The third season of ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING has Oliver’s (Martin Short) new Broadway show jerked off-course when the star (Paul Rudd as a preening, neurotic egotist) is apparently poisoned opening night. He survives but at a party in the Arconia someone shoves him down the elevator shaft. Like the title says, only murders in the building …
Mabel (Selena Gomez), Oliver and Charles (Steve Martin) are once again investigating a killing but this time they’re friendship’s strained. With Charles working on Oliver’s show, Mabel feels cut out; Oliver and Charles, who’s a TV actor unused to stage, are getting snippy with each other. The results aren’t their best season but still fun, with Meryl Streep as a new love interest and Matthew Broderick playing himself hysterically (even if it’s a shock to see the kid from War Games is now a grandfather type). “When I was dead I saw the light — yes, the dead person light!”
Annoyingly after I finished the first season of MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS Netflix began bouncing me randomly through the remaining three seasons. Admittedly there’s no character arcs to follow but I was interested in seeing the changes in style as the show progressed — the final season has a number of cohesive plots on which to hang the various absurdities, rather than multiple unrelated skits. Still no end of fun as Wordsworth writes a poem about ants, a cycling tour goes bananas, a doctor asks for donations for the tragic minority of people who don’t suffer from any conditions and we learn about polar explorer Robert Scott’s untold expedition to the Sahara. A real pleasure, even jumbled up (I do not believe the image below is official Monty Python stuff by the way). “If you’ll just fill out the history questions correctly we’ll see about getting you some morphine.”
THE OTHER BLACK GIRL (2023) didn’t work for me even though much of it is very good. Nella (Sinclair Daniels) is the sole black face at her publishing company so she’s initially delighted when Hazel (Ashleigh Murray) signs aboard. Only it appears Hazel has an agenda and possibly it’s a dark one. “Your pain is part of who you are? Do you know how pathetic that sounds?”
The British miniseries HIM (2016) was a lot less interesting, a Carrie knockoff about a troubled teenage boy who discovers he’s inherited grandad’s TK. Hmm, what are the odds he’s going to become a force for good, do you think? I gave up after one episode.
While down in Florida I used my sister’s Disney + to catch WEREWOLF BY NIGHT, a one-shot MCU (though obviously seeding for the future) horror special, done in b&w like an old Universal film (though not in the same league). On the death of Ulysses Bloodstone, his daughter Elsa is among the hunters competing to wear the magic bloodstone themselves. The test: taking down the Man-Thing. The surprise: Jack Russell, Marvel’s Werewolf by Night, has infiltrated to help his friend.
This wasn’t as good as I’d heard but it’s certainly fun, though writing Man-Thing as a mute but intelligent character makes him and Jack come off too much like Groot and Rocket Raccoon. I was surprised none of the hunters, as far as I can tell, have recognizable names from the comics but that’s not a fatal flaw. “Don’t be so easy on yourself — you were the greatest disappointment of his life.”
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