X-Men '97, 3 Body Problem, and more from this week in TV

3 Body Problem review: So is this the next Game Of Thrones?

There’s no getting around the fact that 3 Body Problem comes to Netflix with a lot of baggage. It’s based on an international bestseller with legions of fans all over the world, and it’s not even the first adaptation of Liu Cixin’s Remembrance Of Earth’s Past series to come to TV screens. Add to that the expectations that come with being the first show executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have actively led since Game Of Thrones ended (rather divisively, as you may recall), and that’s a lot to overcome. The eight-episode series, which premieres March 21, seems well aware of its provenance, and is overly eager to please as a result. It may wear the garb of prestige television, but underneath it’s just a nerdy science-fiction show, with a healthy emphasis on the science. Read More

X-Men ‘97 review: This is how you reboot a beloved TV show

There’s no reason, beyond love, for X-Men ’97 to be any good. Cynicism argues that Marvel could have slapped together almost anything for this unabashed nostalgia product, attached it to the iconic opening title sequence from Fox’s classic Saturday morning cartoon—which ’97 serves as an explicit, and reverential, sequel to—and raked in the same number of clicks and new Disney+ subscriptions as it did by making something genuinely great. The fact that X-Men ’97, which premieres March 20, is great—smart, exciting, funny, and hokey in just the right ways—speaks to an obvious and abundant affection for this brand, and these characters, that’s evident in how the show updates a slightly hoary classic for the modern era. Read More

The white guy in Shōgun can’t help but fail upward

In developing its new adaptation of James Clavell’s Shōgun, FX specifically set out to avoid simply rehashing the “whitewashed” 1980 original, which starred Richard Chamberlain and was entirely told from the perspective of his character, John Blackthorne, an English seaman who gets shipwrecked in Japan in the 1600s and must learn their ways in order to survive (while also passing on his knowledge of English romance and warfare). This new take pulls back the focus to center on a larger group of characters and treats the saga as more of a historical epic than one white man’s adventure, which allows it to showcase more of the Japanese perspective and gives it a more mature and culturally coherent story. It also, intentionally or not, turns its new version of John Blackthorne into the most perfect putz, the most lovable dingus, and the most frustratingly endearing dorkus to ever set sail. Read More

Shōgun recap: Blackthorne and Buntaro face off over sake

In my various professional and personal intersections—writer, speech-language pathologist, what-have-you—one maxim rings true enough for me to wear it emblazoned across many of my shirts: “Your Words Matter.” Obviously an episode of Shōgun that is all about that is going to check all of the right boxes for me. This one doesn’t disappoint. Read More

Curb Your Enthusiasm recap: Yup, text chains do in fact suck

Larry David is the kind of guy who always has a scheme—we know this as fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Be it the grander variety, like launching a whole coffee shop out of spite, or the more everyday sort, like that trick with Larry’s balls hanging out of his shorts a few episodes back, he’s always got something up his sleeve. (Oh, I guess that’s kind of a pun. Neat.) Some of his strategies play out just as he hopes and they get him out of trouble. Others flounder, as is the case with the one in this episode: “The Dream Scheme.” Read More

Against all odds, this week’s The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is pretty freakin’ great

“We can make this whole damn world ours if we want to,” Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) proclaims to the love of his life, Michonne (Danai Gurira), in the closing moments of The Ones Who Live’s most recent episode. It’s a thankfully joyful culmination of 45 minutes of fervid back-and-forth between them about their damaged relationship. In AMC’s newest The Walking Dead spinoff, they reunite after eight years but don’t truly reconnect until episode four, “What We,” which aired March 17. Filmed like a stage play, it’s a most welcome respite indeed. Read More

Elisabeth Moss is Bourne again in the trailer for FX’s spy thriller,The Veil

After nearly a decade of telling The Handmaid’s Tale, Elisabeth Moss is removing the bonnet and putting on The Veil. In the new spy thriller from FX, Moss is a secret agent with an accent who loses her identity to become a hundred strangers in her myriad missions. She plays Imogen Salter, a name that sounds like it should be a pun (maybe her middle name begins with “A”— I. A. Salter?), who, as Max Peterson (Josh Charles) tells us, is only used in “high-level situations but is known for being erratic and unpredictable.” In other words, she’s the perfect spy to lead a television show and stop a plan, intelligence tells us, is set to kill half a million people. Read More

Alien: Romulus teaser sends the series back to space and to familiar iconography

Though we’ve had plenty of Alien sequels, prequels, and spin-offs in the last two decades, the series hasn’t spent much time on a spaceship since 1997’s Alien: Resurrection. Alien: Romulus plans to change that. Read More

Jeff Goldblum is Zeus for a new era in first Kaos teaser

Ancient Greek gods are really having a moment right now. No, you didn’t accidentally board a time machine and wake up in 500 BC, and Netflix’s new series won’t let you forget it. Kaos follows the Percy Jackson And The Olympians model of insisting that Poseidon, Hera, and the rest never really went away—they just adapted. Oh, and they wear a lot of tracksuits now. Seriously, what’s with all the tracksuits? (Side note: Starz’s American Gods was really ahead of its time, huh? R.I.P.) Read More

Palm Royale premiere: What’s this show trying to be?

Here we are at the beginning of the new Apple TV+ miniseries Palm Royale. Well, technically we’re not at the beginning anymore—we’re three episodes in. But I would argue that the three-episode block serves as one long pilot, because frankly, there’s a real “Wait, what is this about?” feeling at the end of the first episode. And second. And maybe even third. Read More