From an all-star tribute to late comedy legend Joan Rivers to a new animated Canadian superhero comedy, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week
1. The Judd Family – Saturday, May 10, Lifetime | Series Premiere
A family of entertainers whose lives have been defined by immense success, immense talent and immense tragedy, the Judd clan sits down for a warts-and-all profile shot by documentarian Alexandra Dean (Secrets of Playboy).
The four-part series airs over the course of one weekend — with two episodes on Saturday, followed by another two on Sunday — tracing the origins of country music mother-daughter duo Naomi and Wynonna Judd and their bumpy rise to fame in the 1980s, as well as Wynonna’s estranged half-sister Ashley, who headlined such hit 1990s films as Kiss the Girls and Double Jeopardy.
Both Wynonna and Ashley are interviewed here, alongside friends like Reba McEntire. Alas, noticeably absent is Naomi, who took her own life in 2022. That’s among the more harrowing topics touched upon by the filmmakers in their profile of this oft-scandalized family, as “untold truths emerge, illustrating what tied them together, and what also drove them apart.” Along the way, we’re granted access to “rare family footage and photos, unreleased songs and voicemails that the Judd women left for one another” — all of which serves to reveal “the unique relationship between mothers and daughters, the cyclical nature of generational trauma and the strength of familial bonds.”
Speaking with Us Weekly this past summer about her ongoing struggle with that trauma, Wynonna reflected: “I’m in a really good place. I’ve worked on forgiveness and my anger and frustration with suicide. [At a fan party] last night, everyone had on Judds T-shirts from the ’80s and ’90s. I thought, ‘I have a choice: I can either be better or bitter.’ My grief comes and goes. I see it as a gift in terms of the healing part.” Click here to watch trailer.
2. 2025 BAFTA Television Awards – Sunday, May 11, BritBox
Alan Cumming takes a break from tormenting reality TV stars on Traitors in order to make his debut as host of this annual award show honouring the best in British television. Once again, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts recognizes small-screen nominees ranging from historical drama Wolf Hall to comedy panel show Taskmaster. “We’re delighted that Alan Cumming will be hosting this year’s BAFTA Television Awards,” said BAFTA’s Emma Baehr, furthermore noting that the Scottish actor “will definitely bring a playful sense of mischief and fun to the ceremony, so audiences should expect the unexpected.”
3. The Motherhood – Sunday, May 11, W Network | Series Premiere
The Emmy-nominated star of such beloved TV dramas as Friday Night Lights and American Horror Story, here Connie Britton delves into the reality space with a project that’s all about supporting single mums.
Produced by Hallmark, The Motherhood finds Britton working with parenting, style and home experts Angela Rose, Destini Ann and Taryn Hicks to give overworked mothers a lifestyle glam-up.
The idea came to Britton when she herself was juggling single motherhood with being the series lead on Nashville. “I went into it a little bit blindly, not really fully anticipating what it is to be a single mom and how difficult that is, and what you’re taking on in doing that,” she told Parade. “There are so many single moms out there who are working three jobs and don’t have the money to pay for help, and they’re just split at the seams . . .”
4. Joan Rivers: A Dead Funny All-Star Tribute – Tuesday, May 13, NBC
When Joan Rivers passed away in 2014, the world lost a true original. A trailblazing female comic in an era when that was novelty, not the norm, Rivers went on to shatter so many glass ceilings it’s tough to remember them all — including becoming the first permanent guest host of The Tonight Show and the first woman to host a late-night talk show.
After a series of personal and professional setbacks (the bitter rift that formed between her and one-time mentor Johnny Carson, the suicide of husband Edgar Rosenberg), Rivers resurrected her career via red-carpet interviews, reality TV, the QVC home-shopping network and snarky style series Fashion Police, and was still at the top of her game when she died unexpectedly at 81.
More than a decade after her death, a who’s who of comedians gather at the Apollo Theater to honour the late standup icon in a new comedy special, including Margaret Cho, Nikki Glaser, Tiffany Haddish, Chelsea Handler, Bill Maher, Howie Mandel, Tracy Morgan, Patton Oswalt and Sarah Silverman. Also paying tribute are Joel McHale, Neil Patrick Harris, Aubrey Plaza and Rita Wilson, along with Rachel Brosnahan and Jean Smart — whose respective television series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Hacks, were heavily inspired by the early and latter stages of Rivers’ storied career.
“This tribute is everything my mother would have wanted — hilarious, unfiltered and filled with people she respected (and roasted),” said Rivers’ daughter, Melissa Rivers. “And as usual, she was still the funniest person in the room . . . I know she’d be thrilled to see how far things have come, and she’d still have notes. This is more than a tribute. It’s a reminder of the trail she blazed and the joy she brought to so many.”
