| | | | | | Welcome to Now See This, THR chief TV critic Daniel Fienberg’s weekly viewer guide newsletter dedicated to cutting through the daunting clutter of the broadcast, cable and streaming TV landscape! Comments and suggestions welcome at daniel.fienberg@thr.com. |
Picks or Treats Happy Halloween! Or, "Happy World Series Game Six!" to those who observe. If your preferred style of celebration involves John Carpenter, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Myers, the 1978 original Halloween is streaming on AMC+, Philo and Plex, among other sources. If you prefer Halloween-based giggles, check out our ranking of the South Park episodes built around the holiday. For more holiday-centric THR list fun, read our elaborate guide to 38 Kid-Friendly Scary Films, Richard Newby's take on the Best ’90s Horror Movies and the great David Rooney's tremendous ranking of the 25 Best Horror Movies of the 21st Century. |
Herron the Side of Caution Worried, apparently, that its subscription base might dwindle without a steady supply of Mick Herron-based programming, Apple TV set the fifth installment of Slow Horses to conclude on Tuesday — the same day that the service is launching Down Cemetery Road, based on Herron's earlier books about Oxford-based PI Zoë Boehm. Emma Thompson is perfectly cast as the lead, whose take-no-shit attitude mirrors that of Gary Oldman's Jackson Lamb, only with better fashion sense and less flatulence. Adapted by Slow Horses veteran Morwenna Banks, the eight-part season is more meandering and less laser-focused than Slow Horses. But a lot of its appeal is similar, and Thompson, co-star Ruth Wilson and breakout supporting player Fehinti Balogun are more than enough reason to check this one out. Oh, and be sure to read Rick Porter's interview with Herron. |
| | | Randy New[wo]man There's a whole genre of brazen, young-skewing comedies that have alienated me with their pilots and then, either through my own adjusting to the show’s tone or through the show’s evolution or modification of said tone, I’ve grown to really enjoy. See FXX's Dave (streaming on Hulu) or Peacock's Bupkis (streaming on Peacock). The first part is certainly true with Rachel Sennott's new HBO comedy I Love LA , which premieres on Sunday. The premiere was somewhere between irritating and exhausting, trying way too hard for voice-of-a-generation edginess, but I watched five additional episodes and felt they were much truer to the cringy virtues of Shiva Baby (streaming on Netflix) and the Sennott-penned Bottoms. While the series over-relies on Los Angeles-based clichés and doesn't really seem to have a sense of the city, its grasp on the hollowness of modern celebrity is frequently strong. Our Angie Han promises that I Love LA has "surprising depths waiting to be discovered," which seems right. Along the way, there are some very funny guest stars, especially the celebrity cameo in the fourth installment. |
Forest Grump As a kid, when I used to visit my grandparents in Toronto, I spent a lot of time watching the extraordinarily quaint and campy 1960s animated series Rocket Robin Hood, a VERY Canadian revisionist take on the Sherwood Forest legend set in outer space. I'm not saying it's time for a Rocket Robin Hood revival (though it is), but I'm wondering why today's revisionist storytelling only ever means "gritty and packed with adult content" and never "fun and silly." Inspiring this meditation is MGM+'s Robin Hood , from John Glenn (the other one) and Jonathan English, which premieres on Sunday. Based on the three chapters I've watched, it's a lot of dull blather about Normans and Saxons, the mopiest interpretation of "Rob" (Jack Patten) I've ever seen and one Cinemax/Starz-level sex scene per episode, so this is NOT for kids. Sean Bean as the Sheriff of Nottingham and Connie Nielsen as Eleanor of Aquitaine add professionalism and the Serbian exteriors are pretty, but where is the fun of dudes in tights shooting bows and arrows in the woods? Or, put a different way, where are the sexy anthropomorphic foxes of yesteryear? Oh, right. Disney+. |
'Hedda' the Class Am I the only one who finds it odd that Netflix has a new adaptation of Frankenstein, but they saved its streaming premiere for the week AFTER Halloween? Instead, the weekend's biggest new streaming debut is an adaptation of … Ibsen? Tessa Thompson stars in Amazon's Hedda, Nia DaCosta's reimagining of Hedda Gabler, which our Jourdain Searles calls "fresh and frisky," singling out Thompson and Imogen Poots for special praise. For more holiday-appropriate DaCosta viewing, her 2021 remake of Candyman is on Peacock. And for more grounded, feature-length chills, Netflix has the documentary The White House Effect, which shows how George H.W. Bush went from the "environmental candidate" for the presidency to playing a key role in in politicizing and undermining the environmentalist cause. John Sununu, Bush's chief of staff, is far scarier than Candyman in a documentary that I called illuminating and persuasive when it premiered at Telluride last year. |
Honoring June Lockhart With lead roles in Lassie and Lost in Space, June Lockhart carved out a place as one of TV's most beloved and prolific mothers. Sadly, neither Lassie nor Lost in Space is streaming anywhere, so if you want to honor Lockhart, who died this week at 100, her most visible TV work may be her multi-season run on Petticoat Junction (streaming on Amazon), which she joined in its sixth season. You can also stream some of Lockhart's earlier film work, including Sergeant York and Meet Me in St. Louis, which are both on Tubi and both better than Petticoat Junction. |
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