📺 TV to Watch: The Crown, Fargo, and more
plus 3 upcoming movies and 1 returning series
That’s a wrap on November. If the advent of December tomorrow signals a move toward holiday movies and TV shows for you, today is your lucky day. Our latest podcast features a lot of Christmas movies we’ve been viewing recently — all the good, bad, and “so-bad-its-good” content that is getting us in the holiday spirit. Check it out and tell us what we missed!
In today’s edition:
Weekly Watchlist
Fargo - S5 (FX/Hulu)
The Crown - S6 Part 1 (Netflix)
Lessons in Chemistry (Apple TV+)
Dash & Lily (Netflix)
— Jenni Cullen and Jess Spoll
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We keep an eye on all of the new streaming content that is set to premiere. Here’s a list of new shows and movies to watch this week.
Virgin River (Season 5 Part 2) — The fifth season of the drama wraps up with 2 holiday episodes.
Watch on Netflix: November 30 (all 2 episodes)Family Switch (Movie) — This comedy stars Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms as parents who wake up one day in the bodies of their children.
Watch on Netflix: November 30Candy Cane Lane (Movie) — A holiday comedy starring Eddie Murphy as a man who is on a mission to win his neighborhood’s annual home decorating contest.
Watch on Prime Video: December 1May December (Movie) — Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore star in this drama about an actress who travels to Georgia to study the life of the controversial woman she is set to play in a movie.
Watch on Netflix: December 1
These popular shows came back with new episodes. Here’s what we thought and where you can watch them.
Fargo - Season 5
Keywords: dark comedy, absurdism, anthology series
Watch if you like: Fargo (the movie), Twin Peaks, Barry
Jess’s Rating: A
Fargo, the series inspired by the 1996 film of the same name, is an anthology series; each season is set in a different time and place, featuring new characters and a distinct story. So the fifth season just premiered, but you don’t need to have watched any of the previous entries. You don’t even need to have watched the original Coen Brothers movie. (Although, you probably still should).
This season’s arc follows a Minnesotan housewife, Dot (Juno Temple), whose mysterious past catches up with her after an incident involving the local police. Temple is joined by an impressive roster of co-stars: Jon Hamm, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Joe Keery (Steve in Stranger Things), Lamorne Morris (Winston in New Girl), and Richa Moorjani (Kamala in Never Have I Ever).
Having only seen the three episodes that are available so far, I have to temper my excitement a bit. But this show (this season, at least) is a delight. And I don’t mean that it’s delightful — it’s dark, violent, and bizarre — but it’s nailing the Coen Brothers’ style in the best way. The darkly comedic tone is set from the drop, with an opening scene in which a PTA meeting at a middle school auditorium turns into an all-out brawl, and by the third episode their signature thriller and surrealist elements take shape.
After watching the first episode, I was concerned that the show was too closely mimicking the movie, but by the second things took an unexpected and interesting turn. Perhaps they are retreading well-worn ground, but even if that ends up being the case, these performances have already proved this season’s worth.
— Jess
Length: 45-min runtime, 5 seasons / 3 of 10 episodes available in S5, new on Tuesdays (FX) / Wednesdays (Hulu)
Watch on: FX/Hulu
The Crown - Season 6: Part 1
Keywords: historical drama, Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Diana
Watch if you like: The Empress, Downton Abbey, Peaky Blinders
Jenni’s Rating: C+
Based on an award-winning play, this plush historical drama chronicles the life of Queen Elizabeth II and her family from the 1940s to modern times. The first season begins with an inside look at Elizabeth’s ascent to the throne at the age of 25. As the series moves through the decades, it spotlights the family intrigue, royal romances, and political rivalries that helped to shape the end of the 20th century. Now, in Season 6, we have arrived at a portion of the story many of us are more familiar with: Princess Diana’s untimely demise.
