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.

Honoring Norman Lear

The THR obituary called him a "genius" and a "citizen activist." My appreciation called him "television's comedy lodestar." Formative creative figures don't come much bigger than Norman Lear, who died this week at the age of 101. Lear's output is well-represented across the streaming landscape, starting with All in the Family, on Freevee. Sanford & Son and Good Times  are on Peacock, while Maude  and The Jeffersons are on Pluto TV. One of Lear's last shows was Netflix's remake of One Day at a Time, which has its first three seasons available. For co-creator Mike Royce's memories of working with Lear, listen to this week's TV's Top 5 podcast.

Murder, She Sufganiyot

I was pleased to have the Hulu algorithm recommend Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights to me this week, not because I necessarily enjoy the animated Hanukkah film — it's not "good" if you like things that are "good" — but because there's so little available Hanukkah programming and I'm glad I didn't have to look this one up. Hulu, like Max, has four seasons of The OC if you're in the mood for Chrismukkah cheer or if you're reading Alan Sepinwall's Welcome to the O.C. (as discussed on another recent TV's Top 5 episode ). Otherwise, your celebratory options for the Festival of Lights include… The "A Rugrats Chanukah" episode on Paramount+? Various token Hanukkah offerings including Love, Lights, Hanukkah! on Hallmark Movies Now? Mistletoe & Menorahs on Hulu?

Esmail Pattern Boldness

Netflix's Leave the World Behind isn't Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail's feature directing debut, but I haven't seen 2014's Comet, so it might as well be. Comet, featuring Justin Long and Emmy Rossum, is available on Tubi and Pluto if you enjoy intrusive advertising. As for Leave the World Behind , our Stephen Farber calls the star-studded — Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, etc. — film "a nightmarish suspense drama about everyday life disintegrating," and while he praised some of its unsettling elements, he wishes it had more to say. Also new to streaming this weekend is Disney+'s Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Christmas Cabin Fever, which, based on the title, is another Eli Roth remake in which Greg Heffley gets a flesh-eating virus. At Christmas. I'm assuming. Feel free to do your own research, though.

On the 'Walter' Front

You'll notice, of course, that normally this newsletter starts with exciting new TV programming for the weekend. This is not, unfortunately, an exciting new TV weekend. If you've got BritBox, you might be amused by Archie, a structurally cumbersome four-part series featuring the great Jason Isaacs as Cary "Archibald Leach" Grant. If you've got Hulu and you enjoy heist dramas that don't reach a satisfying conclusion, there's Culprits . And somebody is sure to like the "Which of her new adoptive half-brothers will she snog?" coming-of-age hijinks in Netflix's My Life with the Walter Boys (pictured). I sure didn't. And neither did our Angie Han.

Streaming Up to Boston

We're one week into the three-week run of Jason Hehir's Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage, and Reckoning, an HBO docuseries about the murder of Carol Stuart, one of the most notorious events in recent New England history — or, if you're a millennial, a verse in "Wildside" by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Murder in Boston  suffers from that three-hour documentary problem, namely that it almost certainly needed to be either longer or tighter. But in giving voice to many of the Mission Hill residents who were victimized by the Boston PD in the aftermath of Chuck Stuart's vile fraud, it does a real service. I wish Hehir had spent more time with members of the Black community and had more access within the BPD in lieu of some of the more random interviews, like a sanctimonious Boston Herald reporter with a Cassandra complex and Chuck Stuart's former hairdresser. Still, this story and its racial implications remain harrowing and timely. The first episode is now on Max.

Mid By 'Midwest'

At 53 minutes, David Miller and Melinda Maerker's Hulu documentary We Live Here: The Midwest could stand to be longer, but there's something admirable about its brevity. We Live Here: The Midwest is like a series of snapshots, each looking at a different LGBTQIA+ family living, as the title says, in the Midwest. They're people who have chosen to live in Iowa and Minnesota and Ohio and their stories are a mixture of loving acceptance and painful prejudice, making it clear that while they're pieces of a common community, there's no wholly representative version of gay or queer or trans life in the heartland. Visibility is essential and this short film understands that. Be sure to read Rick Porter's  THR interview with Maerker and several of the doc's subjects.