Weekend Watchlist 9/19: Television
This week's picks: Two TV shows returning to air, and one movie about a TV show long since gone
Happy Friday, PV Guide readers! I hope you have a great weekend ahead of you.
Every Friday, I’m recommending a few great things to watch that the algorithm might not be pushing at you right now, with a focus on variety, so every reader can find something they’re interested in. The Weekend Watchlist will always be 100% free. (But I have opened up PV Guide’s Premium Tier, for those interested in supporting this work!)
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This week’s new-to-streaming titles are led by two of the summer’s biggest movies: Superman (now on HBO Max) and 28 Years Later (coming to Netflix Saturday). I’m very excited to finally check out 28 Years Later, personally. The latest Pixar movie, Elio, also lands on Disney Plus.
The new-to-VOD slate is led by the Chinese animated fantasy movie Ne Zha 2, which is the #1 movie at the global box office by far this year. If you want to catch up on Ne Zha first, that is streaming on Netflix. Also new to VOD this week are Souleymane’s Story, a compelling immigration drama I watched through a festival earlier this year, and Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires, which repositions Batman as a young Aztec noble whose father is murdered by the conquistador Hernán Cortés, and looks interesting in a very different way.
Quiz Show
If you like: Real historical scandals, unconventional detective movies, Martin Scorsese cameos
Watch at: Free with a library card on Hoopla
Watch trailer here
The great Robert Redford died this week, leaving an extraordinary legacy behind on the screen and off. Like many others, I felt drawn to watching one of his projects in his memory, and decided on a movie he directed that had been sitting on my watchlist for a while: Quiz Show, his Best Picture-nominated 1994 movie about the quiz show scandals of the 1950s.
The movie follows a Congressional investigator (Rob Morrow) looking into the potential fixing of the quiz show Twenty-One, focusing on the recent rise of one super popular candidate (Ralph Fiennes) and the fall of another (John Turturro). It’s a well-constructed investigative thriller with strong performances that doubles as commentary on the changing social landscape of late 1950s America and anticipates the cultural upheaval that would follow.
If you’d prefer a Redford rec that he’s in as an actor (who could blame you?), it’s hard to go wrong. The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men, Sneakers – there are just so many other great options to choose from. But for something a little more under-the-radar, consider the Twilight Zone episode where he played Death. (And read Alan Sepinwall’s newsletter about it). That one’s available for free with ads on Pluto TV.
Taskmaster series 20
If you like: British panel shows, hijinks, comedians embarrassing themselves for your entertainment
Watch at: YouTube
Good news everyone: the new Taskmaster series has started. Series 19 was a high-mark in a show full of them – read my two-part interview with Jason Mantzoukas if you haven’t yet – and Series 20 hopes to match that level of excellence. It’s a promising crew of contestants this time: stand-ups Ania Magliano, Maisie Adam, and Phil Ellis are joined by actor/writer/magician Reece Shearsmith and actor/presenter/University of Sussex chancellor Sanjeev Bhaskar.
Slow Horses
If you like: Spy thrillers with humor, Gary Oldman, actual factual good television
Watch at: Apple TV Plus
Watch trailer here
The best show on TV comes back next week, as Slow Horses hits season 5. The spy show stars Gary Oldman as the cantankerous lead of the MI5’s department of misfit agents, and their repeated adventures in fucking up (and saving the day). It’s funny, sharp, dramatic, surprising, and everything you want out of a TV show. Season 5 will also be the final season with showrunner Will Smith attached, so it’s a good time to do a whole rewatch of his time with the show. My partner and I did in the lead-up to the fifth season, and it was a terrific decision – no one’s doing it better on TV right now than Slow Horses.
