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. A new (and mercifully short, bless the British) season of Catastrophe returns to Amazon; Netflix debuts a sharp new comedy about campus racial politics; and the highly anticipated adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods finally premieres on Starz.
Friday: Catastrophe
All six episodes of the third season of this raunchy comedy about a one night stand that turns into a full-fledged, marriage-and-babies situation (the whole catastrophe) is streaming on Amazon Prime as of today. Season 2 left us on a cliffhanger as Rob (co-creator Rob Delaney) finds a receipt for the morning-after pill from his wife, Sharon (co-creator Sharon Horgan) — who, unbeknownst to him, kinda-sorta cheated on him when they were on a “break.” Don’t worry, the third season won’t leave you hanging — the premiere picks up right where the last episode left off.
Friday: Dear White People
This new Netflix comedy — created by Justin Simien and based on his 2014 film of the same name — takes place at a fictional Ivy League university, where a “blackface party” hosted by the (white) editors of a campus satirical magazine sets off a chain of events that engulfs the entire student body. The first episode is so-so, but it immediately picks up with the second; the ten-episode first season is streaming now.
Saturday: Not the White House Correspondent’s Dinner
You might not be so shocked to hear that Donald Trump has broken with a longstanding Washington tradition and declined to attend this year’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner (which, regardless, will have a kickass host in Hasan Minhaj). Relations between the media and the White House are a little, ahem, strained this year, what with our dear leader declaring the press the “enemy of the people” and all. So if you’re not in a celebratory mood, check out Samantha Bee and the Full Frontal gang’s alternative special, Not the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, airing Saturday night at 10 p.m. on TBS.
Sunday: American Gods
People are very excited for Starz’s adaptation of American Gods, the 2001 fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman. Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me) is behind the TV version, along with veteran TV/film writer Michael Green. The series stars Ricky Whittle as an ex-con who teams up with a con artist played by Deadwood‘s Ian McShane, and centers on a rivalry between the “old gods” and the new, contemporary gods. I haven’t seen it yet (sue me!) but I hear it’s very good! It premieres on Sunday night at 9 p.m. on Starz.
Tuesday: The Americans
As some critics have pointed out, this season of The Americans, excellent as it always is, has sagged a little in terms of plot. This week’s episode, “IHOP,” picks up a little as two characters we haven’t seen in a while return. Plus, Philip and Elizabeth (Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell) make a discovery about their “son,” Tuan (Ivan Mok), and cable’s current favorite neglected younger brother, Henry (Keidrich Sellati), shocks his parents with some news of his own. The episode airs Tuesday at 10 p.m. on FX.