I watched it on a screen: rolling TV and streaming media 2026

New year, new thread - mostly for TV but really anything you watched on a streamer/at home/etc is fair game.

January is chock full of new and returning shows. Some stuff I'm looking forward to:

The Pitt s2 (HBO) - Jan 8
The Traitors s4 (Peacock) - Jan 8
His & Hers (Netflix) - Jan 8 (new mystery show with Jon Bernthal and Tessa Thompson)
A Thousand Blows s2 (Hulu) - Jan 9
The Night Manager s2 (Prime) - Jan 11 (10-years-later followup to the John Le Carre adaptation w/ Tom Hiddleston and Olivia Coleman)
Industry s4 (HBO) - Jan 11
Hijack s2 (Apple)
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (Paramount) - Jan 15
Ponies (Peacock) - Jan 15 (new thriller with Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson)
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (HBO) - Jan 15
Wonder Man (Disney+) - Jan 27
Shrinking s3 (Apple) - Jan 28
Bridgerton s5 (Netflix) - Jan 29

will def watch the pitt and traitors and knight of the seven kingdoms. been meaning to watch both industry and shrinking

The Pitt and Industry for sure. Maybe The Night Manager as well; I liked the first one and didn't realize it had been 10 years.

Just realized I've been conflating the Night Agent and the Night Manager (haven't seen either)

I really liked Night Manager when I watched it years ago. I’m a sucker for the Le Carre brand of espionage shows. Which is definitely NOT what Night Agent is.

Haha same - I was getting really confused by the excitement around the new season of the Night Agent

Haha same - I was getting really confused by the excitement around the new season of the Night Agent

Bad: We watched the first two episodes of Night Manager 2, and it is some pretty generic and implausible stuff. Might not bother with the rest.

Good: We're also three episodes into Néro on Netflix, a French drama set during the early 16th century, which has assassins and witches and people fighting their way across hostile countryside. It's pretty good.

Sad: I've had to give up on Culinary Class Wars. During episode 4, one of the chefs started grilling crabs over coals, and it was immediately apparent that one of the crabs was still alive while this was happening. And they didn't just show it once: a couple of times they cut back to the crab trying to climb off the grill and the chef hooshing it back on there. I'm aware that attitudes to marine animals differ across the world, and I know that it might make me a hypocrite or whatever, but if I'm watching something purely for entertainment purposes, I don't really want to see that, so I have parted ways with this otherwise excellent show.

yeah that was a bit grim.

Futher ahead, looking forward to the second season of Beef which is around April I think.

All new cast (and beef) this season

Looking forward to His and Hers, hope it's good, plan to start that as early as today. I just finished The Lowdown last night so I have a bit of a void (watching The Beast in Me and Death by Lightning with the wife so our schedules/appetites have to align before I move forward with those).

I liked season one of the Night Manager well enough but tbh the trailer for season two looked incredibly trashy and bad and was enough to put me off for now. Reading the comments above won't drive me on to watch it.

Task is decent but should have been a single half hour episode because that guy wouldn’t have survived robbing a single drug house.

This looks reeeeeally stupid. I'm in. On Amazon January 28.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8R0xDczERo

I watched one episode of His & Hers and don’t think I’ll continue. I hope Bernthal and Thompson got big paychecks.

Very late to the party, but finally gave the Lowdown a shot last night. The whole lovable screw-up who stumbles upon something bigger than himself, while trying to fix stuff at home, all felt bit played out. Still, the Tulsa backdrop is interesting/intriguing. Will try one or two more episodes before deciding whether to pass.

I watched the first episode of Lowdown and it felt a little forced and cutesy -- and yet another show/movie to trade in on Keith David's innate likeability without giving him anything interesting to do. But maybe it gets better?

agreed on His & Hers, I couldn't even make it all the way through one episode. very soapy, which isn't my speed. that makes two Tessa Thompson projects in a row (also Hedda) that I've quit after roughly a half-hour. I don't think the problem is her, but I'm a little wary.

also, Keith David has plenty to do in The Lowdown, I'd advise you stick with it. I know YMMW with Ethan Hawke and sometimes he does seem extremely try-hard, but ultimately he won me over, plus it's got lots of other great folks like Jeanne Tripplehorn, Kyle McLachlan, and especially Tim Black Nelson.

