| | | | | | 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. |
Ask Not for Whom the ‘Belfast’ Streams, It Streams for Thee Derry Girls is one of the best and most rewatchable comedies of the past 25 years, but since the end of its Netflix run, the three-plus years without creator Lisa McGee’s voice on television has been vexing. Fortunately, McGee’s new Netflix comedy-mystery How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is very much “Derry Girls + murder,” though that’s ultimately underselling what this hilarious and admirably twisty series delivers. Stars Roisin Gallagher, Sinéad Keenan and Caoilfhionn “Pronounced Kee-lin?!?” Dunne are exceptional as three friends visiting a strange Irish town after the death of a high school chum, all nailing McGee’s fast-paced, meandering dialogue. The deep ensemble is full of scene-stealing performances, while the mystery actually kept me guessing until the end. Best of all, without overplaying its thematic hand, Belfast delves richly into the traumas, recognized and deeply buried, wrought by the Troubles on this region. While the middle gets a little laggy, this show is a more-than-worthy binge for viewers who enjoyed Bad Sisters or Deadloch. |
A Whole Camelotta ‘Love’ Speaking of long-absent TV producers, Ryan Murphy is back with his first new show since January. Actually created by Connor Hines, FX’s long-awaited (it was initially ordered in 2021) Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette is now streaming on Hulu, and our Angie Han calls it “a solid, if not resounding, success.” I watched the first third of the nine-episode season and while I respected its sincere evocation of familiar romantic tropes, this simply isn’t a story that I have any investment in — though LOTS of people do! — and nothing I’ve seen so far has justified the degree of mythologizing that unfolds here. It’s just a TON of Kennedy hagiography, anchored in the early going by Naomi Watt’s solid Jackie O. impression. I’m not sure how much more I’ll watch, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for whatever opportunities Sarah Pidgeon, effortlessly radiant as Carolyn, gets next. |
| | | Spencer’s Gifts When The Pitt returned for its second season, a lot of people were all, “A streaming show that comes back promptly and annually? Revolutionary!” and some people were all, “So what, Slow Horses does that every year.” Not enough people said the same of Dark Winds , which took 2024 off but makes what has otherwise been its prompt annual return to AMC this Sunday. I’ve seen six of the season’s eight episodes and I had initial concerns that the mystery plaguing Leaphorn (the great, Emmy-less Zahn McClarnon) and Chee (Kiowa Gordon) — a vicious, nameless killing machine (Franka Potente, admirably scary and odd) raising the body count on the rez — was too familiar. Fortunately, the series heads around midseason on a road trip with a fresh setting, some fresh characters and a welcome new attitude. Best among the guest stars is Chaske Spencer, bringing wild-eyed abandon and snazzy ’70s swagger to his role as a shady Los Angeleno with scary connections. McClarnon is great as always and it sure seems like the Tony Hillerman adaptation got a major infusion of new soundtrack money, with one episode dropping cuts from The Doors, Zeppelin and the Stones in its first 10 minutes. Oh, and Titus Welliver! He always makes things better. |
The Iceman Cometh Amazon is celebrating NBA All-Star Weekend with a four-part tribute to the short-lived league responsible for so much of the style of modern professional basketball. Kenan Kamwana Holley’s Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association has some spectacular unseen and rarely seen footage of the under-televised league and it’s never a bad time to marvel at the grace of Julius Irving, the smoothness of George Gervin and the underhanded free-throw shooting of Rick Barry. An impressive assortment of ABA stars appears in the documentary, telling wild stories and celebrating the artistry of the league’s future Hall of Famers, as well as its less widely known pioneers, including Ellie Brown, who assembled an all-female board of directors for the Kentucky Colonels and led that team to the 1975 ABA championship. Brown, who died in 2024, appears in the documentary and is one of several key figures who have passed in recent years, which adds to the potency of the emotional concluding half-hour. |
Eyes on the Smize I didn't really watch The Biggest Loser, so I had only a little interest in Netflix's previous multi-part documentary exposé on icky reality shows from the ’00s, but I watched at least 18 or 19 cycles of America's Next Top Model, putting Reality Check right in my wheelhouse. ANTM was always a bit gross, but apparently during the pandemic, The Youths discovered it and thought it was really, REALLY gross, especially the actions of host-creator-diva Tyra Banks. Reality Check is largely a response to that response, featuring lots of TikTok reaction videos on top of the clips from the show and interviews with several of the models and core figures including producer Ken Mok and stars Jay Manuel, Nigel Barker, J. Alexander and, yes, Tyra. Your guess is as good as mine what Tyra hoped to get out of her on-camera appearance, but she comes across horribly — insincere, oblivious and fairly deluded, passing the buck whenever possible and ducking other questions entirely. Jay, Nigel and Miss J look a bit better, but not a lot. While the series acknowledges a lot of ANTM 's more positive aspirations, the long segments dedicated to such milestone moments as Shandi's sexual assault in Milan, Tyra's "We were all rooting for you!" meltdown and all of the embarrassingly ill-conceived photoshoots — race-swapping, meat-posing, violence-baiting — are wholly damning. At the end of the doc, Tyra promises a new cycle is on its way, but after three hours here, my response was an enthusiastic, “Nah!” |
Honoring James Van Der Beek James Van Der Beek, who modeled earnestness for a generation awash in irony and then became a comically adroit scene-stealer, died this week at 48, from cancer. One can certainly honor Van Der Beek by watching Dawson’s Creek (streaming on Hulu) or Varsity Blues (Peacock), but as I wrote in my appreciation, his later credits are far quirkier and funnier and more interesting. Unfortunately, you have to pay to rent Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, but the five very odd episodes of Vice’s What Would Diplo Do?, which Van Der Beek co-created, are on Tubi and while I don’t really like The Rules of Attraction (Amazon) overall, Van Der Beek was excellently intense. |
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