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There are roughly 47,000—oh, wait, a new Netflix Original just dropped; make that 47,001—TV shows and movies coming out each week. At Obsessed, we consider it our social duty to help you see the best and skip the rest.
We’ve already got a variety of in-depth, exclusive coverage on all of your streaming favorites and new releases, but sometimes what you’re looking for is a simple Do or Don’t. That’s why we created See/Skip, to tell you exactly what our writers think you should See and what you can Skip from the past week’s crowded entertainment landscape.
See: The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian Season 3 finds everyone’s first fan-favorite Pedro Pascal character, before The Last of Us made us all obsessed with him, returning alongside the adorable Baby Yoda for more adventures through space. This time with more sturdy CGI, engaging worldbuilding, and thrilling franchise expansions.
Here’s Nick Schager’s take:
“Pedro Pascal is pop culture’s current-favorite surrogate daddy in search of absolution and redemption. On the heels of cementing that status with The Last of Us, he returns to his initial caregiver role in The Mandalorian’s third season, again pairing his lone warrior Din Djarin with beloved baby Yoda himself, Grogu. Sticking to the template that’s made it the best Star Wars work since Disney purchased the property from George Lucas, the series proves to be in fine form in its latest go-round—even if, at outset, it doesn’t bother explaining how it got from its Season 2 finale to its present point.
There are reunions aplenty in The Mandalorian, beginning with Din finding the Armorer (Emily Swallow), to inform her that he intends to seek forgiveness for the sin of removing his helmet in front of Grogu (a big no-no in Mandalorian culture). His atonement requires him to travel to their home world of Mandalore and, per tradition, bathe in the Living Waters beneath its mines.
The Armorer reminds him that the planet is a cursed wasteland thanks to the Empire, but Din has an artifact that suggests otherwise. She, therefore, acquiesces to his plan—but only after Din saves the Armorer and her fellow Mandalorians from a titanic, alligator-like monster that’s interrupted a beach ceremony to induct a child into the ranks of their ancient clan.”
Skip: True Lies
True Lies commits a crime worse than being just a useless remake with nothing new to say: It’s a bad spy show! Corny missions, tepid style, and an inexplicable lack of sexiness have these married sleuths compromised from the start.
Here’s Coleman Spilde’s take:
“It has been 13 years since news first broke of a possible television adaptation of True Lies, James Cameron’s 1994 action-comedy blockbuster. That film, about a secret agent who accidentally ropes his unassuming wife into his secret identity—thereby spicing up their stuck-in-a-rut marriage—is a bombastic and exhilarating take on the spy genre, led by two committed performances from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. At its best, it defined ’90s sex appeal, and at its worst, it had some very off-color jokes and plotlines about religious extremism and terrorism. There was plenty to be corrected for a different era and new audiences.
But after more than a decade of anticipation, the serialized True Lies remake arrives sans any high or low points. Instead, this new mission has been dumped on our doorstep with all of its edges smoothed out into one impossibly tedious block of pure, televised lead. The series, which premieres Mar. 1 on CBS, certainly has enough going for it. Its cast is competent enough, and its effects team is game to amp up the hokey, hyper-technological concept of spies that we rarely see anymore in the age of Daniel Craig’s stonefaced James Bond. Yet, somehow, the spark remains entirely unlit.”
See: Wreck
Wreck sails over from the BBC on the cruise ship of nightmares when a masked duck starts attacking passengers in the middle of the ocean. Silly as that might sound, the show is a surprisingly tense and fun new take on the concept of “foul play.”
Here’s Elena Sheppard’s take:
“I was ready to hate Wreck. Promos for the horror-comedy-slasher-thriller-whodunnit bristled me. The killer, a vacant-eyed duck furry, seemed too ridiculous to be frightening; the genre hodgepodge felt over-inflated. And yet! The series, a British import from BBC Three (which targets the U.K.’s younger viewers), first aired in the U.K. in Oct. 2022, and takes place largely below deck on a cruise ship called the MS Sacramentum. It opens with a staffer aboard, a woman named Pippa (Jodie Tyack), jumping from deck into a stormy sea to escape from the aforementioned murderous duck. Knife in wing, the duck is ready to kill, and Pippa refuses to be a victim.
Fast forward three months, and Pippa’s 19-year-old brother Jamie (Oscar Kennedy) has “Talented Mr. Ripley’d” his way on to the Sacramentum, to solve the mystery of what happened to his still missing sister. Pippa, it seems, was at the top of the cruise ship social hierarchy, which means her disappearance has ruffled nearly everyone’s feathers.
Jamie is, as his love interest Olly (Anthony Rickman) says, “bottom of the ladder, when it comes to nonsensical, cruise ship, subculture,” which allows him to move somewhat in the shadows. While on board, Jamie assumes the identity of a guy named Cormac and works mostly in the kitchen or behind the bar. The real Cormac (Peter Claffey), however, has also stowed away on the ship, for his own investigative reasons. Thus a reluctant but merry band of sleuths is born.”
Skip: Children of the Corn
Children of the Corn doesn’t recapture the eeriness of the original film. Maybe that’s because it’s number one zillion in this long-stretching horror franchise! Save for a couple of nice performances, this maize is one big mess.
Here’s Laura Bradley’s take:
“For decades, the Children of the Corn franchise has bounded through its ups, its downs, and some surprising guest stars—but if there’s one thing you can often rely on, it’s an excellent performance from a kid on the edge. The latest remake—stranded in limbo for the past couple years after filming in Australia in 2020 during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic—delivers on that promise with a wink and a sunflower ring. The 14-year-old Canadian actress Kate Moyer is a delight as she gleefully mows down every adult in sight. Unfortunately, she and co-star Elena Kampouris (My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2) are two of the few sweet kernels in a strained franchise extension that’s otherwise kind of moldy.
The first Children of the Corn adaptation, which debuted in 1984, introduced viewers to the small corn-farming town of Gatlin, Nebraska—where a bunch of kids had recently decided to murder all of their elders. Since then, Stephen King’s short story has stretched into an 11-film franchise with such illustrious guest stars as Naomi Watts, Eva Mendes, and David Carradine. (Don’t remember them? You should have stuck around for installments 4 and 5!) This new film does not connect to any of that prior lore. Instead, we get a convoluted origin story for our new problem child, whose vengeance is somehow even sillier than all of those who came before her.”
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