Whether you’re visiting family this Thanksgiving or hunkering down at home, chances are you’ll have some extra time on your hands this holiday weekend. Luckily, there’s plenty to stream, including some pretty noteworthy premieres. We strongly suggest you queue up the following for your post-feasting, post-Black Friday, post-familial stress disorder four-day weekend viewing:
Saved By the Bell
This effervescent update of the ’90s teen comedy is back for a second season this week. Developed by 30 Rock alum Tracey Wigfield, the new Saved By the Bell crackles with comedic energy. Joke density is a thing a lot of TV critics talk about these days and this show is packed with one-liners, references and totally amusing randomness. It’s also refreshingly engaged with the world as it is now, flipping the script by centering the show around POC POV characters thrown into the privileged world of Bayside High. But even the wealthy white kids are charming in their cluelessness. Season 2 picks up as Bayside reopens for in-person classes after a semester of remote-learning, but the show doesn’t dwell on the pandemic. Episodes are a breezy 20-something minutes, so I cannot think of a compelling reason not to binge both seasons in one tryptophan-induced sitting.
Stream Season 2 on Peacock November 24.
Hawkeye
Hawkeye? Really? The guy with the bow and arrows? Ok, so maybe Jeremy Renner’s Avengers character isn’t Marvel’s most compelling hero, but hear me out. Disney+’s latest Marvel series continues the ongoing project of introducing a new generation of superheroes to the MCU, with Renner’s Hawkeye taking a young female vigilante—the always fantastic Hailee Steinfeld—under his wing. Meanwhile, the whole limited series takes place during the holidays, so you get a little seasonal spirit along with your action à la Die Hard. Also, this is Marvel; do you really need to be convinced?
Stream the premiere on Disney+ November 24
Gossip Girl
HBO Max’s reboot of the mid-aughts teen soap returns for the second half of its first season after an admittedly rocky start this summer. But with so many fabulous plot threads left dangling, there are a lot of questions to be answered in these upcoming new episodes. You know you want the juicy dirt on ultra-wealthy and badly behaved teens Julien (Jordan Alexander) and co. Just give in to the guilty pleasure…
New episodes start November 25 on HBO Max
How To with John Wilson
How to describe this weirdly comforting docu-comedy? Filmmaker John Wilson seemingly always has a camera and obsessively documents the randomness and absurdity of his life in New York. The result is this gentle series in which Wilson takes a deep dive into the seemingly mundane and manages to find gloriously human moments as well as quotidian comedy.
Season 2 premieres November 26 on HBO and HBO Max
Bruised
Now, admittedly, the reviews for this film so far can be charitably described as mixed. Still, it’s not every day that we get to see the directorial debut of a star like Halle Berry. Bruised follows the personal and professional tribulations of mixed martial arts fighter Jackie Justice (Berry), who comes out of retirement for one last fight while also trying to be a mother to the six-year-old son she gave up for adoption. However the film measures up, it’s worth checking out what Berry does both as a director of this gritty sports story and as a performer in this de-glammed, bare-knuckle role.
Premieres November 24 on Netflix
