There’s a long holiday weekend ahead of us, but you don’t have to be bored! In addition to established hits like the Bridgerton spinoff Queen Charlotte, Disney+ and Netflix have both dropped the complete first seasons for American Born Chinese and Fubar, respectively, so you will have plenty of fantasy action and spy comedy episodes to tide you over until Tuesday. And if you just want some laughs, the newly rechristened Max has a revival of the adult animated series Clone High.
The beginning of June is only a few days away, and that means even more new and original series are coming to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Max, Apple TV+, Disney+, Paramount+, and Peacock. If you want to stay on top of the latest selections, keep checking back here for what’s new and binge-worthy.
When you’re done here, check out the best new movies to stream this week, as well as the best shows on Netflix, best shows on Hulu, best shows on Amazon Prime Video, and best shows on Disney+.
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- Clone High2023
- Spy/Master2023
- FUBAR2023
- XO, Kitty2023
- The Great2020
Disney+
The big Disney+ series of the month doesn’t come from Marvel or Star Wars. American Born Chinese is based on the fantasy graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang, and it’s as wild as any superhero tale. Ben Wang stars as Jin Wang, an ordinary Chinese American teenager who is displeased to be paired with Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu), an overly obnoxious exchange student who is all-too eager to be Jin’s friend. That’s because Wei-Chen is far more than he seems, and he’s about to put Jin in the middle of a battle between the gods of Chinese mythology.
Everything Everywhere All At Once fans should keep an eye out for Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, both of whom have major roles on this series. Their co-star, Stephanie Hsu, also makes a guest appearance on the show.
Almost everyone knows the story of Anne Frank (Billie Boullet), the young Jewish girl whose diary chronicled the life of her family as they hid from the Nazis during World War II. The new drama miniseries, A Small Light, shifts the focus to Miep Gies (Bel Powley), the young woman who was the secretary to Anne’s father, Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber).
As the Nazis close in, Miep accepts the responsibility to help the Frank family hide, even without the initial consent of her husband, Jan Gies (Joe Cole). Miep’s selflessness is the small light in the darkness. But not even this act of kindness can protect the Frank family from the horrors that await them.
Every few years, Disney trots out The Muppets and attempts to figure out how to recapture some of that Jim Henson magic. Fortunately, The Muppet Mayhem freshens things up by shifting the focus away from Kermit, Ms. Piggy, and the rest of the usual gang of Muppets. Instead, the story is all about the Muppet supergroup, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.
Lilly Singh leads the human cast as Nora Singh, an assistant at Wax Town Records who discovers that Electric Mayhem owes the label a record. But if you’ve ever tried herding cats then you may have an idea about how difficult it is to get these Muppets to do anything that you want them to. Especially when one of the band members is Animal.
Max (formerly HBO and HBO Max)
Twenty years ago, Clone High was a brief animated sensation on MTV that helped launched the careers of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse creators Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Now, Max is giving Lord and Miller a chance to continue the misadventures of Clone High with a new series that takes place two decades years after the original show.
The clones of Abe Lincoln (Will Forte), Joan of Arc (Nicole Sullivan), Cleopatra (Mitra Jouhari), and JFK (Miller) awaken in the present before they are forced to catch up on everything they missed since going on ice. There’s also a new generation of clones, including Frida Kahlo (Vicci Martinez), Harriet Tubman (Ayo Edebiri), Confucius (Kelvin Yu), and Topher Bus (Neil Casey).
Spy/Master is an espionage thriller that hails from Romania, but its Cold War tale plays very well no matter where you’re watching it. The show is set in 1978 with Alec Secăreanu headlining the series as Victor Godeanu, a KGB mole who has worked closely with Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu (Claudiu Bleonț) for years.
When Victor seizes upon a chance to defect to America, a U.S. operative, Frank Jackson (Parker Sawyers), sees the potential intelligence he can provide as a gold mine. Unfortunately, President Jimmy Carter won’t sign off on extracting Victor from West Germany, even as enemy forces close in on him and Frank as they plot their next move.
