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.

Ok Omar, maybe I’ll give it another try xp

beef s2, while maybe not to the level of s1, was still v good imo.. sonny lee is a huge talent at writing characters, dialogue, scenes etc

I really liked it. that seems to be an unpopular opinion.

Young Sherlock has gotten even more enjoyable as it goes - Natascha McElhone is fantastic as Sherlock's mom, they're doing a great job of keeping Moriarty interesting even though we know what must happen eventually.

Netflix wanted me to watch a show called Everyone is Doing Great, so I decided to give it a go. Within the first ten minutes of this incredibly cheap sitcom where you can hear everyone's feet clomping across the floorboards when they walk, a guy is masturbating into a bathroom mirror while his friend approaches the door of the house and I just thought, ugh, no. Not another one of these. I'm not even sure what I mean by "these" in this context, but this is another one.

Also, I've realised that one of my problems with Margo's Got Money Troubles is Michelle Pfeiffer's uncanny ageless face, which I appreciate is a miracle of modern medical technology. How old is her character supposed to be, exactly? I get so distracted by it.

I saw that a new series of Berlin, the Money Heist spin off, was on Netflix and I realised we'd forgotten to watch the first one. Harmless fun so far. The biggest unintentional lol was the punk club, where the band were covering What a Wonderful World and the crowd were acting like it was the best thing ever.

Asura, a Japanese Netflix drama series from last year about 4 sisters who discover their elderly father is having an affair, written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, is excellent. Great performances, very true-to-life relationships

I decided to watch Skins (UK) for the first time. I love the kid actors, tonally it’s a mess. maybe too many early 00’s triggers for me to comfortably bear.
so far Cassie, Sid & Maxie are getting me through it but the hijinks/comedy is a really rough go. (That Russian school trip ep? Jesus)

Also Tony is a psychopath

I've realised that one of my problems with Margo's Got Money Troubles is Michelle Pfeiffer's uncanny ageless face

you know Nicole Kidman is also in this, it's a plastic surgery bonanza. FWIW Pfeiffer's work is kind of crazy, her cheekbones are insane. But it's also not bad work. It's very well done.

Ok SkinsS1 saved by finale ending -I do love a big swing

Don't think I've seen it since it first came out but I loved the first two seasons of Skins. Nicholas Hoult has played a lot of unhinged characters but has never topped Tony, imo

you know Nicole Kidman is also in this, it's a plastic surgery bonanza.

This is true. Her weirdness doesn’t bother as much in this context because I don’t care what age she is supposed to be.

Richard Gadd's Half Man on HBO is really something else. The actors who play young Niall and young Ruben are great

Was wondering if anybody was talking about that here. It’s kinda fine a bit too far in a certain way that annoys me and it’s a hard watch but it’s really intense and the performances are great. I’m really into it. It’s just shy of great I think.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is entertaining.

I'm watching S3 of The Diplomat as my work-out distraction and idk it feels like they really missed the moment politically, like these people are all actually horrific monsters? It's also confusing as hell to hear mention of the Abraham Accords, election interference, etc.

Yeah, when they decided it was cool for the Vice President to do a false flag terror attack because it's so important to keep US bases in Scotland or whatever I was like who cares about their cute relationship problems?

I suppose it's kind of instructive as a lurid depiction of what "liberal fascism" would look like

I finished up Big Mistakes, the Netflix show with Dan Levy. It was... okay. Probably not helped by the fact that I've been doing a Schitt's Creek rewatch lately and this just doesn't hold a candle to that. Too much sniping between Levy and his family, and not enough hijinks given the premise. Also I think most of the supporting cast (aside from Laurie Metcalf) is not that strong. And ultimately it felt like the first season was a giant preamble to season 2, where all the players are finally in place.

I've come around to Hacks as my work-out distraction. :) Agree re The Diplomat, I tried but it didn't hold up.

Ha ha ha, this looks SO BAD. (The book, by Nick Tosches, is one of the worst books I've ever read in my life.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebPPz69zufc

That is not a compelling trailer.

You're not drawn in by the prospect of Martin Scorsese playing a wizened hermit from a Mel Brooks movie?

I was out the moment I saw the name Julian Schnabel

can't believe people are still casting Gal Gadot in things

The series finale of Hacks was wonderful

Strong disagree re rest of cast on Big Mistakes as thought Taylor Ortega was fantastic in it and felt like a real breakout role for her xps

I thought last week was the finale of hacks!

You've got a whole bonus episode!

It was starting to seem like every other show had a plot or subplot with someone doing Only Fans/online sex work, but I guess I was not the only one that noticed that:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/the-stories-that-tv-tells-about-online-sex-work

Unrelated, we watched a couple of episodes of "Neighbors," which is basically just reality trash about feuding neighbors who are all strange lunatics. Kind of a cross between "Cops" and that "Perfect Neighbor" doc, only in this show the threat of violence is afaict played for laughs. Gross.

