FOX
Ultimate Tag
Each week, competitors – who are everyday citizens and not professional athletes – must vault, dodge, tumble and dive over various epic, three-dimensional moving courses, all for one simple goal: don’t get caught. As competitors progress, they are challenged to take on even more extreme courses and earn points for their performance in each heart-pounding game. Chasing the contestants every step of the way are a variety of resident “professional” Taggers, each of whom has different strengths and abilities – from parkour to unmatched speed. These Taggers are intermittently released into the course, and only those contestants who can outlast them the longest will secure their place in the championship game and a chance at a huge cash prize.
Starring: J.J. Watt, T.J. Watt, and Derek Watt
Quick Thoughts: Is there a reason why Derek isn’t called D.J.?
Premieres May 20th
AMC
Quiz
The extraordinary and sensational true story of how Charles and Diana Ingram attempted an ‘audacious heist’ on the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? In 2001, the Ingrams and an accomplice, Tecwen Whittock, who was sitting in the audience, were accused of cheating their way to a million pounds on what was the most popular game show on earth. The couple stood trial for conspiring by coughing during the recording to signify the correct answers to the multiple choice questions posed to the Major by host, Chris Tarrant.
Starring: Matthew Macfadyen, Michael Sheen, Sian Clifford, Mark Bonnar, Helen McCrory, Michael Jibson, Aisling Bea
Premieres May 31st
TNT
Snowpiercer
Set more than seven years after the world has become a frozen wasteland, Snowpiercer centers on the remnants of humanity who inhabit a perpetually moving train, with 1001 cars, that circles the globe. Class warfare, social injustice and the politics of survival play out in this riveting television adaptation based on the critically acclaimed graphic novel series and film of the same name.
Starring: Daveed Diggs, Jennifer Connelly, Mickey Sumner, Annalise Basso, Alison Wright, Benjamin Haigh, Roberto Urbina, Katie McGuinness, Susan Park, Lena Hall, Sheila Vand, Sam Otto, Iddo Goldberg, Rowan Blanchard, Steven Ogg
Quick Thoughts: This one’s interesting. Basically Josh Friedman, who created Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, was the original writer and showrunner. He worked on the project for about two years. The pilot’s original director, Scott Derrickson, described the Friedman’s script as the best he’d ever read. Then, a month after TNT picked up the series, Friedman was removed from the project. He described them as wanting a more “compliant” showrunner. Orphan Black co-creator, Graeme Manson was tapped to replace him. TNT has basically said that they needed someone with more experience with television. What happened next was two years of chaos wherein the show was passed to TBS and then returned to TNT, who then it renewed for a second season month before it was set to air. So…yeah it’s a lot. It’s a great cast and I am a person who did love Orphan Black but there will always be that aura of “what if?” around this show.
Premieres May 17th
PBS
Asian Americans
Asian Americans is a five-hour film series that delivers a bold, fresh perspective on a history that matters today, more than ever. As America becomes more diverse, and more divided while facing unimaginable challenges, how do we move forward together? Told through intimate personal stories, the series will cast a new lens on U.S. history and the ongoing role that Asian Americans have played.
Quick Thoughts: It is perhaps the exact right time to remind y’all that we’ve been here for ages and can’t “go back to where we came from” because we’re already there.
Premieres May 11th
National Geographic
Barkskins
Based on the New York Times’ bestselling novel by Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Proulx, Barkskins follows a disparate group of outcasts and dreamers battling to escape their pasts while navigating the brutal frontier hardships, competing interests, and tangled loyalties at the crossroads of civilization: the New World.
Starring: Aneurin Barnard, James Bloor, Christian Cooke, Tallulah Haddon, Marcia Gay Harden, Kaniehtiio Horn, Zahn McClarnon, Lily Sullivan, David Thewlis, David Wilmot, Thomas M. Wright
Premieres May 25th
HBO
Betty
Based on Crystal Moselle’s critically acclaimed feature, Skate Kitchen, the series follows a diverse group of young women navigating their lives through the predominantly male-oriented world of skateboarding, set against the backdrop of New York City. Opinionated and loyal, Janay is strong willed and stubborn in ways that both help and hurt her. Honeybear is a quiet storm. Her flagrant style is a ruse; an armor she wears to hide her emotional struggles. Kirt is a lover (to the ladies), a fighter (to the rest of the world), and a little kid in the body of a woman. She’s the funniest person alive, but even if she knew it, she wouldn’t care. Meanwhile, Indigo is a street-savvy hustler trapped in the body of a well-to-do art school drop-out. On the edge of the group is Camille, guarded, perceptive, intelligent and awkward. She wants to be down with the dudes in the skate park and has fought hard for the small space she’s carved out with them, but she needs to realize that cool points don’t actually add up to the sum of anything, especially in the eyes of the other girls.
Starring: Dede Lovelace, Moonbear, Nina Moran, Ajani Russell, Rachelle Vinberg, Edmund Donovan, Caleb Eberhardt, Brenn Lorenzo, Jules Lorenzo, Reza Nader
Premieres May 1st
EPIX
Laurel Canyon
Laurel Canyon features an intimate portrait of the artists who created a music revolution through a wealth of rare and newly unearthed footage and audio recordings. Featuring all-new, original interviews with Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Michelle Phillips, Graham Nash, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Roger McGuinn and more, the uniquely immersive and experiential docuseries takes us back in time to a place where a rustic canyon in the heart of Los Angeles became a musical petri dish.
Premieres May 31st
Starz
Hightown
Jackie Quiñones, a hard-partying National Marine Fisheries Service agent, has her free-wheeling life thrown into disarray when she discovers a body on the beach – another casualty of Cape Cod’s opioid epidemic. As a result of this trauma, Jackie takes the first steps toward becoming sober— until she becomes convinced that it’s up to her to solve the murder. Now at odds with Sergeant Ray Abruzzo, an abrasive but effective member of the Cape Cod Interagency Narcotics Unit, Jackie starts to spiral. And she’s not alone. Ray, too, spins out of control; losing himself in the investigation. The lives of everyone connected to this murder crash and converge, reminding us just how complicated – and deadly – our addictions can be.
Starring: Monica Raymund, James Badge Dale, Riley Voelkel, Shane Harper, Amaury Nolasco, Atkins Estimond, Dohn Norwood
Premieres May 17th
