This week, we heard more about chairs, directors, and making everybody sit on boxes, the legacyquel business rolled on, and Netflix finally started dishing out the data.
Here’s what the NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was paying attention to — and what you should check out this weekend.
The new Doctor Who specials, streaming on Disney+
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Doctor Who is back and it’s on Disney+. The 60th anniversary of the series was in November and three great special episodes were released. They starred Catherine Tate and David Tennant — fan favorites from more than a decade ago — reprising their roles as Donna Noble and the Doctor. The specials also featured Neil Patrick Harris and Ncuti Gatwa (Eric from Sex Education). The returning showrunner Russell T Davies is bringing a lot of fresh ideas to establish a new era of the franchise. It makes me very excited for the Christmas special that’s coming up and the new season next year. The older episodes are on Max if you’d like to go back and relive those days. The specials and new episodes are and will be on Disney+. — J.C. Howard
Beedle the Bardcore’s version of Usher’s “Yeah!”
Beedle the Bardcore basically takes club bangers to the Renaissance Faire — its a YouTube channel full of Medieval covers of popular songs. My dear friend sent me this video of a cover ofUsher’s “Yeah!” when I was in a slump. I really needed a boost of energy, and it electrocuted me like I was Frankenstein’s monster. The comments are as great as the video. There’s also a one-hour hardcore cover of Eminem songs. They’ve done Hozier. This will always make me happy. — Candice Lim
Remembering Andre Braugher
I wanted to take a minute to talk about the actor Andre Braugher, who died on Monday after a brief illness. He was 61, which is much too young. He was part of three major TV shows that in part revolved around him. The first was Homicide: Life on the Street, where he played Frank Pembleton, a detective.Homicide was early prestige TV and it was a hard-hitting drama. The second was Men of a Certain Age, which was kind of a comedy drama. And then he came to Brooklyn Nine-Nine and played Captain Ray Holt and that, of course, is very silly comedy. The range in those roles is just amazing to me. Genius. I’ve never heard an unkind word about him. He will be missed tremendously, both in drama and in comedy, and as a person. — Linda Holmes
I’ve often found myself sticking up for people on comedy shows whose role is to play the straight man while chaos swirls around them. Braugher plays the by-the-book cop on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and he took that character and made him not only the funniest character on the show, but one of the funniest characters on television. He made everything he touched better: If it was dramatic, he made it more serious and compelling. If it was comedic, he made it warmer and funnier. — Stephen Thompson
NPR Music’s Best Music of 2023 lists
What is making me happy this week is NPR Music’s roundup of the best albums and the best songs of 2023. I really encourage you to kind of go through these playlists and sample them. You’ll find songs in hip-hop and R&B and pop and jazz. There’s so many different sounds all swirled together. It is one of the truest, multi-genre, best-of lists you will find in any medium, and you’re just guaranteed to make a discovery. It was not necessarily a big year for musical juggernauts — big albums everyone could agree on — but there’s tons of great music and I encourage everyone to dig in. — Stephen Thompson
More recommendations from the Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter
by Linda Holmes
The loss of tremendous actor Andre Braugher this week devastated his many admirers, me included. There are a number of terrific tributes that demonstrate just how highly regarded he was: NPR’s own Eric Deggans, Vulture’s Matt Zoller Seitz, The New York Times’ James Poniewozik, Vanity Fair‘s Maureen Ryan, The Hollywood Reporter‘s Dan Fienberg, and Rolling Stone‘s Alan Sepinwall.
If you have followed the long arc of The Crown, you probably already know that the final episodes are now out, and you can see for yourself the version of the history of the royal family that this particular show decided to present.
A couple of updates on things I have liked in the last couple of weeks: First, last week, I wrote about the HBO miniseries Murder in Boston: Roots, Rage & Reckoning. I should add that The Boston Globe worked with HBO on a podcast about the Charles Stuart case, which I will be devouring shortly. Second, I also wrote about the documentary A Disturbance in the Force, and I want you to know that there’s also a book! It comes from Steven Kozak, who directed the documentary with Jeremy Coon.
Beth Novey adapted the Pop Culture Happy Hour segment “What’s Making Us Happy” for the Web. If you like these suggestions, consider signing up for our newsletter to get recommendations every week. And listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
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