📺 What to watch this week, plus 'Dead Ringers', 'Transatlantic', and 'The Diplomat'
7 series, 2 movies, and 3 reviews of recent shows
Welcome back! Two new shows debut today that you should know about: Mrs. Davis on Peacock (Damon Lindelof’s newest outing!) and The Diplomat on Netflix. In other TV news, your favorite (undead) Cullen family may be getting a television reboot. The unnamed Twilight series is in early development at Lionsgate.
In today’s edition:
Weekly watchlist
Dead Ringers
Transatlantic
The Diplomat
— 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.
Dead Ringers (Limited Series) — Rachel Weisz stars as twin gynecologists in this gender-swapped reimagining of Cronenberg’s 1988 movie of the same name.
Watch on Prime Video: April 21 (all 6 episodes)Drops of God (Season 1) — The estranged daughter of a wealthy wine connoisseur faces off against her father’s protégé in a bid for her inheritance.
Watch on Apple TV+: April 21 (2 of 8 episodes, then weekly)Ghosted (Movie) — Chris Evans and Ana de Armas star in this international spy action-adventure-romance.
Watch on Apple TV+: April 21A Tourist’s Guide to Love (Movie) — Rachael Leigh Cook stars in this rom-com about a travel executive who visits Vietnam and finds romance with her expat tour guide.
Watch on Netflix: April 21From (Season 2) — This sci-fi horror series is back for a second season of mystery and monsters. (Note: Epix has since rebranded to MGM+).
Watch on MGM+: April 23 (1 of 10 episodes, then weekly)Somebody Somewhere (Season 2) — This semi-autobiographical series about and starring comedian Bridget Everett returns for a sophomore outing.
Watch on HBO Max: April 23 (1 of 7 episodes, then weekly)Saint X (Limited Series) — Based on the novel of the same name by Alexis Schaitkin, this psychological drama follows the aftermath of a young woman’s mysterious death during her Caribbean vacation.
Watch on Hulu: April 26 (3 of 8 episodes, then weekly)Love & Death (Limited Series) — Another true crime dramatization about Candy Montgomery, a woman accused of murdering her best friend in 1980s Texas.
Watch on HBO Max: April 27 (3 of 6 episodes, then weekly)Firefly Lane (Season 2 Part 2) — This series about friendship, based on the novel of the same name by Kristin Hannah, returns for the rest of its second season.
Watch on Netflix: April 27 (all 7 episodes)
Our thoughts on brand new streaming content, and where you can watch.
Dead Ringers
Keywords: psychological thriller, disturbing, graphic, content warnings: childbirth, miscarriage, suicidal ideation
Watch if you like: Requiem for a Dream, David Cronenberg movies, The Haunting of Hill House
Jess’s Rating: A
In this gender-swapped reimagining of the 1988 Cronenberg film of the same name, Rachel Weisz plays twin gynecologists who dream of opening a revolutionary medical birthing center. Elliott Mantle is the wild, uninhibited twin, with lofty goals to push science beyond the boundaries of precedent and ethics. Beverly Mantle is the timid “baby sister” with strong maternal instincts and a predisposition to hiding in her sister’s shadow. When their co-dependency is threatened by outside forces, they struggle to maintain their sanity.
This limited series is more than just a vehicle to showcase Rachel Weisz’s outstanding acting chops; led by Alice Birch (Normal People) and an all-female writing team, it’s a brilliant dissertation on the devastating reality and horrors of women’s healthcare and childbirth. While other films and shows tend to steer clear of loaded topics such as fertility, miscarriages, and abortion, Dead Ringers explores each of these with unflinching candor. Notably, the series takes an incredibly realistic and graphic approach to portraying childbirth in a way that has never been done on screen before. (Warning: it’s VERY graphic).
Beyond those themes, at its core, Dead Ringers is a bizarre tale of the toxic, co-dependent relationship between a set of twins who share everything: drugs, women, and a desire to bring women’s healthcare into a new era. The series, at its start, is grounded in reality, but over time becomes increasingly twisted, frenzied, and fever dream-esque. It’s darkly funny, subversive, and with its stylized sets and theatrical staging, campy. Dead Ringers is a masterful piece of art, even if it isn’t always a perfectly polished story, and as with all notable art, it will linger with me for many years.
