On (small) Screens

[ film + tv ]

Stay Close (left) premieres Friday, Dec. 31; Four to Dinner (right) debuts Wednesday, Jan. 5

ON (small) SCREENS IN ORLANDO

New streaming shows premiering this week that you won’t want to miss

by Steve Schneider

PREMIERES WEDNESDAY, DEC. 29:

Anxious People — The best-selling book by Fredrik Blackman becomes a Swedish comedy/mystery series about eight survivors of a hostage incident, all of whom have differing recollections of the event. That’s right, just like what happened when you and your friends settled in to watch Annie Live! (Netflix)

Crime Scene: The Times Square Killer

— Season 2 of Joe Berlinger’s locationspecific true-crime docuseries shifts its focus from California all the way to the other side of the country, exploring a spate of killings that exposed the vulnerability of New York’s sex workers in the late 1970s. This, of course, was before Rudy Giuliani took office and came up with the novel solution of just having them all shot preemptively. (Netflix) Star Wars: The Book of Boba Fett — The Season 2 finale of The Mandalorian positioned good old Boba as heir apparent to Jabba the Hutt’s criminal empire. (Kind of the way Gov. DeSantis sees himself, only in space.) This spinoff series will both explore that possibility and delve into the title character’s past — which should give canon junkies plenty of opportunities to look for continuity errors, which if we’re being honest is all they live for. Me, I’m too busy trying to figure out what the name of Boba’s sidekick, Fennec Shand, is an anagram for. Because you know it’s gotta be something. (Disney+)

PREMIERES THURSDAY, DEC. 30:

Kitz — The location: a ski slope where the affluent party kids of Europe come to live it up. The protagonist: a humble townie searching for her sister’s killer. The language: German. Hmmm, something tells me The Sex Lives of College Girls won’t be getting any competition in the laughs-per-minute department. (Netflix)

PREMIERES FRIDAY, DEC. 31:

’80s Top 10 — Rob Lowe hosts a sixepisode retrospective that seems to be targeted at people who fondly recall the Top Gun Decade yet are somehow too young to remember VH1’s I Love the ’80s. In other words, Schrödinger’s Stray Cats. (Disney+) Cobra Kai — Speaking of ’80s nostalgia, Season 4 of the Karate Kid spinoff series shows what happens when the cooperative efforts of Daniel and Johnny inspire the return of old nemesis Terry Silver. There are also big changes afoot that may alter the nature of the All Valley Under-18 Karate Championships forever. My instinct is to expect the arrival of a trans competitor nobody knows what to do with, but I guess that’s because my roots are in The Bad News Bears instead. (Netflix) The Lost Daughter — For her acclaimed directorial debut, Maggie Gyllenhaal has chosen to adapt Elena Ferrante’s novel about a college professor (Olivia Colman) who channels her personal frustrations into an obsession with a mother-daughter duo she meets on vacation. Careful about idealizing motherhood, Livy! On the outside, it looks like the greatest experience of your life, but from what I’ve heard, on the inside it’s just endless screaming and Peppa Pig. (Netflix) Queer Eye — Season 6 takes the boys to Texas, where they’ll help the locals look their very best while fulfilling what I call the Full Metal Jacket Prophecy. Because as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman told us, there are only two things to be found in the Lone Star State: One is steers, and the other is right there in the title. Don’t you just love it when a military insult becomes empowerment programming? (Netflix) Seal Team — Patrick Warburton, J.K. Simmons and Kristen Schaal lend their voices to an animated tale of valiant seals who have to protect their underwater turf from a gang of sharks. Scoff if you want, but until Omicron dies down, this is the closest I’m getting to West Side Story. (Netflix) Stay Close — Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A photojournalist, a mother of three and a detective walk into a bar. OK, it isn’t a bar; it’s another adaptation of a Harlan Coben novel. But all three characters are hiding dark secrets, which has to make for a laff riot, right? All right, maybe not. What we do know is that the action has been switched from the Atlantic City, New Jersey of the novel to Manchester, England. Strangely, I’ve never thought of them as sister cities. But now I’m preoccupied with the image of Morrissey getting rubbed out on Boardwalk Empire. (Netflix)

PREMIERES WEDNESDAY, JAN. 5:

Four to Dinner — Now here’s one to get your new year off on the proper note of wistful resignation. It’s a romcom that follows four Italians through alternate narratives in which they pair up in every possible combination. Somebody who aced their math SAT would be able to tell you right off the top of their head how many storylines that makes for, but I’m not damn Dr. Strange here, you know? Multiversal calculus aside, expect a mash-up of Sliding Doors and Friends that won’t consume 10 whole years of your life just to find out what it would be like if your favorite characters slapped privates. (Netflix) Rebelde — An entirely new cast of fresh-faced Mexican kids enters the halls of the Elite Way boarding school in a reboot of the 2004 telenovela that spawned the popular singing group RBD. Honestly, this was bound to happen after streaming brought back Saved by the Bell, which itself had spawned … um, Franklin & Bash and Elizabeth Berkley’s two Razzies. Reach for the stars, amigos! (Netflix)

PHOTOS COURTESY NETFLIX

PREMIERES THURSDAY, JAN. 6:

For the Sake of Vicious — Gotta love that title, which sounds like a cross between a Disney+ weeper about a beloved family pet and that Sex Pistols miniseries Johnny Rotten didn’t want anybody to see. Instead, what we’ve got here is home-invasion torture porn in which a nurse, a maniac and his victim all have to team up to fight off a band of intruders. Forget what I said earlier: This is what I’m watching instead of West Side Story. (Shudder)

PREMIERES FRIDAY, JAN. 7:

The Tender Bar — George Clooney’s eighth directorial outing is an adaptation of J.R. Moehringer’s memoir of his search for a father figure on Long Island. Despite receiving top billing, Ben Affleck was only nominated as Best Supporting Actor in the Golden Globes. Gosh, what a lousy thing to happen to someone. Being nominated for a Golden Globe, that is. (Amazon Prime)

PREMIERES SATURDAY, JAN. 8:

A Discovery of Witches — Matthew and Diana are on the hunt for the Book of Life as the series enters its third and final season, which we’re told will lead to a massive supernatural climax. Yeah, and that’s what you got promised on New Year’s Eve, but did it happen? (Shudder, AMC Plus and Sundance Now)