26 Best Releases From Paramount+ Network
Knuckles
SimilarAtomic Train, KONOSUBA – An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, La Femme Nikita, Mortal Kombat: Conquest,
Planet of the Apes Tabitha, That '70s Show, The Sarah Jane Adventures,
So. Knuckles the Echidna attends a Shabbat dinner. That isn't the start of a joke for an incredibly specific audience; that's the set-up for episode three of his new miniseries. Picking up where Sonic the Hedgehog 2 left him, the six-episode show follows the last of the Echidna Warriors on his epic, life-defining quest to define his life with something other than epic quests and grand battles. Knuckles trying to live his life as though his mission to protect the all-powerful Master Emerald was the alpha and omega of his existence only resulted in driving his foster mother, Maddie Wachowski (guest star Tika Sumpter), up the wall and getting himself grounded. So, after some prodding by Sonic (guest star Ben Schwartz) and the ghost of Echidna Chief Pachacamac (Christopher Lloyd), Knuckles gets down to figuring out who he wants to be and what he wants to do with his life.
His new purpose? Help Green Hills' goofball deputy sheriff Wade Whipple (Adam Pally) find his dignity by teaching him the ways of the Echidna Warrior so that he might apply those ways at a national bowling championship and, through struggle and glorious victory, put some ghosts from his past to rest. Their allies? Wade's loving, world-weary mom, Wendy (Stockard Channing), and his trying-way-too-hard FBI agent sister, Wanda (Edi Patterson). Their foes? A duo of rogue GUN agents (Scott "Kid Cudi" Mescudi and Ellie Taylor) who want to sell Knuckles to a Dr. Robotnik wannabe (Rory McCann), Wade's egomaniacal bounty hunter ex-best-friend Jack Sinclair (Julian Barratt), and a champion bowler who moonlights as an utterly despicable cretin (Cary Elwes).
Knuckles brandishing a rubber chicken is a lower-key moment in a gloriously goofy show. Paramount.
From the jump, Knuckles is deliberately and intensely silly. Knuckles' initial stubborn devotion to his life-is-the-capital-letters-MISSION-and-nothing-else mindset becomes a vehicle for action comedy beats built on the dissonance between the inherently ridiculous image of grown men being manhandled by an anthropomorphic echidna and the fact that ridiculous or not, Knuckles is absurdly strong and, when he wants to be, creative on the battlefield. When Sonic and Tails (guest star Colleen O'Shaughnessey) convince him to try making himself at home, Knuckles certainly does. After all, what's more homey than a giant throne in the dining room and swapping the den for an Echidna fighting pit? Continue Reading →
Star Trek: Discovery
Similar3rd Rock from the Sun,
Battlestar Galactica Ben 10: Omniverse, Blake's 7,
Caprica Crusade, Dark Skies, Doctor Who, Duck Dodgers,
Earth 2 Eureka Seven Farscape,
Firefly First Wave, Flash Gordon, Future Man, Hyperdrive, Intruders, Inuyashiki: Last Hero,
Justice League Lost in Space, Marvel's Rocket & Groot, Mystery Science Theater 3000, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Out of This World, Quark, Red Dwarf, Space: 1999,
Star Trek Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,
Star Trek: The Next Generation Star Trek: Voyager Star Wars: Droids, Stargate Atlantis, Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills, The Ark, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Sarah Jane Adventures, The Transformers, Threshold, ThunderCats, Torchwood, UFO, Ultraman,
StarringAnthony Rapp, Blu del Barrio, David Ajala, Doug Jones, Mary Wiseman, Sonequa Martin-Green, Wilson Cruz,
The 1960s Star Trek show did not have the chance to do a true series finale. All of its successors did though, until now. From The Next Generation to Deep Space Nine to Voyager to Enterprise to Picard, every show had the opportunity to make a final statement and sum up the years of adventures in some fashion. Yet, despite being the primogenitor of the franchise, The Original Series just sort of ends, with the sense of the conveyor belt simply stopping, and its last output accidentally becoming an end, if not quite the end.
