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The Best New Show on TV Is Putting AI on Trial

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

This Week:

TV’s Most Fun Show

Whatever Hollywood luncheon convinced (brainwashed) the industry’s stars and creatives that AI is a wonderful inevitability to be embraced and encouraged, the writers of the CBS drama Cupertino clearly weren’t invited.

The series has quickly become the show I have the most fun watching each week.

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Cupertino is created by Robert and Michelle King, the geniuses with the flawless TV track record: The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and Evil are among their—I say this as the highest compliment—grippingly bonkers creations.

The Kings’ specialty is upending the procedural format with storylines so searingly timely that one suspects the married couple may actually be clairvoyant, or that their shows’ writers’ room is a time-travel portal to the future.

They hone in on the most unsettling and lunatic issues in politics, technology, and power, somehow lassoing everything that makes life today seem surreal or dangerous into lightning-rod plots. At a time when the world seems to have gone mad, these shows reassure you: Yeah, you’re right. Now let’s talk about it.

Cupertino turns its attention to the Wild Wild West Coast: Silicon Valley’s unchecked tech juggernauts, the lawlessness of AI, chatbots, online scamming, and the direct line from execs’ wallets to policymakers.

Michael Price (Mike Colter) and Olivia Siffre (Rachel Keller) are lawyers who believe they were wrongfully terminated from a massive tech start-up, but find that no one will represent them in a suit because no one in Silicon Valley wants to face the wrath of an industry behemoth. Their success representing themselves makes a little noise, and other people wronged by tech companies and powerless to find any sort of justice begin seeking them out.

Soon, they’ve built their own law firm, with Natalia Boutella (Busy Philipps), a billionaire’s ex-wife desperate to stick it to her former husband, coming on board to fund the venture. The trio embraces their David-versus-Goliath status, wielding every unconventional slingshot in their arsenal.

The show is so gratifying to watch. It surfaces nearly every concern people have about AI, underscoring the outrageousness of the circumstances in each case without ever minimizing the gravity. Like all of the Kings’ shows, it relishes in the kookiness and quirks of the courtroom, and continues The Good Wife and Good Fight’s tradition of casting hilarious character actors, many from the New York theater scene, as judges. It also captures the intensity and peril of going after the country’s richest and most powerful people.

There’s a plot about a sentient AI creation that accomplishes the triple threat of being ludicrous, provocative, and, as the character continues to resurface (Is he a human? Is he a deepfake? Is he actually AI?), menacing. It’s one of the most fascinating storylines of the fall TV season.

Wherever one stands on AI, Cupertino reminds us just how complicated and fraught the issue, the technology, and the people behind it are. It’s not a simple conversation, but, as the series proves, one of the most thrillingly urgent ones to have.

The Funniest Comedy Special Out Right Now

Kate Berlant may be comedy’s most unhinged lunatic. And yet, she could also be its most relatable star.

I can’t decide if I peeked into her head, if I would see some psychedelic maelstrom of exploding rainbows, toy monkeys banging drums, and clowns shrieking, or if it would, in fact, be absolutely serene, the cognitive equivalent of a spa waiting room.

Her new HBO Max comedy special, Parmesan, is an uproarious showcase of how Berlant’s peculiar way of seeing things elicits incredibly cogent, irrefutable observations about how we’ve unknowingly resigned to allowing everyday life to be absolutely absurd. It’s Seinfeld doing “what’s the deal with…” jokes, reflected through the funhouse mirror of Berlant’s unique lens. (Perhaps no one rivals Berlant’s ability to pull her elastic face into cartoonish physical comedy.)

Berlant hilariously posted some viewers’ comments and reviews of Parmesan on Instagram, and I want to share a few because, honestly, I think they’re some of the best sales pitches to convince you to watch: “I love whatever’s wrong with her.” “Unfortunately she just exposed every thought I’d ever had.” “She has the mind of Plato and the physicality of Bugs Bunny.”

Will This Actually Work?

Ryan Murphy announced that he is rebooting Glee, and honestly, I can’t decide if that’s a gift or a threat.

Unsurprisingly, I was obsessed with the original show. My Craigslist roommate and I would stop ignoring each other for exactly one hour each week to watch Season 1 on my 10-inch TV using rabbit ears because we were unemployed and couldn’t afford cable. Recapping episodes after I finally got a media job was essentially what launched my career. I owe a lot to Rachel Berry and rapping Will Schuester.

I also remember how often that show was a hot mess. Sometimes gloriously so. Sometimes “I don’t know if I can actually watch this…” so. Could we really handle that ride again? Mostly, I can’t believe I’m about to invest my whole life into how an Ohio glee club fares at Sectionals again.

This Is Exciting!

I have to come to terms with the fact that I will always defend and, for lack of a better word, “stan” Gwyneth Paltrow, no matter what she does or what nonsense she’s brewing over there at the Goop factory. I think we would all be collectively happier as a society if everyone did.

After dipping her toe back into acting opposite Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme—and, let’s be honest, absolutely killing it—she’s now taking on her first series regular role. She’ll star in a new Netflix series from hip indie distributor A24. Moreover, it’s already been greenlit for two seasons.

Titled The Apology, it sounds juicy: A couple’s son was murdered in a cold case that made national headlines. Eighteen years later, a stranger confesses to the crime, but may get off with a reduced sentence. The couple then takes matters into their own hands.

I’m manifesting another Gwyneth Paltrow Emmy right now. Hilariously, her first win was for Glee. If she reprises the role, maybe we’re looking at two more Gwynny Emmys.

Grab Some Tissues

I’m not prepared to admit how much Julia Stiles’ tribute to Heath Ledger on Dancing With the Stars made me cry. Or, frankly, how unfortunately obsessed I’ve become with this show.

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What to Watch This Week:

Wildwood: Could this be the first animated film to win Best Picture? (Now in theaters)

Wicker: The Alexander-Skarsgard-as-a-horny-basket-man movie is finally here. (Now in theaters)

You Can See Everything: The movie everyone’s talking about is expanding wide this weekend. (Now in theaters)

What to Skip This Week:

Ali G: Who Iz I?: The rare film that both the right and left will hate equally. (Now in theaters)

Klarna and the Sun: Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams, we have to have a talk with your agents. (Now in theaters)

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Kevin FallonEditor-at-Large, Obsessed

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