Toni Collette suffers through ‘Wanderlust’
How uncomfortable is too uncomfortable? Netflix devotes a whole series to that question with its BBC co-production “Wanderlust” (TVMA), now streaming.
“Wanderlust” begins with a torrent of icky situations perfectly befitting a “Porky’s” or “American Pie” sequel — if those comedies concerned middle-aged British schoolteachers, therapists and parents.
Toni Collette plays Joy, a therapist recovering from a nasty bicycle accident. She’s first seen wobbling on a cane and loosening the Velcro on her several casts to submit to the sexual demands of her husband, Alan (Steven Mackintosh).
He’s clearly written as the series’ heel. He blames Joy for using her condition and obvious pain as an “excuse” to avoid intimacy with him. His behavior does not grow more likable.
“Wanderlust” may appeal to those addicted to near-continual mortification. The rest of us will search for something less contrived.
› Also streaming on Netflix: season two of the addictive true crime series “Making a Murderer” (TV-14).
› Amazon Prime returns with a second season of “Lore,” the cinematically produced horror anthology revisiting the historic origins of familiar spooky tales.
› Also on Amazon Prime, “The Romanoffs” presents its third episode, “House of Special Purpose,” starring Christina Hendricks as Olivia, a famous American actress hired by a minor television production to play the doomed Czarina Alexandra, and Isabelle Huppert as the European director who’s a little too close to the story.
Look for Paul Reiser as Olivia’s California agent, always too eager to side against his client.
Not unlike Tim Allen (“Last Man Standing”), Reiser (“Mad About You”) starred on a hit show and authored best-selling books in the mid-1990s. His 2011 comeback series “The Paul Reiser Show” failed to find an audience. He has since appeared in “Stranger Things” on Netflix and “Red Oaks” on Amazon Prime.
While Reiser would probably have preferred for his eponymous series to have flourished, his performances as flawed but three-dimensional characters in these streaming efforts are far more interesting than any network sitcom every-dad. They’ve also introduced Reiser to a younger audience.
› Carson Kressley and Thom Filicia, stars of the original “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” the show that essentially branded Bravo, return to cable on “Get a Room With Carson & Thom” (9 p.m., Bravo, TV-PG). In “Queer Eye,” the guys helped “straight guys” express themselves. Here, our hosts fit their interior design schemes to their clients’ outsized personalities.
› The notion that comedy needs celebrity to find an audience has brought about some of the worst television of recent years. It has all but ruined “Saturday Night Live.” Further evidence of this comic devolution can be found on “The Comedy Central Roast of Justin Bieber” (9 p.m., repeat, TV-MA).