What I'm Watching: Totally Killer, The Curse, Random Scottish TV, and More

Kiernan Shipka, Totally Killer, Prime Video

Here’s a quick rundown on everything I watched and wrote about last week:

The shows:

• I ended up back in Scotland again (it’s a long story) so this past week I’ve mostly been checking out random Scottish TV. I love when I stay in a hotel and get to click around on cable since my house has been streaming-only for years. Some highlights of my recent UK TV education include: the original run of the stop-motion kids’ show Fireman Sam (fun, cozy, homemade-feeling) and the new computer generated seasons, that show’s more boring but equally ‘80s cousin (they’re not made by the same people but have a similar look) Postman Pat, the retro classic game show Bullseye, and some cheeky and clickbaity docuseries on notoriously wild Channel 5.
• I’ve caught most of the new Showtime series The Curse, which is co-created by and stars Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie (Emma Stone also stars). I loved Fielder’s brilliantly meta experiment The Rehearsal and love Safdie’s work on movies like Good Time, so I figured I’d be instantly taken by this fiction series about a gentrifying do-gooder couple trying to start a home-building reality show. Surprisingly, I’m pretty cold on it so far: without real non-actors, Fielder’s awkward-smart-exploitative big ideas feel oddly tensionless, and I think a show that makes us spend this long with unpleasant people needs more of a narrative anchor. That being said, I’ve heard there’s a lot going on with the ending of this one, so it’s possible I might end up loving it. I have a full review in the works, so I’ll share that here once I’m done.

The movies:

• I only found time to catch one movie this week, but it was a great one. The (relatively) new Prime Video slasher comedy Totally Killer takes a killer-on-the-loose story and blends it with a Back To The Future style time travel plot to hilarious results. Seriously, this movie is so much funnier than it needs to be, to the point that I’m going to try to get some of my non-horror-loving friends on board with watching it. Kiernan Shipka is a great leading lady and this is probably the Nannatchka Khan project that’s come closest to recapturing the chaotic, bitchy energy of her beloved, canceled-too-soon show Don’t Trust the B**** in Apt. 23.

Odds and ends:

• I cannot stop thinking about this Rolling Stone expose about how one of the heads of HBO allegedly asked his employees to make fake Twitter accounts and send angry tweets to any TV critics that didn’t like the latest HBO shows. There’s so much to unpack bere but also…like…HBO?!! The channel with dozens of shows that all critics like?! This is so silly and hilarious and deeply weird, and given that I reviewed almost every show mentioned here, I’m curious about if any fakers came after me back when this was happening.
• Since I’ve gotten a lot Less Online lately and never joined TikTok, I’ve found the Slate podcast ICYMI especially helpful when it comes to figuring out what the hell everyone’s talking about when I do check Twitter. The hosts are thoughtful and well-informed in their discussions of topics ranging from Booktok drama to that lesbian emu farmer who got milkshake ducked. If you don’t know what I mean, the podcast will explain. When I talk to my closest friends about the latest discourse, we tend to always be more interested in how people online talk and feel and think about things than in the actual topic everyone’s flipping out about, so I love that this pod isn’t afraid to peel back those layers as well.
• Alright M*A*S*H-heads, this week’s piece is a fun one: it’s about some of the show’s dirtiest jokes and how it got away with so much.
• I loved the freaky, eerily beautiful “what if everyone turned into strings of spaghetti” thing on Loki last week, so I found an excuse to write about it.
• I’m getting on my A.I. is dangerous soap box next to Nicholas Cage this week.
• Did I mention I wrote an essay in a book that’s coming out NEXT WEEK?! Yeah, you can buy that here.

It’s 3am here so I’ll sign off without further ado. Readers, let me know what you’re watching in the comments. What are you favorite new movies of the year so far? It’s finally about time for me to play catch up on everything that isn’t docs and TV.