The weekend is finally here, and Apple TV wants you to “BELIEVE” again.
That’s right, everyone’s favorite super-positive football coach is back in Ted Lasso season 4, which sees Jason Sudeikis’ Walt Whitman-quoting character back in London and coaching a new team of oddball female football players.
That’s just one of the trio of great new shows Watch With Us is recommending you stream this weekend.
Prime Video just dropped all eight episodes of its newest series, Sterling Point, and the YA drama, starring Ella Rubin, Keen Ruffalo and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, is so addictive, you might as well cancel all other plans if you start it.
Star Wars has been down in the dumps lately, but the new Disney+ show Star Wars: Visions Presents — The Ninth Jedi is good enough to remind you why the franchise has been beloved by millions of fans since 1977.
‘Ted Lasso’ Season 4 (Apple TV)
There’s good news and bad news about Ted Lasso season 4, and they are both the same: the show is more or less how it was in season 1. That should be just good news, right? Season 1 was a worldwide sensation, albeit at a time when the wide world was stuck inside thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, and won a boatload of Emmys. But that was six years ago, and much like clothes, music and pretty much anything else, what was once interesting can quickly turn stale.
Still, there’s plenty to recommend about the current season of Apple TV’s biggest comedy series. First seen living the quiet life in Kansas, Ted (Jason Sudekis) is quickly persuaded by old pals Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham) and Keeley Jones (Juno Temple) to return to London to help coach the neophyte Lady Greyhounds football team. This time, he takes his family with him, and he’ll need their support as he has to deal with a ragtag group of female athletes who don’t want him as their coach.
Sound familiar? Ted Lasso season 4 is essentially season 1 all over again, except there’s now not-so-subtle commentary about gender inequality in women’s sports and no Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster) to ogle at. With all that said, you have to be a proper Grinch to hate such a good-natured, well-meaning and, yes, funny series with a top-notch supporting cast.
‘Sterling Point’ Season 1 (Prime Video)
Does the world need another Amazon Prime Video YA show about a teenage outsider caught in a love triangle between two boys? The answer is almost always yes, especially if they are as good as Sterling Point.
After 17-year-old NYC high school senior Annie Jacobson (Ella Rubin) discovers that her late grandfather left her a Canadian island in his will, she’s curious enough to spend the summer there to get to know a relative she never really knew — and, of course, fall in love.
Ellis (Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie) and Rory (Daniel Quinn-Toye) are the objects of her affections, but Annie also finds time to befriend a mysterious local girl, Ramona (Amélie Hoeferle), who looks exactly like her dead mother. Is Ramona somehow connected to Annie’s family? Will someone’s heart be broken by summer’s end?
If you’ve seen Prime Video’s other hit teen shows, like Every Year After and The Summer I Turned Pretty, you probably know the answer. Sterling Point is a little more mature and serious, with more in common with the ’90s classic My So-Called Life and the 2000s pop-culture breakout Gilmore Girls than those hit shows. All eight episodes of Sterling Point season 1 are now streaming, so set aside a chunk of your weekend to binge-watch one of the most addictive shows of the summer.
‘Star Wars: Visions Presents — The Ninth Jedi’ (Disney+ and Hulu)
As a franchise, Star Wars has never been worse off. Except for Andor, its recent live-action shows like The Acolyte and Ahsoka have been bland and disappointing. Its latest movie offering, The Mandalorian & Grogu, was shunned by fans and critics alike this past summer, becoming the lowest-grossing film in the series’ history. It’s safe to say it’s been a rough time to be a Star Wars fan, but that’s changing this weekend with the premiere of Star Wars: Visions Presents — The Ninth Jedi.
When her father, the master lightsaber smith Lah Zhima (Shin-ichiro Miki), is captured by the Sith warlord Nawaam (Nao Ōmori) and forced to make weapons for the dark side, young Padawan Lah Kara (Chinatsu Akasaki) becomes determined to save him. She can’t do it alone, though, which is why she recruits a motley crew of allies, like fellow Jedi Ethan (Hiromu Mineta) and Homen (Hinata Tadokoro) and their pilot droid Gramps (Chō), to help her. Kara’s mission isn’t just personal, though; if they fail to find her father, he could make weapons powerful enough to eradicate the underground galactic resistance to the Empire for good.
As part of the Visions series, The Ninth Jedi is allowed to be its own thing while still telling a quintessential Star Wars story. It’s unabashedly anime, using all the tropes associated with the genre like the melodramatic music and slapstick side characters, to tell an engrossing story about a child trying to do right by their distant father. Hmm, sound familiar? The Ninth Jedi has enough innovations to make it seem new and exciting while retaining that familiar Star Wars magic.
