As the streaming wars rage on, Peacock just delivered a stunning haymaker to the competition by locking down the exclusive streaming rights to the WWE Network. Starting March 18, all WWE Network content including pay-per-view events and original series like Steve Austin Broken Skull Sessions, Undertaker: The Last Ride, and the all-new WWE Icons will be housed on Peacock. The new deal will also see the WWE Network deliver original “signature documentaries” starting in 2022.
In the meantime, the new deal will quickly kick off when Fastlane becomes the first major WWE event to stream on Peacock on Sunday, March 21. From the official press release, which is also posted on the WWE site:
“We are thrilled to further the long-standing and trusted partnership WWE has with NBCUniversal,” said Nick Khan, WWE President and Chief Revenue Officer. “Peacock is an innovative platform that will enable us to showcase our most significant events, including WrestleMania, and provide the extraordinary entertainment our fans have come to expect with the combination of premium WWE content, live sports, news, films, and television programs.”
According to CNBC, the Peacock deal will put an end to the WWE Network’s independent streaming platform in the U.S. However, the move will be quite the deal for WWE fans. For just $9.99, the current price of WWE Network, wrestling lovers will be able to stream the entire WWE catalog plus everything Peacock has to offer ad-free. Or they can save five bucks by picking up the ad-supported Peacock plan for only $4.99, which still gives them access to both WWE Network and Peacock’s full libraries but with commercial interruptions.
Between 2008 and 2014, Jason Segel starred in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I Love You, Man, Gulliver’s Travels, Bad Teacher, The Five-Year Engagement, and Sex Tape, many of which were box office hits; wrote The Muppets; and continued to play Marshall Eriksen on the hit sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Not a bad seven years. However, in the seven years since, Segel hasn’t appeared in a single comedy. He’s done fine work in The End of the Tour, as David Foster Wallace, and AMC’s Dispatches from Elsewhere, which he also created, but what happened to the lovable Dracula musical guy?
“I did about a decade and a half of pure comedy, between those movies and then How I Met Your Mother, which was literally every day for nine years,” Segel told Yahoo! Entertainment. “I think I was just interested in seeing what else I could do.” He added:
“Sex Tape ended up doing well, I think, but it didn’t feel good. So I got to look forward and say, ‘This is freedom. You can do anything right now. So why don’t we walk right into some of the looming questions, like, what if I tried to do just a drama? What if I tried to write and create and run a TV show?’ I wanted to bump up against my litmus, which I hadn’t done in a long time.”
Segel is currently making the promotional rounds for Our Friend, a cancer drama co-starring Dakota Johnson and Casey Affleck (it’s out now), and he’s set to star in The Sky Is Everywhere from Madeline’s Madeline and Shirley director Josephine Decker. It’s interesting to see the Freaks and Geeks actor flex his creative muscle outside of comedies. That being said, if he wants to make another Muppets movie, I would not say no to watching.
Yesterday (January 24) marked the ten-year anniversary of Adele’s legendary 2011 album 21, which has become one of the defining releases of the century so far. Adele marked the occasion over the weekend with an Instagram post looking back on the album.
Adele shared the album art and some other photos from the era and wrote, “Well I never! Happy 10 years old friend! It’s crazy how little I remember of what it was like and how I felt a decade ago. But Thank You from the bottom of my heart for letting us into your lives and letting me be a soundtrack to some of it x.”
When announcing the album back in 2010, Adele wrote of it, “It’s different from 19, it’s about the same things but in a different light. I deal with things differently now. I’m more patient, more honest, more forgiving and more aware of my own flaws, habits and principles. Something that comes with age I think. So fittingly this record is called 21. […] The whole reason I called my first album 19 was about cataloging what happened to me then and who I was then, like a photo album you see the progression and changes in a person throughout the years. I tried to think of other album titles but couldn’t come up with anything that represented the album properly, I kept swerving 21 thinking it was obvious. But why not be obvious?”
We’re three episodes into WandaVision, and things are starting to get weird — multi-verse story bridging weird.
While the show’s first two episodes managed to introduce the sitcom-inspired fantasy that Wanda and Vision found themselves somewhat mysteriously housed in, the show’s third episode launched (quite literally) our collective conspiracy theorizing into overdrive with a few key reveals. We recapped a few of them here, but the show’s consistent Easter egg-hiding deserves a closer look, not just because the writers are doing a terrific job of calling back to Wanda Maximoff’s rich comic-book origins but because these teases might be setting up Wandavision as a sort of lynchpin for the future of the MCU.
