Station Eleven, a show about a pandemic, finally premieres after being delayed… by the pandemic

Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Thursday, December 16. All times are Eastern.

Top Picks

Station Eleven (HBO Max, series premiere): Based on the 2014 pandemic novel by Emily St. John Mandel, the pre-and-post-pandemic series Station Eleven is more relevant than ever. Chicago author Patrick Somerville, who previously wrote for The Leftovers and Maniac, serves as showrunner on this story that’s as much about rebuilding society as it is surviving a global catastrophe. Station Eleven stars Himesh Patel, Mackenzie Davis, Lori Petty, David Wilmot, Daniel Zovatto, and Gael García Bernal. Sulagna Misra will recap.

Regular Coverage

And Just Like That… (HBO Max, 3:01 a.m.)
Star Trek: Discovery (Paramount+, 3:01 a.m.)

Season’s streamings

A California Christmas: City Lights (Netflix, 3:01 a.m.): If you saw the first movie last Christmas, then this sequel is for you! The first installment saw a big city boy meet a country mouse and try to save her farm with grit and hard work. (Spoiler: He helped her save it with business knowhow). It had everything: the meaning of Christmas, dead dads, stern moms, and sex in a vineyard. Based on the title of the sequel, there will be trouble in paradise.

Wild Cards

MacGruber (Peacock+, 3:01 a.m., complete first season): What began as a Saturday Night Live sketch became a movie in 2010, and now takes the form of a TV series that picks up in the present day. Will Forte reprises his role as MacGruber, with Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe also returning to help his beleaguered sorta-hero. The cast also includes Timothy V. Murphy, Sam Elliott, and Laurence Fishburne. Jesse Hassenger’s already weighed in this somewhat improbable sequel series: “Now MacGruber has returned with a limited series, and the unlikeliness keeps compounding: Peacock’s MacGruber is both following up a notorious box office bomb, and doing so with more of this defiantly unlikable character than ever—its eight episodes add up to over three hours. In other words, there is suddenly an approximate 120% increase in the amount of MacGruber in the world.” Read the rest of his review here.