📺 Sitcoms, Romcoms, and Vampire Dramas
The return of Loot & The Big Door Prize, plus Trying and Interview with the Vampire
Happy Thursday! And Happy Hacks Day to all who celebrate!! Season 3 is here and we couldn’t be happier. Check out our watchlist below for three other shows/movies premiering today and what else is coming your way this week.
In today’s edition:
Weekly Watchlist
Loot - Season 2 (Apple TV+)
The Big Door Prize - Season 2 (Apple TV+)
Trying (Apple TV+)
Interview with the Vampire (AMC/AMC+)
— Jenni Cullen and Jess Spoll
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Below is a selection of new shows and movies premiering this week. Our full list of May releases, including theatrical releases and streaming debuts, is available here and published monthly for our premium subscribers.
The Idea of You — Based on the novel of the same name, this love story centers on a 40-year-old single mom (Anne Hathaway) who begins an unexpected romance with the 24-year-old lead singer (Nicholas Galitzine) of the hottest boy band in the world.
Watch on Prime Video: May 2Welcome to Wrexham (Season 3) — Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are back with their Welsh AFC soccer team in this docuseries that sometimes feels like a “real life Ted Lasso.”
Watch on Hulu: May 2 (2 of 8 episodes, then weekly)Hacks (Season 3) — One of our favorite comedies is finally back! This season picks up where the rocky mentorship between legendary Las Vegas comic (Jean Smart) and outcast 20-something comedy writer (Hannah Einbender) left off.
Watch on Max: May 2 (2 of 9 episodes, then 2 per week)A Man in Full (Limited Series) — When Atlanta real estate mogul Charlie Croker faces bankruptcy, he must defend his empire from those attempting to capitalize on his fall from grace in this new limited series drama.
Watch on Netflix: May 2 (all 6 episodes)Unfrosted — In his feature directorial debut, Jerry Seinfeld brings us the newest big-brand biopic, taking an absurdist approach to the origin story of the Pop-Tart. A host of comedians star alongside Seinfeld including Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, and Daniel Levy.
Watch on Netflix: May 3Dark Matter (Season 1) — Created by Blake Crouch and based on his best-selling book, this sci-fi series follows a physicist who is abducted into an alternate version of his life. He must fight to get back to his true family and save them from the other version of himself. Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly star.
Watch on Apple TV+: May 8 (2 of 9 episodes, then weekly)
These popular shows came back with new episodes. Here’s what we thought and where you can watch them.
Loot
Keywords: workplace comedy, goofy, satire
Watch if you like: Parks and Recreation, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Schitt’s Creek
Jess’s Rating: B-
When I reviewed the first season of Maya Rudolph-led comedy Loot back in 2022, I was decidedly not a fan. So I’m happy to report back that the series has settled into a distinct tone and voice in its second season, and it’s a much more enjoyable watch this time around.
Loot centers around Molly Novak (Maya Rudolph) after she divorces her tech billionaire husband (Adam Scott) and is awarded a settlement of $87 billion. Determined to use her time and money responsibly, she takes over active leadership of her charitable foundation and begins giving away her fortune.
My biggest complaint with the first season was that the show was trying to be both a workplace comedy and a satire, but it came up short on both fronts. Molly’s character arc from out-of-touch train-wreck to optimistic philanthropist, though, has enabled the sitcom to lean into the spirit and tone of a traditional workplace-ensemble comedy, and that’s been a drastic improvement. The office setting is more central to the happenings, allowing the opportunity to mine humor from the red tape and community apathy that surrounds running a charity. Maya Rudolph’s performance has been the show’s lynchpin from the start, but the rest of the cast now has more to do, and the jokes land more consistently,
Despite my improved outlook on Loot, the underlying premise will always keep it from excellence. While the writers may have Molly say that billionaires shouldn’t exist, the show never goes further than that platitude in condemning extravagant wealth. But as a quirky episodic comedy, it’s guaranteed to deliver at least a few laughs.
