Netflix brings double the laughs (and dicks) tonight with One Day At A Time and a Big Mouth special
TV Lists What's On Tonight
Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Friday, February 8 and Saturday, February 9. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
One Day At A Time (Netflix, Friday): After much social media campaigning, critical acclaim, and an open letter from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Alvarez family is returning to our screens to fill our homes with laughter. With its first two seasons, One Day At A Time revitalized both the premise of the original CBS show and the multi-cam technique showrunners had all but abandoned. One warm, funny episode at a time, the series has come into its own, delving into difficult topics like mental illness, sexism, homophobia, racism, PTSD, and immigration when other shows using the same format mostly shy away from such bold, timely choices.
The show’s momentum bodes well for season three, which guest-stars co-creator, executive producer, and co-showrunner Gloria Calderon Kellett as a love interest for Victor (James Martinez), as well as Gloria Estefan as Lydia’s (Rita Moreno) younger sister/nemesis. Danette Chavez will be on hand to share her thoughts.
Big Mouth: My Furry Valentine (Netflix, Friday): Big Mouth thrives in a place of sweaty, itchy discomfort, having chosen for its setting a middle school— the most natural breeding ground of longing, shame, resentment, dread, confusion, embarrassment, and insecurity. Now, in this two-part holiday special, Nick, Andrew, and friends are gearing up for the middle school of all holidays: Valentine’s Day. It’s a fitting choice for a third season appetizer, as the pressures of the day draw upon pubescent angst more than any other holiday. As is to be expected from this particularly fast-paced show, the writers cram a lot of plot, laughs, musical numbers, and surprisingly touching moments into 45 minutes, making it a genuinely satisfying offering to tide you over until season three picks up. Maggie Donahue has the review.
Regular coverage
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars (VH1, Friday, 8 p.m.)
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (The CW, Friday, 9 p.m.)
Saturday Night Live (NBC, Saturday, 11:30 p.m.)
Wild card
Pen15 (Hulu, Friday): The year is 2000. The setting, middle school. Maya (Man Seeking Woman’s Maya Erskine) and Anna (Man Seeking Woman’s Anna Konkle) walk the halls as awkward, brace-faced 13-year-old versions of themselves, surrounded by real-life 13-year-olds. Naturally, they stick out like sore thumbs, recalling the distinctly painful position of feeing like an outcast in middle school. Per a press release, Pen15 (pronounced “pen fifteen” rather than “penis,” allegedly) is “middle school as it really happened,” a mess of drugs, crushes, fears of inadequacy, aspirational social climbing, burnt CDs, AIM chatrooms, sleepovers, and a highly anticipated school dance. While Pen15 does sound a helluva lot like Big Mouth, it remains to be seen whether this concept can be successfully (and ethically) pulled off in a live action series. In her review, Danette Chavez wrote that the show takes time to develop into “emotionally resonant storytelling,” reaching a high-water mark in the sixth episode, a “perfect blend of poor planning and good intentions [that] feels like a lost entry in Strangers With Candy.”
23 Comments
None of the AV Club writers who talk about this show seem aware of what the title in “Pen15″ is referencing. Do I really have to explain it? It’s an old school prank. You walk up to someone and say:“Hey, wanna join the Pen 15 club?”
“Sure! How do I join?”
“I just have to write ‘Pen 15′ on your forehead. Keep it on all day, and you’re in!”
“Wow, this is great! I finally feel accepted!”Anyway, you’ve lost all right to complain about the title since this site and every surrounding site has been obsessed with the penis for years.
Man, ten years ago, the scandal was that none of the AV Club writers had ever seen an episode of WKRP. Now, it’s that they didn’t participate in middleschool hazing rituals.
This place has changed
November will mark the 10 year anniversary of this articlehttps://www.avclub.com/ghostbusters-1798218306And the flame war that followed
With God as my witness I thought turkeys could fly!Let’s booger.
They mentioned it a few articles back.
Thank you for the post. Read this article:
https://dailydealsus.com/2018/12/30/clearance-on-printers-canon-pixma-mg3620-inkjet-printer-craigslist-buffalo/
I’ve missed One Day At A Time. Season 2 was better than the first, so I’m looking forward to this season. I hope we get at least 5 seasons. I mean, they gave that to Fuller House (which has truly atrocious writing, but was popular for a hot minute), so it’s the least they can do.
The show is such a wonderful blend of great comedy, pointed social commentary (the menace of the Orange One and his policies in season 2 was on point and heartbreaking), and great heart (how much I cried during the season 2 finale…).I’ve only seen one episode of the new season, but it seems like it hasn’t lost anything in the year since season 2. Like you, I really hope that it has as many season as everyone on the show wants to do it.