*Blake

Yeah, I will watch a few more.

Tessa Thompson is a terrible actor imo. I mean, she's okay in Thor, where she's supposed to be a little blank and aloof. But she's always somewhat wooden, like she's rehearsing for a Hal Hartley movie.

Lowdown is loosely based on a real person and story, which adds some perspective.

https://slate.com/culture/2025/11/the-lowdown-show-fx-ethan-hawke-sterlin-harjo-lee-roy-chapman.html

I'm really enjoying The Lowdown but would be sticking with it anyway just for all the JJ Cale on the soundtrack

The Lowdown is a great hang! to me it’s like a cross between Inherent Vice & Long Goodbye where it’s more journey than destination, but even more shambolic & lazy-river. The vibes are SO good though.

lowdown was my favorite show of last year. perfect vibes. incredible cast too, just a murderer's row of character actors. like i tell my friends that the ethan hawke show also has kyle mclachlan and keith david and tracy letts and tim blake nelson and they are like "why have i not heard of this show before now"

About halfway through Lowdown and loving it

You know what's pretty good? The Joel Coen version of MACBETH on Apple TV! (Particularly recommended to ANDOR fans. You'll be shocked why.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptqe7s6pO7g

I watch that every year with my students when we do our Macbeth unit. It generally goes over pretty well, though I do end up having to explain what film noir is because they've never seen any.

yeah i kinda liked that one too! odd that they made Mac & Lady no longer able to have children, kinda removes the point of the whole thing i thought

I didn't realise there was a wait for the culinary class wars final! I feel like there was a slight slump in the middle and 70 min episodes are a lot, but endless cooking paradise (surely "heaven") and hell were great. Loved the guy rushing out multiple dishes like they were being scored on quantity not quality, felt like he didn't give a shit about getting to the final; and the calm but not arrogant confidence of Culinary Monster. Sad but not too surprised to see Brewmaster Yun go.

I do like the show but here's my impersonation of Culinary Class Wars

Shot of dude making bibimbap

Black Spoons chatting amongst thrmselves: What is he making? Bibimbap?

White Spoons doing same: he is very fanmous for his bibimbap!

Cut to interview with guy: I will be making bibimbap.

Caption: THIS GUY - BIBIMBAP EXPERT

also:

The mystery ingredient is... KIMCHI!

Shot of assembled chefs gasping

KIMCHI!

Different shot of gasping chefs

KIMCHI!

Different shot of gasping chefs

I watched Heated Rivalry and found it very addictive and compelling TV. Went back and forth on whether it's actually good, whether something that's by definition a romance novel can *be* good, etc. Concluded that it's really well-made in all the details; acting, cinematography, lighting, music, etc. are all very high quality and the guy who plays the Russian is star material. Still can't quite tell whether that adds up to Good, Good Bad, Bad Good, or what.

It doesn't strike me as fetishizing in the way that Red, White and Royal Blue did; the characters are much more realistic, and it's the kind of difficult relationship situation (two people who get stuck in a situationship for almost a decade because the homophobia of their environment doesn't let them conceive of having an actual relationship) that seems worth spending a season on. Definitely seems to be made for a variety of audiences, not just women (though as a woman it's hard for me to say for sure.)

I’m guessing the source novels are fluff, but the filmmakers have clearly approached the material with the intention of making a quality production, which separates it from the pathetic Red, White and Royal Blue. I love the (Van Sant-inspired?) closing-credit sequence of the finale. And yeah, Conner Storrie is a star.

To me, the really big issue with Red, White, and Royal Blue wasn't even the quality, abysmal though that was; it was the way these two characters interacted in ways that seemed designed to make them as cute and unthreatening as possible to a straight audience. Their emails get leaked and what's in them? No sex videos, nothing embarrassingly dirty, just poetic long-form love letters full of literary quotations. That's not character; that's someone mashing two Ken dolls together.

