#the am auto section was like twice as long bc i went on about how i'd change it

[tellytuber]

12 Shows of 2022

The new (and sometimes old) series and seasons that made my year.

Law & Order (S1-12) + Law & Order: Criminal Intent + Law & Order: Los Angeles I started off the year catching the early (and Best) seasons of the mothership via cable reruns; got Peacock for CI; and then returned midyear when I was half-gone from covid and blearily endured the commercials of what was then IMDBtv for the very LA edition. While I am not technically a "geriatric millennial," I am a millennial and with geriatric interests. For me, peak television has become something that I can either focus on fully or play in the background while I do other things and be equally thoroughly entertained. That is why this franchise has become my number one comfort show.

Shrink + Michael: Tuesdays Thursdays Grouping these into one because I just so happened to watch one immediately after the other, and because they're both about moderately adept therapists who are codependent with their patients. They are also both incredibly funny! These got the biggest laughs out of me than anything else all year. (A shame I didn't get to them till December.) While they are both hilarious, each manage to sweep into very heavy topics and deep emotion without toppling over. #ReviveShrink

Big Love While I’m pretty sure I’ve watched more L&O than anything else this year, I’m deeming 2022 the year of sister wives. In my post marathon blues, I went surfing on HBO and turned on Big Love (after once trying the pilot a while ago and being turned off by its HBO-ness.) But this time it hit me right in the late-00's cable nostalgia. The melodrama, the humor, the cast - Mary Kay Place! It's a (new) classic for me.

Grand Crew (S1) With its simple if derivative set-up, this delightful sitcom got better and better every episode! The ensemble is funny and charming, and the stories silly and fun. Thank god it snagged a renewal and will return because I will need my weekly fix of Carl Tart in between his Comedy Bang! Bang! appearances.

American Auto (S1) At base level, it's just another workplace comedy with a pseudo diverse cast. And the setting of the executive floor of a car company is quite baffling. (It's not even a riff on Telsa. Neither is it too concerned with Detroit.) But it all came together during the commercial episode: During which the team spiral in heated disagreements over how to shoot a commercial that is appropriately inclusive but not too inclusive. Funny! From then on, I started to watch it from a new angle. The ensemble itself is a focus group - and every week is a new satirical debate on the weird standards of contemporary ethics. The show is at its best when it’s everyone in the conference room talking over each other in the voices of their respective demo. I still don't necessarily like it - But it does get me thinking. (About all that I wish it was!) But honestly, I'm only really including this on the list because of the perfect Cyrus played by Michael Benjamin Washington who is never not incredibly funny. He was my favorite character/performance of the year.

Severance (S1) Part Office Space, part Fringe, with the style of Legion. This trippy, beautiful, and exciting drama was a dream to watch! Especially since I watched most of it in the very very early morning with a cup of coffee - the very best way to watch something creepy.

Claws (S4/final) While, the finale was one of the worst I've ever seen (Niecy Nash's scenes were almost exclusively Facetimed!) - This show will go down as being one of the most iconic. The outfits, the colors, the insane swings. It was never not outrageous and gonzo. Did it always work? I don't know. But they had a Vision and Went For It! It was always a wild ride, and I had fun.

Better Things (S5/final) Every year Better Things airs, it automatically gets a spot on my list. And this is the last time. A beautiful show so full of humor and love and art and great music and lots of food.

Search Party (S5/final) Every season comes with a genre turn. And when this one turned, I didn't want to believe it. It wasn't until it turned to black without the Actually It Was All A Dream rewind I was expecting did it set in. I have yet to rewatch it, but when I do I'm sure I'll love it (as my experience with S3). But I do understand it. For Dory, who began the show adrift and yearning for a meaning to her life - to enact some sort of change, to literally change the world is a fitting end. (For me, S4 is the real ending and this is a bonus season.) Either way, it still earns a spot in the TV Hall of Fame. A crazy comedy with twisty mysteries. Extremely sharp and biting, confident in its hipsterness, unafraid of being unlikable - An ideal close to my heart.

Sister Wives (S17) As Elizabeth Laime so astutely put it in the Sister Wives spin-off of Bitch Sesh: There is no other show in which less time was spent making it than time spent watching it. Save for the very beginning (of the end) when Robin joined the family, nothing has happened. (Save for The Catfish, and even then nothing actually happened.) But all that nothing was for the cameras. Big Happy Family propoganda. And this was the season it all fell apart. Now, too much is happening! Cody-19! Christine leaving! Robin wants to talk! Janelle needs a truck for her trailer! (To Cody's dismay) Meri is also there! The knife to the kidneys! As I said before: This was the year of the sister wives. Incredible television.

