Queer Eye, Shrill, Catastrophe, and Arrested Development are the four horsemen of the second Streamapocalypse
TV Lists What's On Tonight
Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Friday, March 15 and Saturday, March 16. All times are Eastern.
Top picks
Queer Eye (Netflix, Friday): French-tuck in your shirts and grab a box of tissues: The Fab 5 are kicking off the return of Streamapocalpyse, gracing our screens to teach us all—yet again—how to cut avocados and to feel a little bit better about the human race in the process. This season, they’ve left their home base of Atalanta and turned their attention to Kansas City, as well as to a more diverse cast of “heroes.” Interior designer Bobby Berk hinted that unlike in the revival’s previous two seasons, this one will feature an even balance of men and women, joking in an interview with Variety, “No offense to men, but we have so much more fun with women.”
We see no sign of favoritism in the heartwarming trailer below, which demonstrates the tone of indiscriminate love and acceptance that made us fall in love with the revival last year.
Also, JVN reads to a bunch of lil’ campers, and it is very cute.
Shrill (Hulu, Friday): Based on Lindy West’s memoir of the same name, Shrill stars SNL’s Aidy Bryant as Annie, “a fat young woman who wants to change her life—but not her body.” Instead, a press release promises that the series will show Annie “trying to start her career while juggling bad boyfriends, a sick parent, and a perfectionist boss” (Hedwig And The Angry Inch’s John Cameron Mitchell). Also starring Lolly Adefope, Julia Sweeney, and Luka Jones, the series amalgamates the experiences of its all-female writing team (Bryant, West, and Ali Rushfield), demonstrating how they’re frequently perceived and treated differently because of their weight, and gives Annie a complex narrative and sense dignity that women who look like her historically haven’t been granted onscreen (if they’re given a place there at all). And with a creative team that includes the likes of Obvious Child director Gillian Robespierre, Portlandia’s Carrie Brownstein, and executive producers Lorne Michaels and Elizabeth Banks, Shrill looks pretty damn promising. In her pre-air review, Danette Chavez calls it “short, sweet, and full of potential,” noting that “Bryant and Shrill push beyond a slice-of-life comedy to set Annie on a compelling and hilarious journey.”
Catastrophe (Prime Video, Friday): Sharon and Rob didn’t exactly choose this life. They definitely weren’t prepared for it, and they probably aren’t suited for it. But over the course of three seasons, they’ve tried to make it work, and this fourth and final season of BAFTA-winning, Peabody and Emmy-nominated comedy series marks the end of their story. While Sharon (Sharon Horgan) reckons with not being quite as healthy as she imagined she was, Rob (Rob Delaney) pays for his accident by attending AA meetings, doing community service, and applying himself to his career—things made all the more difficult by his persistent self-loathing, alcoholism, and dissatisfaction with life.
Notably, this season will also address Carrie Fischer’s death through that of her character Mia. While the series dedicated last season’s finale to Fischer, who acted on the show throughout seasons one through tree, we can likely expect more of a tribute to the iconic actress at Mia’s funeral. Erik Adams will be on hand to offer some losing thoughts.
Arrested Development (Netflix, Friday): We may not all have been happy to see the show return, but per our review, the revival finally (mostly) found its rhythm in the first part of its 5th season. The second half returns today with updates on the “smart” border wall development, a murder trail for Buster, run-ins with the gay mafia, and, apparently, Tobias becoming a “Golden Girl.”
According to David Cross, this will likely be the last we see of the Bluth family… although, after that mess of a New York Times interview, maybe that’s really for the best.
Regular coverage
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (The CW, Friday, 9 p.m.)
Saturday Night Live (NBC, Saturday, 11:30 p.m.)