It’s a bold choice, to reprogram the blockbuster superhero model through a genre-bending streaming offering that delights in niche comedy and cheeky pop culture callbacks, but so far, WandaVision has been able to deliver on all fronts. There’s definitely something sinister lurking beneath the technicolor glow, and the show is starting to dive into more comic lore, possibly in an attempt by Disney and Marvel to incorporate more superhero universes within the MCU.
Disney recently acquired 21st Century Fox, which means they now own the rights to pretty much every comic book franchise of note that isn’t tied to the DC universe. That merger has had plenty of fans wondering whether characters from the X-Men verse or even the Fantastic Four franchise might soon make their way to the MCU, especially considering the loss of bigger-name heroes like Iron Man and Captain America have left a void to be filled. With Marvel heading into possibly its most ambitious phase yet, the choice to have Wanda Maximoff set up this new foray into multi-verses and space-charting adventures can’t be an accident.
This brings us back to WandaVision and the clues the show has hidden in its first few episodes.
We know that the world Wanda is currently living in isn’t real. Though decades change with each episode, only days have passed from the first installment to when she gives birth to her twin boys, Tommy and Billy, in Episode Three. We also know that the townsfolk populating Westview are more than they seem. Agnes (the brilliant Kathryn Hahn) may be a powerful witch named Agatha Harkness, who served as a mentor for Wanda Maximoff in the comics and had a key role to play in her descent into madness. While Agnes and the rest of Westview’s residents seem compelled to act out this small-town fantasy, they also seem to be aware, at least on some level, that this world is one of Wanda’s making. Both Agnes and Herb (David Payton) nearly reveal that to Vision before thinking better of it, but it’s interesting that both of these characters are more sentient than they let on.
There are theories that Agnes and Herb (who may serve as a callback to the comic book character of Herbert Edgar Wyndham, a genetic scientist with roots in Wanda’s origin story and the ability to turn super-powered beings into dangerous weapons) were two people Wanda herself might have sought out after the events of Avengers: Endgame in the hopes of bringing Vision back to life. Maybe something went wrong, and they’re now trapped in Wanda’s dreamworld or maybe the plan was to have her build the fantasy and want to stay there all along?
But Agnes and Herb aren’t the only magical beings in Westview. Fans think Dottie (Emma Caufield) may be a stand-in for the multiverse hero known as Arcanna, who has naturally occurring powers and had a big role to play in Marvel’s Defenders comic series. So why would someone want to trap Wanda and these powerful beings in an alternate reality, and how does that hint at the MCU’s expansion into X-Men territory?
That link seems to be taking shape in two ways. The first is with the introduction of A.I.M., a science division of Hydra created by Baron Von Strucker — the same guy who harnessed the Mind Stone to give Wanda and Pietro their powers in Age of Ultron. A.I.M. made a brief appearance in Iron Man 3, but the show has alluded to the group becoming a bigger antagonist – that beekeeper popping out of a manhole and those hexagon-shaped title cards previewing the show’s third episode are direct callbacks. A.I.M.’s main goal is to create world-destroying weapons because, well, they’re Nazis. Their presence in the show necessitates the arrival of Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), who’s introduced as Geraldine early in the season. Monica works for S.W.O.R.D., another organization modeled after S.H.I.E.L.D., whose job is to find and monitor sentient weapon threats. As powerful as Wanda has proven to be, she definitely qualifies.
We’ve seen Monica blow her cover in the dreamscape, which ended with her being thrown out of this manipulated reality (which seems to be camouflaged in some kind of static TV-like bubble encasing an actual town called Westview), and though we don’t yet know whether A.I.M. is facilitating Wanda’s fantasy or whether S.W.O.R.D. is trying to just manage it, the fact is, Wanda’s form of Pleasantville has popped up on someone’s radar.
Of course, it’s also possible that A.I.M. employed Agnes to help Wanda create this more perfect vision (get it), but she agreed in order to serve another master, who’s the second, more compelling, link between the franchises.
