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What To Watch This Week: Relax With Our Top 8 TV and Movie Picks (January 20–26)

Entertainment writer Randy Harward recommends the best shows, movies, and more on TV this week, including The Joe Schmo Show, Prime Target, Star Trek: Section 31, and Harlem.

A collage of images from The Joe Schmo Show, Prime Target, Star Trek: Section 31, and C.B. Strike: The Ink Black Heart, shows covered in CableTV.com’s What to Watch This Week column for Jan. 20–26.
Clockwise from left: The Joe Schmo Show (Warner Bros/TBS), Prime Target (Apple TV+), Star Trek: Section 31 (Jan Thijs/Paramount+), and C.B. Strike: The Ink Black Heart (Rob Youngson/HBO).

New on TV this week

This week’s What To Watch picks include three thrilling dramas (C.B. Strike: The Ink Black Heart, Prime Target, and Watson), a modern revival of The Joe Schmo Show, a new Star Trek flick (Star Trek: Section 31), Harlem’s third season, and more natural eye candy from David Attenborough (Planet Earth: Asia). Now let’s hit the couch!

Night owl? Peep what’s on late-night TV this week.

New on TBS this week

The Joe Schmo Show | TBS | Genre

Series premiere, Tuesday, January 21, 9 p.m. ET: We don’t usually cover reality TV in this column, but we’re suckers for reality shows involving, well, suckers (any Jury Duty fans out there?). The Joe Schmo Show dates back to 2003 (and 2004 and 2013). In this “modern revival,” the mark is Baltimore-based electrician Ben. The setup is the same as always—Ben thinks he and the rest of the cast (all improv comedians) are on a game show hoping to win $100,000. Let the mind games begin!

New on Apple TV+ this week

Prime Target | Apple TV+ | Drama

Series premiere, Wednesday, January 22: A gifted mathematician’s (Leo Woodall) work with prime numbers could enable him to hack any computer in the world—and bad guys wanna stop him. Enter an NSA agent (Quintessa Swindell) charged with keeping tabs on the world’s mathletes. Together, they’re gonna get to the bottom of a calculated conspiracy. The first two episodes, “A New Pattern” and “Syracuse,” stream tonight, with further episodes coming weekly on Thursdays.

New on HBO this week

C.B. Strike: The Ink Black Heart | HBO, Max | Drama

Limited series premiere, Thursday, January 23, 9 p.m. ET: Did you know Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling also writes crime novels as Robert Galbraith? (I hope she’s not also using the men’s restroom. I digress.) The Ink Black Heart is the sixth novel from Rowling’s eight-book Cormoran Strike series to get a TV adaptation. Tom Burke stars as the titular character, and Holliday Grainger plays his business partner, Robin Venetia Ellacott. The show, a joint HBO-BBC production, airs live on HBO on Thursdays and will stream on Max.

Click on your favorite streaming service below to see new releases and classic recommendations from our TV critics.

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New on Prime Video this week

Harlem | Amazon Prime Video | Comedy

Season 3 premiere, Thursday, January 23: Have you spent the last 11 months waiting with bated breath after Harlem ended its second season with a cliffhanger? You can breathe now because the comedy about four thirtysomething girlfriends attending NYU as non-traditional students is back. According to Amazon MGM Studios promo materials, the NAACP Image Award-nominated show’s third and final season will involve “motherhood, singlehood, sisterhood, complicated career journeys, or even more complicated families.”

New on Paramount+ this week

Star Trek: Section 31 | Paramount+ | Science fiction, action, drama

Movie premiere, Friday, January 24: Hey, Trekkies! Paramount+ has more Star Trek for ya: A movie about Star Trek: Discovery’s Emperor Phillippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once). Set between the Star Trek: The Original Series films and Star Trek: The Next Generation, the film finds Georgiou joining a black ops division of Starfleet (Section 31) to protect the United Federation of Planets and “face the sins of her past.” Mmm … character depth.

New on BBC America this week

Planet Earth: Asia | BBC America, AMC+ | Documentary, nature

Limited series premiere, Saturday, January 25, 8 p.m. ET: Do you love vegging out on the couch and watching nature documentaries in the dark? Me too. In this latest edition of the Planet Earth series, David Attenborough takes us to the sprawling continent of Asia to take in its gorgeous landscapes and diverse wildlife, including bats, beetles, tigers, elephants, flying foxes, owls, pandas, red pandas, polar bears, proboscis monkeys, rhinos, sharks, snakes, spiders, sun bears, tigers, whales, and more. Sweet! The first of seven episodes airs tonight, with new eps weekly until the March 8 finale and making-of special.

New on CBS this week

Watson | CBS | Drama

Series premiere, Sunday, January 26, 10 p.m. ET: In this investigative medical drama, Sherlock Holmes is dead by the hand of his nemesis, Moriarty. Holmes’ sidekick, Dr. John Watson (Morris Chestnut), is now solving medical mysteries—and still contending with Moriarty. The series premieres live on CBS (after the AFC Championship Game), and live and on demand for Paramount+ with SHOWTIME subscribers. If you have the Paramount+ Essential plan, you’ll have day-after on-demand access to the series.

  TV Tan Podcast

Bill Frost and Tommy Milagro serve up TV news, reviews, and cocktails every week—at 500+ episodes over 10 years, it’s the longest-running television podcast ever (confirmation pending). Subscribe to TV Tan Podcast now on SpotifyApple PodcastsYouTube MusicYouTubeAmazon PodcastsAudible, or your favorite podcast app. [NFSW]

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

Brother Orange (2025)

Buzzfeed writer Matt Stopera didn’t plan to become a meme—who does? That’s up to fate. During a night out, someone swiped Stopera’s iPhone and started taking tons of selfies with an orange tree. What can a Buzzfeed writer do? Turn the ordeal into content! Soon, Stopera was super famous on Chinese Twitter, receiving a deluge of requests to visit Southern China. He obliged, met the phone thief—dubbed “Brother Orange”—and the two commenced a bromance deeper than either expected it to be. Brother Orange comes to video-on-demand (VOD) on Tuesday, January 21.

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