The Week ’s guide to what’s worth watching
Born in Synanon
Once a pioneering drug rehabilitation program, Synanon evolved in the 1960s and ’70s into a racially diverse utopian community, and finally an armed, violent cult. This four-part series examines the rise and fall of the California-based organization through the eyes of a former member, Cassidy Arkin, who was born into the movement in 1974 and recently decided to investigate its history, uncovering shocking stories about forced abortions and vasectomies, children stolen from their parents, beatings, militarization, and attempted murder. Tuesday, Dec. 12, Paramount+
Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team
When you play for the team that has dominated your chosen sport for years, continuing to win feels like the only option. This four-part series revisits this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup to follow the members of the U.S. women’s soccer team, including stars Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and Sophia Smith, as they prepare for and compete to win a third straight title. Fans know how the effort ended. Now they can see it from the inside. Tuesday, Dec. 12, Netflix
YuYu Hakusho
For American fans of anime, YuYu Hakusho has canonical importance, and Netflix spared no expense for this live-action adaptation of the animated series about the afterlife adventures of former troublemaking teenager Yusuke Urameshi. Yusuke, who died while pushing a child out of the way of a speeding car, is reincarnated as a “spirit detective” pursuing demons who terrorize the living. Thursday, Dec. 14, Netflix
Such Brave Girls
If your own family’s dysfunction isn’t generating laughs for you this holiday season, check in on the trio in this new pitch-black British comedy series. As fictionalized versions of themselves, comedian Kat Sadler and her sister, Lizzie Davidson, play a queer depressed 20-something and her deeply-in-debt sibling whose joint north star is a mother too busy trying to land a husband to help them. Friday, Dec. 15, Hulu
Reacher
Brains and brawn rarely meet in a fictional television hero, which is why Alan Ritchson’s Jack Reacher is such an appealing outlier. The second season of this surprisingly good action series based on Lee Child’s airport best-sellers finds Reacher teaming with two old Army colleagues and deploying violence where needed when he learns that members of his former military police special investigations unit are being tortured and murdered one by one. Friday, Dec. 15, Prime