We may be living in a golden age of TV, but panning through all the dross to find that gold can be time-consuming and tedious. For every much-discussed hit like Severance, House of the Dragon, and The Bear, there are dozens of new original shows that barely tip the cultural needle. And with so many new streaming services competing with HBO, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Disney Plus, it’s impossible to keep up with everything new to view. But The Verge’s TV section is ready to help. Our news, reviews, and interviews help you find the next Stranger Things or Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in time to keep up with the cultural conversation. And our essays and analysis invite you to consider the deeper context of what you’re watching.
HBO’s post-apocalyptic world is more than just Joel and Ellie, though the second season doesn’t tell the whole story.
With Lazarus set to debut on Adult Swim this Saturday, now’s a good time to check out our interview with series creator Shinichirō Watanabe.
Before Dandadan’s upcoming second season streams on Netflix this July, the series’ season one finale, three new episodes, and an interview with co-directors Fuga Yamashiro and Abel Gongora will screen together in theaters as Dandadan: Evil Eye. In Asia (outside of Japan), Evil Eye screenings start on May 30th, US screenings begin on June 6th, and European screenings start June 7th.
If you’ve been looking for a way to get away from all the anti-art, ersatz Ghibli AI slop flooding the internet (and you’ve already gone to see the Princess Mononoke 4K restoration), some good news: Future Boy Conan, the 1978 series where Hayao Miyazaki got his directorial debut, will begin airing on anime streamer RetroCrush beginning April 18th.
We’re not far out from the next batch of Black Mirror episodes hitting Netflix on April 10th. And while we’ve already seen some of the new season, that latest trailer provides a more detailed rundown of the six episodes, including the direct sequel to “USS Callister.”
Ashly Burch, John Howell Harris, and Katie McElhenney saw their Side Quest series as a way to flesh out the world of Mythic Quest prime.
Though Velma Dinkley didn’t end up doing so well in Max’s recent animated series, Netflix is giving her and the rest of Mystery Inc. another go with a new live-action Scooby Doo series from writers / showrunners Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg (who previously worked on the streamer’s live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation).
In the new season of the HBO show, Jason Isaacs’ character sulks around the luxury resort in a shirt from his alma mater. One scene in particular (warning: spoilers!) has become something of a meme. Duke says it didn’t approve of its logo being so prominent, telling Bloomberg that the imagery is “troubling” and “goes too far.”
[bloomberg.com]
Seth Rogen’s new comedy series is a scathing and celebratory takedown of the entertainment industry’s madness.
A Death Star is coming together in the latest trailer for Andor’s final season, and every member of the Resistance seems to know exactly what needs to be done to take the thing out.
According to Deadline, Netflix has greenlit and is now looking to cast competitors for The Golden Ticket, Eureka Production’s new Willy Wonka-inspired reality series that “will challenge players not just physically, but mentally as they navigate games, tests, and temptations designed to probe their instincts, resilience, and ability to thrive in chaos.”
Valnet, the Canadian media conglomerate that owns a number of entertainment blogs like Screen Rant, MovieWeb, Collider, and Comic Book Resources, is the subject of a damning new report from The Wrap detailing how some of the sites have been turned into “borderline like almost sweatshop-level” content mills where underpaid employees who speak up about their working conditions often wind up being put on blacklists.
While Bandai’s upcoming Digimon mobile card game doesn’t have a release date just yet, the franchise’s newly-announced mainline anime series, Digimon Beatbreak, is set to debut this October and introduce a new generation of “emotion-devouring digital lifeforms.”
That’s according to The Wrap, which says the showrunners from Percy Jackson and the Olympians are in line to produce the show. This adds one more to the list of rumored Hasbro IP adaptations we’ve heard about, like the in-development live-action film and TV “universe” based on Magic: The Gathering, a Monopoly movie, new Clue projects, and a D&D series with Netflix.
As terrifying as FX’s new Alien: Earth series is probably going to be, it’s going to be so much more alarming if we get to see some of how things go sideways from the perspective of the USCSS Maginot’s pet cat.
To get folks hyped up for the upcoming debut of Andor’s second season on Disney Plus April 22nd, Disney has put the show’s entire first season on Hulu and uploaded its first three episodes on YouTube. Additionally, on March 13th, Andor creator Tony Gilroy will host a live, hour-long rewatch event streamed on YouTube “with select talent,” which better be code for “Diego Luna and national treasure Kathryn Hunter.”
In Government Cheese, Apple’s new comedy co-created by Paul Hunter and Aeysha Carr, an unusual family living in late ‘60s San Francisco find their lives turned upside down when the head of the house (David Oyelowo) is freed from a stint in prison.
Hampton Chambers (Oyelowo) has a plan to make it big after he invents a new kind of self-sharpening drill, but the process of making his dreams real winds up being more convoluted than he could anticipate. The show debuts April 16th.
The CW canceled its live-action Powerpuff Girls adaptation starring Chloe Bennet as Blossom, Dove Cameron, as Bubbles, and Yana Perrault as Buttercup before the series ever got a chance to air. Behind-the-scenes set photos have been floating around on the internet for years, but a full-on trailer showcasing what could have been was posted to YouTube on Thursday by Lost Media Busters.
Update: The trailer has been yanked from YouTube and The Internet Archive, while currently there is still a snippet on Bluesky.
The nonprofit Sesame Workshop production company is laying off staff, with Sesame Street still needing to find a new platform to broadcast future episodes after Max dropped the beloved children’s show in December. Production on season 56 starts next month and will feature a new “narrative-led” format.
The cuts were announced shortly after unionization efforts from 200 employees. It’s unclear how many staffers are impacted, but the company said it will “downsize significantly.”
[adweek.com]
