On TV in October: A great sketch about land acknowledgements, a dorky vampire, and a Tegan and Sara bio series

Find all the latest must-watch TV each month with Watch This!

There has never been more television than there is right now. We are living through the absolute peak of TV content. (At least in terms of quantity; a lot of people would argue that in terms of quality, we've peaked, but that's another conversation.)

Point being, trying to watch everything that's out there is a bit like trying to get a glass of water from a firehose. We're here to help you reduce that hose blast to a trickle. This metaphor has taken an odd turn. What we mean to say is "Watch This!" is a new monthly feature highlighting the best of what's available on streaming in Canada and (occasionally) over the airwaves. 

For October, we've got the return of everyone's favourite bilingual "horror group," some very involved land acknowledgements, and a bio-series of everyone's favourite twin Canadian singer-songwriters. 

Lido TV

Lido TV is the debut television project from Polaris Award-winning, Latin Grammy/Grammy/Juno-nominated Colombian-Canadian singer/songwriter/producer Lido Pimienta. The unblinkingly political series is part sketch comedy, part short documentary series, part artist-on-artist interview show, all hung together using the conventions of Children's Television Workshop-style kids' TV.

Imagine if q and Wonder Showzen had a baby, and that baby was raised in an anarchist bookshop. The first episode has puppets talking about colonialism, Bear Witness from the Halluci-Nation walking us through his collection of custom action figures, and a game show where white "allies" compete to give increasingly more performative land acknowledgements. (Honestly, that land acknowledgement sketch was tone-perfect. It also hit weirdly close to home. I should probably sit with that discomfort a bit.) Watch season 1 of Lido TV streaming now on CBC Gem.

– Chris Dart, web writer

Los Espookys

Fans of the strange and wonderful HBO comedy Los Espookys have been waiting ever-so-patiently (or in my case, mostly impatiently) for the over three years it's been since its first season. The largely Spanish-language series — created by Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen — follows a group of friends who turn their love of horror into a business where they fabricate horror film-like situations and trick people into thinking they're real.

But the production found itself in its own horrifying situation when shooting the second season in Chile was shut down when COVID hit, and for that country's strict pandemic policies to make the wait to return much longer than anyone hoped. But it's finally back, just in time for espooky season, and we all should be muy agradecido. Los Espookys is streaming in Canada through Oct. 21 on Crave.

– Peter Knegt, producer

Reboot

An inside-baseball TV show about television is a risky proposition: for every 30 Rock, there's a Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. But Reboot gets it right. It's the story of a young, up-and-coming TV writer (Rachel Bloom) who sells Hulu on a darker, realer reboot of a popular early '00s family sitcom, Step Right Up, only to be undermined at the last minute by being forced to work with the show's original creator, who is also her estranged father (Paul Reiser).

The premise is good enough, but the cast is excellent. Keegan-Michael Key manages to be both funny and nuanced as an Ivy League-trained performer who's perpetually low-key furious that his best known work is a dumb sitcom. Judy Greer should already be in the TV comedy Hall of Fame for her work on Arrested Development and Archer, and delivers another standout performance here. And, perhaps the biggest surprise, Johnny Knoxville is maybe the most likeable and relatable character on the show. Which is wild because he's fundamentally famous for setting himself on fire and stapling his balls to things at the turn-of-the-millennium. (Is there a TV Comedy Hall of Fame? There should be, right?) Streaming weekly in Canada on Disney+. 

– Chris Dart, web writer

Reginald the Vampire

If the last 30 years of popular culture have taught us anything about vampires, it is that they are pretty much always hot. Twilight vampires? Hot. Interview with a Vampire vampires? Hot. Vampire Diaries vampires? Hot. True Blood vampires? Bananas hot. Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula? Hot. I mean, not at the beginning, but for most of the movie, yeah, an absolute hunk of undead man meat.

Reginald the Vampire dares to ask the question, "What if a very regular-looking person got made a vampire? How would vampires react to that?"

The answer seems to be "badly." Jacob Batalon — Ned from the Spider-Man movies — plays a chubby, awkward fast food employee who gets turned into an undead creature of the night. (The vampire who did the turning seems to think he did Reginald a favour.) Now, vampire society is rejecting him in a much more lethal way than human society ever did. Hilarity and bloodshed ensue. Watch Reginald the Vampire in Canada on Amazon Prime Video.

– Chris Dart, web writer

High School 

The story of how everyone's favourite queer twin pop duo survived high school is making its way to our screens this fall. Based on their joint 2019 memoir of the same name, High School offers up a dramatization of Tegan and Sara Quin's teen years in the suburbs of Calgary. Newcomers Railey and Seazynn Gilliland (discovered by the Quins via TikTok) play T&S, while none other than Cobie Smulders shows up as their mom.

I was lucky enough to watch the first few episodes when they premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last month and I am happy to report that the series is poignant, thoughtful, and well worth checking out, whether you're a Tegan and Sara fan or not. Watch High School in Canada on Amazon Prime Video.

– Peter Knegt, producer

Acting Good

Paul Rabliauskas is one of the most entertaining stand-up comedians working in Canada right now. There's something about his high intensity delivery that just gets me every time. Honestly, I feel like he could read the phone book and make it funny just based on stage presence. Acting Good, his sitcom debut, is a loosely autobiographical story of a young Indigenous guy who moves back to his small Northern Manitoba reserve full of big personalities after he fails in his attempt to make it in the big city. Which in this case means Winnipeg. This is all the information I have, but if it hits the same bar as Rabliauskas' stand-up special Uncle, it should blow the doors off. Watch Acting Good on CTV Comedy.

– Chris Dart, web writer

The White Lotus: Sicily 

Probably the most anticipated TV premiere of October is the second coming of Mike White's wildly popular, Emmy Award-dominating The White Lotus. Set this time at a different resort in the fictional White Lotus universe (in Sicily, as opposed to the first season's Hawaiian digs), the only cast member reprising their role is Emmy winner Jennifer Coolidge. She'll be join by a whole new set of White Lotus staff and guests, including those played by F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hollander, Michael Imperioli, Theo James, Haley Lu Richardson and the great Aubrey Plaza.

Obviously, expectations for whatever the show has up its sleeve this time around are higher than Murray Barlett's character was for most of season one. But betting against White (who will once again write and direct every episode) and this new incredible cast he's assembled seems like a risky proposition. Watch The White Lotus: Sicily in Canada on Crave.

– Peter Knegt, producer