NOW SEE THIS

SEPTEMBER 25, 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.

Wake Me Up Before You 'Fargo'

The first two seasons of FX's Fargo are stone-cold classics, and the third season, after a slow start, becomes pretty remarkable as it goes along. All three are available on Hulu, but none are necessary for Noah Hawley's fourth Fargo, perhaps the show's most ambitious installment to date, though it's sometimes overpacked with main characters and corresponding plotlines. The first two episodes premiere Sunday. Looking ahead, the ninth episode is one of my favorite hours of TV this year. For more on Fargo, check out Noah Hawley's conversation on this week's TV's Top 5 podcast.

The Russians Are Hacking! The Russians Are Hacking!

Once upon a time, nostalgia was dedicated to events that occurred decades in the past. This week, with another election looming, we've been awash in nostalgia for … 2016, or at least we've been introspective about what did or didn't happen in the 2016 election and how much the Russians were involved. Alex Gibney's four-hour documentary Agents of Chaos offered four hours of reflection — convincing, if not especially revelatory — all now available on HBO Max. On Sunday, Showtime premieres the start of The Comey Rule, Billy Ray's scripted take, which kicks into a higher gear in the second night's installment when Brendan Gleeson lumbers in playing Donald Trump in a performance of "squinting, sneering, sniffling intensity."

(To Be Sung Tom Jones Style) What's 'Utopia'? Whoa Oh Whoa

Amazon's Utopia is not to be confused with HBO's Euphoria (available on HBO Max), for which Zendaya won an Emmy over the weekend. It also isn't to be confused with Fox's bizarrely expensive 2014 reality show Utopia, nor with the futuristic teenage dance drama Utopia Falls (which I actually reviewed, so I know it exists on Hulu) nor Sir Thomas More's Utopia nor the animated Zootopia, available on Disney+. It's adapted by Gillian Flynn from an ultraviolent British dark comedy with fantasy/comic book shadings, and its star-studded cast includes John Cusack, Rainn Wilson and Desmin Borges. It's full of big, prescient ideas, but as THR's Inkoo Kang puts it, it's "too hackneyed to be timely, too grim to be escapist."

Ruffin the Passer

It's my assumption that Peacock's The Amber Ruffin Show, premiering Friday, is going to be a weekend highlight. That's speculation, without benefit of a preview screener, based on Ruffin's amazing recurring collaborations with Seth Meyers. Marc Smerling's semi-adaptation of Errol Morris' A Wilderness of Error is a so-so true crime doc, but a fantastic examination of the true crime drama, becoming more of the latter in next week's episodes. Netflix's Sneakerheads is mostly thin and disposable, but the third episode contains a fun bit of celebrity casting. Finally, Inkoo says that Apple TV+'s Israeli-produced, Iran-set Tehran is better as a tragedy than as a spy thriller.

Honoring Michael Chapman

(This assumes you already paid tribute to Ruth Bader Ginsburg by watching RBG on Hulu last weekend.) Oscar nominated cinematographer Michael Chapman died this week at 84. You'd have to pay a few bucks to rent Chapman's classic '70s collaborations with Martin Scorsese. But easily available on streaming, you can find The Fugitive (HBO Max), 1978's magnificent Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake (Amazon) or Personal Best (HBO Max). HBO Max also has Chapman's very fine 1983 directing debut, All the Right Moves.

Homework

I need to watch the last three episodes of the first season of Cinemax's Warrior, which returns for its second (and probably final) season next week. Speaking of second seasons, Adult Swim has a new season of the ambitious animated series Primal premiering next week. The first season, which I loved, is on HBO Max.

This Week's THR Staff Pick

Managing editor Jennifer Levin recommends one for the kids. She raves: "Amid a glut of kids' shows about talking cars and rescue-mission plotlines, Bluey is so refreshing. Australian pup Bluey, little sister Bingo and their parents charmingly capture daily family life in 8-minute episodes (52 of them available on Disney+) that celebrate imagination and play. Lessons like taking turns and not giving up are relatable and funny — in one story, Dad plays 'Raiders' with the girls, rolling a yoga ball down the hallway while they try to outrun it. I’ll gladly binge-watch this with my kids."

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SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

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