Evil (S3) The beginning of this season had a lot of splitting up of the trio, which bummed me out. But it made the eventual reunion of the team that much more satisfying, and each of their individual crises of belief more affecting in their isolation. Every season is more weird, more tense, more absurd. I love it so very much! 

My Liberation Notes Every year I have one thing that completely consumes me. This year it was My Liberation Notes. It captured me from the very first episode: A story about a introversion and anti-socialism, when to hold on to it and when to let it go. A story about adult siblings, reared together yet all very different people seemingly in different worlds. So many existential ruminations. Plus an exceedingly slow teasing romance, barely one in the conventional sense, but deeply so as a connection of souls. All about life and its disappointments and mundanity, what beats you down and how you change, how people change you and how you change others.

[blazermckinnon]

27 hours in the SNL standby line for dress rehearsal 9/30/17

Scroll down for standby tips, a list of things you might need, and places you may need to visit for standby!

Here is a description of the timing of waiting in standby:

@myloveholtzy and I have been planning for this for weeks and the time had finally come! I was lucky enough to have my Friday class cancelled so I could go back to the city early enough to guarantee a good spot in line. It’s Thursday night and we’re packing our things anxiously, even laying out cardboard that @myloveholtzy had been saving for weeks for this very day to see if it was enough room to sit and lay down. We try to get some sleep. It felt like a second later when the alarm went off and I jolted up in bed, confused but ready to go. 3:00 AM.

We leave her apartment at 3:40 to catch the train to Rockefeller plaza. We get there at 4:20 and there are only 7 people in line. Our chances look pretty good. Most of the standbyers are asleep so we lay down our cardboard, set up a pillow and blankets and try to sleep. This is going to be our home for the next 27 hours.

It’s a funny thing camping outside on the streets. Everyone wakes up about the same time, as if we were at a sleep-away camp. There’s a sense of camaraderie, we’re all braving the cold for the very same purpose.

Slowly, people start arriving and setting up camp in line. By 5:00 AM, there are a total of 12 people in line. The rest of the city starts to wake up, there are more cars whizzing by, more people speeding by with coffee in their hands. 

We fall asleep again and wake up at around 8:00 AM. There are 16 people in line. We watch movies and talk and meet new people in line and answer tourist questions, so many tourist questions. By 11:00 AM, there are almost 30 people.

We eat a lot of McDonalds and answer some more tourist questions. Then we are stricken with a genius idea (that’s what happens when you’re in the same place for so long, your mind is a wonder). We make signs to avoid the common tourist questions. It’s a huge hit! All of a sudden, people congregate around our signs and we get a laugh out of them. It’s a wonderful feeling and they ask more interesting questions besides the usual “What’s this line for?”. We get so many gasps of “Ryan Gosling!” and an SNL intern even stopped to take a picture of our sign! Our signs made it to Twitter too, this is my legacy. 

By 5:30 PM, there are about 40 people in line. The day is starting to wind down. We watch more movies and talk more about anything and everything.

More waiting and talking and movies and napping. We are moved to a different spot as the other line for Nintendo starts to wind down. At around 9, we are moved again to our final spot.

We go visit Rockefeller at around 10:30 PM and saw Beck probably going back to rehearsal! 

It’s sleep time but there’s a shit ton of jack hammering. No, not just jack hammering, full on earth shattering drilling. I wonder how I’m ever going to sleep.

By now, there are almost 100 people in line. I bundle up and try to sleep.

We start waking up at around 5 the next morning. My body is folded into a position I never thought I could achieve just to avoid the cold. At 6, we start packing up our things. We made it. We did it.

Pages come out at around 7 to give us our tickets. Finally.

We victoriously take pictures of our tickets; this little piece of blue card stock was our first place trophy. But it was not over yet. We go home, take long hot showers and collapse into deep sleep.

We run back to Rockefeller plaza and arrive at 6:50 PM where we have to wait in the NBC store. There is a crowd of people packed like sardines. The pages line us up in order of our ticket numbers. We rejoice at the sight of our fellow standbyers. The line legend lady tells us stories of how she’s kicked line cutters out of the line and how different the system used to be. What a legend.