Yes, the first episode of the new season was terrific. Janet Jackson dances! Stephanie Beatriz with her real voice! That perfect ending joke!
I was so glad I wasn’t drinking something when I was watching the peiosde or that ending joke would’ve killed either my phone or me.
I kind of don’t remember middle school being all that terrible. High school was always the shit-show for me. Maybe I’m too old and missed when it got super bad?
I had the opposite experience. Middle school was absolute Hell on wheels, but high school was great.
Middle school is that time when everyone is a vicious monster who hasn’t yet learned how to rein in that viciousness and act like some semblance of an adult. My least favorite years were middle school. It’s when I was bullied. It’s when boys felt like it was totally cool to ask me point blank if I stuffed my bra. It’s when I had friends decide to just ice me out and when cliques actually were a thing. Teachers in middle school deserve hazard pay.
Yeah, I feel like the social caste system and overt bullying is the worst in middle school. Mine was an unrelenting hellscape. In high school kids have started to find themselves a little more and care less about status and just more about their like-minded friends. Yes, there’s friend breakups and heartbreaks and that’s hell, but just the daily atmosphere is less horrific.
I sometimes wonder if all of the shows illustrating the horrors of high school are people somehow eliding middle and high school together. I mean the book that is the germ for Mean Girls is about girls in middle school, not high school.
Unless those teachers were in on the drama too. I remember one of my middle school teachers would actually join in on some of the bullying. He’s now retired and unsurprising has dedicated his retirement to keeping MAGA alive on his Facebook. So yeah fuck that guy.
Nope. Middle school was the worst. By high school i had actual friends, the bullies were getting stoned and were much mellower, and I managed to keep a low profile.
It’s Friday! Let’s drink something enchanting and make some magic. Maybe we can conjure up regular coverage of The Magicians.
I’m just waiting for them to sic the Monster on the Library.
“They took something from you but you’re not sure what it is. You know who has lots of information about stuff like that?”
Just a guess, but since The Magicians advertised on the AV last year, they couldn’t review it. (Maybe it was the year before, IDK, but it got knocked out of regular-review rotation) It would look bad if they had two or three “promo” articles” and then had either glowing reviews (You’ve been bought AV!) or overly critical reviews (You’re too contrarian AV!) not to mention the heat they’d take from SyFy if the show was sub-par. (What are you doing AV? We paid you!)I’m trying to think of a newer analogy. It seemed like they had 3 or 4 promo articles for Mary Poppins Returns. But when it came time to review it, they went with an outside guy and buried his “C” review way off the front page. I’m not trying to call them out on anything. They need these “promo articles” or whatever they’re called, to help keep the site afloat. It would be a headache (for them) if they crossed the streams.Getting back to The Magicians last season, the AV Club also made the tactical choice to review Happy! and Krypton. Both shows overlapped The Magicians. To review all three would have (I’m sure in the estimation at the time) banked too many weekly reviews on the same network. SyFy might also be complicit here by supplying screeners for Happy! and Krypton and not The Magicians. I.E. They (SyFy) would rather push new shows than one with an already comfortable following – knowing, if it is the case, that the AV can only review a number of shows commensurate with the given network’s output. They can review yearly say 8 from FX, 4 from FXX, 8 from SyFy, 14 from HBO, 8 from AMC etc.Hopefully someone on site can correct any of these assumptions if I’m way off base. Silence fosters conspiracy theories like these, but I’m trying to be real with my guesses and not hyperbolic.
Just a guess, but since The Magicians advertised on the AV last year, they couldn’t review it.They splattered the site in Deadly Class ads and it gets reviews.
You got me there. It might have been more of the theory that they went for “Krypton” thinking comic tie-in = clicks… which led to reviewing “Happy!” (and to be honest here, Patton Oswald & Christopher Meloni do/should = clicks) and since they went with those two, The Magicians drew the short straw. Idk, viewership for TM has increased, it may arguably be SyFy’s best & best rated show. I’d like to think there’s a logical reason AV doesn’t review it. I’m left wondering if a superfan wrote into the AV with some insane screed and caused a reviewer backlash.PS. You’re right, they promo’d the fuck out of Krypton too. I remember those half-screen header graphics whenever the site would open last year.
I was looking forward to this anyway, but Melissa Fumero and Stephanie Beatriz guesting? This is going to be a fantastic way to spend a weekend where it’s going to be between -20 and -30 every day.Disclaimer: That’s -20 to -30Canadian, not -20 to -30Freedom.