With Heated Rivalry, the characters seem like actual twentysomething guys who have known each other for years but have never had a real conversation and don't know how, and it's genuinely interesting to watch them figure it out.

xposts i've only watched a couple of episodes but those descriptions of culinary class wars basically describes what happens on 99% of all SKorean reality shows

it's just their standard filming trope/style... like americans on a TV competition show and going "i'm not here to make friends, i'm here to win"

anyway, i'm here to echo others upthread - do not watch His&Hers. I watched it to the end against my better judgement, but it was very bad throughout and the final twist is incredibly stupid

All Her Fault was enjoyable though! Also a cheesy soapy thriller but it helped that the characters were various levels of sympathetic, even when they were being dumb.

My only problem with Heated Rivalry was that the actual heated rivalry part of it wasn't shown all that well. Like, every so often someone would go "don't you hate him?" but there was never any real footage of them hating each other on the ice (because the show couldn't afford to spend very much time on the ice, I guess), or any real feeling that they interacted at all beyond a lot of round-bum shagging in private. But otherwise, knowing some sporty guys, I found their relationship sort of realistic. In that one says "you're so boring" and the other says "you're an asshole" and they play video games and they watch a lot of hockey, and they basically do this for years, because that's what they do. They don't suddenly become incredibly articulate just because they're together.

Is anyone watching new season of Fallout? We enjoyed season 1. Two episodes into season 2 - not quite feeling it, too many plot lines.

yeah i like it okay but it is a lot to keep track of, i think mr veg enjoys it more than i do perhaps bc he played the games

I find myself increasingly getting annoyed by so many shows so I wind up just watching Fisk, I hope there's another season coming considering the success it seems to have had with stateside audiences via Netflix.

I’m 4 episodes into His & Hers … the Sobotkas + Bernthal … apart from them, the best characters are the kid and Alzheimers mom

I gave up on season two of Fallout after two episodes. It seemed to be going for maximum grossness over minimal entertainment and I just couldn't be bothered. Similarly, husband is still watching it because he played the games.

Last week's episode of Fallout was pretty good where they finally introduced deathclaws

Okay I finished His&Hers … it wasn’t horrible… but I had low expectations going in based on the “dead baby trauma” in episode 1.

Also, I swear that there is a scene in Walking Dead where Bernthal has the exact same lines & delivery as in one of the last two episodes.

I am watching The Traitors US season 4 but not opening the Traitors thread and posting about it because the UK version is also airing right now and Peacock won't show that until sometime later this year. Am I missing out on any discussion of the US version, or is it all just about the UK version?

(I get the impression that The Traitors, while certainly a successful show in the US, is a bigger deal in the UK. Or at least watched not just by gay men.)

Fallout S1 was overstuffed on plotlines too, I didn’t remember a third of the recap.

My mom is a big U.K. Traitors fan but hates that the US version is all reality TV losers.

dtf St Louis is one of the rare shows I've seen lately where I have absolutely no idea of where it's going and the friendship between harbour/bateman is genuinely sweet.

well I guess I know one thing about where it's going but have no idea how they will end up there

it all feels very open, the characters and the way it's written.

yeah, every now and then I notice a show is more of a "why done it" than a "who done it" and it's usually to it's benefit. There's still mysteries over exactly who and exactly how but it avoids all the clichés of the typical TV who-done-it mystery. While still letting the detectives play that game.

It’s very jarring seeing Joy Sunday play an age-appropriate character seeing as I only really know her from Wednesday, where she’s playing a teenager

yeah, every now and then I notice a show is more of a "why done it" than a "who done it" and it's usually to it's benefit. There's still mysteries over exactly who and exactly how but it avoids all the clichés of the typical TV who-done-it mystery. While still letting the detectives play that game.

yep and of like true crime or whatever, the plot is a sort of trick to lead you into the world of these v well-drawn characters. that said, while a lot of shows do time jumping and move forward and back, this show does it very boldly, like big jumps but somehow seamlessly achieved in the context of what's happening. hoping the final two episodes deliver.

Hmm y’all may actually get me to watch this show

It’s very good, I say go for it

Enjoying S2 of Deadloch - some very funny needledrops ("Slice of Heaven" accidentally blasting multiple times from a landrover, house remix of "Constant Craving" from Cath's campervan).

