📺 What to watch this week, plus 'Swarm' and 'Shadow and Bone'
Hi! Marathon TV season continues! Fresh episodes of Succession, Abbott Elementary, Party Down, and Ted Lasso remain on our priority list, but a ton of brand new shows are hitting your streaming services this weekend. Big Door Prize (Apple TV+) premiered last night, and you can catch our highlights for what else to check out over the next few days in this week’s watchlist.
In today’s edition:
Weekly watchlist
Swarm
Shadow and Bone - Season 2
— Jenni Cullen and Jess Spoll
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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.
The Power (Season 1) — Adapted from a book by Naomi Alderman, this series follows the aftermath of a sudden and mysterious event that leaves teenage girls with the power to electrocute people at will.
Watch on Prime Video: March 31 (4 of 10 episodes, then weekly)Murder Mystery 2 (Movie) — Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston are back in the sequel to the 2019 comedy film Murder Mystery. Now owners of their own detective agency, they land a career-making case when their billionaire friend is kidnapped from his wedding.
Watch on Netflix: March 31Rye Lane (Movie) — Two twenty-somethings reeling from bad break-ups connect over the course of an eventful day in South London.
Watch on Hulu: March 31Tetris (Movie) — Taron Egerton stars in this true story about video game salesman Henk Rogers and his discovery of Tetris in 1988.
Watch on Apple TV+: March 31Schmigadoon (Season 2) — Picking up a few years after the events of season 1, Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key return to Schmigadoon to find that the quaint hillside has been replaced with the seedy underbelly of Schmicago.
Watch on Apple TV+: April 5 (2 of 6 episodes, then weekly)Beef (Miniseries) — This A24-produced miniseries stars Ali Wong and Steven Yeun as two strangers whose lives converge when they get into a road rage incident.
Watch on Netflix: April 6 (all 10 episodes)Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies (Season 1) — Set 4 years before the events of Grease, this series chronicles the beginnings of the friend group that becomes known as “The Pink Ladies.”
Watch on Paramount+: April 6 (1 of 10 episodes, then weekly)
Our thoughts on brand new streaming content, and where you can watch.
Swarm
Keywords: horror, thriller, miniseries
Watch if you like: Atlanta, Bates Motel, You
Jess’s Rating: B+
Donald Glover’s newest creation is a gruesome, hard to watch limited series about a superfan who becomes homicidal. If you have a weak stomach, or a low tolerance for horror, I would say you should probably avoid this. But if you don’t mind things that are a bit scary and/or grotesque, then it’s worth checking out.
Swarm follows a young woman named Dre (Dominique Fishback) who is a delusional stan of pop star Ni’Jah (basically a fictionalized Beyoncé). After a traumatizing event in her personal life, she goes on a reign of terror across the country, becoming more obsessive and more violent as time passes, ostensibly in the name of Ni’Jah.
With his signature blend of dark humor and surrealism, Glover delivers a clever and cutting satire of internet ‘stan’ culture. Each episode offers something new — not just a new locale, but a different style of storytelling — which keeps things fresh amidst an otherwise repetitive plot. Dominique Fishback is utterly terrifying as Dre, and her stand-out performance alone makes this show worth a watch. In a surprise appearance, Billie Eilish proves that she’s got acting chops with her cameo as well. It may not be fun or easy to watch, but Swarm is a unique, experimental drama that will stick with you.
— Jess
Length: 35-min runtime, 1 season / 7 episodes
Watch on: Prime Video
These popular shows came back with new episodes. Here’s what we thought and where you can watch them.
Shadow and Bone - Season 2
Keywords: high fantasy, adventure, drama
Watch if you like: The Magicians, Carnival Row, The Wheel of Time
Jenni’s Rating: D-
Shadow and Bone is a fantasy drama adapted from two series of young adult novels by Leigh Bardugo: the Shadow and Bone trilogy and the Six of Crows duology. The central story of the show follows a typical “chosen one” narrative, but is flanked by several other plot lines that are, frankly, much more interesting. Season 1 (review and rating here) was passable material for your casual fantasy craving. It even left me slightly hopeful and excited for the next installment. Unfortunately, Season 2, released earlier this month, squandered that potential.
While it may be fun for readers of the books, I think it was a mistake to incorporate several novels from the Grishaverse into one eight-episode-per-season adaptation. There’s just not enough space for all the characters and storylines, despite efforts to make them cross over and interweave in a meaningful way. The frantic attempt to shove in so much plot makes for uneven pacing and an incredibly disjointed through-line. And, in spite of a lot of heavy handed exposition, it’s still often hard to figure out exactly what’s going on and why we should care.
My final grievance (for now): I don’t quite know who this show is supposed to be for. It feels somewhat childish — which would make sense for an adaptation of YA books — but there’s some intense material, and all of the characters have been significantly aged up from their book counterparts. It’s just one more imbalance in an already uneven, clumsy series.
— Jenni
Length: 50-min runtime, 2 seasons / 16 episodes
Watch on: Netflix
Your shows, returned:
Dave, Season 3: Premieres April 5 on Hulu
Schmigadoon, Season 2: Premieres April 5 on Apple TV+
Upcoming new releases:
Unstable: Premieres March 30 on Netflix
The Power: Premieres March 31 on Prime Video
The Good Mothers: Premieres April 5 on Hulu
Beef: Premieres April 6 on Netflix
Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies: Premieres April 6 on Paramount+