Hey TV watchers! TV critic Michel Ghanem here. Every two weeks, I share the shows worth your TV time for Trust Me, I Watch Everything. Whether you prefer sticking to cable, catching the latest on streaming or digging up a hidden gem that slipped through the cracks, I try to curate something for everyone.
This week’s dispatch marks the official start of the summer season in the television world. Expect far fewer broadcast premieres and a stronger push toward summer streaming. History buffs may want to check out World War II With Tom Hanks, a docuseries airing on the History Channel. Over on streaming, Hulu’s Not Suitable for Work is something like Friends for a new generation, and The Four Seasons returns for a second season on Netflix. For our hidden gem, try Diarra From Detroit, now that all BET originals stream on Paramount+. And there’s plenty more where that came from — let’s jump in.
⏰ Tune in
My recommendation: World War II With Tom Hanks
Why you should watch it: World War II documentary buffs, you’re in for a treat — Saving Private Ryan star Tom Hanks has produced and narrated a 20-part series chronicling those tumultuous war-torn years for the History Channel. Critics are saying it’s nothing revolutionary for those intimately familiar with WWII, but it does include never-before-seen archival footage.
This era has long been Hanks’s passion area, especially when it comes to developing WWII stories for television: He produced a trilogy of sorts with HBO’s iconic miniseries Band of Brothers, followed by The Pacific a few years later and, more recently, Apple TV’s Masters of the Air. Each received widespread acclaim for adapting sprawling stories to more succinct narratives.
Since Hanks has basically tackled the war from land, sea and air, it’s only natural that he now looks at a way to tell these stories in a nonfiction format. If you don’t yet feel inundated with stories from this era or appreciate a documentary lens, World War II With Tom Hanks is a solid option.
How to watch: New episodes of World War II With Tom Hanks stream Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on the History Channel, and stream for free the next day on History.com.
📺 Stream it
My recommendation: Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed
Why you should watch it: In David J. Rosen’s Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, Paula (Tatiana Maslany) is dopaminemaxxing. She’s recently divorced and things are looking a bit bleak, so she turns to a few guaranteed sources of temporary escapism: shoving waffles in her mouth while driving to work, cranking up the volume in her headphones as she annotates an article at her fact-checking job, and buying hours of time with Trevor (Brandon Flynn), a webcam boy she has virtual sex with.
She’s holding it all together until a fateful webcam session during which Trevor is violently attacked by a stranger in his home. Paula, who doesn’t even know if Trevor is this guy’s real name, can’t do much about it except watch in horror. Things get even stranger when she starts getting phone calls from him pleading that if she doesn’t wire him thousands of dollars immediately, his captors will kill him.
Obviously, it’s a scam — as Detective Sofia Gonzalez (Dolly de Leon) nonchalantly tells Paula when she brings the situation to the police. But it’s a scam that won’t stop escalating, leading Paula deeper into a conspiracy she never saw coming.
The show itself is zippy: Half-hour episodes and quick-cut editing make episodes fly by. The real draw here is Maslany, though.
The actor won a well-deserved Emmy in 2016 for Orphan Black, an enduring cult-favorite sci-fi series in which she plays not one, not two, but 17 distinct characters, all clones with distinct personalities. It is still one of the greatest acting achievements in television, and gave me full faith in her ability to pull off pretty much anything else.
In Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, she once again hits it out of the park and is extremely watchable, even as things spiral in fairly unrealistic ways.
How to watch: New episodes of Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed stream on Wednesdays on Apple TV.
My bonus recommendation: Not Suitable for Work
Why you should watch it: So far in her illustrious television-producing career, The Office star and writer Mindy Kaling has tackled the tender teen years in Never Have I Ever and the college coming-of-age era in The Sex Lives of College Girls. (One could probably argue that Running Point focuses on midlife.) It seems only natural, then, for her to take on the postcollege years and join a very small number of shows about 20-something friend groups currently on the air (there used to be way more).
Not Suitable for Work follows five young adults who all live in the same apartment building in New York City’s Murray Hill neighborhood as they try their best to thrive in their respective careers.
