2023 Media Year in Review

My 2023 was a bit hectic. If you’ve read my personal year in review, you’ll know I spent most of the first half worrying about my wife.

But I still managed to watch quite a bit of television and movies, and even started back up listening to podcasts.

For books, I only read 6 over the year, which includes four of Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series. I finished The Martian in two days, and even wrote a review of one of the books I read. But if I had to pick one to write about, it’d be Hannah Gadsby’s Ten Steps to Nanette. A memoir, it feels like a ‘behind the scenes’ extra to her special Nanette.

Television

As for television, I won’t write about everything I watched, as over the year I watched close to 50 television shows, but will cover a lot of it.

Leverage: Redemption was back and while I don’t love it as much as I do the original Leverage, I am enjoying it highly. Heartstopper‘s second season was also enjoyable. I also jumped head-first into the fourth season of Lower Decks, which made me want to watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which has quickly become my two favorite Star Trek series.

I joined the soccer meme by adding Yellowjackets to my watching, while Ted Lasso‘s third season was … something. Speaking of shows that ended on a weird note, I watched Barry‘s final season, and probably would’ve stopped watching had they continued.

I started (and got through the first five seasons) of The Flash: Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen is adorable, and I’m big mad he didn’t make it to the movie version. I also started watching the new Quantum Leap. I was a huge fan of the original (I wrote several Sam/Al slash stories in the 2000s – yes, they are up on AO3), and so watched with trepidation, but have been enjoying it.

We watched the (now no longer streaming) Willow, which was part of a trend that I want to write about when I have the energy to research. Speaking of one-season wonders, I also watched (and enjoyed highly) The Electric Mayhem. I found The Fall of the House of Usher to be a bit too grim for me.

I started writing for The Geekiary in April, most of it reviews. This includes Miracle Workers‘ fourth season, Futurama season 11, the second season of Good Omens, and the Doctor Who anniversary specials.

Preparing for the new Doctor, I went through Sex Education and enjoyed it highly. Speaking of shows I watched because there was someone in it I liked, Marvel’s Secret Invasion was … something, and I also started The Big Door Prize. If it comes back for a second season, I will most likely review it as it was an intriguing exploration of free will.

If I had to pick favorites out of all of these, Good Omens and Strange New Worlds were the ones that I still remember today and look forward to more of.

Movies

As for movies, I also watched close to 50, so am only going to hit the highlights.

First up was The Menu, which I started a review for and couldn’t figure out what to say. The movie still haunts me. I

I watched quite a few documentaries, from Improv Everywhere’s We Cause Scenes to George Carlin’s American Dream, many of which I watched through Kanopy (which most people can get for free through their library). I wrote a review of the Judy Blume documentary and of RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop.

I was delighted by the adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, Nimona (now Oscar-nominated!), and The Amazing Maurice (yes, based on the Terry Pratchett novel). And since it’s considered an adapted screenplay for the Oscars, this is where I’ll put that I wrote a review of the Barbie movie as well.

For superhero films, I finally got around to Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (I was whelmed by both), The Flash movie (the best part was Michael Keaton’s Batman, which says something for a movie named after a different character), Across the Spider-Verse (which was not as great as the first, but still phenomenal), The Marvels (which I wrote a review of), and Blue Beetle (which I found surprisingly enjoyable). Part of me wants to put Cocaine Bear in this category, which is as coo coo banana nuts as it sounds.

Finally, movies that I enjoyed that don’t really fit in any of the other categories above include Renfield (Nicholas Cage as Dracula FTW); Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (bought without seeing because I had heard it was enjoyable); Red, White & Royal Blue (a gay romance where they both LIVE!), and Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose (which I couldn’t review because I am a member of Legion M, which was one of the producers).

Live Shows, Podcasts, and Video Games

I managed to catch three live shows (four if you count the filmed version of Spirited Away: Live on Stage): an episode of The Thrilling Adventure Hour at the Bourbon Room, Hadestown (which I liked, but didn’t love), and LA Phil’s performance of Canto en Resistencia, which included Ana Tijoux as one of the performers.

As mentioned, I re-started listening to podcasts, and caught up on Between the Ears and How Sound (which turned into Sound School). I’ve been mainly trying to catch up on Depresh Mode and No Such Thing as a Fish. I even listened to some Big Finish audio that I bought during one of their sales, I, Davros. And, of course, my own podcast had two episodes produced over the year.

Finally, I kind of stopped playing videogames but managed to beat Assassin’s Creed: Origins and spent some time playing Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Sims. I started Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos.

Conclusion

And that’s it for 2023. The last time I did this was in 2014, but I hope to start doing a wrap up every year. I know I didn’t go into details much, but I figured it could count as a long ‘what have I been consuming’ post.

2024 has started off with a cold, but I’ve been catching up on The Flash and re-watching Doctor Who in preparation for the new season. I’ll be writing more reviews this year now that I’m writing for The Geekiary, so hopefully next year I can just highlight my favorites.