Finally, we are moved to a staircase behind the NBC store. Through the window, we see Richard, an Australian guy and an all around nice person who was 2 spots in front of us in standby. He is on line for the live show. We line up in twos and Line Legend Lady tells us more stories. We laugh off the nervousness and her ambience makes us feel better, she’s done this for 10 years so she’s chill about the whole process.

They move us up the stairs but there is still no guarantee of getting in. We arrive at the elevators and I sneak a Fallon-style picture of the elevator floors. Finally, we’re in line near the lounge but we’re standby, we don’t get to sit in the lounge this time. We get closer to the studio, I can hear 8H commotion, a page collects our tickets and it hits me. We’re in studio 8H. Pages rush us to our balcony seats, I am in the right section, close enough to watch the show with some lights in the way. It is hard to see some skits below us but it’s ok, it was all worth it.

The rest is self explanatory but here are some highlights that weren’t in the live show:

Melissa, Cecily and Kate doing the warm ups. Kate turns to our section twice and waves at us.

Kate holding Melissa’s hands and pulling her along after the warm ups. It was Melissa’s first warm up.

Kate crawling on the ground to pop up as Jeff Sessions in the cold open.

Emma Stone showing up during Ryan’s monologue.

The elephant man sketch was cut, it was kind of weird (kate as an air flight attendee and Leslie saying ��bitch’ were great, the rest of the sketch was funny but not as funny).

An auto line sketch was cut, it was borderline creepy (beck plays a window shield repair man who removes their window shield repeatedly to hit on Melissa who plays a 17 year old high school soccer player).

Kate as Angela Merkel waiting behind the black screens next to weekend update, watching Colin and Michael supportingly and laughing hard at their jokes.

Ryan shaking as Kate feels his butt, trying to hold in his laughter.

Kyle pretending to play piano in the bar sketch but stopping before the music ends, garnering more laughter than the actual sketch.

Kate pulling the new cast members to the front in the goodnights. Everyone hugging. The goodnights are my favorite part.

Apparently Beyonce and Ryan’s gf were at the show. And now I know Aziz was also there. Wow.

Now for some tips if you want to do standby:

The line is normally on 48th street in front of the Nintendo store. There will be an NBC guard there so you can ask if you’re unsure about whether you’re in the right place or not. Or just look for at least one person in a camping chair with huge bags and probably coffee. (I say “normally” because that day happened to be a huge Nintendo release so there was a long ass line for Nintendo and we were moved multiple times).

NO CUTTING Line Legend Lady makes this very clear seriously talk to her she’s short and has black hair and glasses and is very approachable to talk to. This goes along with NO SAVING SPOTS pretty self explanatory.

The line is self governed. You’re allowed to leave for bathroom breaks or walks as long as you’re not leaving to go sleep in a hotel bed or whatever (aka don’t leave for more than 2 hours just to be safe)

If you suspect people cutting/saving spots, tell the line legend lady and guards. They’re pretty strict about it. This might sound scary but it’s not, honestly just follow the rules and you’ll have a great time

Talk to the people around you! You’re there for HOURS plus these people are (usually) some of the nicest people around. If you happen to spot any of the line legends: Chris or the Line Legend Lady, talk to them! They have so many stories. Chris has done it ~104 episodes consecutively and Line Legend Lady has done it for 10 years. There’s another line legend lady but I didn’t get a chance to really talk to her, she has gray curly hair and smiled at me once so she seems really nice!

SNL STANDBY SURVIVAL CHECKLIST:

Camping chair

Blankets (PLURAL CUZ ITS COLD)

Pillow

Cardboard box (to put your stuff on)

Books

Laptop (for work or movies)

Snacks

Tissues/napkins

Thick socks (your feet WILL get cold at night I guarantee it)

Earbuds

Layers (again, much cold very freezing)

GOVERNMENT ISSUED ID (permit, drivers license, student ID but it must have your DOB)

Water bottle 

Gloves/hat/scarf (especially if you do it later in the season)

Playing cards

Sleeping bag/portable air mattress (like this one)

Sharpies 

PLACES YOU MIGHT NEED:

Discount & Dollar (dollar store that sells camping chairs for $15, check the quality of the chair before buying bc someone’s chair broke idk if he checked, ours were fine cuz we checked)

Food court downstairs of Rockefeller (bathroom)

Stairs next to main lobby (there’s a water fountain in Rockefeller, go down the stairs near the lobby, there’s a glowing green sign that says something like “food court/concourse”)

McDonalds on 47th street (water, food, bathroom upstairs)

Click here for my other SNL experiences.