— Jess
Length: 30-min runtime, 2 seasons / 20 episodes (6 of 10 available in S2, new on Wednesdays)
Watch on: Apple TV+
The Big Door Prize
Keywords: drama-comedy, ensemble comedy, mystery
Watch if you like: Schitt’s Creek, Big, Welcome to Flatch
Jenni’s Rating: C+
This cozy, low-stakes mystery dramedy is back for a second season. In case you need a premise refresher: The Big Door Prize follows a group of small-town residents whose lives are upended by the appearance of a strange “MORPHO” machine at their local general store. The machine promises to help users discover their life potential, which ranges from seemingly straightforward occupations such as “Magician” to more ambiguous concepts like “Hero,” “Liar,” and “Whistler.” Season 2 picks up right where the Season 1 finale cliffhanger (that I won’t say more about, so as not to spoil) left us.
Despite a fantastic cast and a (sort of) compelling mystery, I was pretty burnt out on the weird little town of Deerfield by the end of the first season. It just never felt like the show’s tone fully settled; the episodes wobbled frequently between zany character bits and moody existential drama — and not in the well-blended way of The Good Place, a show that takes on a similar odd mix and succeeds.
The new season of The Big Door Prize re-ups the mysterious intrigue and, so far, includes more developed character humor that you would expect from the sophomore installment of an ensemble comedy. But the funny moments are undermined by confusing emotional turns and disconnected storytelling. Even though I’d love to know what’s up with this MORPHO machine once and for all, I doubt we’ll be getting concrete answers any time soon — if ever — and I have other comfort shows I’d rather be watching.
— Jenni
Length: 30-min runtime, 2 seasons / 4 of 10 episodes of S2 available now
Watch on: Apple TV+
Where we choose a recent-ish show that we enjoyed (or a show that is returning soon) to review and feature.
Trying
Keywords: Keywords: witty, comedy, British
Watch if you like: The Letdown, Catastrophe, Workin’ Moms
Jenni’s Rating: A-
Trying is a British comedy about Nikki (Esther Smith) and Jason (Rafe Spall), a young couple who desperately want to become parents, but struggle to conceive a child. In order to expand their family, they decide to adopt, bringing on a whole new set of challenges to deal with on top of those that come with their eccentric families, dysfunctional friends, and already chaotic lives.
While I neither am a parent nor know anyone in the midst of the adoption process, I find Trying to be a wonderfully relatable sitcom. The characters are easy to fall in love with; they feel like people you could know, and their sometimes witty, sometimes bumbling reactions to life’s challenges help bring levity to situations that could easily skew much darker with a different perspective.
The series strikes a wonderful balance between sincerity and cheekiness, making it a great choice for a lighthearted watch that isn’t ever too saccharine. If you ever wished Ted Lasso had a little bit more bite, or Fleabag was a touch or two less dark, you should definitely check out Trying. Season 4 is coming on May 22, so there is still time to catch up on this hidden gem before the new episodes drop.
— Jenni
Length: 30-min runtime, 3 seasons / 24 episodes
Watch on: Apple TV+
Interview with the Vampire
Keywords: queer romance, horror, gory, soapy
Watch if you like: The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Hannibal
Jess’s Rating: B+
Did we need another show about vampires? I would have said no, but after watching the TV series reboot of Interview with the Vampire, I’m changing my tune. Based on Anne Rice’s iconic 1976 novel, which was famously adapted into a movie with Brad Pitt in ‘94, this is the perfect example of how to update a classic for a more modern time.
Despite some major changes, the underlying tale remains the same: a human journalist conducts an interview with a vampire named Louis who recounts how he was turned into a creature of the night by the powerful Lestat. Unlike in the film, the relationship between the two vampires is openly queer, placing their toxic and passionate relationship at the center of this story. Rather than merely hinting at it, this shift from subtext to text allows for an examination of trauma, manipulation, and complex power dynamics in their partnership. And by relocating the narrative to early 1900s New Orleans and rewriting Louis as an affluent Black man during the Jim Crow era, there is even more complexity to plumb from the controlling relationship.
Central to the success of Interview with the Vampire are the mesmerizing performances of Jacob Anderson as Louis and Sam Reid as Lestat. Both exceptional in their own right, their chemistry is electric — the kind that would spawn endless Tumblr fan-edits if this were 2011.
Interview with the Vampire is sometimes campy, occasionally veering into soap territory, but underneath it’s an emotionally resonant story about love and grief. Every bit of the production, from the set design and costumes to the chemistry between the leads, works together to create a sumptuous Gothic romance. If you missed the first season when it premiered, you have a couple of weeks to catch up before the second season is released.
— Jess
Length: 50-min runtime, 1 season / 7 episodes
Watch on: AMC / AMC+
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