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.

Happy 'Sun' Ball

If you go into Netflix's The Brothers Sun  expecting complex family melodrama, you'll be scratching your head within minutes; the predominant tone of Brad Falchuk and Byron Wu's action comedy is weighed heavily toward the "comedy." The series is, as our Angie Han puts it, "zany," or possibly even "silly," but at least the fish-out-of-water antics are entertaining, grounded by Michelle Yeoh's gangster mama. Director Kevin Tancharoen keeps the energy high, the writers pepper the scripts with cultural specificity, and the cast — kudos to Justin Chien, Highdee Kuan, Madison Hu and Jenny Yang among others — shines even when the plotting veers between intentionally trope-y and awash in clichés. Maybe it could have been better, but for the first week of January, fast-moving and fun isn't bad.

Watching the Detectives

If It's January 2024 and your TV show DOESN'T have a murder investigation in the background, are you even a TV show? The Brothers Sun has one. AMC+'s witchy drama Sanctuary: A Witch's Tale has one (and Angie says the natural stuff is more interesting than the supernatural). FOX's new animated comedy Grimsburg — erratic, but far better than the recent  Krapopolis — has multiple murder investigations every week. Try not to get burnt out on murder investigations, though. Next week's newsletter is sure to mention HBO's True Detective: Night Country and AMC's Monsieur Spade and possibly even Apple TV+'s Criminal Record.

1999: A Chase Odyssey

While we should never forget that Oz preceded it on HBO by more than two years, The Sopranos earned its place as one of television's true game changers. The mobster dark comedy, which premiered 25 years ago next Wednesday, reshaped the way that we — critics and audiences and awards voters alike — viewed and evaluated TV and its aspirations. If you didn't already rewatch The Sopranos during the pandemic, now's a good time to head over to Max to trace the David Chase series' progression from a violent and extremely funny piece of high-concept entertainment into a Shakespearean family tragedy that was surreal and haunting and heartbreaking (in addition to still being funny and violent). How good was The Sopranos ? When we made our list of the 50 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century (So Far), we couldn't count the first season, which aired in 1999. That's still my favorite season and even without it, the show came in at No.2. 

Decent 'Exposure' 

Another of the streaming age's long-absent holy grails has finally found a home in the digital age. Only a couple of months after Moonlighting landed on Hulu, CBS' quirky dramedy North Exposure has made its debut on Amazon. The winner of 27 Emmys, including the 1992 trophy for outstanding drama series — broadcast shows could still win that category back then — Northern Exposure focused on a New York City doctor (Rob Morrow's Joel Fleischman) who moves to a remote corner of Alaska and slowly becomes part of its eccentric community. Like Moonlighting, Northern Exposure  wasn't the most consistent show around, but the series, created by Joshua Brand and John Falsey, broke tonal and topical boundaries and the ensemble was as good as it gets.

Cannibal Run

Frank Marshall's Alive isn't currently streaming anywhere, which makes it the perfect time for J.A. Bayona’s Society of the Snow, the latest chronicle of the same 1972 plane crash/human survival buffet in the Andes. Our David Rooney said the 2.5 hour Netflix thriller (pictured) could use some tightening, but he raved about the harrowing set-pieces. Netflix also has Daniel Levy's feature debut Good Grief,  which Rooney deemed "perfectly watchable but a little dull.” The weekend's final big streaming release is Garth Davis' Foe, a dystopian sci-fi drama that fizzled in its fall festival rollout despite the presence of stars Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal. Rooney praised both leads but said the film itself "steadily devolves into sappiness, confusion and self-important solemnity." 

Honoring Tom Wilkinson

Tom Wilkinson died last weekend at the age of 75. From his breakout role in 1998's The Full Monty through FX's recent series update of that working-class British comedy, Wilkinson built a resumé of compelling lead roles and scene-anchoring character performances, astonishing for its variety and, more than that, its consistency. If Tom Wilkinson was in something, it was a guarantee that whether he was on-screen for 30 seconds or two hours, at least one thing would be worth watching. Wilkinson's Oscar-nominated Michael Clayton  performance is streaming on Fubu and Showtime OnDemand, but his exceptional work in In the Bedroom is currently between streaming homes, as is the original The Full Monty. Max has Wilkinson's Emmy-winning turn in John Adams, as well as Denial, Shakespeare in Love and Batman Begins.