With the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial over, it's time to relax and stop analyzing tearless cross examinations, the testimony of Dr. Spiegel (a.k.a. Christopher Lloyd) and TMZ copyright agreements. After all summer is almost here, so get out your mega pints of wine and log into your streaming services –- there’s plenty to watch. This week Netflix Is a Joke: The Festival features Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration, a showcase for comedians including Margaret Cho, Tig Notaro, Eddie Izzard and Wanda Sykes. Peacock is debuting Queer As Folk, a reboot of the perhaps ahead-of-its-time Showtime series ... which was, in turn, adapted from the groundbreaking British original. Apple’s beautifully shot For All Mankind is back for a third season, and the last season of Peaky Blinders comes to Netflix. If you are looking for nonfiction fare, Netflix has Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies and the Internet as well as the Jennifer Lopez documentary Halftime. Discovery Plus is offering up Dr. Delirium & The Edgewood Experiments. Disney Plus’ Beyond Infinity: Buzz and the Journey to Lightyear should appease the kiddos, while adults of any age will enjoy Hulu’s Oscar nominated foreign film The Worst Person in the World. Cheers! And happy streaming.
Queer As Folk - Season 1 (Peacock, June 9)
Russell T. Davies’ groundbreaking 1999 British television series Queer As Folk is the gift that keeps on giving. In 2000, Showtime reimagined the series about a group of gay men and their daily lives. Now, Peacock has concocted a new iteration of the show. This time around, instead of just gay men, the lives of a diverse community of LGBTQ+ individuals will be explored after experiencing a life altering tragedy reminiscent of the fatal 2016 Pulse shooting in Orlando. Stephen Dunn created the Peacock series, which takes place in New Orleans. Davies, who is credited as a writer and producer on the third installment of Queer as Folk, is apparently happy with the new take on his old show. “As a community, we've radicalized, explored, opened up, and found new worlds — with new enemies and new allies — and there was so much to be said," he said. "The 2022 show is more diverse, more wild, more free, more angry — everything a queer show should be."
Dr. Delirium & The Edgewood Experiments (Discovery Plus, June 9)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSq_qt5zy6I
Believe it or not, just 47 years ago, the United States Army Chemical Corps conducted classified human subject research on thousands of soldiers at the Edgewood Arsenal facility in Maryland. Soldiers replaced guinea pigs and were given mind-altering chemical warfare agents to determine what impact the potent concoction had on the human mind. Turns out the Army was searching for a drug that would debilitate people but not kill them. This 80-minute documentary features never-before-seen footage of the drug experiments being conducted, along with exclusive, first-hand accounts from both the mastermind behind the research and the soldiers who participated in the 20-year study.
Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration (Netflix, June 9)
This 90-minute special, hosted by Billy Eichner and filmed at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre is part of Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival. Performers include Margaret Cho, Tig Notaro, Eddie Izzard, Sandra Bernhard, Wanda Sykes, and Rosie O’Donnell. Presenters include Sarah Paulson, Lily Tomlin and Lena Waithe. Sure, it seems a little jarring that this special should run on the same platform that streams Dave Chappelle's highly controversial The Closer. But content chief and co-CEO Ted Sarandos seems true to his word about making Netflix a platform for a truly diverse segment of comedic voices.
For All Mankind- Season 3 (Apple TV Plus, June 10)
For anyone who enjoyed Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, this space series is right up your alley. While the historical divergence in For All Mankind isn’t as grim as the Nazi’s winning World War II, it’s still intense. The sci-fi series depicts a parallel universe where Russia beats the United States in putting a man on the moon first, which leads to a never-ending space race between the two countries. The competition is so fierce that technologies advance much quicker and humans figure out how to develop moon colonies. The third season focuses on the battle between the U.S. and Russia to colonize Mars. TV Guide’s Maggie Fremont reviewed season three of the series. “The action remains as relentlessly heart-pounding as ever, and it's made all the more potent by the care the show takes to build intimate connections between characters,” Fremont wrote. “Space is a dizzying and dangerous place and For All Mankind never lets its characters or its audience forget it.”
