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)
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