Each week our staff of film and TV experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
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1. WandaVision (Disney+)
Wanda Maximoff finally got her due, and this show manages to be everything that Marvel fans hoped for and almost nothing like what they expected. We’re now in Phase Four, baby, with magnificent cameo troll jobs throwing us off the scent of a story that delivers a rather touching medication on loss and trauma with all sorts of witchy shenanigans there to help us actually, you know enjoy the ride. Fun is the name of the game, after all, and all eyes are now pointing ahead toward The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Watch it on Disney+.
2. Behind Her Eyes (Netflix)
It’s very easy to enjoy most of Behind Her Eyes, and yep, hearing that this show came from the same production house as The Crown makes total sense. The story started out like a seedy-yet-polished cautionary tale with delightful trashiness, and most of the limited series went down easy until, you know, that double-twist finale. At that point, the show takes off like a semi-truck that’s screeching down a cliff and skidding into the ocean. The ending is admittedly infuriating (with several problematic shades at work), but hey, it sure got people talking, and you won’t be bored with this one. Watch it on Netflix.
3. Murder Among the Mormons (Netflix)
Murder Among The Mormons is a true-crime docuseries about a series of murders in Salt Lake City in the 80s, focusing on Mark Hofmann, a rare documents dealer and forger. Hofmann is a singular kind of dowdy sociopath, working entirely within an utterly esoteric Mormon milieu. Co-directed by Jared Hess of Napoleon Dynamite fame, the docuseries makes Hofmann feel like a Gentleman Broncos or Masterminds character come to life, and Murder Among the Mormons is not only solid true crime, but a wry glimpse into the kinds of oddballs who have been inspiring Jared Hess characters for his entire career. Watch it on Netflix.
4. Ted Lasso (AppleTV)
Ted Lasso shouldn’t have worked. It’s a show based on a character with a funny name and a thin premise (American football coach starts coaching English soccer team), both of which first appeared during a commercial campaign. The fact that it’s good at all, let alone this good, is a minor miracle. He’s a sweet man with a lovely mustache and he just wants to help. You could do far worse in a television show. Watch it on Apple TV+.
5. Allen v. Farrow (HBO Max)
You might go into this docuseries fully expecting to be shocked and appalled, but you’ll still somehow manage to be more shocked and appalled with each episode you watch. Be prepared to never be able to watch a Woody Allen movie through the same lens ever again. Watch it on HBO Max.
6. Dickinson (AppleTV)
The second season of Dickinson evolved past its quirky “period-drama-but-make-modern” roots to give fans a fascinating look at the price of fame and a deeper understanding of who this talented female poet was. It leaned into its queerness, gave Hailee Steinfeld a starring vehicle that felt worthy of her talents, and brought back Wiz Khalifa in the role of Death. We have no complaints. Watch it on Apple TV+.
7. Search Party (HBO Max)
A Twink kidnapping; a meta Lifetime re-telling of Chantel Witherbottom with Portia playing Dori; Eliot embracing the right-wing media machine and crafting his own line of bedazzled handguns. This show does it all while also giving us the funniest car chase in the history of cinema. Watch it on HBO Max.
8. Lupin (Netflix)
Lupin has everything: Diamond heists, decades-long revenge plots, fancy criminals who are always one or two steps ahead of the detectives who are investigating them, etc. It’s no wonder the stylish French drama became a foreign language crossover hit. Lupin is fun. You should watch Lupin. Watch it on Netflix.
9. South Park (HBO Max)
South Park is still on hiatus as far as full seasons go, but they’re filling in the gaps with pandemic-themed special events. The first premiered back in September 2020 and the second, South ParQ: Vaccination Special, hit this week. This news isn’t quite as good as, say, a regular season of new episodes and no more pressing need for specials with “pandemic” and “vaccination” in the title, but you take what you can get. You can watch it on HBO Max.
10. Good Girls (NBC/Peacock)
This is a show that started out as a thought experiment that questioned: “What if Breaking Bad was actually about suburban moms who robbed grocery stores and laundered fake cash through their book club meetings?” This is also a show that has Retta (Parks & Rec) accidentally shooting a Canadian crime boss fronting as a craft store owner in the foot while Mae Whitman and Christina Hendricks take their kids on a late-night stakeout of a crack house. What more do you need to know? Watch it on Peacock.