Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 10/8/21

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Muppets Haunted Mansion (CREDIT: Mitch Haaseth/Disney)

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

Movies
Lamb (Theaters)
No Time to Die (Theaters) – Daniel Craig is so happy that this is finally coming out.
The Rescue (Theaters)

TV
Muppets Haunted Mansion (October 8 on Disney+) – Ed Asner has passed away, but he was not murdered or scared to death on the set of this.
Nancy Drew Season 3 Premiere (October 8 on The CW)
Whose Line is it Anyway? Season 18 Premiere (October 9 on The CW)
Legends of the Hidden Temple Reboot Premiere (October 10 on The CW) – Formerly of Nickelodeon.
The Baby-Sitters Club Season 2 (October 11 on Netflix)
Chucky Series Premiere (October 12 on SyFy) – Chucky the Doll, that is.
A Night in the Academy Museum (October 12 on ABC) – Hosted by Laura Dern and Tom Hanks.
B Positive Season 2 Premiere (October 14 on CBS)
The Kids Tonight Show Series Premiere (October 14 on Peacock)

Sports
-WNBA Finals (Begins October 10, ABC and ESPN)

Jmunney’s 2021 Emmy Wish List, Part 1: Comedy

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CREDIT: YouTube Screenshot

It’s that time again! The 2021 Emmy nominations will be announced on July 13, which means I’ve got a Wish List for the nommy noms I’d most like to see! In case you’re wondering, I haven’t held myself to any minimum or maximum number of entrants per category, nor do I strictly adhere to official Emmy rules. (I’ve included explanations for my deviations.) And of course, I must mention that I haven’t seen everything, so there are probably some worthy considerations I may have missed. First up: Comedy and Animation.

Almost every single one of my Comedy Series preferences from last year is not eligible this year, whether because of series finales or longer-than-average breaks in between successive seasons. Luckily we have a plethora of streaming services to fill the gaps, and plenty of them are represented here. We’ve got Hulu! We’ve got Peacock! We’ve got Apple TV+! We’ve even got that dang HBO Max. There’s also some room for basic cable in the form of Syfy’s Resident Alien. And it looks like for the first time since I’ve been making Emmy Wish Lists, there is no broadcast network series making my cut (although one of my choices began as an NBC show and another is a reboot of an NBC show).

In the acting categories, it’s an absolute embarrassment of riches in the Lead Actress category, with every one of the ladies I’ve selected giving the performances they were born to play. That’s also true of Alan Tudyk, who’s my easy winner in the Lead Actor field. (He’s an alien … pretending to be a human! Can you imagine?!) Over in Supporting, it’s a mix of newbies and usual suspects, with plenty of sitcoms really making full use of their deep ensembles these days.

KEY:
Bold=My winner
*=I have placed this nominee in a different category than the Emmy ballot.

Comedy Series
A.P. Bio
Dickinson
Pen15
Resident Alien
Saved by the Bell
Search Party

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The 67 Best TV Shows of 2020

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Clockwise from Top Left: What We Do in the Shadows, Never Have I Ever, Better Call Saul, How To with John Wilson (CREDIT: YouTube Screenshots)

Last year, I decided to rank as many TV shows as I felt like recognizing in my year-end list, and that worked out so well that I decided to do it again for 2020. So welcome to my ranking of the 67 Best TV Shows of 2020! Not every show is accompanied by a blurb, just the ones that I felt like I really needed to say something about.

I worked with a self-imposed rule that I had to have watched at least 50% of a show’s 2020 output for it to be eligible, but there were some shows that I’ve only just begun to watch that I wanted to recognize as well, so they’ve got their own Honorable Mention section. And there were also some shows that aired relatively few episodes in 2020 to the point that I didn’t think they should be eligible either, so they’ve also got an Honorable Mention section. And then there’s one more show that’s managed to establish its very own Honorable Mention section, and that’s where we start.

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