Neil Patrick Harris spent nine seasons playing charming womanizer Barney Stinson on CBS’ How I Met Your Mother, and in his new Netflix comedy Uncoupled, his character Michael also wears nice suits and lives in New York City. But in other ways, Michael is the complete opposite of Barney: a mild-mannered gay man who has been happily coupled up with his boyfriend for the past 17 years. That happiness all comes crashing down, though, and Uncoupled — premiering this Friday; I’ve seen five of the eight episodes — is a mildly enjoyable, surprisingly dramatic look at Michael’s new life as a suddenly single gay man in his 40s.
To everyone else, Michael and his boyfriend Colin (Tuc Watkins) look like the picture-perfect couple, but pictures can be deceiving: Colin abruptly dumps him just as they’re walking into the lavish 50th birthday bash Michael threw for him. (Great timing.) Blindsided and devastated, Michael leans on his friends for support after the breakup: Suzanne (Tisha Campbell), his sassy colleague at a high-end real estate firm, and Billy (Emerson Brooks) and Stanley (Brooks Ashmanskas), his quippy gay pals who love to sip wine and gossip. Plus, Michael strikes up an unlikely bond with his demanding client Claire (Marcia Gay Harden, having a lot of fun here) over their shared heartbreak.
Darren Star created the series along with Modern Family alum Jeffrey Richman, and he seems to be going for the light, bubbly rom-com vibe of his other shows Sex and the City and Emily in Paris. (It’s definitely nice to look at, with lots of beautiful expensive apartments and fabulous parties.) The trailer promises lots of wacky dating hijinks, but that’s actually a bit misleading: Uncoupled is more of a dramedy, with a deep emotional undercurrent as Michael tries to make sense of his pain and grief. Harris plays the devastation well, bringing unexpected depth to the role. The scene where a freshly dumped Michael has to put on a brave face and make a birthday toast to Colin is a remarkable balancing act, and Harris pulls it off with ease.
Uncoupled is at its best when Michael is dipping his toe in a very different and scary dating pool full of Grindr DMs, dick pics and carefree unprotected sex — a prospect that scares the hell out of him after growing up in the AIDS era. (“I can’t get turned on when all I can see is my name on that quilt,” he explains to his clueless millennial hookup, who replies: “What quilt?”) Michael wants old-fashioned dates and romance, but do those even exist anymore? It’s fertile ground for comedy, but the series prefers to stay focused on Michael’s heartbreak — maybe a little too much. (I get that he wouldn’t get over Colin overnight, but can’t we skip ahead to the fun stuff?)
Watching Uncoupled is a pleasant enough experience, but honestly, I didn’t find myself laughing very much. Outside of Michael and Claire, the characters don’t really stand out or grab our attention, and the punchlines are mostly stale and predictable. I’d love to see a modern-day gay rom-com with the shocking frankness of vintage Sex and the City, but Uncoupled pulls its punches too often; it’s more mild than spicy, even though it airs on a streaming service with zero content restrictions. It’s closer in tone to the later seasons of Sex and the City, when it ventured into dramedy territory, but that was earned by years of great writing and careful character building. Uncoupled could get there — and it’s a solid vehicle for Harris’ talents regardless — but it’s not quite there yet.
THE TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Neil Patrick Harris is great as a suddenly single gay man in Netflix’s Uncoupled, but the jokes could use a makeover.
Nathan Fielder’s brand of comedy is not for everyone. From his breakout Comedy Central show Nathan For You to HBO’s tiny gem How To With John Wilson (which he executive-produces), Fielder has perfected a very specific style of awkward, deadpan cringe comedy based on unscripted encounters with unsuspecting real people. Fans of his comedy (including me) have been patiently waiting to see what he’ll do next after Nathan For You ended five years ago, and now we have our answer. Fielder’s new HBO show 
As the series begins, Fielder explains that he’s working through his own issues with human interaction (“I’ve been told my personality makes people uncomfortable”), so he posts a Craigslist ad looking for people who’ve been avoiding a big moment or confrontation in their lives. He offers to help them rehearse it until they get it exactly right, hiring actors to stand in for their friends and loved ones, building exact replicas of familiar locations and trying dialogue over and over again to hit upon the perfect formula, with Fielder running through each possible scenario on his laptop. It’s kind of like The Truman Show mixed with that scene in Groundhog Day where Bill Murray keeps fine-tuning his approach to Andie MacDowell to create the perfect first date.
The heavy-duty scenario planning that Fielder undertakes to stage these rehearsals is both highly absurd and genuinely jaw-dropping. He dabbled in longer-form stunts on Nathan For You like in Season 4’s super-sized “Finding Frances,” but this is on a completely different level. If nothing else, The Rehearsal is an absolute triumph of set design and logistics. (I couldn’t help but wonder: How much of HBO’s money did he spend on all of this?) It’s admirably audacious, especially for a weird alt-comedy that wouldn’t normally get a budget this size. And along the way, Fielder’s grand social experiment hits upon some profound insights about human nature and why we do the things we do (even if we’ve practiced it a thousand times).
