S2:E1 Lovecraft Country and War of the Worlds

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

This week we will talk about Lovecraft Country and War of the Worlds, but first, we want to welcome you to Season 2 of What Are Travis and Elaine Watching.

We never thought when we decided to do this simple podcast back in March to keep us sane during quarantine, that we’d still be doing it in September. We’ve done 21 episodes and a few Shorty episodes. We have a lot of fun doing the show and updating this page. We thought it might amuse our friends and family too. But we never expected to build an audience. 

Today we found out that we are doing better than 50% of all podcasts on our host, Buzzspout, who hosts over 100,000 podcasts. We’ve also affiliated with Amazon, CBS All Access, Instacart, and our first fav, IP Vanish. 

If you are a fan, reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. We want to hear from you, and we want to thank every one of you who listens and enjoys listening to us talk about life and TV! 

New Season. New Theme Song.

We’ve decided to start a new season on WATAEW with a new theme song. As much as we love Bellas Ciao, it was time for something new, and our own Johnny Stromboli stepped up with a new song. He wrote the music and lyrics, sings the vocals, and played all the instruments except the trombone by Nelson Bell.

Thank you, Johnny.

 We hope you like our new theme!

Our new opening theme

As promised..

New season, new hair! Brace yourself. Here’s Elaine (sans makeup) with her new bangs. If you’re feeling down and still can’t or won’t see a stylist, all you need is a comb, a sharp pair of scissors, a few Youtube videos, and steel nerves!

Here are the tools Elaine used if ya wanna give it a shot.

Lovecraft Country

This highly anticipated HBO series airs on Sundays. It’s a mix of monsters, ghosts, and other imaginary creatures and the real-life monsters of hate and racism in the Jim Crow era south in the 1950s. The acting, set designs, and costumes are top-notch. If you are a fan of Lovecraft and like the works of Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams, this may be the perfect show for you.

Jurnee Smollet is gorgeous as Leti.

The costumes are colorful, sexy and spot on for the period.

And we love the period cars!

War of the Worlds

This latest version of H.G. Wells War of the Worlds is an ambitious series produced by Canal, Fox, and Urban Myth Films. It stars Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects, In Treatment, Zero Zero Zero,) Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey, The Handmaids Tale), and an impressive cast of British and French actors. Unlike recent adaptations, this series centers on the human stories surrounding a catastrophic attack from outer space. 

The stories are tense and monsters are scary.

When Wells met Wells

We also touched on the source material and other adaptions, most notably the Orson Wells Halloween radio broadcast that threw scores of listeners into a panic. If you’ve never heard that broadcast, listen to it is. Think you’d have been fooled?

And here’s a clip from The Handmaids Tale movie with Elizabeth McGovern that preceded the HULU TV show based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian feminist novel.

This and that

We found out that there’s an origin story about Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) coming out September 18th!! From the ubiquitous Ryan Murphy and starring (of course) Sarah Paulson, Ratched boasts an impressive cast of women including Judy Davis, Amanda Plummer, Rosanna Arquette, Cynthia Nixon, and Sharon Stone. The male leads include some of our favorites, Corey Stoll Vincent D’Onofrio, and another Murphy fav, Finn Wittrock.

Speaking of Finn Whitrock, we finally got around to watching Judy this week. Renee Zellweger is as good as you’ve heard, and Finn and Rufus Sewell round out a great supporting cast. Check it out on the Epix app.

And now a word from our sponsors (aka affiliates and friends)

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Personalized gifts from Mike’s Mugs