His name is Mephisto, and he’s a Satanic villain with immense power who, while not originating from Biblical mythology, uses the idea of demons and Hell to terrify humans. He’s had the ear of both antagonists and heroes within the comic verse, generally enjoying reaping chaos and destruction wherever he goes. He’s also Marvel’s best bet when it comes to a baddie powerful and threatening enough to follow in Thanos’ footsteps. The “devil” has been referenced a couple of times in WandaVision so far, and some think Agnes’ husband is actually Mephisto – though we haven’t technically met him yet.
In comic lore, when Wanda “created” her twin boys, she accidentally harnessed a bit of Mephisto’s energy which allowed him to eventually reabsorb the twins, effectively erasing their existence. That led to Wanda having a bit of a breakdown and becoming a villain of sorts in later series. Mephisto also has ties with the Fantastic Four and the X-Men. He’s terrorized everyone from the Silver Surfer and Victor Doom to Jean Grey, so if he were to be pulling the strings at A.I.M., this could set up a crossover storyline.
If heroes and villains from alternate universes (like Arcanna and Agatha) are living within this fantasy, it stands to reason we could see more alternate universe characters pop up in WandaVision, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, and Loki. The latter show’s trailers have already hinted at the multiverse and Mephisto, and we know Wanda will have a key role to play within the next Doctor Strange film. Perhaps she’ll bring about a merging of the multiverse that Strange will need to make right, maybe spurred on by the loss of her children? Or she might realize she’s been manipulated to create these children by agencies interested in weaponizing powerful mutants, and if we’re talking about them, we’ve got to talk about Weapon X, the program responsible for creating Deadpool, who we now know is officially joining the MCU. There are also rumors that Evan Peters, who played Quicksilver in the X-Men universe, might be making an appearance in WandaVision’s timeline, which could also help bridge the different superhero properties.
So yeah, there’s a lot to unpack here, but we doubt that the show would be throwing all of these Easter eggs in just for kicks. Whether some are red herrings or some are actual teases of storylines to come is something we’ll have to wait to find out. But the possibilities of WandaVision have me more hyped for the future of the MCU than I’ve been in a long time.
New episodes of ‘WandaVision’ drop Fridays on Disney+.
Dominion Voting Systems is hopping (and justifiably) mad about the collateral damage from the Trump campaign’s damaging election fraud conspiracy claims. And as a member of Trump’s so-called “Elite Strike Force,” Rudy Giuliani is the latest to be slapped with a $1.3 billion lawsuit over his part in spreading the “Big Lie,” within which he accused Dominion of switching votes in favor of Joe Biden, and that’s caused “irreparable harm” to the company. This lawsuit follows Dominion suing wacky Trump lawyer Sidney Powell for a whopping $1.3 billion and a threat to sue the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell, although he keeps daring them to pull the trigger while continuing to spread seditious lies. The MyPillow guy really should stop doing that now, since that Bed, Bath & Beyond money isn’t rolling in anymore.
As for Rudy, he’s certainly been a ringleader during this hot mess. He famously spread lies during Total Landscaping farce, and filed lawsuits in endless states in an effort to swing the election (which Trump did lose) to Trump. Dominion’s accusing Giuliani of pushing his baseless claims to “financially enrich himself” in the present and future, and here’s more from CNBC:
The lawsuit seeks more than $1.3 billion in compensatory and punitive damages. Dominion said in a 107-page legal complaint that its employees have been stalked, harassed and threatened as a “direct, foreseeable, and intentional result” of Giuliani’s “viral disinformation campaign.“
Giuliani “actively propagated disinformation to purposefully mislead voters,” Dominion CEO John Poulos said in a statement. “Because Giuliani and others incessantly repeated the false claims about my company on a range of media platforms, some of our own family and friends are among the Americans who were duped.”
It’s the latest turn in the wild saga of America’s (Former) Mayor. Not only there the Total Landscaping mess, but he oozed goo during a press conference and probably passed gas in public. All of this happened after he unwittingly co-starred in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, and after all of that, Trump apparently decided not to pay him that rumored $20,000 per day legal fee. What a hot mess, and as user Clue Heywood notes on Twitter, this has been a “legendary unraveling” for the ages.
Take a moment today and think about the three month run that Rudy Giuliani has been on, starting from Borat’s daughter in late October to getting sued for $1.3 Billion now, and everything in between. Just a legendary unraveling. We salute you, king.