And yet “Turnabout Intruder”, infamous though it may be, is a surprisingly fitting finale for TOS. It features the good notions and abiding themes of the 1960s show: the idea that this crew knows their captain well enough to sniff out a fake; that become a well-functioning team that can work through even the most unorthodox problems, and that after seventy-nine episodes’ worth of outlandish adventures, they remain open to new and unexpected possibilities. It also features the bad ideas and problematic elements that plagued series time and again: from a mixed-at-best perspective on women to William Shatner’s over-the-top acting. In that, the show’s final outing is an inadvertent but strangely apt swan song for the series.
In its new season, Star Trek: Discovery follows in those hallowed, unexpected footsteps. This is Discovery’s fifth and final year on the air, but as reported by the cast and crew, they didn’t know that when writing or filming it until the last minute. Despite the promise of a hastily-shot coda to give the show an air of finality, that makes this last leg of Discovery’s mission an accidental ending, not unlike the one endured by the original Star Trek series. Continue Reading →
Lawmen: Bass Reeves
SimilarAmazing Stories, American Horror Story, Animated Classics of Japanese Literature, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Cruel Summer,
HIStory Murder Most Horrid, Sentimental Journey, Star and Sky: Star in My Mind, Super Pumped, The Twilight Zone,
Watch afterFargo, Gen V, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,
The Last of Us Yellowstone,
StudioMTV Entertainment Studios,
Screenwriter Josh Olsen (A History of Violence) used to tell anyone who would listen that his passion project was an account of the life of Bass Reeves, a man whose life and career were the stuff of fables. Reeves was the first Black deputy sheriff west of the Mississippi, with an arrest record in the thousands by most accounts. Best of all, legends assert that he almost never killed or shot anyone he didn’t have to. Continue Reading →
Special Ops: Lioness
SimilarChuck, Condor, La Femme Nikita, The Equalizer,
StudioMTV Entertainment Studios,
Taylor Sheridan believes in a very particular strain of the badass woman archetype—steely-eyed, whiskey-drinking, stoic badasses who refuse to be seen as anything other than the HBIC. There's a poetry to their confidence, a mystery to their vulnerabilities. They have no time for feminine pursuits and will be the first to tell you their Myers-Briggs type (ENTJ, obviously). The world might implode if Yellowstone's Beth Dutton ever picked up an Avon Paperback Romance. Continue Reading →
Fatal Attraction
SimilarBroadchurch, Luther,
StudioParamount Television Studios,
Fatal Attraction is an interesting study of how a controversial movie’s takeaway message can completely change, largely because audiences have changed. It’s a stylish, well-crafted film that spawned dozens of lesser imitations, and comes off as totally different when viewed from a 21st-century perspective. The carefully delineated roles of “hero” and “villain” are something murkier: we now understand that protagonist Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) isn’t entirely clear with Alex Forrest (Glenn Close) that their torrid fling is just that, a no-strings-attached encounter that means nothing to him. We see that Alex is done dirty with a script that depicts her as a one-note monster who must be defeated in the name of preserving the nuclear family. When even the YouTube commentariat largely agrees that Dan leads Alex on, you know the tide of public opinion has turned. Continue Reading →
School Spirits
Some pray high school will never end. Some feel like it goes on for a painful forever. For Maddie Nears (Peyton List), those desires and hyperbolic thoughts may have become quite literal. If you die on her high school’s campus of unnatural causes, you apparently hang around with the other ghosts until you figure out how to move on. Imagine finding out the afterlife is real and you’ll never leave your high school again in the same moment. Continue Reading →
Mayor of Kingstown
SimilarBaywatch Nights, Mirai Sentai Timeranger, Narco-Saints,
StudioMTV Entertainment Studios,
When last we left Kingstown, MI, the town was recovering from a brutal prison riot that left plenty of guards and scores of prisoners dead. Mike McLusky (Jeremy Renner) has proven nowhere near the adept fixer his deceased brother (Kyle Chandler) was. The town paid the price. Continue Reading →