Wait there's a second season of Deadloch? Ugh I so do not want to renew my Prime subscription though

dunno where to post this but my daughter recently started watching Young Sheldon. I've watched it with her from time to time, maybe like a third of the episodes. it is genuinely one of the weirdest shows I've ever seen. it starts off as a sitcom but it slowly morphs into a soap opera with all sorts of serious storylines, one kid gets kicked out of the house and gets a girl pregnant, there's infidelity, the grandma goes to jail, meanwhile you've got an even more annoying version of the most obnoxious character in sitcom history doing Big Bang Theory style humor. the whole show makes no sense. like what is the audience for this? (besides 9 year old girls??) anyway during the last season they randomly kill off the dad, one of the last episodes is just the funeral and there's a scene where Will Sasso and Wallace Shawn offer their condolances

Wallace Shawn is in a ton of the series.

Yeah, there was a flurry on social media during the last presidential election (I think, or maybe it was during Zohran Mamdani's mayoral campaign) where some 18 year old influencer was canvassing and posted a picture of herself with Wallace Shawn and described him as "Wallace Shawn from Young Sheldon!" and when people got on her case about it she said, basically, I'm 18 years old and that's where I know him from, whaddya want from me?

hahaha yep he popped up so many times that I made my daughter watch The Princess Bride, her face lit up when he appeared

still can't get over how weird this ending was. like imagine a King of Queens episode where Patton Oswalt enters at the end with tears in his eyes saying Doug got pancaked by a mail truck. and the next episode was just all the characters earnestly saying "he irritated the hell out of me but god damnit I loved him". also Urkel is there. its like one of those lost media creepypastas, "Dead Bart" or whatever

Apparently the upcoming "Cape Fear" reboot on Apple (executive produced by Scorsese *and* Spielberg) is ... 10 episodes long!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSnichjB3-o

Maybe this would have better luck in one of the horror threads, but has anyone watched the netflix limited series Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen? I was home sick without my work laptop today and decided to give it a chance, and after two eps I think I'm hooked.

It's about an anxious young woman meeting her fiance's family at their isolated "summer house" in the woods of like, maybe northern Michigan?, where the young couple plan to wed. The family are unsettling Draculalian freaks of course, but the vibe was already freaky even before they entered the picture, during the road trip up. I'm on the edge of my seat (okay okay, I'm horizontal wrapped in blankets coughing hoarsely) waiting to see whether the groom-to-be is a mere pawn or the hand that moves the pieces.

I binged it at the weekend. Thought it had some good scenes at the beginning, but it got quite bad even a few episodes in, imo. By the end was properly terrible, I felt, just really stupid even for a show I wasn't expecting to be serious. Curious to see what you or others think along the way.

I started watching it the other day but was half asleep and nothing about it stuck with me, not sure i'll bother returning to it

Couldn't think of anything else I actively wanted to watch so I'm watching Ballard on Amazon. Got through two episodes and it's pretty good. LAPD as sinister street gang protecting their own.

I started watching Rooster, which is generally pleasant like most of Bill Lawrence’s shows.

xpost I watched Ballard last year - it was pretty good. If you liked the first 2 eps, it's worth sticking with it.

Heading towards the end of Culinary Class Wars - Culinary Monster is such a dick.

Can’t have a cooking show without massive egos. There’s a white chef who looks like a basic dad who had an equal opinion of himself. They faced each other, I think.

The new season on Top Chef just started, with the usual editing to highlight the egos prior to comeuppance. Did appreciate how this week’s ep knocked out a chef recognized by others as great, but who said they were now competing with other equally great chefs in a pressure environment. Everyone has a menu until punched in the face.

Very rarely watch anything on Netflix but am enjoying Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen so far. Camila Morrone is excellent.

I read all the reviews that said it was basically a Temu version of a Michael Mann movie, and CRIME 101 still disappointed me. Cannot recommend.

Last one Laughing - I'm not sure if I can warm to Sam at all because he seems cold and like a psychopath for not coming close to a smile throughout!

I started watching S1 of that quite randomly last night (it popped up on my Prime home page) and I ended up watching three episodes in a row. Quite funny.

Not familiar with most of the contestants, but I do know a few from Taskmaster/Traitors.

I really want to watch Julio Torres’ new special but for some reason it’s not available if you sign up to hbo max on prime. How hard does hbo make canceling if you sign up directly with them?

