What It Was Like Seeing Saturday Night Live, Live: Part II: John Mulaney / David Byrne (2/29/20)

"Lin-Manuel Miranda was my first choice!"

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I apologize for taking you to a secondary location.

I realize that this is an amazingly late recount of an SNL line-going experience. It's almost a month past when the episode actually took place, and I went back and forth on if it was something I should even write about at that point... but then all of the COVID-19 stuff happened. SNL got shut down, probably for the season. And that made the experience of seeing the show so close to its unexpected closure all the more special as a moment in time to reflect—I was a lucky audience member for an intimate, one-night only comedy show led off by John Mulaney and David Byrne.

For some reason, the prospects of a leap day episode of SNL immediately piqued my interest; it would be a first for the show's history (and very potentially this could be the only episode to land on such a date), and I'm all for that incredibly niche but ultimately meaningless specificity. Then I found out that episode would be hosted by none other than Mulaney with musical guest David Byrne—because truly, what combo of individuals would be more suited for such a strange date—and I knew that I had to go.

This wasn't my first time seeing the show; the season prior, I got into the Awkwafina episode (and, likewise, wrote a little piece on it). But the stakes for this go-around were far different on account of the host being John effin' Mulaney, a guy who's proven himself to be one of SNL's most reliable hosts in recent history, scoring two out of two instant classic hosting gigs in the span of less than a year. Add in the fun new factor of this trip taking place during the winter as opposed to on a cool, autumn evening and you've got a lot of strange and frightening variables floating around in the air that I had to make sense of quick.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part X: 15-1

This is Part X of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part IX, CLICK HERE.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part IX: 24-16

This is Part IX of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part VIII, CLICK HERE.

For Your Consideration: Joe Pera Talks With You Season 2 (So Far)

"I've never been bored, not once in my life."

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Even though I've only expounded upon my love of Joe Pera Talks With You on one other occasion that nobody read, my adoration of the show is a rather open secret. There are few shows that I've walked into not knowing what to expect only to be completely floored (which seems to be something Adult Swim has done an increasingly great job at), but Talks With You accomplished that with complete ease.

While I do consider myself a critic, there's something intrinsically hard to assess about Talks With You because it's so original and true to itself. It doesn't trudge in the footsteps of obvious predecessors; it's a one-of-a-kind product that walks to the beat of its own drum and never doubts itself. That's what made Season 1 so amazing to me: the dreamy quality it possesses in waxing on the simplest things in life with earnest. Some people find the show boring for that very reason because there's no dramatic conflict, and arguably very little happens, but that's what makes everything work.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part VIII: 49-25

This is Part VIII of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part VII, CLICK HERE.

Just a quick thing before we start up again: sorry for the list coming to a screeching halt over the past two months! I've been busy with college and this blog is a one-man operation, let alone one that I haven't made a cent off of. Hopefully the list will be complete before 2020, but I don't want to make any promises I can't 100% keep.

Now let's keep this enterprise rollin'.

For Your Consideration: Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal (Episodes 1-5)

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(Note: this review is almost entirely spoiler-free in regards to plot developments.)

I'll admit that Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal, the latest addition to Adult Swim's line-up, almost flew under my radar entirely. I was well aware of the show leading up to its release and liked what I saw from the trailer, but it never really jumped out to me as a must-watch. At best, I assumed, it was just another experimental show for Adult Swim's roster, and my lack of a history watching Tartakovsky's other works (Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack) meant I didn't really have any frame of reference for what sort of show Primal would even be. It was by a stroke of good luck, then, that I decided to check out the first episode to fill a little bit of spare time, because within 22 minutes, I was utterly blown away.

It's rare to see a television show of any variety, cartoon or not, that gives off an aura of knowing exactly what it wants to be doing by its first episode, but within minutes, it's clear that Primal has fully recognized its ambitions. With such a straightforward premise, too—the miniseries is centered around the unlikely camaraderie between a dinosaur, Fang, on the edge of extinction and a caveman, Spear, at the dawn of evolution—it's astonishing how unique Primal is able to feel, for which Tartakovsky deserves all the credit in the world.

A Definitive Ranking of Every Episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, Part VII: 74-50

This is Part VII of my definitive ranking of every episode of The Amazing World of Gumball. For Part VI, CLICK HERE.