📺 The Media Guide S6E9

why so blue?

There’s absolutely no new TV worth talking about this week, but there were a ton of killer albums on Friday. Plus a new movie from Darren Aronofsky and a new comic by James Tynion IV.

But first...

For the few of you who pay attention, you may have noticed Review of Links has the “Below the fold” feature, and the Weekend Edition has “The back page”—both for paid subscribers. Well, now The Media Guide has “The sidebar,” where we will review some things and share some links and thoughts—or whatever the hell we feel like doing with the space. It'll be fun. Hopefully.

EchoFeed supports reading RSS, Atom and JSON feeds, and can send your posts to Mastodon, BlueSky, and Discord effortlessly.

Check it out!

what's new on tv this week

📺 New shows

Nothing major or super important to check out this week!

Things will pick back up next week

📝 These might interest some folks though...

Upload S4 (Amazon) — 25 Aug
The Terminal List: Dark Wolf S1 (Amazon) — 27 Aug
Katrina: Come Hell and High Water S1 (Netflix) — 27 Aug

days based on streaming availability for the majority of people

Tuesday

Alien: Earth (FX/Hulu) 1:4

Wednesday

Platonic (Apple) 2:5
Hard Knocks (HBO) 20:4

Thursday

Digman! (CC) 2:6-7
Peacemaker (HBO) 2:2

Friday

Foundation (Apple) 3:8
Chief of War (Apple) 1:6

Sunday

Dexter: Resurrection (Paramount) 1:9

we listened to 27 new albums Friday to give you the best ones

💽 Release of the week

💅 It’s A Beautiful Place by Water From Your Eyes

If I had to classify the genre of this album, I’d say it’s the most abstract “pop” could be. It sounds like two people just making fun sounds and rhythms. It’s as if you described what good “pop” music was to an alien and they tried to recreate it only from that description, without focusing on melody or hooks. Safe to say, it’s delightful.

🏃 Runner-ups

🚙 Luke’s Garage by Delicate Steve

Since I already featured an instrumental album last week, I held off on making this the release of the week, but this album is beautiful. The guitar is reminiscent of John Mayer and is perfect for relaxing under a warm sun.

🔪 Swallow the Knife by Sir Chloe

I thought Hot Mulligan or Royal Otis were going to snag this spot (or better), but Royal Otis disappointed, and Sir Chloe absolutely delivered (Hot Mulligan met expectations). It’s a fun alternative rock album with a broad range of songs, but all of them are a blast.

📝 What else?

Live Laugh Love by Earl Sweatshirt
Guitar by Mac DeMarco
BIG MONEY by Jon Batiste
The Sound a Body Makes When It’s Still by Hot Mulligan
I Barely Know Her by sombr
hickey by Royel Otis
Rocket by Dominic Fike

this weeks best comic releases

🦸 No. 1’s

🫥 The Invisible Man [Universal Monsters] (Image)

James Tynion IV is tackling another Universal Monster book after the excellent Dracula. This time he's joined by Dani on art, who has worked on some fun books in the past, including Coffin Bound, The Low, Low Woods, and some art for 3W3M.

🧠 Masterminds (Dark Horse)

The newest book from writer Zach Kaplan, who previously wrote Kill All Immortals (which also has part two coming later this year), teams up with artist Stephen Thompson, who has chiefly worked on licensed books to this point. This book is about a secret society in the tech/gaming industry that leads our protagonist into deadly puzzles.

🕐 Some other 1's

Stay Out of the Woods (Image)
Hellboy and the BPRD: Professor Harvey is Gone (Dark Horse)
Immortal Legend Batman (DC)
The Mortal Thor (Marvel)

📝 What else?

We're Taking Everyone Down with Us #5 (Image)
You'll Do Bad Things #6 (Image)
Minor Arcana #10 (Boom)
Kaya #29 Preview (Image)
Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees: Rite of Spring #2 (IDW)
Lost Fantasy #4 (Image)
Sleep #4 (Image)
Monstress #59 (Image)
The Voice Said Kill #2 (Image)
News from the Fallout #3 (Image)
Benjamin #3 (Oni)
Lazarus Fallen #3 (Image)
Geiger #17 (Image)
Absolute Wonder Woman #11 (DC)
Absolute Martian Manhunter #6 (DC)

movies hitting the big screen this week

🎥 New movies

🏃 Caught Stealing

I’m probably more excited about this than I should be. The trailer looks like a lot of fun, and Darren Aronofsky has made some great movies in the past, especially Black Swan. Caught Stealing is the first film he’s trying to make for a wider audience again, after some pretty wild movies like Mother! and The Whale. Who knows if it will live up to those expectations, though.

☢️ The Toxic Avenger

The Peter Dinklage and Kevin Bacon-starring R-rated “superhero” flick is finally out of purgatory. No one thought this crazy movie would be commercially viable, so no one picked it up to distribute—until now. The fact no one wanted to distribute it is reason enough to be intrigued and see it.

🔪 The Thursday Murder Club (Netflix)

This seems to be getting torn to shreds already, but critics likely aren’t the audience for this one. Plus, Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren join up for the second time this year after the sleeper hit Mob Land.

🏚️ Vice is Broke (Mubi)

And finally, the documentary that caused quite a stir after some accusations were made about Mubi holding this film, following criticism of its investors’ ties to Israeli Defense. I still see Vice as a big missed opportunity to be a leader in new media that completely fell apart.

📝 What else?

Welcome to The sidebar, a new feature where we share a little of extra goodness in the form of links, reviews, thoughts, tangents, etc., with those of you kind enough to part with your hard-earned money.

This week, a review of King of the Hill's fourteenth season and some bonus links.

👑 King of the Hill returns after seventeen years

I didn’t watch King of the Hill when it aired. That was a mistake—the kind you make when you’re young and think time stretches forever like sticky caramel under a hot sun.

The show returned. I watched it. I loved it.

We encounter Hank Hill in 2025 as he returns from Saudi Arabia after a period abroad. The world has shifted beneath him like quicksand. His conservative beliefs clash with reality in ways that might seem tired. Instead, they feel necessary.

Not long ago, Mike Judge tried to revive Beavis & Butthead. That resurrection felt like digging up a corpse and expecting it to dance. This feels different—like discovering a twenty-dollar bill in an old jacket pocket—still valuable.

Hank Hill navigates our strange present with earnestness. The world has changed—he hasn’t—but he’s willing to learn. Somehow, this makes perfect sense, like a dream where all the impossible parts seem inevitable.

The propane burns clean. The jokes land true. And somewhere in suburban Texas, a family inadvertently explains America.

A24 has been talking about getting into blockbusters for a couple of years, and some of those ambitions are finally coming together. It has me incredibly nervous. Bigger movies equal bigger risks. And while the rewards might be bigger, those risks could destroy one of the last places making smaller, quality movies.

As I’m sure you can already tell—I love em dashes. And the AI-shaming of them is disgusting. Let me write the words and symbols I want to write! Get off my back—you can try—but you can’t stop me—from writing this way—good day!

Big get for Netflix, but—and I hate to be negative—Nic Pizzolatto continues to ride high off the first season of True Detective, and I think he was one of the smallest parts of that success.

It’s truly wild that the only people who care about these issues—and complain about them as if someone kicked their dog—are the same folks who love calling liberals snowflakes. It’s the outrage industrial complex manipulating people who want a reason to be angry.

📺 The Media Guide S6E9

📺 New shows