By: Jessica Garcia Saligan

Introduction

A good show to recommend if you like watching Drama and Supernatural shows is ‘Manifest’, there’s 4 seasons.

There’s a group of people that get on a plane and next thing you know, once they get off, passengers think it has been only a few hours but in reality it’s been 5 years.

Each season has around 10-16 episodes and each episode is 42 minutes long. ‘Manifest’ starts off with the airport offering people to give up their seats for an amount of money, the only thing is that they will arrive later.

The group of passengers and crew of the commercial airline get on a plane; 828. The flight starts off like a normal flight and all of a sudden a storm appears. At first it was only a little turbulence but that’s when a really big storm hit and made the plane start to shake and started going all over the place. The plane lost signal and couldn’t get anyone on the line.

After a little while they finally made a stop at this one airline and that’s when the whole plane was surrounded by cops, news, and and even the government. All the passengers were all confused on why the plane was surrounded and that’s when the governor tells them that they have been missing since April 7th, 2013, and when they returned, it’s November 4th, 2018. They had been missing for 5 years and were presumed dead.

A few of the passengers have a little voice in their head that tells them to do something where they are at, when they try to ignore it the voice gets louder and louder, and that makes them follow what the voice is telling them. But the voices are somehow connected with the investigation the passengers are doing.

Throughout the episodes, and the season, a few passengers try to figure out what happened to them, to see if it was set up by the government like an experiment.

If you want to find out more, you can watch the show on Netflix.

By: Bijou Kruszka

In 1974, Stephen King released his novel ‘Carrie,’ a story detailing the horrific experiences of a teenage girl dealing with high school bullies and an aggressively devout Christian mother. The book quickly became very popular, and its iconic film adaptation in 1976 only boosted its reputation.

Few people would see the source material and think that the obvious next step was a Broadway musical; but Lawrence Cohen, Dean Pitchford, and Michael Gore had a creative vision. They spent years writing it, casting it, and
getting enough money to get it off the ground. By 1984, they had enough of their project to start production.

Cohen, Pitchford, and Gore partnered with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Britain to begin production of ‘Carrie: the Musical.’ However, since the writers lived in America, they handed off creative control to a British director, Terry Hands. This was where things started to go awry. Miscommunications between the creatives were abundant. The most famous was between Hands and producer Fran Weissler.

When discussing costuming over the phone, Weissler commented that she wanted the high school students to look similar to the classic musical ‘Grease’. Somehow, Hands misinterpreted ‘Grease’ for Greece. Yes, you read that right, Greece, like the country. Hands then made the artistic choice for all the students to wear togas, while doing dances at prom and in gym class.

This only foreshadowed the catastrophes to come.

Another bizarre creative decision was found in the set. The creative team really wanted to highlight the show’s finale, in which Carrie and her mother die. So, they constructed an enormous white staircase for the two to sing their final song on. This staircase took up a significant portion of the $8 million budget, and appears for a mere 10 minutes. These creative decisions were incredibly strange, and would only be a part of the overall failure of ‘Carrie.’

On top of bizarre creative decisions, there were also many technical failures. One way things did not go as planned was the blood. Anyone who is familiar with ‘Carrie’ knows that the most infamous part of the story is when Carrie gets pig blood poured on her after she is crowned prom queen. So, it was a key element in the adaptation. However, with test runs of corn syrup mixtures, it became very clear Carrie could not actually be covered in blood. The mixtures clogged Carrie’s microphone, and would cause all her cast mates to slip and fall. Instead, the creatives opted for a bright red laser light show. Now, Carrie appeared as more of a rockstar than a bullied teen.

Once this light show started to go off, a screen descended from above the stage in order to divide the character Sue, from the rest of the cast. However, this massive screen’s quick descent was automated and couldn’t be controlled easily. This led to multiple near-decapitations.

All these technical problems should have postponed the show’s opening, but unfortunately, the show went on as scheduled.

On May 12, 1989, ‘Carrie: The Musical’ opened on Broadway. Critics and theatre-goers alike were horrified at what they saw. The togas and laser light shows were nothing like the ‘Carrie’ viewers knew and loved. The songs, while some were good, felt odd and misplaced in the story.

