Last week Sarah emailed me, Lainey, and Emily, our site manager. Subject? Duana’s new favourite show. Body? 

“This show was made with only the freshest ingredients, pureed in the most expensive blender, and poured into a tall, frosty glass just for Duana's consumption.”

I mean, let’s admire Sarah’s skillful wordplay, but even though her email is amusing, it’s not really that tongue-in-cheek – Fosse/Verdon focuses on the gorgeous and complex relationship between Bob Fosse, played by Sam Rockwell, and Gwen Verdon, played by Michelle Williams, and hits all my pleasure centers. Showbiz, complicated marriages, dancing… here’s a line from the above article that I suspect could have been adapted from the presser about the show: 

“…explore[s] the hidden corners of showbiz, the price of pursuing greatness and the suffering inflicted in the name of art.”

Come on. This is a no-brainer and I will see you all there for my favourite show – or what should be my favourite. 

Problem is, just as I was rejigging all my beloved shows in my mind and taking to social media to tell everyone about it, I saw this: 

First of all, Tara Ariano’s never wrong about TV, and second, that’s an awesome tweet. But to cut to the chase, watch this trailer. About college marching bands. Try to keep breathing:

I knew I was going to love it? But I officially fell all the way in love around the 18 second mark, when everyone affects a PERFECT 45-degree bend in their legs without missing a beat. ON the beat. It’s beautiful. But of course, this isn’t just about the beautiful beat and the moves. Those, you can see in Beychella GIFs. In the groups’ YouTube channels. Yes, in Drumline. But it’s more than that, of course – this is a badass show about the work.  

I’m not special for loving the line “If you feel like you dying? Go, please. Not on my watch”. After all, they cut out all the music underneath it because they know that line makes the trailer. But GOD, I would follow that woman anywhere and she’s probably an Econ major with a minor in linguistics, and the fact that this non-scripted show is also happening at a college is the confluence of my Pitch Perfect and Friday Night Lights dreams.

The thing is, it’s a false equivalency because unlike Fosse/Verdon, Marching Orders starts this Friday, on August 3… so I don’t have to choose between my beloveds. But if I had to start ranking things I was most excited about, things would get very hard, very fast.