IP Picks🔎: A Tense Spin on 'I Know What You Did Last Summer'
➕ The epic true story of how a great business empire was built . . . and you'll never guess which company we're talking about!
Welcome to The Optionist. Thanks for reading along. Before we dive into this week’s picks (which I love), a few news items to bring to your attention.
It’s all in the timing. At the very moment Signalgate was sucking up all of the oxygen inside the Beltway (and outside of it too), Caloroga Shark Media released a new, six-episode scripted podcast series about, get this . . . a reporter accidentally being added to a text chain about bombing terrorists in Yemen. Talk about kismet!
Signal Lost centers on national security reporter Eliza Morgan, who gets included on a chat about a plan called “Operation Sandstorm.” She learns everything — when, where, how big, all of it. The attack turns into a disaster. Four American Special Forces soldiers die and a handful more are captured. It’s the worst intelligence breach in U.S. history. Who compromised the message? Who benefits from the slip-up? And just how high up does the scandal go? As the tag says: “When everyone is listening, nowhere is safe.” The first episode dropped on Mar. 26, followed by the second on Mar. 30. The rest will roll out weekly through the end of April.
Also, a quick word of advice for Caloroga: Hire a new PR team, because no one at the company has managed to capitalize on the series’ fortuitous timing. Seriously folks, this should be the easiest thing in the world to get some pick-up on! Then again, maybe the blame should be pinned on the Hollywood trades and the rest of the entertainment journalism sphere, which has failed to take notice. (A little horn tooting here: Don’t ever doubt your friendly neighborhood Optionist is looking out for you by consuming a *lot* of media.)
Speaking of consuming media, there are so many books and articles I gobble up even though they don’t relate to this column. I don’t usually flag those stories. But this week I came across a trio of great reads that renewed my faith in the power of long-form journalism and my hope that it will be able to weather the internet, AI and other predatory technological changes. I don’t necessarily see them as adaptable IP (YMMV on this), but I definitely think they’re all worth a read . . .
•Wonder who the DOGE-ers are? The Boston Globe looked into one local kid who went to Dartmouth and Harvard Law and even voted for Biden in 2020. He now works for Donald Trump and Elon Musk at DOGE. No, he wouldn’t talk to The Globe, but the paper published a write-around about him and the profile is all the better for it. Riveting stuff.
•A group of two-dozen inmates (and four corrections officers) opened a VFW post inside a Colorado prison. It gave them all a forum to talk about their military service and the burdens they still carry from it. They also did some traditional VFW things, like holding an ice cream fundraiser that ended up netting $5,400 for a VFW family support program. It was considered a model of prison reform and an immense help for the incarcerated veterans (many of whose violent crimes were a byproduct of traumatic combat experience). But then a local troll ranted about the program on YouTube and, well, you can guess what happened next. Heartbreaking.
•This exquisite essay about a woman in her forties from Bismarck, North Dakota, who recently lost one of her best friends to fentanyl also destroyed me. I’ve a read lot of these. Each one is the same and yet unique. But they all break my heart. The human cost of the opioid epidemic is staggering, and we, as a society, truly haven’t done enough.
Closer to home, and I mean really close to home, The Ankler recently ran this moving essay by Baywatch actress Alexandra Paul. It chronicles how she was the victim of an obsessed and mentally-ill female fan for 13 years. The harassment forced her to spend tens of thousands of dollars on security, defend her husband against false allegations of terrible crimes and even move to another state under a protected identity. No one — not the courts, the police or even the FBI — could stop it. The harassment only ended when the stalker died (on Paul’s birthday). Before I even had a chance to flag it here, there were already five different suitors jockeying for the rights. There’s no deal yet, so there’s still time if you’re interested in making a pitch. (UTA’s Jason Richman is repping).
On to this week’s picks, which include an epic business drama, a charming rom-com and a pair of stories that explore the true-crime podcast boom in fascinating ways. The full lineup:
A true-life business drama about an iconic tequila brand
A magical-realist rom-com in the vein of Sliding Doors
A YA whodunit that has an I Know What You Did Last Summer vibe, but updated for the true-crime podcast era
A procedural thriller about a group of online true-crime fans who meet in IRL to solve a series of murders involving women in a college town
A based-in-fact period drama about a pioneering female doctor during WWII
