Gift ideas for TV addicts
It’s time to stop bingewatching and start playing a thoughtful Santa Claus
Give the binge- watching a rest, please, and play thoughtful Santa for the fellow TV addicts in your life.
Peak TV makes peak gift- giving easy. Whether inspired by newcomers including Stranger Things and This Is Us or golden oldie The Twilight Zone, possibilities abound.
There are outstanding series soundtracks to be had, and enough TV- centric trinkets to allow busy elves to take time off from the factory. Books destined for the small screen make thoughtful presents, which could also be said of a streaming stick with kid- friendly fare.
Here’s a selection to consider:
The tunes
• Big Little Lies soundtrack ( CD or MP3). A playlist that draws you back into the series’ dark world, with song titles that tell the devilmadethem- do- it tale: Michael Kiwanuka’s Cold Little Heart, Charles Bradley’s Victim of Love
and You Can’t Always Get What You Want by Ituana.
• This Is Us season one soundtrack, ( CD or MP3). Break out the
tissue box as you summon memories of your introduction to the
Pearson family, with Labi Siffre’s
Watch Me, Bryan Tyree Henry’s We Can Always Come Back to This and the seasonal O Tannenbaum.
• The Vietnam War companion soundtrack, ( CD or MP3).
The sweep of the Ken Burns
Lynn Novick series is matched
by the music — evocative for those who lived through it, a revelation for those unaware of how deeply artists engaged with the era’s tumult. The 38 tracks on two CDs include Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A- Gonna Fall; Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, Pete Seeger, and Backlash Blues, Nina Simone.
The books
• The Complete America’s Test
Kitchen TV Show Cookbook 2001
2018 ( America’s Test Kitchen).
Searching online for reliable recipes is tricky, while this compendium is anything but with more than 1,000 chef- proven ones for the Test Kitchen’s “best” version of a given dish. Techniques and tips about ingredients and equipment are included, along with a behindthescenes peek at how the kitchen lab functions.
• Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone by Mark Dawidziak ( Thomas Dunne Books). Veteran TV critic Dawidziak pays tribute to Rod Serling’s 1959- 64 series by mining self- help lessons from such memorable episodes as The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, in which neighbours suspect each other of being invading aliens, and To Serve Man, a reminder that judging a book by its cover is risky.
• For those who like to read a
story before seeing it adapted, consider these works ( available digitally or in paperback: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, already the basis of two movies and now due on Netflix; Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death, a post- apocalyptic novel set in Africa and optioned for an HBO series; Sarai Walker’s Dietland, a blast against society’s weight and beauty expectations coming to AMC.
The merch and more
• Stranger Things is hot and has the show- inspired tchotchkes to prove it. Collectible figures include Eleven in a hospital gown or clutching the Eggo waffles she so loves, and Mike as a ghost-
buster ( Pop! Television by Funko).
There’s also the Eggo Card Game in which players attempt to escape from the Upside Down. Or maybe something more useful, say Stranger Things mugs in more than a dozen designs and all with the familiar quote, “Mornings are for coffee and contemplation” ( Etsy. com).
• PBS Kids Plug & Play TV streaming stick, gives children ages three and up their own bright- green remote control and the promise of entertainment with education. The device is pre- loaded with 100- plus hours of sing- alongs, games and other content that’s available without wifi; when connected, it includes free access to PBS Kids’ round- theclock channel and on- demand videos. When new content is released there’s no additional cost.