Looney Tunes Cartoons, Season 1D (HBO Max series) — This new batch of episodes couldn’t come soon enough. Tune in for Bugs to evade someone besides Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam while Daffy can’t cope with a photocopier, and Elmer Fudd’s looking for some legal advice. All in all, you’ll be able to stream 10 new shorts, and you’ll probably be left wanting more.
Lucy the Human Chimp (HBO Max film) — This ain’t the movie starring Scarlett Johansson. Instead, get ready for a more substantial film (a documentary) about Lucy Termerlin, the infamous chimpanzee who believed she was human because she was pretty much raised that way.
The Big Shot with Bethenny (HBO Max series) — Bethenny Frankel (the Skinnygirl founder) does her business-mogul thing here while allowing a gathering of hopefuls to compete for a chance to be her right-hand woman. Watch out though, because the competition will be fierce, and Frankel promises to be demanding and perfectionistic while pushing candidates through real-life challenges aimed at how they can best show off their creativity and determination.
Yasuke (Netflix series) — Netflix will up its anime game with this dazzling series from Japanese animation studio MAPPA (Attack on Titan: The Final Season), and the project arrives with quite a pedigree, given that LaKeith Stanfield executive produces on lead voice work. Stanfield voices a character who’s based upon the real-life first African samurai, who struggles to shed his past life of violence while striving to keep a peaceful existence. However, he must reluctantly pick up his sword again when a war-torn, feudal Japanese village becomes ground central for warring daimyo. The score will arrive courtesy of Flying Lotus, who also produces, and creator/director/producer LeSean Thomas will build upon his proven track record (The Boondocks, Cannon Buster, and Black Dynamite) of interweaving anime and Black culture.
Things Heard & Seen (Netflix film) — Amanda Seyfried stars as a couple that realizes that a sinister darkness plagues their marriage and fits right in with their new home’s past. The story’s based upon Elizabeth Brundage’s novel, and it takes place in the Hudson Valley.
In case you missed these picks from last Thursday:
Bigger (BET+ series) — Season 2 brings back the fan-favorite Will Packer comedy about thirty-somethings living in Atlanta, while they attempt to maneuver their way through, well, life. That would include professional, personal and other such obstacles, all while they’re searching for love and dealing with uncomfortable truths on occasion. The whole season’s dropping at once, only on BET+
Rutherford Falls (Peacock series) — The newest Michael Schur sitcom is doing the streaming thing, and this show is flat-out putting its location in the title, in lockstep with the co-creator’s fixation with location. Can Rutherford Falls match up with Scranton and Pawnee, in the long run? That remains to be seen, but Ed Helms stars as Nathan Rutherford, who is (obviously, due to the last name) inextricably tied to the town’s history, and Nathan’s not taking too kindly to a movement to eject a historical statue. There’s more to that topic than one would assume, and the wrangling of Nathan seems down to his lifelong best pal, portrayed by Jana Schmieding. This looks about as refreshingly and delightfully offbeat as one would expect from The Good Place creator because everything he touches is magic.