What To Watch This Week | April 22–28

Say okey dokey to some great news: Fallout has been renewed for a second season at Prime Video. The post-apocalyptic sci-fi series has been all the buzz since it dropped almost two weeks ago, and now we’ll have more adventures with Lucy and The Ghoul to look forward to, not to mention more fabulous retro soundtrack offerings.

This week’s What to Watch recs include a new season of horror anthology Them, the live-action debut of City Hunter, the return of Velma, the continuing investigations of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, and NFL Draft football action. So much new TV!

What’s new on TV this week

Them: The Scare | Prime Video | Drama, horror

Season 2 premiere, Thursday, April 25: The first season of creator/writer Little Marvin’s Black horror anthology series Them was set in 1953 Los Angeles, mixing period social commentary with sheer bloody terror. Them: The Scare returns to California, but now it’s 1991, and LAPD Detective Dawn Reeve (returning lead Deborah Ayorinde) is investigating a murder so gruesome that the rest of the police force won’t go near it—it’s True Detective: Smog Country. All eight episodes stream on April 25.

NFL Draft | ABC, ESPN, NFL Network | Sports, football

Coverage begins Thursday, April 25, 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET: Live from downtown Detroit, the 2024 NFL Draft will air from Thursday to Sunday on four networks: ABC, ESPN, NFL Network, and ESPN Deportes. You can watch the Draft on cable (Xfinity, Cox, Spectrum), satellite (DIRECTV, DISH), or live TV streaming (YouTube TV, Sling TV, Fubo), but the cheapest way in is with an old-school over-the-air antenna and your local ABC broadcast affiliate—buy an antenna once, get free TV for life.

Jump to your preferred streaming service for more recs

What to watch on Netflix this week

Dead Boy Detectives | Netflix | Drama, fantasy

Series premiere, Thursday, April 25: Remember Doom Patrol? The fantastic DC Universe series that Max heartlessly canceled after four seasons last year? (I’m not bitter, not at all.) Dead Boy Detectives is a Doom Patrol spinoff series that Max sold to Netflix, about ghost friends Edwin (George Rextrew) and Charles (Jayden Revri) solving spooky crimes. They’re dead, so … to what end? Don’t think too hard about it; just revel in the fact that the great Scot Ruth Connell (Supernatural) also stars in this new show.

City Hunter | Netflix | Action, comedy

Movie premiere, Thursday, April 25: The live-action adaptation of manga favorite City Hunter is already drawing rave reviews—specifically, from original City Hunter author Tsukasa Hojo himself. “I really enjoyed the film,” Hojo told Netflix. “I think this is what the fans expect, giving them the thrills of watching it come alive.” It’s a fast-paced underworld tale of murder, drugs, and an inevitable romance between private eye Ryo (Ryohei Suzuki) and Kaori (Misato Morita). Just make it a series, Netflix.

What to watch on Max this week

Velma | Max | Animation, comedy

Season 2 premiere, Thursday, April 25: The first season of Velma debuted just days before the premiere of The Last of Us in 2023. The latter was universally praised; the former, not so much. Ignoring the haters, the hyper-meta Velma (featuring the voice of Mindy Kaling as the gang’s brains) is back for another season of Scooby-free high school antics and mysteries, not to mention the frisky fan fiction that is the on-off power couple of Velma and Daphne (Constance Wu). Critics, who needs ‘em?

We’re Here | HBO, Max | Reality

Season 4 premiere, Friday, April 26: New season, new drag queens: Sasha Velour, Priyanka, Jaida Essence Hall, and Latrice Royale (all RuPaul’s Drag Race alum) carry on the mission to bring drag shows and empathy to small-town America. Previous We’re Here seasons covered a wide variety of cities across Utah, Florida, Missouri, Texas, and even the blue state of Hawaii. This season focuses its six episodes on Tennessee and Oklahoma (we can only dream of a crossover episode with Sly Stone’s Tulsa King).

What to watch on Hulu this week

The New York Times Presents: Broken Horses | FX, Hulu | Documentary

Season 4 spring premiere, Friday, April 26: Twelve horses died at Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby, while training in the spring of 2023. The New York Times Presents: Broken Horses explores how the cathedral of horse racing turned into a “horse graveyard” prior to last year’s Kentucky Derby, laying at least some blame on the drive to produce faster and faster horses no matter what the cost to the “Sport of Kings.” Broken Horses airs April 26 on FX, and streams April 27 on Hulu.

Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story | Hulu | Documentary

Miniseries premiere, Friday, April 26: New rock doc Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story not only chronicles the 40-year journey from the New Jersey band’s hair-metal upstart beginnings in the ’80s to their current status as elder statesmen of dad rock, it also looks ahead to an uncertain future. Frontman Jon Bon Jovi is still recovering from a 2022 vocal cord surgery and refuses to sing live again until he’s back at full capacity, leaving fans “Livin’ on a Prayer” (not sorry). All four episodes stream on April 26.

More of what to watch on streaming this week

The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch | HISTORY | Reality

Season 5 premiere, Tuesday, April 23: Complaining about the lack of actual history on the HISTORY channel is like griping about there being no music on MTV—get over it. The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch has so far spent four seasons and 44 episodes following a hapless “science” crew searching for alien activity on a southeastern Utah property. What do they have to show for it? Hundreds of hours of grainy, inconclusive footage and one sick merch shop. We’re going to need at least five more seasons, HISTORY.

The Big Door Prize | Apple TV+ | Drama, fantasy

Season 2 premiere, Wednesday, April 24: The first season of The Big Door Prize introduced a vending machine that produces cards that tell any person’s “true destiny,” transforming a small Southern town, including school teacher Dusty (Chris O’Dowd, Bridesmaids). For a breezy comedy that feels like a mashup of The Good Place and Schitt’s Creek, The Big Door Prize’s season finale dropped some seriously heavy cliffhangers that will (hopefully) be resolved quickly. Three of 10 episodes stream on April 24.

New movie releases available to rent/buy on VOD this week

• Anyone But You (April 23)
• Monkey Man (April 23)
• Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 2 (April 23)
• Downtown Owl (April 23)
• La Cha Cha (April 23)
• The Moon & Back (April 23)
• Bloodline Killer (April 26)
• Breathe (April 26)
• Cash Out (April 26)
• Cinderella’s Revenge (April 26)
• Pratfall (April 26)