My opinion of this show wobbles slightly from season to season, but I have generally considered The Crown to be a solid series overall. These most recent episodes, however, feel like a greater departure in quality than any before. Don’t get me wrong, The Crown remains an excellently produced show in many ways; the attention to detail is absurdly good, the cinematography is beautiful, and the actors are all fantastic (Elizabeth Debicki is incredibly convincing as Diana). However, something about the writing and the pacing in this season is off. We’ve zoomed in on the final months of Diana’s life in four episodes, where previous seasons have covered half a decade in that same time. All the foreshadowing and emotional queuing is heavy-handed, and the dialogue is not as sharp as in previous seasons. On the whole, these episodes lean much more “soap” than “prestige drama” while the rest of the series has done better at toeing the line.
It’s still a fascinating story told by a brilliant cast, and I will definitely be watching Part 2 when it drops in a few weeks, but I’m mourning the lack of finesse in the first half of Season 6.
— Jenni
Length: 50-min runtime; 6 seasons / 4 of 10 episodes of S6 out now, Part 2 drops December 14th
Watch on: Netflix
We reviewed a show in its early days on air. Now that we’ve watched more of it, would we change our initial rating?
Lessons in Chemistry
Keywords: 50s period drama, miniseries, womanhood
Watch if you like: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Queen’s Gambit, Mad Men
Jenni’s Rating: C+
I reviewed the first two episodes of Lessons in Chemistry back in October. Now that the rest are out, I’m back with my thoughts on the series as a whole. As a refresher: this adaptation of Bonnie Garmus’s best-selling novel stars Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant chemist who has long been underestimated simply because she is a woman in 1950s America. After some bumps in her academic career, she becomes a wildly successful cooking show host, imbuing her TV program with science and a confidence that inspires the housewives who watch her.
Much of what I wrote in my first review remains true — the show is mostly feel-good, easy to watch, and entertaining. It’s shot as beautifully and with as much attention to detail as Mad Men, but is a less cynical, dark portrayal of the same era. As the series progressed, I continued to have a hard time separating my memory of the source material from the adaptation. While I did love some changes — namely Harriet Sloane’s character getting beefed up to create a more meaningful parallel narrative — other deviations baffled me. Why choose to have a dog narrate an entire episode and then essentially forget about him in the following five episodes? The dog (along with his whimsical narration) was a much bigger part of the book, but could’ve easily been left out of the miniseries with all the other changes they made.
The pacing remained a bit wonky throughout, made worse by the fact that this limited series is a bit overstuffed with plot. Lessons in Chemistry really could’ve benefited from a few more episodes to finish fleshing out some of its storylines and characters. While charming and enjoyable as a package, the show was a little boring at times and became largely a background watch for me after the first few episodes.
— Jenni
Length: 45-min runtime, 1 season / 8 episodes
Watch on: Apple TV+
Where we highlight shows that were one-and-done, have ended, or been canceled — and are well-worth revisiting.
Dash & Lily (2020)
Keywords: holiday, rom-com, teens
Watch if you like: To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, Never Have I Ever, The Summer I Turned Pretty
Jess’s Rating: B-
Dash & Lily is a Christmas YA rom-com that premiered in 2020, and I have just watched it for the first time this week. Why did I wait so long? Perhaps because I did not admit to myself until recently that I love cute/cheesy/feel-good YA romcoms. If you do too, don’t be ashamed! We all deserve to feel joy! You too can watch Dash & Lily!
Adapted from a novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, the series tracks the love story of two teens in NYC during the holiday season who meet each other via a mysterious red notebook left on the shelf of a bookstore. Lily is eternally optimistic and the picture of Christmas cheer, while Dash is a cynical Christmas grinch. It’s textbook strangers-to-lovers, opposites attract stuff here, but you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to craft the perfect cozy watch. Midori Francis as Lily is inexhaustibly charming in a role that could have been grating, and Austin Abrams is well-cast as a likable but bookish curmudgeon.
Like almost every other Christmas rom-com, Dash & Lily is sometimes overly corny, often requires a huge stretch of the imagination, and relies on clichés a little too often. It’s certainly not for everyone. If you’re the kind of person who can’t imagine tucking in for an evening with The Christmas Prince, then just move right along. But if you enjoy the occasional sentimental holiday flick, then this will fit right into your lineup.
— Jess
Length: 30-min runtime, 1 season / 8 episodes
Watch on: Netflix
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