| | | | | | 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. |
Yeah, Here Comes the ‘Rooster’ (You Know He Ain’t Gonna Die) There used to be so few TV shows about college humanities professors that any discussion of the genre had to include The Education of Max Bickford. That reference was for my readers who are old or just worked at CBS in the early ’00s (which is to say, “are old”). But this weekend alone sees the launch of two new comedies about college humanities professors in Netflix’s Vladimir and HBO’s Rooster , following the semi-recent releases of Netflix’s The Chair and AMC’s Lucky Hank. In truth, I don’t think either of the new series is as good as The Chair or Lucky Hank, though our Angie Han deemed Vladimir to be "brainy and lusty.” While I liked the cast, I tired of the tone and format of Rachel Weisz’s fourth wall-breaking narration. At least Vladimir has a much better sense of the modern climate of academia than Rooster, premiering Sunday night. Nothing but praise for the performers, led by Steve Carell, Danielle Deadwyler and Charly Clive, but the comedy, created by Bill Lawrence and Matt Tarses feels, though six episodes, like it’s struggling to find its identity. |
Better Holmes & Gardens The same (“struggling to find its identity”) could be said of Amazon’s Young Sherlock , the latest attempt by executive producer Guy Ritchie to turn the British icon from an erudite gumshoe into a guy who punches people and occasionally does smart things as a parlor trick. A lot is lost in creator Matthew Parkhill’s Muppet Babies pairing of Baby Sherlock (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) and Baby Moriarty (Dónal Finn), characters who work better as occasional nemeses than frequent pals. Amazon also has both of Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies, while the Benedict Cumberbatch series is on the PBS app. Actually, Amazon is loaded when it comes to Holmes, offering earlier productions featuring Basil Rathbone, Ian Richardson and Christopher Lee. Unfortunately, Barry Levinson’s groundbreaking (in terms of CGI effects if not quality) Young Sherlock Holmes isn’t streaming anywhere, though renting it is, well, elementary. |
| | | Two Can Plagiarize That Game The story in Apple’s The Hunt, a French thriller about a group of friends being pursued by vengeful strangers after a hunting accident in the Alps, is solid. The story BEHIND Apple’s The Hunt — the streamer had to ditch a late 2025 premiere after somebody just happened to notice that the supposedly original production was actually based without rights or credit on a previously adapted 1973 book — is mind-boggling. How does that HAPPEN in this day and age? Anyway, all’s apparently well now, with The Hunt on Apple with cumbersome attribution in place. As for the show? It’s good until it ceases to be. There are great things here, including breathtaking location photography, a solid cast led by Benoît Magimel and Mélanie Laurent and the astonishing speed with which the pulpy plot machinations (it’s baffling that nobody at Gaumont or Apple realized how much it feels like Deliverance, Straw Dogs and a dozen other 1970s books and movies) get moving. The finale is explosive and explosively dumb, dismissing whatever modicum of nuance the narrative built in favor of lackluster action and hollow thematic floundering, all of which waste Laurent entirely. At Now See This, I have a hard and fast rule: Do. Not. Waste. Mélanie. Laurent. |
Life Less ‘Culinary’ When Padma Lakshmi left Top Chef in 2023, I fantasized about more seasons of Taste the Nation and other travel/food shows delivered through Lakshmi’s expert lens. I didn’t expect she’d be back in 2026 with a new food competition show that feels like nothing more or less than an over-budgeted Top Chef clone. America’s Culinary Cup, which premiered this week on CBS and can be streamed on Paramount+, isn’t shying from the comparison, emphasizing the presence of two-time Top Chef winner Buddha Lo in its capable cast. So far, what makes the new series distinctive is the over-lit studio set, the relentless repetition of “Bocuse d’Or,” the impressively lucrative million-dollar prize and the sense that contestants were goaded to be adversarial towards each other — so much limp trash-talking — rather than endlessly supportive. Even if this feels like a step backwards (or needlessly sideways) for Padma, she’s still a consummate pro, delivering teasing dialogue and looking glamorous and wind-blown. It would be a perfect placeholder to air during one of the long hiatuses between Top Chef seasons … which makes it baffling that it was scheduled against the new Carolinas-set Top Chef season, which begins next week. |
Kilt by Association This blurb is something of a double reminder. First, I’m letting my parents and all other Outlander devotees know that the eighth and final season premieres on Friday night on Starz. What’s that? You say you already remember that, because what self-respecting Outlander fan hasn’t had this date marked on their calendar for months? Fine. Then did you know that this weekend is when we spring forward, technically adding an hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning? You knew that, too? Look, some weeks this newsletter is more necessary than others. |
‘War’ Money, ‘War’ Problems Let me get this straight: In the past 10 years, we’ve had two different Netflix original movies called War Machine and neither has been a Marvel movie focused on Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes? That’s silly. It sounds like the new War Machine, featuring Reacher star Alan Ritchson and giant robots, is mighty “generic,” or so says our Frank Scheck. So maybe seek some substance instead, in the form of documentary and international Oscar nominees ahead of the ceremony on the 15th. Fortunately, Hulu has become your hub for global favorites, with Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident joining last week’s addition of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent (and Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value coming on the 23rd). The other two international nominees — Sirat and The Voice of Hind Rajab — are still in theaters or on PPV. The most easily accessible documentary nominees are Apple’s Come See Me in the Good Light , Netflix’s The Perfect Neighbor and The Alabama Solution on HBO Max, which also has documentary short nominees The Devil Is Busy and Armed Only with a Camera. Netflix has All the Empty Rooms, another documentary short nominee. Stay tuned for more Oscar recommendations next newsletter. |
| | | |
Commentaires
Enregistrer un commentaire
Thank you to leave a comment on my site