If you’re looking for a new show to watch this week, here are the best you can stream. Prime is launching Fallout, an ambitious series based on the popular video game franchise; Apple is dropping Franklin, based on the popular founding father; and Netflix is releasing Baby Reindeer, based on some weird shit that happened to a stand-up comic.
Fallout
The Fallout video games are practically revered among gamers, so there will be a lot of critical eyes turned toward Prime’s TV series based on them. Luckily, Fallout’s executive producer Jonathan Nolan knows how to adapt a dystopian science fiction story—he created HBO’s Westworld. In classic Fallout style, the series is set 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse obliterated humanity, and begins with the hero, Lucy (Ella Purnell), stepping out of a Vault-Tec vault into a bombed-out Los Angeles. She’ll encounter gun-slinging ghouls, the power-suited Brotherhood of Steel soldiers, a Mr. Handy robot, and all kinds of “hey, I recognize that!” material from the games. Hit play to see if it lives up to its legacy.
Where to stream: Prime
Franklin
Academy, Emmy, and AFI Lifetime Achievement Award winner Michael Douglas plays Benjamin Franklin in this historical drama detailing the most important and audacious act of diplomacy in American history. With the fate of the fledgling United States in the balance, Franklin, an eccentric 70-year-old inventor, embarks on a secret diplomatic mission to France to ask for the monarchy’s help in the American revolution.
Where to stream: AppleTV+
Good Times
With the help of executive producer Seth MacFarlane, Netflix has revived Norman Lear’s seminal 1970s sitcom Good Times and re-imagined it as an R-rated animated series. Featuring the voices of J.B. Smoove, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jay Pharoah, and more, Good Times tells the story of the latest generation of the Evans family who are scratching and surviving, hanging and jiving, in a Chicago housing project. The details have been modernized, but the theme of togetherness in the face of hard times remains the same.
Where to stream: Netflix
Baby Reindeer
This dark comedy series illustrates the adage “no good deed goes unpunished.” Written, directed, and starring comedian Richard Gadd, Baby Reindeer is a fictionalized version of real events in his life. Gadd plays bartender Donny Dunn, who shows kindness to a troubled customer named Martha. Dunn’s innocent altruism leads to Martha becoming obsessed and throwing both of their lives into chaos. Baby Reindeer consciously avoids the typical tropes of stories about stalkers, choosing to focus on the reality of what it’s like to be the center of an unhinged person’s world.
Where to stream: Netflix
Dora
Dora the Explorer is back to delight a new generation. These 26 all-new CGI animated episodes follow Dora and her monkey pal Boots on a bilingual adventure as they explore a fantastical rainforest, face off against mischievous Swiper, and get lost all the damn time. These 11-minute episodes are packed with songs, puzzles, and audience participation; the perfect thing to put your kid in front of while you sneak outside for a phone call or cigarette.
Where to stream: Paramount+
Last week’s picks
Ripley
Based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, this series stars Dakota Fanning, Johnny Flynn, and Andrew Scott in the title role as Tom Ripley, a grifter and conman with too much charm and not enough morality. Director Steven Zaillian’s moody black-and-white visuals set the tone of Ripley’s chilling but glamorous life. After being hired by a wealthy industrialist to retrieve his wayward son from Italy, the ever-scheming Mr. Ripley sees an opportunity, and inserts himself into Dickie’s life, leading to a dark spiral of psychological abuse, mayhem, and murder. If you like plot twists and stylish wickedness, you’ll be very into Ripley.
Where to stream: Netflix
American Horror Story: Delicate Part 2
Ryan Murphy’s long-running horror series returns to finish its Delicate storyline with four new episodes. Starring Emma Roberts and Kim Kardashian, Delicate is a horror tale about pregnancy, a la Rosemary’s Baby, in which ambitious actress Anna Victoria (played by Roberts) goes to extreme lengths in pursuit of motherhood. Kardashian plays her cutthroat publicist, Siobhan Corbyn, and the series never misses a chance to skewer Hollywood excess along with the pre-natal horror.
Where to stream: Hulu
Vanderpump Villa
Famous reality TV magnate Lisa Vanderpump bought a palatial villa in the French countryside, and in this reality show, her staff of charismatic event coordinators, chefs, mixologists, and servers are tasked with arranging extravagant, Vanderpump-curated experiences for elite guests, all while Lisa evaluates whether this is the right crew to staff the newest venture in the extended Vanderpump financial universe. Vanderpump Villa promises heartfelt and heated moments from both the staff and the guests, insanely opulent experiences in exotic French locales, and is absolutely free of guillotines. In season one.