The Snowpiercer TV reboot purposely distanced itself from Bong Joon Ho’s 2013 film. That was quite a feat on multiple levels: (1) The show knew that there was no chance to measure up to a masterpiece, so it chose, instead, to be relentlessly different despite being confined to the same claustrophobic setting; (2) The series managed to raise fresh questions about the source material (Jacques Lob and Jean-Marc Rochette’s graphic novels) while still embracing the story’s parable that delivers an absolutely frigid take on class warfare and social uprising. The show thankfully did not try to replicate characters resembling an unusually gritty Chris Evans and a deliciously bonkers Tilda Swinton because that’d be asking for failure. Instead, the show got weird in its own way, as a freaking procedural for awhile, and Daveed Diggs pulled off a fine revolution leader. Likewise, Jennifer Connelly did the ice-queen thing well, and overall, the first season more than embraced its imperfections while remaining pretty darn watchable.
Granted, the show was confusing as hell in spots. It also debuted as a concoction that was so intentionally clumsy that I admired the sheer effort and every drop of frozen excess. The good news is that the show’s still a hot mess and has effectively doubled its messiness, and only a few days ago, WarnerMedia greenlit a third season. Once the second season starts rolling, it’s plainly apparent why this ride should continue. I’ll elaborate more soon, but first let’s do the set-up necessaries.
Snowpiercer the show began roughly seven years after apocalyptic event that caused the Earth to freeze and eight years before the events of the film. The globe-circling train, which can never stop (for more than a few minutes), apparently contained the last survivors of humanity. The class structure of the train still remains the main source of conflict, although the sense of peace after Diggs’ Layton emerged as leader from the uprising efforts, well, that peace doesn’t last long. Connelly’s Melanie had proven to be integral to Layton’s revolution despite her villainous ways, but at the end of last season, sh*t got real with news of a second train, Big Alice. That vessel was conducted by the train’s billionaire mastermind creator, Mr. Wilford, who was assumed to be dead. He was, of course, embodied in the film by Ed Harris, who waxed rhapsodic about the need for “balance” and how Darwinism is the way, and so on. Well, Wilford is now portrayed by Sean Bean, and he wants his damn train back.
WarnerMedia/TNT
Naturally, Mr. Wilford’s absence in the first season was confusing, to say the very least. It sure as hell didn’t make sense for him to not be alive in a prequel series since he’s the very reason why Snowpiercer train exists in the movie, and why the train’s an almost mythic feat of engineering. As it turns out, too, Wilford’s newfound presence is the spark that this show needed to freshen up any stale air inside the train’s confines. Also, it packs a punch to consider this question: now that the first train has achieved democracy, how will Wilford impact the train’s precarious state of peace?
In short, Wilford completely f*cks everything up in the best way possible for the show. The second train has connected with the first one, and things could not be more adversarial from Wilford’s objectives. He despises Melanie, and he’s got her daughter (who everyone also previously thought was dead), Alexandra (Rowan Blanchard), in tow. For that matter, he’s brought other new characters, who are ready to shake up the newly revolutionized train’s little world. Fresh dynamics abound between Big Alice’s figures and those of the original Snowpiercer, so the show can veer off in unanticipated new directions. It’s a brilliant tactic, even if the execution isn’t always spot-on, and all of the resulting conflict provides a lot of fodder for the future, so I can see why the previously planned two seasons can easily last for at least three installments.
Wilford’s really something, too. We didn’t get to see too much of him in the Snowpiercer movie, and the show’s first season paints him as a Wizard-of-Oz-like figure who’s supposedly pulling strings behind the scenes. Well, his physical manifestation puts him very much front-and-center, and boy, is he a showman. He’s sinister as can be with bloodthirsty qualities that have to be seen to be abominated. Let’s just say that his presence goes a long way to make sure Tilda Swinton’s character, Mason, is no longer haunting the train like a phantom limb that’s sorely missed. Yes, Wilford is even more entertaining than Mason, and Sean Bean is having a ball with the character. He sure must enjoy this role knowing that this gig should be one of the rare instances where he doesn’t play a character who bites it. Bean’s awfully good at dying, but hey, that routine gets old. And now, he’s pulling off an ostentatious, flashy version of Wilford.
