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.

Seemingly overnight, AMC’s Interview with the Vampire has become The Vampire Lestat, and a show that tended toward the “operatic melodrama” side of the “camp” coin in its first two seasons has tipped over into something broader, funnier and sillier in its third. Through the four episodes I’ve watched, the series is still full of potent elements — especially Sam Reid, who after being absent for large chunks of the previous run emerges as this one’s brash and often ridiculous star, infusing Lestat’s tormented psyche with notes of David Bowie and Ozzy Osbourne. It’s huge performance, and I found it somewhat annoying that the ensemble, which is full of theatrical actors including the charismatic Eric Bogosian, is suddenly trying to compete with Reid for scenery (or neck, I suppose) chewing. The third chapter in particular is dominated by people screaming in ridiculous accents (though nobody can compete with whatever the heck Jennifer Ehle is doing). What keeps The Vampire Lestat from going full-on True Blood, a comparison I made more than a few times in my notes, is its amusing self-reflexivity, especially when it parallels performative vampirism and performative rock stardom, all while mocking the conventions of documentary filmmaking. There’s enough cleverness and Reid is entertaining enough that I’ll eventually finish up the season. But while this show has emerged as a tonal cocktail that some viewers will love, I am not one of those viewers.

Since neither previous version of Cape Fear has a current streaming home, you COULD pretend that Nick Antosca’s 10-part Apple TV miniseries is the first adaptation of John D. MacDonald’s The Executioners. But since Antosca opens his take with a direct nod to Martin Scorsese’s 1991 film and makes heavy use of Bernard Herrmann’s iconic score from the 1962 film and is full of other references and cameos, that would be weird. MacDonald’s a lean and mean and nasty story of revenge and counter-revenge and the padding of the plot to get to limited series length feels, at every turn, like padding. On the plus side, the cast is tremendous. Javier Bardem is every bit the equal of Robert De Niro and Robert Mitchum as an onscreen gravitational force. Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson, as the bifurcated equivalent of Gregory Peck and Nick Nolte, are very good. Pay real attention to Lily Collias, whose soulful naturalism plays well as a contrast to all the outsized performances around her. And yes, with The Vampire Lestat AND Cape Fear premiering this weekend, it’s a big weekend for viewers who enjoy their entertainment to be all up in their faces. As a note, it’s very likely that this is one of those shows that works better viewed weekly than binged, which will probably reduce the overall sense of excess.

The only thing more impressive than the quality of Questlove’s mid-career transition from musical genius to documentary chronicler of musical genius (with a focus on Black excellence) is how instantly prolific he has become. In just five years, the Roots frontman has directed or co-directed Summer of Soul, Sly Lives!, the 50 Years of SNL Music movie and now Earth Wind & Fire: To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World, premiering Sunday night (June 7) on HBO. Like Sly Lives!, whose full title includes aka the Burden of Black Genius, this new film is a portrait of uncompromising artistic brilliance — in this case Maurice White — which doesn’t treat the impresario as a saint without flaws. It’s packed with the sort of details and depth that will delight existing fans and delightful footage that will pull in neophytes and sway the previously ambivalent. My favorite parts include Barack and Michelle Obama geeking out about their favorite Earth, Wind & Fire memories, Questlove’s own off-camera astonishment at realizing how Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” was inspired by “Shining Star” and the climactic use of “September,” which I briefly worried might somehow go ignored. Our Frank Scheck promises the doc will “have HBO viewers rising from their couches to get up and dance.”

The Tonys are usually my favorite awards telecast because even when I haven’t seen any of the nominated shows, a handful of good live performances will inevitably send me scurrying to Expedia — not a sponsor of this fine newsletter — to try to find cheap tickets to New York. Last year I had one pre-Christmas trip to Broadway and I managed to catch the spectacular revival of Ragtime, Carrie Coon’s standout performance in Bug and best play nominees Liberation and Little Bear Ridge Road, so I’ve got a tiny bit of skin in the game. Plus, my parents tell me I need to rush this year’s trip so I don’t miss John Lithgow and Aya Cash in Giant. Anyway, I’m curious how Pink, the host of Sunday’s CBS/Paramount+ telecast, will do, since she’s clearly talented and versatile, but I don’t instantly see how she meshes with the show’s overall ethos. Be sure to check out Scott Feinberg’s Tonys roundtable, featuring the likes of Nathan Lane, Lithgow and mind-bogglingly talented Ragtime star Joshua Henry.

It’s been a chaotic week and there are several new shows I haven’t had time to sample. Based on Angie Han’s review, Hulu’s Alice and Steve is the one I’ll check out first. Premiering Monday, it’s a six-episode comedy that Angie praised for Nicola Walker’s “barnburner of a performance” and for its “poignancy of emotion.” It also co-stars Yali Topol Margalith, whom I saw in the original London stage production of A Band’s Visit and whose maternal grandfather is Fiddler on the Roof legend Chaim Topol. Only one of those pieces of trivia probably interests you. Angie was enthusiastic, albeit a bit less so, about Hulu’s Mindy Kaling-created Not Suitable for Work, calling it “reliably funny, lightly sweet and generally chill,” but also a bit dated. I miss The Sex Lives of College Girls, so I’m always willing to sample a new Kaling comedy.

One last check-in on Top Chef: Carolinas before Monday’s finale! Last week’s penultimate episode was representative of what has become a mixed bag of a season. Once again, the geographic theme slipped through the cracks, as the showdown to make the top three came down to an entirely studio-set challenge without an iota of regional specificity. Very odd. Plus, the last representative of this year’s dual casting twists went home without ever having had the high drama faceoff that producers fantasized. Still, as with the previous week’s entry focusing on hurricane recovery efforts in Asheville, the episode had an emotional climax and we’re down to a final trio of two early front-runners (one of whom is riding high after a midseason dip and the other of whom is struggling a little at the wrong time) and a late-charging dark horse. It’s a good top three of chefs who appear to make good food, which is the primary thing I demand from Top Chef (streaming on Peacock). For more of my thoughts on the highly flawed spring seasons of Survivor and Top Chef, be sure to check out my column on the subject!