Early on in Prime Video’s 
Pratt’s Reece is a Navy SEAL commander whose entire platoon gets wiped out in an ambush that ends with a chaotic gunfight in an underground tunnel. A shattered Reece vows revenge on the faceless terrorist leader he holds responsible — I think his name is “Haqqani”? Does it even matter? — while the U.S. military brass investigate what went wrong. But Reece’s hazy memories don’t match the evidence, and he starts to suspect a deep-rooted conspiracy is targeting him for knowing too much. He puts together a list of enemies to wipe out, Arya Stark-style… but can he even trust his own mind?
The cast is talented, to be sure, but they’re just going through the motions here. Pratt, so lively and goofy as Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation, is stoic to the point of constipation as Reece. Constance Wu has to unload a lot of exposition as nosy reporter Katie, and Taylor Kitsch has great tattoos, at least, as Reece’s military buddy Ben Edwards. It’s sad to see a gifted and versatile actress like Riley Keough stuck playing Reece’s blandly supportive military wife Lauren. It’s also hard to take Sean Gunn, aka Gilmore Girls‘ Kirk, at all seriously as a slimy corporate executive who ends up on Reece’s hit list.
If anyone can get us to sympathize with a clueless billionaire, it’s Maya Rudolph, right? The SNL alum has been a reliable source of laughs for two solid decades now, and it’s nice to see her get a well-deserved turn in the spotlight with the new Apple TV+ comedy 
A lot of Loot‘s charm comes directly from Rudolph, who’s such a joyful performer to watch. (Co-creators Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard, from Parks and Rec and 30 Rock, also worked with Rudolph on the unsung Prime Video gem Forever, so they know how to take full advantage of her considerable appeal.) The role of Molly is a tricky one, though: She’s completely tone-deaf and oblivious to the concerns of the less-than-ultra-rich — she thinks residents at a homeless shelter could use solid-gold panini presses — and it’s hard to feel sorry for her, with infinite resources at her disposal. In fact, the show’s whole approach to wealth is a bit muddled and problematic. It can’t decide if it wants to be glossy wish fulfillment or a sobering wake-up call about income inequality, so it tries to do both, making for an awkward clash in tones. No, money can’t buy you happiness… but ooh, look at Molly’s shiny private jet!
She’s mostly a one-note stick in the mud, though, and her relationship with Molly quickly gets repetitive. After a promising setup, Loot settles into a rut of familiar sitcom rhythms: Molly does something thoughtless, she scrambles to make up for it, she throws a bunch of money around, Sofia warms up to her a tiny bit, roll credits. (Nicholas and Howard are forced to become friends almost out of narrative necessity, since Molly is usually off somewhere screwing up.) It’s billed as a “workplace comedy,” but since so little of the action actually takes place at the workplace, it’s not much of one.
Jeff Bridges and John Lithgow are two of our greatest living actors, so it’s exciting to see them paired up as the stars of the new FX thriller 
These two actors make a formidable cat-and-mouse duo, in the vein of The Fugitive‘s Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. Chase and Harper are both smart and well-seasoned, and they have a history, too; the story perks up significantly when they talk. (If anything, they don’t have enough scenes together.) It’s also fun to see Bridges, who’s 72 years young, snap into action-hero mode here, beating up guys half his age and pulling out a sniper rifle to pick off surveillance drones. Chase is not indestructible, though, and his advancing age does play a factor; in the premiere, he gets into an exhaustingly long fistfight with a resilient opponent that even left me gasping for breath.
Plus, as good as Bridges and Lithgow are, the women are not well served here. Alia Shawkat doesn’t fit as an eager young FBI underling, and Amy Brenneman is badly wasted on a thinly written character who makes a series of inexplicable decisions that get her roped into an awkwardly tacked-on subplot. (This could maybe have been a lean and mean two-hour movie, but at seven episodes that often top an hour each, it drags.) The Old Man seems to be shooting for something tense and riveting like Homeland or The Americans, but it doesn’t deliver the depth or nuance needed to bring us along for the ride.
By the time Part 1 of 
On top of that, Part 1 of Season 4 reminds us over and over again that few and far between are the series that are better (or even as good) at staging jaw-dropping set pieces. It reinforces the fact that you can drop any assortment of Stranger Things’ characters into an arc and feel like you’re witnessing chocolate being dipped in peanut butter for the first time. And we can’t fathom how, but the show keeps introducing newbies that are instantly iconic. (Yeah, we’re pretty high on scene-stealing stoner Argyle!)
The story centers on Frances (Alison Oliver) and Bobbi (Sasha Lane), a pair of Dublin college students and ex-lovers who are complete opposites: Bobbi is the chatty, bohemian life of the party, while Frances is thoughtful and reserved. At a poetry reading, Bobbi catches the eye of married author Melissa (Jemima Kirke), and as they pair off, Frances forms a kinship with Melissa’s actor husband Nick (Joe Alwyn). Their two parallel crushes turn into something more, of course, and threaten the foundation of a marriage — and a friendship.