Bean is pretty great in the role, but I sense that even with a slightly lesser actor, Wilford’s introduction would have prompted appropriate turbulence. The previous characters had grown close to each other in close confines. They know each other’s motives and personalities and even how each other smelled, and now, Bean’s almost literally making conductor movements at times while maneuvering through his mechanical baby that’s keeping mankind alive. Yes, of course there’s a god complex in there, and watching the ongoing power plays as Wilford lines up dominoes provides nearly endless opportunities for conflict. After all, Snowpiercer has virtually doubled in train size, and there’s that much more emotional territory to be mined. Not to mention the drama.
Snowpiercer confidently shifts into new gears with Season 2. It’s traveling miles beyond the initial procedural framing, and the seemingly hurried revolution from last year’s episodes is quickly forgiven with a richer storytelling journey in its place. Vast stretches of train never materialize on camera, hopefully providing fuel for the future. There’s more to be done and said on the social-caste front, but the “now, it’s personal” power struggle presented by Wilford is invigorating. And the show now resembles Bong Joon Ho’s film even less, but that’s a good thing. To this show’s credit, its unpredictability is now its strongest suit. Let the cinematic masterpiece stand on its own, I say, and let Snowpiercer the series be appreciated upon different expectations, which aren’t nearly as profound as the film, but they’re sure entertaining.
TNT’s second ‘Snowpiercer’ season premieres on Monday, January 25 at 9:00pm EST.
Tucker Carlson loves to rant and rave about “cancel culture,” most recently when MAGA musician Ariel Pink dropped by Tucker Carlson Tonight to call Democrats “sore winners.” He’s also “vile and vicious” and makes things up, but on Monday’s episode of New Day, CNN co-anchor John Berman took a shot at Carlson over his cancel culture obsession. It came during a segment on President Joe Biden’s dogs, Major and Champ.
“Just in to CNN, two new arrivals at the White House, Champ and Major,” Berman said. “They are now in residence, we are told, the Biden’s German Shepherds. You can see them playing with the first lady on the White House grounds. We’re told that Champ is enjoying his new dog bed by the fireplace. Major is partial to running on the South Lawn.” He added, “We’re also hearing Republicans have launched an investigation into the dogs. Susan Collins [is] concerned, and Tucker Carlson is devoting 15 minutes a night to saying the dogs represent cancel culture because it obscures a discussion that he so desperately wants about cats.” For cable news, this is good trolling.
Berman is joking, obviously, but Carlson has brought up canines before, including the time he described women as “like dogs” and “extremely primitive.” It’s the same interview — with shock jock (and Hulk Hogan’s former-friend) Bubba the Love Sponge, no less — where he called Britney Spears and Paris Hilton “two of the biggest white whores in America,” and he also said it “gets women going” when men argue with them. “Dogs = cancel culture” would be one of Carlson’s most normal takes, actually.
If you’re tracking it per episode, Arrested Development may have more quote-worthy moments than just about any TV comedy ever. One of the most famous is when Lucille Bluth demonstrates her lack of knowledge about things that are common knowledge to everyday people by asking her son, “I mean, it’s one banana, Michael. What could it cost, $10?” Of course, armfuls of the inexpensive fruit can be had for that price, but the character had clearly never experienced grocery stores, or at least not in a long time.
In the last year, she scored five Grammys, went multiplatinum eight times, released the new Bond theme, and was forced to cancel a world tour. Then, she turned 19.
It turns out Billie Eilish is actually in a similar position. Her debut EP, Don’t Smile At Me, was released in 2017, when she was just 15 years old, and her rise to music stardom began with “Ocean Eyes,” which she uploaded on SoundCloud two years before that. So, it would be unsurprising to learn that the now-19-year-old pop star hasn’t spent much time walking up and down grocery store aisles and getting a feel for how much everyday items cost. She suggested that that’s the case in a new Vanity Fair interview, in which she tells a story about the time she paid $35 for what she thought was one standard-sized box of Froot Loops cereal while ordering online. Eilish said:
“I don’t know what things cost because I’ve never been an adult before. And, you know, I grew up with no money. It’s a really weird position I’m in. I feel kind of stupid because I’m like, I don’t know how much Froot Loops are. I tried to order one box of Froot Loops and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, sure. It’s $35.’ I didn’t know that that’s expensive. I ordered 70 [1-ounce] boxes.”
For the record, Walmart lists a 19.4-ounce “family size” box of the toucan-touted cereal at $3.64. It’s possible Eilish bought her Froot Loops from this Amazon listing, which has 70 1-ounce boxes for $35.70.
