NOW SEE THIS

DECEMBER 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.

In Your Satin Tights, Fighting For Your Rights

So far, no streaming service has figured out how to deliver Chinese food, but otherwise TV is well-prepared for everybody's favorite secular holiday ritual. Complement your fried rice and Szechuan chicken with an evening curled up around the cathode ray tube. Assuming it doesn't crash the HBO Max servers, Wonder Woman 1984 is sure to be a big draw, though THR chief film critic David Rooney cautions that despite Gal Gadot's "charismatic presence," the sequel "doesn't avoid the sophomore trap." Our Leslie Felperin was much more enthusiastic about Pixar's Soul, new on Disney+, which she deemed "sublime in every sense." 

History Writ With Butts

Did you watch 121 episodes of Gossip Girl constantly thinking, "Needs more empire waists and male butts"? I'm not judging you. Promise. If so, Netflix has you well-and-truly covered with Bridgerton, Shondaland's long-awaited debut series on the streaming platform. The cheeky — so many butts — period romance is hugely watchable, whether you make it a guilty pleasure or feel no guilt at all, and the cast is laden with future stars, beginning with Regé-Jean Page. THR's Inkoo Kang deems it "a delectably smart confection."

To Be Fair

Is there anything more satisfying than completing a lengthy binge of a show just in time for the premiere of a new season? No. There is not. The loquacious Letterkenny gang is back on Hulu Dec. 26 with seven new episodes of gymnastic verbosity, clever immaturity and small-town Canadian hijinks. It's one of the smartest and silliest shows on TV, with enough running jokes to pepper your sentences for months. And if you haven't checked out Letterkenny yet? Pitter patter!

Of Course It's a Christmas Movie

Die Hard is on HBO Max. 

More Cinematic Presents Under The TV Tree

At its Sundance premiere last January, Felperin called Sylvie's Love "possibly the most wholesome film since the lifting of the Hays Code to feature a professional jazz musician as one of its protagonists." I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but the Tessa Thompson melodrama is now on Amazon. Also likely to produce divided responses is George Clooney's contemplative sci-fi drama The Midnight Sky, which Rooney promises is "emotionally involving from tense start to poignant finish." And then there's DNA, a French drama from actress-director Maïwenn, which would have played at Cannes in the summer, except nothing premiered at Cannes, and it's now on Netflix. THR's Jordan Mintzer deemed it "unique and unruly" and "Maïwenn's most Maïwenn-esque movie," which either means something to you or it doesn't!

Best of the Best: No Turning Back

Looking for some high quality TV to binge over the holidays? We've got you taken care of! If you've made it through my Top 10 of 2020 and Inkoo Kang's Top 10, we cobbled together lists of 10 great TV episodes and 10 great TV performances from the last 12 months. And if you go back to last week's TV's Top 5 podcast, Rolling Stone chief TV critic Alan Sepinwall joined us for even more Top 10 talk. If you've watched everything on all of our lists? Well, the NBA season is starting. So there's that.

This Week's THR Staff Pick

Speaking of TV's Top 5, podcast co-host and West Coast TV editor Lesley Goldberg raves, "Like so many others, I slept on Cobra Kai because I never signed up for YouTube Red. And like so many others, I've found the magic that is the Karate Kid sequel now that it's on Netflix. This easily bingeable comedy appeals to diehard fans of the original and uses new storylines with its talented young cast to deliver modern updates on the movie's original themes. And you can look forward to listening to the trio of showrunners share their love for the "Miyagi-verse" (and season three's great cameos) during the Jan. 1 episode of TV's Top 5."

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DECEMBER 25, 2020

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