📺 Class, take your seats: Abbott is back
What to watch this week plus reviews of FEUD: Capote vs. the Swans, Criminal Record, Genius: MLK/X, and Blue Eye Samurai
Happy Super Bowl Weekend. Plan to tune-in? It’s been hard lately to know where to stream the game you want to watch, but all that could change this year. ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox Corp. are supposedly releasing a joint streaming service for all their high-profile sports programming in the Fall. In other (more exciting) news, Abbott Elementary is finally back! We’ll forgive you if you stop reading this newsletter now to start watching the first episode of season 3.
In today’s edition:
Weekly Watchlist
FEUD: Capote vs. the Swans (FX/Hulu)
Criminal Record (Apple TV+)
Genius: MLK/X (Nat Geo/Disney+)
Blue Eye Samurai (Netflix)
— Jess Spoll and Jenni Cullen
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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.
Abbott Elementary (Season 3) — School is back in session for our favorite new workplace comedy about a group of dedicated Philadelphia public school teachers and their tone deaf principal.
Watch on ABC/Hulu: February 7 / 8Not Dead Yet (Season 2) — This network sitcom about an obituary writer (Gina Rodriguez) who can talk to the dead people she’s writing about returns.
Watch on ABC/Hulu: February 7 / 8One Day (Limited Series) — Based on David Nicholls’ 2009 novel of the same name, this romantic drama tells the decades-spanning love story of Dexter (Leo Woodall) and Emma (Ambika Mod) who reunite on the same day every year.
Watch on Netflix: February 8 (all 14 episodes)Tracker (Season 1) — This new crime drama based on The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver stars Justin Hartley as Colter Shaw, a mysterious survivalist who uses his expert tracking skills to solve mysteries across the country.
Watch on CBS/Paramount+: February 11The New Look (Season 1) — Set in Nazi-occupied Paris during WWII, this new historical drama stars Ben Mendelsohn as the icon Christian Dior and delves into the origins of modern fashion. Maisie Williams, John Malkovich, and Glenn Close also star.
Watch on Apple TV+: February 14 (3 of 10 episodes, then weekly)
Our thoughts on brand new streaming content, and where you can watch.
FEUD: Capote vs. the Swans
Keywords: anthology series, docudrama, New York high society
Watch if you like: Fosse/Verdon, Feud: Bette and Joan
Jenni’s Rating: C-
The latest installment of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series on famous feuds throughout history is based on Laurence Leamer’s bestselling book, Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era. Tom Hollander stars as the lauded Truman Capote, whose life begins to unravel after he publishes a thinly-veiled account of his socialite friends’ lives. The ladies close ranks and shut him out in response, resulting in a drunken downward spiral that signals the end of the author's career.
The first episode of Capote vs. the Swans — rife with scandal, manipulation, and revenge — is extremely promising, but unfortunately all the promise (and the fun) fizzles out rather quickly. So little happens in the following two episodes that I worry for the content of the last five; it certainly doesn’t seem like there will be sufficient plot to save or sustain the season. Most of the screen time is spent reiterating the effects of Truman’s betrayal ad nauseam — bouncing between the hurt, stalwart socialite friends and a volatile, inebriated Capote who has burned all his bridges and can’t even sit up long enough to build anything new. It’s frustrating and borderline dull. To add insult to injury, the timeline jumps around quite frantically, which makes any wisp of an emotional or plot arc hard to follow. That could be a conscious choice intended to emulate Truman’s own tenuous grasp on reality as he descends further into alcoholism, however it’s only serving to make the production muddy thus far.
The one unwaveringly strong piece of Feud’s second season is its acting. The entire ensemble cast (including Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Chloë Sevigny, Calista Flockhart, Demi Moore, and Molly Ringwald) is strong despite a lack of compelling material, but Hollander in particular is exceptional as Capote. In the season’s opening chapters, he all but disappears into the eccentric author that commands and titillates every room with his storytelling. And he plays the needling, drunk, self-destructive shell of a man who has lost high-society favor equally well. The performances are so noteworthy, it’s a pity there’s not better material to support them.
While Feud: Capote vs. the Swans has a few more episodes to turn things around, I’m not optimistic. So far, it hasn’t delivered on the potential of its source material and if it follows the trajectory its on, we’ll be in for five more hours of “bummer”.
— Jenni
Length: 60-min runtime, 2 seasons / 3 of 8 episodes out of Season 2, new on Wednesdays
Watch on: FX / Hulu
Criminal Record
Keywords: crime drama, police, British, limited series
Watch if you like: Luther, Happy Valley, C.B. Strike
Jess’s Rating: C+
Cush Jumbo and Peter Capaldi co-star in Criminal Record, the latest crime thriller to hit Apple TV+’s proverbial shelf. We begin with a mystery: an anonymous woman calls an emergency hotline claiming that her abusive partner is responsible for a murder that was pinned on an innocent man. That man is serving a 24-year prison sentence. As one detective searches for the truth, she uncovers what might be police negligence— or something far more sinister.
Jumbo and Capaldi make a compelling pair as Lenker and Hegarty, a young Black woman working within a vastly white police force, and a cagey white veteran cop who gets in her way. Jumbo’s wide-eyed idealism juxtaposes Capaldi’s menacing glower, and their scenes are tense and explosive. The series relies on the strength of its two central figures, and while the performances hold up, the underlying characterization proves to be fragile. Impenetrable Hegarty slowly starts to crack, determined Lenker becomes disillusioned, but neither’s occasional scene outside of the workplace does much to humanize them beyond those bullet points.
The core message underlying Criminal Record is clear: the system is stacked against women like Lenker, and supports men like Hegarty. By weaving this and other themes of racial injustice, corruption, and institutional mismanagement into an otherwise straightforward cop drama, the series gives its viewers more to chew on. And while I appreciate that added layer of depth and enjoy watching Jumbo and Capaldi face off, these aspects don’t buoy the series enough to make up for a lack of character depth and a run-of-the-mill mystery.
— Jess
Length: 60-min runtime, 1 season / 8 episodes (6 available now, new on Wednesdays)
Watch on: Apple TV+
Genius: MLK / X
Keywords: docudrama, anthology series, Civil Rights Movement
Watch if you like: Lessons in Chemistry, The Crown, Watchmen
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