Flavours of the Month: September/October 2026...

A wheel-squeeling reboot, monster garden gnomes, and a killer mommy are just some of what's been setting the tone of my September/October 2026...

Click "READ MORE" below to see this month's looks, sounds, vibes & flavours...

LOOKS:

The Grand Tour: Season 1 - two years on from the closing of a quarter century of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May cocking about in cars, Prime have resurrected their motoring show with three new presenters: Francis Bourgeois (yes, the guy from the train videos on the Internet), Thomas Holland, and James Engelsman. The notion of ever attempting this was met with large dollops of scepticism and trepidation (including from this new trio themselves), and we all saw how much of a struggle it was to bring Top Gear back after 'the trio' (plus numerous key staff behind-the-scenes) left the BBC, and so it's a very tall order to make this new version of The Grand Tour work.

Fortunately, this new era gets off to a good start. The foremost win is Bourgeois, who instantly works on-screen, and is an engineer in real life as well as a social media personality, whose polite confidence and whimsy comes across in a charmingly bumbling and awkwardly English manner. Canadian YouTuber (Throttle House) Holland takes an episode or two to feel his way forward, but quickly displays a learning of the ropes and gradually settles in to an all-round everyman role with a twinkle in his eye. Slightly less convincing is fellow Throttle House chap Engelsman, whose position between the other two is less defined, while his dashes of buffoonery need refinement, but true promise is displayed in the fifth episode with his film about the BMW Isetta and the role it played in smuggling East Germans across the border into the free Western world during the Cold War.

Behind-the-camera you can feel the space left unfilled in Andy Wilman's very large creative shoes (he does act as a Consultant), same goes with the lack of Richard Porter in the Script Editor role helping to make the humour pin-sharp. The sheer visual flair and verbal creativity witnessed during the Clarkson/Hammond/May era is far from missing, but is muted by comparison. Voice overs are often written with a literal flatness, while the trio's banter will benefit from time and practice in the art of spicy metaphors, passionate description, and conveying the historical importance of the motor vehicle throughout the ages.

There is a solid foundation beneath their feet upon which to build, and the first season of this new incarnation - featuring brief cameos from their forerunners - gets off to a pleasing start. Let's not forget that the first two series of Top Gear were extremely rough around the edges and it wasn't until series 3, 4, and 5 before the diamond began to sparkle. This new season also features plenty of memorable moments, such as the 'car vending machine' in Singapore, the examination of Malaysian car culture, introducing dinky little Japanese 'Kei cars' to rural America, and the fourth episode's piece on two 'resto-mod' cars was both interesting and promising for the future of The Grand Tour.

There's work to be done, finessing to be achieved, some flair to be rediscovered, but somewhat incredibly The Grand Tour has returned and, though quite different, its blend of the new with the familiar gets off to a mostly sure-footed start. A second season, please!

The Gentlemen: Season 2

Chad Powers: Season 2

South Park: Season 29

Stranger Things: Tales From '85: Season 2 - did this story need to be told? No, is the short answer. Again, focusing on the central cast of kids, as we had already done with five seasons of the main show over the course of a decade, makes for a big missed opportunity to explore other characters and ideas in the wider story of the Stranger Things world. So, what amounts to essentially 'a sort-of ghost story mixed with glowing flowers and Valentine's Day' just feels unnecessary.

The animation is great, though, with an impressive colour palette and lighting design, but you've got to have a compelling story first and foremost. Tales From '85 just seems like Netflix being unwilling to let go of one of their most popular franchises. Indeed, that's another issue with this show: we've not had enough time away from these characters to miss them. The switch to a more kid-friendly format, with all it's "hecks" and "screws" and muted violence and peril, also wears thin.

Golden Axe: Season 1 - based on the Sega videogame, and created by Mike McMahan and Joe Chandler, this ten-episode animated series primarily goes for a comedic take on the franchise. I remember playing the games when I was a kid, but was never super into them, so I'm not coming at it from the perspective of a dedicated fan who might not be too keen on the overtly comic style of the show. However, I found this to be very entertaining and would be well up for a second season.

Scrubs (Reboot): Season 2

Haunted Hotel: Season 2 - I'm a big fan of this show, which is at its best when it allows itself to delve a little deeper into the characters. The last two episodes of the first season really showed that off, and likewise the fourth episode of the second season proves to be a real winner.

Gnomes: Season 1 - created by Joel Kohn. This Australian horror comedy is about a small town that becomes over-run with killer garden gnomes after a curse is unleashed. It's a little wobbly here and there, but it's a good bit of silly fun for six episodes.

Crystal Lake: Season 1 - having been starved of any new Friday the 13th material for, appropriately enough, thirteen years (since the ill-fated videogame, which got caught-up in the lawsuit between screenwriter Victor Miller and Horror Inc), along comes this prequel re-imagining starring the always excellent Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees, with Jason's tragic childhood demise shifted from 1957 to the early 1970s.

Developed by Brad Caleb Kane, this eight-episode series from A24 is a combination of a prequel, a remake, and a reboot, while also staying true to the source material. There seems to even be some ideas culled from unused scripts, or ideas that never even got that far, from the franchise's vaults, which introduces some new ideas that add a frisson of the mystery thriller genre to proceedings. If you're going in expecting a Jason slash 'em up, then you're already way off-base as to what this *prequel* series is, but that doesn't mean there isn't a whole lotta killing, because there sure is and it's bloody in the classic Friday the 13th fashion.

Giving us something new with something familiar, this show clearly has a lot of love for the franchise and treads a careful line while delivering something genuinely entertaining and emotionally resonant, too. Cardellini absolutely kills it in this show on both fronts: a grieving mother and a vengeful killer. As a huge fan of the Friday the 13th franchise myself, I really enjoyed this show! Colour me very satisfied.

The Terminal List: Season 2 - a bit more action wouldn't go amiss, and it's wide open for a third season, which I'd be up for.

Cyberpunk Edgerunners: Season 2 - welcome back, choom! Although, I liked the first season more. Still, I certainly wouldn't mind a third season.

SOUNDS:

Green Day "Father Of All..." (album), "Revolution Radio" (album)

M83 "Blister Sunrise"

Hans Zimmer "F1: The Movie (Main Theme)"

Phoebe Cates "How Do I Let You Know?"

3TEETH "Merchant of the Void"

HIM "Razorblade Romance" (album)

We Are Zombie Men "Zombie Man's Decomposition Vacation Destination" (album)

Matthew Pusti "Onslaught (Main Theme)", "One Eye (Celeste's Theme)"

Justice "Flower In A Hurricane"

Godspeed You Black Emperor "Moya"

VIBES & FLAVOURS:

Duke Nukem: World Tour (Xbox Series S) - released in 2016 as the 20th Anniversary, it is now 30 years since Duke Nukem 3D hit the gaming world with a buzz cut head butt and cigar-chomping quip. This version includes the original main game, some additional official levels released in the 1990s (but not all of them, for some curious reason), plus brand new levels created for this release and some welcome visual tweaks that can be turned on or off. It's kind of funny playing this again, a clash of flashback to my formative years and battling with some quirks of 1990s level design. It's a damn shame Duke Nukem Forever never amounted to much after years of indecision and redesign, because this franchise peaked with DK3D and never managed to figure anything else out afterwards. "Shake it, baby!"

Ghostbusters: The Videogame (Xbox Series S)

The Precinct (Xbox Series S) - with the thumb-twiddling wait for tantalisingly close GTA VI underway, I bopped back for another few shifts on this cracking little 1980s-set police game, now with armoured truck heists in a recent update.