Hello, leaf-peepers. 

I hope you’ve had a good week. It’s been a crisp, cool few days here in New York City, everyone bustling around in their transitional jackets and talking in guarded tones about the blessed break in humidity—it’s great weather, but it also augurs the frigid horror to come. 

But that’s a couple of months away, so for now we are enjoying the reprieve from the sticky clench of August, its foul odors and weary tempers. The New York Film Festival officially kicks off tonight—James Gray’s sharp crime thriller Paper Tiger is the opening film—which means I and many other people in my professional ecosystem will be headed to Tavern on the Green in Central Park this evening for the annual party that some people have dubbed “film prom,” because everyone gets a little dressed up, older boys do drugs in the bathroom, and I politely refuse to dance with any girls. It should be a merry occasion, even though I have nothing decent to wear. 

In truth, though, I’d maybe rather be home watching the latest episode of The Traitors US; they’re doing an all-normies season, like the Brits have always done, and it’s so far slightly superior to the “star”-studded editions of the past. The stakes are higher because many of these people actually need the money, and they know they only have this one shot to make an impression on the American public. In the first two episodes, two pretty people make complete fools of themselves, while a woman who probably says “Hail Trump!” whenever she enters a room falls terrible victim to her hubris. 

Mind you, I still like celebrity Traitors, and plan to recap the season premiering in the winter. But it’s fun to have a break from all the careful brand maintenance so hallmark to the series. I’ve picked out a couple of favorite contestants—a gay lawyer, a pilot from Boston—and hopefully they won’t let me down. 

I also have a few people I’m already rooting for on the new season of Survivor, which premiered on Wednesday. The season kicks off the so-called “open era” of the show, meaning anything that has happened on any past season could happen again, which I think is exciting? The casting also makes me optimistic; it seems there are fewer maladjusted nerd obsessives this time around, and there’s even a hot Irish guy who says “that wood is tick!” when trying to chop down a wooden post. Now that all the self-regarding fanfare of Season 50 is past, I’m glad to be settling into a regular-degular iteration of the series, with new people and new complications but a few old habits. I still think the current version of American Survivor pales in comparison to Australian Survivor—which is bigger, longer, and meaner—but it’s nonetheless appointment viewing in this house. 

I don’t think my household will be sticking with A Very Haunted Renovation, a new HGTV show we sampled this week, in which host Anna Camp (?!) guides six designers in a competition that involves renovating a supposedly haunted Victorian house somewhere in Ohio, which they also have to sleep in. The first guest judge is Eli Roth, which is very strange. I am sort of curious who else will make a cameo on the show, but probably not curious enough to keep watching. It’s a bit too theme-party for my liking; I prefer my HGTV shows bland and basic. 

You’re free to watch A Very Haunted Renovation if you want, but in case that is not to your liking, here are some other recommendations for this weekend.