What's making us happy: a guide to your weekend listening, viewing and reading

This week, we cast our votes, watched a total lunar eclipse, and found a piece of the wrecked 1986 space shuttle Challenger. Here's what the NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was

paying attention to — and what you should check out this weekend. _THE CARMICHAEL SHOW_ [embedded content] I am admittedly late to the Jerrod Carmichael train. My earliest introduction to

him was a stand-up he did on some sort of for profit or telethon. I remember thinking, "who is this guy?", but I never really followed him after that. And then, of course, I saw

_Rothaniel_ last year and was very affected by it. I laughed and teared up. It was interesting watching him perform like that. Several people recommended that I check out one of his earlier

works. Recently, I was able to watch _The Carmichael Show_ because it's on Peacock. It is a sitcom, laugh track and all. It has an all-Black cast which includes Lil Rel Howery, Tiffany

Haddish, Loretta Devine, David Alan Grier, Amber Stevens West, and of course, Jerrod Carmichael. I really enjoy the show. They cover a lot of topics that I'm interested in, but in a

very "sitcommy" way. The show elevates a lot of different Black voices. It presents the spectrum of Blackness in a conversation. There are barbershop Black folks, church Black

folks, intellectual Black folks. And all of those folks are coming together and having a conversation about what it is to be Black amongst other things. The sitcom is 22 minutes long. The

show is very well executed and despite typically finding laugh tracks annoying, I find myself laughing along with it because the actors are funny. — RONALD YOUNG JR. _THE ULTIMATE FIELD

TRIP_ EPISODE OF _ONE YEAR_ PODCAST _One Year _is a show we produce at Slate. Every season of the show is a different year and they dig into things that happened during that year. They have

a season on the year 1986 which had an episode called, _The Ultimate Field Trip_. The episode looks back at the Space Shuttle Challenger. In the episode, they interviewed a bunch of the

people who applied to teach in space but were not chosen. They had gone through all the training with the crew of The Challenger (which eventually died). It's a version of the story

I've never heard before. I'm a big space travel nerd. I'm literally planning to go to space camp next year, finally making that dream come true. It's also just a

beautifully non-narrated work, which is hard to come by. If anybody had made this episode, I would be recommending it. I thought it was just a stunning piece of audio. — DAISY ROSARIO

STEPHANIE WILLIAMS' WORK FOR MARVEL COMICS & _THE ENGLISH _ON PRIME My friend Stephanie Williams is beautifully adding to the canon of the character Nubia, who was originally the

twin sister of Wonder Woman. However, she's changed that origin story and it's amazing and beautiful. Before you count all of the Nubia comics on one hand, now she's got like

two or three volumes. Stephanie is working on the new "Shuri" comic book series, which will be out right after this _Black Panther_ movie comes out. So, after you see _Black

Panther_, if you're thinking, wow, I really love this journey Shuri's on, you should check out Stephanie Williams' new comic book on Shuri continuing that journey. But in the

meantime, go buy _Queen of the Amazons_. It's available wherever you get books. It is so much fun. It introduces queer and trans characters to the world of Themyscira. It is so fun and

beautifully drawn. — JOELLE MONIQUE _THE ENGLISH_ [embedded content] _The English_ is a six-episode series that premieres this weekend on Amazon Prime. It is a bloody, pulpy, hugely

satisfying revenge Western set in 1890, just as the frontier is closing down. It takes place during the brutal era of conquest that was the reality of the Old West. In public imagination

this era has become this romantic notion of BS rugged individualism. It looks fantastic. It's funny. It's bloody. It's kind of dark, kind of diet Cormac McCarthy. It

doesn't hollow you out and make you want to lie in a ditch for a day because it is also weirdly romantic and it's got this really strong narrative backbone that's going to

keep you watching. I love it. Check out the first episode. You will know 10 minutes in if it is for you. It is for me. — GLEN WELDON MORE RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR

NEWSLETTER _BY LINDA HOLMES_ STEVEN SPIELBERG made his way to _Fresh Air__ _this week to talk about his new film, _The Fabelmans_. Friend of the show KUMAIL NANJIANI has a video over at

Buzzfeed where he is interviewed while playing with kittens, and the funniest thing about it is that he keeps lowering his voice so as not to bother the kittens, and if you need something

soothing and calm after this week, I highly recommend it. We're going to be talking about holiday movies on the show soon, so if you want to get a jump, Lindsay Lohan's _FALLING

FOR CHRISTMAS _is now available on Netflix. We're going to be talking about _YELLOWSTONE_ on the show as well, so when it premieres on Sunday, maybe you'll be catching up!

(Remember: Airs on Paramount Network, streams on Peacock.) ------------------------- _NPR's Pilar Galvan adapted the Pop Culture Happy Hour segment "What's Making Us

Happy" into a digital page. If you like these suggestions, consider __SIGNING UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER__ __to get recommendations every week. And listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on

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