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.

If I Were a Faltermeyer Winner, Everyone Would Be in Love With Me

I can't keep up with which phase of Eddie Murphy's ongoing comeback this is, but for the first time in 30 years, Axel Foley has returned. Directed by Mark Molloy and always intended for a straight-to-Netflix premiere, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F  restarts a franchise that had one good installment (Martin Brest's 1984 original, streaming on Netflix), one less-good installment (the 1987 sequel, also on Netflix) and an alleged third installment that we don't talk about at parties (even Netflix doesn't acknowledge a third film). At least the title of this new film puts the emphasis on Harold Faltermeyer's synth-tastic score and the story finds a way to bring back basically every living component piece from the original, but our David Rooney laments "the shortage of fresh perspective, the absence of excitement and the slavishness with which the filmmakers stick to the original formula in one unimaginative action sequence after another." My own Axel F review? It's adequate!

Frank 'Valley'

Axel F has to lead my newsletter this week because, like much of the workforce, TV took the holiday weekend off. Is the biggest new show seriously a documentary spinoff of Starz's P-Valley? It's possible! Down in the Valley is a hit-or-miss six-parter in which P-Valley star Nicco Annan travels the Deep South (and Dallas) telling stories that not-so-coincidentally resemble plotlines from Katori Hall's deservedly acclaimed strip club drama, which has been absent since late 2022. Watch  P-Valley if you haven't.

Voices Sha'Carri

I like to praise Greg Whiteley (Cheer, Wrestlers, America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders) and his team for having the best current sports documentary formula, but let's not take anything away from the group at Box to Box Films ( Break Point, Full Swing, Formula 1: Drive to Survive ). Their latest Netflix series is the six-part Sprint, another mixture of fantastically intimate sports photography and solid character-based storytelling, this time focused on a group of 100-meter and 200-meter sprinters. While the series is built around last year's World Track Championship in Budapest, most of the featured runners — a group including Noah Lyles, Sha'Carri Richardson, Gabby Thomas and a trio of Jamaican women — are also lined up for the Olympics in Paris. If you're looking to find an emotional investment in the Olympiad's marquee events, Sprint offers a generally satisfying — the Box to Box docs always tend to duck anything controversial — and entertaining primer.

'Clan' in da Front, Let Your Feet Stomp

Do you think anybody at ESPN is concerned that ESPN has basically no place at all in the discussion of the best CURRENT sports documentaries? I still happily watch every 30 for 30 film, but with only rare exceptions — Steve James' Bill Walton doc was the last great one — they've settled into a "slightly above average" rut. The latest decent (but not remarkable) entry from the franchise is Justin Staple's No Scope: The Story of FaZe Clan , an aesthetically and narratively unadventurous primer on esports titans FaZe Clan. Now streaming on ESPN+, it's basically designed for middle-aged audiences who want a vague understanding of what "the kids" are into. Watching it, I kept getting an instant museum piece vibe that made me think of movies like WarGames (streaming on Max), Hackers (Amazon) and The Net (Pluto).

Honoring Robert Towne

Chinatown is currently streaming on Max, Paramount+ and several other sites, and if that wondrously twisty script were Robert Towne's only credit, that would be enough for legendary status. The screenwriter and director, who died this week at 89, also wrote The Last Detail (Amazon), Shampoo (also Amazon) and the first Mission: Impossible film (Paramount+). I wish his writing-directing credits had better availability, because Personal Best, Tequila Sunrise and Without Limits are all between streaming homes.

Honoring Martin Mull

News of the passing of the great Martin Mull broke shortly after last week's Now See This newsletter went out, but I'm sure you'll be just as pleased as Lucille Bluth spotting Gene Parmesan to spend a weekend paying tribute to this comic great. If you don't get that reference, start with Arrested Development on Netflix, especially since neither Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman nor Fernwood 2 Night is currently streaming anywhere. Somehow, Mull was only nominated for a single Emmy, for his guest turn on Veep  (streaming on Max). Hard to believe he wasn't nominated for his fairly groundbreaking work on Roseanne, streaming on Peacock. So maybe just rewatch Clue, now on Paramount+.