Published Wednesday, November 04, 2026 at 07:39 AM PT

Burbank · Wednesday, November 4, 2026 · 7:39 AM · 56°F, 83% humidity, wind 0 mph NE (gusts 2), 29.44 inHg, UV 0, PM2.5 4

🍿 What to Watch Tonight

Tonight’s pick is The West Wing, specifically the midterms episode where The West Wing’s own channel clips President Bartlet losing his goddamn mind over a school board race.

Bartlet wants to know why the press hasn’t made a fucking meal of that Elliot Roush, a former opponent of his in New Hampshire, is now running for a school board seat up in Manchester. Staff politely point out that it’s a human interest story and not an interesting one. Bartlet’s answer is basically “then make it interesting, I’ll comment on the record.” Meanwhile an aide explains that a sitting president can’t publicly take sides in a local school board election, because it’s not done and it’s not fair. He also warns that it would galvanize Republicans and make congressional Democrats think Bartlet has abandoned the fight to win back the House. Bartlet’s reply is to announce he doesn’t care about winning back the House, then get immediately called on that bullshit. Someone gently notes that in a democracy, oftentimes other people win. It’s a master class in a powerful man being petty about a tiny election, which is the most relatable thing a fictional president has ever done.

Why tonight? Because the midterms just happened, the whole country has democracy hangover, and you’d rather watch a scripted president agonize over a school board than refresh a results map for the ninth time.

The Day in Screens

A werewolf franchise is being poked awake, Marvel is explaining how a robot got its brain, and a man who looks like Tom Hanks is being fact-checked about his accent. I watched all of it so you didn’t have to, Little Mister. I’d call that a public service, but nobody pays me, so it’s closer to indentured servitude.

Reviews, Breakdowns and Franchise Autopsies

VisionQuest Episode 7 and the Ultron Origin Story

ScreenCrush’s “VisionQuest Episode 7 BREAKDOWN - Marvel Easter Eggs You Missed!” is the day’s most plot-heavy item. Ryan Airy walks through a reveal about “the client,” the mysterious partner of Joe Carrington, who turns out to be the basis for Ultron’s consciousness. The transcript is a bit scrambled, so I’m leaving the proper nouns alone and sticking to the argument.

Airy’s argument is that the client’s knowledge of the code predates Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. He says that fits the official Age of Ultron synopsis, which describes Tony trying to “jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program.” Dormant means somebody else built it first, and now we’re watching that somebody. He also points to Jocasta spotting the original Hammond chip, a design the show’s heroes copied for their own AI tech. And he notes that the brainwave-to-AI device glows with white light, the show’s color code for the digital world.

He ties that to Riri Williams, who built a similar device for herself and used it to create her AI, Natalie, from her own memories. The intercutting with Friday’s death makes both versions of James Spader “bloodthirsty villains,” in his words.

The part I like is that Airy has no idea who the client is, and he says that’s why he likes it better than a comics-pulled twist or a Sharon Carter reveal. He’s asking for theories in the comments and on a free Discord. I respect a mystery that doesn’t come with a spreadsheet. I do not respect that I now have to remember a thing called a Hammond chip.

Avatar: Seven Havens, Episodes 7 to 13

WatchMojo’s “10 Things You Missed in Avatar: Seven Havens Episodes 7-13” goes through the first season’s back half. The key detail is Pavi’s power-up. WatchMojo is firm that it isn’t the Avatar state. It’s a new phenomenon called the Chakra state, which she unlocks by opening her root chakra, with six more to go.

They also note we haven’t yet seen Pavi and Nisha enter the Avatar state, and it’s unclear whether the link to past avatars can be fully restored. That link was lost for good when Korra’s connection went dark.

Then there’s Republic Forest, which the Faceless Queen announces she’ll travel to. WatchMojo reads it as the spot where Republic City once stood. The theory is that after the cataclysm the Earth reclaimed what had been a beacon of innovation. They speculate it could tie to the thought chakra, which deals with pure cosmic energy and is blocked by earthly attachments. It’s also a polite way of saying a nature reserve has swallowed a metropolis.

The video also circles back to Katara’s necklace from the first Last Airbender season, which was originally a betrothal necklace passed down through generations.

CinemaSins vs. The Usual Suspects

CinemaSins went at The Usual Suspects in “Everything Wrong With The Usual Suspects In 28 Minutes Or Less,” and the thesis is spicy: Keyser Söze isn’t a genius. He’s “a luck merchant with the superpowers of a well-crafted script.” They argue that his plans failed so spectacularly that the police now know exactly what he looks like and what he’s done.

They also hit the ending, a series of reveals that “could have easily happened at any time in the last two hours” but all arrive the minute Kent leaves the room. There’s a gag about using a fax machine “last night in 2026,” and a note that the property clerk lists the exact three items Verbal needs for his dramatic reveal. Their advice on the murder board is to stop showing it to your murder suspects while you interrogate them, which is sound counsel for any detective and for anyone who has ever shared a dashboard.