I can't answer that question, but I did see Color Theories on stage in NYC and found it delightful.

Last one Laughing - I'm not sure if I can warm to Sam at all because he seems cold and like a psychopath for not coming close to a smile throughout!

I had this problem with Ayoade in s1 but not Campbell - Ayoade's above it all shtick sometimes shaded over into seeming like genuine contempt. Sam meanwhile just seems like he's off in his own universe.

I find LOL strange as a viewer. As an experiment it's interesting, because a) comedians can't bear it if people are not laughing at them, b) people are conditioned to laugh and smile at each other even if the things they are saying and hearing are not really that funny, so it seems weirdly hostile when that's not happening and c) it's tough (for me anyway) to see comedians failing to make people laugh. It's like there's a mindset you can get yourself into where instead of being willing to laugh, you're actually thinking god, I feel sorry for you, look how desperate you are to make me laugh and I just am not, this is so feeble, where is your dignity? So I find the whole thing more awkward than funny. But fair play to Amazon for getting six half-hour shows out of one day of pretty cheap shooting, that's some House-of-Games level thriftiness.

I generally enjoy it as a social experiment first and foremost, yeah. Tho the UK version works better as comedy than most.

Color Theories was brilliant. Closest thing to HBO just airing straight up performance art.

trishyb, yep I agree with a lot of that. It's weird to be laughing yourself while watching them straight-faced. Much better when a few people have gone off and you get more shots of them all laughing. But most of them have the non-laughing face (Mel's gurning etc) that you learn to interpret as laughter...! Sam simply doesn't have that which is what throws me.

Sam meanwhile just seems like he's off in his own universe.

I think it's this, he would probably find conspiracy theory crackpots funnier than comedians trying to make him laugh. I'll bet Lucy Beaumont could crack him just by having a normal conversation. Or maybe if Bob dipped more into his truly surreal bag:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGOUR26pLz0

Honestly I don't love the LOL format, I just like a lot of the comedians from Taskmaster. Haven't seen a real ep though, just a ton of clips.

I agree with everyone who says that Sam is unbeatable because he is in a world of his own. He just doesn't find ordinary things funny.

he was talking about listening to Hancock on the radio recently. and python. he didn't really know about Bob because that stuff never made it to Australia

(last half hour here if you can see this - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002rynj )

Just caught half of an episode of The Capture on the BBC and it was pretty good, anyone know if this is something worth getting into?

The first season is fun but it gets too silly by the end, in that the way that BBC thrillers tend to (e.g. Vigil, Bodyguard, Line of Duty, Years and Yearsd...)

― Chuck_Tatum, Monday, 16 March 2026 01:36 (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Watched the first series and yeah it was ok but nothing special. The one episode of series three that I caught was much better (so I'll keep on with it)

Deadloch is back, still delightful.

We’re finding Deadloch a bit exhausting this go round. So many words and characters and so much chaotic energy.

Xps Color Theories is suddenly available on hbo via prime now - I thought I’d double check before I signed up directly and there it was 🤷‍♀️ The Shapes special was so good, I got so excited when I saw the announcement for the new one.

OK I haven't watched LOL but I'm curious now. Sam is like the ultra-concentrated dry Australian mixed with a bit of ASD remove/weird that a lot of people here "get", but I can see it throwing people elsewhere? Actually there's prob even people here who think he's just a fkn weirdo. But I know people like him, who just riff in this completely bland-but-actually-fucked-up manner. He does such a perfect version.

I find Sam very funny on Taskmaster but don’t think he worked on LOL - up until the last 3 minutes when he was feeding eclairs to David Mitchell.

My fav Campbell LOL moment went under the radar - he picked up the phone, listened to Carr's instructions and went "guys, Vladimir Putin has been assassinated."

Ok I started DFT St Louis and glad I did, this is nothing like I thought it was going to be; for some reason (based on nothing) I thought this was a 30 minute sitcom about wifeswapping

Mine was when he'd been quizzing Alan on his interest in extreme sports and then 20 minutes later or whatever as he's walking past Alan just randomly throws out "So where do you stand on quad bikes?". xp

Binged Deadloch S2. Thought I wouldn’t love it. Ended up loving it.