July Field Notes

A big month for TV and TV-related things

I swear I spent a lot of time outside in August—and I have the sunburn to prove it. But I also spent a non-zero amount of time laying in the air conditioning and reading or watching TV (and this month, reading about watching TV). Here are my favorite finds from the month of July:

Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born: How Buffy Staked Our Hearts, Evan Ross Katz

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is, and for many decades has been, my favorite TV show. I’ve seen every episode hundreds of times, and that is not hyperbole. I credit a lot of my sense of humor and the way I write to having been at least partially raised by episodes of Buffy. The show’s impact on me truly cannot be overstated, but just to underline my point, I will out myself as a certain level of nerd and tell you that for my 16th birthday, my sister got me a wooden stake.

But in recent years, being a Buffy fan has become more wrought than it was in 1999, largely due to the long overdue downfall of one Joss Whedon, Buffy creator and now-notorious abusive boss and general creep. The best part of Katz’s book (part fan memoir, part television journalism) is that he doesn’t avoid the Whedon of it all—he actually tackles it head on, and the book is stronger for it. Sourcing from interviews of a number of prominent cast and crew, Katz waxes nostalgic on a show that means so much to so many, but he doesn’t fall into the trap of fandom by letting the production off the hook for its failures (like the glaring whiteness of the show’s casting, even for 1997).

I can’t recommend it highly enough to my fellow Buffy stans. It brought me back to how it felt watching the show for the first time, gave me some valuable new perspectives, and dropped me right back into the height of my Buffy obsession—which is to say I’m now two seasons in to a Katz-inspired rewatch.

Too Much, Netflix

Like all Lena Dunham properties, Too Much won’t be for everyone—but it is so deeply my shit. A television format rom com (à la last year’s hit Nobody Wants This), Too Much is an at least semi-autobiographical story of Dunham’s move to London after a major breakup, with the Dunham-based character played by Hacks star and loml Meg Stalter.

I’ve written before about Stalter’s scene-stealing run on Hacks, but in Too Much she gets to access more grounded human emotion, and it’s a real gift to viewers. Will Sharpe (who you may remember as Aubrey Plaza’s husband in S2 of The White Lotus) plays the romantic lead opposite Stalter, an extremely hot but haphazard struggling musician with his own baggage, and I left the show with a new and major crush on him. Their chemistry is artful and authentic and I cried a lot!

There was truly so much to love about this show. It’s one of those shows that makes you not even WANT to pick up your phone while watching because every facial expression is packed with some fun nuance you don’t want to miss. Lena Dunham and Andrew Rannells playing co-parents? The episode where they flashback to Stalter’s breakup with her ex and it feels viscerally painful? Rhea Perlman as the overbearing grandmother? Meg Stalter shimmying down a castle drain pipe? Run, don’t walk!

The Infinite Wrench, Neo-Futurists

I have lived in Chicago on and off for the last 15 years, so it is an actual crime that it took me until just this month to attend my first ever Neo-Futurists show. The experimental theater troupe has been a Chicago mainstay since the late 80s thanks to their never-a-dull-moment format: The ensemble attempts to perform 30 short plays in 60 minutes, and the audience gets to pick the order by yelling out numbers from a menu. The performers never know what’s coming next, which keeps the energy high and the performances authentic. Plus, in a city dedicated to avant-garde comedy, the Neo-futurists are rare in their fearlessness to also embrace drama—so while you might spend one play laughing so hard you cry, you just as might spend the next very seriously pondering the human experience. The tonal whiplash just made every piece feel more visceral.

So if you ever find yourself on Chicago’s North Side* on a Friday or Saturday night, I highly recommend paying the exceedingly reasonable $20 to see some great weird art. The world needs more of it right now.

*(Or New York, San Francisco, and London—the Neo-Futurists have expanded their brand since launching and they now offer shows in four cities!)

The Buccaneers, Apple TV+

I will admit that when I started The Buccaneers, I assumed it would be a cheap rip-off of Bridgerton; Apple TV’s way of cashing in on the period piece gold rush. But watching now as the show wraps up its second season, I’m happy to report I was wrong! And I should have known, because Apple TV+ rarely phones it in when it comes to original series.

The show is loosely based on an Edith Wharton novel, but one Wharton left unfinished when she died: a classic Wharton-esque romp about American girls who go to London to find British husbands. The show is light without being frivolous, with gorgeous costuming and a genuinely fun cast of young actors that includes, fun fact, Kate Winslet’s daughter following in her mom’s well-tread footsteps of “playing a lesbian in a period piece.” And the queen of teen dramas herself, Leighton Meester, in a comeback I have been waiting for since Blair Waldorf hung up her headband for the last time.

And while the plot can sometimes wander into the realm of the slightly ridiculous, the show feels like it’s really finding its footing—with a dramatic twist mid-season two that made me genuinely gasp alone in my apartment. If you loved Bridgerton and are trying to fill the way-too-long gap between seasons (@netflix, I am talking to you!), it’s definitely worth a watch.