It’s not exactly clear why this is the case, but the various streaming networks have all attempted — with varying degrees of success — to launch their own astronaut-themed series. In fact, both Apple TV+ and Disney+, launched their services with an astronaut series onboard, while Netflix has created three astronaut-themed shows in recent years. Even Hulu and Showtime have gotten in the game, as well.
If you love shows about astronauts but are selective about which shows to watch, here’s a quick guide to the best and worst currently featured on the various streaming platforms.
7. Another Life (Netflix)
Netflix
Another Life is technically an astronaut drama — Katee Sackhoff plays an astronaut who leads her team on a high-risk mission to explore the genesis of an alien artifact — but unlike the others on this list, it’s less about the space program and more science-fiction. It is more like a bad version of Alien than it is a bad version of Apollo 13, but rest assured that it is bad. Very bad. All one needs to understand about how bad it is that there is a very long rave on the spaceship in one episode. Otherwise, it’s a tepid parade of bad sci-fi tropes, and it never once manages to distinguish itself except in how badly it wastes the talents of Katee Sackhoff. (The series was renewed for a second season, due out in 2021).
6. Moonbase 8 (Showtime)
Showtime
Fred Armisen, John C. Reilly, and Tim Heidecker created this absurdist comedy about three woefully incompetent astronauts living in a simulated moon environment in an effort to earn the right to fly to the moon. The three had to shop the series around for a while, and it only landed at Showtime when the network was desperate for content at the outset of the pandemic. It’s easy to see why it wasn’t immediately picked up. It’s not that Moonbase 8 is that bad, it’s that it is very specific — it tries to find the comedy in the mundane, but it often only ends up highlighting the mundanity. The best and funniest part of the show, in fact, is the bizarre appearance of Travis Kelce — the tight-end of the Kansas City Chiefs — who appears in the opening episode before being hilariously killed off. It’s all downhill from there. (Showtime has not yet picked up a second season of the series).
5. Space Force (Netflix)
Netflix
There’s an immense amount of talent involved in the Netflix comedy — Steve Carell, Lisa Kudrow, John Malkovich, Jimmy O. Yang, Tawny Newsome, and Ben Schwartz star in the series created by Greg Daniels (The Office) — but the series ultimately feels like what it is, which is a show based on a Donald Trump brain fart (a brain fart that would later become a reality). Space Force is something of a workplace comedy, only the workplace is full of astronauts, engineers, and command center operatives, and unlike The Office, there is nothing about their jobs with which the audience can relate. It’s a show that viewers will definitely want to like, but it’s so grating and obnoxious that it proves to be almost impossible. (The series was renewed for a second season in November 2020).
4. The First (Hulu)
Hulu
The First stars Sean Penn and comes from Beau Willimon (House of Cards), and the opening episode hooks the viewer in with a massive rocket explosion, killing everyone on board. Unfortunately, the series — about an effort to send the first manned mission to Mars — stalls after the premiere episode as it gets bogged down in uninteresting family drama. Unfortunately, it’s less about the space mission, which doesn’t take off until the finale, and more about the emotional toll a two-and-a-half-year journey to Mars can take on a family, specifically the daughter of Sean Penn’s character. Everything else between the explosion in the first episode and the take-off in the final episode is a relationship drama, and not a particularly good one, at that. (Canceled after one season)
3. Away (Netflix)
Netflix
Away is thematically similar to The First — it’s about the toll a trip to Mars takes on the family of its astronauts — but at least in this one, the relationship and family drama takes place in space instead of on the ground back on Earth. While the astronauts are dealing with their problems at home, they also have problems with which to deal in space, like fixing the water filtration system (an issue the astronauts spend several episodes contending with). It’s designed to be a weepy space drama, and it is at times emotionally affecting, but the show moves so slowly that it’s often difficult to invest too much into the characters at the center of it. (Canceled after one season).
2. The Right Stuff (Disney+)
Disney+
The Right Stuff is based on Tom Wolfe’s nonfiction book about the first Project Mercury astronauts selected for the NASA space program back in the 1960s. As an adaptation of Wolfe’s book, The Right Stuff is a misfire. On the other hand, as a series about the early years of America’s space program, it is entertaining and occasionally insightful. It’s interesting to get a glimpse into the early lives of men who are now well known for their accomplishments in the space program — Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, and Gordon Cooper, among others — but the space exploits in the series are often constrained by history itself. Disney+, meanwhile, rounds off some of the harder edges in the personal lives of the astronauts to make it more palatable for their audience, but in doing so, it sacrifices some of the drama. (The Right Stuff has aired for one season; it’s still unclear whether it will be renewed for a second).