One song that particularly upset the audience was “Out for Blood,” in which characters Billy and Chris kill a pig to use for blood to prank Carrie. With the ensemble chanting “blood” and “kill the pig” while the leads danced and sang under bright red lights, the audience was unsettled to say the least.

Every night it performed, after the final blackout, the audience erupted with boos. Once the lights went up, there was some applause, a pitying compliment towards the actors for doing what they could with what they had. The critics were less pitiful though, with every major theatre review absolutely scorching the production.

After five days of performing, ‘Carrie: The Musical’ closed, cementing itself as one of the shortest runs of a musical ever, and one of most horrible failures in Broadway history.

By: Ayamei Her

Note: In both season 1 and season 2, it mentions some sensitive topics such as: eating disorders, body dysmorphia, depression, self harm, abuse, sexual abuse, racism, and drug abuse. 

If you don’t know what ‘Ginny and Georgia’ is, it is Netflix’s current #1 show and it is full of drama and intensity. In season one, the show introduces a mother with her kids in a car together, on their way to a new town to live in. Georgia (the mom) has moved her two kids (Ginny and Austin) around through many cities and towns. Georgia wanted to settle, and she wanted stability, so she decided on the small town of Wellsbury.

Ginny was upset about the move, she always felt like Georgia was always disrupting her life once she felt as if she had settled in, although Ginny was worried about fitting in and making friends, she made friends quickly with Maxine, and her twin brother Marcus, who lived across the street from Ginny and her family.

At her new school, Maxine introduces Ginny to her friends Abby and Nora, and they become a friend group and combine their initials together to make a name for the group which is “MANG”. 

The first complication is that Ginny develops feelings for her best friend’s twin brother Marcus. Despite those feelings, Ginny starts dating a boy name Hunter. Ginny sneaks Marcus into her room nearly every night though, keeping him close and exploring her feelings for him. Eventually, she cheats on Hunter with Marcus, but inevitably, with time, everyone finds out about Ginny and Marcus’s secret affair. 

Now, with Georgia, she is one of my favorite characters because her back story is just so deep; her character does so well with hiding it. She is clever, playing mind games with people, while most of all trying to be the best mother she can be for her kids. Georgia has a very rough past and decided to hide it from her kids to protect them, she ran away from her abusive home and joined a dangerous biker gang who protected her while she was pregnant with Ginny, raising her alone at the age of 16.

Georgia has done some unspeakable things such as kill people who she felt she had to protect her kids from. She says from time and time again that she does everything for her kids and to protect her kids. 

A private investigator was sent to see into Georgia’s past to see who she really was. He finds out that she has been through a life of crime and pain and tells Ginny that he knows about her mother’s life, and that he doesn’t want someone with a past like Georgia’s to be around Ginny and her brother Austin. After Ginny was told, she put the pieces together and left home with her brother, and that’s how they ended season 1. 

Season 2 starts with showing that Ginny and Austin went and stayed with her father for awhile, and it shows that her mother is angry at Ginny, but misses her kids very much and still has no idea that Ginny knows of the crime Georgia committed. Soon, Ginny tells her father about her self harm, but begs him to not tell her mother, so he secretly puts Ginny in therapy so she can get the professional help she needs.  

During this, Ginny moves back to her mom’s and starts the angsty teen rebel phase where she starts to skip school, smoke, and spontaneously dyes her hair. 

While Ginny starts to seriously date Marcus, Maxine and Nora continue not being friends with Abby and Ginny, but Abby and Ginny start to become friends.

During Ginny and Marcus’s relationship, everything was going great and they seemed to be perfect for each other. But Marcus starts to have a depressive episode and feels like his happiness is only coming from Ginny. He says that it’s not fair to have his happiness depend on one person, and he can’t love her if he can’t love himself, so he decides to break up with Ginny.

Ginny and Abby decide to reconnect with Maxine and Nora, and they all become friends again. During Maxine’s show, that she was acting in for school, Marcus takes Ginny out in the hall and they break up which leaves Ginny heartbroken. 

I won’t spoil the ending of season 2 in case you haven’t watched it, but I would recommend watching the show if you like a roller coaster of emotions and tons of new surprises.