AJ (Ella Hunt) is starting a new job in finance and moves in with her best friend, Abby (Avantika), an assistant to a celebrity stylist. Over in the boys’ apartment across the hall, Kel (Nicholas Duvernay) is an aspiring actor unhappily making his way through medical school, Josh (Jack Martin) yearns to follow in his father’s footsteps and work in hard-hitting broadcast journalism, and Davis (Will Angus) works with AJ.
Each character’s workplace is also given a fleshed-out storyline, including quirky bosses and coworker crushes. For one, AJ has to rein in her attraction to her very strict boss (Jay Ellis), while Josh desperately wants to impress the on-air pundit he works for (Victor Garber) and prove he’s not just a nepotism hire.
The workplace dynamics are key to what makes the show so fun to watch, and feel unexpectedly realistic. There are fewer hijinks and shenanigans than on a show like Adults, and more focus on the tug-of-war between trying to get your career off the ground and trying to find time to have crushes and go on dates. It’s all surprisingly effective as a show.
The various workplaces also give the show a solid structure — inevitably, the workday must end — and by living across the hall from each other, our five leads can’t go too long without interacting with each other. It sort of reminds me of The Bold Type and maybe even Friends, and might be at the top of my list for recent bingeable, easy-going television about 20-somethings just trying to figure it all out.
How to watch: The first three episodes of Not Suitable for Work premiere Tuesday, June 2, on Hulu, with new episodes weekly after that.
But that’s not all…
Deli Boys: The hilarious comedy about two brothers thrust into a life of crime against their will has returned for a second season, and it’s just as good as the first. Mir (Asif Ali) and Raj (Saagar Shaikh) are still navigating the fallout of finding out their convenience store magnate father was actually a drug lord. Luckily, they have his consigliere, Aunt Lucky (Poorna Jagannathan), to guide them, even when things get crazier and crazier. — Both seasons are streaming on Hulu.
Spider-Noir: Set in an alternate universe within Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, Nicolas Cage plays Ben “the Spider” Reilly, a disillusioned private investigator and superhero in 1930s New York City. The show can be watched in black and white or color — which version will you choose? — All eight episodes are streaming on Prime Video.
The Four Seasons: Adapted from the 1981 film of the same name, this charming comedy created by Tina Fey follows a friend group of three couples who take a trip together during each season of the year. A separation and a death caused huge rifts in the group during the first season, but we’re back for more quarterly holidays. — Both seasons are streaming on Netflix.
Star City: The alternate-history sci-fi series For All Mankind begins with the premise that the Soviets reach the moon before the United States does, but we never got the Russian side of the story — until now. No prior viewing or knowledge of For All Mankind is needed to jump in with this spinoff, although the show’s early seasons are quite the treat. — New episodes stream Fridays on Apple TV.
💎 Hidden gems
My recommendation: Diarra From Detroit
Why you should watch it: Getting ghosted by a Tinder date is the worst, especially when you thought there was an otherworldly spark between the two of you. When this happens to schoolteacher Diarra Brickland (Diarra Kilpatrick), she is not letting it slide. She’s had enough heartbreak: She’s in a three-month separation from her husband and has been sequestering herself in her childhood home.
When Diarra tries to track her date down, she accidentally gets pulled into the Detroit underworld and unearths a mystery that might have conspiratorial roots. For a while, the show plays with the audience: Is there really something going on, or is this character just unable to let a brief but powerful connection go?
Even her friends — Aja (DomiNque Perry) and Tea (Bryan Terrell Clark) — start to doubt her, especially when her paranoia is coming from insomnia and heartbroken anguish. But it all becomes clearer when she learns this date might be tied to an infamous missing-boys case from the 1990s.
Kilpatrick creates, writes and stars in this phenomenal dark comedy that might surprise you in all of its layers. The show dangles a compelling citizen-investigator story (welcome back, Veronica Mars!), and Diarra’s character is well-written, with an arc that feels grounded. She’s easy to root for.
A second season of Diarra From Detroit is expected sometime in the next year. Until then, with all BET originals now on Paramount+, Season 1 is easily accessible if you’re looking for a witty, smart dramedy that scratches that mystery itch without being yet another detective series.
How to watch: All eight episodes of Diarra From Detroit are streaming on Paramount+.
That’s the end of this week’s episode, but there’ll always be more TV to watch. I’ll be back on June 15 with new recommendations.
Think there’s something missing that deserves my TV time? Let me know what else I should have on my radar in the comments below!
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