This is a preview of our pop culture newsletter The Daily Beast’s Obsessed, written by senior entertainment reporter Kevin Fallon. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up for it here.
This week:
- A look back at how much we forgot about in 2020.
- The things to look forward to in 2021.
- Hilaria Baldwin, obviously.
- My new crush, Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey.
- The hottest photo I have ever seen.
With “Moderna” and “Pfizer” the sexiest words you could ever hear, people have been joking and posting about all the things they’re going to do once they get a vaccine and can go out in the world and be around crowds of people.
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I, however, have just finished prepping my 2021 editorial calendar and confirmed that I will apparently be leaving my apartment less than I already did in a pandemic.
That is to say I have discovered that there is a lot of really excellent television coming in 2021—or at least ones worth talking about—and so anyone looking for a reason to continue the sweet life of permanent sweatpants and not having to pretend to care about seeing other people is in for a treat.
I feel like we’re all pretty familiar with the “nothing is set in stone and plans are fluid and/or cancellable” part of life by now, so know that these are all projects merely expected to come out in the next year. Things could change.
Still, who’s not looking forward to Impeachment: American Crime Story, the dramatization of the Monica Lewinsky scandal from Ryan Murphy, who, for whatever you think of his projects, has indisputably turned the previous O.J. Simpson and Andrew Cunanan iterations of the anthology series into marquee cultural events.
Fresh off delivering the horniest Christmas in memory, Shonda Rhimes will release her limited series Inventing Anna, based on the New York magazine article about New York society grifter Anna Delvey. While Shondaland produced Bridgerton, this will be Rhimes’ first return to showrunning and receiving episode-writing credits since the Scandal finale.
Cecily Strong is starring in a satire of 1940s musicals called Schmigadoon, which is a project I can’t believe exists outside my wildest dreams. Rose Byrne is starring in a series about the drama of the 1980s-era world of aerobics that is actually called Physical, like the Olivia Newton-John song. And Lauren Graham is starring in a Disney+ reboot of The Mighty Ducks, which I’m optimistic about because the recent kid-friendly revivals of prized ’90s nostalgia Saved By the Bell and The Baby-Sitters Club were so good...and also because of the phrase “Lauren Graham is starring.”
With WandaVision, there’s finally a Marvel series that I’m interested in watching. The Showtime series In Treatment is getting revived with the incomparable Uzo Aduba in the therapist’s chair. And there is a Tina Fey comedy about a washed-up former girl group reuniting called Girls5eva starring Sara Bareilles, Busy Phillips, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Paula Pell, which has reportedly been written explicitly for me.
I’ve never been more pleased with a decision than my one to make my television my best and only friend.
I have nothing to add to the Hilaria Baldwin discourse, other than to express how deeply upset I am to know who Hilaria Baldwin is, let alone now every single detail of her upbringing and family history.
That said, this is the greatest headline of all time. When will Bossip get its Pulitzer?
Let me invite you into a very private, intimate habit of mine: Late-night drunk googling about hot actors starring in TV series I just watched.
That is how I learned that the hot and cranky (and thus even hotter) older brother Anthony in Bridgerton is played by Jonathan Bailey, who is not only a former co-star of Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Crashing) and Olivia Colman (Broadchurch), which makes him two-for-two on working with the best Brits, but also a musical theatre performer in the West End.
He won the Olivier Award last year for his role in the gender-swapped production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, earning raves for nailing the all-time-great comedy number “I’m Not Getting Married Today,” this time sung from a man to his male fiancé.
Bailey, who is openly gay, delivered a phenomenal acceptance speech about the significance of turning that number into a same-sex love song, which you can and should watch here. And should you want to know any and every other detail about Bailey’s life otherwise, I am now an expert and you can come find me.
I will never stop thinking about this photo.
RuPaul’s Drag Race: It’s been roughly 12 hours since a new Drag Race episode aired, I’m parched. (Friday on VH1)
Cobra Kai: Y’all know how good this Karate Kid reboot is, right? (Friday on Netflix)
Pieces of a Woman: Vanessa Kirby should win an Oscar for this. (Thursday on Netflix)
The 90-Day Fiancé spinoffs: Discovery+ is launching with like 100 of them, but we need to all abandon this tragic cultural phenomenon. (Monday on Discovery+)