Peaky Blinders - Season 6 (Netflix, June 10)
The sixth and final season of this gangster show features an all-star cast: Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Paul Anderson, Finn Cole, Anya Taylor-Joy and Sophie Rundle. Murphy said that the latest season is in tribute to Helen McRory, who played Aunt Polly, and passed away from cancer in 2021. Created by Steven Knight, the first season of the period drama first aired on the BBC in 2013. The last season will see Murphy’s character Tommy Shelby fight fascism. Additionally, Shelby finds himself up against several barriers that Knight tells Variety “audiences won’t expect." The sixth season already aired in the U.K., and critics loved it. “The beginning of the end of one of the great British TV drama achievements of recent years is as movingly intimate, cinematically ambitious and sweepingly epic as ever,” wrote Empire Magazine’s Boyd Hilton. Luckily for die-hard fans, the film adaptation of Peaky Blinders is set to go into production in 2023.
Beyond Infinity: Buzz and the Journey to Lightyear (Disney Plus, June 10)
Not surprisingly, just ahead of Pixar’s theatrical release of Lightyear on June 17, Disney is releasing this special behind-the-scenes documentary, chronicling the evolution of the galaxy’s most famous flying toy. When it comes to the Toy Story franchise, the creators can seem do no wrong. So even though this doc is essentially an advertisement for the upcoming feature film, it will more likely than not be quality viewing. And who doesn’t want to know how the creative geniuses behind Toy Story came up with everybody's favorite Space Ranger? Toy Story filmmakers, storytellers, artists and members of the Lightyear voice cast navigate audiences through Buzz’s history and how they transformed the action-figure design into a human hero.
Evil - Season 3 (Paramount Plus, June 12)
This supernatural-themed, psychological drama examines the origins of evil via a Catholic Church investigator (Mike Colter), a forensic psychologist (Katja Herbers), and a technology contractor (Aasif Mandvi). The show originally premiered on CBS back in September 2019, before dropping its repeats on Netflix in October 2020 -- a streaming platform where other sci-fi dramas like Lucifer and Manifest, moribund in their Nielsen broadcast overnights, found audiences. It wasn't surprising when the second season of the show was moved to Paramount Plus. Evil co-creators Robert and Michelle King were surprised by the announcement, but ultimately enjoyed the freedom that comes with being unburdened by the restraints of a network. Season two of the series scored an aggregated 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. “Evil is so enjoyably twisted I can only conclude that it's heaven-sent,” wrote TV Insider’s Matt Roush.
The Worst Person in the World (Hulu, June 13)
Arguably one of the best films of 2021, this Norwegian coming-of-age drama was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign film. Outrageously, it didn’t win. But who cares about awards? Renate Reinsve plays Julie, a twenty-something searching for love and a career, while simultaneously and unwittingly striving for self-actualization. Reinsve won the best actress award for her performance at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021. Taking place over a four year period, the drama is also a romantic comedy although it isn’t about love as much as it is about self-awareness, acceptance, and persistent insecurity. Meaning that no matter what stage of adult life you’re in, it’s hard not to relate to the story. “A stirringly sophisticated masterpiece,” wrote RogerEbert.com’s Carlos Aguilar.
Halftime – (Netflix, June 14)
This documentary, which will open this month's Tribeca Festival, features purportedly "intimate" behind-the-scenes footage of Jennifer Lopez as she prepares for the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime show, which saw the actress-singer headline along with Latin pop icon Shakira. The chances of any real moments with Lopez making it to the screen are slim to none. Expect another rendition of the 2013 HBO Beyonce: Life is but a Dream or Amazon’s 2021 Pink: All I Know So Far. Both of those music docs featured knockout performances, but little candor. Luckily, Halftime promises a glance inside Lopez’s dance rehearsals with top notch choreographers. Those scenes offer viewers a chance to see what it really takes to make Lopez’ over the top performances flawless, making this dime a dozen celebrity driven documentary worthy of a peak.
Web of Make Believe: Death, Lies and the Internet (Netflix, June 15)
This anthology docuseries explores the topic of technology and crime, which makes it somewhat surprising that it’s only six parts long. Episodes include Death by SWAT, which as the title suggests explores the consequences of “swatting" -- an harassment technique that involves a person making a false report to emergency police against an innocent target. Also featured is A Murder in D.C, about the conspiracies around the 2016 murder of Seth Rich, the slain Democratic National Committee staffer whose death was used by right-wing activists to help exonerate Russia’s interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. The docuseries marks director Brian Knappenberger’s fifth Netflix project. Past series include The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez and Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror.