By: Julia Sikorski Roehsner

In 2002, an English woman named Jennifer Worth published a book of memoirs titled ‘Call the Midwife,’ telling the story of her life as a young midwife working in London’s East End beginning in the 1950s. The book was later reissued as ‘Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950’ and became a bestseller.

Worth published several other books, including ‘Shadows of the Workhouse’ and ‘Farewell to the East End’ to complete the Midwife trilogy, before her death in 2011.

‘Call the Midwife,’ the television drama series, premiered its first episode to the United Kingdom via BBC One on January 15, 2012. Since then, the show has expanded to eleven seasons with over 90 episodes, and is currently in the midst of its twelfth season. The series was created by Heidi Thomas, who is also the show’s writer and executive producer (along with Pippa Harris), and is inspired by, and partially based on, the memoirs by Jennifer Worth. Past and present stars include Jessica Raine, Jenny Agutter, Miranda Hart, Helen George, Laura Main, Stephen McGann, and Leonie Elliott.

Season one follows the story of midwife Jenny Lee (the character based on Worth), who arrives at Nonnatus House—run by the Order of St. Raymond Nonnatus, an order of nursing nuns—unprepared for the poverty and terrible living conditions of London’s East End, in a neighborhood called ‘Poplar.’ Unprepared, too, however, is she for the warmth and sense of community she feels from both her colleagues and those they care for.

At Nonnatus, Jenny meets the diversely-characterized group of midwives and nuns, who despite coming from various socio-economic and geographic backgrounds, and having extremely different personality types, all have one thing in common—the desire to do the best they can for their patients.

Jenny departs at the end of season three to pursue work at a cancer hospice, but ‘Call the Midwife’ continues. We learn about the trials and tribulations of nurse-midwives such as Trixie, Cynthia, Phyllis, Barbara, Sister Julienne, Sister Monica Joan, and Shelagh. There are also the outside forces of Dr. Turner and Fred Buckle, who aid Nonnatus House in whatever ways they can.

And, of course, there are the patients. As the show’s name suggests, Nonnatus mainly serves the pregnant women of Poplar, helping them from conception to birth. They also provide care for outbreaks of disease, mysterious illnesses, and complex injuries. The community trusts them, often more than they do any hospital.

Nonnatus House’s occupants are constantly changing, welcoming new nurses and bidding others goodbye. As the cast changes, so do the times; the series progresses through times of thalidomide, tuberculosis, and the novelty of the contraceptive pill.

‘Call the Midwife’ is not afraid to show the gritty parts of childbirth, nor does it shy away from difficult and even controversial topics. We see women who suffer domestic violence, as well as those who desperately seek abortions despite the dangers and illegality. Racism, discrimination, and homophobia are all portrayed. Characters struggle with matters of adoption, addiction, and crises of faith.

‘Call the Midwife’ is not a grim show by any means, but it does not gloss over the realities of those who lived during the times.

I have been a fan of ‘Call the Midwife’ for many years; I’m not sure what it is that draws me in. Perhaps it’s because I find the characters vibrant or the dialogue realistic. Maybe it’s because, as Heidi Thomas put it, “[‘Call the Midwife’ is] telling stories about the human condition, and you can really engage with that, not just matters of society or medicine, but matters of human existence, life, death and birth.” Whatever the case, I would highly recommend the series.

You can watch ‘Call the Midwife’ on Netflix and PBS.

For more information, please visit:

• https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/527872.Jennifer_Worth –
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0118t80
• https://www.pbs.org/call-the-midwife/

By: Stephanie Caballero Benitez

*Warning this review may contain spoilers.

The new Netflix series ‘Wednesday’ came out November 23, and since then has done really well. Lots of people have watched the show and many have enjoyed it. 

What is ‘Wednesday’ about?

In ‘Wednesday’, we follow the story of the teenager Wednesday. As it’s known from ‘The Addams Family’ Wednesday isn’t an ordinary girl, her entire family isn’t.

The first scene we see on episode one is Wednesday throwing piranhas into a pool to get revenge on some bullies for her brother Pugsley. This incident causes the expulsion of Wednesday, which leads to her getting transferred to Nevermore. Nevermore is an academy that welcomes outcasts, freaks, and monsters. Wednesday is to temporarily live in Nevermore.

