Gossip Girl: Season 1 Premiere (HBO Max series) — The original CW series helped to launch the careers of Blake Lively, Leighton Meester, Sebastian Stan, and Penn Badgley (and the latter is now portraying an amped-up version of the same character on Netflix’s You). HBO Max is now ready to welcome another crop of mostly unknown faces playing wealthy, privileged teens who find themselves socially surveilled and at the mercy of the “Gossip Girl” narrator, who’s still voiced by Kristen Bell. Showrunner Josh Safran has promised that this reboot series will be much more socially conscious than the original, and that the teens will “take Ubers, not limos.” If you’re wondering how well this premise will update for 2021, that’s one of the reasons why this show’s worth a whirl. XOXO
Looney Tunes Cartoons: Season 2 (HBO Max series) — This batch of ten new episodes is more than guaranteed to put a grin on your face, given that Daffy will act as an “emotional support duck” to Porky, apparently. Also expect to see most of the gang, including Tweety, Sylvester, Elmer, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Marvin the Martian, and Taz. However, one should not expect to see the cancelled stalker-skunk named Pepe Le Pew, which is just fine.
Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness: Season 1 (Netflix series) — Based upon the survival horror video games (and surely, you’ve seen at least a few of the films) comes this Netflix original anime series that follows up on 2017’s Resident Evil: Vendetta CGI film with more franchise entries apparently on the way.
Holey Moley 3D in 2D (ABC, 9:00pm) — This new season of holes (yes, that’s right) includes a Corny Hole, a North Pole on the Ho Ho Hole, and Holey Matrimony. These puns never get old for the contestants or the audience.
In case you missed this streaming pick from last Thursday:
LFG (HBO Max film) — This documentary film presents an unflinching look at the fight by U.S. women’s soccer team members (Megan Rapinoe, Jessica McDonald, Becky Sauerbrunn, Kelley O’Hara, Sam Mewis, and more) for equal pay. This battle takes a look behind the curtain of the 2019 class-action, gender discrimination lawsuit (filed against the U.S. Soccer Federation) mere months before the FIFA Women’s World Cup. Expect to see the legal fight coverage interspersed with transcendent athleticism while the documentary highlights how these women’s courage will hopefully lead to society-wide change that hasn’t been seen since Title IX.