📺 A Squid Game copycat, Elisabeth Moss, and the new Bridgerton season...
plus 'The Big Cigar' and 7 upcoming streaming shows and movies
Just one more sleep til Memorial Day Weekend. Today calls for a special birthday shout out to a friend of the newsletter and Double Take podcast — the True Detective critic and arctic scientist himself — Jon! Will you celebrate the long weekend and Jon’s birthday by catching some rays or by catching up with all the best TV that has premiered in the last three weeks? Maybe go on a long walk and listen to our latest podcast episode on Hacks Season 3 for the best of both worlds.
In today’s edition:
Weekly Watchlist
Bridgerton - Season 3 (Netflix)
The Big Cigar (Apple TV+)
The 8 Show (Netflix)
The Veil (Hulu)
— 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 Blue Angels — From producers Glen Powell and J.J. Abrams, this documentary chronicles a year with the Navy’s elite Flight Demonstration Squadron.
Watch on Prime Video: May 23Evil (Season 4) — The final season of this American supernatural mystery drama sees a skeptical forensic psychologist, Catholic seminarian, and technology contractor investigating supernatural events together for the last time.
Watch on Paramount+: May 23 (2 of 14 episodes, then weekly)Tires (Season 1) — A new sitcom created by and starring comedian Shane Gillis follows a man who inherits his father's auto repair chain and tries to turn it around despite torture from his cousin and now-employee.
Watch on Netflix: May 23 (all 6 episodes)The Kardashians (Season 5) — In case you haven’t been keeping up, a new season of this rebooted reality series focusing on the personal lives of the Kardashian-Jenner family hits your screens just in time for MDW.
Watch on Hulu: May 23 (1 of 10 episodes, then weekly)Atlas — Jennifer Lopez and Simu Liu star in this sci-fi action thriller about a misanthropic data analyst who teams up with a renegade robot to save humanity from AI.
Watch on Netflix: May 24Ferrari — Michael Mann’s biopic starring Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari comes to Hulu this week.
Watch on Hulu: May 24 (Streaming Premiere)The Boys in the Boat — Callum Turner and Joel Edgerton star in this biographical sports drama directed by George Clooney about a rowing team’s quest to compete in the 1936 Summer Olympics.
Watch on Prime Video: May 28 (Streaming Premiere)
These popular shows came back with new episodes. Here’s what we thought and where you can watch them.
Bridgerton - Season 3
Keywords: soapy, romance, period drama
Watch if you like: Queen Charlotte, The Buccaneers, Sanditon
Jenni’s Rating: C
🚨Light spoilers for the series ahead🚨
It should be a crime to release seasons of television in two parts. I don’t care if streamers want to give it to me all at once or weekly, but a one-month hiatus between halves of a season is maybe more than I can handle.
The four episodes we do have of Bridgerton Season 3 follow the regency romance’s first foray into the “friends to lovers” trope with Colin and Penelope’s story. Penelope is in her third year on the marriage market with no prospects in sight and is now desperate to find a husband to get away from her family. Colin, meanwhile, has returned from a tour of Europe that has given him the air of “slightly obnoxious study-abroad student who won’t stop saying Ibeetha.” Oblivious as usual to Penelope’s long-time feelings for him, the third Bridgerton brother offers to coach her in the art of flirting and courting. I think we can all see how this will play out.
Just like those that came before it, the latest season of Bridgerton is fun, escapist, and rather uneven. I will admit, I was particularly giddy at the prospect of a My Fair Lady-type romance at the core of these episodes, but unfortunately, the build up has been minimal so far and the tension, all surface. Crowded with side plots and setups for future Bridgerton family arcs, the first part of Season 3 simply doesn’t give Colin and Pen enough screen time. Perhaps we will get a bit more development in Part 2, but on the whole, this season feels particularly rushed. With so much potential richness in all the characters and their relationships, I understand the urge to have them share the spotlight, but that wider focus demands more time than eight episodes per season. As it is, the romance between the two leads this time around is left underdeveloped and a little lackluster. I really hope the back half steps up and I eat my words in June.
— Jenni
Length: 60-min runtime, 3 seasons / 24 episodes (4 of 8 out for Season 3, second half airs on June 13)
Watch on: Netflix
Our thoughts on brand new streaming content, and where you can watch.
The Big Cigar
Keywords: biographical, drama, limited series
Watch if you like: Manhunt, Argo, Catch Me If You Can
Jess’s Rating: C+
Apple TV+ sure does love its biographical drama series: Franklin, The New Look, and Manhunt all premiered in the last few months, and now, this week, we have The Big Cigar. The newest of the bunch is adapted from Joshuah Bearman’s 2012 article of the same name about the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, Huey P. Newton (André Holland), and his escape to Cuba while being pursued by the FBI.
The series offers a glimpse into the socio-political landscape of the 1970s, flipping back and forth between Newton’s fugitive escape plan and his early days within the Black Panther organization. Holland is compelling as the Party leader, believably shouldering the weight of being hailed as an icon in a period of tumult and unease. But the focus of the series seems altogether misplaced. For viewers who are coming in without a lot of prior knowledge of the movement or of Newton, the parts that are shown in flashbacks and quick asides feel like they should be the real meat of the story. Rather than exploring Newton’s legacy, the series centers on his unconventional escape plan, in which a Hollywood producer concocts a fake movie codenamed “The Big Cigar” to help Newton evade his murder charge. This narrow focus allows for a zany heist-movie vibe at the expense of a deeper examination of Newton’s complex life and impact. While such a stylistic choice lends itself to the occasional humorous moment, it grinds against the weightier themes of political persecution underpinning the narrative.
The Big Cigar offers a truncated look at both the turbulent era in which the Black Panther Party operated and the challenges faced by Black activists in America. For a series with plenty of runtime, it’s oddly content to leave a majority of Newton and the Panthers’ story untold, telling instead a specific tale that could easily have been shortened to feature-length.
— Jess
Length: ~50-min runtime, Limited Series / 6 episodes
Watch on: Apple TV+
The 8 Show
Keywords: Korean drama, limited series, dark satire, violence
Watch if you like: Squid Game, Alice in Borderland, Night Has Come
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