What To Watch This Week: Stream Our Top 7 TV and Movie Picks (March 17–23)

New on TV this week

This week’s What To Watch picks include a new mystery starring Uzo Aduba, a based-on-a-true story similar to the movie Orphan, a new comedy-mystery starring Peep Show’s David Mitchell, the first of three Popeye horror movies, and more. Let’s hit the couch!

Bert Kreischer: Lucky | Netflix | Stand-up comedy

Special, Tuesday, March 19: “All right, show of hands. Did you know Julius Caesar was a real person?” asks bare-chested comedian Bert “The Machine” Kreischer in the trailer for his fourth Netflix special (sixth overall). The audience laughs. “Okay, I didn’t know that one.” That’s on brand for Kreischer’s hard-partying, dumb dad/husband persona. But he’s ostensibly mellowed in the last 18 months or so, dropping 45 pounds and packing on muscle—but largely remaining his goofy self. According to Lucky’s synopsis, Kreischer touches on this as well as “the usual family antics and getting parenting tips from Snoop Dogg.”

Gannibal | Hulu | Horror

Season two premiere, Wednesday, March 19: More than two years after its debut season ended, we finally have a second season of the TV adaptation of Masaaki Ninomiya’s folk-horror manga. The story follows a police officer, Daigo Agawa (Yuya Yagira), assigned to Kuge Village, where he’ll investigate a potential cannibal murder tied to a mysterious, cult-like family. In the second season, Daigo is on a revenge mission. All episodes should be available to stream today.

Good American Family | Hulu | Drama

Limited series premiere, Wednesday, March 19: In this based-on-a-true story series, Ellen Pompeo (Grey’s Anatomy) and Mark Duplass (The Creep Tapes) play the Barnetts, a Midwestern couple who adopts Natalia Grace (Imogen Faith Reid), a Ukrainian girl with spondyloepiphyseal dwarfism. Soon after, the Barnetts begin to think maybe Natalia is much older than she says and intends to harm them. If this sounds like the 2009 horror movie Orphan, it’s not—but some speculate that the film inspired the Barnetts to claim Natalia was a psychotic adult to escape their responsibility. Dulé Hill (Psych) also star. The first two episodes of Good American Family hit Hulu today, with the other six coming weekly until April 30.

Happy Face | Paramount+ | Drama, thriller

Series premiere, Thursday, March 20: Makeup artist Melissa (Annaleigh Ashford) gets a message from her father—Keith Jesperson, the Happy Face Killer (Dennis Quaid). They haven’t spoken for decades; now he wants to see her. To ensure it happens, Jesperson dangles details of another murder he committed, which could free the innocent man currently on death row for the crime. Michael Showalter (The Eyes of Tammy Faye, The Dropout) directs from a screenplay based on Shattered Silence: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer’s Daughter (2009, Cedar Fort) by Melissa G. Moore and M. Bridget Cook. After tonight’s two-episode premiere, the other six eps will come weekly.

Ludwig | Britbox | Comedy, mystery

Series premiere, Thursday, March 20: Brilliant actor/comedian/writer David Mitchell (Peep Show) plays John “Ludwig” Taylor, an uptight puzzle constructor whose twin brother, a detective, vanishes. Recruited by his sister-in-law to solve the crime, Ludwig impersonates his sibling—and winds up working other cases, solving them like puzzles. Originally airing last fall on BBC One, the six-episode series makes its US debut via the Britbox streaming service. (As usual, you get two episodes tonight and the rest weekly.) Already a hit in the UK, Ludwig will return with a second season.

The Residence | Netflix | Comedy, mystery

Series premiere, Thursday, March 20: Did you enjoy Uzo Aduba’s amaze-balls performance as Suzanne “Crazy Eyes” Warren in Orange is the New Black? I sure did. Aduba’s Suzanne was so sweet and scary and sad and real—the kind of character you develop a deep one-sided friendship with. In this Shonda Rhimes-produced comedy-mystery series adapted from Kate Andersen Brower’s novel, Aduba plays Cornelia Cupp, an eccentric detective charged with solving a murder at the White House. I’m already in, but the rest of the cast has that Clue/Knives Out ensemble thing goin’ on with Giancarlo Esposito, Randall Park, Jason Lee, Jane Curtin, Bronson Pinchot, Al Franken, and more—so I have high hopes for this one.