NOW SEE THIS

AUGUST 28, 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.

'Love Fraud'! Baby, 'Love Fraud'!

If Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing's Love Fraud, about a group of women out to get justice against the man who romantically conned all of them, were premiering on Netflix on Friday, people would be devouring its myriad twists and surprises. I'm not sure weekly airings on Showtime will build the same obsession, but when it premiered at Sundance, I wrote that this four-part documentary is "sad, distressing and filled with enough Midwestern weirdness for a Coen Brothers movie."

'Pure' and Sample

HBO Max still has a powerhouse library of movies and shows, but the service's originals aren't proving as sticky. THR's Inkoo Kang said that the British import Pure is "a disappointingly formulaic stumble through youthful London" (though I felt star Charly Clive was solid as a young woman experiencing graphic and unwanted sexual thoughts). And as for the sci-fi drama Raised by Wolves, I was intrigued by the opening episodes directed by Ridley Scott, but found the rest of the show "becoming less and less compelling with each contrived plot point and thinly sketched new character."

You're the Best

With its unexpectedly good Karate Kid sequel, YouTube (under its then-"YouTube Red" banner) had what every new streamer dreams of, namely a breakout success. It wasn't enough to keep YouTube in the scripted biz. Now Cobra Kai has made the move to Netflix, where its first two seasons are available to stream ahead of a 2021 third season premiere. Check it out for some clever inversions of the '80s classic film and an unexpectedly likeable star turn from William Zabka. The first season is really good and the second season, while not quite up to the same standard, is still better than it has any right to be.

Speak Up and Dribble

Athlete activism has been in the news this week as several professional sports were shut down as a wildcat strike tied to protests over the shooting of Jacob Blake. While ESPN and Netflix's The Last Dance showcased Michael Jordan's famous apolitical declaration that "Republicans buy Nikes too," some context for this week's actions can be seen OnDemand in Showtime's documentary series Shut Up and Dribble — or in scripted form, also OnDemand, as part of Survivor's Remorse, a terrific basketball-themed comedy canceled abruptly by Starz after four seasons.

Movies You Can Watch Without Masks or Threat of Infection

Movie theaters are slowly opening up around the country and, after a strong summer of premieres, streaming services aren't doing an especially good job of trying to keep people glued to their couches. Netflix's YA adaptation All Together Now helps Auli'i Cravalho inch away from her musical roots, but THR’s John DeFore says the "earnestly optimistic drama misses the mark." Amazon's Get Duked!, meanwhile, premiered at SXSW back in 2019 as Boyz in the Wood, where DeFore critiqued the "too-familiar vibe." Finally, I'm not sure what Mubi is, but they've got Xavier Dolan's Matthias & Maxime, which THR’s Jon Frosch called "a drab dramedy of repressed homosexual desire" when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019.

This Week's THR Staff Pick

Staff writer Mia Galuppo is something of a Love Island purist. She writes, "I have only watched 2 episodes, so I cannot really offer a critical view of the American version of British reality series Love Island. But, nonetheless, I see it as a bastardization of a perfect product — like having the audacity to choose Cheese Nips over Cheez Its. In April, the initial prospect of watching Love Island season 4 — 57 hour-long episodes available on Hulu — seemed both daunting (at the very least) and deranged (far more accurate). But in quarantine, time is meaningless. And the series is a bikini-clad alternate universe to my current reality — except they are, of course, encouraged to touch strangers."

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AUGUST 28, 2020

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