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.

'ABC,' as Easy as 1-2-3

If you like modern coming-of-age stories and wuxia martial arts adventures and Chinese folklore and monkey kings — I happen to like all these things — you should be sure to check out Kelvin Yu's very smart and very whimsical adaptation of Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel American Born Chinese on Disney+. Ben Wang is a great everyman protagonist and the ensemble is outrageously good, not coincidentally because the series employs much of the cast of Everything Everywhere All At Once, including Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and, in key guest roles, James Hong and Stephanie Hsu. Angie Han's review goes into much more detail on a show she calls "delightfully zippy." 

Ready for 'Mogwai'

Sometimes new streaming services roll out with something big or star-studded, like Apple TV+ launching with The Morning Show. Warner Bros. Discovery decided to mark the evolution of HBO Max into Max with… a bunch of trashy-looking reality, a strange adulteration of traditional crediting that pissed off the Hollywood guilds and some nostalgia-fueled animation for grown-ups (or at least mature kids). Fortunately, that animation is pretty decent. I'm deeply invested in Joe Dante's Gremlins films (both on Max as well), and Tze Chun's Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai captures a lot of the spirit of those movies, while skewing a bit younger. The series, which finds its grounding in Chinese folklore — it's a big week for that, apparently — gets better as it goes along. Meanwhile, Angie praised the long-awaited revival of the semi-historical Clone High as "delightfully goofy." They're cartoons… to the Max! 

Less Is Moore

For some reason, nobody decided to premiere a high profile straight-to-streaming movie over the holiday weekend. I guess HBO came closest? Friday is the premiere of the documentary Being Mary Tyler Moore, which is full of great MTM footage, but suffers from focus problems in its talking-head-free approach. Then Monday, HBO is premiering the docudrama Reality , which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February, where David Rooney raved about Sydney Sweeney's "remarkable" lead performance as Reality Winner. Or you can pretend that Netflix's FUBAR, a Frankenstein's monster of different Arnold Schwarzenegger movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is a movie. It just isn't a very good movie. A better movie stretched to series length is Apple TV+'s Platonic, which comes from the director of  Neighbors  (Nicholas Stoller, creator with Francesca Delbanco), features the stars of Neighbors (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) and feels like a 10-episode extension of that kind of humor, getting the most out of its two leads. 

Honoring Memorial Day

A happy Memorial Day to all and sundry. When it comes to Memorial Day viewership, my recommendations will always start with HBO duo of The Pacific and Band of Brothers, both on Max along with the exceptional Generation Kill. From there, you can take your pick from various war standards. Glory is on Hulu, while Saving Private Ryan is on Paramount+ and The Thin Red Line is on Starz OnDemand. Looking for something in a more classic vein? The Best Years of Our Lives is on Amazon. Looking for a documentary? Ken Burns' The Civil War and The Vietnam War are both streaming on the PBS Video ap.

Honoring Tina Turner

Force of nature and decade-spanning musical icon Tina Turner died this week at 83. Definitely start your weekend Turner viewership with 2021's Tina, a documentary directed by Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin, streaming on Max. Unfortunately, neither Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome or Tommy is streaming any place convenient, but the concert doc Tina Turner: Simply the Best  is on Amazon. If you just want snippets of Turner's stage presence, she has one key scene in the documentary classic Gimme Shelter (Max) and she's a featured artist in Apple TV+'s series 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything. And be sure to read Rooney's tribute.

Honoring Ray Stevenson

I've always thought that with his burly Northern Irish masculinity, Ray Stevenson could have been one of the biggest stars in the world in the 1940s or 1950s. The actor, who died this week at 58, still put together a versatile career, especially on the small screen. Start your viewership with his breakout role in HBO's Rome (Max) and then check out the third and fourth seasons of Starz's Black Sails (Starz OnDemand), in which he issued an excellent take on Blackbeard. On the big screen, there are people who think his Frank Castle from Punisher: War Zone  (Peacock) is the definitive version of that character and if you haven't watched Netflix's RRR yet… Come on! Get on that!