Friday Check-In: Back to 'North of North'

This week's Friday Check-In newsletter coming up just as soon as I get Daveed Diggs to narrate the documentary about my meat processing facility...

In The Twilight Zone zone

After being postponed due to my health nonsense, the Serling book tour finally makes a few stops here in the New York/New Jersey area over the next week. I hope those of you who live locally can come to one or the other to say hi. First up, on Wednesday, November 11, I'll be at Words in Maplewood, NJ to talk about the book with my podcast cohost Kathryn VanArendonk:

Then on Friday the 13th — an apt date for a discussion of The Twilight Zone — I'll beat The Paley Center in midtown Manhattan for a deep dive with museum curator Jason Lynch:

Also, before cable news shifted entirely into midterm elections mode, I stopped by CNN's The Lead with Jake Tapper to talk about how Serling's work still resonates more than 50 years after he died:

And I guest-starred on The Starlog Podcast with Jordan Hoffman to talk not only about Serling, but a Back to the Future article from the classic run of Starlog magazine that has lived rent-free in my head for 40 years:

Catching up

Here's what I've published since last Friday's newsletter:

In the latest TV Is Good podcast episode, Kathryn and I discussed two shows about incredibly rich and sheltered people: the old and new monied families of The Gilded Age, and the dummies of the Bluth clan on Arrested Development:

I reviewed Season Two of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, which remains one of TV's most relentless and effective joke-delivery machines:

I wrote about the second season of the Apple golf comedy Stick, and how sometimes a show being predictable and derivative can be a feature, not a bug:

I recapped the latest episode of The Lowdown, which featured notable guest stars both old and new:

I wrote about the return of Netflix's spy show Black Doves, while also venting about how hard it is to re-engage with TV shows that take two or more years off in between seasons:

What's next?

Things to look for over the next week or so:

In the next TV Is Good, we'll be talking about Reggie Dinkins and a pair of classic 30 Rock episodes, "Tracy Does Conan" and "Apollo Apollo."
A recap of the next episode of The Lowdown.
For What Else Is Alan Watching? bonus tier subscribers, an ode to very good TV shows that were saddled with very bad titles.
Thoughts on the new season of the Belfast cop drama Blue Lights, which I wrote about last year.
Depending on time and my level of interest, thoughts on Netflix's Cunk on Cinema, Apple's new thriller 12 12 12, and/or the Peacock miniseries The Good Daughter.

Odds and/or ends

Speaking of Netflix shows that have been gone a long, long time, we're finally going to get the second season of Blue-Eye Samurai on January 19. The announcement came earlier this week, on the three-year anniversary of Season One's debut. I understand that animation — especially the kind of lush and detailed animation this show uses — is a longer and more complicated process than just getting the cast of a live-action spy show back together. So in part it's Netflix's fault for not ordering a second season much earlier, if not just ordering two seasons upfront. Still, three-plus years is just too much, even though I loved the first batch and will check out the new ones.
HBO renewed Youth for a second season. You know my thoughts on the Sharon Horgan comedy, but I'm curious how everyone else has felt.
Jalen Brunson cameo'ed in this week's Law & Order: SVU, and let's just say that I don't see a Jim Brown-esque acting career for him when he retires. But also? Knicks in 5.

Jalen (and Rick) Brunson on Law & Order: SVU tonight:
— Roger Cormier (@themetsnewsletter.com) 2026-11-06T03:18:55.499Z

The great white North of North

Thank goodness for small favors: North of North, the Canadian comedy starring Anna Lambe as Siaja, a young Inuk woman in a remote Nunavut town called Ice Cove, only had to keep us waiting for a year and a half between seasons. And the new season, which dropped on Netflix yesterday, opens with a lengthy Siaja voiceover reminding us of the premise and the most relevant plot details from Season One, as well as updating us on what's changed between seasons. The big things: Siaja's smug and useless ex-husband has moved to another town, and they're sharing custody of their daughter; and Siaja's father Alistair (Jay Ryan) has moved to town permanently now that he knows that he has a daughter (and granddaughter).

The voiceover is more than welcome — pretty much every show that plans to be gone at least a year between seasons should do something similar — but North of North also has the advantage of being a small, simple show concerned far more with vibes than plot. There are some ongoing love triangles — Siaja pines for Alistair's former assistant Kuuk (Braeden Clarke), who has a girlfriend, while Siaja's mom Neevee (Maika Harper) begins reconsidering her feelings for Alistair right as Alistair starts dating a visiting romance novelist — and Siaja explores another branch of her surprisingly complex family tree. Mostly, though, it's about the feeling of what life is like in Ice Cove in general, and in particular for Siaja, who is smart and charismatic but struggles with focus and confidence. Anna Lambe remains an absolute pleasure to watch. And the new season does the thing you hope for from all sharp comedies, in developing a much stronger command of all the supporting characters and the actors playing them. I'd gladly take more than the eight episodes we get per season, but even eight instead of six allows the world of Ice Cove to feel much more lived-in than too many streaming comedy settings do these days.

It's a gem. Glad to have it back.

That's it for today! What does everybody else think?