What I'm Watching: Harlan Coben's Shelter, Wolf Pack, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, and More

Jonathan Frakes, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, Fox (via FilmRise)

Here’s the rundown on everything I watched, read, and wrote about this past week:

The shows:

• God help me, I started watching Wolf Pack (from Teen Wolf creator Jeff Davis, who all my fandom friends hate for good reason) on an airplane recently and thought the pilot was actually cool as hell. The show’s about cartoonish CGI werewolves, sure, but it’s also about the harrowing realities of California wildfires, a topic I think about a lot as both a resident of the state and the sister of a wildfire fighter. I haven’t seen much of it yet, but I’m excited to see Sarah Michelle Gellar on TV again, and I also think Bella Shepard is so natural and excellent in her role.
• If you need some low-stakes viewing material, might I suggest Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction? It’s the source material for such iconic YouTube videos as “Jonathan Frakes Asks You Things” and “jonathan frakes telling you you’re wrong for 47 seconds,” but it’s also a better-than-I-remembered entry in the “pseudoscientific mystery docuseries of the ‘90s” subgenre. As a kid, this, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, and Unsolved Mysteries were my holy trinity of weekend marathon shows, but Frakes’ commitment to the bit and the sheer outlandishness of even some of the “true” stories featured in Beyond Belief makes it a particular fave. I showed it to my partner this week after we couldn’t stop saying “Not this time!” just like Frakes does in the above video.
• Prime Video has a new show out called Harlan Coben’s Shelter, which, as you might guess, is based on a book by Harlan Coben. This is a teen mystery series with twists and turns that reach near-Riverdale proportions, but it’s also at times grounded by some more emotionally mature plots and great character work by Constance Zimmer and breakout Adrian Greensmith. Between all three shows listed here, this has really been one of those “Does a show actually need to be good to be entertaining?” weeks for me (the answer is no, obviously).

The movies:

• The documentary-watching adventure continues with Call Me Miss Cleo, a doc you can watch on (HBO) Max now about the famous ‘90s TV psychic Miss Cleo. This isn’t a perfectly put-together film, but in terms of “I didn’t know how much I actually didn’t know about this topic” spotlights, you can’t go wrong with this one. Fans of pop culture debunking podcasts like You’re Wrong About and Decoder Ring would likely enjoy this retrospective excavation of a real, often misremembered person who became a punchline but still lived a fulfilling life.

Odds and ends:

• I never really articulated my Barbie criticisms properly here, but I did finally find a piece of writing that gets to the root of some of my concerns about the movie (as well as some of the things I actually did like about it). Here’s Emily St. James for the New York Times talking about Barbie, gender, and the human experience.
• There’s a story about Bojack Horseman and Harvey Weinstein going around that inspired me to write about that show, their stomach-churning connection, and the rare integrity of showrunners like Raphael Bob-Waksberg who understand that art does not exist in a vacuum and proceed accordingly.
• Here’s my full Only Murders in the Building season 3 review, plus a piece outlining a theory I have about what I’m pretty sure is an overlooked clue from episode 3.
• If you’re not watching The Afterparty season 2, you’re missing out on a veritable film lover’s heaven. Last week’s episode was a deeply silly homage to the erotic thrillers of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen on TV all year. I’m grateful I got the chance to unpack some of the references and dig into it over at IGN.

That’s all for now, but keep an eye out for a Substack note a little later with my initial thoughts on Ahsoka. Otherwise, I’ll be back next week! Drop me a line if you want to share what you’re watching – or talk me out of finishing Wolf Pack.