Is I Saw the TV Glow the first major motion picture to claim SNICK as an influence? No kidding, there are moments in Jane Schoenbrun’s haunting suburban whatsit — one of the most hypnotic and singular movies of the year so far — that seem beamed straight from a block of live-action Nickelodeon programming. The film follows a lonely teenager (Justice Smith) who becomes obsessed with a cult Saturday-night series called The Pink Opaque, a YA-inflected supernatural soap onto which he deflects his unarticulated, unresolved dysphoria.

[Note: This article contains major spoilers for the Pretty Little Liars: Summer School finale, "Chapter Eight: Final Exam.”]. Pencils down, everyone! After eight bloody episodes, Max’s Pretty Little Liars: Summer School wrapped up its sophomore season on Thursday with a killer finale. The teen drama slasher picks up directly after the events of Original Sin and follows Imogen (Bailee Madison), Tabby (Chandler Kinney), Faran (Zaria), Mouse (Malia Pyles), and Noa (Maia Reficco) as they’re tormented by a mysterious new villain, Bloody Rose.

Search the internet and you’ll find plenty of examples of funny celebrity cameos or celebrities who make self-deprecating jokes about being bad guys, but our society has yet to satisfactorily catalog the far less common trend of celebrities who have made a cameo on TV as themselves and acted as the bad guy. That’s a clunky way to describe it, but it is an under-recognized way for a celebrity to seem like they’re cool and “in on the joke” without it necessarily coming across like an obvious “look how cool and in-on-the-joke I am” PR move (like, for example, James Franco sidestepping the perception of him as a creepy weirdo by playing himself as a creepy weirdo on 30 Rock).

Spun off from Letterkenny, Shoresy is built around a single, faceless character from that famed Canadian tribute to dry humor and traditional gender roles. The Hulu series gave Shoresy (played by series creator Jared Keeso) a face, character development beyond sharp verbal attacks, and plenty of heart. With Letterkenny having ended for good last December, Shoresy must now stand entirely on its own. Luckily, it is up to the task.

The search for something more unites two women from different walks of life in Alma Har’el’s Lady in the Lake, even though one of them happens to be dead. A stylish new trailer certainly sets up the noir thriller, based on Laura Lippman’s 2019 novel of the same name, as one of the most intriguing shows of the summer.

The recent Cabaret Broadway revival is far from the only buzz-worthy production depicting the rise of fascism as the Weimar Republic era continues to split at the seams. German historical drama Babylon Berlin throws more kindling on its razzle-dazzle bonfire with its audacious mix of grounded plotting and stylized surrealism. After becoming the most expensive non-English language TV series when it debuted in 2017, there has been no slowing down. The number of jaw-dropping intricate sets expands beyond the familiar nightclubs, the police HQ known as the Red Palace, and Alexanderplatz. But fans will be happy to know that the Paternoster elevator is back to provide the backdrop for more flirting.

Relatively early in the pilot episode of Orphan Black: Echoes, the spin-off and kinda-sorta sequel to the much beloved sci-fi drama about a disparate sorority of clones, our main character Lucy (Krysten Ritter) stands in her kitchen eating Spaghetti-O’s out of the can while swaying to Neko Case’s barn-burning track “Star Witness.”

At a glance, there doesn’t seem to be much to feel optimistic about on the world stage this year. The simmering decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict has exploded into hot war again, with conservatively thousands dead. Afghanistan fell back under control of a repressive theocracy almost immediately after the end of a 20-year occupation ostensibly to prevent such a thing. A devastating civil war has racked Sudan and Haiti, a country that has struggled to catch a break since it gained independence, is in the third year of a crisis that began with the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.

You don’t need to be a parent to love Bluey, one of the most popular shows airing today. The Australian animated series, which first premiered on ABC Kids in 2018 before internationally streaming on Disney+, has become a cultural phenomenon — kids and adults alike just can’t seem to get enough of the anthropomorphic Blue Heeler puppy, her loving parents Chilli (Melanie Zanetti) and Bandit (David McCormack), and adorable younger sister Bingo (not to mention those darn cousins Muffin and Socks!).

Gather ’round, Lady Whistledown readers — another chapter of Bridgerton has come to a close. The third season of Netflix’s hit historical romance series, based on the books by Julia Quinn, centers on the charming friends-to-lovers relationship between Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton).

