‘Palm Royale’ Is Kristen Wiig’s Best Work Since ‘Bridesmaids’
There are roughly 47,000—oh, wait, a new Netflix Original just dropped; make that 47,001—TV shows and movies coming out each week. At Obsessed, we consider it our social duty to help you see the best and skip the rest.
We’ve already got a variety of in-depth, exclusive coverage on all of your streaming favorites and new releases, but sometimes what you’re looking for is a simple Do or Don’t. That’s why we created See/Skip, to tell you exactly what our writers think you should See and what you can Skip from the past week’s crowded entertainment landscape.
See: Palm Royale
Palm Royale squeezes every last sun-kissed drop out of Kristen Wiig’s delightful lead performance as a low-level striver who’s desperate to climb up in the Palm Beach social scene. It’s catty, extremely silly, and the ideal showcase for Wiig’s wide array of dramatic tricks.
Here’s Coleman Spilde’s take:
“What’s the deal with Florida these days? It seems like everyone is migrating to the Sunshine State—and specifically Palm Beach—for a little vacation. There was Annette Bening in her rotten new limited series, RHONY star Tinsley Mortimer for her long-awaited fairytale wedding, and, of course, Donald Trump for the annual barnacle-boiling convention known as the Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve party. Deny it all you want, but Palm Beach is having a moment.
Kristen Wiig’s ‘Palm Royale’ Was Designed in a Lab for you to Enjoy
Now, allow Kristen Wiig and a crew of consummate costars to elaborate on why this spring break destination is becoming so popular again. In the new series Palm Royale, which premieres on Apple TV+ Mar. 20, Wiig plays a woman with big ambitions and little money who is determined to break into the Palm Beach social scene in 1969. And while tales of enterprising strivers aren’t exactly new, the show finds plenty of innovation in its sun-drenched setting, letting Florida’s newcomers and its fully blossomed biddies go at it in pursuit of meaningless power. While its side narratives about the burgeoning women’s rights movement fall flatter, Palm Royale has enough Aqua Net and quaaludes to buoy the series. A bewitching performance by Wiig ties the whole affair together in one big discount store bow.”
Domhnall Gleeson and Andrea Riseborough in Alice & Jack.
Skip: Alice & Jack
Alice & Jack is a moody melodrama that digs its heels into exasperating storylines about the push-pull dynamic of two star-crossed lovers. But these plots go nowhere, making even the most hopelessly romantic viewers want to check out long before the finale.
Here’s Nick Schager’s take:
“Alice & Jack boasts the Masterpiece brand, two charismatic and engaging leads, and an initially intriguing story about the intricacies, complications, and madness of love. None of those, however, can outweigh the grating manipulations and frequent inanity of Victor Levin’s six-part PBS drama, premiering Mar. 17, which asks the excellent Andrea Riseborough and Domhnall Gleeson to sell a variety of plot points that strain credibility to preposterous lengths. Despite a few genuinely touching moments, it’s far too daft to enchant.
These Are the Most Annoying People to Ever Fall in Love
In London some years ago, Jack (Gleeson) and Alice (Riseborough) meet for a first date facilitated by a matchmaking app. Jack is a reserved and sincere biomedical researcher determined to save the world one cured disease at a time, whereas Alice is a forward, shoot-from-the-hip financial wizard who wastes little energy on things (and people) she doesn’t want. No sooner have they met than Alice decides that she definitely wants Jack, inviting him to either depart as friends or come back to her apartment. Given how taken he is with her, Jack naturally opts for the second option. Post-sex, Alice says that he’s wonderful and then kicks him out, telling him not to call or text. The look in her eye—equal parts smitten and sad—indicates that she’s immediately fallen hard for him, as he has for her, and yet when he does reach out the following day, she ignores him. When Jack sees her that night with another man, he takes it on the chin and tries to move on with his life.”
Melissa Benoist, Carla Gugino, Christina Elmore, and Natasha Behnam in The Girls on the Bus.
See: The Girls on the Bus
The Girls on the Bus go round and round…the country! This charming and earnest series, about journalists following fictional presidential candidates on the campaign trail, will beguile you with its optimism and a foursome of characters to rival the great TV friend groups of yore, like Sex and the City’s beloved quartet.
Here’s Caroline Siede’s take:
“From the cosmo-soaked bars of New York City to the blood-drenched halls of Westeros, it used to be that the one quality linking HBO’s diverse slate of prestige TV was cynicism. One merger and a rebrand later, however, and HBO’s identity is no longer so clear—particularly on Max (formerly HBO Max), a streaming platform where shows like The Wire and Euphoria now live alongside the entire Property Brothers’ canon.
Hillary Clinton Politics Get a Dose of CW Energy With ‘Girls on the Bus’
You can feel that shift in Max’s new political journalism drama The Girls on the Bus (premiering Mar. 14), which may follow the ‘four very different women as unlikely friends’ premise that fueled HBO hits like Sex and the City and Girls, but comes freshly scrubbed of any jadedness. Co-created by The Vampire Diaries showrunner Julie Plec and produced by Arrowverse stalwart Greg Berlanti, the series actually began development at Netflix and briefly moved to The CW, both of which feel like more natural fits for its zippy, earnest, “stronger together” tone. Despite its of-the-moment political commentary, The Girls on the Bus is actually a pretty lightweight comfort watch. And that’s both the best and worst thing about it.
Lili Taylor and Hamish Linklater in Manhunt.
Skip: Manhunt
Manhunt fails to make the 12-day search for Abraham Lincoln’s killer into a series that’s anything close to gripping. Instead, it’s a dreary period piece storytelling over an exciting deluge of era-specific misinformation and confusion. The only thing you’ll be hunting for is your remote.
Here’s Noel Murray’s take:
“Put yourself in the buttoned-up boots of the average American citizen in April of 1865. A divided, devastated nation was living through the Civil War’s bitter and bloody final weeks, assured that the Union side was likely to prevail but uncertain about how—or even if—the former Confederate states would be readmitted. Then on April 16, seven days after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at the Appomattox Court House, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. News traveled slowly back then, so the citizenry was gripped by confusion and fear as rumors spread about what happened.
‘Manhunt’ Is Too Boring for a Series About the Search for Abraham Lincoln’s Assassin
Sound like a good premise for a TV show? Well, it’s already been a good premise for a book: Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, James L. Swanson’s acclaimed 2007 non-fiction bestseller. Swanson transported readers back to those dramatic two weeks after Lincoln’s death, as the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton organized a search for Booth that involved investigating the network of wealthy saboteurs who had been secretly supporting the Confederacy.”
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