April is to TV as November is to movies, with the Emmy eligibility deadline a month away and—hey, wait a second. Didn’t we just do the Emmys? Well, yes, the most recent Emmy Awards ceremony happened in January, but only because the actors’ and writers’ strikes delayed an event that was originally slated to happen in September 2023. Now we’re looking ahead to this September, when a second 2024 ceremony will honor series released between last June and this May. The upshot is that prestige television season is once again upon us.
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00:00 (soft music)
00:02 - Times TV critic, Judy Berman breaks down
00:09 her top five new TV shows of April, 2024.
00:13 - You say this woman is stalking you.
00:14 - Yeah, she comes to my work, she comes to my house.
00:17 She sends me emails like all the time.
00:19 (door slams)
00:22 - I wouldn't say that's particularly threatening.
00:25 (people laughing)
00:27 - "Baby Reindeer" on Netflix.
00:29 A woman walks into a London bar
00:31 crying softly her eyes on the floor.
00:33 She claims to be a powerful lawyer,
00:35 but she also says she can't afford a cup of tea.
00:38 So the bartender intrigued by this suddenly chatty enigma
00:42 gives her one on the house.
00:43 This isn't the setup for a joke,
00:45 though the bartender happens to moonlight as a comedian.
00:48 It's an encounter that will soon escalate into the woman,
00:51 Martha, stalking the bartender, Donnie.
00:53 Their relationship forms the foundation
00:56 of Netflix's "Baby Reindeer,"
00:57 a darkly comedic psychological thriller
01:00 based on a real life ordeal
01:02 and adapted from an award-winning one-man show.
01:05 It's a Trojan horse of sorts,
01:06 drawing in viewers with the promise of schlock,
01:09 then starting serious conversations instead
01:12 about sexuality, abuse, shame,
01:14 and how unprocessed trauma
01:16 can poison even healthy relationships.
01:19 - I'm having the best week.
01:20 My old school want me to come back
01:21 and do a talk for their little drama club.
01:23 Isn't that cute?
01:24 (dramatic music)
01:26 These are teenagers.
01:27 They'll find your Instagram
01:28 and make fun of your selfies.
01:30 - Big Mood on Tubi.
01:31 Tubi isn't exactly known
01:33 for high quality original programming,
01:35 but its recent foray into licensing British TV
01:38 is beginning to change that.
01:39 A Channel 4 dramedy that cast two great young actresses,
01:43 Bridgerton and Derry Girls star, Nicola Coughlin,
01:46 and It's a Sin breakout Lydia West,
01:49 as codependent best friends
01:51 fumbling their way through their early 30s.
01:53 Coughlin's Maggie is the big personality,
01:55 a playwright with bipolar disorder
01:57 who's prone to go off her medication
01:59 because she's convinced it kills her creativity.
02:02 That makes Eddie, the patient,
02:04 if increasingly frustrated, caretaker,
02:07 doing her best to support Maggie
02:09 while struggling to keep the bar
02:10 her late father left to her open.
02:12 Big Mood touches on plenty of themes
02:14 that have been well-represented on TV
02:16 in the past several years,
02:17 from mental illness to female friendship,
02:20 but it's inventive enough to feel fresh
02:22 with many laugh out loud funny scenes.
02:24 Best of all is the chemistry between Coughlin and West
02:27 as two very different women
02:28 whose bond makes perfect sense.
02:31 - I do not own my home.
02:34 My children are unwed.
02:35 We have nothing.
02:38 - If this became known,
02:39 your position in society would become untenable.
02:42 - Marian George from horny historical fiction hub, Stars,
02:47 makes no pretense at being high art, which makes it fun.
02:51 The setting is 17th century England
02:54 and the eponymous characters drawn from real life
02:56 are a minor aristocrat named Mary Villiers
02:59 and her unfeasibly handsome son, George.
03:02 A cutthroat survivor,
03:04 Mary has connived her way to a comfortable life
03:07 and is counting on her precious boy
03:09 to elevate the family to the highest echelons of power.
03:12 That means seducing King James I,
03:15 who brazenly indulges his same-sex desires
03:17 with a coterie of fiercely competitive young noblemen.
03:20 George is extremely down for this dangerous game
03:23 and his adventures with Mary exerting pressure
03:26 and bedding madams in the background
03:28 yield seven episodes of delightfully pulpy entertainment.
03:31 - Biracial, bilingual.
03:36 I was a synthesis of incompatibilities.
03:40 So what did I do?
03:43 - Welcome to the world of "Spycraft."
03:48 - When you hear that Hollywood is adapting a book
03:50 like Biet Thanh Nguyen's "The Sympathizer," you worry.
03:53 Published in 2015, the searing debut novel
03:57 set in the immediate aftermath
03:58 of what Americans call the Vietnam War.
04:01 As Nguyen and the new HBO series both remind us,
04:04 Vietnamese know as the American War, won a Pulitzer.
04:08 It's a psychological thriller, a war story,
04:11 a political satire, a cri de coeur,
04:13 and an investigation of identity
04:15 sifted through a mesh of framing devices
04:18 and unfolding largely within the fractured interiority
04:22 of a man who has yet to discover
04:24 who he is or what he believes.
04:27 How lucky are we then that the adaptation
04:29 was entrusted to Park Chan-wook,
04:31 the South Korean filmmaker behind international hits,
04:34 including "Old Boy," "The Handmaiden,"
04:36 and "Decision to Leave,"
04:38 has spent decades making movies
04:40 that co-mingle beauty and ugliness,
04:42 genre tropes and literary layers,
04:45 grindhouse depravity and arthouse imagination
04:48 to profound effect.
04:50 Park has crafted a vibrant, faithful,
04:52 yet often audacious sympathizer
04:54 that matches executive producer Nguyen's brilliant novel
04:57 in both ambition and execution.
04:59 - Rena Verne.
05:01 She's been missing for three days.
05:05 - That name, I saw something.
05:07 - What happened under the bridge?
05:09 - Can you keep a secret?
05:12 - "Under the Bridge" on Hulu.
05:13 There are so many cop shows, so many murder shows,
05:16 so many shows about innocent dead girls
05:18 who turn out to be less innocent than they looked.
05:21 Most are pointless wallows in the suffering
05:23 of others, real or fictional.
05:25 Of precious few, "Twin Peaks," "Sharp Objects,"
05:29 transcend the cliches of an overplayed genre
05:31 through artful storytelling and thematic depth.
05:34 Hulu's "Under the Bridge"
05:36 doesn't reach the latter series' heights,
05:38 but thoughtful, empathetic writing
05:40 and excellent performances
05:42 make it more than just another dead girl show.
05:44 (gentle music)
05:47 (gentle music)
05:50 (gentle music)