Premieres
There are no premieres on non-streaming TV this week because everyone is watching the Olympics and maybe you should be too or else you’re going to look like a jerk when you have no idea who Simone Biles is. In fact, the Olympics dominate so much that most of your favorite summer series aren’t even showing new episodes. Luckily Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services don’t give a hoot about what is going down in Rio. NBC Universal channel
New to streaming
Take My Wife
Thanks to Louie, standup comedians are obsessed with shows about being standup comedians and there’s been such a glut of them that I wish I could tell them to stop making them. I’m glad I didn’t make that pronouncement before this great addition. This very autobiographical show charts the lives, careers and relationship of Rhea Butcher and Cameron Esposito, a married lesbian couple who cohost a comedy show in LA. Just like Maria Bamford’s Lady Dynamite (she guest stars in an episode), Butcher and Esposito have found a way to make a comedy about comedians fresh and original by focusing on the struggles of female comedians and using their comedy to get at some thorny issues surrounding race, gender and sexual orientation. The jokes are pretty damn funny too. Seeso, Thursday 11 August
It seems like these days that every new Netflix show generates a lot of buzz, but this project from Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrman has been one of Netflix’s buzziest. A drama about the creation of rap in the Bronx in 1977, this period piece (with a reported $120m budget) is sure to be the sort of musical spectacular that made the director one of the most distinctive voices of his generation. In a strange move for the streaming giant, they’re only releasing the first six episodes of the first season now and then the second six early next year. Netflix, Friday 12 August
Triumph’s Summer Election Special
Thanks to an election where a xenophobic demagogue seemingly coated in Cheeto dust is running against a veteran media punching bag, late-night comedy has been invigorated as of late. But who ever thought that this election would lead to a crude (in all respects of the word) dog puppet that started on Conan O’Brien’s show getting nominated for an Emmy? The first election special by Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (really Robert Smigel) is up for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special and was truly one of the comedic highlights of the primary season. If this second instalment is half as good, it will still be the funniest thing about the conventions that you’ve watched yet. Hulu, Thursday 11 August
Around the web
Rick and Morty: The State of Georgia v Denver Fenton Allen
Usually a murder trial isn’t a place for comedy, but this absolutely insane court transcript from a Rome, Georgia, trial made plenty of people cackle this June when it made headlines. Justin Roiland, the creator of Adult Swim staple Rick and Morty, decided to have his flagship characters reenact the entire transcript and set it to some animation as a treat for viewers at San Diego Comic-Con. The result was too good to keep under wraps and has become a hit on Adult Swim’s website. The nearly 10-minute video gets a bit of a slow start, but give it a minute and you’ll be treated to a string of insults and expletives so outrageous and creative you won’t ever forget it.
What to catch up on
These days Tom Hiddleston is getting more attention for being Taylor Swift’s latest paramour, but before he was her arm candy he was an excellent actor. Nowhere is that more apparent than the AMC and BBC coproduction of this John Le Carré novel about an agent who has to infiltrate a gun-smuggling ring. In a celebration of its six Emmy nominations, including nods for Hiddleston and costars Hugh Laurie and Oliva Coleman, AMC is re-airing all six episodes so that everyone will be rooting for it come trophy time. AMC, Saturday 13 August, starting at 8pm EST
TV news
Stranger Things most likely getting a second season
The trailer for HBO’s hotly anticipated Westworld
The trailer for Woody Allen’s Amazon show Crisis in Six Scenes
