From the end of The Conners to the beginning of a new ballet comedy from the creators of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week
1. Secrets of the Penguins – Sunday, April 20, National Geographic Channel | Series Premiere
This three-part series produced by James Cameron follows acclaimed wildlife cinematographer Bertie Gregory as he challenges everything we thought to be true about penguins, collaborating with top scientists while utilizing cutting-edge camera technology. “From the Emperor Penguins’ revelatory bonds of friendship to the gritty resolve of Gentoos and Rockhoppers, and the astonishing ingenuity of the migrant penguins that reached deserts and far beyond, their incredible traditions and societies echo ours in ways we never dreamt possible — until now,” notes the synopsis of this ambitious new project. Click here to watch trailer.
2. The Rehearsal – Sunday, April 20, HBO Canada | Season Premiere
A truly singular talent on the modern entertainment landscape, Vancouver’s most peculiar son Nathan Fielder rocketed to global acclaim with his 2013 mocku-series Nathan for You — which saw the funnyman combine his off-kilter wit with the business degree he got at UVic to lend some highly suspect expertise to entrepreneurs in need.
In 2022, he trod similar conceptual territory with the debut of HBO’s The Rehearsal, wherein Fielder hired actors and crafted elaborate sets to help average people “rehearse” such problematic life experiences as confessing a lie to their friends or raising a child.
A giddy blend of fact and fiction, outright absurdity and genuine human pathos, season one frequently saw our hero lose himself in his tasks . . . becoming especially invested in his pretend role as co-parent to a rapidly aging, frequently recast son.
Reflecting on the show’s signature unpredictability, Fielder told Deadline’s FYC House + HBO Max panel in 2023: “The goal is always for things that are better than your plan to happen. But I would try to map out every scenario . . . I would go into a situation like, ‘OK, if they do this, I’ll do this. And if they do this, I’ll do that.’ And then all the time, these moments would happen that I didn’t see coming at all . . . and they’re often the best moments in the show. But instead of thinking, ‘Oh, that’s cool that this thing happened,’
I would always be sort of mad at myself and go, ‘Man, why didn’t I see that coming?’ I thought that frustration was funny — because obviously you can’t predict reality.”
After a lengthy hiatus, Fielder returns for six new episodes that tackle, among other conundrums, how to handle a commercial airline disaster. As the press release cryptically teases: “The urgency of Fielder’s project grows as he decides to put his resources toward an issue that affects us all.” Click here to watch trailer.
3. Big Burger Battle – Monday, April 21, Flavour Network | Series Premiere
Kim’s Convenience and Run the Burbs star Andrew Phung returns to your screens as host of this new cook-off.
An ode to burgers and the side dishes that complete them, the series invites various grillers from across Canada and the U.S. to test their mettle in three weekly challenges judged by Phung, alongside “burger scholar” George Motz and celebrity restaurateur Connie DeSousa.
In each episode, the opening “Fast Food” segment asks them to “transform a mystery ingredient into a crave-worthy, burger-adjacent dish.” The worst performers are sent to “Burgatory,” while the rest of these grill-masters compete for $5,000 in the “Burger Bucks” phase — crafting a patty that pushes culinary boundaries. Then, the Burgatory folks return for a win-or-go-home battle, whipping up their best gourmet burger and side. Click here to watch trailer.
4. Battle Camp – Wednesday, April 23, Netflix | Series Premiere
Netflix launches its own spin on Battle of the Network Stars, recruiting 18 cast members from reality hits like Love Is Blind, Cheer, Selling the OC, The Circle and Too Hot to Handle to face off in a series of physical and psychological outdoor challenges for a grand prize of $250,000.
5. The Conners – Wednesday, April 23, ABC | Series Finale
In the annals of TV history, there’s only one show that was a massive hit in the 1980s and ’90s, returned 20 years later to even greater success — only to be cancelled due to a scandal involving its titular star, and then successfully resurrected without that star. That’s the saga of a beloved sitcom that began as Roseanne in 1988, ran until 1997, returned in 2018, was abruptly cancelled after Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet, and then returned without her as The Conners later that same year.
With the series concluding after seven hit seasons, star Sara Gilbert — who’s played Darlene Conner since the beginning — teased the two-part finale during a recent appearance on Good Morning America. “I think viewers will be happy, I hope. And there’s also something we do at the end that I haven’t really seen that I can recall on another show,” she said. “Somebody asked me if it’s a happily ever after . . . I won’t speak to whether it’s happy or sad, but I think we try to keep things real and keep things satisfying. I think it’s a really satisfying ending.” Click here to watch trailer.
