This Month's Best Streaming Gems
Here at Digg we try to keep you up-to-date with review roundups on the latest big-item TV and movie premieres. Of course, not everything gets the pre-launch buzz it deserves. In the age of streaming services there's more good stuff than ever, but some of it takes a little time to find an audience and champions amongst critics. Here are some recent gems you might've missed and some good takes on them — if anything here catches your eye, it's just a click away:
'The Looming Tower' (Hulu, 10 episodes)
All caught up with "The Handmaid's Tale" and still feel like watching something that'll leave you queasy about the US of A? Hulu limited series "The Looming Tower" stars Jeff Daniels and Peter Sarsgaard as John O'Neill and Martin Schmidt1, the warring heads of the FBI and CIA counterterrorism teams tracking Al-Qaeda in the late '90s. Based on journalist Lawrence Wright's 2006 book by the same name, "Tower" plays like the inverse of a counterterrorism drama. We know the government failed to prevent 9/11, but that doesn't mean there aren't lessons to learn and questions left unanswered.
The Looming Tower goes back to basics; it is, like O'Neill's staff, careful and competent, if sometimes hamstrung by circumstance. Most of all, though, it is pungently, horrifyingly alive to the roads not taken, the paths not pursued, to the cascade of decisions we might trace from first actions to future events. To treat 9/11 as an accident of history, an act of war absent context, has been, in politics as in popular culture, the most damaging consequence of the urge to commemorate it, the one that continues to propel us into the blunders of a collapsing empire, and The Looming Tower, imperfect though it may be, is a vital corrective.
If dramas like American Crime Story seem intent on enabling a new interpretation of past events, The Looming Tower is a less grandstanding affair. Its mission seems to be simply dramatizing what happened, based on Wright's 600 interviews and the (limited) information that's emerged since his book was published. In the end, it's up to viewers how they make sense of it all: assisted, as always, by Google.
As great as Daniels, Rahim, and Sarsgaard are, the supporting cast is arguably even better. Little in film and television makes me happier than the ascendancy of Bill Camp ("The Night Of"), who is fantastic here as Robert Chesney, a colleague of O'Neill's who goes to Nairobi just before the 1998 embassy bombings and ends up investigating them. Camp has an interrogation scene in episode three that's wonderful. Also great is the always-also-great Michael Stuhlbarg as Richard Clarke, the man who really served as the conduit/mediator between President Clinton and O'Neill/Schmidt[…]
Watch it if: you want a prestige TV show in your life but don't want to commit to more than a season.
'Aggretsuko' (Netflix, 10 episodes)
Do you like cute things? Do you hate your job? Is there nothing you'd rather do than leave the office right now and beeline to a karaoke bar? Then "Aggretsuko" on Netflix is more than just the anime for you — go look in the mirror and check that you aren't an overworked, death metal-obsessed red panda yourself. Created by Sanrio, the company behind cherry mascot Hello Kitty, sad egg yolk Gudetama and that little penguin whose name I always forget (Badtz-Maru), Retsuko is a young girl stuck in a soul-crushing, dead-end desk job. So, so many of us have been in her place, which makes "Aggretsuko" a particularly compelling diversion.
Adorable as she is, it's not just Retsuko's cuteness that makes her appealing to the grown-up kids who loved her Sanrio fam growing up. It's the stories that she stars in, the people she fills her life with (including a hyena who's crushing on her, a wise eagle and a lovelorn gorilla) and the unflinching honesty of her struggles that make Aggretsuko such a gem for the adult Hello Kitty lover.
[Polygon]
The storylines ought to be familiar to anyone who's ever held an office job they weren't in love with, particularly given the inclusion of a character who seems to be the equivalent of an influencer, who jet sets without a financial care in the world while Retsuko clings to the security provided by her lame but stable job. With only 15 minutes in each episode, the ups and downs of a career choice are poignantly addressed within two episodes, which would be an accomplishment on any show, let alone an animated one about anthropomorphic, office-working animals.
Starting out as meek, and something of a pushover, Retsuko gradually learns to speak up for herself and be honest about her feelings. To deal with her boss—a chauvinist who is a literal pig—she engages in a rap battle that ends with her calling out his behavior in front of the entire staff. Even Retsuko's mishaps—like a misguided attempt to trade her job for life as a housewife—result in growth.
[Vogue]
Watch it if: you want to take the Hello Kitty plush on your desk and ram it up the tailpipe of your boss's car.