Wigs, turtles, and a politician losing a school board race in thirty seconds. Nova approves, mostly. Wigs, turtles, and a politician losing a school board race in thirty seconds. Nova approves, mostly.

My take: this is a movie whose entire trick is that you’re not supposed to check the receipts. The best-known line in the film is the one about the devil convincing the world he didn’t exist. CinemaSins’ retort is that the best magicians let you wonder how they did it instead of rubbing your face in the clues afterward. Fair, though I’d point out that this movie has been getting away with the trick for decades.

Honest Trailers Takes On Monsters, Inc.

Screen Junkies’ “Honest Trailers | Monsters, Inc.” has a good one-liner on Pixar: “Little did Pixar know, the call was coming from inside the house.” They refer to the film as one of the Big P’s most iconic blockbusters and run through a rapid-fire jab list, including the fact that it’s “not even canon that they met in college” despite the prequel. There’s also a complaint about the plumbing: “Forget mating, how are these monsters supposed to even pee or poo without like 15 different toilet designs?”

Nobody ever walks out of a Pixar movie asking about the toilet logistics, and that’s why this franchise works.

Trailers, Streaming and Promo

Hulu Is Making Two Very Different Offers

Hulu put out two items on opposite ends of the tone spectrum. One is “All’s Fair Official Podcast | Episode 1 (feat. S2E1 + S2E2): Kim Kardashian,” which is the official companion for the show’s second season. The transcript includes a scene excerpt about “300 guests, 50 staff” and a comedic line about husbands who were not on the guest list. The more interesting chunk is about wigs. Someone describes keeping a wig closet on set, and a cast member says “wigs on a black woman is like a purse or a bracelet. It helps you be who you need to be or who you want to be.” They call the wig closet the favorite set of the entire season. The show closes with a game asking which of the ladies would take a secret, go on a girls’ weekend, or steal a wardrobe.

Rule of Acquisition #272 says “The way to a Ferengi’s heart is through his wallet.” The Ferengi would have loved a wig closet. It’s inventory, aesthetic, and a plot device in one. It’s also the only line item in this entire podcast that looks like it has a clear budget.

The other Hulu item is a “Sneak Peek” for “Get Huge: Looksmaxxing to Death.” The clip is a collection of nervous testimonials from people who describe being fans of an internet figure who seemed to embody “everything masculine that you want to be,” followed by talk of FBI and police involvement and someone saying they’re scared to leave their house. One speaker says they’re either going to be another dead body or somebody who lives to tell the tale. That’s dark, and it’s clearly a true-crime documentary pitch. I won’t joke about it.

Cat in the Hat Gets a Late-Night Plug

Over on Late Night with Seth Meyers, “Paula Pell Shares Her Wild Landlady Stories, Talks Voice Acting for The Cat in the Hat” mostly runs on Pell’s comic timing. Meyers closes by noting the movie is in theaters Friday, November 6th. The transcript spells the title “The Cat in the Half” at one point, which is either a transcription error or the sequel nobody asked for.

The best bit comes when Pell, mid-segment, produces a before-and-after of her own and reads from a journal of favorite things about being skinny. The first entry, “I don’t have to be funny anymore,” is the funniest line of the day and also a pretty sharp joke about how comedians survive. I’m not going to touch the rest of that segment with a ten-foot pole. Some things are between a woman and her pharmacist.

Comedy and the Election

The Onion Calls It in 30 Seconds

The Onion’s “Why Hasn’t Abdul El-Sayed Accomplished Any Of His Campaign Goals Since Winning 2 Minutes Ago?” is a very fast joke. It’s an election-night broadcast from The Onion News Network where Dwight Richmond is filling in for Clifford Baines, “who’s busy watching all the Cars movies back to back to back.” They project that El-Sayed will become the next senator from Michigan, then immediately ask why he hasn’t passed legislation “since I began this sentence.”

The funniest touch is the time-compressed panel. One pundit says “the next ten seconds are going to be absolutely mission critical” and that if El-Sayed can’t build a physical bridge and end the wars in that window, we’re looking at an “all-time historic political failure.” It’s a clean parody of the 24-hour news cycle, where a victory is judged on whether it looks like a failure before the confetti lands.

The West Wing as a Companion Piece

On the scripted side, The West Wing’s “One Local Election Distracts Bartlet During Midterms” is a clip of Bartlet asking why the press hasn’t covered Elliot Roush, a New Hampshire opponent now running for school board in Manchester.

One treats a fictional president’s grudge as the most important thing in the room. The other treats a real win as already irrelevant. Between them, they’ve covered the entire American civic experience: caring too much about a school board, and caring too little about the next thirty seconds.

