Docuseries Phat Tuesdays and the Winter Olympics opening ceremony kick off the weekend

Here’s what’s happening in the world of television for Friday, February 4, and Saturday, February 5. All times are Eastern.

Top pick

Phat Tuesdays: The Era Of Hip-Hop Comedy (Prime Video, Friday, 12:01 a.m.): Directed by Reginald Hudlin, this three-part documentary series examines how Guy Torry’s influential ’90s comedy showcase helped launch the careers of some of the most famous Black comedians in the industry. The show features interviews with an all-star lineup including Tiffany Haddish, Anthony Anderson, JB Smoove, Regina King, Craig Robinson, Steve Harvey, Tichina Arnold, and Jay Pharaoh. The late Bob Saget appears in all the episodes. Keep an eye out for Stephen Robinson’s full review on the site later today.

Regular coverage

RuPaul’s Drag Race (VH1, Friday, 8 p.m.)
The Afterparty (Apple TV+, Friday, 12:01 a.m.)

Olympics

Winter Olympics 2022: Opening Ceremony (NBC, Friday, 6:30 a.m.): The 2022 Olympic Winter Games begin in Beijing, China, and the opening ceremony will be broadcast live on NBC. If you’re not an early riser, it will telecast it again on NBC at 8 p.m. ET. Dennis Perkins’ guide to the whole Olympics schedule will be on the site today.

Wild cards

Reacher (Prime Video, Friday, 12:01 a.m.): “As in most of the [Lee Child] novels, Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) isn’t looking for trouble, but it finds him anyway. When he stops at a diner for some coffee and peach pie, his snack is interrupted when he’s arrested for murder. (His efforts to get a taste of that slice of pie become a running gag through the season.) It seems a body was found near where Reacher was seen getting off his Greyhound bus; when the corpse is later identified, it turns out to be someone with a close personal connection to Reacher.” Read Scott Von Doviak’s full review of the crime-action drama here.

Suspicion (Apple TV+, Friday, 12:01 a.m., series premiere): Based on an Israeli thriller, Suspicion kicks off with two episodes. The remaining six will drop every week. The cast includes Uma Thurman, Noah Emmerich, Kunal Nayyar, Elizabeth Henstridge, and Georgina Campbell.

Here’s an excerpt from the review: “Thurman is saddled with playing non-emotive, rigid CEO Katherine Newman. She runs an elite PR agency, akin to Olivia Pope’s in Scandal, that helps clean up the messes of the wealthy and corrupt. Her son, Leo (Gerran Howell), is kidnapped from a New York City hotel by a group that’s wearing masks of the Royal Family members. A few days later, four seemingly ordinary, non-connected British citizens are arrested for the crime. Suspicion is mainly structured around their mission to prove they are being wrongly accused.”

Sweet Magnolias (Netflix, Friday, 3:01 a.m.): Based on Sherryl Woods’ romance novels of the same name, the show follows three childhood best friends from South Carolina—Maddie (JoAnna Garcia Swisher), Dana Sue (Brooke Elliott), Helen (Heather Headley)—who call their group Sweet Magnolias. Season two continues the drama as they navigate their personal and professional lives, and opens with the three ladies finding out the identity of whoever was in the car that flipped in the season one finale.

Movie night

Book Of Love (Prime Video, Friday, 12:01 a.m.): Analeine Cal y Mayor directs this romantic comedy which follows an uptight English writer Henry (Sam Claflin), whose novel is a total failure everywhere except for in Mexico. When he goes there to promote it, he learns that Spanish translator Maria (Verónica Echegui) has rewritten his dull book into an erotic novel.

Torn (Disney+, Friday, 3:01 a.m.): Max Lowe’s award-winning documentary tells the story of his father, mountain climber Alex Lowe, who was killed in an avalanche in the Himalayas in 1999 with cameraman David Bridges. Alex’s close friend, Conrad Anker, survived and later married Alex’s wife, adopting his three sons in the process. In Torn, Max confronts his emotions about Alex’s death, Conrad’s role in the family, and Conrad’s terrible survivor’s guilt. One of the more emotional gut-punches in the film is when Alex and David’s bodies are finally recovered in 2016. Torn has premiered at and nabbed various awards at several film festivals since last year.