“In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight.” That’s the beginning of the DC hero’s Green Lantern oath, and it’s also Watch With Us‘ central mission. Rain or shine, day or night, no bad show shall escape our sight, which is why we’ve curated a list of three new must-watch shows to stream this August weekend.
At the top of our list is, of course, Lanterns, the HBO Max series that stars Friday Night Lights‘ Kyle Chandler and Rebel Ridge’s Aaron Pierre as intergalactic space cops investigating a murder in Nebraska.
Also high on our list is Netflix’s My Brilliant Career, a new period drama about a young woman determined to become a writer even though her family wants her to marry a nice, rich man.
Netflix is also streaming the creepily absorbing docuseries, Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes, which spotlights one of the most notorious serial killers in American history.
‘Lanterns’ Season 1 — HBO Max
When the evergreen (pun intended) DC Comics character Green Lantern got his own feature film in 2010, with Ryan Reynolds playing Hal Jordan, the results were so disastrous that Reynolds still jokes about it 16 years later. That won’t happen with Lanterns, a new take on the franchise that is as far away from the 2010 movie as you can get.
In Lanterns, Hal (Kyle Chandler) mentors a new recruit, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), as they investigate a gruesome murder in small-town Nebraska. Wait, why can’t the police handle what appears to be a routine murder investigation? Well, Hal thinks the killers are somehow linked to the Manhunters, a collective of shapeshifting androids, and one of the few beings who can help him solve the case is his old nemesis, Sinestro (Ulrich Thomsen).
Part superhero spectacle, part True Detective-style crime show, Lanterns represents another bold swing at shaking up the comic book genre. The effort is largely a success – Lanterns is both gripping and action-packed, with enough narrative twists and VFX-heavy fight sequences to satisfy both comic book nerds and mystery enthusiasts. It’s also an excellent buddy cop dramedy, with Chandler and Pierre displaying a prickly chemistry that’s fun to watch.
Lanterns is good enough to expel any memory of the 2010 movie, so Ryan Reynolds will have to pick another one of his bad movies to make fun of going forward.
Lanterns premieres on Sunday, August 16, on HBO and HBO Max.
‘My Brilliant Career’ Season 1 — Netflix
Is it too much to ask that the world leave Sybylla (Phillipa Northeast) alone so she can pursue her dreams of becoming a writer instead of marrying some boring dweeb? In 1901 Australia, the answer is yes. “I’m hot-headed,” Sybylla confessed at one point, “with a snub nose, and that’s why I prefer a direct gaze.” Her stubbornness gets her sent to her rich grandmother’s estate, where she is encouraged to snag a husband and tamp down her literary ambitions. While she still desires to write, she can’t help but fall for not one but two men: the dashing Harry Beecham (Christopher Chung) and the Englishman Frank Hawden (Jake Dunn). Will Sybylla give up her dreams to pursue love or, worse, marriage?
My Brilliant Career is a period drama with a lot of life in it. Its anachronistic flourishes (get ready to hear a lot of ‘70s and ‘80s songs on the soundtrack) highlight the show’s relevant themes of a woman struggling to choose between what’s expected of her versus what she really wants. While Sybylla’s story is central to the series, there’s plenty of subplots and supporting characters to keep you engaged. It’s been a minute since a show has felt this lively and energetic, with the perfect blend of drama, comedy, social commentary and romance. My Brilliant Career lives up to the adjective in its title – it’s indeed brilliant, and it demands to be watched immediately.
‘Conversations With a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes’ — Netflix
Since 2019, Netflix’s popular Conversations with a Killer docuseries has profiled some of the most notorious serial killers of the 20th century, like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy and the Son of Sam. It was only inevitable that the show would profile one of the most infamous mass murderers in American history: Charles Manson.
In the engrossing three-episode Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes, creator and director Joe Berlinger uses archival footage, dramatic reenactments and newly released audio interviews with members of the Manson Family, including Charles himself, to chronicle the events leading up to the horrific Tate-LaBianca murders in 1969, and the media circus that occurred when Manson and his followers were captured and tried in the early 1970s.
If you’re a true crime fan, you’ve probably seen most of what Conversations with a Killer: The Charles Manson Tapes has to offer. There are no real revelations, just the usual observations that Manson was charming enough to lure people who didn’t know any better to do his bidding and that he went full-blown psycho when he couldn’t strike a music deal with Doris Day’s son. But the series does a great job of capturing the mood and feel of the late 1960s, and how a predator like Manson could take advantage of the free love movement to enact his bloody agenda.