While at Nevermore, Wednesday experiences things that make her interested in staying at the school. Someone attempts to murder her and she runs into a monster that is killing people near the forests of Nevermore. Wednesday stays in this school trying to solve who the monster is, by staying, Wednesday finds out secrets about her family and ancestors.

I personally enjoyed this show very much as I am a fan of ‘The Addams Family’. Wednesday was portrayed by Jenna Ortega very well and I definitely think that the role was made for her. I also really enjoyed how Tim Burton added the song “La llorona” onto a scene with Wednesday, since it seems that some don’t know ‘The Addams Family’ is a LatinX family.

Another thing that I liked about the film was the people that surrounded Wednesday, some were very different from her, especially her roommate Enid and the sheriff’s son Tyler. 

Other people had different opinions on the show. Some didn’t like how Wednesday and her family were portrayed. They believe that instead of a no affection family, and a Wednesday that talks bad about her mother, it should’ve been a very loving and accepting family just like the original show ‘The Addams family’. Some people feel as if the monster was really fake looking, cartoony looking, overall just out of place. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the storyline and development of this show and hope for a season 2. I would give ‘Wednesday’ a 9/10. You can watch the show on Netflix.

By: Leticia Bugg-Sam

‘The Good Doctor’ is about a surgeon who struggles with autism and savant syndrome, and being a doctor with autism and savant syndrome can risk a patient or themselves to feel scared and confused on what’s going on. Most of the patients on the TV show didn’t trust having a person with autism to do a surgery on them because they’re afraid that he will start breaking apart and freak out and he will end up doing something wrong and something dangerous that could end up with the patient in danger or even death. The people on the show didn’t believe that there’s a person with autism that’s smart with medical knowledge. They all thought that he was dumb and weird and that he wouldn’t be responsible enough to even be a surgeon.

The first season of the show started off with him getting a job at the hospital to become a surgeon. Nobody knew that this person could be a doctor because he was running late and they already all knew that he has autism so they all thought that he was dumb to be a surgeon. The only reason they knew about him was because the person who runs the whole entire hospital introduced him to the people who were already working there, like the managers and the more experienced doctors that knew more about the surgeries.

But this isn’t just about the doctor Shaun Murphy, it’s also about other surgeons trying to get the position they want throughout the season. Lots of training surgeons get let go by the way they act, or by someone who already took their place.

Also, the stories about the doctor with autism, and the other surgeons, aren’t just about them trying to become doctors, they’re also about what they go through in life away from all the surgeon stuff. Some of their lives are bad, they either had a good past or a bad past, and some of them were really sad. I felt bad for the surgeons who had to go through all that the did at such a young age.

I would give ‘The Good Doctor’ a 4/5 because it’s very entertaining to watch them perform surgeries. You can watch ‘The Good Doctor’ on Hulu.

By: Kaylen Fuentes

‘Community’ was released in September of 2011 and aired its 6th and last season in March of 2015. ‘Community’ is a sitcom about a bunch of college students of all different ages and backgrounds. The students all develop a study group for their Spanish class where they all become very close. The show follows their everyday lives in their community college study group. 

In season 2, episode 20, titled “Paradigms of Human Memory” characters Abed and Jeff talk about the show ‘The Cape’ they go on to argue about whether or not the show will get big. Abed goes on to say that the TV show will be a huge success and go on to have “6 seasons and a movie.”

Over the years, fans constantly referred back to this, wanting more to do with the ‘Community’ characters and it wasn’t found to be a coincidence because ‘Community’ ended after its 6th season. For years there had been speculations and fans rooting for the unspoken promise of a movie alongside the 6 seasons. But. September of 2022, it was made official, the ‘Community’ movie was confirmed. 

On September 30th, 2022, Joel McHale tweeted about the return of the ‘Community’ family, along with many of his other cast members including: Alison Brie, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi and more.

However, many were left wondering if all the original ‘Community’ characters would be returning such as, Chevy Chase, Donald Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown, because they weren’t on the returning cast list. 

Chevy Chase was written off in season 5 due to problems behind the scenes, with the writer for the show, Dan Harmon, and other cast members like Donald Glover. But, in an interview at comic con with ‘Variety’ Harmon said, “I don’t even know if it’s legal for him to come back, that may be out of my hands. There may be something I sign for with an insurance company.”