Wild cards
Love, Death & Robots (Netflix, Friday): This anthology of animated shorts might, at first glance, seem a strange project for David Fincher and Deadpool director Tim Miller to have taken on, and it’s one that, in all of its marvelous, frenetic, visceral weirdness, certainly grabs our attention. The episodes will be animated by a series of different artists and span several genres, only connected, apparently, by common themes of love, death, and robots. It looks, in a word, wild, each short sounding even stranger than the last. To give you a sense of what we’re looking at, here are a few episode descriptions listed in the press release:
- “Want to see Hitler die in a variety of comically fantastic ways? Now you can. Welcome to Multiversity!”
- “A young couple moves into an apartment and finds a lost civilization inside their antique freezer.”
- ”Unleashed by an archaeological dig, a bloodthirsty demon battles a team of mercenaries armed with… cats?”
- “After scientists accidentally breed super-intelligent yogurt, it soon hungers for world domination.”
You can sample these oddities, and others, in the thrillingly chaotic trailer below.
Turn Up Charlie (Netflix, Friday): We can’t guarantee that this comedy starring real-life DJ Idris Elba will be good (TV editor Erik Adams said after watching a few screeners that it is, in fact, very bad). But the very suggestion of People’s Sexiest Man Alive playing a struggling DJ-turned-manny does, at the very least, pique our interest.
33 Comments
Small typo catch – that should be Fisher instead of Fischer.
three not tree as well?
It’s not a typo when it happens more then once. It’s bad writing.
No. It is misspelling.
Nope. When it’s two separate links to articles which spell her name correctly, it’s bad writing.
It’s really sad what’s happened to Arrested Development. I remember some magazine ranking “The Best TV Shows Of All Time” and they controversially picked Arrested Development as #1 — this was back when everyone always put The Simpsons at the top. Their reasoning? “Arrested Development has fewer bad episodes.”Now neither of those would wind up at the top. I wonder what they’d pick today.
If you’re going by “fewest bad episodes” it would have to be some brilliant pilot that aired once then was immediately cancelled.
And the Best TV Show Of All Time is….Heat Vision And Jack!
Technically, that never aired at all.
Fawlty Towers? Just a glittering set of jewels with not a single false note, thought granted it didn’t run for very long. That’s the British way, y’know.
Eh, I loved watching reruns in the 90s but caught an ep recently and YEESH. It’s straight up weird watching a show in the year of our lord 2019 with an audience braying at every little thing. I’m officially Over John Cleese’s Shit, and lots of the show hasn’t aged well at all, especially the Manuel character.
Arrested Development is just the TV equivalent of Weezer.
I’d say that’s a bad metric to judge a show by, but I guess people making ranking lists aren’t too concerned with critical theory! I haven’t bothered with AD season 5. I forced myself to watch more season 4 than anyone should have to, and the recut just makes it obvious that the biggest issue with the show isn’t just its formal constraints.
The Good Place has to be a major contender, right? If you’re talking about active shows, The Good Place deserves consideration.
God bless Rob Delaney- how the fuck he turned up and delivered that season is beyond me.
I’ve seen Catastrophe as it aired in the UK and I liked it an awful lot, it’s probably not quite as good as the other three series but it’s still very strong, and the fact that Delaney was able to make it after what happened is pretty amazing.
Some people I know thought it was running out of steam a little though, so ymmv, and the series finale is something I’m still not sure about, but overall it was great to have it back.
Holy wow
All I could think about all season whenever I saw Rob’s face was how on earth he was functioning and being so funny and light hearted for most of the season. His behavior around Mia’s funeral I’m sure was so much taken from real life grief and it made it even more poignant. Hard to let go of that show.
Psyched for Love, Death and Robots since it’s got two Alastair Reynolds stories in it.
My shower thought this morning was “I wonder if they’ll ever put out the 2nd half of Arrested Development season 5…” and here we are.And while I do think it’s time for the show to end, I’d be totally down for a sequel/spin-off about George Michael and Maebe traveling around the country trying to scam people.
I really enjoyed both season 4 and season 5a of Arrested Development (like some kind of weirdo apparently), so I’m excited about watching 5b this weekend.Sorry!
