What To Watch This Week: ‘My Brilliant Friend,’ ‘Middleditch & Schwartz’ And The NFL Draft

TOPLINE

A month into social distancing, you have probably exhausted your favorite shows (even Bob’s Burgers gets stale on the fifth go around); luckily, there is plenty of fresh TV to check out this week.

TIMELINE

If you need some lighthearted shenanigans

Netflix
NFLX
, which has released more than 200 stand-up comedy specials since 2012, is getting into the improv game. After achieving some mainstream fame, actors Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley) and Ben Schwartz (Parks and Recreation) are back to their improv roots in Middleditch & Schwartz. In each of the special’s three episodes, the pair has to come up with bits on the spot based on audience suggestions. It’s almost like going to an improv show, minus the overpriced drinks and shared laughs with your friends.

If you just need to feel your feelings

Nothing can make you forget the malaise of social distancing like the pain of being a teenager. Based on the second novel in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series, My Brilliant Friend’s second season is a lush, faithful adaptation with stunning performances by its leads Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace as best friends Lenu and Lila in 1960s Naples who alternately compete and support each other as they navigate adolescence. The season is already five episodes in, but if you have read the books, you’ll be able to pick it up right away. If not, you can stream the whole series on HBO Go or HBO Now. Or better yet, just read the books, you have the time.

If you have watched 30 Rock too many times

This one requires a little more commitment (actually buying episodes on Amazon Prime or YouTube), but it’s worth it for die-hard fans of Tina Fey’s magnum opus. Before Liz Lemon and Jack Doneghy, there was Dave Nelson (Dace Foley) and Jimmy James (Stephen Root) in Newsradio. Featuring Maura Tierny, Phil Hartman and a young Joe Rogan, Newsradio was a spiritual predecessor to 30 Rock with its irreverent look at the day-to-day mayhem of fictional radio station WNYX. Only five seasons long, the show was distinctly too weird for network television in the 90s, bucking the shmaltzy tropes of concurrent sitcoms like Friends. Plus, the characters never go outside — just like you!

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