One of the more underrated comedies currently streaming, The Other Two is a razor-sharp satire written by two Saturday Night Live head writers, Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, and starring former SNL cast member and character actress Molly Shannon. The series revolves around Cary (Drew Tarver), an out-of-work actor, and his sister, Brooke (Helene Yorke), a former professional dancer turned Hollywood manager. They navigate the vicious landscape of modern-day Hollywood with their kid brother Chase Dream, a former teen pop sensation who is struggling to make a name for himself after his initial 15 minutes of fame.
Wanda Sykes, Ken Marino, and Scream 6‘s Josh Segarra round out the supporting cast, but it’s Shannon, as the homemaker turned media mogul Pat Dubek, who shines the brightest. The Other Two pokes fun at pop culture, but hidden beneath its layers of sarcasm is a surprisingly sweet family comedy.
Netflix
The term “FUBAR” is military slang for something that is [screwed] up beyond all repair. In Netflix’s FUBAR series, that could apply to both the mission and to the relationship between Luke Brunner (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his daughter, Emma (Monica Barbaro). For years, Luke and Emma have been lying to each other about what they really do, only to mutually discover that they are both secret CIA operatives when he is assigned to pull her out of an undercover operation.
Despite the fact that their relationship is in tatters, Luke and Emma are pressed into teaming up to find a missing nuclear weapon before it can fall into the wrong hands. But things keep going wrong on this mission, and there may not be enough time for this father and daughter duo to repair their connection and save the day.
In the To All the Boys trilogy, Kitty Song Covey (Anna Cathcart) earned her reputation as a matchmaker. Now, Kitty’s headlining her own show, XO, Kitty, and moving to Korea in the dream of finding true love for herself.
Kitty already had a long-distance relationship with her Korean boyfriend, Dae (Choi Min-young). But once they’re in the same country again, it’s not exactly smooth sailing for the couple. Somehow, Kitty has to navigate the challenges of love while also finding her place in Korea. She’s got a lot to learn, and her journey begins now.
How well do you know the story of the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra? Her tale has been told in Hollywood many times, and not always with an eye towards accuracy. Netflix’s Queen Cleopatra tries to find a middle ground as producer Jada Pinkett Smith narrates Cleopatra’s story while also supplying an assortment of historical experts in the documentary side of the program.
Adele James stars as Cleopatra in the dramatic recreations, as she takes control of Egypt only to find that members of her own family are actively trying to steal the throne from her. That turns out to be their mistake, because Cleopatra backs down to no one.
There will be no new season of Bridgerton this year, but Netflix has the next best thing. The spinoff prequel series, Queen Charottle: A Bridgerton Story, reveals how this desegregated society came to be in the eighteenth century during the reign of King George III (Corey Mylchreest). Young Charlotte (India Amarteifio) is married off to George, and she quickly discovers that their married life will be challenging for both of them.
And in the 1817 era of Bridgerton, the older Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) faces an uncertain future about her successor after she suffers a terrible personal tragedy.
Hulu
Historical accuracy is thrown to the side in favor of comedy in the Hulu original series, The Great. Last season, Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning) and her husband, Peter III (Nicholas Hoult), were at each other’s throats for control of Russia. Catherine even thought she murdered Peter, but it turned out to be his double, Yemelyan Pugac (Hoult, again).
For the newly released third season, Catherine and Peter take a stab at sorting out their marital issues as she is forced to come to terms with just how much hate the people in her country have for her. If Catherine can’t start winning over some hearts and minds, her time may be running out.
Who murdered Alison Thomas (West Duchovny)? It’s a question that haunts her younger sister, Emily (Alycia Debnam-Carey), two decades later in Saint X. The mystery unfolds in multiple time periods, including the time leading up to Alison’s death and the present day, where Emily comes face-to-face with Clive “Gogo” Richardson (Josh Bonzie) when she returns to the tropical island where Alison was killed.
Since Gogo was one of the two men who were suspected of murdering Alison, Emily seizes upon this chance to finally get answers. However, Emily won’t like what she finds as her entire life becomes dominated by her obsession to get to the truth.
Peacock
In Bupkis, Pete Davidson has finally found the role that he’s most comfortable playing: himself. And Davidson also had the good sense to surround himself with a strong supporting cast, including Edie Falco as his mother, Amy Davidson, and Joe Pesci as his grandfather, Joe Larocca.