— Jess
Length: 60-min runtime, Limited Series / 6 episodes
Watch on: Prime Video
Transatlantic
Keywords: limited series, WWII, period drama
Watch if you like: The Hour, World on Fire, Unorthodox
Jenni’s Rating: C
This new limited series starring Gillian Jacobs (Community) and Cory Michael Smith (Gotham) is based on The Flight Portfolio, a novel inspired by the true story of the Emergency Rescue Committee. And it could’ve been great.
The foundations of the narrative are solid: in 1940, a journalist named Varian Fry (Smith) traveled to Marseille with the intent to save the lives of Jewish artists fleeing the Holocaust. Over the course of 13 months, Fry set up an underground rescue network to help lead refugees out of France and on to safer ports.
Unfortunately, the Netflix adaptation suffers from a few pacing and tonal inconsistencies that are hard to overlook. One of the main issues is that it never seems to decide whether or not to go — what I’m calling — “full Casablanca.” Transatlantic has its fair share of old movie energy, including a bit of unrealistic emotional pacing and romantic melodramatics. The show often leans heavily into gloss over realism. However, at other points, the pendulum shifts to the other extreme and we get a modern scene of television that is rawer, more realistic — still weighty, but not in a soap-opera way. The inconsistency makes the series feel unfocused. I’m not saying that I would have loved a choice to go all gloss, no grit, but the inability to pick a lane makes this adaptation feel amateur and less compelling.
I will say, the setting of the show is rather effective. The series is replete with beautiful sets and period costumes — the coloring and cinematography often evoking old Hollywood in a wonderful way. It’s a shame, Transatlantic has so many of the trappings of a show I would love to get lost in, but it stumbles a bit too much to reach its full potential.
— Jenni
Length: 45-min runtime, 1 season / 7 episodes
Watch on: Netflix
The Diplomat
Keywords: drama, politics, foreign affairs
Watch if you like: Homeland, The West Wing, Scandal
Jess’s Rating: B+
The Diplomat centers around Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), an experienced and respected ambassador to the US, who gets unexpectedly placed in the UK after a global incident. Rufus Sewell co-stars as her husband, Hal, an infamous former ambassador who has a knack for undermining her at every turn. The series follows Kate as she navigates a fraught political situation, her career going sideways, and her crumbling marriage.
On the surface, this appears to be similar in genre and tone to Netflix’s recent hit, The Night Agent. While it does have a similar fast-paced escapist appeal to it, The Diplomat is weightier and more nuanced. And with incredible performances by Russell and Sewell, it leans as close to being a prestige drama as Netflix has seen in years.
Showrunner Debora Cahn is known for her previous work on Homeland and The West Wing, both of which made the complexities of domestic and international politics accessible and thrilling, and Cahn has replicated that achievement here. This series takes clear inspiration from her prior work, with some key differences: although this series shares the quick pace and wit of The West Wing, it avoids its romanticization of politics. And it weaves a thorny political web as in Homeland, but relies less on action and more on sharp dialogue to create tension. Having also worked on Grey’s Anatomy, Cahn’s experience with soapy drama makes itself evident as well through workplace dalliances and the toxic but chemistry-laden dynamic between the Wylers.
Packed with plenty of dialogue and political procedure, this is not the sort of show that you can multi-task during. But even if you don’t catch all of the complexities of the operations, it’s still an intriguing show, because the characters are fully realized and their interpersonal drama is just as front and center. It’s a solid political drama with a lot to latch onto, and I am certainly rooting for a second season.
— Jess
Length: 60-min runtime, 1 season / 8 episodes
Watch on: Netflix
Your shows, returned:
Indian Matchmaking, Season 3: April 21 on Netflix
From, Season 2: April 23 on MGM+
Somebody Somewhere, Season 2: April 23 on HBO Max
Awkwafina is Nora from Queens, Season 3: April 26 on Comedy Central
Firefly Lane, Season 2 Part 2: April 27 on Netflix
Upcoming new releases:
The Diplomat: April 20 on Netflix
Mrs. Davis: April 20 on Peacock
Dead Ringers: April 21 on Prime Video
Drops of God: April 21 on Apple TV+
John Mulaney: Baby J: April 25 on Netflix
Saint X: April 26 on Hulu
Love & Death: April 27 on HBO Max