There are scores of TV shows out there, with dozens of new episodes each week, not to mention everything you can find on Hulu Plus, Netflix streaming, and HBO Go. How’s a viewer to keep up? To help you sort through all that television has to offer, Flavorwire is compiling five best bets for the coming week. This week: Election comedy, computer drama, and a long-awaited hip-hop fairytale. Stay cool, friends.
Now: Triumph’s Summer Election Special 2016
The Republican and Democratic National Conventions are always a boon for comedians, and this year they were an absolute treasure trove of comic gold. Comedian Robert Smigel brought his beloved character Triumph the Insult Comic Dog to both conventions and brought some precious gems back to Hulu, which is now streaming his very funny hour-long election special. Watch him photobomb Wolf Blitzer! Gaze on as he sets up a dunk tank where angry Trump supporters can try their luck at soaking a Muslim or a gay couple!
Now: The Get Down
Netflix is now streaming Baz Luhrmann’s hip-hop fairytale, set in the Bronx and featuring a delightful cast of largely unknown young actors. The production has been beset by shut-downs and budget issues (did we mention it’s a Baz Luhrmann joint?); only the first six episodes of the saga are available as of today, with the rest dropping in early 2017. The behind-the-scenes bedlam seeps onto the screen a little, with an overlong pilot episode, directed by Luhrmann, and a scattershot tone that jumps from one story and genre reference to the next without much room to breathe. But like the music it documents, The Get Down‘s story of the birth of hip-hop, set in the late 1970s and told through the eyes of young dreamers making something out of nothing, is lively, colorful, and eclectic.
Now: Cop Show Season 3
Colin Quinn writes and stars in this mockumentary-style web series about a washed-up actor desperate to make his passion project — the eponymous cop show — work. Episodes are 5 or 6 minutes each, and you don’t have to have seen the previous seasons to understand what’s going on. Each instalment features a guest star who is less than enthused at the idea of appearing on a low-budget series (get the meta joke?). This season’s guests include Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Norton, Seth Meyers, and model Irina Shayk. All eight episodes of Season 3 are available online at L Studio, a streaming service sponsored by Lexus? I don’t know, TV is weird in 2016.
Monday: Louis C.K. Live at the Comedy Store
Louis C.K. has no problem selling out arenas, but he filmed his last standup special, 2015’s Louis C.K. Live at the Comedy Store, at a smaller club. He developed the material over a year, performing in such clubs and paring down his set until it worked for a larger audience, but he still wanted the special to have the same intimacy of performing in a club. C.K. made the hour available on his website last year, but if you missed it (or didn’t want to shell out a whopping five bucks), you can see it on Netflix starting Monday.
Tuesday-Friday: Halt and Catch Fire marathon
AMC is airing a four-night, DVR-friendly marathon of its drama about the early-’80s advent of personal computing, just in time for its Season 3 premiere on Aug. 23. If you’ve never seen the show, be patient through its first season; its second, in which its two very different female leads band together in an unlikely partnership to launch their own company, was much better, and not just because the show started paying more attention to the women. The first season leaned too heavily on tired anti-hero tropes, but the second took a closer look at each character’s motivations. Whether you gave up on the show in Season 1 or haven’t seen it at all, it’s worth catching up before Season 3. AMC will air episodes in consecutive order Tuesday through Friday, from 1 a.m. until 6 a.m., so you can record them and watch them at your leisure.