The sardonic arm of the law, foul-mouthed kitty-cats, and baloney in a galaxy far far away is just some of what's been setting the tone of my July/August 2026...
Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...
LOOKS:
Justified: Season 4, 5, 6 - there were the odd ups-and-downs with seasons 3 through 5, but nothing that wasn't rectified come the final handful of episodes where things would reliably ramp-up in very satisfying ways. Season 6 was particularly good, tying-up loose ends and bringing the whole thing to an extremely satisfying close, managing to bring great pathos and depth to "we dug coal together". A fantastic show that I'm so glad I caught up on.
Rick & Morty: Season 9 - this season got off to a wobbly start, with too many of season 8's problems recurring (focusing too hard on one or two characters while neglecting others, extremely complex action sequences at the expense of storytelling), but the back-half of the season finally brought some much-needed variety and breadth, and the tenth episode was an absolute banger.
The Thing: Expanded - a sprawling five-hour documentary about John Carpenter's legendary 1982 sci-fi/horror masterpiece. Much like the similarly girthy doc covering James Cameron's 1986 masterpiece Aliens, this is a must-watch for fans.
House of the Dragon: Season 3 - the unintended cutting-short of season two, which resulted in a terrible case of viewership blue balls, is given blessed relief with the beginning of season three, which is clearly the intended climax of the second season. It's a little patchy sometimes, occasionally taking itself a tad seriously as it tries very hard to be just like the original Game of Thrones (whereas A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was able to shrug off the weight of the franchise to walk its own path very successfully), but it's good when it's really cooking.
Justified: City Primeval - after really enjoying the main show, this Detroit-set legacy sequel mini-series was a big disappointment. Raylan is often sidelined in favour of the cast of entirely new characters who, quite frankly, are nowhere near as interesting as Raylan or any of the foes he faced during the main show's run. Indeed, despite the Detroit location, there's zero connection to the Detroit mafia who had fingers in pies back in Kentucky. The villain isn't much cop, either, and the show just kinda plods along. There's a couple of bits I enjoyed, but what a let down compared to the six seasons of shenanigans in Kentucky.
The Mandalorian and Grogu - I enjoyed it, but that's not to say the film isn't without flaws, in fact it is riddled with them. The structure is poor, the script lacks any real arc for the main characters, we end the film with no significant change or advancement in the story or growth of the protagonists, and many scenes lack a sense of invention or flair: a character is faced with a problem, and then it immediately gets solved with little trouble.
However, there is also fun to be had, with a lot of it coming down to the use of practical robots and puppets as well as stop-motion animation, which ended up being the best thing about the movie by far. Overall it's a bit of a mess, severely let down by its script (co-written by Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor, and filled with so-called "Filoni-baloney"). It's a hell of a lot more entertaining than the thoroughly dreadful third season of The Mandalorian, but this is sadly not the return to form we had hoped for.
King of the Hill: Season 15 - maybe not quite as great and pleasantly surprising as season 14, which brought the show back after a years-long gap, but it was damn good. Bring on a 16th season, I tell you what!
President Curtis: Season 1 - the trailer didn't grab me much, but so far the show itself has been quite enjoyable.
Futurama: Season 14 - some recent seasons have been quite wobbly, but season 14 is off to a solid start.
Scary Movie (2026) - the first two were enjoyable fun in my formative years, and even on recent re-viewings they raised chuckles despite evident flaws (even if some of that is shaded with nostalgia), but the 2026 reboot is the most catastrophically lazy and unfunny 'comedy' I've seen in years. Scratch that, I just recalled "Balls Up" from earlier this year, which I had almost entirely purged from my memory banks.
Either way, it is horrendously bad, surface-level pap that continually falls back on cheap gags where 'someone gets hit by something very hard', sloppy attempts at social commentary, basic references ("member this film? Yeah, I 'member"), and call-backs. It has nothing to say, let alone anything *funny* to say, about the past two decades of horror, either. Not a single chuckle was even had. Total and utter garbage.
Alley Cats - like a mesh of familiar elements from Derek and After Life, but in the form of foul-mouthed animated cats that live in a derelict house. Certain publications have been slamming the show outright for strange reasons, calling it offensive (I really don't see why), having seemingly taken against Gervais in general on the basis of his marmite comedy specials on Netflix. Honestly, his last couple of specials have been pretty poor, feeling lazy and predictable and lacking when it comes to the crafting of the jokes. Similarly, Alley Cats has a lazy tendency to over-use the word "cunt". I'm not shocked by the word, but it should be deployed sparingly for maximum impact, because there are so few swear words that really pack a wallop these days and it's always good to keep one in your back pocket to target very pointed barbs, rather than casually slinging it about like "fuck".
The emotional touch stones of loneliness, death, the sadness of a life lived without success, and crumbs of potential that are approached with caution, are frequent touchstones for Gervais, so the surprisingly deeper moments in Alley Cats will have a familiar feel to them for viewers of his previous output, but they are still effective. The 15-minute run-times of each of the six episodes keep things moving at a very brisk pace and I would certainly welcome a second season on my telly box.
Reacher: Season 4 - "Walk away." / "No." ... fuck yeah, Reacher! *cue rumbles of thunder* I love this show so much!
Tires: Season 3 - great stuff. Even the opening titles theme gives me a smile, and the show kinda reminds me of a summer job I had working at a VW garage. I'll take a fourth season, please!
Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes - the final season of Joe Berlinger's 'Conversations' series of serial killer documentaries, which have all been uniformly fantastic, especially in how they have been able to give the audience a palpable sense of what it was like to live in the context of the 1960s/70s/80s during these horrific events. The series has basically provided the best documentaries on Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, The Son of Sam, and now Charles Manson.
SOUNDS:
John Carpenter "The Ferryman", "Revenge", "Cathedral" (album)
Green Day "Saviors" (album)
We Are Zombie Men "Bolivian Bliss" (album) and "Zombie Man's Decomposition Vacation Destination" (album)
CKY "Beware of the Heartless"
Carpenter Brut "Cherub Rock"
VIBES & FLAVOURS:
Star Wars Outlaws (Xbox Series S) - as a fairly resolute sort, getting into all sorts of scrapes, why is Kay Vess so shit at lying? And why do so many characters fall for her fumbling excuses? And do so many characters have to "umm and ahh" through so much of their dialogue? Just make a statement, already! After this many hours invested in the game, silly little faults like that tend to raise their heads and become very obvious. When the game is on-song, it soars, but it also has a habit of stumbling over its own feet with intermittent sloppiness (which is particularly annoying during missions).
I've not really been playing much as it's been too hot to have a console running, but I finally pushed on and finished the main story. I hated the portion where you have to sneak around hiding from ND-5 while you set up some electrical trap to zap him so he can be stripped of his control chip, simply because the execution felt kinda rote and videogamey, and I've always hated that 'sneak around with no weapon against an enemy you cannot kill' bullshit, and the final part of that particular sub-mission of the conclusion to the game felt poorly executed/directed.
Despite some glaring flaws and on/off frustrations, I did have quite a bit of fun with it and still have some farting around the edges left to do to wrap things up.
"Joe Bob Goes To The Drive-In" by John Bloom - a re-worked and re-published version of the book in coffee table form, which collects newspaper columns and drive-in movie reviews by Joe Bob Briggs (aka John Bloom), complete with new artwork. In the last few years I've become a huge fan of JBB and his various TV shows (especially The Last Drive-In).
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