5. Untold: The Liver King – Tuesday, May 13, Netflix
While scrolling through Instagram, you may have come across influencer Brian Johnson. Better known as the Liver King, this shirtless, musclebound, bushy-bearded fitness guru grew rich and famous by promoting the health benefits of “ancestral living” — which includes devouring pounds of raw meat, including testicles. He gathered millions of hardcore devotees, until accusations of hypocrisy led to a public reckoning. “When the Liver King burst onto my feed I, like so many, was transfixed,” director Joe Pearlman said of why he wanted to make a doc about Johnson. “I wanted to find out more; who he really was and what was really going on. The truth was even crazier than I could have possibly imagined.”
6. Bet – Thursday, May 15, Netflix| Series Premiere
This Toronto-shot thriller from Warrior Nun creator Simon Barry is set at an elite boarding school where the social pecking order revolves around underground gambling. As we open, the all-powerful Student Council suddenly find their rule threatened by a bet-savvy mystery girl on a quest for revenge. Click here to watch trailer.
7. Super Team Canada – Friday, May 16, Crave1 | Series Premiere
As our country’s sovereignty comes under attack from frenemies to the south, Canada needs a hero now more than ever.
And although this satirical cartoon started production long before any talks of tariffs or 51st states, the kooky crusaders of Super Team Canada nonetheless arrive right on time to battle evil-doers (and their own petty insecurities) in distinctly Canadian fashion.
Debuting with two episodes on Friday, Crave’s first-ever original animated series follows six “lesser-known and underrated Canadian superheroes, tasked with saving the world from giant evil robots, an unemployed octopus and a seriously needy hardware store clerk. When the world’s other heroes are trapped and killed, these wannabe benchwarmers become Earth’s last and most maple-syrup-powered hope.”
Those heroes are voiced by an all-Canuck cast, including Will Arnett (Arrested Development) as Breakaway, a former minor hockey leaguer who “uses his skates, stick and special pucks to fight crime, and his lack of intelligence to fight rational thought.” The Avengers’ Cobie Smulders is team leader Niagara Falls, the “mighty maiden of moisture.” And they all take their orders directly from Canada’s hapless prime minister (Kids in the Hall alum Kevin McDonald) . . . who also works part-time at a big-box store. Click here to watch trailer.
8. Murderbot – Friday, May 16, Apple TV+ | Series Premiere
From his seven seasons as antiheroic vampire Eric Northman on True Blood to his Emmy-winning role in zeitgeist-throttler Big Little Lies to his brief-yet-memorable turn as a buffoonish male model in Zoolander, Alexander Skarsgård has shown a knack for action, drama and absurdist comedy over the course of his eclectic career. The Swedish hunk’s latest series calls on all of those aforementioned skills.
Based on author Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries, this sci-fi comedy opens in a quirkily dystopian future, as humanity explores the outer reaches of the universe. Aiding in this endeavour are Security Units — androids made from a mix of robotic and organic material, built with the singular, unwavering purpose of serving their human masters.
As our story begins, one intrepid SecUnit manages to override his control chip, opening up a galaxy of possibilities . . . if only he can escape from the gaggle of scientists he’s just been assigned to protect during their survey mission on a perilous world.
Keeping his newfound cognitive freedom a secret, “Murderbot” kills time by mentally streaming his favourite TV shows, as he looks for an opportunity to escape. And yet, in spite of those rebellious impulses, our robotic protagonist develops an unexpected affection for his human bosses — a group of well-meaning but oblivious pacifists who would clearly be dead in a microsecond without his particular set of skills.
“It’s not interested in humans. Humans are idiots,” Skarsgård told Empire. “It’s kind of appalled by them, and it’s been treated horribly by all its clients up until this moment. But then it ends up on this weird planet with this weird group of humans that are outside the corporate system, and they don’t believe in indentured servitude. They want to talk to Murderbot and invite Murderbot in, instead of storing it in the tool shed, like other clients have done. And that freaks Murderbot out.” Click here to watch trailer.
9. Rotten Legacy – Friday, May 16, Netflix | Series Premiere
If Succession were set in Spain, it would look a lot like this new series about a media mogul (José Coronado) who returns to his empire after two years away recovering from an illness. Discovering that his children are steering the business in a direction he despises, he reasserts power to prevent them from destroying his legacy. Click here to watch trailer.
10. S.W.A.T. – Friday, May 16, Global & CBS | Series Finale
After somehow managing to skirt cancellation twice in the last three years, Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson and his elite LAPD squad have reached their end of watch.
Season eight wraps with a two-part series finale that begins when an auto carrier truck is hijacked by a crew of robbers that includes a violent car thief from Hondo’s past. As the bad guys race around the City of Angels chasing a $60 million score, old wounds are reopened and old rivalries revved back up. Meanwhile, things get personal for Gamble when her brother turns out to be involved in the case. Then, in hour two, the team faces off with a group of Russian mercenaries who have planted bombs all across L.A. to extort authorities into freeing their vicious leader.
Barring yet another miraculous resurrection, that’ll be the end of Hondo et al. Star Shemar Moore has, per usual, been vocal on social media — pushing for Netflix or another platform to save the day.
As Moore told TV Week earlier this year, before the cancellation was announced: “I’m an optimistic person. And I’m not done running and jumping and chasing bad guys.”