October Recap: 'Only Murders,' Jane and Lily, 'Beverly Hills Noir' and Voting Overseas
Here's a look back at a super busy month with a great combo of TV post-mortems as well as (hold on) dealing with grief and depression!
What a month! From multiple post mortem interviews for some of my favorite shows, looking back on a time in my life when I shook myself out of depression with the help of a surprising voice and going back five years to when I moderated one of my all-time favorite panels with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.
Earlier this week I posted my story on overcoming depression in the early 2000s when my writer career was suddenly stagnant and I didn’t know what was going to happen next. Based on the number of comments and personal notes I’ve received since the story went live, I love how my more personal posts really resonate with you all. I will be doing more of them so stay tuned!
From Stuck to Unstuck Thanks to [redacted]
![From Stuck to Unstuck Thanks to [redacted]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1300,h_650,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc15eac30-32a6-4078-88f2-9f8efdcc5a72_1360x772.png)
I was riding high when the year 2000 began. New century. New decade. And I was a staff writer on a popular prime time drama where I was making good money, enjoying the new black Acura CL car with sun roof (and seat warmers for the leather seats!) that I just had to have and I truly felt like this was just the beginning of my career writing for TV.
Jane & Lily: Continuing my ‘Joy of Moderating’ series, it was always a thrill to moderate panels with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, which I was able to do four times during the time Grace and Frankie was airing on Netflix. Here’s a look back including the full panel video from one of my favorites at PaleyFest five years ago.
Friday Flashback: 'Grace & Frankie' at PaleyFest in 2019
It was 2019 and Netflix’s situation comedy Grace and Frankie was going strong having just aired its fifth season following best friends Grace Hanson (Jane Fonda) and Frankie Bergstein (Lily Tomlin) as they rediscovered life, love, big business and friendship in their twilight years.
2024 Election: While we’ve been living in Bangkok the last year, Boyd and I have been keeping an eye on the race for the U.S. presidency and made sure we could still vote as overseas voters. Here’s how we did including a fun video of us delivering our ballots to the U.S. Embassy here in Thailand!
Voting in the U.S. General Election...from Bangkok?
Before we dive into this post, I wanted to send a big thank you to all of you regular readers as well as the new ones who have signed up recently. I love hearing from you, I appreciate the support and just wanted to make sure you know it’s all appreciated so much. There’s much more to come on
Let’s Talk about Grief: It’s not the first time I’ve written about Anderson Cooper’s excellent podcast All There Is which has been devoted to grief and how to deal with it. Given Cooper is going through it now with dealing with his buried grief over the deaths of his father, brother and mother, this podcast is way more than just a reporter covering a topic.
Excited for Grief? Yes!
Who knew you could get excited for grief, that gut-wrenching emotion that grabs us typically over the loss of someone we love but can also encompass the loss of a job, a friend, a pet or just the loss of a period in your life that you know is over? But when I saw that there were new episodes coming from Anderson Cooper’s
A Variety at Variety: I had a busy month working on several stories for iconic Hollywood outlet Variety including a chat with Mario Lopez just before he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was a really fun chat about his nearly 40 years (!!!) in the biz including his dimples, the transition from teen to adult actor and whether he’s cool with his kids entering the entertainment business.
There were also several season finales that came along this month so I was glad to talk to both Bill Lawrence and star Vince Vaughan about the first season of Bad Monkey. Also, the second season of Apple TV+’s excellent drama series Pachinko wrapped so I talked with showrunner Soo Hugh about the heartbreaking moments in the finale and whether we can hope for a third season. These are very different shows but I was surprised how much I liked the quirky Bad Monkey and, well, it’s just good TV when it comes to Pachinko. Give both shows a try if you haven’t yet.
I also had gotten an early peek at the current fourth season of Only Murders in the Building and was so blown away by the 7th episode and Melissa McCarthy throwing Meryl Streep over a couch when their characters get into a tussle that I grabbed time with co-creator John Hoffman as well as some email responses from McCarthy herself. Wait until you hear of all the behind the scenes stuff Hoffman told me about that fight and also Meryl being game for it all.
I also talked to Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges as his FX/Hulu series The Old Man ended its stellar second season with some big questions about what happened as well as whether we should be hopeful for a third season (fingers crossed!). Finally, that destination for uplifting programming, UPtv, is celebrating 20 years so I talked with CEO Charley Humbard, also for Variety.
In book news, I always love when a good friend writes a book and nobody loves Los Angeles and all its history, culture and, yes, scandals than Scott Huver. He just released his entertaining book, Beverly Hills Noir so we had a zoom chat all about it.
Winona Ryder, Alfred Hitchcock, Sinatra & Martin, Murder & More in 'Beverly Hills Noir'
I’ve known Scott Huver as one of the most respected freelance journalists in the entertainment game. If you’re talent, you’ve probably talked to him at one point or another to promote your movie or television show on a red carpet or in a 1:1 interview for one of his many outlets. If you’re a journalist like me, you know Scott as one of the good guys who…