Where to stream: Hulu
The Synanon Fix
Synanon is hands-down my favorite cult of all time, so I’m psyched HBO is giving proper cinematic treatment to the off-the-chains crazy story of how a drug rehab center devolved into a heavily armed, post-hippie nightmare cult. Told through glorious insider film footage and interviews with former cult members and others who were there, The Synanon Fix‘s highlight include dead-eyed cultists with shaved heads wearing matching overalls and wielding axe handles, attempted-murder-by-rattlesnake, and music from Synanon’s in-house band that featured jazz immortals Joe Pass and Art Pepper, among many others. There are not enough thumbs in existence for the number of thumbs up this series deserves.
Where to stream: Max
Sugar
AppleTV+’s new series drags the tropes of classic private detective stories into the present, so get ready for a hardboiled hero, slinky dames, and a city with corruption bubbling just under the surface. Colin Farrell stars as John Sugar, a gumshoe investigating the mysterious disappearance of Olivia Siegel (Sydney Chandler) the granddaughter of a Hollywood movie producer Jonathan Siegel. In keeping with the genre, Sugar‘s hero uncovers more than he bargained for, including long-buried family secrets.
Where to stream: AppleTV+
Parish
Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito and Skeet Ulrich star in this crime series set in New Orleans. Esposito plays Gracián “Gray” Parish, the owner of a luxury car service who hides a secret past as a criminal. When his old “friend” Colin (Ulrich) shows up asking Gray to help grab one last score, things go off the rails, and Gray is thrust back into the shadowy underworld he tried to leave behind.
Where to stream: AMC+
Star Trek: Discovery, Final Season
Star Trek: Discovery didn’t catch the popular imagination like Strange New Worlds, but it’s a solid Star Trek series, and that makes it better than everything else on TV, if you’re a Trek kind of person. The fifth and final season of Discovery sees Captain Burnham and company on a galaxy-spanning quest to find a hidden source of immense power—but they’re not the only ones hunting for it .
Where to stream: Paramount+
Files of the Unexplained
If you’re in the right mood, a docuseries about eerie encounters, unexplained disappearances, haunted houses, and UFOs hits the spot. Files of the Unexplained features eight episodes, with each exploring a different perplexing mystery including alien abduction, a spate of human feet washing up on beaches, and people seemingly vanishing into thin air. There’s probably a rational explanation for these events, but what if there isn’t?
Where to stream: Netflix
Going Home with Tyler Cameron
This reality/renovation show chronicles former Bachelorette and current handsome boy Tyler Cameron’s quest to start a construction business in his hometown of Jupiter, Florida. We are meant to believe that Cameron has always dreamed of working in construction, and now that he no longer stars in a top-rated television show where a gaggle of attractive women compete for his affection, he is finally free to pursue his real passion: renovating other people’s houses. Each of the eight episodes of Going Home features a remodeled home, and the series also boasts appearances from reality TV stars like Matt James, Rachael Kirkconnell, Jason Tartick, and Hannah Brown.
Where to stream: Prime
Dinosaur, Season 1
This British comedy/drama series follows Nina, a woman with autism who’s very happy with her day-to-day existence. She lives with her beloved neurotypical sister Evie and works at her dream job as a paleontologist. But when Evie suddenly decides to get engaged, Nina is forced to come to terms with a huge change in the all-important routine she relies upon. Nina is played by Dinosaur co-creator Ashley Storrie, who has autism, promising non-cliche insights into the show’s subject matter.
Where to stream: Hulu
The Interrogation Tapes
Mainstream TV has finally noticed the popularity of interrogation videos on YouTube. Made by the producers of ABC’s 20/20, this true crime series is based on the verbal cat-and-mouse game that ensues after a suspect is read their Miranda rights. Through examinations of notorious murder cases, The Interrogation Tapes explores both heinous crimes and the tricks and techniques interrogators use when they’re trying to finagle confessions from accused criminals.
Where to stream: Hulu
Take my Tumor
The success of shows like Dr. Pimple Popper and Botched proves a lot of people enjoy reality shows about often grotesque medical conditions. If you’re among them, I bet you’ll like Take My Tumor, a show about extreme tumors, the people who have them, and the dedicated medical professionals who remove them. It’s from TLC, formerly The Learning Channel, who seem to have cornered the market on this kind of programming.
Where to stream: Max