It was also speculated that though Donald Glover was tagged he will not be a part of the movie because he is focusing on other projects such as writing a movie trilogy and being increasingly busy with his show ‘Atlanta’. However, Harmon addressed these rumors at the Business Managers Breakfast at Variety. Harmon said, “I think that Donald is coming, based on word of the mouth, but it’s just the deal isn’t official or wasn’t official. It would be difficult to really commit to doing this thing without Donald. So I believe he is coming back.”

Harmon also implies in this interview things about other names missing from the list such as Yvette Nicole Brown. He says, “I think if there’s names missing from the list, their deals are agreed upon enough that it’s okay to say they are on the list, and anybody that’s not on a list, it’s just not the case YET. So there is nothing official about anybody being out.”

There aren’t many specific details so far about the release of the ‘Community’ movie: when it will take place, who will be in it for sure, will there be guest stars or even what it will be about.

As for when the movie will be released, the timeframe has been vague. In an interview with ‘Variety’, Dan Harmon says, “It’s a matter of when. It still doesn’t mean there’s going to be a movie tomorrow. It means there is definitely going to be one.”

My guess is we can expect it around 2024. As far as the concept and story of the movie goes, I am hopeful the writers and directors are able to recapture the same humor and concept as the 6 seasons of the show. The movie is expected to be released on Peacock and is now in production.

You can watch the 6 seasons of ‘Community’ on Netflix now, but in the near future will be able to watch the ‘Community’ movie on Peacock.

By: Stephanie Caballero Benitez

In this article I will be reviewing and summarizing ‘Wendell & Wild’ from Netflix.

*Warning: This review contains spoilers. 

Short summary:

‘Wendell & Wild’ begins by giving the watchers a little background about the main character throughout the movie, Kat. We start with a memory of Kats’s father and mother at a brewery, which later on we are informed used to be Kats fathers brewery.

Leaving the brewery, the family gets caught in a storm, making roads dangerous. Kat suddenly screams as the apple she had bitten had worms in it. The scream causes her father to take his attention off the road and onto Kat. The father loses control of the car, which makes the car fall off the road/bridge they are driving on and into the water.

This is what leaves Kat as an orphan later on, and also into the criminal justice system where she is treated unfairly.

Kat is sent to a girls school to better herself and her opportunities of getting out of the system. Kat dislikes the idea of the school and finds out the only reason she is there is because the school was offered money if they accepted her.

Kat begins having nightmares about her parents. The demons Wendell and Wild are also introduced through her visions/dreams. The demons believe that Kat is a hell maiden who will be able to summon them into the world. In exchange for Kat summoning them they offer to bring back her parents from the dead. Kat agrees and makes a deal with them but to summon them she needs ‘bears-a-bub’, a plushie owned by Sister Helley. She steals the bear and makes the deal and sister Helley finds out about the plushie and the hell maiden mark.

Later on in the movie, we find out that Sister Helley is also a hell maiden which is why she was warning Kat.

Once the demons are summoned into the world they begin making deals with mostly everyone to be able to gain control/power. They make deals with Father James and Irmgard and Lane, the owners of most buildings in the town. The deal was for them to bring people from the dead so that Irmgrad and Lane will win votes in a council so that they are able to do whatever they want with the town.

Once they win, they begin to destroy the town. Kat sees the mess that this deal has created and reaches out to Sister Helley who offers to help. By summoning the demons, Kat also creates an entrance for the father of the demons to be able to come to earth. Their father is summoned and makes peace with the demons and agrees to leave them alone in return for Sister Helley to give him back all his children that she had captured.

The demons offer to help Kat make everything go back to normal. They fight off Imgrad and Lane and prevent them from going any further with their plans. Imgrad and Lane end up arrested and all the people who had come back from the dead begin to die again.

Kat gets peace with talking to her parents one last time and also gains the power of being able to see into the future.

Overall, I would give this movie a 8/10 because the movie is very well done and it seems like the entire production worked hard on this as it is a stop motion movie that took longer to produce than other movies (7 years). I also really enjoyed how the movie was not rushed at all.