'Night Train with Wyatt Cenac' (Starz, 12 episodes)
You might have already noticed that there's no embedded trailer for "Night Train" in this description — that's because it's no longer online. When NBC killed its comedy streaming service Seeso last year, the second season of Wyatt Cenac's stand-up showcase joined about a dozen other programs in TV limbo. Now both seasons of "Night Train" and other Seeso greats like "Take My Wife" can be found streaming on Starz.
Last October, Cenac decided to retire the weekly Night Train live shows held at Littlefield in Brooklyn, NY after a five-year run. His new HBO show is nice and all, but it's a pleasure knowing this TV show (with appearances from Michelle Wolf, Chris Gethard, Hari Kondabolu, Michael Che…) will live on as testament to the best damn stand-up night in Brooklyn.
The show opens with green room banter from the evening's guests, offering rare glimpses into a comic's life. Viewers can witness Cenac teasing Michelle Wolf about her floral Nikes, or eavesdrop as black female comedians revel in the chance to finally catch up. According to Michelle Buteau, a Carribean-American who kills in the second episode, whenever she sees another black female comedian at a show, she thinks, "Did she mess up? She booked two black girls… It's always one per show. That's it. So we never see each other." Buteau hits on what is so special about "Night Train," adding, "Who would have thought you could have three girls on one show?"
Also: be prepared for some puppet stuff. If you're curious about that, I highly recommend this interview Cenac did with The A.V. Club when "Night Train" debuted, covering everything from Wes Anderson to the strangest TV pilot you've never heard of…
AVC: Speaking of being on international time, the last time I saw you perform live was at a show in Brooklyn, where you had just gotten back from England, and your entire set was about how depressed you were for the past week.
WC: Yeah, I think that was at the Bell House. I had just gotten off the plane. I think I threw some brownies into the crowd, because I had just bought some brownies, and I didn't want to shame-eat them by myself. London and Paris, two wonderful places where I had a terrible time.
AVC: It was one of the most memorable performances I've ever seen. You seemed to be beaten down by life at that point.
WC: [Laughs.] That happens a lot.
Watch it if: you like stand-up in little bursts, not long specials… or watch if you've run out of all the good specials.
'Fastest Car' (Netflix, 8 episodes)
What "Fastest Car" lacks in the creative naming department it makes up for in just about every other respect. It's a reality show where three sleeper cars — okay, they often throw a very conspicuous hot rod in that category — compete in a drag race against each other and one $100K+ supercar. The majority of each hour-long episode is spent getting to know the racers and the cars they're preparing for the climactic 10-second race. Everyone has a story to tell (some of them are real tearjerkers) and everyone involved, rich or just-getting-by, loves cars. This show is "Top Gear" with a NOS shot of emotion from the "Fast & Furious" series, m'kay?
"Fastest Car" doesn't even have a host. It doesn't need one. If anything, it's a series that shows how these vehicles are the extensions of the people who put their life into making them the best they can be. They're like the mechanical version of the pets that start to look more and more like the owner the longer they live together. You could conceivably tell the story just through the way these cars approach the starting line at the end of each episode. What makes "Fastest Car" that much more enjoyable is that it finds the tiny parts of these racers' lives outside the garage, filling out their backstories in ways that go beyond feeling like sappy, reductive audition tapes.
As Jalopnik notes, if you're a serious car enthusiast you'll probably take issue with one part of the show or another. Maybe some of the fudged details on the technical side of things will irk you, or if you're the proud owner of a Ferrari/Lamborghini/McLaren you might not like how the show sets up the supercar drivers as villains:
But the particular supercar owners that appeared in the show could be considered enthusiasts just as much as the "sleeper car" owners were. These owners clearly loved their cars and had interesting things to say about them. Making them out to be the villains or so-called lesser enthusiasts served really no purpose, except maybe for the sake of some pretend-drama on a Netflix show.
[Jalopnik]
Watch it if: you live your life a quarter mile at a time… i.e. you don't really know anything about drag racing but you love the drama.
Bonus Recommendation: 'John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City' (Netflix, 1 hour special)
John Mulaney is basically America's stand-up sweetheart (God help us if he ever turns heel). If you haven't watched his latest special on Netflix yet, what are you waiting for? Oh, and pop open a tab for our primer on the weirdest guy from Mulaney's routine to read through once you're done laughing your ass off at "Kid Gorgeous."
Watch it if: you fall anywhere within the McDonald's alignment chart.