The story unfolds along fairly predictable lines, though: the giddy rush of infidelity, followed by nagging guilt and jealousy. A picturesque seaside vacation acts as an emotional pressure cooker, and the early episodes hit on some messy, complicated truths about love and relationships. But the series meanders a bit after that initial rush and ends up getting stuck in narrative lulls and loops. It’s leisurely paced, to the point of being snoozy. (All those significant glances don’t add up to much of significance, really.) It’s true to life, you might say… but that doesn’t mean it’s dramatically satisfying.
Alwyn, who will likely draw fans to this project simply by being Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, makes a dashing romantic lead as Nick, but his scenes with Oliver’s Frances fall into a repetitive rut after a while. The story could use more of Bobbi and Melissa to spice things up, but Kirke barely makes more than a cameo as Melissa, and Lane’s Bobbi is seriously underwritten — more of a symbol than a fully realized character. Conversations is dutifully faithful to Rooney’s prose, as Normal People was, but that means it suffers from the same flaws, too. It’s still a notch or two above your average romantic drama and offers some smart emotional insight along the way, but in the end, it’s a fleeting dalliance that fades too quickly.
Strange New Worlds finds Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) — Kirk’s predecessor as captain of the Enterprise, who played a major role in Season 2 of Discovery — in a snowy Montana cabin, casting him as the archetypal reluctant hero called back to duty to rescue an old friend. That call puts him back in the Enterprise‘s captain’s chair, flanked by his first officer Number One (Rebecca Romijn), science officer Spock (Ethan Peck) and wide-eyed cadet Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding).
It also assembles maybe the strongest crew of the current Trek series. Mount makes a terrific captain, with a commanding presence and a twinkle in his eye that recalls William Shatner’s Kirk. He was a great addition on Discovery, and he gets to go even deeper here, with Pike unable to shake a haunting vision of his tragic future. The iconic role of Spock is in good hands with Peck, and we get to see a sexier side of the logical Vulcan through his encounters with girlfriend T’Pring. Plus, Gooding brings fresh life to Uhura, and Jess Bush is appealingly snarky as Nurse Chapel. Episode 2 even takes time out for a chummy crew dinner that helps deepens our understanding of these characters, and other crew members hint at more connections to classic Star Trek lore.
Based on (yes) the podcast Slow Burn, Gaslit opens five months before the Watergate break-in, with Julia Roberts as Martha Mitchell, the socialite wife of Richard Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell (Sean Penn). When John begins plotting a covert operation against Nixon’s Democratic rivals, White House lawyer John Dean (a slick Dan Stevens) brings in a tough talker named G. Gordon Liddy (Shea Whigham)… and all hell breaks loose. We know that Watergate was a Very Serious historical event, but Gaslit flips all that on its head by playing the break-in as a bumbling comedy of errors — a group of Keystone Kops led by a raving madman. Lies pile on top of lies and alibis get bungled as cascading twists of fate culminate in the biggest political scandal of the century.
It’s also assembled a remarkable cast that’s ten-deep with serious talent. As Martha, Roberts is a honey-voiced schmoozer who loves the camera, and the role takes full advantage of her natural radiance. Penn is unrecognizable in a bald wig and fat suit as John Mitchell, but he still finds the humanity in him, and he and Roberts have a natural rapport as husband and wife. Plus, familiar faces like Chris Messina and Patton Oswalt pop up around the edges. But the true highlight is Whigham — a seasoned TV veteran from Boardwalk Empire and Perry Mason — who is delightfully unhinged here as Liddy: aggressively macho and wildly insecure, with a disturbing taste for casual violence. (“You’ve never tasted your own blood. I can tell,” he taunts a Mitchell staffer at one point.)
If Season 1 was like Groundhog Day, Season 2 is more like Quantum Leap meets Back to the Future, with unforeseen complications sending fresh ripples through the space-time continuum. There are extra wrinkles here that I can’t reveal, with Schitt’s Creek alum Annie Murphy joining the cast in a secret role and Nadia’s adventures extending all the way to Budapest. She also discovers that mysteries are a lot harder to solve without the Internet. (She has to consult a library’s card catalog!) She’s pretty chill about the whole thing, though — “Inexplicable things happening is my entire modus operandi,” she quips — and we get to enjoy unraveling the mystery along with her. Thankfully, this is an economical binge, too: seven half-hour episodes, which is a blessing these days.
Russian Doll does lose a bit of steam whenever Lyonne isn’t on screen: Her fastidious time-loop companion Alan, played by Charlie Barnett, isn’t as compelling a protagonist as Nadia — but to be fair, no one is. And at first, I thought that maybe this season’s mystery was getting overly ambitious and convoluted, throwing all kinds of historical eras and locations at us. But the international time-travel shenanigans do lend a cosmic significance to Nadia’s story and allow for eye-popping set pieces like a supremely drugged-out European dance party, and it all ties together in the end in a supremely satisfying (and mind-blowing) finale. This show is truly a gift, and if Season 2 is any indication, it can keep on reinventing itself for years and years to come.
