What Did We Miss?

After two years of early-access, Hades - the latest game from critical darling developer Supergiant Games - got its official release last September. Set within the colorful - and drama-filled - world of Greek mythology, Hades is an isometric roguelike where players take the role of Zagreus, son of Hades, as he attempts to free himself from the underworld with the help of some horny Olympians.

Schitt's Creek just finished up its 6th and final season in 2020. Co-created by and starring Eugene and Dan Levy, the show premiered in 2015 to decent reviews but a small viewership. It wasn't until the show made the leap to Netflix in 2017 that the show slowly started to gain an audience. Three years and hundreds of memes later, the show has become a bit of a cultural phenomenon. Along with the Levys, costars Catherine O'Hara and Annie Murphy all received acting awards at the 2020 Emmy ceremony. Tony and Matt, seemingly the last two people to watch the show, discuss comfort viewing, binge watching, the show's "no lessons" perspective on LGBTQ relatioships, and whether or not the series finale sticks the landing.

50 episodes and two years later seems like a good time to look back on the first 49 episodes and to talk about the beginnings of the show, where we've been, and where we hope to go. Join Tony and Matt as they talk about what they learned from the first few episodes of the show, each list their five favorite discoveries from the first two years of episodes, and preview some ideas from the coming year.

Happy New Year WDWM-ers! No need to relitigate the trash that was 2020, it's time to move on and discuss all of the pop culture, both new and old, that brought Matt & Tony comfort this year. They hit on all of the movie, music, TV, books, and video games they consumed over throughout 2020. Drop 'em a line with any glaring omissions or disagreements, and stay tuned for two week's when they return to exploring the stuff they've missed!

Whether it's Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Muppet Family Christmas, or any other number of annual holiday classics, everyone has their favorite Christmas special. Tony and Matt look to see if they can replicate that warm, fuzzy holiday feeling, and add something new to their annual viewing by catching up on some vintage TV holiday specials. First up, Matt introduces Tony to The Judy Garland Christmas Show from 1963. Judy and her children invite friends and family into their studio "home" to sing a mix of broadway numbers and holiday classics. Next up, Tony finally catches up on The Year Without a Santa Claus. Maybe not as fondly rembered as some Rankin-Bass classics, though a favorite of Matt's family during his youth, this 1974 stop-motion special finds Santa Claus coming down with a bad case of the flu and looking to take the year off from his Santa duties. Mostly known for the characters Heat Miser and Snow Miser, will their brief appearances be enough to convert Tony? Last, but certainly not least, Tony and Matt watch the TV special that features the now famous Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth duet sung by Bing Crosby and David Bowie, Bing Crosby's Merry Olde Christmas. They discuss the connections between this special and the Judy Garland one, surreal musical digressions featuring Twiggy, the strangeness of the Thin White Duke's appearance during perhaps his weirdest musical phase, and the lasting appeal of this particular Christmas special format.

Seven years, five acts, and one podcast later, Matt and Tony finally explore the sad, dreamy world of Cardboard Computer's critically acclaimed Kentucky Route Zero. The game, which has rolled out episodically over the better part of the last decade and is now finally complete, is deceptively simple: a contemporary take on the narrative-focused point-and-click adventure game about a delivery man making what very well might be his employer's last shippment. Things get strange right away when his destination doesn't appear on any maps, and the only way to get there is by finding the titular and extra-dimensional(?) Route Zero. What follows is a ten-hour meditation on financial ruin, substance abuse, death, being a wage slave, crippling debt, memory, our relationship to media and technology, and more.

Welcome to The Stillness, a world where an apocalypse is a generational event. Where individuals with the ability to shape and control the elemental forces of the earth are exploited, oppressed, and reviled. Where, in the beginning of The Fifth Season, book one of N.K. Jemisin's award-winning The Broken Earth trilogy, the world ends for the last time.

Matt and Tony weren't familiar with author N.K. Jemisin prior to this episode. While not exactly a household name, her work has earned widespread acclaim and recognition within the sci-fi/fantasy community. With The Fifth Season, Jemisin became the first African-American author to win the Hugo award for best novel. She has also earned the distinction of being the only author to win that award for three straight years for three entries in the same series.

Though the characters, setting, and events of The Fifth Season are all larger than life, full of supernatural powers, and a deep well of lore, Jemisin draws from the fears and injustices that have been dominating conversations in America: social and racial inequality, representation, climate change and inaction, systemic racism. As all great sci-fi, The Fifth Season takes the everyday, adds a dose of the fantastic, and becomes a new lens through which to examine our own past, present and possible future. Matt and Tony dive into this, the novel's partial second person perspective, its big twists, and its world building.

Sara Faith Alterman grew up with strict restrictions on what she could and could not watch. She discusses this in her moving new memoir, Let's Never Talk About This Again, which explores the contradiction between her strictly PG-rated upbringing and her late father's secret career as the author of raunchy sex books, and her efforts to help her father revive his writing career after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Once again WDWM goes bump in the night for another horror-themed episode, this time diving into 1978's Halloween. Joing Matt and Tony this week is Halloween first-timer Brian Kaminske. Brian isn't just the designer of the show's kickass logo, he's one of Tony's oldest friends, which begs the question: why didn't Tony make him sit down to watch Halloween back in high school when they were discovering such cult classics as Evil Dead, The Thing, and Dead Alive? As WDWM has proven time and again, better late than never.

Horror month is back! Author, archivist, historian, and lifelong horror fan, Janaya Kizzie, introduces Matt to Bill Gunn's lost masterpiece, Ganja & Hess. Funded in part due to the interest in blaxploitation films and released to obscurity in 1973, Ganja & Hess was a movie ahead of its time. With a recent restoration that restored some missing footage the movie is finally starting to gain the audience it so richly deserves. Then Janaya fills in a blind spot of her own with David Lynch's first film, Eraserhead. A personal favorite of Matt's, he guides her through the wonderfully weird world of the Lady in the Radiator, the shocking sounds and and even more shocking apperance of the baby, and the influential sets and sound design that traumatize audiences to this day.

Follow Janaya Kizzie on Instagram at: Hidden Here Press