6. Vanderpump Villa – Thursday April 24, Disney+ | Season Premiere
Moving from France to Italy for season two, Lisa Vanderpump and her unruly hospitality staffers are joined by Vanderpump Rules alum Stassi Schroeder as new manager — plus the #MomTok crew from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives as guests.
7. Étoile – Thursday, April 24, Prime Video | Series Premiere
Partners in TV writing and in life, Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino are the scribes behind such beloved TV dramedies as Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Now, they look to dazzle and delight us again with this trip to the ballet.
Jumping back and forth between Paris and New York, Étoile casts Charlotte Gainsbourg (Nymphomaniac) and Canadian Luke Kirby (who played standup icon Lenny Bruce on Maisel) as the heads of a Parisian and American ballet, respectively. With both troupes fading, the duo strike a bargain: work together to lift each other up via a transatlantic collaboration that involves swapping their two biggest dancers. The eight-episode first season debuts all at once this Thursday on Prime, with an encore performance already greenlit.
This actually marks the second time the Palladinos have delved into the realm of ballet, following the short-lived yet eternally adored Bunheads.
As Amy told Vanity Fair: “Look, my parents taught me very early to never let things go, and I am my parents’ child. Bunheads gave us a little taste of the fun of being in that world on a smaller scale. I trained as a dancer, so I have been mystified that nothing has really come close to capturing the weirdness of the dance world. They’re an odd, amazing bunch of people.” Click here to watch trailer.
8. Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue – Thursday, April 24, USA Network | Series Premiere
British author Anthony Horowitz is nothing if not prolific, responsible for the Alex Rider YA novels, his Magpie Murders books (which he adapted for television) and several Daniel Hawthorne detective tales — to say nothing of creating such British TV series as Foyle’s War.
His latest is Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue, a unique murder mystery that presents viewers with a bizarre puzzle to solve. The story begins when a plane carrying eight passengers and a pilot crashes in the Mexican jungle, with nine bodies recovered and sent to a local morgue. However, it’s subsequently revealed that only one of those bodies was killed in the crash; in a bizarre twist, the survivors were actually murdered, each killed in a different (and twisted) way.
Two key questions obviously arise: who killed them, and why? “As the story unfolds in flashbacks, audiences meet the survivors as they fight against the heat, a shortage of supplies, the many dangers of the jungle . . . and each other,” notes the series’ synopsis.
Eric McCormack (Will & Grace) stars, joined by David Ajala, Zack Ellis, Jan Le, Lydia Wilson, Adam Long, Peter Gadiot, Siobhán McSweeney and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson.
“The inspiration was always an idea I had: What would happen if a plane crashed in the middle of nowhere and you had to survive with nine complete strangers? One of whom was a psychopath?” Horowitz said in an interview with the Boston Herald. Click here to watch trailer.
9. Havoc – Friday, April 25, Netflix
With his new series MobLand breaking viewership records on Paramount+, Tom Hardy’s latest action film hits rival streamer Netflix with a bang.
Sporting titles like Mad Max: Fury Road and underrated MMA drama Warrior on his CV, Hardy is nothing if not a credible action hero. (The man even made headlines in 2022 when he won a real-life jiu-jitsu tournament.) Havoc finds him teaming up with an equally accomplished action maestro in Gareth Evans, director of The Raid and co-creator of AMC’s Gangs of London. Here, Hardy plays Walker, a grizzled cop who lands at the centre of a drug deal gone wrong. When things go from wrong to worse, he must fight his way through a morass of not only criminals, but dirty politicians and even his fellow cops.
Speaking with The Playlist, Hardy enthused of his director: “It is literally a massive choreography of unbelievable violence on turbo; almost like how a child would play, but with all the toys. And his attention to detail in balletic, violent choreography with multiple characters is something that he absolutely is brilliant at.”
Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker and Justified alum Timothy Olyphant also star.
10. Jessica Kirson: I’m the Man – Friday, April 25, Disney+
A favourite of standup legend Bill Burr, New Jersey comic Jessica Kirson returns for another hour of hilarity — this time quipping and riffing on such topics as “TikTok girls” and her most unusual experiences at a trauma centre. Click here to watch trailer.