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If you want to watch some new TV shows and movies this week, we can help facilitate that for you. We know all about the TV shows and movies that are coming out this week, including stuff that isn’t on Netflix. Sometimes there’s stuff that isn’t on Netflix. This week, for example, the final(?) episode of American Chopper is on the channel that’s hard to not call the Discovery Channel but is technically just called Discovery, and the kids’ movie Artemis Fowl is skipping theaters and heading straight to Disney+.
But there’s stuff on Netflix too, of course, most notably the new Spike Lee movie Da 5 Bloods and Season 2 of dating reality series Dating Around. There are plenty of options of stuff to watch if you need a break from watching the news.
If this isn’t enough and you’re looking for even more hand-picked recommendations, sign up for our free, daily, spam-free Watch This Now newsletter that delivers the best TV show picks straight to your inbox, or check out the best shows and movies this month on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.
30 for 30: Be Water
Sunday at 9/8c on ESPN
The latest 30 for 30 continues the trend of examining greatness, but after covering the commercial success of Michael Jordan and the controversy of Lance Armstrong, the series looks at the humanitarian greatness of martial arts icon Bruce Lee. Be Water, named after Lee’s famous philosophy of being malleable yet powerful like the greatest element, is an intimate look at Lee’s life from a sidekick struggling to make it in a racist America to becoming one of the world’s greatest action heroes to becoming an activist for Asians before his untimely death. It’s a fairly standard biography, but its subject makes it mesmerizing. –Tim Surette
I May Destroy You
Sunday at 10:30/9:30c on HBO
Rising super-talent Michaela Coel created, writes, directs, and stars in this timely and unflinching drama made in partnership with the BBC. She plays Arabella, an author who is drugged and sexually assaulted in a bar, and comes to with a vague memory that something bad happened to her, but she’s not sure who’s responsible. The series follows her as she tries to find out who did it, while also dealing with all kinds of other issues, like maintaining her friendships and finishing her book. The series deals with some intensely heavy topics, but it has a sly sense of humor that will make you laugh when you’re least expecting it. [Read our review]
American Chopper: The Last Ride
Tuesday at 9/8c on Discovery
American Chopper, the mid-’00s workplace reality sensation, isn’t as popular as it once was, but the Teutuls are still building cool motorcycles and arguing with each other on Discovery. And in this two-hour special, Paul Sr. and Paul Jr. are teaming up to build a bike together for the first time in over a decade (Sr. still runs Orange County Choppers, while Jr. has his own shop, Paul Jr. Designs, which you can take a tour of in the video above). The impetus is a nostalgic visit to the original Orange County Choppers building before it gets torn down, and it will be nostalgic for anyone who watched them back in their glory days, too. But will the father and son get in a fight so big they wont’t be able to finish the bike? It’s always a possibility! Tune in to find out!
Lenox Hill
Wednesday on Netflix
In a way, Lenox Hill could not have come at a better time. An eight-part series, the Netflix doc follows four physicians at the titular New York City hospital over the course of several months, revealing the everyday heroics that occurred at hospitals even before the coronavirus pandemic put health care workers front and center in the media. Following two brain surgeons, an ER physician, and an OB-GYN, the series offers viewers intimate access to the world of medicine, chronicling patients’ journeys while the doctors at the heart of the show try to balance the personal and professional. –Kaitlin Thomas
Da 5 Bloods
Friday on Netflix
The latest Spike Lee joint follows four aging Black Vietnam vets — Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) — who go back to the country where they fought in search of the remains of their squad leader (Chadwick Boseman)… and buried treasure. In the process, they confront the cognitive dissonance of being a Black American soldier, the legacy of the immoral Vietnam War, and the idea that the past is never really past, it still echoes today. It’s a Vietnam epic like only Spike Lee could do.
Dating Around
Friday on Netflix
Netflix’s docuseries, where the viewer gets to be a fly on the wall for first dates, doesn’t sound like a riveting idea the moment you hear it, but then you think about it for a second and you realize there’s no part of it that isn’t fascinating. You get to watch one person go on first dates with several different people, so you can see who they have chemistry with. You can root for who you want them to pick, or compare your own preferences with theirs. You get to live vicariously through the nervous excitement of a first date without experiencing the awkward small talk yourself. It’s like eavesdropping on people in a restaurant for their entire date without the risk of being caught. It’s great. Season 1 was in Brooklyn, but Season 2 follows singles in New Orleans.
Artemis Fowl
Friday on Disney+
It took almost 20 years for an Artemis Fowl movie to be made, and now it’s getting dumped straight to Disney+ because movie theaters are closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. Eoin Colfer’s fantasy adventure book series began in 2001 to capitalize on the Harry Potter craze and ended in 2012, and the movie was in development hell forever until Kenneth Branagh signed on to direct it. It’s about a 12-year-old boy genius/criminal mastermind, who comes from a long line of criminal masterminds, who goes on a quest to find his missing father (Colin Farrell, getting a paycheck so he can go back to being in movies like The Lobster) and discovers a hidden fairy world. It’s a special effectstravaganza!
Stop searching, start watching! TV Guide’s Watch This Now! page has even more TV recommendations.
Michaela Coel, I May Destroy You