📺 Fold in the cheese
A series finale, reviews of 2 new TV shows, and 6 new and returning series to watch this week
Happy Thursday. Have you been kicked off of your girlfriend’s brother’s ex-roommate’s Netflix account yet? It looks like the streaming service’s crackdown on password sharing is (unfortunately) actually working. Pour one out for Netflix’s bygone “the more the merrier” era, it seems there’s no going back now.
In today’s edition:
Weekly Watchlist
Never Have I Ever - Series Finale (Netflix)
Based on a True Story (Peacock)
American Born Chinese (Disney+)
— 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.
Black Mirror (Season 6) — Everyone’s favorite dystopian anthology series is back, this time starring familiar faces such as Kate Mara, Annie Murphy, and Aaron Paul.
Watch on Netflix: June 15 (all 5 episodes)Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Season 2) — This spin-off of Star Trek: Discovery — and the 11th series in the Star Trek universe — returns.
Watch on Paramount+: June 15 (1 of 10 episodes, then weekly)Outlander (Season 7, Part 1) — The first half of the penultimate season of Outlander comes to Starz this week, with the other half premiering some time in 2024.
Watch on Starz: June 16 (1 of 8 episodes, then weekly)The Righteous Gemstones (Season 3) — The Gemstone family return with their wild antics for a 3rd season.
Watch on Max: June 18 (2 of 9 episodes, then weekly)The Walking Dead: Dead City (Season 1) — This new spin-off sees Maggie and Negan traveling into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan in search of Maggie’s son.
Watch on AMC+: June 18 (1 of 6 episodes episodes, then weekly)Secret Invasion (Season 1) — The first series in Phase 5 of the MCU follows Nick Fury and his allies as they attempt to thwart a Skrull invasion of Earth.
Watch on Disney+: June 21 (1 of 6 episodes, then weekly)
A popular and beloved show has come to an end. Here’s what we thought about its final bow.
Never Have I Ever - Series Finale
Keywords: high school, comedy, coming of age
Watch if you like: Sex Education, Freaks and Geeks, XO Kitty
Jenni’s Rating: B
This coming-of-age comedy from Mindy Kaling follows teenage Devi Vishwakumar as she tries to navigate grief, identity, and the tangled mess of high school after the loss of her father. All episodes of the fourth and final season dropped June 8th.
I have enjoyed the heck out of Never Have I Ever. A lovely blend of sweet, funny, and sometimes sad, this chaotic comedy of errors has remained wonderfully consistent and wholesome throughout its four seasons. Are some of the gimmicks and tropes heavy handed? Possibly. Do a few punchlines pander to Gen Z in a way that could be perceived as cringey? Sure. But as I’ve commented before, this show is so confident in what is and what it’s trying to do, that any “annoying” or “over the top” moments usually come across as charming in the end. In fact, the tone of the whole series has matured nicely along with Devi and her friends, mellowing out significantly and allowing its characters to learn their lessons a bit more quickly.
This final season — and especially the series finale — is clearly intended as a crowd-pleaser. It takes all the goodness and momentum of the first three seasons and wrangles the remaining loose ends into neat little bows. It’s not bad, it’s just predictable and a bit lackluster compared to the depth of what came before. But if one thing is clear as our crew of college hopefuls marches toward the end of their journey at Sherman Oaks High, it’s that Never Have I Ever remains a sweet, satisfying show with a lot of heart.
— Jenni
Overall Show Length: 30-min runtime, 4 seasons / 40 episodes
Watch On: Netflix
Our thoughts on brand new streaming content, and where you can watch.
Based on a True Story
Keywords: true crime, satire, absurdism
Watch if you like: Only Murders in the Building, Dead To Me, Murderville
Jess’s Rating: C+
With the never-ending glut of true crime dramatizations, podcasts, and documentaries present in our media landscape, it was only a matter of time before the satirical and meta versions came along. First we had Only Murders in the Building, and now we have Based on a True Story. The former works well as a comedy, a mystery, and as a parody of true crime podcasts. The latter doesn’t work on any of those angles.
Funny at times, serious at others, the show never settles into its intended tone. It’s not quite a criticism of our obsession with true crime, not really a mystery, not totally an absurdist comedy, and not fully committed to exploring the dynamic of the failing marriage between its lead characters. It touches on each of these themes lightly and unconvincingly. There are also, strangely, hallucinatory scenes throughout that appear to serve no purpose.
This new drama-comedy series is not all bad, though, and at only eight 30-minute episodes, it’s a quick watch. It moves along at a frenzied pace, making up for what it lacks in inventiveness and perspective in sheer bingeability. Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina nail the absurdist tone without devolving into straight parody, and they bring an extra dimension to the series as a married couple going through a rough patch. There are certainly much better ways to spend ~4 hours, but if you’re looking for something to fill your Only Murders void, this might halfway do the trick.
— Jess
Length: 30-min runtime, 1 season / 8 episodes
Watch on: Peacock
American Born Chinese
Keywords: YA, fantasy, coming-of age, drama-comedy
Watch if you like: Willow, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Ms. Marvel
Jess’s Rating: B-
Adapted from a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese blends coming-of-age drama with fantasy, action, and comedy. The series follows Jin Wang, a 10th grader who is just trying to fit in with his peers. When new exchange student Wei-Chen comes into his life, Jin finds himself cast into the middle of a battle between Chinese gods.
Although it was marketed heavily that the show stars the award-winning leads of Everything Everywhere All At Once (Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu), that was clearly a ploy to increase viewership. Michelle Yeoh does have a prominent role, but Ke Huy Quan only appears in a minor sub-plot, and Stephanie Hsu is in one scene in one episode. That being said, the show’s actual leads are notably excellent, even if they aren’t yet household names. Ben Wang and Jimmy Liu, who play Jin and Wei-Chen respectively, are both young and new to the Hollywood scene but hold their own against their lauded co-stars.
While the series is not just for tweens and teens, it will hit harder for that audience. The coming-of-age story and the underlying exploration of the Chinese American experience are beautifully told, and I found myself wishing for more of that. The mythical elements and special-effects-laden fight scenes were less compelling. Ultimately, the show falls into the same trap as Ms. Marvel did— the tale of a teen discovering their supernatural abilities is interesting and starts off strong, but in the end is bogged down by CGI battle sequences that we’ve all seen hundreds of times before.
— Jess
Length: 30-min runtime, 1 season / 8 episodes
Watch on: Disney+
Your shows, returned:
Black Mirror, Season 6: Premieres June 15 on Netflix
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 2: Premieres June 15 on Paramount+
Project Runway, Season 20: Premieres June 15 on Bravo
The Righteous Gemstones, Season 3: Premieres June 18 on Max
And Just Like That…, Season 2: Premieres June 22 on Max
The Bear, Season 2: Premieres June 22 on Hulu
Upcoming new releases:
The Walking Dead: Dead City: Premieres June 18 on AMC/AMC+
Secret Invasion: Premieres June 21 on Disney+
Glamorous: Premieres June 22 on Netflix
Downey’s Dream Cars: Premieres June 22 on Max