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.

Wide 'Ted Lasso' See

It's been a roller coaster of a second season for Ted Lasso, which kicked off in July with far more acclaim and buzz than its slightly under-the-radar 2020 launch. Then there were a couple weeks when people thought the plot wasn't moving fast enough and got annoyed. Then it dominated the Emmys and the audience jumped back on board. I thought the 50-minute finale was a little underdeveloped in terms of how it handled several key characters, but did it make me laugh and make me just a bit weepy? Absolutely! After you've watched the finale, be sure to listen to this week's TV's Top 5 podcast for our extensive and spoiler-y interview with series co-creator Bill Lawrence.

Designated 'Sitter'

In that podcast interview, Lawrence expresses his minor bafflement at Ted Lasso being described largely in terms of uplift, but for many viewers, the Apple TV+ comedy was a weekly warm hug. So, if you crave warm-fuzzies, now what? Well, Apple TV+ has its own bighearted alternative launching Friday in Acapulco, an '80s-set coming-of-age comedy featuring international star Eugenio Derbez. It's sweet, romantic and occasionally funny. My own personal comfort-TV recommendation is Netflix's  The Baby-Sitters Club, one of the most endearingly wholesome, yet never mawkish or pandering, shows in recent memory. I'm very clearly not the target demo on this one, but it's well-written and populated by a wonderfully selected young cast, and it teaches one encouraging lesson after another to audiences of truly any age. It isn't too late to catch up before the second season premieres Monday.

Taming of the Pugh

Seemingly in honor of the release of No Time to Die and the theatrical clout of James Bond, the movie studios steered clear of new releases on streaming this week. One exception, with an asterisk, is Marvel's Black Widow, which finally transitions to the non-premium tier on Disney+, just a week after star Scarlett Johansson settled her acrimonious suit with the studio. If you want something less time consuming, but not quite TV length, Disney+ also has the 49-minute Muppets Haunted Mansion . It's the latest Muppet property to coast on the charisma of the beloved ensemble without really having enough story to justify even the brief running time or the reduced cast, headed by Gonzo and Pepe the King Prawn. 

Happy-Go-Chucky

It's picking at scraps otherwise. Our Angie Han praises the YA thriller One of Us Is Lying for its "painless pace," which I guess is true, though it's mighty dumb. Speaking of pain, if you watch Alex Gibney's The Crime of the Century on HBO Max, you can probably skip the star-studded but thoroughly lackluster  Dopesick when it premieres next week on Hulu. Otherwise, I'd recommend doing a little homework ahead of USA and Syfy's Chucky. Somehow Peacock has all the Child's Play movies other than the original, so you can watch recent oddities like Curse of Chucky, Seed of Chucky and Luck Be a Chucky Tonight, but then you're going to need to watch the 2019 remake of Child's Play on Hulu and that won't make any sense, continuity-wise.

'Squid' Pro Quo

Or, ya know, you can just watch or rewatch Netflix's Squid Game. Somewhat reductively, people are comparing it to Battle Royale, when it's really more like They Shoot Horses, Don't They? meets My Octopus Teacher. Infuriatingly, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? isn't available on streaming and nobody has made a good adaptation of Richard "Stephen King" Bachman's The Long Walk, so if you're looking for other enjoyable programming set at the intersection of systemic poverty, ultraviolence and Swiftian — Jonathan, not Taylor — satire, I'd recommend you start with the original 1932 The Most Dangerous Game on HBO Max, which also has The Running Man  available to stream. Not quite as violent, but probably thematically compatible, is The Prisoner, which is on HBO Max and is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. And there might be some amusement in seeing how Fox's short-lived 2007 drama Drive, featuring a young Emma Stone, holds up. And yes, Battle Royale is on Amazon.

This Week's THR Staff Pick 

Speaking of Squid Game, THR's senior editor of diversity and inclusion Rebecca Sun is a fan. She raves, "I assume the only people who haven't yet watched Squid Game are those averse to horror and violent content, so as someone who shares those phobias, I'm here to testify that Netflix's Korean drama is, like Get Out, a work whose artistic merit and social messaging are worth making an exception for. Yes, the mass death and bloodshed (or the inconvenient truths about what we're willing to do to each other to survive) might make you squeamish. But the perfectly pitched ensemble, indelible production design and deft, thrilling storytelling live up to the hype."