Rugrats
The Christmas industrial complex quickly consumes the whole of pop culture. One can barely slip the surly bonds of October 31st before being inundated with a whirlwind of tinsel-tinged music, decorations, and of course, T.V. specials. There’s nothing wrong with that! While the totality of it can be overwhelming at times, even for enthusiasts, there’s something downright pleasant about a big communal celebration touching the whole of society in some way, including our favorite television shows. Continue Reading →
1923
SimilarBates Motel,
StudioMTV Entertainment Studios,
It’s almost difficult to imagine as much happened in one day of the year 1923 as happens in one episode of the television series 1923, the newest installment of the multigenerational Dutton saga from Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone and 1883 series. And if as much happened in 1923’s premiere episode occurred every day of the year 1923, what a truly exhausting year that would’ve been. Continue Reading →
Tulsa King
StudioMTV Entertainment Studios,
In pop culture, The Mafia is as intertwined with New York as it is with Italian heritage. As a result, the idea of having a show about the Mafia taking place outside of the East Coast is novel. That’s especially if it takes place in an explicitly un-NYC location like Tulsa. Unfortunately, the premise of having a Mafioso in Oklahoma is the only original thing about Taylor Sheridan’s (Yellowstone) latest crime drama, Tulsa King. Continue Reading →
Star Trek: Prodigy
SimilarStar Trek Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,
StarringDee Bradley Baker,
Can you have Starfleet without Starfleet? That’s the essential question Star Trek: Prodigy asks in the back half of its first season. As the villainous Diviner (John Noble) told his daughter last time, the advanced vessel ferrying the series’ young heroes contains a weapon that could decimate the Federation. If that weren’t enough, the flesh-and-blood Vice Admiral Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) has reason to think whoever’s piloting the Protostar stole the ship and marooned her dear friend, Chakotay. So despite how badly the show’s main characters want to join Starfleet, there’s a plethora of reasons to stay far, far away for the time being. Continue Reading →
Star Trek: Lower Decks
When Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) began this season, she harbored nothing but mistrust for Starfleet and resolved to rescue her mother all by herself, even as it turned out Mom didn’t need saving. Now, at season’s end, Mariner returns, ready to fight for both the people and the idea of Starfleet, and she enlists the help of her comrades and colleagues to rescue Captain Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) in a moment where she could really use the save. Continue Reading →
Halo
Halo is a big deal. It's the game series that made the Xbox, the game series that drew the blueprint and set the standard for first-person shooters in the 21st century. Its most recent installment, Halo Infinite, drew rave reviews and was a major financial hit. In addition to the stories told in the games themselves, Halo also boasts an extensive transmedia presence—novels, audio dramas, and animated anthologies, amongst other mediums—that's beloved by the lore-digging side of fandom. That passion, and the infamously spotty history of video-game-to-other-medium adaptations, means that Paramount Plus' Halo: The Series faces an uphill battle. Continue Reading →
Evil
SimilarBroadchurch, From, The Strain,
Just in time for spooky season, Michelle and Robert King’s Evil is back from mid-season hiatus with a couple of corkers that loyal viewers will no doubt find worth the wait. Evil is the rare show that manages to successfully mix scares, humor, and genuine human emotion and still be as sophisticated as it is weird, and these first two episodes are no exception. Continue Reading →
Younger
At face value, the original premise of Younger seems destined for a short run. After all, a story about a woman in her 40s who pretends to be 26 to get a job in publishing seems more at home as a Lifetime Original movie than a long-form series. And yet the comedy has lasted six years on TVLand, with the show never losing its charm and heart. While the seventh and final season has the series moving from TVLand to Paramount+, it still manages to keep the same spirit that won it so many fans. Continue Reading →