The worst thing to come out of the whole Arrested Development harassment debacle was the point where, on actual television, with people watching, David Cross and Jason Bateman asked Jessica Walter if maybe she just didn’t understand the TV industry.
Jessica Walter, of course, was on TV well over a decade before either actor was born, and has a TV career longer than both Cross’ and Bateman’s combined, so yeah dudes, she probably DOES understand the TV industry.
Weirdly this was after Tambor had apologized, meaning Bateman and Cross were basically making tools of themselves for no reason at all.
Bateman, Cross, and Tony Hale, If I remember correctly. All talented people, but if you hear what they say, you’d think they’re fucking moronic. They’re opinions of the whole thing aren’t required, beyond supporting the person clearly mistreated. It’s even less appropriate to rationalize Tambor’s actions AFTER HE APOLOGIZED.
I was watching a Bill Hader/Jason Bateman interview from last year, mostly because I wanted to see Hader, and Bateman sidetracked the whole thing to wax rhapsodic about how important Jeffrey Tambor was to him and how he’d helped him so much about how to give performances on Arrested Development, and so on. It’s nice that he really loves the guy, but I feel like that got in the way of objectivity and just ended up making it even more difficult for anyone to be able to move on from the allegations against Tambor.
We’ll always have money in the Banana Stand….oh wait…..no we don’t.It’s a bittersweet parting but needed. I hate seeing all the actors and characters getting older and the jokes run stale, but we’ll always (hopefully) have the show on Netflix and maybe a movie?Let’s hope that Mitch Hurwitz returns to a series format with a new show. Lady Dynamite was great too. He’s a genius with great comedy writing skills.
Are the remaining AD episodes going to get reviewed here, so I have someonwhere to post rabidly pro Alia Shawkat comments?
OH GOD, I loved the short curly hair for this season, as well as the wardrobe choices. The physical comedy of her as a senior citizen was excellent too.
I like how I half typed “someone” and half “somewhere.” You could make an AD joke out of that maybe.
Yes, I finished the new episodes and want someplace to discuss them.
I’m always hopeful for an Idris Elba film, but Turn Up Charlie ticks off too many stinker boxes for me. 1.-Watching over rebellious, potty-mouthed child CHECK 2. Finding love with somebody already in a relationship, and revealing the third person is a d-bag CHECK 3. The specific formula to the trailer (introduce the main character and their inadequacies through self-deprecating humour, HARD CUT to how their situation seems to get worse through some MacGuffin, HARD CUT to a real moment(s) that show the character growing through adversity, HARD CUT to something funny to cap the trailer off) CHECK.
This season of Queer Eye seems to have knocked it out of the park, IMHO. They seemed to have digested the little bit of valid criticism out there and strengthened their message.Plus I cried damn near every episode.
What were the criticisms you’d heard before? Haven’t looked much and critiques of the show. I did see some critiques claiming fatphobia this season though.
I haven’t seen that, but fuck those people! The Jones sisters are such a great example of how the Fab Five aren’t that; the fashion element of the show was all about the Jones sisters finding their sexiness & confidence with their curves.The criticisms I typically see is equally dumb, generally around the choices they make for food, for clothing, for the grooming makeover. Much of that criticism is griping that it’s simplistic advice that tends to gravitate to one particular style of lifestyle (cut off all your hair, french tuck your floral prints, here’s one dish you can make). Half the time none of this actually applies though, and the half that any of these do, it’s monumental first steps the nominated person is taking, hopefully to change their life around. They even say that in this season, the intended impact of the show is that they want the nominated person, and America/the world at large, to remove the stigma that helping yourself is selfish, that self-care allows your to integrate and care for your personal community. The show only gives each person one episode, and that’s hardly enough time to set new behaviours & turn your life around; it is enough time to clear the slate of physical & psychological hang-ups to DIY your own life into a better direction.