At Primetimer, we like to wait until at least the vernal equinox to even begin to think about declaring the best TV offerings of the year. We've learned from previous (recent) experience that what glimmers in the snow may not hold up to the summer's heat. And with streamers and networks blowing up the release schedules of old — though, hey, at least they've started scaling back, sort of — it's become increasingly difficult to keep up with shows, even ones we've been meaning to return to or check out for the first time.

When Disney Channel’s The Owl House first blasted into the Demon Realm in 2020, the animated series provided a delightful escape from reality for kid and adult viewers alike. Although the show ran for just three seasons, it amassed a fiercely loyal fanbase and garnered widespread acclaim for its blend of humor, horror, and heartfelt storytelling.

Get ready to settle in for the long haul in the war between the Greens and the Blacks — HBO has just renewed House of the Dragon for a third season. With the second season not even out yet, there aren't many details available about this pickup. Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President, HBO Programming, Head of HBO Drama Series and Films, praised showrunner Ryan Condal, executive producer George R.R. Martin (who, of course, birthed the books that spawned Game of Thrones and this spin-off), and the cast and crew, enthusing, "We are in awe of the dragon-sized effort the entire team has put into the creation of a spectacular season two, with a scope and scale that is only rivaled by its heart. We could not be more thrilled to continue the story of House Targaryen and watch this team burn bright again for season three.”

Even one of TV’s most fearsome hosts can’t help but get a little antsy when surrounded by bees. In a new episode of his Nat Geo series Uncharted, Gordon Ramsay, he of countless Kitchen Nightmares and profanity-laden tirades, travels to Cuba to learn more about the island nation’s “hidden cuisine,” including sampling the absolute freshest of honey. To find it, he has to go straight to the source — and that’s when things have the potential to get prickly.

The first half of Bridgerton Season 3 advanced the friends-to-lovers romance between the third Bridgerton sibling, Colin, and Penelope Featherington to the point that the fourth episode — the point Netflix chose to split the season in two — ends with Colin’s marriage proposal. Or, to be precise, Colin’s inquiry as to whether Penelope is going to marry him after they engaged in some inappropriate acts in her carriage.

Starting first in the mid-1980s as a massively successful legal novel by Scott Turow before being adapted in 1990 into one of Harrison Ford’s bigger non-Han Solo/Indiana Jones-related hit films, Presumed Innocent is now on the small screen. The legal thriller has received the limited-series treatment from Apple TV+ with a seeming murderer’s row of creative types heavily involved. J.J. Abrams serves as executive producer, David E. Kelley is the showrunner and frequent co-writer of the eight-episode series, which is toplined by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Whenever Prime Video cuts promos from its most buck-wild moments, The Boys comes off like the most violent and profane show on streaming. But even Vought's most insidious spinmeisters can't obscure the truth: Eric Kripke's wildly popular superhero send-up maintains a melodramatic flight pattern typical by TV drama standards. Born from the bizarre imaginations of comics maverick Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson, The Boys struggles with its dual aspirations to be respected as "good TV" while enjoying the hype it gets for being so, so bad.

For many longtime fans of The Challenge, MTV’s longest-running reality competition franchise, the fourth All Stars entry feels like a homecoming. For starters, the Paramount+ competition — which brings back some of the series’s earliest and most memorable contestants to battle it out for a shot at the championship title — pays homage to its Real World and Road Rules origins, which have all but disappeared over time. Season 4 has been an especially satisfying trip down memory lane with production going as far as to bring back the beloved Winnebago RV, an emblem of the original Road Rules, for a brief cameo.

As the 1970s gave way to the ’80s, American show business was dominated by Baby Boomers who’d lived through the era of Vietnam War protests and social change. They’d led movements in music, cinema and television in reaction to and rejection of their parent’s generation. Then the Reagan era hit, and a wave of entertainers and audiences who’d missed the revolution fought to establish their own place and tell their own stories.

It’s the beginning of the end for bleak superhero dramedy The Boys. On the eve of the Season 4 premiere, series creator Eric Kripke broke the news on Twitter (er, X) that the recently announced fifth season will also be the show’s last. This comes after Kripke told...