‘Succession,’ ‘Yellowjackets’ buzz back this weekend
Two other Netflix series coming out this week.
The third week of March 2023 might be the buzziest TV week of the year. The highly anticipated new seasons of two of the most talked-about prestige dramas of the year premiere this weekend, and there are a few other streaming treats that will keep those watchlists full for the foreseeable future.
Block out your Sunday nights for the next two-and-a-half months, because the fourth and final season of “Succession” debuts Sunday on HBO — miss an episode and you run the risk of being spoiled on social media. The award-winning, pitch-black dramedy created by Jesse Armstrong is loosely inspired by the Murdoch family, and it plays out like Shakespeare set behind the scenes at Fox News, as the Roy family double-cross, backstab, front stab and undermine each other while scrabbling for control of the billion-dollar Waystar Royco media empire.
It takes a few episodes to get a handle on the tone of this dark satire, but once it has its claws in you, there’s no escaping the allure of the Roy family roller coaster on “Succession.” Seasons 1-3 are available on HBO Max for a catch-up or rewatch (highly suggested), and with 10 episodes a season (only nine in Season 3), it’s very manageable. Tune in Sunday to see which siblings ally with whom and if they ever learn to stand up to their draconian father, Logan (Brian Cox).
Also on Sunday, the much anticipated second season of the smash hit “Yellowjackets” premieres on Showtime. (Sunday’s TV episode is being made available for streaming today.) The series intertwines two parallel timelines: one in the mid1990s, following a girls’ soccer team from New Jersey as they attempt to survive in the Canadian wilderness following a plane crash, and one in present day, as the grown women who survived the crash grapple with their trauma and the continuing aftereffects of the events on their lives, as they simultaneously try to hide what happened in the woods and also uncover the mysteries that continue to plague them.
“Yellowjackets,” created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, sports auteur Karyn Kusama as an executive producer (she also directed the pilot), and an appealingly ’90s grungy style applied to this distinctly feminine horror-inflected drama. It’s the best soundtrack on TV at the moment, and the crunchy rock theme song gives Nicholas Britell’s piano-driven “Succession” theme song a run for its money. You still have time to slurp down the 10-episode first season on Showtime or Paramount+ before Season 2 hits this weekend.
On the doc/reality side of things, Netflix has two intriguing series out this week: First, as of Wednesday, the three-part documentary “Waco: American Apocalypse.” This “definitive” account of the 1993 standoff at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993 is directed by filmmaker Tiller Russell, who also helmed docuseries on the Night Stalker and the Boston Marathon bombing. All three installments were made available for streaming on Wednesday.
Also hitting Netflix this week is Season 4 of the dating reality show phenomenon “Love Is Blind,” which is part “The Dating Game” (singles chat in “pods” where they can’t see each other), part “The Bachelor” and part fascinating social experiment in human behavior. Netflix struck gold with “Love is Blind” in 2020, hosted by Nick and Vanessa Lachey, and has been churning out new seasons, follow-up episodes and even more dating shows featuring some of the fan favorites since. Tune into Season 4 to see who might make it to the altar, and who will end up on the next season of “Perfect Match.” “Love is Blind” Season 4 premieres today with five episodes, with two dropping each week until April 14. Tune in to find out — is love really blind? Spoiler alert, it’s not, really, but it’s fun to watch it all play out.