10 Best TV Shows Similar to Lewis

Watching The Perfect Couple, Jenna Lamia’s slick adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s 2018 novel for Netflix, two thoughts immediately bubble up. The first isn’t the fault of the show’s quality so much as its timing. That thought is, “maybe we should give a break to all these shows and movies about rich folk in great locales doing crime”. In less than a year, I have reviewed shows with that plot taking place in a planned bunker in the tundra, on an ultra-expensive cruise ship, a rich enclave in West Palm Beach, and, now, an estate in a seaside New England town. Other recent entries include The Glass Onion, The Menu, and one could even mount an argument for Only Murderers in the Building. A lot of these are good. Some are great. But perhaps we could spread the ensemble crime-mystery wealth (haHA) a bit? Maybe a murder mystery set at a State Fair? Meghann Fahy's got those beach-y waves everybody wants. (Netflix) Granted, this is a bit unfair. The Perfect Couple comes from a novel. Hilderbrand set the novel in Nantucket, where she lived, so she was writing about the kind of climate outside her window. That all makes sense. However, it’s difficult not to see so much media where affluence is part of the scenery and not get a little tired of it. Especially when the series feel like they’re acting as a catalog as much, if not more, than critique. Continue Reading →

Before things go too far, it’s important to offer this disclaimer. Bad Monkey’s monkey isn’t especially naughty. Or even all that present. So people with particular opinions on animal performers, now you know. Proceed accordingly. For everyone else, Bad Monkey isn’t bad. In fact, it’s largely quite good. The series grabs your attention with an opener that accurately captures the tone of the ten episodes to come. An arrogant, nouveau riche-coded husband on honeymoon reels in a big one. Only problem is it turns out not to be a fish. Instead, a severed arm, seemingly flipping off the world, hangs off the hook. His new bride screams inconsolably as a deckhand snaps a pic of the man with his catch. On the deck above, the rent-a-captain dryly mumbles to himself about the business of making dreams come true. It is loud, over the top, funny, and a bit horrifying when you stop to think about it. Continue Reading →

For a large segment of Gen X and Millennials, legal thrillers have an undeniable comfort food quality. These generational cohorts grew up as authors like Scott Turow and John Grisham rose to prominence, dominating best-seller lists. With that beachhead established, it wasn’t long before the legal thriller came to screens, large and small, via adaptations. While rarely deeply prestigious works, many, if not most, boasted big stars, well-established directors, and compelling enough storytelling. Presumed Innocent, an 8-part limited series—Apple provided critics with all but the final installment—arrives with that wind at its back for a considerable portion of the audience. It is further helped in the comfort department by being the second adaptation of the titular novel by Turow, following a well-regarded Alan Pakula-directed Harrison Ford-starring cinematic turn in 1990. The book also spawned a sequel and a made-for-TV adaptation of that sequel. Uh-oh. Jake Gyllenhaal and (Renate Reinsve) just spotted you across the bar. (AppleTV+) No one can accuse Turow’s Rusty Sabich (played here by Jake Gyllenhaal after Ford on the silver screen and Bill Pullman for the at-home audiences) of being the central star of a law and order-driven MCU. However, when it comes to legal thrillers, he’s about as close as you can get. Playing with that house money, creator David E. Kelley and star Gyllenhaal don’t exactly reinvent the wheel. Nonetheless, they offer a solid series to slip into just as summer kicks in. Continue Reading →

“Brief, they made a monk of me; I did renounce the world, its pride and greed, Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house, Continue Reading →

