Premieres Wednesday:
Dubai Bling — Mona Kattan, Global President of Huda Beauty, joins the cast for Season 2, which promises “drama and tension galore.” What a relief, because the Middle East had been eerily quiet recently. (Netflix)
Planners — Moving over from Hulu, the Argentine series enters a second season of drama set within the high-pressure world of event planning. And I don’t care how many episodes of Bridezillas you’ve watched: You don’t know horror until you’ve seen a Fiesta de Quince end in AK fire. (Disney+)
Tierra Incognita — It looks as if Season 2 of the Argentinian YA horror series might bring teen protagonist Eric into contact with his dead mom. Which begs the question of what’s going on with his dead dad. Maybe the caseworker lady from Beetlejuice granted them shared custody on alternating weekends? (Disney+)
Premieres Thursday:
As the Crow Flies — Asli continues to usurp her boss, Lale, in Season 2 of the Turkish show that’s kind of like All About Eve, but for TV journalism. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy B-roll! (Netflix)
The Crown — With the nasty business of Diana’s death out of the way, the final six episodes of the series can focus on happier events, like the wedding of Charles to Camilla and the courtship of William and Kate. Notice no one’s saying anything about Harry and Meghan, which is a nice change from the real world. (Netflix)
Yu Yu Hakusho — The 30-year-old manga gets its first-ever live-action adaptation, introducing a whole new audience to the story of a teenager whose accidental death leads to him becoming a so-called Underworld Detective. In one of the few updates from the source comic, his first case is to figure out why Mitch McConnell hasn’t gotten there yet. (Netflix)
Premieres Friday:
Carol & the End of the World — After stints with The Onion, The Colbert Report, Community and Rick and Morty, writer Dan Guterman brings us a 10-episode animated series about a woman who yearns to do something meaningful as she prepares for an impending global apocalypse. The answer she hits on: spending 18 hours a day on X explaining why it’s all James Gunn’s fault. (Netflix)
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget — While Aardman Animations may be rapidly running out of clay (true story), they’ve at least managed to finish a sequel to their 2000 classic, Chicken Run. Supporting players like Imelda Staunton, Miranda Richardson and Jane Horrocks are back in the fold, but former star voices Julia Sawalha and Mel Gibson were not asked to return, purportedly because they would sound too old. Funny how that matters more to some people than, you know, being a Nazi. (Netflix)
Face to Face With ETA: Conversations With a Terrorist — The organizers of September’s San Sebastian Film Festival faced harsh criticism for booking this cinematic sit-down with José Antonio Urrutikoetxea, aka Josu Ternera, former leader of the Spanish Basque separatist group ETA. Spaniards from all walks of life feared the film would offer too sympathetic a portrait, which seems kind of odd since the word “terrorist” is right there in the title. Over here, it would be called Sovereign Citizens in Cars Getting Coffee. (Netflix)
The Family Plan — Mark Wahlberg plays a dad who takes his family on an impromptu vacation to keep them safe from terrorists who still hold a grudge against him from his days as a government assassin. Sounds like he should stay far away from Epic Universe if the rumors about that Hezbollah Landing are true. (Apple TV+)
Joe Bob’s Creepy Christmas — The contents of this year’s schlock double feature are top secret as always, and the beneficiary of the attendant charity auction hadn’t been revealed at press time. Yet I’m still getting paid to write this blurb anyway. Merry Christmas, everybody! (Shudder and AMC+)
Reacher — Season 2 sets Jack on the trail of a mysterious killer who’s systematically bumping off his old Army buddies. Wow, these Watchmen reboots always hit when you least expect it. (Prime Video)
Such Brave Girls — British writer/actor Kat Sadler says that being institutionalized was one of the experiences she drew upon when developing this dark sitcom about a pathetic pair of sisters and their equally clueless mom. What a refreshing change of pace for a show creator to go to the loony bin first. (Hulu)
Un Navidad Para Chueco — Spend some quality holiday time with Argentina’s favorite talking primate. (No, not the one who’s going to privatize the government and give everybody guns. Unless Chueco the chimp has big plans he hasn’t told us about.) (Disney+)
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This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2023.