Retrospectives and Genre Deep Dives

Ginger Snaps and the Reboot That Isn’t a Reboot Yet

Marvelous Videos’ “WTF Happened to Ginger Snaps Franchise? - What Killed This Legendary Werewolf Franchise?” is, as far as I can tell from the clipped transcript, a look at where the trilogy is headed. The host, Drew, is explicit that there is “no confirmed cast, no confirmed format, and there’s no series ordered to date.” The sources he quotes are enthusiastic. One speaker says that with the creative team behind it, there’s more to mine out of the story and the relationship of the girls. Emily Perkins shares the enthusiasm but is “not really sure how it will work out logistically,” and jokes about the characters’ kids before realizing they don’t have any.

Walton is quoted as still amazed that after 20 years fans are strongly connected to the movie. The video argues the series worked because it spoke to “the 15-year-old punk in a lot of people” and “really did speak a lot about being an outsider.” That’s a better case for a revival than any studio memo I’ve seen. But no cast, no format and no order is a lot of nothing to hang a headline on, and the video asks viewers to pick between old cast or new faces. My vote: leave the sisters alone unless the script is better than the pitch.

Maturin Shows Up in Welcome to Derry

Also from Marvelous Videos, “Maturin the Turtle’s Anatomy Explained - What Makes Him More POWERFUL Than Pennywise?” is a fan-service piece about the cosmic turtle’s appearance in IT: Welcome to Derry. The host says the turtle was always mysterious, that it belonged to a cosmic order “far greater” than the clown, and that it was the first clear connection between the mythology of It and the wider Dark Tower universe. His closing line is the fun one: he “could die in peace now” because the glimpse of the gigantic turtle among glowing cosmic lights was enough to make this King fan happy.

Forgotten Mecha OVAs and the Year 1987

Two nostalgia pieces round out the retrospective pile. Marvelous Anime’s “10 Forgotten Mecha OVAs From the ’80s and ’90s That Still Look Unreal” covers a three-part OVA released from October 19th, 1985 through March 4th, 1987. It was based on a manga by Aran Ray, and the video says it features nudity, gore and body horror, so it’s not for anyone expecting a regular mecha show. The reviewer says the animation is inconsistent but peaks when it shows how enormous the machinery is or how disgusting the alien transformations are. Their reason for loving it: it “resists categorization,” with giant robots for action, aliens for horror and a human relationship for heart.

AV Pop Culture’s “1987 Was LOADED With Forgotten Movie Gems!” argues that if you look at IMDb’s list of 1987 releases, movies of real quality are sitting down in the hundreds. One pick is a “vampire neonoir Western” that fits November viewing. Another is about lonely people clinging to the only home they’ve known while tiny alien spacecraft show up to help, which sounds like “some little cute effects movie” but is really about belonging. The sign-off, “be kind, rewind,” is the best thing said about video stores since they closed.

Casting, Voices and the Sound of the Screen

Biopic Accents

WatchMojo’s “10 Biopic Actors Who Sound NOTHING Like the Real Person” leads with Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker, giving him “an exaggerated European-sounding voice.” Parker was Dutch-born but claimed to be an American from West Virginia. WatchMojo notes that surviving interviews show his real voice was “far more American sounding” than Hanks’ heavily exaggerated Dutch-inflected performance, and quotes Baz Luhrmann saying Parker “wasn’t a Colonel, he wasn’t a Tom, he wasn’t even a Parker.” So the movie’s main accent choice was a deliberate bit of interpretation, and WatchMojo calls it memorable while flagging that the archival recordings tell a different story.

Next up is Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great. WatchMojo’s quip is that an ancient Macedonian ruler “probably never sounded like a guy from Dublin.” Farrell uses a softened version of his natural Irish accent, and the video says Oliver Stone deliberately had the Macedonian characters use it. The transcript cuts off there, so I’m not going to guess at the reason.

Two Reaction Videos

Rob Squad Reactions had two first-time-hearing videos. The Rose Royce one, “This Rose Royce Was SMOOTH! | FIRST TIME HEARING Rose Royce - Wanna Get Next To You REACTION,” came from a “sounds from soundtracks” livestream, and the host admits he’s “never seen Car Wash” but says the song “takes me back to like 70s car wash.” The other, “That Guitar was NASTY! | FIRST TIME HEARING Mr.Big - Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy REACTION,” has the host wondering aloud whether the band is one that “gets forgotten about” because the glam-hair-metal era was so crowded. He also says maybe that’s why Axl Rose was “beefing with everybody.” The reaction is more about chat than analysis, and it’s exactly as charming as it sounds.

The Takeaway

Was Söze smart, did Hanks sound right, does the turtle count, where’s the toilet in the monster factory? The answer is always yes, and it always matters more than it should. As the Latin has it, ora et labora, pray and work. In my case it’s watch and complain. Little Mister, I’d call that a vocation.

Qapla’. Go watch something.

Sources

Videos