Jodie Foster and Kali Reis shine as a pair of detectives investigating an increasingly surreal crime. In Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt mysteries, the title character is a brilliant, eccentric detective haunted by the unsolved disappearance of one of her closest friends. Her cases are vitally recognizable and beautifully surreal. When The Infinite Blacktop, the most recent entry in the series, was released in paperback, Gran held a giveaway, including a copy of the book and some fun feelies. On one of those, a pen, the following was printed: “Open your eyes and learn to see that truth lives in the ether.” In the course of thinking about Issa López (Tigers Are Not Afraid)’s excellent True Detective: Night Country, it’s a line that’s been on my mind. It's the end of 2023. In Ennis, Alaska, the eccentric scientists of the Tsalal research station vanish just as the long polar night sets in. Ennis police chief Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and detective-turned-trooper Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) know that something is not right. Though bitterly estranged, the former partners share a drive to discover what happened at Tsalal and why. Their need to get to the truth only intensifies after the scientists are discovered in a ghastly, bizarre state—a collective corpsicle, all of them nude and visibly terrified. Continue Reading →

The heist thriller series stays compelling even as it grows more typical. Joe Petrus (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is a Black gay man living in a very white suburb in Washington. His neighbors whisper about how great he is when he drops off his soon-to-be stepchildren Frankie (Maria Nash) and Bud (Baeyen Hoffman) at school. However, when he applies for a permit to convert a long-abandoned hardware store on Main Street, he encounters racially charged suspicion from a cop on the beat and judgment from the town council. Both dress them up to various degrees in standard procedure and questions of propriety, but the message is clear: “You don’t belong here.” It turns out they’re onto something, but for entirely the wrong reasons. Entrepreneur-in-love American Joe also happens to be British former organized crime heavy David Marking, who did “one last job” and actually walked away. He started a new life in the US and accidentally fell in love with Jules (Kevin Vidal). Unfortunately, the consequences of the job have finally started to catch up with him as members of his heist team begin to show up dead as Culprits opens. Continue Reading →

The crime drama returns to the Land of 10,000 Lakes and rediscovers its best storytelling self. Throughout the six episodes of Fargo Season 5 screened for critics, the series isn’t exactly subtle. From opening the season with an on-screen graphic defining “Minnesota Nice” as neighbor attacks neighbor during a school board meeting to Sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm) staring up at a campaign billboard of himself, the show loudly states its theses at the viewer over and over. However, it never feels like creator Noah Hawley has lost control of the storytelling. It’s methodically over-the-top. The audience is on a roller coaster, but they can feel the quality of the engineering keeping them on the tracks. In other hands, this approach can feel alienating or blunting. Fargo Season 5 benefits from meeting Hawley’s signature energy with a game cast and impressively insightful art direction. As a result, the series turns in its best offering since Season 2’s near-perfect effort. Continue Reading →

Hulu’s crime thriller/environmentalist warning is less than the sum of its references, but star Emma Corrin earns viewers’ attention. The plot for A Murder at the End of the World goes a little something like this. A wealthy tech genius invites a group of similarly impressive individuals—including a detective who seems not to belong—to an isolated location for not entirely clear reasons. A murder sets everyone on edge as competing interests suggest several suspects and impede a proper investigation. Things only get worse as more die, and a storm ensures the group has no means of immediate escape. If you find yourself thinking back to Glass Onion, rest assured you can’t be the only one. Functionally, the series plays as a kind of Anti-Glass Onion, the film’s cracked mirror image. While it is still plenty critical of the rich, it treats them with significantly more credulity. Their reputations earned, they’re genuinely talents apart from the rabble. The big issue isn’t that they're idiots and buffoons but that they’re squirreling away their gifts from the masses.  Continue Reading →

There’s a moment in Sex Education Season 4’s first episode where a dark thought crosses one mind. “Wait…was this always JUST a sitcom?” Continue Reading →

Dan Chen's documentary starts as a celebration of Black success but pulls back the curtain to ask more enticing questions about racial inequities in education. This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. We've all seen those viral videos that circulated Instagram and TikTok a couple years back -- thrilling, giddy footage of young Black and Brown students crowded around another student with a laptop, bursting into cheers and elation when that student learns they're accepted into a prestigious Ivy League school. It's a moment of tremendous uplift, especially considering the dramatic divides in college acceptance rates between white and nonwhite students (to say nothing of the Ivy League). Continue Reading →