1. For All Mankind (Apple TV+)
Apple TV+
For All Mankind is easily the best of the recent astronaut-themed series, and it’s not close. For All Mankind picks up several years after The Right Stuff (there are, in fact, some overlapping characters) and offers an alternate version of history in which the space race with Russia did not end. In this version of history, the Russians were the first to land on the moon, and the Americans spent the next several years trying to play catch-up by, for instance, trying to land the first woman on the moon or becoming the first to build a space station there.
Like several of the series above, For All Mankind — which stars Joel Kinnamon, Michael Dorman, Shantel VanSanten, Jodi Balfour, and Wrenn Schmidt, among others — is also about the emotional toll the job of astronaut takes on a family, but the alternative history allows creator Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Gallactica) to introduce women and people of color into the space program while keeping the events in space themselves exciting, intense, and unpredictable. For All Mankind is not just the best astronaut series of the streaming era, it’s the best astronaut television series period, combining elements of Apollo 13 and Gravity into a suspenseful, emotional, and incredibly satisfying roller coaster ride. (For All Mankind has aired one season and has been renewed for a second and third season. The second season will bow in February 2021).
If you join an online whisk(e)y collecting group and take time to peruse the posts, you might be left feeling like in order to enjoy great whiskey you need to have an incredibly high-paying job. Or a trust fund. You’ll see members posting 25-year-old bottles of Scotch whisky and hard-to-find bourbon whiskeys with regularity.
But don’t be dismayed. You can get a lot in the whiskey world before hitting the $100 mark.
So sure, save up for that $600 bottle of WhistlePig The Boss Hog VII Magellan’s Atlantic Rye. But also know that there’s plenty to savor at a much more affordable price point. To help underscore this fact, we asked twenty of our favorite bartenders to name their favorite whiskeys under a c-note.
Teeling Blackpitts Irish Whiskey
Teeling
Una Green, USBG bartender in Los Angeles
Teeling just released its first-ever peated single malt this month called Blackpitts. At $86, it’s a dreamy, triple distilled, peated Irish single malt, aged in a combination of sauternes and ex-bourbon casks and bottled at 46%. It is like “Ireland meets Islay” — with a lightness to the way it dances on your palate, as the smoky notes linger in your senses.
Perfect for colder weather, campfire, and with a s’more.
If I had just under $100 to spend on a bottle of whiskey, I would rush towards Balcones True Blue Cask Strength. The profile this American corn whiskey creates when paired with angostura and orange oil has me infatuated.
Elijah Craig Barrel Proof is the best whiskey under $100 right now. The mouthfeel of an undiluted bourbon is untouchable by other bourbons that are proofed down. These bottles are typically upwards of 130 proof, aged 12 years and under $100.
Noah’s Mill. Priced around $65 and bottled at around 114 proof, it’s exceptionally well balanced — with the perfect amount of backbone to embellishment. The notes in the profile are discernable and don’t muddy together like they often do when too much water is added to proof down an expression, yet no one note overwhelms.
I hesitate to suggest this one too much for fear that it’ll go the way of the Wellers and become unobtainable, or the Booker’s’ and rocket up in price.
Denver’s Laws Four Grain Straight Bourbon is so delicious. Laws’ bourbon has many complex notes. When drinking this spirit, the palate’s evolution is quite an exciting journey. The sharpness and alcohol are very prominent in the beginning and on the of your tongue there’s some heat, but it quickly evolves into that toasty sweet profile of the malt with tons of vanilla and Carmel notes.
Andy Printy, beverage director at Chao Baan in St. Louis
The best bottle available –or just my personal favorite — under $100 is the Yellowstone Limited Edition 2020. Unlike its flagship expression, this has been finished in Armagnac barrels for a bigger body and far more complex profile. The nose is stone fruit and dank lumber. The palate gives way to woody and tobacco notes with a touch of apple and spice, while the finish leaves you with lingering heat and baking spices.
FEW Rye Whiskey is my whiskey of choice when I feel like splurging. I have a tendency to go for sweeter whiskeys because they are easy to drink neat or on ice and can also blend very well for cocktails, like a whiskey sour or Manhattan.