This show is more of a farce in the vein of Curb Your Enthusiasm, rather than a strictly autobiographical comedy. Yet it does take a lot from Davidson’s real life, including his struggle with drug addiction and other insecurities. The show can get pretty dark at times, but it’s always funny.
Imagine a world where an AI conquered humanity by giving people everything they could ever want. That’s exactly what the titular entity in Mrs. Davis has done. But not everyone buys into this AI miracle.
A nun named Simone (Betty Gilpin) will do anything to bring down Mrs. Davis. And much to Simone’s surprise, Mrs. Davis is not only sympathetic to Simone’s goal, but it actually wants to send her on a quest to find and destroy the Holy Grail. If Simone can pull that off, then she may get what she wants too.
Apple TV+
In this adaptation of Garth Risk Hallberg’s best-selling novel, a young NYU freshman (Wonders) is murdered in Central Park during the summer of 2023. An infatuated young man (Oleff) investigates her murder, which plunges him into every stratum of New York society, from downtown bohemians to the shady upper-class world populated by politicians and bankers.
This eight-episode mystery series is from Gossip Girl creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, who give the show a glossy sheen that mostly covers the gaping holes in the story. Not a lot of it makes sense, but it’s a fun, superficial showcase for New York City, which is almost like another character in the show.
It’s ironic that Hugh Howey’s Silo novels found their initial success on Amazon Kindle while the live-action adaptation has a home on Apple TV+. But the tone and mystery of Howey’s books remain intact. The series takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where the remnants of humanity live in a massive underground structure because the surface of the world has been ruined. Or at least that’s what everyone believes.
Allison (Rashida Jones) and her husband, Sheriff Holston (David Oyelowo), begin questioning the truth about their life in the Silo. However, it falls to Juliette (Dune: Part Two‘s Rebecca Ferguson) to push the investigation even further, regardless of the personal danger that she faces as she searches for answers.
Paramount+
Hide your bunnies! The perennial sexual thriller of the ‘80s, Fatal Attraction, has been re-imagined for the modern era as a new original series on Paramount+. In this incarnation, Dan Gallagher (Joshua Jackson) is a district attorney in Los Angeles who starts a torrid relationship with a recent hire, Alex Forrest (Lizzy Caplan).
Dan is under the mistaken belief that he can keep this affair from his wife, Beth Gallagher (Amanda Peet), and their daughter, Ellen (Alyssa Jirrels). But as Alex said in the original film, she will not be ignored. And as far as Alex is concerned, this affair isn’t over until she says it is.
Here we are in 2023, and Grease is getting its own prequel series a mere 45 years after the first film came out. That’s the streaming age for you! In Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, four teenage girls, Jane (Marisa Davila), Olivia (Cheyenne Isabel Wells), Cynthia (Ari Notartomaso), and Nancy (Tricia Fukuhara), realize that they just can’t get anywhere in 1954’s Rydell High School. So they decide to carve out their own space as the Pink Ladies four years before the events of the film.
Like the original, this show is a musical, so expect lots of show-stopping numbers along the way. It’s got groove, it’s got feeling.
Amazon Prime Video
According to some reports, Citadel may be one of the most expensive TV series ever made. Now it’s time to see what the Russo brothers did with all of that cash. In this sci-fi action thriller, Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas star as Mason Kane and Nadia Sinh, respectively. Years ago, Mason and Nadia were lovers and the top spies for an organization called Citadel. Now, they don’t remember their old lives or each other.
When Citadel is threatened by a rival agency, Mason and Nadia are thrust back into a world of intrigue and danger. And unless they regain their lost memories, it’s going to be a short comeback.
Rachel Weisz co-headlines Dead Ringers with herself as twin gynecologists Beverly and Elliot. This is a remake of David Cronenberg’s 1988 movie of the same name, and it spotlights two truly twisted sisters.
While their shared goal of improving women’s health care is admirable, their methods are, shall we say, less than ethical. Beverly and Elliot are also unnerving as they share absolutely everything in their lives, even if it might destroy them.
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