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Pop Culture Happy Hour: Autumn Leaves, Cumberbatches, And More Fall Amusements

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This week's show finds me, Stephen, Trey and Glen together again in the studio, but due to a scheduling tweak, finds us in Historic Studio 45 instead of Historic Studio 44, so we hope you can all still follow the conversation.

We kick things off with what's become our annual tradition: the Fall TV Pool, a/k/a Linda Humiliates Herself Prognostication-Wise. In past years, I chose A Gifted Man and Partners, two shows you will probably have to look up in order to remember. Mocked for the terrible luck I've had trying to be a brutally cynical realist, you will see that this year, I went with my heart, choosing my actual favorite new broadcast show of the season. And I apologize to everyone involved in it, because by choosing it, I may have doomed it to fail. (We taped on Monday, by the way, before any of these shows had premiered.)

Stephen goes the cable route this time around, which is how we wind up saying "sex" perhaps more times than we ever have in the show's history, while Trey goes for a high-concept drama and Glen goes for comedy — and not in the Marvel-ous direction you are perhaps expecting.

In our other segment, we look forward to the part of the year when we're actually pretty excited about the things that are coming to the movie theater. Glen continues to be doggedly devoted to a franchise that took a complex first step, Stephen goes for a very adult movie and a (probably) great kids' movie, Trey is into both chatter and Judi Dench, and I reach for a charming romance, to the surprise of no one.

As always, we close the show with what's making us happy this week. For Stephen, it's two great moments from the Creative Arts part of the Emmys (which took place last weekend). For Trey, it's a video full of singing British people (big surprise there). For Glen, it's a book he loves (big surprise there, too). And for me, it's Aaron Paul, who rules the world in many respects, and the decision of the audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival to honor the best film I saw there this year.

Find us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: Linda, me, Glen, Trey, producer Nick Fountain, and our esteemed producer emeritus and music director, Mike Katzif.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.