Willett Pot Still Reserve Bourbon. While the quality isn’t the same as it was when it was a pure single barrel offering, Willett Pot Still Reserve is still an excellent choice for the price. Looking past the unique bottle design, which obviously looks great on a back-bar, the Pot Still Reserve manages to stay rather light for its proof, delivering some sweet honey notes with a backing of rye and cinnamon spices.
Fantastic on its own but isn’t too spendy to be cautious about making cocktails from it.
Jennifer Jackson-Keating, mixologist at Sneaky Tiki in Pensacola, Florida
Woodford Reserve. It has become an iconic brand and the “go-to” bourbon whiskey on every back bar due to its unique, well-balanced taste of wood, caramel, fruit, and floral notes as being just a few of its over 200 flavor components. It was founded by the best whiskey family in America, Brown Forman, and is a brother of the most recognizable whiskey in the world, Jack Daniels.
We recommend Heaven Hill Distillery 7 Year Bottled-in-Bond. This straight bourbon is finished with beautiful notes of oak, burnt orange, and dark cherry. It’s smooth complexity lends well to classic cocktails or consumed neat and is very underrated in the trendy bourbon market.
Glenmorangie 12 Lasanta. Depending on where you live it’s a rare find and a treat. Everyone is always raving about The Macallan, but Glenmorangie is the most underrated single malt that hardly anyone talks about. The dried fruit on the palate along with the sweeter notes of brown sugar make a smooth and enjoyable Scotch for a special occasion.
St. George Baller Single Malt. This unique special edition is usually well under the $100 mark and brings a fantastically interesting bang-for-buck with ex-bourbon, French oak 3-year-old Californian malt finished in ex-homemade umeshu (Japanese plum liqueur) casks.
Raffaele Dall’Erta, general manager sommelier at Hampton’s Restaurant in Sumter, South Carolina
Angel’s Envy. This bourbon is finished in Port Wine barrels. The extra time in oak that has been saturated with ruby port adds a layer of complexity. Because port is a wine, and vermouth is a wine, I think that Angel’s Envy Manhattans are beyond comparison in the world of whiskey.
Its price range is reasonable, and I think it tastes better than anything else in the same range, and better than some above it.
Hands down, WhistlePig 10-year straight rye. This Whiskey is beautiful in so many ways because of its amazingly smooth, sweet, and toasty notes on the nose as well as the creaminess and long-lasting flavor that stays on the palate.
Obviously, this rye is best neat or with just one rock, but if you dare to try it in a cocktail with the correct mixers, it can make for one of the best cocktails you could ever have.
I recommend Redbreast 12 Year Old and Chivas 12 Year Old. Redbreast 12 boasts the flavor complexity and distinctive qualities of pot still whiskey. Matured in a combination of bourbon and sherry casks, the distinctive Redbreast sherry style is a joy with a great price point.
Todd Johnston, beverage director and sommelier at Marsh House in Nashville
I am personally not much of a whiskey drinker, but Weller Antique 107 is a great example of a higher-end whiskey that is under $100. It has become pretty popular and a bit harder to get because the word got out that it is made with the same mash bill as Pappy Van Winkle. I like it because it is a wheated bourbon and offers a softer sweeter characteristic.
Nathaniel Meyers, mixologist at Sear + Sea in Orlando
My favorite higher-end whiskey is Colonel E. H. Taylor. It’s one of the best bourbons that I have ever had the chance of trying. The flavor profile matches perfectly with an old fashioned or any other way of enjoying bourbon. Usually, you can find the bottle for just under one hundred dollars, and to me, that is a deal for the supreme quality of the bourbon.
I’m really liking Mars IWAI Japanese Whisky right now. I usually drink specific spirits (neat of course) for an extended period of time until I’m bored of them. Right now, I am drinking calvados and Mars IWAI. It’s a Japanese whisky whose mash bill is inspired by bourbon. It’s definitely one of my first recommendations for inquiring guests at the bar. On top of that, it’s well under $100 making it even more appealing.
Mark Phelan, director of beverage operations for 16” on Center in Chicago
Redbreast Lustau Edition. Slightly younger than Redbreast 12 year, but, as is said, age is just a number. Finished for a full year in Lustau’s best Oloroso sherry casks, non-chill filtered, with no added coloring, this whiskey is a symphony of flavor.
The best part? You can actually find it on the shelves.
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