming for tomorrow—nine random streamable things that might help take your mind off the fate of the world as we know it.
1. Donnie Darko
Still a bit more emo and bleak than the vibe we’re chasing today, but it’s an autumn classic that I always try to rewatch around this time of year.
2. Stepmom
Speaking of movies that just intrinsically feel like fall…as the end of the year rapidly approaches, those of us with taste know this is an all-time holiday season tearjerker. Julia Roberts at the top of her game, Susan Sarandon still the dominant veteran…this is like the Watch the Throne of upper-middle-class white angst.
3. Gilmore Girls
Another elite White Plight/fall rewatch favorite, but way less sad. I can’t in good conscience call this WB classic underrated, but I feel like it’s not in enough pantheon conversations. The dialog, the world-building—this deserves to be in the aughts Golden Age talk just as much as the go-to staples. Plopping into Stars Hollow at any point during those first five seasons probably feels like an alternate reality America at this point.
4. South Side
Someone reposted the Coretta Scott King clip recently, which is probably one of the top five funniest scenes in the last five years of television. This great show deserved bigger acclaim and a longer run, but at the very least if you lamed. check it out before the three hilarious seasons that it did get off mysteriously get deleted soon.
5. English Teacher
Maybe the best new show on TV right now? Enrico Colantoni steals every episode as the perennially exasperated principal, but Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jordan Firstman have quietly developed one of the best new modern romances on TV. “Boyfy” hasn’t left my brain since the season finale; get on this while the bandwagon still has room.
6. Yellowjackets
The second season pissed me off, but it’s back for a third next spring and I’m planning to stick with it—but at this point, I remember next to nothing beyond the broad plot strokes. This is the kind of show that only works if you know the ins and outs of the lore, so if I’m going to hold out for a comeback I may as well commit with a full rewatch to go in fully refreshed on everything.
7. Severance
The same goes for Severance, which feels like it last aired during the previous presidential election. Season 2 is finally hitting early next year though, so again this is either a bandwagon situation for anyone who heard the chatter but never took the dive, or a good time to bring yourself back up to speed before diving back into whatever the hell is going on with this conspiracy and Patricia Arquette’s weird Victorian accent.
8. Oddity
This Irish horror indie hit impacted over the summer but I only just got around to it last month during spooky season. It’s not perfect, and anyone who’s watched a movie before can hammer out the plot by about 20 minutes in, but it still feels like a fun swing.
9. Entourage
This is the 30 minute classic series Max should have bannered all around the app, as it just celebrated its 20th anniversary this past summer. I could write a whole column unto itself about the love Entourage deserves, the brilliance it often doesn’t get due credit for, and how anyone who can only manage praising it as “a guilty pleasure” lacks a refined palette. (And maybe I will.) But for today’s purposes, you truly can’t get more escapist than Hollywood Fantasia. (Although now I’m imagining an election week episode: Much to the guys’ anti-PC dismay, Vince is dating an uber-woke Gen Z’er, who’s been getting him to vocalize political sentiments on Tiktok; Ari is worried that getting too political will hinder Vince’s star power; Drama is an unabashed conservative but gets swayed blue when the Democratic candidate turns out to be a Viking Quest fan; E has to attend a fundraising party with Sloan’s MAGA father; and the gang finds out Turtle has never voted in his life. It all comes to a head at a rally where seconds before going on stage to speak, Turtle finds out Vince’s girlfriend has a litany of past racist tweets and he bails at the last minute.)
