A tireless Sir David Attenborough narrates Discovery Plus’ The Mating Game
Plus: Cardi B hosts the AMAs; new episodes of Succession, Insecure, Curb, Yellowjackets; and a Desperate Housewives reunion in a Hallmark holiday movie
TV Lists David Attenborough
Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Sunday, November 21. All times are Eastern.
Top pick
The Mating Game (Discovery+, 3:01 a.m.): Sir David Attenborough’s quest for being part of excellent nature documentary series across all streaming platforms is commendable. He narrates the five-part The Mating Game, which explores the most intimate details of animal life to reveal how they overcome the challenges of their worlds to reproduce and leave a lasting legacy. The show launches with two episodes, with new ones dropping weekly.
Regular coverage
Doctor Who: Flux (BBC America, 8:00 p.m.)
Succession (HBO, 9:00 p.m.)
Dexter: New Blood (Showtime, 9:00 p.m.)
Insecure (HBO, 10:00 p.m)
Yellowjackets (Showtime, 10 p.m.)
Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO, 10:30 p.m.)
Wild card
American Music Awards (ABC, 8 p.m.): Cardi B is set to host the 2021 American Music Awards. Top nominees include Olivia Rodrigo, The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, Doja Cat, Giveon, and Taylor Swift. The show will include performances by BTS, Coldplay, Megan Thee Stallion, Rodrigo, and Carrie Underwood among many others.
Season’s streamings
Baking Spirits Bright (Lifetime, 8 p.m.): It’s the best time of the year, the time for trashy holiday movies that operate on wish fulfillment magic and confusing puns! As part of Lifetime’s 30 new movies in 30 days, first up we have Baking Spirits Bright. Mira Varma (Rekha Sharma) needs help running her family business of making fruitcakes, so her parents hire a potential husband a marketing team headed by Brady Philips (Dion Johnstone). The real mystery is not in whether they’ll fall in love, but if Mira is baking American style brick type fruitcakes or Indian style squishy and delicious fruitcakes.
A Kiss Before Christmas (Hallmark, 8 p.m.): James Denton and Teri Hatcher reunite nine years after the end of Desperate Housewives in a classic Christmas trope: where someone wishes their entire life was different. No one knows why Christmas and time travel are so intertwined, but so it goes. A man wakes up to an alternate life, and only has until Christmas day to convince his wife in his original existence that they’re meant to be together. His two teenage kids are also gone in this other timeline. Will Hallmark address the visceral horror of your children being erased from existence? Or will it be a passing thought, so as not to ruin the Christmas spirit.
7 Comments
TUAYPCW
I got the NECA Wingnut & Screwloose. Should I add the chest emblem sticker to my Wingnut or leave him cartoon accurate?
I’m pretty sure Riverdale & The Flash will once again be incomprehensible messes by the time they get to their season finales, but I’m hoping they’ll at least stick the landings on their 5 part events. Their season premieres were actually good! If there are no tribute videos of Rivervale’s Cheryl Blossom set to the music of the original The Wicker Man by month’s end, then what even is the point of YouTube? https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2021/11/17/she-hulk-teases-armageddon-for-the-flash-rivervale/I finally saw The Iron Giant & now have witnessed the “ART!” meme in its natural habitat.This new Dune was the more faithful adaptation, but I still prefer the Lynch version. The new Dune designs look ugly yet bland whereas Lynch’s designs were ugly yet weird. I really wish they would’ve gone in a completely unique direction.
My big issue with the new Dune is that the ending of the film feels anticlimactic even though I know what it sets up is bigger than the battle that precedes it. The visuals are so, so much better, and the half story is so much less satisfying than the 1984 Dune that it feels unfair to compare them.
It ends at such a weird time.
Asolutely agree. I really like the 2004 SyFy miniseries, which ends episode one with the storm, and so doesn’t reach that “ending” until 10 or 15 minutes into episode 2.The cost is they’d excise one of the major actors they had doing press junkets, and so gave us the thematic feel of Paul’s separation from his ducal life, but i couldn’t tell how it would land of you didn’t know what is supposed supposed happen next.
I finally saw The Iron Giant & now have witnessed the “ART!” meme in its natural habitat.I found out just last night my roommate has never seen that. I hope to rectify that very, very soon.
Tell you about my pop culture weekend? Don’t mind if I do.As has been the case all season, I missed out on watching football live, so I don’t know what happened with Oregon, but that loss makes no sense to me even though they were underdogs.I watched the first three episodes of the Wheel of Time and while I found some of the choices and departures from the books maddening in episode one (especially the clothing and the obviousness of the marks on the swords, it thematically felt okay. Introducing competent menaces in episode 2 made up a lot of lost goodwill. I’m super eager to see more of several characters I thought I wouldn’t see unless the show got a fifth season.We watched the Clifford movie. I kind of hated it. My small humans seemed to really like it. The depiction of the lawyers was apparently what went too far for me, but the opening scene, in which Clifford is separated from his family through mundane cruelty instead of just like, a magic dog who a little girl finds without him having been explicitly traumatized, wasn’t great.
Addendum: I apparently watched Hit Monkey (not approved by wife, can’t continue while she is watching because gory) and the Cowboy Bebop live action thing, which I forgot about because nothing in it stuck in my brain.