NOW SEE THIS

MARCH 19, 2021

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.

The 'Falcon' Cannot Hear the Falconer

Holy cow, is that a new series premiering on a major streamer? We haven't had one of those for a while! The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is Disney+'s second Marvel original series — after WandaVision — and it's eventually going to be a buddy thriller featuring Anthony Mackie's Falcon and Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier. The characters are separate in the pilot, and I liked the Falcon side of the story much more than the Winter Soldier, but there's a lot of potential here.

Cold 'Comfort' Harm

There are actually a lot of new TV options this weekend. You can skip Netflix's Kat McPhee-centric Country Comfort, a blend of hacky comedy and mawkish drama that made me miss The Ranch. Apple TV+'s glorified podcast Calls is a bit better and I enjoyed the chaotic ambition behind HBO's docuseries Q: Into the Storm. Finally, there's Sunday's premiere of NatGeo's Genius: Aretha, though I agree with THR's Inkoo Kang that Cynthia Erivo is better than the series itself. Genius showrunner Suzan-Lori Parks, a MacArthur designated "Genius" herself, discusses the limited series on this week's TV's Top 5 podcast.

Baby, I'll Try to Love Again, But I Know: The Snyder Cut Is the Deepest

It's DC versus Marvel in the streaming wars this weekend: Who will win between The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Zack Snyder's Justice League? We'll never know, what with streamers not providing real ratings. Anyway, the much-ballyhooed director's cut of Justice League is being universally hailed as much longer than the Joss Whedon-augmented theatrical cut! THR's John DeFore adds that it's more coherent in plot and tone, but “nearly unendurable as a single-sitting experience." Sold!

Ohhhhh… I Wish I Were an Oscar Trier Winner

Nominees were announced this week for the 93rd Academy Awards and that means it's time to start completing that checklist. For those who were holding off, you can knock off some big names on Hulu (Nomadland), Amazon (Sound of Metal) and Netflix (Mank and The Trial of the Chicago 7). But if you're like me you've got smaller gaps to fill on movies you were holding off on because they seemed too long (Hulu's The United States vs. Billie Holiday), you hadn't actually realized they were already streaming (Another Round on Hulu) or because they were Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix's Hillbilly Elegy). 

Jesus Christ 'Superstore'/ Do You Think You're What They Say You Are?

NBC's Superstore is a good example of a show that evolved into the best version of itself. When it premiered, I thought it had a great cast and lots of potential, but not quite enough laughs. Not only did the laughs emerge, but the show became one of TV's semi-rare smart, funny examinations of working-class life, with looks at immigration, unionization and, this year, COVID. After 110+ episodes, Superstore ends next week, but it's not too late to catch up on Hulu!

Honoring Yaphet Kotto

An astonishingly compelling screen presence, tremendous James Bond villain and an actor equally adroit in ultra-serious drama and edgy comedy, Yaphet Kotto died this week at 81. He was also descended from Cameroonian Jewish royalty! Anyway, Homicide: Life on the Street remains frustratingly unavailable to stream, but there are plenty of great Kotto performances worth checking out this weekend. Both Alien and Midnight Run are on HBO Max (as is Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare). It appears that the underrated 1972 classic Across 110th Street is on Pluto. And don't sleep on Kotto's Emmy-nominated turn in The Raid on Entebbe, which is on Amazon.

This Week's THR Staff Pick

THR.com associate editor Lexy Perez raves, "Quarantine life has definitely resulted in new routines but thanks to HBO Max's Selena + Chef, I cannot stop venturing into my kitchen. This show has become my escapism and I cannot count how many times I've laughed while watching Selena [Gomez] be lectured on her knife cutting skills — mostly because I know that's exactly how I would be. This series is fun, relatable and reminds me how great it will be to have family and friend dinner nights again. Until then, I just hope to follow along and master some of the recipes but preparing for a few facepalms along the way."

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MARCH 19, 2021

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