NOW SEE THIS

MAY 29, 2020

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.

If It's Friday, I Must Be Recommending 'Ramy'

The second season of Ramy, probably the show I recommended to the most people in 2019, premieres Friday on Hulu and it’s going to be more polarizing than the first. Star and co-creator (and frequent director) Ramy Youssef steers his alter ego down a frequently misguided path of self-discovery and the results are hilarious, sad and infuriating. With the exception of one character arc, I loved all of it. THR TV critic Inkoo Kang had more reservations.

'Central' Perk

Apple TV+’s new animated musical from Loren Bouchard (Bob’s Burgers), Nora Smith and Josh Gad has an outrageously good cast, featuring the likes of Leslie Odom, Jr., Kathryn Hahn, Kristen Bell and Stanley Tucci. Central Park also features some of the liveliest and most complex original music numbers on TV. They’ll get stuck in your head for days and you won’t regret it for a second. The Emmy campaign for Sara Bareilles’ “Weirdos Make Great Superheroes” starts here.

Pop 'Quiz,' Hotshot

Does it feel like there’s a lot of great TV coming out this weekend? Emmy deadlines will do that. Be sure to check out AMC’s UK transplant Quiz, a wildly entertaining three-part look at a British game show cheating scandal. Matthew Macfadyen, Sian Clifford and Michael Sheen all shine in this romp.

'Space' Oddity

No show this week has a better cast than Netflix’s Space Force from Greg Daniels and Steve Carell. So why are reviews so mixed? My own take suggested the challenge was in “how to satirize something that already arrives pre-satirized.” It’s an uneven first season, but with Carell, John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Lisa Kudrow and Noah Emmerich leading the cast, many will chuckle through the rough parts.

Dig Deeper on HBO Max

This week’s new streaming service — yes, there’s a new one every week — is HBO Max and people are already gushing about the library featuring Friends and The Big Bang Theory. Dig deeper! Why not try the great TNT dramedy Men of a Certain Age, starring Ray Romano, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula. Series co-creator Mike Royce discussed the show’s streaming debut on this week’s TV’s Top 5 Podcast.

Get to Know Michaela Coel

Even though she’s appeared in The Last Jedi and multiple episodes of Black Mirror, Michaela Coel may be a budding TV mastermind you don’t know. That should change with HBO’s upcoming I May Destroy You, premiering June 7, so get out ahead of the curve by checking out Coel’s writing-staring vehicle Chewing Gum on Netflix (or her performance in Netflix’s Black Earth Rising). 

Summer From Your Couch

Without beach parties, concerts and ball games, it’ll be a strange June and July, so Inkoo Kang and I offer 10 “quarantine TV” recommendations for shows that feel like summer..

This Week's THR Staff Pick

THR editor-at-large Kim Masters recommends a streaming service. She writes, “I’ve watched some of the much-discussed stuff but what I need right now during this pandemic is old movies. I finally subscribed to the Criterion Channel. Since then I have been soothed by comedies including Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not To Be, which features Jack Benny as a famous Polish actor who finds himself called to save the resistance in World War 2. Weird, but I did laugh.” 

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MAY 29, 2020

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