I almost watched Neighbors because the first episode was about something that happened in Montana, but I canceled my HBO subscription before I got around to it.

the last episode of Neighbors is really amazing

So worth it? Or amazing, as in, omg, you have to see this crazy shit?

the latter

I was too disgusted to watch the season finale of The Diplomat. Couldn't take another minute of time with such amoral monsters, so I went back to Snowfall lol. I think only unperson has ever mentioned it on here, but it's good maybe even excellent at times, though it comes with the unfortunate caveat that it takes a fairly long time to figure out how to focus on what it does well. i.e., I have never started caring about the CIA guy or his family life, and the Mexican thread with Oso et al isn't a turn-off like Reed is (though it has featured probably the worst actors), but it is a confused mess and currently in S4 I have basically forgotten how or why they're involved. The show definitely should have just made Franklin the main character — and Damson Idris should be a huge star, I might even watch F1, which I couldn't have much less interest in just for him.

He's just OK in F1; his job is to be the cocky young guy who learns the zen of race car driving from Brad Pitt.

I agree that Snowfall definitely devoted way too much time to the CIA guy's problems. On the other hand, I would have liked even more time with Franklin's aunt and uncle, Jerome and Louie, whose relationship was fascinating.

I watched the first three episodes of Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed but am only mildly interested in continuing. I like all the actors involved but I don’t really find the story believable.

Also funny that this is a weekly Apple TV show because the way they ratchet everything up in the last two minutes of each episode really feels like this was designed to be a Netflix binge.

Finished Race Across the World series 6, spectacular television.

If you're in the mood for gentle, low-stakes, slice-of-life Japanese comedy drama with a dose of magical realism, I can recommend Rebooting (Brush Up Life in Japanese) and The Hot Spot, both written by the same chap, who goes by the name of Bakarhythm.

If you’re watching the Four Seasons second season, which is quite funny, and are curious about the summer episodes, the boardwalk is in Point Pleasent and the pretty Victorian houses is Ocean Grove, the weird but beautiful Christian town just below Asbury park.

I actually was wondering about it. It looks so lovely.

It's really wild. I don't remember how we discovered it, it's literally JUST below Asbury Park and it's this huge christian community. The beach isn't even open for part of sunday morning so they can have services. There's a giant church, which you can actually see in the background of them hanging out on the porch, and this entire neighborhood of little summer tent cottages for the christians.

The beach is dry, there's no alcohol in the city, and it costs money to get on the beach, so the vibe is VERY different than Asbury Park. But it's really lovely to be in the ocean and looking up and seeing those lovely painted lady houses. We used to go to Ocean Grove, do the beach, walk around the cottages and houses, and then at the end of the day drive a few blocks up to Asbury to walk the boardwalk but lately we've been swimming at the north end of Asbury Park where there's a bunch of food trucks.

Was it here or somewhere else that someone called it "Ocean Snooze"?

funny, never seen that.

Anyway sundays are open now according to wikipedia:

"For the 2024 season, the camp meeting association began allowing Sunday access to its beach at weekday hours, while in a court battle with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.[27] This was later considered permanent after the department declared the camp meeting association could no longer restrict access on Sundays."

I agree that Snowfall definitely devoted way too much time to the CIA guy's problems. On the other hand, I would have liked even more time with Franklin's aunt and uncle, Jerome and Louie, whose relationship was fascinating.

― wipes chooser (unperson), Monday, June 1, 2026 1:50 PM (yesterday)

otm. Angela Lewis is probably my second-favourite cast member, but everyone in the Franklin orbit is generally good — with the possible exception of his parents who have become a little boring right now — or memorable, e.g., the drug-addled crazy gangster buy blasting Egyptian Lover [iirc] during the initial meeting. I basically wish all the other characters were on par with Avi, who I enjoy, in terms of import and screen time.

There's a giant church, which you can actually see in the background of them hanging out on the porch, and this entire neighborhood of little summer tent cottages for the christians.

Yeah, the church is very prominent.
I enjoyed learning this little travel nugget.

I had a travel thought about spring as well which is wondering if people thought that random little cutesy hipstery cabin with record players in the rooms was a real thing in the catskills and I'd say yes it absolutely is there's places like that all over hudson valley and the catskills. Just tiny little forest towns filled with trump voters and then there's some super cute little place for the people from the city to spend the weekend.

I know there are a few scenes that they've greenscreened, but it is refreshing to watch a programme that uses real locations and real sets. I get a kind of claustrophobia when it's all super-cheap green screen. The last few episodes of the recent-ish Matlock were the worst for this.