Gripping mystery in ‘The Drowning’
Anetwork series comes to an end, two animated shows debut and a chance sighting sets off a compelling mystery.
Contenders: Shows to keep on your radar
• “MacGyver” goes on one last mission (CBS). The cancelled drama’s series finale focuses on Mac (Lucas Till) and Riley (Tristin Mays), who go missing and wake up 24 hours later in a cornfield with no memory of how they got there.
• Animated comedy “The Mitchells vs The Machines” (Netflix) follows a family who have to save humanity after their cross-country road trip is interrupted by a robot apocalypse. It features the voices of Danny McBride, Abbi Jacobson and Maya Rudolph.
• The third and final season of “Pose” premieres (May 2, FX, 10 p.m. ET). It’s now 1994 and New York’s underground ball culture is a distant memory for some of the show’s characters including Blanca (Mj Rodriguez), who has a new love and a new job, and Pray Tell (Billy Porter) who deals with health challenges. Meanwhile, members of the House of Evangelista are forced to contend with an upstart house.
• When “The Joy Luck Club” debuted in 1989, author Amy Tan found commercial and critical success. Bestselling novels, memoirs, short stories and librettos followed, establishing her as one of the most respected literary fig
ures of our time.
“American Masters — Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir” (May 3, PBS, 9 p.m. ET) explores the celebrated writer’s life and career.
• The second part of “Selena: The Series” will drop on Netflix May 4, which is 10 days earlier than previously announced. Based on the life of Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla, the show stars Christian Serratos (“The Walking Dead”) in the title role.
• Original animated series “Star Wars: The Bad Batch” begins with a special 70-minute episode on Disney+ (May 4), followed by new episodes every Friday starting May 7. The series follows the experimental clones of the Bad Batch, first introduced in “The Clone Wars,” as they navigate their way through a fast moving galaxy in the immediate aftermath of the war.
• When Jodie Walsh’s (Jill Halfpenny) 4-year-old son Tom disappears from a lakeside picnic, authorities presume he drowned but they never find his
body, which leads Jodie to believe that he was taken. Nine years later, she sees a teenage boy who looks exactly like him, right down to a small facial scar. Determined to prove that the boy is her son, she embarks on a dangerous journey to persuade the police and her family that the man taking care of him isn’t his father but rather his kidnapper. All four episodes of “The Drowning” premiere on Sundance Now and Acorn TV on May 6.
Report Card: Ratings winners and losers
• Winners: Disney Channel ordered a second season of “Secrets of Sulphur Springs.”
• Losers: “The 93rd Academy Awards” fell to an all-time ratings low, with a 58% decline in total viewers from 2020.
Melissa Crawley is the author of “Mr. Sorkin Goes to Washington: Shaping the President on Television’s ‘The West Wing.’” She has a Ph.D. in media studies and is a member of the Television Critics