Octo-November in Review

Hello, and apologies for the absence! October came and went with a vengeance, and before I knew it, we were halfway through November. To make up for missing last month’s send, I come with double the charts! But maybe not double the words.

Today’s feeling: Supersized 🦸🏾

It’s primetime, Charlie Brown

You may be wondering, “Davan, it’s been two months. I am just dying to know what you’ve been watching!” And I can tell you that I am still, still trying to finish my Glee rewatch. But there’s good news! I have five (5) episodes left until I am free from this beast and trust me when I say season 6 is a beast of sheer, absolute nonsense.

The fun part about having two months of charts to look at is we get to see people’s viewing habits on a longer timeline. For example, Loki season 2’s entire 6-episode run is represented here, with a total of 8 weeks on the board. It spent 6 of those weeks in the top spot, across both October and November. I wouldn’t be able to show you this all at once if I hadn’t missed last month’s send, so, there is an upside to all this extra data :).

Scorpio season thrives, then dies

October ended with half of the month’s series making their Serpent 🐍 debut—Loki, Gen V, The Morning Show, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and Invasion—only to quickly fall one by one as November went by. Loki came incredibly close to securing another scaly title, but the cursed 5-week month was too much for the mini-series.

The Kaiju era

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters made its debut on the chart halfway through November, and while I haven’t gotten around to starting it yet, I am very excited to. A pleasure of mine, sans the guilt, is anything with big monsters, and while the American iterations of this aren’t the best—Too many human characters! Show me Ghidorah!—I still eat it up every time. You might have heard about Godzilla Minus One, a new Japanese film in the Godzilla canon that came out a few weeks ago. I have yet to see that as well, but I’ve heard many great things and am itching to check it out.

Let’s go to the movies, Charlie Brown

I am so incredibly saddened to admit that my movie-watching tendencies have been halted by the hulking giant that is my graduate program. I don’t have time! And when I do, I don’t have the energy. Truly, who am I anymore?

The last movie I watched was Shark Tale Promising Young Woman, written and directed by Emerald Fennell. I had recently seen her newest movie Saltburn and wanted to see how PYW compared, and my suspicions were correct in that she is a much better director than she is a writer. Saltburn is worth watching for quite literally everything but its script, though, so, make of that what you will.

Scorpio season thrives, then dies: the sequel

To have Serpents 🐍 in the movie section these days feels like a miracle—just look at all that green!— and somehow, we got four of them in October: Haunted Mansion, Totally Killer, Elemental, and Meg 2: The Trench. If Disney had any sense, they would’ve released their obviously Halloween-coded movie in theaters during the month of Halloween instead of at the end of July, but what do I know. The Haunted Mansion (2003) is the better film anyway! I will die on this hill!

Unfortunately, just like our TV counterparts, the October Serpents quickly fell in the following November weeks and we were left with one Freddy Fazbear and friends taking a win. The power of Josh Hutcherson! (this is a joke. partially.)

Marathons are hard

I have half a mind to eliminate the Marathoner🏃🏾‍♀️ award altogether, but I’m interested to see if and when a new champion will arise. So I will simply archive its inclusion in the key until a new victor is chosen. As a refresher, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever currently holds the title with a record of 14 consecutive weeks on the chart (Ted Lasso wears the crown for TV, with 13 weeks under its belt).

It’s December somehow, Charlie Brown

2023 is winding down at an exhilarating speed, and I honestly can’t keep up. This December is full of gifts, however, with all of the new movies and shows coming in the next few weeks.

I realize that the November releases chart is a bit redundant at this point, but I’m including it just in case there were any titles that may have flown under your radar.

For the first time since I’ve been making these charts, we actually have a month where there are more new movies to highlight than shows. Granted, two of these—Barbie and It Lives Inside—are theatrical releases finally hitting streaming, but I digress.

If you were here for the March send, you might remember me mentioning that I was re-reading The Lightning Thief, so naturally, my most anticipated release of this month—and truthfully, of my entire adolescence—is Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I don’t trust Disney corporate in any sense, but I will always root for this franchise to succeed, and I am so excited to see Walker, Leah, and Aryan bring our beloved trio to life. Again. Shoutout to the 2010 movies! You were awful adaptations but you were all we had 💙.

Have some recs while you rest, Charlie Brown

It’s the holiday season, and regardless of how you like to spend your final weeks of the year, there’s never a better time to watch some cozy movies as the winter air picks up. I have some recommendations for you all, both holiday/winter-centric and just generally comforting. Think of it as my gift to you, even if I give out one of these gifts every few months.

• Klaus (2019) - Netflix

• Last Holiday (2006) - Paramount+, Pluto TV

• Last Christmas (2019) - Amazon Prime Video

• Carol (2015) - Netflix

• The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - Disney+

• A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) - Apple TV+

• Cool Runnings (1993) - Disney+

These last two aren’t streaming anywhere right now but are very much worth the watch!

• My Life as a Zucchini (2016)

• When Harry Met Sally… (1989)

🎤 What are you enjoying this December?

And that is a wrap on 2023! Well, almost. I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for a year already and I feel incredibly lucky to get to spend time talking about TV and movies like this. As always, thank you for reading, let me know what you’re enjoying, and I will see you all in the new year 🥂.